global glass onion: week ending May 4

Fed says interest rates to stay higher for longer - The US Federal Reserve has signalled that its interest rate will remain higher for longer—at present it is around 5.25 percent, the highest for two decades—because it has less confidence that inflation is coming down to its target level of 2 percent. At his press conference announcing the decision to keep interest rates on hold, Fed chair Jerome Powell said: “We do not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. So far this year, the data have not given us that greater confidence. “It is likely that gaining such greater confidence will take longer than previously expected.” In response to a question, Powell said he expected inflation would resume its decline later this year, but added, “My confidence is lower than it was.” The latest decision is in marked contrast to “market expectations” at the start of the year which were that there could be as many as six interest rate cuts this year, or at least three. Now there are doubts there will even be one, with some options markets pricing in the possibility of a rate hike. To reassure financial markets, Powell added it was “unlikely” the next policy move would be a hike. Asked whether stronger US economic growth and wage increases would affect policy, Powell said the Fed did not “target wages” but then added that it would like to see wage increases move down to more “sustainable levels.” Another significant decision was to slow down the reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet. This rapidly expanded because of the massive injection of money into financial markets when the Treasury market froze in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. As of June 1, the Fed will slow the reduction of its Treasury bond holdings from $60 billion a month to $25 billion—the effect of which is to lower the price of bonds and increase interest rates. Under conditions where US debt is rising rapidly, there are constant fears that not enough buyers for bonds can be found. Powell pointed to this in his opening remarks, saying slowing the pace of the reduction would ensure a smooth transition and reduce “the possibility that money markets experience stress.” He was more direct in response to a question on the subject, saying it was to avoid “financial market turmoil” as had been experienced in 2019, the last time the Fed tried to reduce its balance sheet. The effects of the Fed interest rate decision will not only be felt in the US where it will add pressure on finance houses and corporations that gorged themselves on cheap money from 2008 until 2022. It will also have significant international ramifications. Its immediate effect will be to raise the value of the dollar against other currencies adding to the prospect of currency market turmoil, particularly as regards the Japanese yen.m

Fed Holds Rates at 5.50% Top of Range, QT Slowdown Starts in June, Acknowledged Inflation is a Problem Again -- Total assets on the Fed’s balance sheet fell by $77 billion in April, to $7.36 trillion, the lowest since December 2020, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet today. Since the end of QE in April 2022, the Fed has shed $1.60 trillion.After months of talking about it, the Fed has now clarified officially when, how, and by how much it will slow QT. They’re trying to get the balance sheet down as far as possible without blowing anything up, and easy will do it, that’s the hope.

Starts in June
Cap for Treasury runoff reduced to $25 billion from $60 billion
Cap for MBS runoff unchanged at $35 billion
If MBS run off faster than $35 billion a month, then the excess will be replaced with Treasury securities, and not MBS.
MBS to essentially vanish from the balance sheet over the “longer term.”

QT by category:

Treasury securities: -$57 billion in April, -$1.25 trillion from peak in June 2022, to $4.52 trillion, the lowest since October 2020.The Fed has now shed 38% of the $3.27 trillion in Treasury securities that it had added during pandemic QE.Treasury notes (2- to 10-year securities) and Treasury bonds (20- & 30-year securities) “roll off” the balance sheet mid-month and at the end of the month when they mature and the Fed gets paid face value. The roll-off is capped at $60 billion per month, and about that much has been rolling off, minus the inflation protection the Fed earns on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) which is added to the principal of the TIPS.
Treasury bills. Unchanged in April at $195 billion. These securities with terms of up to 1 year are included in the $4.52 trillion of Treasury securities on the Fed’s balance sheet. But they play a special role in QT.The Fed lets them roll off (doesn’t replace them when they mature) only if not enough longer-term Treasury securities mature to get to the $60-billion monthly cap. This allowed the Fed shed about $60 billion in Treasury securities every month.From March 2020 through the ramp-up of QT, the Fed held $326 billion in T-bills that it constantly replaced as they matured (flat line in the chart below).The slower QT starting in June will follow the same principle with T-bills. But the first month with a Treasury roll-off below the new cap of $25 billion is September 2025 ($17 billion). So T-bills will stay on the balance sheet unchanged at $195 billion until then, even as notes and bonds come off:
Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS): -$16 billion in April, -$368 billion from the peak, to $2.37 trillion, the lowest since July 2021. The Fed has shed 27% of the MBS it had added during pandemic QE.MBS come off the balance sheet primarily via pass-through principal payments that holders receive when mortgages are paid off (mortgaged homes are sold, mortgages are refinanced) and when mortgage payments are made.But sales of existing homes have plunged, and mortgage refinancing has collapsed, and so fewer mortgages got paid off, and passthrough principal payments to MBS holders, such as the Fed, have been reduced to a trickle, and the MBS are coming off the balance sheet at a pace that’s far below the $35-billion cap.Under the slower QT starting in June, the MBS cap remains at $35 billion. When the housing market unfreezes, and sales volume rises to more normal-ish levels, mortgage payoffs will increase, and therefore passthrough principal payments to MBS holders will increase, and the MBS roll-off will increase from current levels, and the curve in the chart below will steepen.If pass-through principal payments exceed $35 billion – during the pandemic housing boom, they exceeded $110 billion in many months – the overage will be replaced with Treasury securities, not MBS, as the Fed wants to phase out the MBS on its balance sheet.

Fed Balance Sheet QT: -$1.60 Trillion from Peak, to $7.36 Trillion, Lowest since December 2020 By Wolf Richter - The FOMC statement released today after its two-day meeting acknowledged for the first time that inflation resurfaced as an issue after a series of worrisome inflation reports so far this year have already killed Rate-Cut Mania. It added new language to that effect: “In recent months, there has been a lack of further progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent inflation objective.” FOMC members voted unanimously today to maintain the Fed’s five policy rates, with the top of its policy rates at 5.50%, as had been broadly telegraphed all year with speeches, interviews, and panel discussions by Fed governors. The last rate hike occurred at its meeting in July 2023:

Federal funds rate target range between 5.25% and 5.5%.
Interest it pays the banks on reserves: 5.4%.
Interest it pays on overnight Reverse Repos (ON RRPs): 5.3%.
Interest it charges on overnight Repos: 5.5%.
Primary credit rate: 5.5% (banks’ costs to borrow at the “Discount Window”).

Push-back on Rate-Cut Mania: Back at the January meeting, the Fed had added new language to its statement to push back against Rate-Cut Mania. At today’s meeting, it repeated that language for the third time:“In considering any adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”“The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent.”QT slow-down starts in June: The Fed has been discussing for months in vague bits and pieces its future plans to slow down QT, on the theory, as Powell had put it at the last press conference, that “by going slower, you can get farther,” to avoid the kind of blowup they got in the repo market in 2019 which the Fed linked to QT-1. The Fed has already shed over $1.5 trillion in assets since it started QT in July 2022.Today it said that QT will continue at its current pace through May but will slow beginning in June:

The cap for the Treasury roll-off will be reduced from $60 billion to $25 billion
The cap for the MBS roll-off will remain unchanged at $35 billion.
If MBS roll-off excess of the $35 billion cap, the overage will be replaced with Treasury securities, and not MBS.

And it repeated: “The Committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2 percent objective.”It replaced the old language on the labor market:“The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are moving into better balance.”With:“The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals have moved toward better balance over the past year.”Powell will likely use the press conference to provide more details as to when the slowdown might start and what it might look like.It was a no-dot-plot meeting. Today’s meeting was one of the four meetings a year when the Fed does not release a “Summary of Economic Projections” (SEP), which includes the infamous “dot plot” which shows how each FOMC member sees the development of future policy rates. SEP releases occur quarterly at meetings that are near the end of the quarter. The next SEP will be released after the June 11-12 meeting.Powell at the press conference on rate hikes, no rate cuts, rate cuts, and the QT slowdown while getting rid of MBS entirely: Oh Deary, Where Did my Rate Cuts Go? Fed’s Wait-and-See Now Entrenched? And Suddenly Lots of Talk about “Rate Hikes”Here is the whole statement:

FOMC Statement: No Change to Fed Funds Rate, "lack of further progress" on Inflation -- FOMC Statement: Recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace. Job gains have remained strong, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation has eased over the past year but remains elevated. In recent months, there has been a lack of further progress toward the Committee's 2 percent inflation objective. The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals have moved toward better balance over the past year. The economic outlook is uncertain, and the Committee remains highly attentive to inflation risks. In support of its goals, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 5-1/4 to 5-1/2 percent. In considering any adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. In addition, the Committee will continue reducing its holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage‑backed securities. Beginning in June, the Committee will slow the pace of decline of its securities holdings by reducing the monthly redemption cap on Treasury securities from $60 billion to $25 billion. The Committee will maintain the monthly redemption cap on agency debt and agency mortgage‑backed securities at $35 billion and will reinvest any principal payments in excess of this cap into Treasury securities. The Committee is strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2 percent objective. In assessing the appropriate stance of monetary policy, the Committee will continue to monitor the implications of incoming information for the economic outlook. The Committee would be prepared to adjust the stance of monetary policy as appropriate if risks emerge that could impede the attainment of the Committee's goals. The Committee's assessments will take into account a wide range of information, including readings on labor market conditions, inflation pressures and inflation expectations, and financial and international developments.

Fed to start slowing balance sheet wind down in June — The Federal Reserve will begin slowing its balance sheet reduction campaign next month by limiting the number of Treasury securities it allows to roll off its books each month.The Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's monetary policy body, voted to begin tapering its balance sheet wind down campaign during its meeting this week. The process will begin by reducing the cap on Treasury redemptions from $60 billion monthly to $25 billion monthly. The change goes into effect on June 1.Fed Chair Jerome Powell previewed the slowdown after the FOMC's previous meeting in March, saying the shift was discussed and would happen "fairly soon." He noted that slowing the pace of reduction should allow the process to carry on longer by allowing financial markets to adjust over time."The decision to slow the pace of runoff does not mean that our balance sheet will ultimately shrink by less than it would have, but rather it allows us to approach this ultimate level more gradually," Powell said during his post-meeting press conference Wednesday. "In particular, slowing the pace of runoff will help ensure a smooth transition, reducing the possibility that money markets experienced stress, and thereby facilitating the ongoing decline of securities holding that are consistent with reaching the appropriate level of ample reserves."When the Fed reduces assets — in this case by allowing Treasury securities to mature without replacing them — it mechanically reduces the liability side of its balance sheet as well, which includes reserves, or funds held by commercial banks at the Fed. One of the risks in balance sheet reduction is that this process can create scarcity and cause banks to bid up the cost of reserves, potentially disrupting monetary policy. Powell said the slower approach to balance sheet reduction is meant to avoid this outcome, adding that the move was called for in the Fed's balance sheet reduction plan, which was published at the start of the wind down campaign two years ago.The Fed's monthly cap on balance sheet reduction is $95 billion, which includes a $35 billion cap on mortgage-backed securities. The Fed will continue to allow MBS to roll off its books at the current rate, though it will reinvest any principle that exceeds the $35 billion cap into Treasury securities — bolstering a view expressed by some Fed officials that the central bank might move to get out of the mortgage market altogether. The Fed's balance sheet reduction campaign has reduced its holdings by nearly $2 trillion, bringing it down from its pandemic-era peak of $9 trillion to just north of $7 trillion as of this week. Much of the reduction on the liabilities side has come from the Fed's overnight reverse repurchase agreement, or ON RRP, facility, which allows money market funds and other counterparties to park assets at the Fed overnight in exchange for a small amount of interest. Funds in the facility are broadly seen as excess liquidity in the financial system.After remaining above $2 trillion for more than a year between the summers of 2022 and 2023, the facility has dipped below $500 billion, raising the specter that further balance sheet runoff could soon begin squeezing banks. Powell and other officials have noted that while reserves remain "abundant" — above the "ample" volume that the Fed seeks to maintain — they are not distributed equally within the banking system, meaning some banks could experience scarcity before others.During the meeting Wednesday, the FOMC voted to keep the target range for the federal funds rate between 5.25% and 5.5% again. The rate has remained at that level since last July.

Fed weighs expanding operating hours for Fedwire, NSS -- The Federal Reserve is considering expanding the operating hours of its two large-dollar payments systems to seven days a week. The Fed has proposed a policy change that would open its Fedwire Funds Service and National Settlements Service — both of which enable immediate and irrevocable clearing between large counterparties — on weekends and holidays.The change would not apply to the Fed's Fedwire Securities Service.In its proposal, issued Friday, the central bank asks the public to weigh in on the change and its potential impacts, including higher costs for participants and the potential further need to broaden access to the Fed's lending facility of last resort, the discount window.The Fed has been weighing changes to its payments systems since 2019. In 2022, it sought industry input on expanded operating hours as part of its rollout of a new financial system messaging standard known as ISO 20022.The failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March 2023 also raised questions about the Fed's operating hours. Both firms were ill-prepared to use the discount window amid significant deposit outflows, triggering a mad dash for the banks and Fed staffers to come up with workarounds before the Fed closed for business. The efforts were ultimately in vain as the runs on the banks proved too large to overcome.Under the proposal, the two services would continue to shut down for brief periods each day, with the NSS closing at 6:30 p.m. ET and Fedwire ceasing operations half an hour later. Both would resume operations again at 9 p.m. ET for the next day's services. The Fed notes that those shutdowns would provide banks an opportunity to pause transfers and meet deposit outflows.

The Fed is talking, but markets still hear what they want to hear --How the Federal Reserve conveys its monetary actions has become almost as important as the policies themselves.With so much uncertainty around key economic developments, some bank executives, analysts and economists say the Fed's communications — such as Fed Chair Jerome Powell's regular press conferences, one of which is coming Wednesday — could be doing more harm than good."Forward guidance provided by the Federal Reserve can be helpful, if it is accurately done and if they stick to it," said Komal Sri-Kumar, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute and independent macroeconomic consultant. "It is like I come to you asking for directions on the road, if you give me poor advice and send me the wrong way, I'm worse off with the forward guidance. That, I believe, is what has happened with the Fed."Sri-Kumar said the Fed's forward guidance — both its formal, voted upon policy statements as well as remarks and forecasts from individual officials — has been faulty for years. He said the Federal Open Market Committee's view that inflation would be transitory in 2021 had ruinous consequences for banks that loaded up on long-dated Treasury securities before what turned out to be a run of steep rate hikes. He and others fear that a similar reversal could happen again. The consensus expectation of financial institutions coming out of the past three FOMC's meetings has been multiple rate cuts in 2024. But recent comments from Powell — that it could take "longer than expected" for the Fed to feel price increases slow down sustainably — have cast new doubts on those projections."It's hard to view where interest rates are going, given what the Fed has said recently versus what the expectations were at the beginning of the quarter," said Thomas O'Brien, CEO of the $2.4 billion-asset Sterling Bancorp in Southfield, Michigan, on the company's first-quarter earnings call last week.Now, companies are shifting guidance or waiting before offering more. U.S. Bancorp shaved its full-year income projection in a move HSBC analyst Saul Martinez called "disappointing." Cullen/Frost Bankers announced on its earnings call that it was slashing its rate-cut expectations from five throughout the year to just two in the fall. It also cut its deposit growth projection for the year, as consumers across the industry ditch non-interest-bearing accounts for places to park their money with higher yields.John Corbett, CEO of SouthState Corp., said on the bank's recent earnings call that the institution was aiming for "flexibility and optionality" amid the economic uncertainty."We're all trying to play economists and forecast the yield curve," he said. "We don't have a crystal ball. The only thing we know for sure is that all of our forecasts will be wrong."

'Expectations' Plunge To 11-Year-Lows As Conference Board Confidence Craters For the third straight month, The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell in April, tumbling to 97.0 from a downwardly revised 103.1 (dramatically below the 104.0 median expectation and in fact below the lowest of all 56 analysts' estimates). Both current conditions and expectations plunged, with the latter at its weakest since Present situation confidence fell to 142.9 vs. 146.8 last month. Consumer confidence expectations fell to 66.4 vs. 74.0 last month. Expectations are back to Summer 2022 lows, which are equal to April 2013 lows... 4 Graphs: Bloomberg Most notably, this is the sixth straight month of downward revisions... That is 14.6pts of confidence erased in six months... to which we ask - in all honesty - WTF is a 'revised' sentiment measure? How do you feel now about how you felt a month ago? The Board's labor market indicator trended notably weaker... Finally, fewer of those surveyed believe stock prices will be higher and interests lower...

Biden’s worst-case economic scenario is unfolding at the worst possible time - Last Thursday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its advance estimate for 2024’s first-quarter real GDP growth. At 1.6 percent, it is the worst quarterly performance since the economy contracted by 0.6 percent almost two years ago in the second quarter of 2022. This was a growth level one-third below economists’ expectations of 2.4 percent. It is also a precipitous drop from 2023’s fourth quarter rate of 3.4 percent and 2023’third quarter rate of 4.9 percent.This slower growth comes on the heels of higher inflation. The March report on overall prices showed the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers rose 3.5 percent over the last year — 3.8 percent when core inflation (minus food and energy) was considered. That figure was higher than any since September 2023 and marked the third consecutive monthly increase. Then on Friday, came more bad inflation news, this time on personal consumer expenditures excluding food and energy. This is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, and in March it rose 2.8 percent compared to a year ago — the same as in February and above expectations. This jujitsu juxtaposition of higher inflation and lower growth must not be underestimated. Gone is the charade of someone who has effectively never worked in the private sector telling working Americans how good the economy is. Joe Biden, who loves to harken back to blue-collar Scranton roots, should have known better. Americans now do.There is but one real measure of the economy for them: Am I putting more on my family’s table? Inflation’s insidious impact is its cumulative effect. Just because inflation’s rate of increase slows (which it isn’t) does not mean its past effect is wiped away (which it’s not). Now the economic growth that the administration hoped would at least outstrip inflation’s increase — and reverse some of that cumulative effect — is not.The expectation has been for some time that there would be a soft landing from inflation’s lofty heights. The Federal Reserve would begin cutting its interest rates and the slowing economy would pass the baton to lower interest rates that would keep the economy from falling too far. It was the proverbial economic unicorn. And it was going to be seamless.However, Biden’s high inflation — spurred on by his profligate spending over three-plus years, has given the Fed no opening to begin lowering rates. Expectation has given way to hesitation. Now, rate reductions are not expected for months (if at all this year). Biden does not have months to spare. He has six — total — before November. While six may be a lifetime in politics, it is just two quarters in economics. It is the difference between chronological and geological time. Economists can wait; politicians cannot.Biden’s trajectories leading into these six months are not good. Excessive inflation continues. Could it stay high longer — or even go higher still? The economy is slowing. Quickly. Could it go lower still — perhaps even negative?The stock market was stoked for months by its rate-cut expectations. When these have not come, it refocused on an unexpectedly strong economy — just recently its evidence appeared to be strong corporate earnings reports. Last Thursday’s GDP report argues the economy is no longer strong. Where do the markets look now for reassurance against money being withdrawn from them?Biden is already down in the polls. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polling, his overall job approval rating is just 40.1 percent. His approval rating on the economy is lower still: just 39.4 percent. Both ratings were compiled while the administration and much of the establishment media said Biden’s economy was good. Now that the data say otherwise, where do those Biden ratings go? Already voters see the recent upswing in prices; soon, they are likely to feel the economy slowing. Facing these, Biden has few solid options. He has no prospect of getting more spending through Congress — the crutch he has used throughout his presidency, and which helped spike the still persistent inflation. He can, and undoubtedly will, try to curry favor with more targeted giveaways — sector-specific rules and regulations and student loan forgiveness. But these do not have impacts as broad as the economy itself. There is a reason the economy is the most important political variable: it affects everyone. Perhaps it is too early to call two reports stagflation. Two data points are a snapshot, not a trend. But their contents — high inflation and low growth — are precisely what stagflation is if they continue. Biden has six months to see if they will be.

US to send largest weapons shipment yet to Ukraine -- On Friday, the US Defense Department announced it was sending its largest weapons order to Ukraine to date, totaling $6 billion, after President Joe Biden signed into law a $95 billion military spending bill last Wednesday. “This is the largest security assistance package that we’ve committed to date,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at a Pentagon news conference. Austin announced the procurement at a meeting of the Ukraine contact group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where the United States is coordinating arms shipments from NATO countries for the US-led proxy war with Russia. Austin blustered, “We will not falter, we will not flinch, and we will not fail.” The package marks the second time in just two days that the United States announced a new weapons shipment to Ukraine, following the announcement of a new $1 billion weapons shipment on Wednesday. Friday’s announcement is not a transfer from existing US weapons stockpiles, but rather a multi-billion-dollar procurement agreement with major US defense contractors. The stock prices of these merchants of death rose immediately following Congress’ passage of new spending last week. The Wall Street Journal reported: Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, have been the biggest beneficiaries of the $30 billion in federal contracts already awarded to supply Ukraine and refill US weapon stockpiles. Other contractors, including General Dynamics, last week reported strong quarterly sales as they delivered on deals awarded over the past two years. To date, the United States has provided more than $44 billion in weapons to Ukraine, together with tens of billions of dollars in direct financial subsidies. Last week, the Biden administration confirmed that it had secretly sent Ukraine long-range missiles capable of striking at a distance of over 190 miles. The Ukrainian armed forces used these weapons to carry out a strike on an airbase in Crimea earlier this month. In another strike, the weapons were used to attack the port of Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov. Confirming that the US secretly provided the weapons in March, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday, “They are now in Ukraine, and have been in Ukraine for some time. They arrived there before the supplemental was done.” Last year, President Joe Biden had categorically ruled out sending the long-range missiles to Ukraine, declaring, “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.” But as with nearly everything else Biden said he would not do in Ukraine, plans to send the missiles were already in the works at that time. In a press briefing, a defense official told reporters that the weapons would be used to strike Russian territory in Crimea, “where, right now, Russia has had relatively safe haven,” the New York Times reported. Despite the vast quantity of weapons and money delivered to Ukraine, the military situation remains disastrous for Kiev. In January of last year, Austin and then-Defense Secretary Mark Milley announced that the US and its allies would “go on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine.” Since that time, the US-planned Ukrainian offensive of that year has turned into a debacle, with Ukrainian forces being pushed back across the front. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, while hundreds of thousands of potential draftees have gone into hiding in order to avoid conscription.

$3.5 Billion Slipped Into Ukraine-Israel Aid Bill To 'Supercharge Mass Migration From The Middle East' -- Tucked away in the $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is a $3.5 billion slush fund to open new processing centers for Muslim migrants, in what Sen. Eric Schmitt described as a bid to "supercharge mass migration from the Middle East." And as Breitbart points out, the $95 billion package does not include any funds to help rebuild America's border defenses against illegal migration - but it does contain $481 million to settle migrants in US cities, and of course, the $3.5 billion to expand migration programs worldwide. The $3.5 billion was granted to the Department of State, which works with many international groups that feed and transport migrants on their way to the United States. Biden’s deputies are now using the refugee programs as an adjunct to their diversity-expanding “equity” migration policy. For example, Biden’s deputies used the program in March to import 3,009 migrants from the safe and democratic countries of El Salvador and Guatemala. They are also using the refugee funds to expand migration routes from many African and Muslim countries. In March, they pulled in 12,018 people from the Congo, plus 16,732 migrants from the Muslim countries of Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Eritrea, according to a report by Stacker.com. –Breitbart According to an April 23 release from the Biden DHS visa-granting agency, "The Biden-Harris administration set the refugee admissions ceiling for fiscal year 2024 at 125,000 refugees," adding "With the opening of the Doha Field Office on May 7, 2024,and the Ankara Field Office on May 9, 2024, USCIS will have 11 international field offices. Other international field offices include Beijing; Guangzhou, China; Guatemala City; Havana; Mexico City; Nairobi, Kenya; New Delhi; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Tegucigalpa, Honduras."

US To Buy $1.6 Billion in Ukrainian-Made Weapons for Ukraine - The US will purchase $1.6 billion in Ukrainian-made weapons for Ukraine, The Defense Post reported on Monday.The $1.6 billion is included in a $6 billion tranche of weapons the US announced on April 26. The arms will be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the US to purchase weapons for Ukraine.The US and its NATO allies have made clear that part of their long-term plans for Ukraine is to help the country develop a military-industrial complex. Western arms makers are also looking to manufacture weapons in Ukraine. Arseniy Pushkarenko, deputy chair of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation, said Ukraine’s military-industrial complex should entice other countries since the weapons it produces are battle-tested. “This is one of the factors in the development of the Ukrainian economy. Today, the military technologies that we have are tested in combat conditions, which makes our military-industrial complex attractive enough for many countries of the world,” he said.

Your Tax Dollars At Work: US To Buy Ukrainian-Made Weapons For Ukraine - It's not just US and Western defense contractors and arms makers that have been raking in the billions as a result of Washington's mammoth defense aid handed over to Ukraine, but Ukrainian defense companies are also enjoying the largesse at US taxpayers' expense."A total of $1.6 billion of the recent US aid to Ukraine would go to the purchase of Ukraine-made weapons, said a senior Kyiv official," Defense Post reports of the $61 billion in US aid just approved.G7 countries have been planning broader assistance to Ukraine which would develop and prop up a Ukrainian domestic military-industrial complex for the long-term, in order to ensure the country's independence from Russia well into the future.Ukraine parliamentarian and foreign policy committee member Arseniy Pushkarenko has said, "This is very important today, because it is about the creation of joint defense enterprises that will be located on the territory of Ukraine or in neighboring countries, taking into account security aspects."The funds will be taken from the $14 billion apportioned by Congress for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), allowing the DoD to purchase new weapons for Ukraine.Interestingly, Pushkarenko admitted that all of this is about more than just defending Ukraine from the Russian military onslaught, but is also about 'testing' new weapons systems in real combat."This is one of the factors in the development of the Ukrainian economy. Today, the military technologies that we have are tested in combat conditions, which makes our military-industrial complex attractive enough for many countries of the world," he said.Other Western countries, including the United Kingdom and Denmark, are expected to establish programs ensuring the purchase of Ukrainian-made weapons.As we've long documented, over the course of more than two years of war in Ukraine, American defense firms are making a killing, with four US-based companies having been ranked as among the world’s five largest military companies.

Marjorie Taylor Greene keeps them guessing on Mike Johnson motion to vacate - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is happy to keep them guessing. The Georgia hard-liner introduced her motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in March, framing it as a warning to GOP leaders ahead of explosive debates on government spying and aid to Ukraine. Yet more than a month later, Greene has declined to force a vote on the resolution, even after Johnson helped to usher both of those bills into law over the howls of conservatives in his GOP conference. And on Monday evening — after a weeklong recess during which she escalated her threats against the Speaker — Greene was a no-show at the only House votes of the day, raising only more questions about whether she intends to pull the trigger on her motion to vacate. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of just two other supporters of Greene’s vacate motion, said he spoke with Greene about the resolution over the break. But he’s also keeping his cards close to the vest, declining to disclose any details about when — or even if — the motion will come to the floor. “Of course I talked to my friends,” he told The Hill when asked if he spoke with Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), the third Republican backing the ouster effort. Pressed on whether they discussed the motion to vacate, Massie responded: “Yeah, we don’t talk about the weather.” But Massie also amplified his preference for resolving the clash: He wants Johnson to simply resign — an entreaty the Speaker has rejected outright. “He should [resign],” Massie said. “Ultimately he’s gonna have to decide whether he’s gonna be the uniparty Speaker or not.” Yet despite the loud rhetoric and persistent vows, the delays and waffling from Greene and her two-man army are leading some to predict that the Georgia Republican will never move to force a vote on her resolution, letting the clock run out until the November elections. Greene’s team, however, is ferociously rejecting any notion that the congresswoman is backing down from her threats. Nick Dyer, Greene’s spokesperson, told Politico on Sunday night that “anyone who is saying she is backing down is high, drunk, or simply out of their mind.” And Greene herself kept the anticipation in high gear Sunday afternoon, writing on the social platform X that Johnson’s “days as Speaker are numbered” — though she did not provide a more specific timeline. As time passes, however, Greene’s potential pool of support is draining. Crane, who told reporters earlier this month that he was “open” to supporting a motion to vacate, said Monday that while he has “left the door open,” the timing is not right for a conservative coup. “One, I don’t think it’s good timing. Two, I don’t think — if it was triggered — I don’t think it would pass,” Crane said. “I’ve publicly said multiple times I think that the Democrats would keep Speaker Johnson, I think they would save him, so I don’t think it would pass. And furthermore, even if it did pass, I don’t have much confidence with the conference that we have that we could get a more conservative Speaker for the American people.” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), another Johnson critic, delivered a similar message, but also appeared to leave the door open to supporting Greene’s resolution. Johnson, for his part, has brushed off the looming ouster threat. Last week he told Fox News’s Jesse Watters, “I don’t think about her at all,” when asked about Greene. And on Monday, asked if he had spoken to the Georgia Republican amid her removal effort, Johnson responded succinctly: “Nope.”

Democratic leaders say they’ll shield Speaker Johnson from Greene motion to vacate -- House Democratic leaders announced Tuesday that they will protect Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from a potential conservative coup, all but ensuring the Speaker will keep the gavel through the remainder of the term. The proclamation from Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) and caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) is a remarkable development in the turbulent Speaker saga that’s hobbled the GOP’s governing majority from the earliest days of the 118th Congress — an unprecedented promise by the minority party to prop up an opposing leader for the sake of stabilizing chamber business. Their announcement serves as a response to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) threat to oust Johnson over a series of deals he’s cut with President Biden, most recently on federal spending, government surveillance and aid to Ukraine. Greene’s resolution, introduced more than a month ago, has been endorsed by only two other GOP Johnson critics — Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) — and a number of rank-and-file Democrats have been vowing for months that they would shield the Speaker from an internal revolt if he ushered those bills through the chamber. The new backing from Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar means not only that those Democrats have political cover to cross the aisle to rescue Johnson, but the numbers will almost certainly swell, insulating the Speaker from Greene’s ouster effort. “At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” the Democratic leaders said in a statement issued shortly after the party met as a caucus. “We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Motion to Vacate the Chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”

Greene vows to move ahead on Johnson ouster vote after Democrats promise to save him - Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is vowing to move ahead with a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), even after Democratic leaders said they would shield the Louisiana Republican from a conservative coup. In a post on the social platform X shortly after the top three Democrats announced theywould vote to table a motion to vacate the Speakership if Greene brought it to the floor — effectively saving Johnson’s job — Greene said she would bring it to the floor regardless. The Georgia Republican filed her motion to vacate last month but has not yet said when she plans to trigger a vote on it. “If the Democrats want to elect him Speaker (and some Republicans want to support the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the chance to do it,” Greene said. “I’m a big believer in recorded votes because putting Congress on record allows every American to see the truth and provides transparency to our votes.” “Americans deserve to see the Uniparty on full display. I’m about to give them their coming out party!” she added. The announcement from the trio of top House Democrats — Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) and caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — means Greene’s motion to vacate is almost certain to fail when she brings it to the floor, dealing a major blow to the Georgia Republican. Only two other GOP lawmakers — Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — have backed Greene’s ouster threat, while a number of other hard-line conservatives have come out against the effort, warning that now is not the time to plunge the House into chaos despite their strong disappointment with Johnson. “It’s not the time,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said Monday. “Although I’m profoundly frustrated, disappointed and disgruntled, it’s not the time.” Adding to the opposition is former President Trump, who, despite being close to Greene, has offered support to Johnson on a number of occasions in recent weeks.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's motion to vacate vote leaves fellow Republicans with no easy options -- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) decision to force action on ousting Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has created a dilemma for some rank-and-file Republicans who will now face a tough choice: vote to boot a party leader endorsed by former President Trump, or join forces with Democrats to protect a figure loathed by many conservatives. Greene’s resolution, which is expected to reach the floor next week, is likely to fail given the promise from Democratic leaders to keep Johnson in power for the sake of chamber stability. But the Georgia firebrand is pushing ahead, arguing the importance of getting every House lawmaker on the record so voters are crystal clear where everyone stands on Johnson’s leadership track record. “Every member of Congress needs to take that vote,” she said. “I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican Speaker and have to go home to their primaries. … And I also can’t wait to see my Republican conference show their cards and show who we are. “Are they willing to actually fight? Or are they going to just keep going along to get along?” Many Republicans share Greene’s frustrations with Johnson’s penchant for bipartisan deal-making, but they were also hoping to avoid the motion-to-vacate vote. With that in mind, even some of Johnson’s staunchest GOP critics have sought in recent weeks to defuse Greene’s effort, wary of sparking an internal party clash heading into November, when control of the House is up for grabs. “These tools exist for reasons, but they should be deployed sparingly,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said this week. “Right now, we’re six months out, ish, from the election and we need to focus on that.” But Greene and her army of two — Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) — are plowing ahead with their mission to oust Johnson, a move that is poised to put many on the right flank in a tricky position as they grapple with a pair of undesirable options. Hard-liners are furious with Johnson for his willingness to forge deals with President Biden and Democrats on big-ticket legislation, including the recent passage of bills to extend federal funding, reauthorize the U.S.’s warrantless surveillance powers and muscle through a foreign aid package, which included roughly $61 billion for Ukraine. Yet few Republicans on Capitol Hill want to put any daylight between themselves and Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee who has gone out of his way to praise Johnson’s Speakership performance — a promotional campaign that’s seemed to grow only more pronounced since Greene first filed her vacate motion last month. “I stand with the Speaker,” Trump said as he hosted Johnson at Mar-a-Lago last month.. “He’s doing a really good job under very tough circumstances.” Plus, some hard-liners are concerned about plunging the House into chaos so close to the November elections — a disorderly display that could pull down the party when voters head to the polls and decide control of the chamber next year.

MTG To Force Mike Johnson Ouster Vote Over Ukraine Money, But Top Dems Vow To Save Him Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday announced that she'll force a vote next week over whether to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R?-LA), however Top Democrats have vowed to save him. Speaking of Johnson's decision to lean on Democrats in order to send billions to Israel and Ukraine, Greene said: "I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate." Just like they did with the Ukraine money, Democrats rushed to Johnson's side - preempting Greene's Wednesday announcement with a vow on Tuesday to kill the forced vote."We will vote to table Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Motion to Vacate the Chair," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a joint statement with his deputies, Reps. Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Pete Aguilar (D-CA)."If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed," they said, per Axios.Pointing to their passage of more Ukraine (and Israel) funding, the Democratic leaders said: "Upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction."According to the report, Democrats were prepared to rescue Johnson if House conservatives tried to oust him for using Democrats to pass the foreign aid bill, betraying his base. What's more, Axios also reports that there's "significant discomfort" among Democrats at the idea of again joining the GOP's right flank to oust Johnson.

NATO Chief Says Allies Haven't Been Delivering Arms to Ukraine Fast Enough - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday and took aim at his own alliance for its pace of weapons deliveries to Ukraine.“I know that serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg said at a joint press conference with President Volodymyr Zelensky. “For months, the US was unable to agree on a package. And European Allies have been unable to deliver ammunition at the scale we promised.”Stoltenberg said Ukraine has been forced to ration ammunition but promised that aid deliveries will speed up and pointed to the recent US authorization of $61 billion in new spending on the proxy war. “I welcome that the United States has now approved a major new package. It provides over 60 billion US dollars worth of aid, including critical air defense and artillery ammunition,” he said.The US has already announced $7 billion in new weapons for Ukraine, although $6 billion is in arms that the US is purchasing for Ukraine, which means they won’t be delivered right away. Zelensky told reporters that arms shipments have arrived but that his forces need more. “Some deliveries have already been done. I won’t [say] more. I will only say that we haven’t gotten all we need to equip our brigades,” he said.The new US aid is not expected to prolong the war but not help Ukraine’s chances of beating back Russian forces. Stoltenberg’s visit to Ukraine came after the Ukrainian military announced it had withdrawn from three villages in Donetsk, and Russian troops continued to advance.

Zelensky Says He's Working on a 10-Year Military Aid Deal With the US - On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the US and Ukraine are working on a 10-year bilateral security deal that would include long-term commitments for US military aid.The US and other NATO countries agreed to negotiate bilateral deals with Ukraine at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius last year. Ukraine has already signed agreements with several NATO nations, and Zelensky said he was hoping to make the deal with the US the “strongest of all,” as the US is by far Ukraine’s biggest backer.“Our teams, Ukraine and the United States, are currently working on a bilateral security agreement, and we are already working on a specific text,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation. We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and for the next ten years, including armed support, financial, political, and joint arms production.” Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the purpose of the bilateral security deals was to lock in long-term support for Ukraine to ensure it would be difficult for a future president to exit. Last week, President Biden signed a bill into law authorizing another $61 billion in spending on the proxy war, and the US announced new weapons packages totaling $7 billion. Despite the new aid, Zelensky still pleaded for more weapons and faster deliveries in his nightly address, which he delivered after speaking with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the top Democrat in the House. “We are still waiting for the supplies promised to Ukraine – we expect exactly the volume and content of supplies that can change the situation on the battlefield in the interests of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “And it is important that every agreement we have reached is implemented – everything that will yield practical results on the battlefield and boost the morale of everyone on the frontline. In a conversation with Mr. Jeffries, I emphasized the need for Patriot systems, they are needed as soon as possible.”The new US aid for Ukraine is not expected to help Ukraine achieve victory but is guaranteed to prolong the war, a bleak reality that was acknowledged by Ukrainians on the frontlines, who said they wanted negotiations and an end to the fighting in comments to The Daily Beast.

Biden Looks To Prevent Future President From Ending Ukraine War With 10-Year Agreement -Soon on the heels of President Biden last week signing into law a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine's defense, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday indicated that he's working with Washington on a bilateral security agreement which would last ten years."We are already working on a specific text," Zelensky said in his nightly video address. "Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all.""We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation. We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and the next 10 years."He indicated it will likely include agreements on long-term support centering on military hardware and joint arms production, as well as continuing reconstruction aid. "The agreement should be truly exemplary and reflect the strength of American leadership," Zelensky added.But ultimately a key purpose in locking such a long-term deal in would be to keep it immune from potential interference by a future Trump administration.Below is what The Wall Street Journal spelled out last year:The goal is to make sure Ukraine will be strong enough in the future to deter Russia from attacking it again. More immediately, Ukraine’s Western allies hope to discourage the Kremlin from thinking it can wait out the Biden administration for a potentially more sympathetic successor in the White House. Western officials are looking for ways to lock in pledges of support and limit future governments’ abilities to backtrack, amid fears in European capitals that Donald Trump, if he recaptures the White House, would seek to scale back aid. Trump has a wide lead in early polling in the Republican presidential primary field, but soundly lost the 2020 election to President Biden and has been indicted in four criminal cases in state and federal courts. We and others have previously underscored that NATO and G7 countries are desperately trying to "Trump-proof" future aid to Ukraine and the effort to counter Russia.As for its first new weapons package in the wake of the $61 billion being authorized, the Biden administration has announced new arms packages totaling $7 billion. The US has vowed to rush the weapons to Kiev, given that by all indicators its forces are not doing well on the frontlines.

Amnesty International calls for Biden to ‘immediately suspend’ weapons transfers to Israel -Human rights group Amnesty International called this week for President Biden to immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to Israel, as the organization renewed allegations that the Israeli military is violating international law.Amnesty said in a Monday post that new research provided to the Biden administration has detailed American-supplied weapons to Israel being “used in serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and in a manner that is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy.” Amanda Klasing, national director for government relations with Amnesty International USA, said it was “shocking that the Biden administration continues to hold that the government of Israel is not violating international humanitarian law with U.S.-provided weapons when our research shows otherwise and international law experts disagree.”“President Biden must end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel’s grave violations of international law and immediately suspend the transfer of weapons to the government of Israel,” Klasing said in a statement.The organization’s calls come as the White House faces a May 8 deadline to certify to Congress that U.S.-provided weapons to Israel are being used in compliance with international law, with some reports suggesting there is friction in the State Department on the issue.Last week, Amnesty International — along with more than 20 human rights, refugee and religious advocacy groups — called for the U.S. to block weapons transfers to Israel, saying it “further risks U.S. complicity in grave international crimes committed by Israel.”Amnesty said it found that on several occasions, Israel has used American-made weapons in ways that violated international law, including using Joint Direct Attack Munitions bombs in October in an attack that killed 43 civilians, mostly children and women, in Gaza.The group has also documented the use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon, a flammable chemical that must be used with caution in warfare, and four Israeli strikes in Gaza throughout December and January that resulted in the deaths of 95 civilians, around half of whom were children.Amnesty also said verifiable photos show Israel conducted an unlawful strike in October that killed seven journalists in southern Lebanon, despite the reporters clearly being identified.The human rights group said in the report to the Biden administration that Israel is also not taking necessary precautions to protect civilian lives, citing rushed evacuation notices and indiscriminate strikes, and that the Israeli military is conducting inhumane treatment of prisoners and restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza.More than 34,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza, as Israel carries out a war against militant group Hamas in retaliation for an Oc. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people. In the attack, Hamas also kidnapped around 250 hostages from southern Israel, with 130 still left in Gaza either dead or alive.

US Says Five Israeli Units Guilty of 'Gross Human Rights Violations,' But Won't Cut Off Military Aid - The State Department said Monday that it determined five units of Israel’s security forces were responsible for “gross human rights violations” against Palestinians in the West Bank, but the finding won’t impact US military aid to Israel.“After a careful process, we found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of gross violations of human rights. All of these were incidents much before October 7, and none took place in Gaza,” said State Department spokesman Vedant Patel.The State Department conducted the investigation under the Leahy Law, which prohibits sending military aid to security forces that commit human rights violations. But Patel said weapons transfers would not be impacted and claimed Israel had taken steps to address the US concerns about four of the units.“Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do… For a remaining unit, we continue to be in consultations and engagements with the government of Israel,” he said.The “remaining unit” is believed to be the Netzah Yehuda, an ultra-Orthodox military battalion responsible for the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American in 2022. Media reports said that the US was expected to blacklist Netzah Yehuda last week, but after public protest from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials, the sanctions never came.“If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the [Israeli army] – I will fight it with all my strength,” Netanyahu said last week.Secretary of State Antony Blinken told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in a letter last week that the US wouldn’t be sanctioning any Israeli military units despite the “gross human rights violations.”

Attorneys Inside the Biden Administration Urge US To Cut Off Israel - A group of at least 90 lawyers, including 20 who work in the Biden administration, are urging President Biden to cut off military aid to Israel because its slaughter in Gaza doesn’t comply with US and international law.The attorneys will make their case in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that was obtained by POLITICO. They argue in the letter that Israel has violated the Arms Export Control Act, the Leahy Laws, and the Geneva Convention.“The law is clear and aligned with the majority of Americans who believe the US should cease arms shipments to Israel until it stops its military operation in Gaza,” the letter reads, citing polling data that shows Biden voters support ending military aid to Israel.The letter’s supporters include lawyers from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and Energy. The letter is still being circulated, so the number of signatories could increase.“This is a moment where the US government is violating its own laws and policy,” a Justice Department staffer who signed the letter told POLITICO. Describing the dissent within the administration, the staffer said, “The administration may be seeing silence or only a handful of resignations, but they are really not aware of the magnitude of discontent and dissent among the rank and file.”Under a new national security memorandum, Israel was required to provide assurances to the US that it wouldn’t use US-provided weapons to violate international law or block aid shipments into Gaza. Despite the massive civilian casualties in Gaza and the starvation blockade imposed on the Strip, the State Department saidIsrael’s assurances were enough and has until May 8 to submit a report to Congress.

Potential arrest warrant for Netanyahu gets pushback from White House - The Biden administration is setting its face against any possible prosecution of members of Israel’s government, amid speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) could soon issue arrest warrants over the conduct of the war in Gaza. “We do not support it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at Monday’s media briefing, referring to the ICC’s investigation, which encompasses the actions of Hamas as well as Israel. “We don’t believe they have the jurisdiction.” Neither the United States nor Israel is among the 124 nations who are members of the ICC. And the chances of Israel giving up any member of its government to be prosecuted at The Hague pursuant to a warrant are effectively zero. But even so, arrest warrants for Israeli officials — perhaps including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself — would clearly bolster the case made by the nation’s critics. At its core, that case is that the Israeli counterattack after the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas that killed almost 1,200 Israelis has been gratuitously brutal and indiscriminate, and that some strikes by the Israeli military, as well as the restriction of humanitarian aid, have violated international law. Israel’s assault on Gaza is estimated to have killed around 34,000 people. The speculation that ICC arrest warrants could be imminent adds another ingredient to a volatile mix of American debate about the war in Gaza. The debate already encompasses college protests against Israel’s actions; growing disapproval, particularly among Democratic voters, of Netanyahu’s actions; and the question of whether President Biden has fully utilized American leverage to rein Israel in. On the other hand, pro-Israel Democrats as well as many Republicans and independents contend that the biggest danger is Biden getting pulled to the left by pro-Palestinian activists to a point where his supposed “ironclad” commitment to Israel’s security becomes less reliable. In addition, many Jewish organizations have expressed alarm over rising antisemitism, while voices on the progressive left counter that charges of anti-Jewish bigotry are used to delegitimize criticism of Netanyahu’s policies. Those fault lines are once again evident in the debate over potential ICC action. The ICC “is doing their job, which is to hold people accountable for international crimes and war crimes — which the Netanyahu regime and senior members of that government have been doing for months,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a progressive group. Andrabi gave little credence to the White House’s argument that the ICC lacks the jurisdiction to investigate the war in Gaza or to prosecute senior Israeli government officials if there is evidence to do so. “I would question as to why anyone thinks the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the exact sort of crimes that they are supposed to have jurisdiction over — or why those governments who are not part of the ICC have any say as to who is or isn’t part of the jurisdiction,” he told this column. On the other hand, Democratic strategist Joel Rubin, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of State during the Obama administration, blasted the possibility of the ICC issuing warrants for Israeli government officials as “ridiculous.”

US Working To Prevent ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu - The US and Israel are working together to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-level Israeli officials, Israeli media has reported.Haaretz reported that the Israeli government is working under the assumption that arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi Halevi could be issued as soon as this week. The report said that the US is already engaged in an effort to block the warrants.Walla reported that Netanyahu is “under unusual stress” over the potential warrants and is leading a “nonstop push over the telephone” to prevent them with a focus on contact with the Biden administration.In a statement on Friday, Netanyahu said an arrest warrant wouldn’t stop Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. “Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself,” he said. “While decisions made by the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.”Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the ICC, and the US has a contentious history with the court. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that would authorize the use of force to free any US service members or government officials brought to the ICC, which is based in the Hauge.

US condemns International Criminal Court investigation of Israeli war criminals -- The Biden administration Monday condemned an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of senior Israeli figures who masterminded the Gaza genocide. Israeli media sources reported in recent days that ICC arrest warrants could be imminently issued against Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it. We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction,” said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel reiterated these points, declaring, “Our position is clear. We continue to believe that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the Palestinian situation.” The White House was joined by leading congressional Republicans. Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said an ICC arrest warrant for Israeli officials “would directly undermine US national security interests. If unchallenged by the Biden administration, the ICC could create and assume unprecedented power to issue arrest warrants against American political leaders, American diplomats, and American military personnel.” The United States, the world’s leading perpetrator of war crimes, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority to prosecute US war crimes or those of Israel, its proxy in the Middle East. On September 2, 2020, the United States government imposed sanctions on the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in response to an investigation by the court into US war crimes in Afghanistan. Despite this, the Biden administration publicly welcomed a war crimes investigation by the ICC against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. Asked why the United States supported an International Criminal Court investigation into Russian officials, Patel declared, “There is no moral equivalency between the kinds of things that we see [Russian President Vladimir Putin] and the Kremlin undertake in comparison to the Israeli government.” Bloomberg and Axios reported that Netanyahu and Biden have discussed measures to obstruct the work of the ICC. “The Israeli media has revealed that the Israeli government is holding secret meetings, consultations, and conversations with several of its allies, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, in an attempt to prevent the issuance of … arrest warrants and obstruct the Court’s work on the Palestine case,” the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor noted.

Global court in pressure cooker over threat of Israel arrest warrants --The Biden administration and Israel’s supporters in Congress are lashing out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over potential arrest warrants that could be issued for alleged crimes by Israeli officials in prosecuting the country’s war against Hamas. The reports of forthcoming arrest warrants have reignited debate over the court’s priorities, and poses a high-profile test of the body’s independence in the face of political pressure and influence from all sides. Lawmakers on both sides of the U.S. political aisle have raised the prospect of “consequences” if the ICC goes ahead with the arrest warrants. President Biden’s officials and allies argue the court holds no jurisdiction over Israel, and that democratic nations with an independent judiciary should not be subject to the court’s scrutiny. “My understanding of the ICC, first I’m not sure they have jurisdiction. Secondly, If a country has a comparable system, it’s not an appropriate investigation by the ICC,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Hill. But Biden officials have remained tight-lipped on whether they would seek to impose actions on the ICC if it went ahead with the arrest warrants. In April 2021, Biden revoked sanctions on ICC prosecutors imposed by the Trump administration. Blowback from Israel’s supporters in the U.S. would likely chill American cooperation with the court, which can be carried out on a case-by-case basis. “That’s something that always worried us, because we wanted the ICC to be succeeding in Sudan or Ukraine or Uganda or Congo, wherever it was doing cases,” said Stephen Rapp, who served as head of the Office of Global Criminal Justice during the Obama administration. “That’s one of the things I frankly fear from all of this, and something the ICC should be aware of,” added Rapp, who also served as a prosecutor of war crimes for Sierra Leone and Rwanda. Even as the U.S. is not a member of the ICC, its participation in certain cases gives it significant influence with the prosecutors on the court, which they use to elevate American concerns over how actions by the court can have a negative impact on sensitive diplomacy or the situation on the ground. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly courting U.S. influence to help kill ICC attempts to issue arrest warrants for himself and other senior Israeli officials over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza. The ICC is reportedly also looking to issue arrest warrants for Hamas officials over its Oct. 7 assault in Israel, which triggered the war. “It will … be the first time that a democratic country fighting for its life according to the rules of war is itself accused of war crimes,” Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

The 'Antisemitism' Moral Panic Has Officially Jumped The Shark - by Caitlin Johnstone -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to the International Criminal Court’s rumored plans to indict Israeli officials for war crimes by claiming that for the ICC to do so would be an “antisemitic hate crime”.Yes, you read that correctly. “If this does happen, it will be an indelible stain on humanity. It would be an unprecedented antisemitic hate crime that would add fuel to the antisemitic incitement that is already raging in the world,” said Netanyahu this past Tuesday.So, to be absolutely clear, Israel’s top government official has announced that charges against himself and other Israeli leaders for obvious war crimes like intentionally bombing and starving civilians would be both “antisemitic” and a “hate crime”. So, to make things even clearer, when a supporter of the state of Israel claims to be sincerely super duper worried about “antisemitism”, this is the kind of thing they are talking about. This is what the label “antisemitism” has come to mean. It means literally any opposition to, criticism of, or consequences for a nuclear-armed genocidal apartheid ethnostate which is backed by the most powerful empire that has ever existed. Keeping that in mind, let’s turn now to the bill that just passed in the US House of Representatives which can be used to suppress entirely legitimate political speech critical of Israel as “antisemitic”.Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:“The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill that conflates criticism of the modern state of Israel with antisemitism and will mandate that definition be used by the Department of Education when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.“The bill could be used to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters at college campuses across the country, who have been falsely labeled ‘antisemitic’ despite Jewish students participating in the protests. This comes as House Democrat Richie Torres teams up with Republican Mike Lawler to advance a bill which would create “antisemitism monitors” on university campuses which receive federal funding, which means the US government is actively working to police political speech in response to criticisms of US government policies. Perfectly normal thing to happen in a healthy liberal democracy.

Israel Dismisses US Call To Investigate Mass Grave Discovered at Gaza Hospital - Israel has rejected a US call for an investigation into a mass grave that was discovered at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.US officials have said they want Israel to investigate the situation itself and has not backed international calls for an independent investigation. When asked by POLITICO if Israel would conduct an investigation, Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani said, “Investigate what?” Shoshani said the military had already cleared itself of any wrongdoing. “We gave answers. We don’t bury people in mass graves. Not something we do,” he said. Israel’s story is that a mass grave was already there when its troops showed up and that its forces dug up the bodies to look for Israeli hostages, then returned them to the ground. But Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said only about 100 people were buried at the hospital before the Israeli raid, and a total of 392 bodies have been discovered.Gaza’s Civil Defense said some children were found in the mass grave, some bodies had their hands in restraints, and there were signs of torture.“There are indications of carrying out field executions against some of the victims, while the bodies of other victims carried signs of torture and others were buried alive,” said Abu Sulaiman, the head of Gaza’s Civil Defense.The UN has backed the Palestinian call for an independent investigation into the mass grave. “Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime.”

US To Spend $320 Million Constructing Gaza Pier - The US military’s estimate of the cost to construct a pier on the coast of Gaza has risen to $320 million, Reutersreported on Monday.The estimate is double what the military initially expected the project to cost. The construction has already begun and involves 1,000 US troops operating just off the coast of Gaza, putting them at risk of being targeted, which could lead to a major escalation in the US involvement in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.A staging area for the pier has already come under mortar fire. The attack didn’t hurt anyone, and only minor damage was reported, but the incident highlighted the risk of the project.According to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the $320 million price tag is what it will cost for the US to operate the pier for just 90 days.“How much will taxpayers be on the hook once – or if – the pier is finally constructed?” he told Reuters. “For every day this mission continues, the price tag goes up and so does the level of risk for the 1,000 deployed troops within range of Hamas’ rockets.”President Biden ordered the military to construct the pier for aid deliveries instead of pressuring Israel to open more land border crossings, which is by far the most efficient way to get more aid into the Strip. Israel will impose a strict inspection regime on aid shipments coming through the pier, requiring inspections before they’re shipped from Cyprus and again when the aid reaches the shore of Gaza.According to a report from The Jerusalem Post, the idea to build the pier actually came from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who proposed it to Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in October. A reporter for Israel’s Kan news said last month that during a meeting of the Knessett’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Netanyahu suggested using the pier to remove Palestinians from Gaza.

The Bizarre Gymnastics Of The Gaza Aid Pier - by Caitlin Johnstone - So let me get this straight. The US wound up building its “floating pier” a few miles off the coast of Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid, but nobody will be able to ship the aid directly to the pier to get it to Gaza. Instead, the aid will be delivered to Cyprus via air or sea, and then from Cyprus the aid will be shipped 200 miles to the pier. From there the pallets of aid will be loaded onto smaller US army boats, which will then carry the aid from the pier to a long causeway on Gaza’s actual coast. Those pallets will then be carried from the boats to the shore via the causeway — possibly by British troops or possibly by Israeli troops depending on what source you’re reading — and taken into Gaza by IDF troops after careful examination and approval of their contents. All to deliver some 90 to 150 truckloads worth of aid per day, which is far short of the 500 truckloads the UN says Gaza needs. And this is all being done because Israel isn’t simply letting people drive an adequate amount of aid through the custom-built gates directly into Gaza. Since Washington doesn’t want to exert any pressure on Israel to allow such a self-evident move, this immensely complicated and expensive dance is being performed to deliver a pathetically inadequate amount of aid instead. Aid that is only necessary because Israel has been destroying Gaza in its genocidal bombing campaign which it has been carrying out with total impunity. Cool. Very normal and cool.

Austin Says It's 'Possible' That US Troops on Gaza Pier End Up in a Shooting War - Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged on Tuesday that it was a possibility that the 1,000 US troops deployed off the coast of Gaza as part of a project to build a pier could come under fire and said they would be able to shoot back.Austin made the comments in an exchange with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) at a House Armed Services Committee hearing. “They have the right to return fire to protect themselves,” Austin said.When asked if it was likely that US troops would come under attack from someone in Gaza, Austin said, “That’s possible, yes.”The staging area for the pier has already come under mortar attack. Nobody was hurt in the incident, and only minor damage was reported, but it highlights the risk to the US troops just off the coast of Gaza.

There's 'Widespread' Belief Among US Officials That Israel Can't Beat Hamas - There is a “widespread belief” among US officials that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of “eradicating” Hamas in Gaza is unattainable, The New York Times reported on Thursday.Throughout the past seven months, there have been multiple signs that the US doesn’t believe Israel could achieve its goals in Gaza, yet the Biden administration has continued to support the slaughter of Palestinians in the Strip.In March, the US intelligence agencies released their annual “threat assessment,” and it said Israel will face “lingering armed resistance” for “years to come” and that the Israeli military would struggle to destroy Hamas’s underground infrastructure.The Washington Post also reported in March that the US didn’t think Israel had clear or attainable goals as far back as October. “We never had a clear sense that the Israelis had a definable and achievable military objective,” a source familiar with an October 27 Biden administration meeting on the situation in Gaza told the Post. “From the very beginning, there’s been a sense of us not knowing how the Israelis were going to do what they said they were going to do.”The Times report focused on Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel and the difference in messaging from the administration and Netanyahu. Blinken said the US was still opposed to Israel invading Rafah without a clear plan for civilians, but Netanyahu’s message was that an invasion will happen no matter what.Blinken also called on Hamas to accept Israel’s latest proposal for a hostage deal and temporary ceasefire, but Netanyahu signaled that he wasn’t interested. The Israeli leader vowed to invade Rafah “with or without” a deal with Hamas.The Times report said US officials were “taken aback” by the timing of Netanyahu’s comment because they think Hamas would only accept a deal if they believed releasing hostages could lead to a permanent ceasefire, which has been the Palestinian group’s demand for months. Netanyahu also told Blinken that he wouldn’t agree to end military operations in Gaza for a hostage deal.

Report: Yemen's Houthis Restarted Attacks After Examining US 'Incentives' - Yemen’s Houthis restarted attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden last week after examining “incentives” put forward by the US, according to a report from The National, a UAE state-owned newspaper.At the beginning of April, Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, said the US was considering “diplomacy” with the Houthis after a months-long bombing campaign failed to deter the Yemeni group and only escalated the situation.Sources told The National that the US offered a lifting of the blockade on the capital, Sanaa, and the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which has been imposed since a US-backed Saudi-UAE coalition intervened in Yemen in an attempt to oust the Houthis in 2015.The report said the US also offered to “hasten” Yemen peace talks. New US sanctions imposed on the Houthis are blocking the implementation of a Saudi-Houthi peace deal that would lift the blockade.The Cradle previously reported that the US also offered an acknowledgment of the Houthis’ “legitimacy” and would allow the release of funds to pay Yemeni public sector employees, another aspect of the peace deal that’s being blocked by US sanctions.But the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have rejected the US “incentives” and are sticking to their position that the Red Sea operations won’t stop until the Israeli siege on Gaza comes to an end. Lenderking has acknowledged that he thinks the Houthis would be true to their word, but the US still refuses to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.“The Houthis have received many incentives since the start of operations in the Red Sea. But they are concluding that what’s being offered isn’t enough to stop,” a Yemeni political source told The National. “They are seeing these offers as blackmail in the humanitarian file because the issue of opening the airport or port or bringing in necessary needs is a right of the Yemenis and should not be used as a pressure card on Sanaa.”A source close to the Houthis said that “no understanding has been reached between the United States and the Ansar Allah movement about stopping military operations by the Yemenis in the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden.” The Houthis restarted attacks last week after about a two-week lull.

Houthis Down US MQ-9 Reaper Drone For the Third Time Since November - A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthis announced on Saturday that their forces downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone that was operating over Yemen and was carrying out a “hostile mission.” US officials confirmed to CBS News that a US Air Force MQ-9 drone “crashed” in Yemen early Friday morning and said they’re investigating the cause. MQ-9s are estimated to cost $30 million each, and Friday’s incident marked the third time the Houthis downed one since November. Besides losing $90 million in MQ-9 drones, the US has also used about $1 billion in munitions in its new bombing campaign in Yemen and other operations in the Middle East that started due to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, also said they struck the MV Andromeda Star, a British-owned oil tanker, with missiles. The damage to the vessel was confirmed by US Central Command, which said on Friday that the “MV Andromeda Star reports minor damage but is continuing its voyage.” The Houthis began targeting British and American commercial shipping after the US and the UK started bombing Yemen on January 12. The Yemeni group initially said it only targeted Israeli-linked shipping to protest the siege on Gaza.Hundreds of US and British missile strikes on Yemen have done nothing to deter the Houthis, who insist the campaign will only stop once there’s a ceasefire in Gaza.The US backed a brutal Saudi/UAE war against the Houthis from 2015-2022 that involved heavy airstrikes and a blockade, and the Houthis only became more of a capable fighting force during that time.

34 GOP senators call potential Biden plan for Palestinian refugees national security risk -More than two dozen Republican senators are calling a potential proposal by President Biden to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza a national security risk, following the administration’s acknowledgment that discussions are underway to help Palestinians in the U.S. bring families over from the region. A letter rejecting the potential proposal was led by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the number three GOP leader, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and 33 colleagues. It signals another avenue Republicans may try to attack Biden ahead of the November election. While Biden has maintained robust military support for Israel, he is under immense political pressure from Democrats and progressives amid increasingly violent protests across the U.S. to do more to hold Israel to account for a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Republicans have seized on the criticism as failing to support Israel’s right to self-defense in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, where an estimated 1,200 people were killed in their homes, on the streets and at a music festival, and more than 250 taken hostage. Hamas still holds approximately 133 Israeli hostages, some with dual-American citizenship. The GOP senators call for Biden to prioritize securing the release of American hostages over accepting Palestinians as refugees. “We demand that your administration cease planning for accepting Gazan refugees until you adequately answer our concerns and focus your attention instead on securing the release of U.S. hostages held by Hamas.” The GOP senators further frame accepting Palestinians from Gaza as a national security risk, raising doubt that the Biden administration could prevent Hamas-members or other members of a terrorist group from entering the U.S. “Unfortunately, the risk of terrorists entering our homeland is no hypothetical matter,” the senators wrote, citing that border officials had arrested 169 people on the FBI terror watchlist over the course of 2023. The Biden administration has acknowledged that Hamas has tried to exploit civilian evacuations for its own gain. During a week-long cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November, the Biden administration said it worked to block Hamas fighters, disguising themselves as civilians, from receiving medical treatment outside Gaza. The GOP senators also raise concern over the risk of allowing Palestinians, 34 percent of whom are said to support Hamas, into the U.S. The senators don’t acknowledge that that number is a decline from months previous, in response to the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, according to polling carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research.

Trump says he'll use National Guard to deport migrants, doubling down on anti-immigration rhetoric (AP) — Donald Trump says he’d use the National Guard as part of efforts to deport millions of migrants across the country if he’s reelected, signaling that he’s doubling downon anti-immigration rhetoric that fueled his previous rise to power.Trump’s comments came during a lengthy in-person and telephone interview with Time magazine earlier this month. The accompanying story was published online on Tuesday.Trump didn’t say how exactly he’d carry out the deportation operations and what role the National Guard would play in them. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, said he wasn’t opposed to using active duty military if needed but that he thought the National Guard would do the job.“If I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military,” he said. “We have to have safety in our country. We have to have law and order in our country. And whichever gets us there, but I think the National Guard will do the job.”U.S. military forces — both National Guard and active duty — have historically been used at the border to back up immigration personnel. However, using National Guard forces, or active-duty military, to help directly with deporting migrants, especially in the interior of the country, would be a drastic escalation of their use in the immigration sphere and would likely run into legal challenges.During Trump’s first term, the Department of Homeland Security considered using National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants but the plans ultimately never came to fruition.Presidents have used troops, often National Guard forces, to bolster border security in different ways. President George W. Bush called on National Guard troops to bolster security along the southwestern border in “Operation Jumpstart,” while “Operation Phalanx” under President Barack Obama also used National Guard troops in similar ways.Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump have also used active duty troops and National Guard forces to bolster border security and assist with immigration-related tasks.But those forces at the border have been used in specific, restricted ways like data entry, surveillance or warehouse support or to provide logistical support in ways that don’t interact directly with migrants and are designed to free up immigration personnel to do their jobs.When it comes to finding and removing people from the country, that’s generally the purview of the Enforcement and Removals Operations arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They identify, arrest, detain and remove people who have been determined to not have the right to stay in the country.This can often be a lengthy and expensive process because removals are often done by airplane and because many countries don’t agree to take back migrants from their countries.Federal law generally prohibits the use of active-duty service members for law enforcement inside the U.S., unless specifically authorized by Congress.

Report: Russian Troops Enter Base Housing US Troops in Niger - Russian troops have entered a military base in Niger that houses US military personnel, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a senior US defense official.The official said that the Russian troops were at Airbase 101 in Niger’s capital Niamey but were using a separate hangar and were not mingling with US troops. “(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable,” the official said.CNN later reported that Russian troops have been operating out of the base for at least several weeks.The news comes after the US said it would agree to a request from Niger’s military-led government to leave the country, but the US continues to drag its feet on the withdrawal. Niger said it severed its military relationship in March after US officials lectured their Nigerien counterparts about their growing ties with Russia.Last month, a whistleblower told Congress that the US refusal to withdraw from Niger was putting US troops in danger. The whistleblower, a senior Air Force leader, said that US officials were suppressing intelligence to maintain a “facade” of good relations between the US and Niger.Niger’s government took power after a July 2023 coup that ousted former President Mohamed Bazoum and has already expelled French forces.Allowing Russian troops to enter Airbase 101 could be a pressure tactic from Niger’s government to get the US to withdraw. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on April 19 that the US agreed to leave, but the following week, Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady claimed that no final decision had been made.

U.S. Oil and Gas Production Is Booming. So Are the Industry’s Donations to Its GOP Allies -August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran and member of the U.S. House representing a small district in West Texas, isn’t exactly a household name on the national political scene, with little press coverage in the last two months outside a recent Fox News appearance.But he is the country’s top recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry — out of all federal candidates, including President Biden, Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — receiving $573,721 during the current 2024 election cycle, according to campaign finance data compiled by Open Secrets. Pfluger is running for reelection, though it’s not a competitive race in the strongly Republican district, which includes part of the Permian basin, the largest oil-producing region in the country.But Pfluger has been a loyal ally of the industry, leading the congressional opposition to the Biden administration’s pause on liquefied natural gas exports. When Pfluger entered Congress in 2021, his first piece of legislation proposed prohibiting the Biden administration from demanding a moratorium on issuing new oil and gas permits for drilling on federal lands. He declared on the floor of the House: “My primary concern in Congress is to protect our oil and gas industry from the radical Democrats who will soon control the House, Senate, and White House.” Pfluger’s office did not return calls for comment.Along with Pfluger, the other top five recipients of oil and gas money this cycle are all Republicans — Trump ($501,014), losing presidential candidates Ron DeSantis ($496,927) and Nikki Haley ($431,817), and Cruz ($445,232).

US, Philippines Working on Intelligence Sharing Deal Amid China Tensions - -The US and the Philippines are working on a new intelligence-sharing deal as tensions are soaring between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea.The Defense Post reported that US and Philippine officials discussed the potential agreement, known as the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), during talks held in Washington last week.In a joint statement, the two nations said they wanted to conclude the GSOMIA by the end of 2024. The agreement would formalize intelligence sharing between the two militaries and create protocols for top-secret information.The US and the Philippines are currently conducting the Balikatan exercise, a major military drill the two nations hold annually. This year’s iteration is being billed as the most “expansive” yet and includes exercises in Luzon, a northern Philippine province that faces Taiwan, and Palawan, a province on the South China Sea.The South China Sea has become a potential flashpoint for a war between the US and China as Washington has committed to intervening if Philippine vessels come under attack in the waters. Chinese and Philippine boats often have tense encounters near disputed rocks and reefs, which sometimes end in collision.The US has been increasing its military presence in the South China Sea and is encouraging its allies, including Japan and Australia, to do the same. Alliance building in the region is a major aspect of the US military buildup that’s being done to prepare for a future war with China.

US Secretary of State’s visit to China: An exercise in confrontation and bullying - Far from easing tensions between the two countries, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China, which concluded last Friday, was aimed at intensifying the confrontation with Beijing by setting out an ever-expanding set of demands. During the three-day visit, he met with President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and other top Chinese officials. At the top of Blinken’s list was the demand that Beijing end its sale of so-called dual-use items to Moscow as the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia has suffered a series of reversals. Washington has acknowledged that China has not sold weapons to Russia but is now insisting that Beijing assist the US and its allies in crippling the Russian economy, particularly its war industries. Blinken told a press gathering on Friday that he had “reiterated our serious concern about the PRC [China] providing components that are powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.” He pointed in particular to China’s sale of machine tools, microelectronics and nitrocellulose, declaring that “Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support.” After accusing China of “supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” Blinken added: “In our discussions today, I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will.” While he did not spell out the details, the Biden administration has made clear that it is considering a new round of punitive sanctions targeting Chinese banks that facilitate trade with Russia. Blinken’s comments stand reality on its head. While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was based on the reactionary interests of the Russian oligarchy, the US deliberately goaded Moscow into reacting by seeking to incorporate Ukraine into its NATO military alliance. Washington provoked the war with the aim of destabilising and breaking up the Russian Federation in preparation for conflict with China, which US imperialism regards as the chief threat to its global domination. Even as it is funnelling another $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine and backing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the Biden administration is deliberately heightening tensions with China over Taiwan by undermining the One China policy on which US-China relations have been based since the 1970s. In establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, the US de facto recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan. The US cut diplomatic ties with Taipei and withdrew American military personnel. Under the Trump and now Biden administrations, the US has thrown the process into reverse—ending longstanding protocols limiting official contact, boosting military sales and stationing US troops on Taiwan. As well as providing military aid to Ukraine, the legislation signed into law by Biden last week for the first time provided military aid to Taiwan to the tune of $8 billion. While Blinken repeats the mantra that the US upholds the One China policy, Washington is strengthening ties with Taipei and encouraging a formal declaration of independence, knowing full well that China has little choice but to take military action to protect what it regards as its core interests. Chinese President Xi appealed to Blinken for a defusing of tensions, saying that the two countries “should be partners rather than rivals” and calling for “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.” Beijing, however, is well aware of the dangers posed by Washington’s provocative actions. Foreign Minister Wang said the US and China could “keep to the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral” and even “slide into confrontation.” Wang warned that the US should not overstep China’s “red lines.” He told Blinken: “China’s legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed, and our core interests are facing challenges.” By “core interests,” Wang is referring to Taiwan in particular, about which there was no agreement, while the suppression of “legitimate development rights” is a reference to the raft of punitive US trade measures against China.

China Threatens To Retaliate Against US Over Taiwan Aid And TikTok Ban -On Monday, the Chinese government threatened to retaliate against the United States after a $95 billion foreign aid package was signed into law, which included aid for Taiwan and a provision to ban the Chinese social media app TikTok.As reported by Fox News, the bill signed into law by Biden on Wednesday included $2 billion to restock American weapons provided to Taiwan and other allies in the Indo-Pacific, in a direct attempt to deter Chinese aggression in the region. Additionally, the law demands that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance sell the popular app to another company within nine months, or else the app will be banned from use in the United States.“China firmly rejects the U.S. passing and signing into law the military aid package containing negative content on China,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian in a briefing.“We have lodged serious representations to the U.S.”“This package gravely infringes upon China’s sovereignty. It includes large military aid to Taiwan, which seriously violates the one-China principle, and sends a seriously wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces,” Lin continued.“The legislation undermines the principles of market economy and fair competition by wantonly going after other countries’ companies in the name of ‘national security,’ which once again reveals the U.S.’s hegemonic and bullying nature.”The issue of Taiwan has remained a contentious point in U.S.-China relations, with some considering Taiwan to be a free and independent nation, while others believe it to be part of China. The federal government has never taken a clear stance on the question, thus highlighting the significance of the decision to provide direct aid to Taiwan.TikTok has faced widespread scrutiny from both sides of the political aisle, with Republicans pointing out its threat to national security by virtue of it being a Chinese company preying on American users, while Democrats have raised concerns about users’ private information being easily accessed and sold by the company.TikTok is most popular among younger Americans such as Generation Z, or “Zoomers,” and the ban being signed into law has sparked outrage against Biden among younger voters.

Biden calls Japan, India ‘xenophobic’ on immigration alongside China, Russia - President Biden called Japan and India ‘xenophobic’ at an off-camera campaign fundraiser in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, lumping the U.S. allies in with China and Russia while making the argument that the United States is right to welcome in immigrants. “This election is about freedom, America and democracy. That’s why I badly need you. You know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” the president said. “The reason — look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke; that’s not hyperbole. Because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute,” he added, according to a pool report. Biden has been hit relentlessly by Republicans over immigration, which is among a host of issues key to the 2024 election. Biden has previously hit China for its lack of immigration as a reason for its economic troubles but hasn’t criticized Japan, which is a key ally in Asia. He’s also had choice words for Russia, particularly during its war with Ukraine. In including India and Japan alongside with China and Russia, Biden lumped in two counties considered key allies, particularly when it comes to combating China.

TikTok’s free speech argument faces an uphill battle against national security --Congress and the Biden administration have followed through on threats to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the popular short-video platform or face a sweeping ban in the United States. But the fight, far from over, now will move to the U.S. courts, where TikTok and the Chinese parent, ByteDance, will argue that the government is improperly limiting free speech. Perhaps anticipating the coming First Amendment battle, the Biden White House went out of its way to emphasize that the president would prefer a spinoff of TikTok rather than a ban that would block the platform’s 170 million American users — many of whom are voting-age — from posting and viewing videos on the controversial site. The New York Times reported White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We want to see a divestment. We want to see it being sold, and we do not seek a ban.” She added, “We’re not saying that we do not want Americans to use TikTok. We want to make sure it’s done in a way that we protect our national security and we protect Americans.”In fact, the White House has urged — actually, forced — some people to avoid the platform, at least while they’re at work. Last year, the Biden administration banned federal employees and contractors from downloading TikTok to government or personal devices used for official activity. Further underscoring the situation’s complexity, Biden’s reelection campaign has a TikTok account that it has been using to circulate videos boosting the incumbent and criticizing his challenger, Donald Trump, who relies primarily on his platform, Truth Social. Having failed to sway Congress, ByteDance has vowed to shift to the courts. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a video posted on the app. In court, the company will argue that a forced sale backed by the threat of a ban amounts to an infringement of First Amendment rights enjoyed by both TikTok users and the platform itself. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the government risks unconstitutionally interfering with speech rights when it imposes burdens that stop short of totally silencing individuals or organizations.

Music from Taylor Swift, Drake returns to TikTok after licensing deal with Universal Media Group - Music from artists represented by Universal Music Group will return to TikTok after reaching a new licensing deal, the companies announced Wednesday. Universal, which represents artists including Billie Eilish, Drake and Taylor Swift, pulled their artists’ music from TikTok in February after failing to reach a new licensing deal over disputes about monetizing artists and artificial intelligence (AI) protections. The new agreement, which includes commitments around AI protections, means music from the artists will return to the platform. Some music from artists under the label, including songs by Taylor Swift, had already returned despite the dispute, Variety reported. As part of the new agreement, Universal Media Group and TikTok will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” that use TikTok’s e-commerce capabilities, the companies announced. Universal Media Group and TikTok will also work together to ensure AI development in the music industry will protect human artists and the flow of money to artists and songwriters. TikTok will also commit to work with the music label to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform, according to the announcement.

House Passes Bill That Conflates Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism - The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill that conflates criticism of the modern state of Israel with antisemitism and will mandate that definition be used by the Department of Education when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.The bill could be used to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters at college campuses across the country, who have been falsely labeled “antisemitic” despite Jewish students participating in the protests.The legislation adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which lists “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism.The IHRA also defines antisemitism as applying “double standards” to Israel by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” by “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”The bill passed in a vote of 320-91 and now heads to the Senate for a vote, and received “no” votes from 21 Republicans and 70 Democrats. Opponents said they voted against the legislation because it threatened the First Amendment. “Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) wrote on X ahead of the vote. Gaetz pointed to another part of the IHRA’s definition that lists “claims of the Jews killing Jesus” as an example of antisemitism. “The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!” he said.Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) opposed the bill and said it was put forward with the intent to “increase prosecutions of activity on campuses.”Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) also criticized the bill. “Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not constitute unlawful discrimination,” he said. “By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”

Jewish Democrat Sara Jacobs on voting against bill: Anti-Zionism not 'inherently' antisemitism -- Jewish Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) said she voted against the bill that would crack down on antisemitism on college campuses because, in her view, anti-Zionism is not “inherently” antisemitism, and the measure that passed through the House would “stifle” free speech rights.Jacobs shared her explanation by drawing from her own experience of facing antisemitism in her personal life and adding that she is “deeply concerned” about its rise around the nation. “As a Jewish woman, I’ve experienced antisemitism all my life,” Jacobs said in a statementfollowing the bill’s passage in the lower chamber. “I’ve been called a kike while I was waiting for a drink at a bar when I was at college. I’ve heard too many ‘jokes’ to count about my frizzy hair and my big nose.”“I remember my classmates who thought it was funny to say people were ‘being Jewed’ when someone was being frugal,” she continued. “I know the hatred and ignorance that lie behind all these comments, and how they can quickly escalate into violence — and I’m deeply concerned about the rise of antisemitism in San Diego and across the country.” The California Democrat said she supports Israel’s right to exist but that she knows many who question that and are “deeply” tied to Judaism. “But I do not believe that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitism. I support Israel’s right to exist, but I also know many people who question whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state who are deeply connected to their Judaism,” Jacobs said. She, along with 69 Democrats, voted against the Antisemitism Awareness Act. The bill would require the Department of Education, when applying antidiscrimination laws, to utilize the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The bill would codify the measure’s definition of antisemitism, and all institutions that receive federal funding would be obligated to comply. The IHRA definition of it antisemitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”The bill passed with a 320-91 vote. The 70 Democrats were joined by 21 Republicans in opposing the measure that now heads to the Senate.

Gaetz dubs House antisemitism bill a ‘ridiculous hate speech bill’ -- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) labeled the House antisemitism legislation as a “ridiculous hate speech bill” ahead of the vote Wednesday.The House approved a bill that aims to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests taking place at U.S. universities across the country. Gaetz voiced his opposition to the bill ahead of the vote, saying some excerpts of the Bible would meet this bill’s definition of antisemitism. “This evening, I will vote AGAINST the ridiculous hate speech bill called the ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act,'” he wrote on the social platform X.“Antisemitism is wrong, but this legislation is written without regard for the Constitution, common sense, or even the common understanding of the meaning of words. The Gospel itself would meet the definition of antisemitism under the terms of this bill!” he continued. The bill, if enacted, would require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when enforcing antidiscrimination laws. Gaetz said that one of the examples of IHRA’s definition of antisemitism includes “claims of Jews killing Jesus.” He then pointed to excerpts from the Bible to back his argument, suggesting that the religious text would fall under the definition. “The Bible is clear. There is no myth or controversy on this. Therefore, I will not support this bill,” he added on X.

Political center revolts against fringe, as leaders rebuke Greene, protesters - The political center in both parties is pushing back more against the fringes on the far right and the far left, reflecting the weariness and exasperation with the threats to boot Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) out of his job and the ongoing clashes with pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses across the country. The overwhelming vote in the House for a foreign package including funding for Ukraine was a rebuke to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who is now running into bipartisan opposition as she threatens to force a snap leadership election in the House. Johnson made it clear he had run out of patience with hard-line conservative critics when he put the Ukraine funding bill on the floor and shrugged off warnings that it could cost him his job. House Republican lawmakers said Tuesday that Greene’s efforts to pressure Johnson are falling flat with their constituents back home. In a remarkable development Tuesday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) announced he and other Democrats would step in to help Johnson defeat any motion offered by conservatives to vacate his position. “I think people are sick and tired of chaos and dysfunction. So I congratulate all of our friends on both sides of the aisle in the House for … actually doing their job instead of all of the sideshow,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate leadership team. “Republicans are by and large tired of all the antics and the chaos, and they realize it’s a political liability,” he added. Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former member of the House Republican leadership said, “We are seeing a very strong reaction against the political process by the fringes of both parties. “Even though he’s of the other party, we’re seeing in the reaction of the Democratic leader a leader,” he said of Jeffries’s decision to side with Johnson against the conservative insurgents in is conference. And he praised Johnson for standing up to the critics in his conference by pushing the foreign aid package through the House, even though doing so put his job at risk. That bold decision was validated by the strong vote its different components received from House Republicans, including 101 GOP lawmakers who voted for Ukraine funding. “I saw the Ukraine vote as the rebellion of the normies,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategists. “I just sense that you had an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both chambers that are tired of having their lives run and ruined buy a tiny minority of the Republican conference,” he said. “None of these people get elected to go to Washington, D.C., so they can have their lives upended daily by Marjorie Taylor Greene. It’s not why they worked so hard to get to Congress or the U.S. Senate.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned last week that Greene is “dragging our brand down.” “She — not the Democrats — are the biggest risk to us getting back to a majority,” he told CNN. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday condemned protestersat Columbia University who smashed windows and unfurled an “intifada” banner while occupying Hamilton Hall, located just off the campus’s South Lawn.“Smashing windows with hammers and taking over university building is not free speech. It is lawlessness. And those who did it should promptly face the consequences that are not merely a slap on the wrist,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.He was joined by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who said the images of protesters smashing glass “brought more evidence that administrators at Columbia have utterly, utterly failed to bring order to their Manhattan campus.”Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is helping to lead Democratic pushback against pro-Palestinian protesters, whose rhetoric has veered into antisemitism, forcing some college campuses to close for the final weeks of the school year.“It’s a great American value to protest, but I don’t believe living in a pup tent for Hamas is really helpful,” Fetterman told NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”Fetterman broke with progressives in December by defending “reasonable” border security negotiations and urged fellow Democrats to acknowledge the huge flow of migrants across the southern border.

White House: Takeover of Columbia University building ‘absolutely the wrong approach’ - The White House condemned the move by student protesters to take over a building on Columbia University’s campus Tuesday, calling it the wrong approach amid the ongoing college demonstrations across the country against Israel’s handling of its war in Gaza. Pro-Palestinian protesters at the New York City college took control of an academic building early Tuesday, barricading entrances and flying a Palestinian flag outside the window. “The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach, that is not an example of peaceful protests,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters. “Hate speech and hate symbols also have no place in this country. A small percentage of students shouldn’t be able to disrupt the academic experience, the legitimate study, for the rest of the student body,” Kirby added. The protesters who took over the building locked arms in front of it and took furniture and metal barricades into the hall. The same building was occupied in a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest. Kirby reiterated the disrupting education for other students on campus is “unacceptable.” “You can’t be disrupting the educational pursuit of your fellow students. They have a right to go to school and they have a right to do so safely. They have a right to get an education,” he said. “Taking over a building by force is unacceptable.” When asked about President Biden’s thoughts on sending in the National Guard to deal with the protests on college campuses, which is an idea that some Republicans have suggested, Kirby said there is no active effort to federalize the guard.

Democrats split over campus protest crackdown - Senate Democrats in tough races are calling on college and university presidents to crack down on campus protests that have spun out of control, as images of protesters smashing windows and unfurling Palestinian flags are becoming a political problem for President Biden and his allies. But leading progressives are defending students’ rights to protest and pushing back against calls for the federal government to intervene on campuses across the country. “It’s 100 percent unacceptable for Jewish students or any students to be harmed on campus. You’re seeing this at campus after campus that now there’s physical violence,” said Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who faces a tough reelection race this fall. “This is pure, blatant antisemitism and it needs to be stopped. It should not be tolerated,” she added. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, said, “We all speak strongly that the antisemitism and hate and violence are not acceptable.” “The law should be enforced,” he said when asked about protesters who smashed windows and unfurled an “intifada” banner while taking over Hamilton Hall in the middle of Columbia University’s New York City campus. One Democratic senator who requested anonymity said Biden and Democrats need to step up their condemnations of displays of antisemitism on college campuses. “We all need to do more. This is something that rears its ugly head,” said the senator, who acknowledged it’s a “huge challenge” to address given the First Amendment’s protections for political speech. “It’s not easy for anybody. I’m sure it’s not easy for [Biden]. We do need to push back on it,” they continued. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned what he called the “lawlessness” on Columbia’s campus Tuesday. “Campuses cannot be places of learning and argument and discussion when protests veer into criminality,” he warned. “It is also unpredictable when Jewish students are targeted for being Jewish — when protests exhibit verbal abuse, systematic intimidation, or glorification of the murderous and hateful Hamas or the violence of Oct. 7,” he said. Some Republicans are criticizing Biden for not being more outspoken about the campus protests. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called on the Justice Department to investigate potential violations of Jewish students’ civil rights. “If moral clarity does not prevail in the ivory tower and the Biden administration, this could go down as a particularly shameful episode,” he said on the Senate floor.

Biden backs police repression against non-violent anti-genocide protests On Thursday, US President Joe Biden gave a speech from the Oval Office backing the violent suppression of protests against the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza by police forces throughout the country. “Order must prevail,” Biden said. Without citing a single example, Biden asserted that the mass nationwide peaceful protests by millions of people were violent and antisemitic. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest, threatening people, intimidating people. Instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. In fact, the violence that has taken place has been directed against the protesters. Biden was speaking only hours after a huge force of police, including California state troopers dispatched by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, swooped down on the UCLA campus and arrested or dispersed the protesters who were camped there. On Tuesday night, a group of Zionist thugs, armed with clubs and firecrackers, assaulted the encampment when most of the protesters were asleep, while police stood by and gave them free rein. New York City police carried out similar attacks, arresting nearly 300 students and supporters at Columbia University and City College of New York. There were also mass arrests at Dartmouth, the University of Wisconsin, Portland State University in Oregon and other colleges. Biden’s reference to the “cancellation of classes and graduations” is particularly rich, given that it is administrators who have cancelled classes and graduations as part of the effort to suppress and shut down protests. While claiming this police crackdown is intended to make American Jews feel “safe,” it has led to the arrest of hundreds of Jewish people, including Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. This attack on democratic rights is being conducted through a bipartisan alliance between the Biden administration, Democratic mayors and Republican governors. The assault on protesters is a dry run for martial law. The police forces, filled with fascists, see it as an opportunity to test out their weaponry. While on the surface, Biden’s speech might seem like a mere collection of absurd lies or non-sequiturs, it advocated a fundamentally dictatorial political outlook, in which the government has the power to declare any protest “violent” and brutally suppress it. “Dissent must never lead to disorder, or to denying the rights of others so students can finish the semester and their college education,” Biden said. Banning protests under the pretext of safeguarding “public order” and “economic stability” has been a hallmark of authoritarian regimes throughout modern history. For this reason, international human rights law has repeatedly emphasized that allowing “disruption” is crucial to the protection of freedom of speech and expression. Biden’s claim that the protests are “antisemitic” is based on the reactionary falsehood that equates criticism of Israel and opposition to the right-wing political ideology of Zionism with hostility to the Jewish people. This is under conditions where the resemblance between Israeli policies and Nazi policies has become even more harrowing since October 7, as the Zionist regime presses ahead with a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem that combines mass murder and mass expulsions. In slandering peaceful protests as “violent,” Biden is seeking to protect the real perpetrators of violence: the blood-soaked Netanyahu regime that has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians. While Biden declares that violence has “no place” on college campuses, his administration has enabled Israel to destroy every single university in Gaza and kill hundreds of Palestinian educators—some, like literature Professor Refaat Alareer, murdered in targeted assassinations.

Opposing Every War But The Current One, Supporting Civil Rights But Never Right Now by Caitlin Johnstone -- In remarks defending the brutal suppression of university demonstrations protesting his genocide in Gaza, President Biden argued that protesting is allowed in the United States so long as it’s polite and doesn’t disrupt anything or upset anybody.“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Biden. “The American people are heard. In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential issues.” “But,” the president continued, “neither are we a lawless country. We are a civil society, and order must prevail.” Biden went on to argue that “violent protest is not protected” as a form of free expression, sailing right past the fact that the only actual violence we’ve seen from these protests came from the police sent in to crack skulls and the bands of pro-Israel thugs who’ve been attacking campus demonstrators. Biden instead followed his false accusation of “violence” by listing offenses against inanimate objects: destroying property, vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows. He also listed the offenses of “shutting down campuses” and “forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations” — none of which were done by the demonstrators. “Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest,” said Biden, citing zero examples of this ridiculous allegation, adding that “dissent must never lead to disorder” and that “there’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos.” The president then of course went on to babble about “antisemitism” for awhile, on no basis whatsoever. Again, this person is defending an authoritarian police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators protesting against his own actions. The US president is saying don’t worry about the jackbooted tyranny and suppression you’re seeing against critics of the US president, because the tyranny and suppression is approved of by that same US president. And that’s the Democratic Party for you, folks. That’s everything it is right there. It is violence wrapped in politeness. It is fascism cloaked in lip service to civil rights.

Trump wonders if Columbia protesters will get ‘same kind of treatment’ as Jan. 6 rioters - Former President Trump blasted the protests taking place on college campuses nationwide over the war in Gaza and questioned if Columbia University students who took over a building will face similar consequences to those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “This whole country is up in arms, breaking into colleges, knocking the hell out of Columbia University,” Trump told reporters Tuesday, standing outside the courtroom where he is attending his first criminal trial, centered on an alleged hush money scheme during the 2016 campaign. “I mean, they took over — I know the building very well. They took over a building, that is a big deal,” the former president continued. “And I wonder if what’s going to happen to them will be anything comparable to what happened to J6, because they’re doing a lot of destruction, a lot of damages, a lot of people getting hurt very badly.” “I wonder if that’s going to be the same kind of treatment they gave J6,” he added, referring to the Jan. 6 rioters. “Let’s see how that all works out. I think I can give you the answer right now. And that’s why people have lost faith in our court system.”

“Not welcome in UCD”: Students at Ireland’s biggest university protest Nancy Pelosi’s visit and honorary degree -- On April 22, students at Ireland’s biggest university, University College Dublin (UCD), were joined by a large gathering of healthcare workers in a demonstration denouncing the visit of former Democratic Party speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who had been invited to receive an honorary degree. UCD president, Professor Orla Feely, had refused to cancel the award to Pelosi, which was opposed by the UCD Student Union (SU) and many students. Feely said in an email, “Were it to be our practice to take an institutional position on geopolitical matters, we would be inhibiting the freedom of members of our community to express their individual positions and suppressing our ability to sustain and respect a diversity of views.” Student Union president Martha Ní Riada denounced Feely’s position, saying “essentially, she doesn’t want to take sides”. The SU demand was for a ceasefire in Gaza, which was “not taking sides, but the bare minimum”. Ní Riada was present at the ceremony by invitation but was assaulted by police and UCD security and dragged from the O’Reilly Hall when she interrupted proceedings by denouncing Pelosi as a “Zionist and a war criminal”. Two plainclothes police wearing Garda pins seized her, assisted by UCD security, and dragged her out of the room as she shouted, “Israel is NOT in our DNA” and “What about Palestinian women?”, in a reference to Pelosi’s supposed feminist credentials. Ní Riada later told reporters, “I had a few more lines that I wanted to say, expressing the students’ position and that we denounce this doctorate and this isn’t representative of what our students wish. “We don’t want people like this to be celebrated. But then I only got a sentence in and two guards [police] came and forcibly removed me, with excessive force.” She suffered abrasions and bruising to both arms.

Canceling student debt may be legal but it’s theft --Despite a $34.0 trillion national debt, President Joseph Biden is planning on canceling some, or all, of $158 billion of student debt of an estimated 30 million persons. This may be good politics for the Democratic Party, but this debt cancelation is unfair to most Americans.Maybe this debt forgiveness is unconstitutional because it is done by executive order rather than congressional action; the Supreme Court will have to make that decision. But even if the court determines that student debt cancelation is legal, it will still be unfair since it treats Americans in similar situations differently. First, it is unfair to Americans who never went to college. Student debt is not really canceled, rather it is shifted to another group in American society as revenue lost by debt cancelation must be replaced by new taxes or increased borrowing. These new taxes and the burden of increased debt will fall on many persons who never had the opportunity of going to college. The mechanic in the local garage ends up paying for the college student who decided to major in mass media.Second, it is unfair to students and families who made sacrifices to pay for college. There are many families that saved for college, that worked multiple jobs, that chose colleges based on affordability, and that carefully researched the best majors. They made these sacrifices and compromises to ensure that neither they nor their children would face a substantial debt burden after graduation. In retrospect, were they foolish? If only they had known that Biden would cancel college debt, they could have gone on annual vacations, bought a new car every other year, let their children choose any college regardless of the tuition expense, and study any major regardless of earning potential — no sacrifices would be necessary.Third, it is unfair to enlisted veterans. When I enlisted near the end of the Vietnam War era, one of the motivations was to earn the GI bill to pay for college. In return for three years of active-duty service with the Marines, the GI bill paid for my Penn State degree. Although the original GI bill has gone through many revisions, its purpose is the same. It motivates smart young men and women to enlist. However, Biden’s college debt cancelation initiatives have the same effect as the GI bill without requiring military service. Do young people now believe that it was foolish to join the military to pay for college if the government was going to cancel college debt for everyone? Fourth, it is unfair to persons who borrow for other reasons. Why only cancel the debt of college students who made bad choices in their college and major or were unlucky? Hundreds of thousands of young people borrow to create or expand small businesses which are major sources of innovation and employment in the U.S. economy. However, about half the time, due to either bad luck or poor management, these businesses fail leaving their owners in debt or bankrupt. Why do we bail out college students who make bad choices or are unlucky while not providing similar debt relief for young people whose businesses fail? Are young people who go to college more worthy than those who don’t?Finally, it is unfair to future generations. It is unlikely that this will be a one-time debt forgiveness. People expect that Biden, or his White House successor, will propose extended or new student debt cancelations. This will lead to further increases in the already unsupportable national debt. Students and their parents will rationally respond to student debt cancelation in ways that lead to increased debt. The military services are currently struggling to recruit enough quality young men and women. Extended debt cancelation means that the current version of the GI bill will cease to motivate these men and women to enlist. The inequity of canceling student debt but no other types of debt will become more glaring. And, in the unlikely event that Biden can credibly commit that this is a one-time cancelation that won’t be repeated, why does this generation of students get their loans canceled while earlier and later generations are stuck with paying theirs? Recipients of college debt forgiveness may argue that, even if canceling college debts is unfair, it is the government that is acting unjustly, not the beneficiaries of the cancelations. They are just taking advantage of the programs. In other words, these beneficiaries of debt cancelation are not themselves thieves but only receivers of stolen goods. And President Biden hopes that these receivers of what rightfully belongs to others will be so grateful that they will vote Democratic.

Senate braces for fights over FAA reauthorization =The Senate’s work to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will kick off in earnest Wednesday as members push to meet the May 10 deadline despite multiple looming battles, including over the push to add additional flights out of Reagan Washington National Airport. FAA reauthorization has already been punted three times, but Congress is attempting to pass a full, five-year extension. It is likely to be one of the final must-pass bills — and legislative fights — before fall. Lawmakers are hopeful they can wrap work up by next week’s deadline but are worried the process may get messy. “It’s going to be bumpy. Turbulence,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) noted that Republican senators have nearly 20 amendments on which they want votes, a number of them unrelated to the FAA blueprint. “It’s a pretty complex piece of legislation, a lot of moving parts, and I think there will be a good interest in some amendment process,” Thune said, adding it is an “open question” whether lawmakers can strike a deal to speed up passage. A compromise bill unveiled Monday morning includes a codification of the Department of Transportation’s recent rule requiring refunds to travelers of some domestic and international flights, funding to hire more air traffic controllers and other provisions to improve runway safety and avoid near-collisions. Chopped from the final package was raising the retirement age of pilots from 65 to 67 and language introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would have allowed lawmakers and judges facing threats to receive special security escorts through airports.

FAA bill overcomes first Senate hurdle ahead of May 10 deadline - The Senate on Wednesday took the first step toward passing a five-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the final must-pass piece of legislation until the fall. Senators voted 89 to 10 to overcome the first procedural hurdle and move toward consideration of the package ahead of the May 10 deadline. “Both parties have an incentive to work together to get FAA done as quickly and as smoothly as we can, to keep our skies safe and our federal employees well taken care of,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor earlier in the day. “Getting FAA reauthorization done will provide for more air traffic controllers, for more safety inspectors at manufacturing plants, and better customer service standards, all of which are so badly needed,” he continued. “I hope the Senate can get this important piece of legislation done with as much bipartisan goodwill as possible.” But lawmakers acknowledge it could be a bumpy ride. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters that Republicans have called for upwards of 20 amendment votes, both related and unrelated to the bill at hand. Headlining the unrelated category is an amendment from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who said he will not agree to speed up passage without an amendment vote to extend federal benefits for victims of nuclear radiation. A stand-alone bill to do so passed the Senate in early March but has not been taken up by the House. “Obviously, we have people on both sides that want amendment votes,” Thune said, noting that the bill went through regular order and already includes a large number of amendments offered by those on and off the Senate Commerce Committee.

Updated Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines protect pronouns, bathrooms and abortion - The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated the federal workplace guidelines after a quarter of a century to protect pronouns, bathrooms and abortion. The new guidance, released on Monday by the federal agency, fortified transgender employees’ rights such as being protected from misgendering and using the bathroom that matches their gender identity. Employees not complying with the guidelines are committing unlawful workplace harassment. The agency’s update to the guidelines — the first in 25 years — showcases how it would enforce the anti-bias laws, although it is not legally binding. They came according to the legal standards shielding workers from harassment in relation to the protected characteristics, ranging from color, race, religion to sex. Within the last category, gender identity and sexual orientation are included along with pregnancy. Abortion was also included, as the discrimination toward employees who decide to have one is considered sex discrimination. “Harassment, both in-person and online, remains a serious issue in America’s workplaces,” EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows said in a statement. “The EEOC’s updated guidance on harassment is a comprehensive resource that brings together best practices for preventing and remedying harassment and clarifies recent developments in the law.” “The guidance incorporates public input from stakeholders across the country, is aligned with our Strategic Enforcement Plan, and will help ensure that individuals understand their workplace rights and responsibilities.” The expanding guidance has been criticized by conservatives and religious groups. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman, criticized the updated guidelines and the EEOC, saying has “detached itself from reality.” “The EEOC has detached itself from reality— today’s final guidance is nothing more than a homage to leftist activists who want Americans to conform to their warped political ideology,” Foxx said in a Monday statement. “From the mandated use of pronouns to a denial of biological facts, the EEOC seems more interested in appeasing the mob than undertaking commonsense policymaking to protect workers. File this away as another item in the long list of failures spearheaded by this agency.”

Trump: It’s up to states to monitor pregnancies, prosecute abortions --Former President Trump in a new interview suggested states with restrictive abortion bans might monitor women’s pregnancies and should be left to decide whether to prosecute women for having the procedure.Trump sat for an interview earlier this month with Time Magazine about his plans for a possible second term. When asked about various abortion policies and how he would handle them if he is elected in November, Trump repeatedly said it should be left up to individual states to decide.“I think they might do that. Again, you’ll have to speak to the individual states,” Trump told Time of states monitoring women’s pregnancies.When asked whether he would be comfortable with “states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit,” Trump told the outlet, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions. “And by the way, Texas is going to be different than Ohio. And Ohio is going to be different than Michigan. I see what’s happening.”The outlet reported Trump refused to commit to vetoing any federal abortion ban if it reached his desk.“I don’t have to do anything about vetoes because we now have it back in the states,” Trump told Time.Abortion is a major issue heading into the 2024 election and a significant vulnerability for Trump. The former president has repeatedly taken credit for the Supreme Court’s decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade because he appointed three conservative justices.Trump, in an effort to get around the issue, has taken the position that abortion policy should be left up to the states through legislation or ballot referendums as GOP-led states enact restrictive policies. But that, too, has prompted attacks, including from some on the right who expressed disappointment the former president was not embracing a federal minimum standard for abortion.Meanwhile, abortion has driven turnout for Democrats in the elections since the 2022 decision, helping the party win the Kentucky governor’s mansion, the Virginia Legislature and other key races.President Biden and his campaign have sounded the alarm constantly that a second Trump term would lead to nationwide restrictions on abortion access, something Biden has vowed to protect if he is reelected.

Ted Cruz proposal to give lawmakers, judges facing threats special airport security escorts is blocked - A proposal to allow lawmakers and judges facing credible threats to get special security escorts at airports was kept out of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization because of an objection from Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. The provision, backed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), would have provided security escorts and special screenings for members of Congress, judges and Cabinet members who face what federal law enforcement experts determine to be real threats. The covered individuals would not decide their own eligibility. It would have given lawmakers and judges facing threats the same treatment as senior administration officials including deputy secretaries, congressional leaders, and big-city mayors who go through special security screenings. Regardless of whether they have received threats, rank-and-file lawmakers now go through regular TSA screenings, even if they are more prominent than some of the administration officials currently exempt. And proponents say it would have minimized the burden on federal law enforcement agencies by not requiring them — but instead the official — to notify the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of the covered officials’ travel plans. A staffer familiar with the negotiations said Thompson blocked the language from being added to the FAA reauthorization after the TSA lobbied against it. The source said congressional leaders and administration officials also opposed expanding the pool of federal officials eligible for special escorts. The source alleged that the TSA routinely exaggerated the scope of the proposed change and actively lobbied against it, claiming it would apply to every member of Congress.

Graham predicts Supreme Court will send Trump presidential immunity case to lower courts Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted Sunday that the Supreme Court will send former President Trump’s immunity case back to the lower courts. “Well, I think the court’s gonna find that presidential immunity exists for President Trump like every other president, but you got to be within the scope of being president. I think they’ll send it back to the lower courts to find out exactly what actions fall within presidential immunity and what are considered personal. I think that’s the way this will end — there will be some immunity for some of the actions,” Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The Supreme Court heard arguments last week over whether Trump could have presidential immunity from criminal prosecution in the federal Jan. 6 case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The high court appeared open to some presidential immunity for the former president, which could potentially delay the criminal cases brought against him even further. Graham said the question of immunity may be “decided partially” for the former president. “There’s no absolute immunity in the Constitution. It will be a legal analysis, you know, the president needs to be protected. You know, we don’t become a banana republic here. We prosecute, you know, our political opponents, which is going on really in many jurisdictions,” he said. “But I think the immunity question will be decided partially for Trump and some legal, some factual analysis as to when and where it applies.” Graham then went on to slam all of the cases being brought against Trump as “political” and “selective prosecution.” “So I think most Americans are not going to decide how to vote based on Trump’s legal troubles, but their troubles they face — inflation, crime or broken border — your poll tells me everything I need to know about these legal problems for Trump. People looking at their problems, not Trump’s legal problems,” Graham said.

"Jack Smith Is Trying To Interfere With 2024 Election": Stefanik Files Ethics Complaint Against Special Counsel -Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) filed an ethics complaint against special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday, in which she accuses the prosecutor overseeing federal investigations into Donald Trump of trying to "interfere with the 2024 election and stop the American people from electing" the former president."At every turn, he has sought to accelerate his illegal prosecution of President Trump for the clear (if unstated) purpose of trying him before the November election," Stefanik wrote in a Tuesday morning tweet. "Smith’s conduct has brought disrepute to the Department of Justice and the entire federal government, and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility should impose the discipline that such conduct warrants." “I just filed an official ethics complaint against Jack Smith with the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility for his illegal election interference. It’s obvious to any reasonable observer that Jack Smith is trying to interfere with the 2024 election… pic.twitter.com/lNW4MUz5Oi— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) April 30, 2024Of course, if Elise wanted to do more than audition for Trump's VP, she'd "start investigating the underlying organizers of all this," writes journalist Jeff Carlson on X. "People like Norman Eisen, Ben Wittes & Mary McCord."If you really want to make a difference, start investigating the underlying organizers of all this. People like Norman Eisen, Ben Wittes & Mary McCord. And their financial backers: Brookings, CREW, Open Society. Jack Smith is just a useful tool. https://t.co/nQqyGEpcnb Read the complaint below:

Hush money judge rules Trump violated gag order, warns of jail time — The judge overseeing former President Trump’s hush money case held him in contempt Tuesday for violating a gag order nine times. Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump $9,000 over his recent posts on Truth Social and campaign website attacking prospective jurors and prosecutors’ expected star witnesses, warning the former president that additional violations could result in jail time. “Defendant is hereby warned that the Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” Merchan wrote in his ruling, ordering Trump to remove the offending posts from Truth Social and his campaign website. A hearing on the matter grew heated between the judge and Trump’s attorney, with Merchan telling Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court. Tuesday’s ruling came one week after that hearing and just before the second week of trial testimony kicked off. Trump regularly rails against his perceived foes in his legal entanglements, leading his hush money judge, at prosecutors’ request, to place restrictions on Trump’s speech as the case headed to trial. The former president is barred from making public statements about witnesses concerning their involvement in the case, and jurors. Trump also cannot attack court staff, line prosecutors or their families as well as the families of the judge and district attorney with the intent to materially interfere with the case. Last week’s hearing came after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office claimed Trump violated the gag order 10 times in the days leading up to and during jury selection. They urged the judge to fine the former president $1,000 for each violation and demand he take the posts down. “What happened here is precisely what this order was designed to prevent, and this defendant doesn’t care,” Assistant District Attorney Chris Conroy said at last week’s hearing.

Hush money judge allows Trump to attend son’s graduation -- Former President Trump will be allowed to attend his son’s graduation ceremony next month, the judge overseeing his New York hush money trial said Tuesday. Judge Juan Merchan said the former president will be able to attend the upcoming high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron Trump, on May 17. Merchan had previously delayed his decision earlier this month on whether Trump would be able to attend the graduation.Trump had previously railed against Merchan for delaying the decision, slamming the judge for potentially barring him from attending the event. Under New York state law, Trump is required to attend the entirety of his trial unless he gets special permission from the judge to skip.“I was looking forward to that graduation with his mother and father there,” Trump told reporters at the time. “It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial.”Other Republicans and Trump allies also criticized Merchan after he delayed the decision. Another of Trump’s sons, Eric Trump, said earlier this month that the judge “is truly heartless in not letting a father attend his son’s graduation.” The graduation of his son is not the only day Trump requested to take off from the trial. Merchan ruled that Trump could not attend the Supreme Court oral arguments in his presidential immunity case that took place last week, saying the former president is required to attend his hush money trial, unlike the high court proceedings.While Trump is stuck in the Manhattan courtroom for the trial, other lawyers for him have been tackling his other legal battles. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee has also blasted the hush money trial for keeping him off the campaign trail for most of the next several weeks, saying it is politically motivated.

Key witnesses in Trump’s criminal trial describe how the hush money deals came together The criminal trial of former President Donald Trump resumed in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday with testimony from a key witness who described in detail how the hush money transactions at the center of the trial came together.Prosecutors called on Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented both Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, who said they had sexual encounters with Trump and were paid to keep quiet about their allegations during the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied both women's claims.Trump sat stone-faced as Davidson began recounting his work for Daniels, an adult film star. He recounted an incident in 2011 when a website posted a blog item about Daniels’ saying she and Trump had had a “physical or romantic interaction” in 2006. At the request of Daniels' talent manager, Gina Rodriguez, Davidson sent the site a cease-and-desist letter, he said. Around the same time, he said, Rodriguez got a call from "some jerk," who turned out to be Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, who was "very aggressive" and threatened to sue Daniels over the item.Davidson said he called Cohen and was "met with a hostile barrage of insults." He said he told him his client had nothing to do with the story and had tried to get it taken down. It eventually was removed from the site.The story came back to life in 2016, after Rodriguez started shopping it around as Trump's odds of becoming the Republican presidential nominee increased. There was little interest in Daniels' story until the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape became public that October. A hot mic recorded Trump saying in 2005 that he could grope women without their consent because "when you're a star, they let you do it."The story was "troublesome" for Trump, and it had "a tremendous influence" on the value of Daniels' claims, Davidson said. Rodriguez went back to Howard to negotiate a $120,000 deal but then backed out and offered to have Rodriguez negotiate directly with Cohen, Davidson said. She refused, Davidson said, adding that Howard and Rodriguez persuaded him to get involved with the talks on Daniels' behalf.The eventual settlement included aliases for Daniels and Trump. She was "Peggy Peterson," and Trump was "David Dennison," the name of a player on Davidson's high school hockey team, he said. Dennison is "very upset" about the use of his name in the deal, Davidson joked.The agreement had a funding deadline of Oct. 14, but Cohen kept offering up excuses for not being able to pay yet, including saying the Secret Service had set up "firewalls," Davidson said. By the 17th, he said, he'd had enough and told him that he and Daniels were walking away from the deal. “I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Davidson said.Howard persuaded Davidson to re-engage, and Cohen finally wired him the money on Oct. 26, Davidson said. When Cohen first told him the money had been paid, he said, "I told him that I didn't believe him."Davidson also testified about the hush money deal involving McDougal, a former Playboy model.The prosecution showed in previously private text messages how the National Enquirer bought McDougal's story about allegedly having had an affair with Trump — a key piece of the “catch and kill” accusations Trump faces.Davidson said he was put in touch with McDougal by her former brother-in-law, who was a client. After he agreed to represent her, he said, he reached out to Dylan Howard, who was the editor-in-chief of the Enquirer. "I have a blockbuster Trump story," he said in a June 2016 text message that was displayed to the jury."Did he cheat on Melania?" Howard asked in one of the texts back. "I really can't say yet, sorry," Davidson replied. Howard met with Davidson and McDougal days later and initially said he wasn't interested in her story because she didn't have any documentary evidence. Davidson said that stance soon changed.

Trump trial hears testimony from Keith Davidson, lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal - CBS News --Jurors in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York heard testimony Tuesday from Keith Davidson, an attorney who represented two women who claimed in 2016 that they had sex with Trump and were paid for their silence. Davidson recounted negotiations in the months leading up to the 2016 election over deals for both women. McDougal, a former Playboy model, ultimately received $150,000 from the parent company of the National Enquirer in exchange for the rights to her story. Daniels received $150,000 from Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney at the time, just days before voters went to the polls. Trump denies the women's claims and has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records related to reimbursements to Cohen for the Daniels payment. Prosecutors allege he concealed the true nature of the reimbursements to cover up the "hush money" payment. On the stand Tuesday, Davidson walked the court through months of text messages, emails and phone calls he exchanged with Cohen and Dylan Howard, the editor of the Enquirer. Under questioning from prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, with Trump looking on from the defense table, Davidson said he and Howard were "professional acquaintances and friends," and that they would speak several times a week in 2016. Davidson said he represented McDougal beginning that June regarding the "personal interaction she had … with Donald Trump." Prosecutors displayed texts and emails that Davidson produced pursuant to a subpoena. Soon after agreeing to represent McDougal, Davidson texted Howard that he had a "blockbuster" story about Trump. Howard responded that he would "get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why…" He said he met with Howard soon after and kept in touch over the following weeks. He testified that he was also talking to ABC about McDougal's story, and was "trying to play two entities off each other." Prosecutors showed a text from Davidson in July 2016 that read: "Don't forget about Cohen. Time is of the essence. The girl is being cornered by the estrogen mafia." He said on the stand that the text was "regrettable," and that the phrase "is not one that I use or came up with." Other texts showed Davidson negotiating through Howard, seeking a deal from AMI. He said he thought the outlet was a better fit, since the company wouldn't require McDougal to tell her story. Davidson indicated he understood that a deal with AMI would also benefit Trump for the same reason: McDougal's silence. "Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I'm thinking Isle of Man," he texted Howard, referring to a self-governing British Crown dependency. Asked by a prosecutor to explain what he meant by that text, Davidson replied, "That somehow if Karen did this deal with AMI that it would help Donald Trump's candidacy." He added that he didn't specifically know that AMI had struck a deal with Trump, but understood it to be supportive of his candidacy. "I need this to happen," Howard later texted Davidson. McDougal ultimately received $150,000 in exchange for the rights to her story, which the Enquirer never published. Davidson said his cut of the payment was 45%.

Takeaways from Day 9 of the Trump hush money trial | CNN Politics — Judge Juan Merchan handed down his first punishment to Donald Trump for violating the judge’s gag order in the New York hush money trial Tuesday, fining Trump $9,000 for nine violations. The judge also warned the former president in his written order that continued violations could also lead to imprisonment – a striking reminder of the historic and surreal nature of this trial.Once the trial itself began Tuesday, jurors heard from the attorney who negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money agreements, Keith Davidson, who detailed his tribulations with Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign to get the money promised to Daniels for her to stay quiet. Davidson testified that a tabloid editor believed Daniels’ story would be the “final nail in the coffin” for Trump’s presidential aspirations in October 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape came out. Instead, Davidson negotiated a $130,000 hush money deal with Cohen on Daniels’ behalf, and she did not speak out publicly before the 2016 election. Before the jury was called in Tuesday morning, Merchan levied a $9,000 fine against the former president for multiple violations of the judge’s gag order barring public discussion of witnesses in the case or the jury. Merchan fined Trump for nine violations – $1,000 each, the maximum allowed by law – after prosecutors had filed a motion to hold the former president in contempt over his social media posts and public comments about Cohen, Daniels and the makeup of the jury pool. The comments cited by prosecutors pointed to Trump’s continued commentary about witnesses, including that he thought AMI chief David Pecker was “nice.” Prosecutors argued that the remark was a message to other witnesses to “be nice” on the stand.In his order, the judge warned Trump that he could be imprisoned if he continues to willfully violate the gag order. Merchan could jail Trump for 30 days for finding him in contempt.“The Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” Merchan wrote. Davidson, an LA-based attorney, represented both McDougal and Daniels when they were shopping stories about their romantic relations with Trump in 2016. He described in detail his conversations with American Media Inc.’s then-chief content officer Dylan Howard – aided by text exchanges between the two rich in detail to help freshen up Davidson’s memory – as he cut a $150,000 deal with AMI for McDougal’s story and then struck a $130,000 deal directly with Cohen for Daniels after AMI backed out. Davidson said Daniels’ manager, Gina Rodriguez, approached him and asked him to close the deal. “It’s going to be the easiest deal you’ve ever done in your entire life,” Davidson said, before pausing and letting out a little laugh.Rodriguez told him it had already been negotiated. “All you have to do is talk to that a**hole Cohen,” Davidson recalled.Davidson walked jurors through the contracts he drew up with Cohen and the excuses he got when Cohen initially didn’t pay.“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Davidson testified about Cohen’s excuses for not coming up with the funding, which prompted him to tell Cohen at one point that the deal was off.Davidson’s testimony also provided some lighter moments. In the contract, he used pseudonyms: Peggy Peterson for Daniels because she was the plaintiff and David Dennison for Trump because he was the defendant.Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass asked if Dennison was a real person. “Yes, he was on my high school hockey team,” Davidson said.Daniels’ attorney also had some choice words for Cohen. Asked to describe Cohen’s demeanor while negotiating the payment with him, Davidson said, “He was highly excitable, sort of a pants on fire kind of guy.”Cohen, Davidson added, was like the cartoon dog who yells “squirrel!”

Trump calls judge 'crooked' after facing warning of jail time (AP) — Donald Trump returned briefly to the campaign trail Wednesday and called the judge presiding over his hush money trial “crooked” a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.Trump’s remarks at events in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan were being closely watched after he received a $9,000 fine for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case. In imposing the fine for posts on Trump’s Truth Social account and campaign website, Judge Juan M. Merchan said that if Trump continued to violate his orders, he would “impose an incarceratory punishment.”“There is no crime. I have a crooked judge. He’s a totally conflicted judge,” Trump said speaking to supporters at an event in Waukesha, Wisconsin, claiming again that this and other cases against him are led by the White House to undermine his campaign.ELECTION 2024The former president is trying to achieve a balancing act unprecedented in American history by running for a second term as the presumptive Republican nominee while also fighting felony charges in New York. Trump frequently goes after Merchan, prosecutors and potential witnesses at his rallies and on social media, attack lines that play well with his supporters but that have potentially put him in further legal jeopardy. Later at a rally in Freeland, Michigan, he said he was being forced to spend days in a “kangaroo court room,” and claimed without evidence the district attorney was taking orders from the Biden administration.“I’ve got to do two of these things a day. You know why? Because I’m in New York all the time with the Biden trial,” he said. “It’s a fake trial. They do it to try and take your powers away, try and take your candidate away.”Even before the hush money trial got underway on April 15, Trump has held just a handful of public campaign events since becoming his party’s presumptive nominee in March.The gag order bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to his hush money case. Trump is still free to criticize the judge and the district attorney.Trump insists he is merely exercising his free speech rights, but the offending posts from his Truth Social account and campaign website were taken down. Merchan is weighing other alleged gag-order violations and will hear arguments on Thursday.

Sixth day of witness testimony wraps in Trump hush money trial A sixth day of testimony has concluded in former President Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan.The day saw two witnesses take the stand. First up was Keith Davidson, an attorney for the two women at the center of the case, Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.Then came a forensic analyst for the district attorney’s office who detailed his inspection of phones belonging to ex-fixer Michael Cohen.The resumption of the trial Thursday began with a brief hearing on additional potential violations of a gag order by Trump. The judge has yet to rule on that matter.Trump stopped to take a few questions from reporters on his way out of court for the day.The former president brushed off the prospect of a debate with Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying Kennedy “has very low numbers, certainly not numbers that he can debate with.”Asked what he thought of Keith Davidson’s testimony, Trump cited the gag order that prevents him from attacking witnesses.“I’d love to answer that question. It’s a very easy question. The easiest question so far, but I’m not allowed to testify because this judge is totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order,” Trump said. Prosecutors played a recording of Trump discussing with Michael Cohen how to pay ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal for her story of their affair, which Trump denies.In the recording, which was obtained by CNN in 2018, Trump suggested paying cash to David Pecker’s media company, American Media Inc., which covered the $150,000 payment to McDougal for limited life rights to her story.Doug Daus confirmed that one of Michael Cohen’s phones had 39,745 contacts saved, which the forensic analyst said was “unusual.” Chris Conroy then asked him what is the average number.“Maybe hundreds,” Daus said.“Maybe thousands?” Conroy followed up.“Maybe thousands, at the most,” Daus replied.

Judiciary Republicans zero in on top prosecutor in Trump hush money case - The House Judiciary Committee is again singling out a top prosecutor in former President Trump’s hush money case, asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to turn over the bulk of its communications relating to Matthew Colangelo. Colangelo, who delivered the opening statement in Trump’s New York trial last week, was a senior Justice Department official in the Biden administration before joining the Manhattan district attorney’s office in December 2022. Colangelo has been a target of the panel since April of last year, when Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked him to turn over all documents and communications relating to his hiring by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D). But his prominence in the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial has reignited interest in the prosecutor. That includes from Trump himself, who took to social media to label Colangelo a “top Democrat DOJ official.” Under Trump’s gag order, he can no longer single out Colangelo or other line prosecutors. Tuesday’s letter to the Justice Department asks it to turn over much of the same information Judiciary has already sought from Bragg, asking for all communications between the two offices dealing with Trump or any of his businesses, including any sent by Colangelo. Jordan also asks for Colangelo’s personnel files, including those related to his hiring and departure from DOJ. Finally, the letter asks for all Justice Department files related to its prosecutions of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. Cohen will be a star witness in the hush money trial, which centers on how the two worked together to conceal payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Jordan writes that Colangelo’s “recent employment history demonstrates his obsession with investigating a person rather than prosecuting a crime.” Colangelo’s resume does include significant experience in recent years working on cases that involve Trump. While working at the New York attorney general’s office, Colangelo was part of a team that sued Trump’s charitable organization in 2018, proving it was improperly using funds, which led to its dismantling. And during the tail end of the Trump administration, he was involved in the office’s probe into the Trump Organization itself. That probe would later serve as the basis for New York Attorney General Letitia James’s (D) fraud suit, which this year resulted in a $450 million penalty for Trump.

Trump-RFK Jr. feud heats up as polls tighten | A fiery battle between former President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is heating up as polls begin to show that the third-party candidate represents just as much of a threat to the former president as he does to President Biden. “RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” Trump added. “When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged,” Kennedy fired back at Trump on Saturday in a post on the social platform X. “President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.” The conventional wisdom for months has been that while Kennedy’s third-party bid could be a spoiler for both Trump and Biden, it bore more risks to the Democrat given Kennedy’s family name. But Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polling over the last few weeks paints a much more complicated picture. While Trump at times sees his lead over Biden grow with Kennedy is also included in polls, the gap was narrowing last week, and at one point Biden and Trump were in a dead heat in a three-way race with Kennedy. Some Trump allies who know the former president’s operating style downplayed last week’s attacks, saying they were off-the-cuff and not part of a coordinated strategy against Kennedy. “He’s pretty much predictable and tribal in his response to anybody and everybody,” a former Trump campaign adviser in a battleground state told The Hill. “I don’t know that we can put a measure on that.” Still, other Republicans say it’s clear that concerns are growing in Trumpland about Kennedy. “You don’t attack somebody you’re not at all worried about,” GOP strategist Alex Conant said. “If you look at the sort of media RFK does, you look at his very populist message, his history of embracing conspiracy theories — there’s a lot there to make Trump World nervous.” Democrats and Republicans are both “in a race to define Kennedy,” because in a tight race, his supporters could be crucial, Conant said. GOP strategist Brian Seitchik, a former Trump campaign staffer, said “the real barometer” will be whether Trump escalates his criticisms. “More than just tweets and Truth Socials and things like that, is there going to be a concerted effort to spend against him in key states and try to push the share of the vote down?” Seitchik said. Democrats have been the party more preoccupied by Kennedy, with the environmental lawyer’s own family sounding alarms that he could siphon votes from Biden. More than a dozen members of the Kennedy clan earlier this month backed the president in a high-profile rebuke of their relative.But a new NBC News poll showed Kennedy could actually dent Trump more than Biden.While the Republican was 2 points up in a head-to-head match-up, Biden jumped to a 2-point advantage with third-party candidates in the mix. Jim Messina, who led former President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, said in a recent MSNBC interview that the latest polling around Kennedy is a promising sign for Democrats. “They say he hurts Biden. I think I’m not sure that that’s true. I think he probably hurts [us] both,” Trump said in a radio appearance with conservative John Fredericks last week. “But he might hurt Biden a little bit more, you don’t know.”

Pelosi accuses MSNBC host of being ‘apologist for Donald Trump’ Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused MSNBC’s Katy Tur of being an “apologist” for former President Trump on Monday. During an appearance on the network, Pelosi touted President Biden’s record on the economy, saying, he “created 9 million jobs in his term in office. Donald Trump has the worst record of job loss of any president. So we just have to make sure people know.” Tur briefly interjected, telling Pelosi “there was a global pandemic” during Trump’s presidency. Pelosi paused, looking shocked, before shooting back at Tur that “he had the worst record of any president. We’ve had other concerns in our country.” “If you want to be an apologist for Donald Trump, that may be your role, but it ain’t mine,” she added. Tur pressed back, saying, “I don’t think anyone can accuse me of that.” MSNBC frequently draws the ire of Trump and his allies, featuring leading progressive hosts who regularly criticize the former president and his policies.

Hunter Biden lawyers threaten Fox News with lawsuit over photos - Hunter Biden’s attorneys are threatening to sue Fox News over its usage of photos the president’s son argues are private.In a letter sent by Biden’s attorneys to Fox News this week and obtained by several news outlets, the younger Biden accused Fox of conducting unlawful publication of “hacked” images. He is demanding the outlet retract and remove them from its platforms.“For the last five years, Fox News has relentlessly attacked Hunter Biden and made him a caricature in order to boost ratings and for its financial gain,” the attorneys wrote in their letter.The news outlet shot back in a statement Tuesday, saying Biden’s lawyers “have belatedly chosen to publicly attack Fox News’ constitutionally protected coverage regarding their client.”“Mr. Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of investigations by both the Department of Justice and Congress, has been indicted by two different US Attorney’s Offices in California and Delaware, and has admitted to multiple incidents of wrongdoing,” the statement reads. “Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered these highly publicized events as well as the subsequent indictment of an FBI informant who was the source of certain claims made about Mr. Biden.”Fox has relentlessly covered the various corruption scandals and business dealings of the president’s son, while Republicans in Congress have conducted investigations into Hunter Biden, alleging the president benefited from some of his dealings.At issue, Tina Glandian, one of Biden’s attorneys said, is a fictionalized docuseries that Fox created and produced for its streaming service “just for entertainment value.”“There’s absolutely no newsworthy purpose to this,” Glandian said Monday night during an appearance on CNN.“So, it’s basically blending in fact and fiction in a way that doesn’t allow viewers to decipher what really is fact and what’s fiction,” she said of the Fox Nation docuseries. “And that is very harmful because then, the portrayal is perceived to be true, even though it’s not.”

"Do Not Disclose This Is An Ad": OnlyFans Creator Says Biden Admin Paid For "Full On Political Propaganda" OnlyFans creator and TikTok star Farha Khalidi says that the Biden administration paid her to push "full on political propaganda," and asked her not to disclose that she was advertising for them.Speaking with commentator Richard Hanania, Khalidi said she'd been asked to boast about Ketanji Brown Jackson after Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Biden."I was doing full-on political propaganda," she said, adding "The funny thing is they're like, do not disclose this is an ad because technically it's not a product so you don't have to disclose it's an ad. Because I think they just wanted, like, some edgy girl of color to just tell people — like when they nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, they’re, like, ‘Can you say “as a person of color,” you know, that you feel “reflected”?’" Watch:

Noem’s dog tale sinks chances of becoming Trump’s VP -- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) has found herself in the doghouse after a shocking anecdote from her forthcoming book made the rounds in recent days. Noem attracted criticism and mockery in political circles after it was reported that her upcoming book detailed the story of how roughly 20 years ago, she shot and killed her 14-month-old German wirehaired pointer, Cricket, due to poor behavior. The governor elaborated on the story in a social media post Sunday, and she has tried to characterize the story and her willingness to share it as a sign of her authenticity and willingness to make difficult choices. But the anecdote, paired with other recent controversies involving her, left many Republicans scratching their heads, with some suggesting she had tanked her prospects of serving as former President Trump’s 2024 running mate. “She’s DOA,” one Trump ally said of Noem’s vice presidential prospects. “Any time you have to respond more than once to a story, it’s not good,” they added of the dog tale. Noem, a former congresswoman who won a second term as governor in 2022, had for months been considered among the top contenders to serve as Trump’s potential VP.

The arrest of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is an attack on democratic rights (video) The World Socialist Web Site condemns the police assault and arrest of Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein at a protest Saturday against Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza. The arrest is part of an escalating assault on basic democratic rights that is being directed by the Biden administration and has the support of both the Democratic and Republican parties. All charges must be dropped against Stein and the hundreds of others who have been arrested while protesting in recent weeks. Stein, a 73-year-old Jewish woman, was crushed by a police officer wielding a bicycle as she linked arms with students and other protesters resisting efforts to clear out the anti-genocide encampment at Washington University in St. Louis. Protests have erupted on campuses across the US and internationally following the violent attempt on April 18 to break up an encampment at Columbia University in New York City. Stein and her team were among 100 arrested at the protest, which called for Washington University to divest from Pentagon contractor Boeing and to boycott Israeli institutions. Her deputy campaign director, Kelly Merrill, was violently thrown face first into the ground by another officer before being detained. Green Party campaign director Jason Call was also arrested and spent 7 hours in jail. The contingent of Greens were in St. Louis as part of their party’s effort to collect at least 10,000 signatures from registered voters as they seek to overcome onerous requirements just to get on the ballot in Missouri. Stein’s arrest is particularly notable since, as reported last month, the Democrats are waging “all-out war” on third parties and independent candidates. Millions of dollars are being spent on an “army of lawyers” who are working to keep any alternatives to Biden and Donald Trump off the ballot. Stein, who faces the absurd charges of trespassing and assaulting a police officer, spent six hours in jail before being released. “Today I have really sore ribs, I’m going to the emergency room to see whether I have a rib fracture because they were using their bikes as a weapon,” Stein told NewsNation Prime on Sunday. “Basically ramming the handles of the bike into our chests and into my rib cage and trying to flip us over. I wiggled out of that assault, and was told by the officer that I was assaulting him, which is absolutely ludicrous.” The assault on Stein and the students at Washington University is part of the broader crackdown on student protests against the Gaza genocide being directed by the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, in collaboration with the fascistic witch-hunters in the Republican Party.

Another Boeing whistleblower dies, the second in two months -- Joshua Dean, a whistleblower at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, was reported dead after a brief illness on Wednesday. Dean, a former quality auditor at Spirit, had given a deposition against Spirit, alleging “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line.” The 45-year-old’s death came suddenly—the Seattle Times reported that he began having trouble breathing two weeks ago and was hospitalized and intubated. He reportedly developed pneumonia and a bacterial infection of MRSA. He was ultimately put on machines to circulate and oxygenate his blood in the face of heart and lung failure before he died. Dean’s claims against Spirit first emerged after the midair blowout of a 737 MAX 9 jet, Alaska Flight 1282, in January, which injured dozens. An ongoing federal investigation has provided evidence that production issues for the MAX 9, in this case missing bolts on a door plug, are the immediate reason for the disaster. Since then, Boeing planes have suffered numerous incidents, from panels falling off to sudden drops in altitude while in flight. Each individually is a major issue and taken together speak to the underlying drive for profits at the expense of quality and safety that dominates the company. Dean worked for Spirit from 2019-2020, and then from May 2021 to April 2023. He was laid off in the interim as a result of pandemic-related job cuts, despite Spirit getting $75.5 million in bailout money from the federal government. During his second tenure, Dean uncovered improperly drilled holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the 737 MAX jetliners being produced by Spirit. He informed management of the issue, which did nothing to correct the problem. Instead, Spirit focused on a different error involving flawed fittings between the vertical tail fin and the fuselage, which Dean missed, and used it as an excuse to fire him in April 2023. When Dean was interviewed about his firing by NPR in February, he told the outlet that he felt he was fired to send a message to other potential whistleblowers. “If you are too loud, we will silence you.” It was only in August that Spirit was forced to acknowledge the problem Dean first raised, noting that it was a flaw in the MAX aircraft going back as far as 2019. It should be noted that around that time, in October 2018 and March 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crashed, caused in part by flawed and undocumented software, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 346 passengers and crew for both planes. While subsequent reports on the crashes did not make much note of deficiencies in the body of the aircraft, the fact that they existed speaks to the generally unsafe production practices surrounding the 737 MAX project as a whole. Dean’s death comes less than two months after the purported suicide of another Boeing whistleblower, John “Mitch” Barnett. Barnett, who had been fired from Boeing in 2017, was giving a deposition in a lawsuit for Boeing’s retaliation against him for warning about a different set of quality issues, these at Boeing’s 787 plant in Charleston, South Carolina. On what was scheduled to be his third consecutive day of providing information about his case, Barnett was found in his rental car in his hotel’s parking lot with an apparent “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.

NIST launches initiatives to enhance AI safety and security --On Monday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced efforts to help the public improve the safety, security and trustworthiness of artificial intelligence. The efforts include guidance on detecting, authenticating and labeling synthetic content and a competition to create tools that help do just that.NIST's efforts were accompanied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office publishing a request for public comment (RFC) on how AI could affect the patentability of various works. The officereleased guidance in February on the patentability of inventions created with the assistance of AI. The newest request focuses on the more technical matters of "prior art" and how generative AI changes the level of skill "a person having ordinary skill in the art" has — two ideas invoked in patent law.Two NIST documents released Monday address AI risks. While banks are not specifically required to maintain AI risk management frameworks, regulators generally expect banks to maintain cybersecurity risk frameworks, which can cover risks posed by AI. For banks large enough to develop their own software and AI systems, one of the new documents will also serve as a template for risk management, much in the way many banks base their cybersecurity framework off NIST's.The efforts directly respond to President Joe Biden's October executive order on AI, which among other things called for regulatory agencies to create and clarify regulations on AI. In the six months since that executive order, the Commerce Department, which houses both NIST and the patent office, has been working to research and develop guidance needed to safely harness the potential of AI while minimizing its risks, according to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. "The announcements we are making today show our commitment to transparency and feedback from all stakeholders and the tremendous progress we have made in a short amount of time," Raimondo said. As part of the announcement, NIST issued four guidance documents on Monday. The first two will help manage the risks of generative AI — the technology that enables chatbots and text-based image and video creation tools — and serve as companions to NIST's AI Risk Management Framework and Secure Software Development Framework.The first document provides a full overview of the risks associated with generative AI; the second focuses on securely developing the models. The standards could impact banks' risk assessments of generative AI in contexts such as the risks and rewards of using it in customer service scenarios.The third publication seeks to reduce the risks of synthetic content generated or altered by generative AI. Specifically, it evaluates the existing practices that generative AI companies deploy to disclose the provenance of the content their models generate. These methods include digital watermarking, which involves invisibly modifying generated images to mark them as created by generative AI. While watermarks in particular have shortcomings, strategies like it could improve banks' ability to identify doctored images of photo IDs and checks. The document overviews the current state of the art in detecting AI-generated images, which can be helpful to banks seeking to detect deepfakes. The fourth publication is a plan for developing global AI standards. This plan involves coordinating with other countries to adopt shared standards such that, for example, countries share the same or compatible standards for testing the safety of AI systems and measuring their energy consumption. The plan, if followed, could help global banks reduce compliance costs and allow them to deliver the same AI-powered products to multiple customer bases.

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile hit with $200M FCC fine for sharing user location data without consent --The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a fine totaling $200 million to the nation’s four largest mobile carriers after concluding an investigation that found the companies illegally shared access to customers’ location data, the agency said Monday. T-Mobile received the biggest fine of $80 million, along with a $12 million fine for its subsidiary, Sprint, that the company acquired in 2020. AT&T was fined more than $57 million and Verizon was fined almost $7 million, according to the agency’s announcement. The fines follow initial allegations by the FCC in 2020 under the Trump administration of wireless carriers violating laws by not protecting users’ location data. The mobile carriers pushed back on the allegations and said they intend to challenge the fine. The FCC said the agency’s enforcement bureau’s investigation into the carriers found that each of them sold access to their customers’ location information to “aggregators” that went on to resell access to the information to third-party location-based service providers. The FCC said the carriers “attempted to offload” their obligation to obtain customer consent to others, which led to not obtaining customer consent. Mobile carriers are legally required to take reasonable measures to protect certain customer information, including location information, according to the FCC. The FCC said the “initial failure” compounded when the carriers continued to sell access to location information without taking reasonable measures to protect it after they were made aware that safeguards were ineffective. “Our communications providers have access to some of the most sensitive information about us. These carriers failed to protect the information entrusted to them. Here, we are talking about some of the most sensitive data in their possession: customers’ real-time location information, revealing where they go and who they are,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “As we resolve these cases – which were first proposed by the last Administration – the Commission remains committed to holding all carriers accountable and making sure they fulfill their obligations to their customers as stewards of this most private data,” she added. All mobile carriers fined said they intend to appeal the decision.

Meta faces EU probe over spread of political disinformation -- The European Commission launched an investigation into Meta over the spread of political disinformation on its platforms and to assess whether it violated European regulations, the commission announced Tuesday. The probe into the California-based parent company of Facebook and Instagram will focus on how some of Meta’s policies related to political and election content may be in violation of the EU’s Digital Services Act, a wide-ranging set of tech regulations that went into effect in February. Part of the inquiry will focus on Meta’s “deceptive advertisements and disinformation,” which could pose risks to consumers and civic discourse, the commission said in the announcement. The inquiry will also target Meta’s policy that aimst o limit the visibility of political content. The commission will look into whether that policy is compliant with the Digital Service Act’s requirements for transparency, and to mitigate risks to civic discourse and electoral processes. The EU’s inquiry also targets Meta’s decision to shut down the CrowdTangle tool, which allowed researchers and journalists to track potential misinformation on the social media giant’s platforms. The EU’s inquiry will look into the “non-availability of an effective third-party real-time” election monitoring tool ahead of elections in the EU and member states, and whether it is out of compliance with the bloc’s digital regulations. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen underscored the need for the inquiry ahead of the elections coming up across Europe. “This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries. If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act. This is true at all times, but especially in times of democratic elections. Big digital platforms must live up to their obligations to put enough resources into this and today’s decision shows that we are serious about compliance,” Leyen said. In a statement to The Associated Press, Meta said, “We have a well established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms.” “We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work,” the statement added. This is the latest action the EU has taken to address potential violations of tech companies under the Digital Services Act. Another U.S.-based tech company, X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is also under EU investigation. The EU has also launched investigations into the Chinese-owned company TikTok.

Bitcoin, Ether, Nurse Losses as U.S. Stagflation Fears Grip Market --Crypto markets are in the red amid renewed fears of U.S. stagflation, a worst-case scenario for risk assets.Bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value, traded near $62,400 at press time, down 2.5% on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinDesk Indices data. Ether (ETH) traded 3% lower at $3,200, and the CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a measure of the most liquid digital assets, was down 2.6% at 2,197 points.The market appears to be on a precipice right now as it debates which direction to take, with significant bullish and bearish narratives on the horizon.As QCP wrote in a note over the weekend, the threat of stagflation – a period of high inflation and low growth – is very real."The weaker than expected [U.S.] GDP print points to a more sluggish economy while the higher Core PCE warns of an inflation problem that continues to be a thorn in the Fed's side," QCP wrote.Last week's U.S. GDP report showed the world's largest economy grew at an annualized rate of 1.6% in the first quarter of this year following the preceding quarter's 3.4% growth. Meanwhile, the personal consumption expenditures price (PCE) index, the Fed's preferred inflation metric, showed prices rose to a 3.4% annualized rate in the first three months of the year from 1.8% in the final quarter of 2023.The stagflationary combination of slower growth rate and sticky inflation has further weakened the probability of the Fed rate cuts.Most traders on the prediction market platform Polymarket still see no rate cuts as the most likely scenario, with a 35% chance of this happening, but the chance of 1 rate cut is creeping up, now at 29% versus 26% a week ago and 14% at the start of the month.QCP also wrote that Janet Yellen's fiscal strategy, leveraging the Treasury General Account (TGA)—holding close to USD 1 trillion in assets—and the Reverse Repurchase Program (RRP) with USD 400 billion, could inject up to $1.4 trillion in liquidity into the financial system pushing up all risk assets.

What, No Bitcoin? How "Hundreds Of Billions" Are Laundered With Cash On Airplanes - Jo-Emma Larvin navigated through London’s Heathrow Airport on a fateful day in August 2020, pushing a cart laden with seven suitcases. Traveling business class to Dubai, Larvin and her companion passed through security, seemingly no different from the throngs of other travelers. Yet, unbeknownst to airport authorities, her bags held a clandestine cargo: millions of British pounds, wrapped in rubber bands and sealed in plastic.Their destination? An international money launderer, adept at converting cash into gold or other currencies, the Wall Street Journal reports, without mentioning bitcoin once, because let's face it: 99% of all money laundering involves not crypto but cold, hard cash!The money launderer, who charges a hefty fee to clients to exchange cash for gold and other currencies, has been operating via Heathrow to Dubai - the former doesn't scan outbound luggage for cash, while the latter welcomes sacks of it. They're also the #1 and #2 of the world's busiest airports for international passengers.The UK mandates passengers declare amounts exceeding $10,000 to customs authorities. Larvin, however, risked arrest by not disclosing her precious cargo, not that anyone would notice. The suitcases slid through Heathrow's baggage-handling system and its 3-D scanner, designed to detect explosives rather than contraband currency.The next morning in Dubai, the women calmly collected their bags, declaring $2.8 million at customs, a practice fully permitted by UAE law. While the UAE allows any amount of cash to enter its borders, the laxity of international airports in monitoring money flows has created a loophole, one exploited by money launderers worldwide.Each year, more than $2 trillion in proceeds from illegal enterprises enters the global financial system, with a significant portion smuggled across borders by air. According to estimates by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Financial Action Task Force, "hundreds of billions in illicit cash" fly out of the UK and other nations to countries with fewer regulations.One of the reasons for so much airline smuggling is that banks around the globe have stepped up the reporting of suspicious transactions, making it more difficult to launder money using traditional wire transfers. So it's back to even more traditional ways of money laundering.

Crypto washout sends bitcoin below $58,000 ahead of Fed decision (Reuters) - Bitcoin slid by almost 6% on Wednesday, having posted its worst monthly performance in April since late 2022, as investors pulled money out of cryptocurrencies ahead of an interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve later. The value of the world's most traded cryptocurrency fell by nearly 16% in April, as investors booked profits on a sizzling rally that has taken the price to record highs above $70,000. Bitcoin fell by as much as 5.6% to its lowest since late February. It was last down 4.8% at $57,001, while losses in ether were more modest, down 3.6% at $2,857, also at its weakest since February. The price of bitcoin is now a full 22% below March's record of $73,803, technically putting it in a bear market. But it is still up 35% so far this year and double where it was this time last year, thanks in large part to the billions of dollars flowing into newly minted exchange-traded funds since January. "The recent downtrend can be attributed to increased profit-taking by investors who entered the market during the downturns of 2022 and 2023, as well as ETF investors who witnessed significant price appreciation on their shares after entering the market in the early weeks of 2024," Fineqia research analyst Matteo Greco said. On the macro front, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is not expected to make any changes to interest rates, but the view is taking root among investors that the central bank may not cut rates at all this year, delivering a blow to interest rate-sensitive assets such as cryptocurrencies, emerging market stocks and bonds or even commodities. Investors have responded accordingly. The 10 largest U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs are facing their biggest weekly outflow since their inception in January.

Trader Loses $68M of Wrapped Bitcoin in Address Poisoning Scam -An unknown trader lost $68 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) in a single transaction in an address-poisoning scam on May 3, according to security firm Cyvers. The victim’s wallet was drained of over 97% of its total assets, and the rest of its contents have since been removed, leaving them with just $13.56 worth of ETH, according to CoinStats. An image showing the contents of the victims wallet. Address poisoning, also known as address spoofing, exploits a trader’s haste and negligence during transactions. It involves tricking victims into sending their digital assets to fraudulent addresses belonging to scammers. This is just one instance in a string of address-poisoning scams. In October 2023, a hacker made off with $1.2 million worth of ARB tokens using the method. Scams continue plaguing mainstream trust in the crypto industry. In April, investors lost at least $33 million of digital assets in a fraud case surrounding the ZKasino gambling platform. Dutch authorities arrested a suspect related to the ZKasino scam on April 29. Despite the ZKasino incident, April only saw $25.7 million worth of cryptocurrency lost to scams and hacks. According to on-chain intelligence firm CertiK, this marks the lowest monthly figure since 2021. Total losses from exploits and scams fell 141% from the previous month, mainly attributed to a lack of private key compromises. There were 11 attacks against protocols via private key compromises in March, whereas in April, there were only three.

'Bitcoin Jesus' arrested in Spain on US tax evasion charges (Reuters) - An early investor in bitcoins dubbed the "Bitcoin Jesus" has been arrested in Spain on U.S. charges that he evaded paying at least $48 million in taxes, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Tuesday. Roger Ver, 45, was charged with mail fraud and tax evasion in an indictment filed in federal court in Los Angeles that was unsealed following his arrest in Spain during the weekend, the department said. The U.S. Supreme Court last year dismissed an unnamed law firm's appeal over court orders holding it in contempt of a grand jury subpoena because it had not released records related to a client matching Ver's description. Bryan Skarlatos, a lawyer for Ver, said in a statement he was "very disappointed and surprised" by Ver's arrest while traveling in Spain. "Mr. Ver relied on leading tax professionals to help him report his Bitcoin and he always intended to fully comply with his U.S. tax obligations," Skarlatos said. "We look forward to establishing his innocence in court, if necessary." Ver, who for a time served as the chief executive of the digital wallet developer Bitcoin.com, began acquiring bitcoins in 2011 and actively promoted the cryptocurrency, earning him the name "Bitcoin Jesus." In 2014, Ver renounced his U.S. citizenship after becoming a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis, which prosecutors said had tax consequences for him. Specifically, when someone gives up their citizenship, their property is treated as having been sold for its fair market value the day before they renounced their citizenship in a "constructive sale." Under federal tax law, any gain arising from that "constructive sale" must be accounted for in that tax year. The day he became a St. Kitts and Nevis citizen, Ver and two companies he owned, MemoryDealers.com and Agilestar.com, held about 131,000 bitcoins that at the time each traded for about $871, valuing them at more than $114 million. Prosecutors said Ver hired a law firm to help him prepare his expatriation-related tax returns and an appraisal to value his companies, but provided them false or misleading information about how much of the cryptocurrency they in fact owned. The Justice Department said that as a result, the law firm prepared and filed tax returns that undervalued the two companies and their bitcoins and did not report any owned personally by Ver. Ver later took possession of the 70,000 bitcoins the two companies owned and sold them for about $240 million in 2017, the indictment said. But prosecutors said he failed to pay taxes he owed on distributions from those two U.S. companies. The indictment alleged that in total, the Internal Revenue Service was deprived of $48 million in taxes from 2014 to 2017.

She’s the dog whose face launched cryptocurrency Dogecoin. To shiba inu Kabosu’s fans she’s ‘Mona Lisa of the internet’ | South China Morning Post -- Shiba inu Kabosu’s owner in Tokyo, Japan, adopted her in 2008, and two years later posted a fun picture of the dog on her blog. It led to a host of online memes, The memes inspired the launch of Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency Elon Musk and others took seriously. Now there’s a Kabosu statue and the fun picture is an NFT, Her fluffy face now frail, Kabosu still flashes the enigmatic smile that made her the go-to meme dog for millennials and inspired a US$23 billion cryptocurrency beloved by Elon Musk. She is best known as the logo of Dogecoin, but to Atsuko Sato, Kabosu is the elderly former rescue puppy who accompanies her every day to work at a kindergarten in Japan. “It felt so strange” to discover her dog was an internet celebrity, Sato says in Sakura, where Tokyo’s eastern sprawl gives way to fields of rice and solar panels. In 2010, two years after adopting the shiba inu, Sato posted a picture on her blog of Kabosu crossing her paws on the sofa and giving the camera a beguiling look. That image became the “Doge” meme – and later an NFT digital artwork that sold for US$4 million. “She is pulling a weird face,” Sato laughs. “Now I think she looks really nice” in the famous photo but “at first I thought it could be trashed”. The meme grew from an online forum post into an anarchic in-joke that bounced from college bedrooms to office emails. “One of my friends messaged me: ‘Isn’t this picture Kabosu?’ Then I searched for it and found all sorts of memes, like Kabosu turning into a doughnut,” Sato says. The 62-year-old is now so used to “unbelievable” events that when Tesla boss Musk changed the icon for Twitter, now X, to Kabosu’s face last year, she “wasn’t even that surprised”. “In the last few years I’ve been able to connect the online version of Kabosu, all these unexpected things seen from a distance, with our real lives.” Kabosu spends most days resting in a cart at the kindergarten or on a big cushion at home, where fan-made Doge tributes adorn the walls.

Houston cryptocurrency scam cases rising as more rush to invest, FBI says - - A sophisticated and somewhat complicated scam has the phones at the FBI ringing off the hook. When it comes to the latest crypto investment scam, the FBI says suspects are tricking people into believing they are missing out on big Bitcoin bucks, and agents are seeing "exponential" growth in the Houston area. Federal agents warn that thieves are setting up a fake website, advertising a new cryptocurrency. According to the FBI, that website usually has lots of information on it and looks sophisticated, clean, and legitimate. The only problem is that the supposed cryptocurrency they're advertising is fake. Keep in mind, the FBI stresses these thieves are betting on victims not knowing much about this type of digital payment system or how it works. Next, the scammers will reach out to you by email, phone, social media, or even through a friend. "They will start with just a small dollar amount. They'll say, 'Give me $5,000,' and they will show the made-up websites and apps where they're able to track their investment," Heith Janke, FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Houston division, said. "It will show they're receiving great returns, and then they will say, 'Now give me $50,000. Now give me $100,000,' and they go and do that until they bleed the person out of their entire savings, and then they disappear."

NY Woman, Victoria Jacobs, Gets 18 Years for Funding Terrorism With Crypto – NY Times -A New York woman was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Tuesday for funding terrorism by using cryptocurrency to send financial support to groups operating in Syria.After Judge Althea Drysdale imposed the sentence, the woman, Victoria Jacobs, 44, yelled that the trial had been “a sham” and “Islamophobic” as officers led her from the courtroom.Dressed in a tan sweatshirt and khaki pants, Ms. Jacobs had appeared irritated as soon as she sat down at the defense table and had asked that her handcuffs be removed.In February, a Manhattan jury convicted Ms. Jacobs of three felony counts of providing support for an act of terrorism after a trial that lasted about two weeks. The jury also found her guilty of conspiracy, money laundering and criminal possession of a weapon.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, had said that the case was the first time terrorism funding had been prosecuted in New York State Supreme Court.“Victoria Jacobs was fully immersed in online terrorist ecosystems, raising and laundering thousands of dollars and procuring bomb-making instructions and illegal knives for Syrian terrorist groups,” Mr. Bragg said in a statement Tuesday. “From the safety of her Manhattan apartment, she enabled these groups to access our city’s financial markets in order to help further their mission.”In an indictment filed against Ms. Jacobs last year, prosecutors said that she provided “material support” to a group that the U.S. State Department had designated as a terrorist organization, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Ms. Jacobs, who lived on the Upper East Side, provided more than $6,000 to a training group, Malhama Tactical, that “fought with and provided special tactical and military training” to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, prosecutors said.Ms. Jacobs was also accused of laundering more than $12,000 on behalf of Malhama Tactical by receiving cryptocurrency and Western Union and MoneyGram wires from its supporters around the world and sending the funds to Bitcoin wallets the group controlled.

Biden orders spy agencies to share more cyber-threat intel with banks - The White House issued a policy directive Tuesday that will require the U.S. intelligence community to share more cybersecurity threat information with banks and other companies and create a regularly updated list of systemically important entities that are particularly important for national stability reasons to protect from cyberattacks. Among the other impacts of the national security memorandum, the directive reaffirms the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, is the national leader on efforts to secure the nation's critical infrastructure, which includes the financial services sector, and gives the U.S. Department of Treasury influence over which banks receive the new designation of "systemically important."The new designation is different from similar ones issued by other regulatory bodies — for example, the Financial Stability Board's "systemically important financial institutions" designation. Banking sector trade groups expressed support for how the designation will be implemented."These changes will better align risk designations to avoid duplication and ensure they are tailored to the risks facing financial institutions today," said Paul Benda, executive vice president of risk, fraud and cybersecurity for the American Bankers Association.

BankThink: CFPB should not thwart the bipartisan effort to combat identity fraud | American Banker - The White House recently touted new bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress aimed at cracking down on identity fraud through significant investments and policy changes. Crimes like identity theft have a real impact on consumers: Traditional identity fraud cost Americans areported $23 billion in 2023. Channeling federal policies and resources toward reducing identity crime is a worthwhile and potentially effective effort that can help mitigate this harm.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is preparing to announce new rules that could upend those efforts. Director Rohit Chopra has made clear his plans to impose new regulations on data brokers and restrictions on the sale of some types of data. Motivating this is a desire to rein in certain marketing practices, particularly when those practices allow bad actors to compromise consumer privacy using broker data. One such data source in the CFPB's crosshairs is called credit header data, which is made available by the major credit reporting agencies and includes the basic identity information (name, date of birth, address, Social Security number) of credit-active Americans. Analytics relying on this and other data often underpins technology solutions used by companies, law enforcement and government agencies to detect and prevent identity fraud.In other words, to meet the identity fraud reduction objectives championed by President Biden and Congress requires use of the exact data, by some of the same companies, that may be negatively impacted by the CFPB's rules. The responsible use of consumer data is something all policymakers should support. How and for what purposes consumer information is commoditized and sold is a reasonable question for federal regulators to ask. However, the answer to that question should not compromise uses of consumer data that not only uphold a safe and sound banking system, but also support the broader societal good of reducing identity crime.The CFPB can achieve its stated objectives while avoiding major unintended consequences. Federal policies have long recognized that identity verification and fraud reduction are critical processes that should be preserved and not inappropriately caught up in unrelated or adjacent policies. Entire bodies of regulation, such as those related to anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer obligations, exist to ensure financial institutions only open accounts for consumers whose identities can be verified. The provision of law that created the CFPB itself in several instances directs the bureau to exempt fraud prevention activities and data from certain rulemakings.

TD fined $6.7 million under Canada money-laundering rules - Toronto-Dominion Bank was fined a record C$9.19 million ($6.7 million) for five violations of Canada's anti-money-laundering and terrorist-financing laws. The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada announced the penalty Thursday, saying it conducted a compliance examination last year and imposed the fine on April 9. Along with other violations, Toronto-Dominion failed to submit suspicious-transaction reports in cases where it was reasonable to suspect the transfers were tied to money laundering or terrorist financing, along with other violations, the agency said in a statement. Canada's second-largest lender said the penalty is administrative and unrelated to ongoing probes it faces in the U.S. over its handling of suspicious customer transactions. The bank said earlier this week that it's set aside an initial $450 million in relation to one of three regulatory investigations in the U.S. and noted the Department of Justice is also still investigating. Toronto-Dominion could face additional monetary and other penalties, it said. "As part of their regular review of Canadian financial entities, Fintrac identified five specific administrative findings that require our attention," Toronto-Dominion spokesperson Lisa Hodgins said in an emailed statement. "Improvements have been made and more are underway."

TD takes $450 million provision in U.S. money-laundering probe - Toronto-Dominion Bank has taken an initial provision of $450 million in connection with U.S.investigations into its anti-money-laundering practices and said it expects additional penalties to come. Canada's second-largest bank disclosed the charge in a statement Tuesday after markets closed. It cautioned that the full cost of the fines it might eventually face is "unknown and not reliably estimable at this time." Toronto-Dominion is in discussions with three U.S. regulators plus the Department of Justice to settle the matter. The $450 million provision is related to talks with just one of those regulators.Analysts have previously estimated that the bank might ultimately face fines ranging from $500 million to $1 billion or more."TD's AML program was insufficient to effectively monitor, detect, report and respond to suspicious activity. Work has been underway to remedy these deficiencies," the bank said. "TD is a strong institution with the capital, liquidity and capacity to fund the critical effort currently underway to strengthen its AML program, invest in the business and continue to serve its customers and clients with excellence."

Fulton details Philly boost it's getting from Republic First takeover - Fulton Financial's acquisition of the now defunct Republic First Bancorp in Philadelphia isn't without risk. Given the in-market nature of the transaction, there is significant branch overlap, not to mention Republic First's $54 million of investment office loans in Metropolitan New York, a market that has seen its share of challenges recently. And Republic First struggled financially in recent years, drawing the ire of activist investors. It was taken over by regulators on Friday with Fulton in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, acquiring substantially all of its assets and deposits. That said, the upside potential is substantial. The $32.8 billion-asset Fulton is projecting 20% earnings-per-share accretion in 2025 as it taps Republic First's highly liquid investment portfolio to pay down higher-cost wholesale funding while adding tens of thousands of new retail customers and $2.9 billion of loans. "Integrating and executing is paramount," Fulton Financial Chairman and CEO Curt Myers said Monday on a conference call with analysts. "While on an accelerated timeline, we believe execution risk is manageable." According to Myers, Fulton "has some history" with Republic First, including due diligence conducted prior to its failure Friday. While Myers did not offer details as to when or why the due diligence took place, the exercise gives Fulton "an enormous advantage" going forward, Joseph Lynyak, an attorney, said Monday in an interview. As a result, Fulton knows "what to keep and what it doesn't want to keep…how to combine operations and enhance profits." "That is a really valuable tool if they were actively doing due diligence several months ago," Lynyak, a partner at Dorsey and Whitney in Washington, D.C., added. Republic First's takeover — which will result in transaction costs of about $30 million — "is squarely in line with our growth strategy to build market share in our existing footprint," Myers said. Indeed, the takeover "nearly doubles our presence across the Greater Philadelphia region. We now have a significantly more extensive network and provide products and services to about 60,000 more consumer customers and 11,000 more business partners across the region," Myers said. Built into Fulton's accretion estimate is a 40% cost-save target. Myers said that no decisions have been made, though the company would evaluate possible branch closures and staff downsizing over the next 90 days. According to its most recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. call report, Republic First, whose bank subsidiary did business as Republic Bank, spent $135.1 million on noninterest expenses in 2023. Fulton aims to push annual operating expenses to $60 million.

BankThink: The failure of Republic First is a blip — in a rising tide of blips -- Leo Tolstoy famously said "All happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The same may be said of banks — all healthy and solvent banks are the same, but each distressed bank is unhappy in its own way.Republic First in Philadelphia, the troubled $6 billion-asset institution that has been circling the bowl for more than a year, finally failed last Friday. Much of the bank, including $4 billion of deposits, was acquired by Fulton Bank, a $27 billion-asset rival based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Republic First customers woke up Monday morning as Fulton customers, and by all accounts the failure was routine, even mundane.Certainly, Republic First was unhappy in its own way. Not one but two activist investor groupsled a charge to oust then Chairman Vernon Hill back in 2022, a feat that was ultimately accomplished a few months later. But arrangements to raise capital and/or arrange a sale came to naught, and ultimately the pressure of underwater securities and a lack of investor confidence left regulators no choice but to tell the bank that its time was up.The failure of Republic First, then, is on the one hand a blip — banks fail all the time (or at leastthey should), and when they do there is usually a boring, happy bank willing to step in and ensure that life goes on. But what is striking about the failure of Republic First is that there are many unhappy banks out there that are unhappy in substantially the same way — and may be facing the same inevitable demise.Since the banking industry began walking in the Silicon Valley of death last March, it has been apparent that there are many small and midsize banks out there with big portfolios of underwater assets, big exposures to now-undesirable commercial real estate loans and a disproportionate reliance on low-cost uninsured deposits. Those seem like boneheaded mistakes, but a lot of banks made them for good reasons: Intelligent people said a few years ago that inflation was transitory and that long-dated bonds were a safe play; uninsured deposits are cheap and the risk of failure is low (ha ha!); and CRE is one of the few industry sectors in which smallish regional banks can compete head-to-head with their bigger competitors.Second-guessing how and why these banks got in this place is perhaps a column for another day. A bigger and more pressing question is what these banks — and, by turns, the Biden administration and bank regulators — are going to do to get to the other side of whatever this is. From a bank's perspective, there are four choices: Do nothing, self-liquidate, merge with a perhaps also-distressed peer or be acquired by a larger bank. Doing nothing runs the substantial risk of having one of those remaining three choices made for you, so even though that is what many banks are likely to do, let's leave that aside for a moment. Self-liquidation likewise will result in one's assets being acquired by either another healthy (likely larger) bank or another unhealthy (likely peer) bank, so we can leave that one aside, too. So the real question is: Should these banks be acquired by the larger banks, or should such an acquisition be discouraged? Politically, there is a great deal of resistance to the idea of helping the biggest banks get even bigger — when JPMorgan Chase acquired most of First Republic's portfolio last year, regulators got a lot of heat about it from the banking-hawk wing of the Democratic Party. But when much smaller New York Community Bank acquired the assets of the failed Singature Bank around the same time, it proved to be more than NYCB could handle, leading to an emergency cash infusion, a new CEO and a lot of work left to be done.

BankThink: 'Well-capitalized' banks keep failing; it's time for a reality check | American Banker -- On Friday April 26, the FDIC closed Republic First Bank in a failure estimated to cost the deposit insurance fund $667 million. Like other recent failed banks, Republic First's official regulatory capital levels appeared to be in solid shape right up to its collapse. Just as with Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic, however, regulatory capital ratios for Republic First were misleadingly strong because large unrealized losses caused by higher interest rates — which drive down the value of fixed-rate loans and bonds — had been added back. Either we should fix bank regulatory capital rules to reflect reality and be useful to supervisors and investors, or we should do away with the hundreds of pages of rules and millions of dollars of expense they entail.All banks have experienced hits to their balance sheets as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the fastest pace in 40 years. No one would pretend the value of an investment in their 401(k) hasn't changed. But capital regulations allow banks to do just that. The vast majority of banks are not required to recognize unrealized losses when calculating their regulatory capital ratios, unless they sell the underlying bonds or loans. Regardless of the vagaries of regulatory capital rules, a bank like Republic First cannot escape economic reality if its loans and securities portfolio are worth so much less than they used to be that the bank becomes economically insolvent. They will ultimately take the hit, either now by selling assets at a loss, or over time as low-yielding assets reduce earnings and erode capital. I estimate that collectively banks face between $700 billion and $1 trillion in unrealized losses due to higher interest rates. I also estimate that, as of year-end, more than 150 banks in the country had capital (adjusted to reflect unrealized losses) below the trigger for regulatory intervention known as prompt corrective action. But I dare you to find any hint of the problems causing these repeated bank failures in the official regulatory capital ratios in the industry as a whole, which have remained largely constant at about 15% of risk-based assets despite hundreds of billions of dollars in unrealized losses. For recent bank failures, reported regulatory capital levels hid clearly insolvent banks: Silicon Valley reported $13.7 billion in regulatory capital, with more than $17.7 billion in unrecognized losses; First Republic reported $19.1 billion in capital, with more than $22 billion in embedded losses; and most recently Republic First had reported almost $300 million in regulatory capital, but was clearly insolvent with more than $400 million in unrealized losses on securities alone.How could a critical metric like regulatory capital for banks be so wildly inaccurate in failing to identify clearly insolvent banks that require action? The simple answer is that the rules as drafted focus on credit risk and largely ignore interest rate risk, permitting banks to ignore rate-driven losses on securities and loans. When interest rates are stable or declining, this quirk in the bank capital rules doesn't matter. But, as is the case today, when rates increase sharply and the value of bank securities and loans drops materially, this blind spot, or loophole, becomes critically important.

BankThink: Regulators' rhetoric about bank failures doesn't match their actions | American Banker - Last month, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. published a paper entitled "Overview of Resolution Under Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act" on its website. It is most helpful as it explains how the FDIC interprets the untested U.S. bank resolution regime for big banks regulated in Title II (and, to some extent, Title I) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.At a video-recorded event on April 10 entitled "Addressing 'Too big to fail': FDIC update onorderly resolution of global systemically important banks," hosted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg explained that the agency was working on the paper well before the 2023 bank failures and that the purpose of the paper is similar to the Bank of England's "Purple Book" explaining the Bank of England's approach to bank resolution (first published ten years ago, most recently updated on Dec. 15).This might explain, partly, why the FDIC paper does not reflect on the 2023 U.S. bank failures. In his speech, Gruenberg praised the FDIC's framework for big banks' resolution.Gruenberg's comments did not acknowledge the manifest shortcomings of the FDIC's resolution framework. Following the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, bank-specific insolvency proceedings ("bank resolution") have been adopted in the U.S. and other G20 nations to prevent future taxpayer-funded bank bailouts. That framework has proven to be unworkable for political reasons, as shown by the 2016-2017 and 2023 European and U.S. bank bailouts. Yet, regulators insist on its overall appropriateness.As a result, the post-crisis resolution strategy has not fulfilled its "no more bailouts" objective, and the actual measures taken by regulators have contributed to increased market concentration in the banking sector (fewer and bigger banks), along with greater public debt burdens, thereby impairing the ability of governments to deal with future financial crises.Under crisis conditions, bank resolution requires governments to incur taxpayer-funded obligations to maintain the liquidity of the failing bank during the resolution process, even if some of those costs can be subsequently recovered from the banking industry. Financial crises are crises of confidence. Therefore, the primary goal of financial crisis management must be to restore public trust in banks.As long as the primary goal of financial crisis management remains taxpayer protection, we cannot have an effective framework, and governments will continue spending even more on bank bailouts than before the 2007-2008 crisis.

Regulators issue guidance to community banks on third-party risks - Federal regulators have issued fresh guidelines for how community banks should manage risks related to third-parties.The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a 30-page guidebook on Friday explaining how small banks should approach all phases of their external partnerships, from planning to due diligence, contract negotiation to ongoing oversight and, ultimately, termination. "Third-party relationships present varied risks that community banks are expected to appropriately identify, assess, monitor, and control to ensure that their activities are performed in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations," the agency said in a joint statement. "These laws and regulations include, but are not limited to, those designed to protect consumers and those addressing financial crimes."The publication elaborates on the formal guidance issued by the Fed, FDIC and OCC last June. It does not introduce new standards but provides specific considerations and source materials for each of the previous established principles. It also includes illustrative examples of how they might be put into practice.The report notes that failing to properly manage third parties could expose banks to financial losses or other risks, and could result in harm to customers. The fresh guidance is the latest step by the Washington agencies to remind banks that they are on the hook for things non-bank partners and service providers do on their behalf. "Reliance by banks on third-party service providers has grown considerably in recent years, and with that reliance comes the potential for greater cyber risk," said Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr during a speech in January. "It is ultimately the responsibility of banks to manage their third-party risk, and we have historically seen gaps in this regard."Friday's report notes that the advice is not applicable solely to community banks and could be a point of reference for larger institutions, too.

FirstSun to switch regulators due to delays tied to HomeStreet deal -- Denver-based FirstSun Capital has announced plans to switch to a Texas state charter due in part to concern the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would delay approving itspending merger with HomeStreet in Seattle. FirstSun's subsidiary bank, Sunflower Bank, is headquartered in Dallas, making the Texas charter a natural fit, the company said this week in a press release. The company has beenexpanding its Texas footprint since entering the Lone Star State in 2017. Switching from a national bank to a state-chartered bank also would make the Federal Reserve its primary federal regulator."We decided this is a better long-term path for the combined organization," FirstSun CEO Neal Arnold said during a subsequent conference call with analysts. "We believe the Fed and the state of Texas have a firm understanding of our business and the nature of our [commercial real estate] risks."In our discussions with the OCC in Washington, it became obvious that we would not gain near-term approval given their recent experience with multifamily and CRE positions," Arnold continued. "We believe their position also resided in the fact that they were not the primary regulator for HomeStreet. The Fed is taking a very different approach, in part due to the changes we have made through the transaction."Both Arnold and HomeStreet CEO Mark Mason, who also participated on the call, appeared to chide the OCC for failing to recognize the significantly safer risk profile of rent-controlled multifamily loans in Los Angeles compared with those in New York. HomeStreet, an active multifamily lender, does business in Southern California. HomeStreet has no exposure to New York and other East Coast markets. "Our belief is CRE is not the same across all categories and all geographies, and it's particularly distinguished when comparing West Coast multifamily and East Coast, New York multifamily," Arnold said. "We've had a significant interaction with the state of Texas and the Fed, and we believe there's a pathway for this merger to be approved."Beyond adopting a Texas charter, FirstSun also said it would raise more capital than it initially planned as part of the transaction and said it would downsize the payout offered to HomeStreet shareholders. Under the plan announced Tuesday, investors would receive 0.3867 FirstSun shares for each share of HomeStreet stock, down from 0.4345 shares, an 11% reduction. The all-stock transaction was valued at $286 million when it was announced in January. The companies now expect to close the deal in the fourth quarter, later than the original estimate of mid-2024 when the transaction was announced.FirstSun initially planned to raise $175 million in equity to support the deal. After Tuesday's announcement, the equity raise will increase to $235 million and the company will seek another $48 million in subordinated debt. The revised exchange ratio was implemented "to partially offset some of the earnings friction created by the higher-for-longer [interest rate] impact on HomeStreet's net interest income and bottom line," Arnold said. HomeStreet agreed to sell itself after its stock dropped last year amid fallout from spiking interest rates and its high levels of multifamily loans. It started 2024 with a $4 billion multifamily portfolio.

Republicans zero in on bank merger policy in new push — House Republicans teed up a number of bank merger policy bills on Wednesday in a hearing that took aim at regulators' updated policies regarding M&A activity, though bipartisan support for making those reforms appears limited. The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy, chaired by Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., had three bills on the discussion agenda. The first bill, proposed by Barr, would aim to shorten the amount of time that banks wait to hear back from regulators on their merger applications. The other two look at regulatory burden from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Barr said are "part of the onslaught of confusing and misguided regulatory efforts that force mergers as banks need to spread their ever-growing regulatory burden over additional business activities." Republicans also criticized new guidance documents from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which are designed to counter "rubber stamp" merger approval. Those moves come amid a policy push from the Biden administration to crack down on consolidation across industries, including banking. The guidance from the OCC, which has been singled out by community advocates as being excessively permissive in mergers, removes a timeout clause for the agency to consider new applications. "With varying proposed conditions for merger approval, the FDIC, OCC, and the Fed would be operating with different approval processes and standards, injecting additional uncertainty, incentives for regulator shopping, and negative consequences for the dynamism of our banking system," Barr said.

FDIC sides with Colorado in court tussle over high-cost loans --The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is siding with the state of Colorado in its fight with industry groups over a Centennial State law that aims to crack down on high-cost consumer lenders.In a new court filing, the FDIC argues that Colorado can impose an interest rate cap on loans made by state-chartered banks that are headquartered in the other 49 states. A Colorado law that would enshrine such a rate ceiling is scheduled to take effect on July 1.Three industry groups — the American Fintech Council, the American Financial Services Association and the National Association of Industrial Bankers — have sued to block the 2023 law. They are asking a federal judge to impose a preliminary injunction that would halt the law's implementation.The FDIC is not a party to the Colorado litigation, but it does have a key voice on the legal issues that are at play in the case. So the agency's opinion, expressed in a friend-of-the-court brief, could carry weight with the judge."Its view should be authoritative," said Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group that supports the Colorado law. The plaintiffs' legal argument relies partly on a 1998 opinion by the FDIC's general counsel. But that 26-year-old opinion is not applicable in the context of the issues raised by the lawsuit, the FDIC argued in its April 23 filing.The Colorado law is part of a long-running push by officials in Democratic-led states to stamp out attempts by high-cost nonbank lenders to get around state interest rate caps by partnering with banks. During Chairman Martin Gruenberg's tenure, the FDIC has been supportive of those blue-state efforts.

BankThink: Yes, your bank has a supply chain, and it's fraught with risk | American Banker -- During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, much attention was paid to the disruption of organizations' supply chains. Nearly every manufacturer, logistics firm and retailer was impacted in some way by unexpected kinks in supply chains that spanned the globe. While banks don't have a clearly defined supply chain in the traditional sense, increasingly the ecosystem of third-party providers that they work with — whether it be around cloud, infrastructure or operations — is becoming a supply chain of essential providers and one that isvulnerable to risk.Regulators are taking notice. When Michael Hsu, the acting head of the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, spoke at the Institute of International Bankers' annual Washington conference last month, one of the areas he said the OCC would double down on is the concept of a supply chain in banking. "The provision of banking services increasingly resembles global manufacturing supply chains, with their efficiencies, complexities and vulnerabilities," he said. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, or DORA, requires banks to have a plan in place to continue operations if something happens to a digital and data services third-party provider. Other markets, including the U.S., could one day follow suit with their own legislation.In their efforts to modernize and develop new products at pace by embracing cloud, AI and other emerging technologies, banks are pushing the boundaries and ceding key functions and roles to intermediaries, including fintechs. The advantages of doing so are clear — heightened productivity, scale, potentially lower costs, a superior customer experience — but so are the risks. The interconnectivity of these companies along the supply chain could create a concentration bubble if something were to go wrong.As a result, the safety and soundness of the banking system is not just about the four walls of the bank anymore. There have been several high-profile recent examples where a bank's supply chain failed, whether it be an accidental billion-dollar payment, disruption to customer-facing applications or a key supplier suddenly going belly up.Banks' risk and compliance functions and their suppliers need to be more closely attuned to their evolving web of suppliers and up their games to make it more resilient.Consider this hypothetical example: How quickly could your bank switch to another supplier if its software-as-a-service vendor that was providing core banking services was the victim of a cyberattack and suddenly went down? Do you know where the source code is located and whether it has been verified by a third party? Is it running in primary and secondary data centers or somewhere more challenging to reach? There are dozens more examples that could test a bank's resilience.For banks, it's no longer enough to have the contractual terms in place with key suppliers. Oversight and understanding of the relationship with any provider that plays a material role in the bank's business is critical and needs to include risk management and resilience.And for the suppliers that are forming relationships with banks, they need to grasp their potential liability. In the future, it's likely that organizations won't be able to solely rely on the assurance that the bank owns the risk, or that banks won't look to penalize suppliers if they are the inadvertent or advertent cause of damage or loss. Are these supply chain firms ready for the potential higher cost of compliance and regulatory exposure as they take on more work closer to regulated activities? And how do they create the right operating model that prioritizes success, risk management and resilience? For fintechs, in particular, the bar will have to be raised and it will become more costly to do business. There's also a less obvious threat that could spill over — the risk of stifling innovation. This risk vs. reward tradeoff must be carefully considered by all parties involved, including regulators. All of this points to a more fraught and interconnected risk landscape for banks. In fact, 81% of risk management executives at retail and commercial banks believe that complex, interconnected new risks are emerging at a more rapid pace than ever before, according toAccenture's last Global Risk Study. Seventy-two percent agree that their firm's risk management capabilities and processes have not kept pace with the rapidly changing risk landscape.

'Like wildfire:' Rising check fraud pits small banks against big banks --Check fraud is wreaking havoc on community banks, which are urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to crack down on their large bank competitors for failing to comply with rules meant to stop criminals from opening accounts. Small banks say they're taking hits to earnings and face negative impacts on their business customers. Many bankers say that check fraud is so rampant that it is leading to a loss of faith in the banking system and the U.S. Postal Service. "Check fraud is out of hand," said Chris Doyle, president and CEO of the $2.2 billion-asset Texas First Bank, in Texas City, Texas. "It's an all-out war and we have people fighting it every day at our bank. The capture and washing of checks is out of control. There's no security around checks. It's too easy to wash them and commit fraud."Community banks are laying the blame for check fraud mostly on seven large banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, for not doing enough to police new account openings. Checks are intercepted by criminals through the mail, altered by check washing, and then deposited in so-called drop accounts or mule accounts, which are later emptied. Small banks end up repaying their customers whose checks are stolen, but it can take months for them to get reimbursed by large banks in contravention of longstanding Uniform Commercial Code rules. David G. Schroeder, senior vice president at the Community Bankers Association of Illinois, is leading the effort to get regulators to take action. He says check fraud is "increasing like wildfire," while "the regulatory response is moving at a glacial pace." Schroeder sent a 16-page letter last month to acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chair Martin Gruenberg and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that asks for joint supervisory guidance and rigorous examination and enforcement of the largest banks' compliance with "know your customer" rules. State bank trade groups want regulators to clearly identify best practices and expectations around fraudulent checks, including prompt reimbursement to small banks that currently take months to resolve.Bankers also want regulators to shift the liability for check fraud losses to the so-called banks of first deposit, which tend to be the largest banks. "The core problem is that the largest banks in the nation — which includes BofA, Chase and Wells Fargo — are allowing fraudulent accounts to be opened with mobile devices or online into which fraudulent checks are deposited," said Schroeder. "Checks that clear back to community banks are funding thriving criminal enterprises."

FHLB officials concerned about supervisory implementation of FHFA report — Top officials with the Federal Home Loan Bank System told a conference of community bankers Wednesday that they fear the Federal Housing Finance Agency will resort to its supervisory powers to implement some of its policy goals around reforming the Home Loan Bank System. Ryan Donovan, CEO of the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks, told a group of bankers assembled at the Independent Community Bankers of America Washington Summit Wednesday morning that many of the most durable changes outlined in the report would have to be done either by Congress or through a time-consuming rulemaking process, both of which are unlikely. "You're dealing with the most dysfunctional Congress in the history of the Republic, and you have a calendar problem," Donovan said, referring to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's perspective on advancing the goals of the report. "We're here on the first day of May of a presidential election year. There is no way, if they started a rulemaking tomorrow, that they would be able to complete it before the election, and the outcome of the election is uncertain. So … it's reasonable to assume they're going to try to do as much as possible through the supervisory process to have an impact." Federal Housing Finance Agency Deputy Director for Bank Regulation Joshua Stallings said in a statement to American Banker that the agency "continues to work to address recommendations" in last year's report, which "will include ongoing supervision, guidance, and rulemaking." "Much of this work will entail additional collaboration and communication with stakeholders," Stallings said. "While there are additional recommendations which would require congressional action, the FHFA must ensure the FHLBanks support the entirety of their mission, not only the parts they prefer." The FHFA issued an expansive report last year examining the Home Loan Bank System, including scores of recommendations for how it could be made more efficient and expand housing availability. Those recommendations include doubling the amount of Home Loan bank profits directed to affordable housing programs from 10% to 20%; more regular evaluations of whether Federal Home Loan bank borrowers are creditworthy; and requiring borrowers to have a substantial stake in housing to be eligible for advances. Kirk Malmburg, president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, thanked ICBA members for bringing up the importance of the Home Loan Bank System to their businesses, and reiterated that the most important potential changes to the system would have to be enacted by Congress. "As FHFA is weighing in [on the future of the FHLB system], sometimes they forget: Congress set up the Federal Home Loan Bank System," Malmburg said. "Congress said what our mission is. And in our minds, Congress should be where you go back to a lot of these potential changes." Kris Williams, president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, said that even without any regulatory changes, the Home Loan Bank System last year contributed 50% more to affordable housing programs, or AHPs. But she said those increases shouldn't be mandated by law or regulation. "We wanted to do that through voluntary programs as opposed to the regulatory-driven ones," Williams said. "Why? Because, has anybody done an AHP application? They can be a little bit difficult, right? There's a lot of paperwork. Even our down payment programs that help first time homebuyers can be a little arduous at times. So, you know, we wanted to do it through voluntary programs, ones that we knew [were] needed in the district."

Delinquencies of Floating-Rate Office CMBS Loans Hit 20%, But Fixed-Rate Loans at 4.7% By Wolf Richter The delinquency rate of office mortgages that have been securitized into Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS) – investors on the hook here, not banks – spiked to 7.4%, powered by floating-rate mortgages, whose delinquencies spiked to 20%.Data provided by Trepp, which tracks and analyzes CMBS. These are loans that have not paid interest for 30 days or more, after the 30-day grace period expired.In 2012 and 2013, delinquency rates of office CMBS eventually exceeded 10%, as one of the many consequences of the Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, not interest rates, which the Fed had pushed toward zero back then.This time around, landlords are dealing with two big issues even as the economy is growing rapidly: ballooning vacancies and much higher interest rates that are tearing up floating-rate loans.During the now bygone era of near-0% policy rates and massive QE by the Fed, the delinquencies of floating-rate office mortgages were below 0.5%, (red in the chart below), and well below the 2% delinquency rates of fixed-rate mortgages (blue in the chart below).But during the current era of historically more normal interest rates, delinquency rates of floating-rate office mortgages rose to 20%, while delinquency rates of fixed-rate mortgages rose to 4.7% (data via Trepp):CRE mortgage rates have more than doubled, and floating-rate mortgages adjust to them. There loans are often interest only, and when the rate doubles, the payment doubles. This was behind many of the office-loan failureswe’ve discussed here for the past two years.Many of these loans have relatively short terms, such as two years, or five years, and then there is the added risk of the landlord not being able to refinance the loan at maturity because the new rates are so high that the property is not economically feasible at the amount needed to pay off the maturing loan.In many cases, landlords just walked away. For example,Blackstone walked away from an office tower in Manhattanit had purchased for $605 million in 2014, and later refinanced with an interest-only floating-rate mortgage. Thespecial servicer, representing the CMBS holders, has now sold the loan for $200 million. The losses were spread across equity and debt investors, not banks. The new owner, sitting on this much lower cost base, might develop the tower into a residential property.Office availability rates have reached 30% and more in some cities, and are above 20% in most cities, due to a structural problem as Corporate America has discovered it doesn’t need, never needed, and won’t ever need all this office space that it has leased. High vacancy rates mean the cash flow from rents is diminished, and that makes it harder to make the payments of any type of mortgage – fixed or floating rate.There is not a good way out, buildings are being drastically repriced, quite a few of them are sold for close to land value to be redeveloped into residential. And it’s a huge mess. Lower mortgage rates, should they re-appear, won’t alter the structural problem.During the era of interest-rate repression, nearly all (98%) of office mortgages were fixed-rate, according to Trepp. Makes sense as interest-rates were very low.But when interest rates began to rise, landlords needing to finance or refinance a building switched to floating-rate loans because rates were a little lower than fixed rates at the time. Apparently, they were hoping all along the way that rates wouldn’t rise any further, and would soon drop again, as the Fed would be forced to pivot or whatever, which has turned out to be a colossally wrong wager.Currently, about 37% of CMBS office loans are floating rate (red), and 63% are fixed rate:

Big Government's Crackdown On Hedge Fund Home-Buying Looms "I strongly support free markets," but this "corporate large-scale buying of residential homes seems to be distorting the market and making it harder for the average Texan to purchase a home," Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on X in March. He added, "This must be added to the legislative agenda to protect Texas families." I strongly support free markets. But this corporate large-scale buying of residential homes seems to be distorting the market and making it harder for the average Texan to purchase a home. This must be added to the legislative agenda to protect Texas families.https://t.co/VBs6Rluh3K— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) March 15, 2024Institutional ownership of single-family homes has surged in recent years, with many firms turning the bulk of these homes into rentals. This has triggered a massive uproar with some lawmakers who want to end Wall Street's home-buying mania. The Wall Street Journal reports that several lawmakers in Nebraska, California, New York, Minnesota, and North Carolina have sponsored bills requiring large single-family hedge fund owners to dispose of their portfolios or risk hefty fines. The bill mentioned the most in the corporate press, called the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act, was introduced in the Senate by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley with companion legislation introduced in the House by Rep. Adam Smith. The Merkley/Smith bill could force hedge funds to divest their single-family home portfolios over the course of ten years. Lawmakers argue that "investors that have scooped up hundreds of thousands of houses to rent out are contributing to the dearth of homes for sale and driving up home prices," according to WSJ, noting that limited housing supply has made housing unaffordable for the vast majority of Americans. Data from John Burns Research and Consulting shows that the share of institutional buying of single-family homes topped 25% in the first quarter—near a record high.

MBA: Mortgage Applications Decreased in Weekly Survey 0 From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey Mortgage applications decreased 2.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 26, 2024.The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.4 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 3 percent from the previous week and was 1 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 14 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Inflation remains stubbornly high, and this trend is convincing markets that rates, including mortgage rates, are going to stay higher for longer. No doubt, this is a headwind for the housing and mortgage markets, with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate increasing to 7.29 percent last week, the highest level since November 2023,” . “Application volume for both purchase and refinances declined over the week and remain well below last year’s pace. One notable trend is that the ARM share has reached its highest level for the year at 7.8 percent. Prospective homebuyers are looking for ways to improve affordability, and switching to an ARM is one means of doing that, with ARM rates in the mid-6 percent range for loans with an initial fixed period of 5 years.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) increased to 7.29 percent from 7.24 percent, with points decreasing to 0.65 from 0.66 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.The first graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index. According to the MBA, purchase activity is down 14% year-over-year unadjusted. Purchase application activity is up slightly from the lows in late October 2023, and below the lowest levels during the housing bust. The second graph shows the refinance index since 1990.With higher mortgage rates, the refinance index declined sharply in 2022, and has mostly flat lined since then.

Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in March; Up 6.6% Year-over-year Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Freddie Mac House Price Index Increased in March; Up 6.6% Year-over-year A brief excerpt: On a year-over-year basis, the National FMHPI was up 6.6% in March, up from up 6.5% YoY in February. The YoY increase peaked at 19.1% in July 2021, and for this cycle, bottomed at up 0.9% YoY in April 2023. ...As of March, 11 states and D.C. were below their previous peaks, Seasonally Adjusted. The largest seasonally adjusted declines from the recent peak were in West Virginia (-3.1%), D.C. (-2.9%), North Dakota (-2.0%), and Idaho (-1.0%). For cities (Core-based Statistical Areas, CBSA), here are the 30 cities with the largest declines from the peak, seasonally adjusted. Austin continues to be the worst performing city.

Realtor.com Reports Active Inventory Up 31.7% YoY; New Listings Up 13.5% YoY --On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For March, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 23.5% YoY, but still down almost 38% compared to March 2017 to 2019 levels. Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 31.7% YoY.
Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report: Weekly Housing Trends View—Data Week Ending April 20, 2024
• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 31.7% above year-ago levels.
For the 24th straight week, there were more homes listed for sale versus the prior year, giving homebuyers more options. As mortgage rates have climbed to new 2024 highs, we could see sellers adjust their plans, since nearly three-quarters of potential sellers also play to buy a home. However, the long build-up to listing–80% have been thinking about selling for 1 to 3 years–could mean that this year’s sellers are less-deterred by market fluctuations.
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up this week, by 13.5% from one year ago. Since February, the number of homes newly listed for sale has surpassed year ago pace by double-digit with the exception of a few weeks around this year’s spring holidays. As reported in the Realtor.com March housing report, newly listed homes trailed behind every prior year except 2023’s record low.
Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. Inventory was up year-over-year for the 24th consecutive week. However, inventory is still historically very low.New listings remain below typical pre-pandemic levels although increasing.

Realtor.com Reports Active Inventory Up 33.3% YoY; New Listings Up 10.4% YoY --On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For April, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 30.4% YoY, but still down almost 36% compared to April 2017 to 2019 levels. Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 33.3% YoY. Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report: Weekly Housing Trends View—Data Week Ending April 27, 2024

• Active inventory increased, with for-sale homes 33.3% above year-ago levels. For the 25th straight week, there were more homes listed for sale versus the prior year, giving homebuyers more options. As mortgage rates have climbed to new 2024 highs, we could see sellers adjust their plans, since nearly three-quarters of potential sellers also plan to buy a home.
• New listings–a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale–were up this week, by 10.4% from one year ago.Since February, the number of homes newly listed for sale has surpassed year ago pace by double-digit with the exception of a few weeks around this year’s spring holidays. As reported in the Realtor.com April housing report, newly listed homes trailed behind every prior year except for the pandemic-induced starting point of 2020 and the record low of 2023.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. Inventory was up year-over-year for the 25th consecutive week. However, inventory is still historically very low.New listings remain below typical pre-pandemic levels although increasing.

Housing April 29th Weekly Update: Inventory up 2.5% Week-over-week, Up 31.8% Year-over-year Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 2.5% week-over-week. Inventory bottomed in mid-February this year, as opposed to mid-April in 2023, and inventory is now up 12.6% from the February bottom.This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research. As of April 26th, inventory was at 556 thousand (7-day average), compared to 543 thousand the prior week. Inventory is still far below pre-pandemic levels. The second graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.The red line is for 2024. The black line is for 2019. Note that inventory is up almost double from the record low for the same week in 2022, but still well below normal levels.Inventory was up 31.8% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 30.9%), and down 35.9% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 37.2%). Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is slowly closing. Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 6.4% year-over-year in February - S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for February ("February" is a 3-month average of December, January and February closing prices). This release includes prices for 20 individual cities, two composite indices (for 10 cities and 20 cities) and the monthly National index. From S&P S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index’s Upward Trend Persists in February 2024 The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 6.4% annual gain in February, up from a 6.0% rise in the previous month. The 10- City Composite showed an increase of 8.0%, up from a 7.4% increase in the previous month. The 20- City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 7.3%, up from a 6.6% increase in the previous month. San Diego continued to report the highest year-over-year gain among the 20 cities with an 11.4% increase in February, followed by Chicago and Detroit , with an increase of 8.9%. Portland, though still holding the lowest rank after reporting two consecutive months of the smallest year-over-year growth, had a significant increase in annual gain of 2.2% in February. ... The U.S. National Index, the 20-City Composite, and the 10-City Composite, for the first time since November 2023, showed a pre-seasonality adjustment increase of 0.6%, 0.9% and 1.0% respectively. After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a month-over-month increase of 0.4%, while the 20-City and the 10-City Composite both reported month-over-month increases of 0.6%. “For the second consecutive month, all cities reported increases in annual prices, with San Diego surging 11.2%. On a seasonal adjusted basis, home prices have continued to break through previous all-time highs set last year” The first graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted Composite 10, Composite 20 and National indices (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000). The Composite 10 index was up 0.6% in February (SA). The Composite 20 index was up 0.6% (SA) in February. The National index was up 0.4% (SA) in February. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in all three indices. Annual price changes were above expectations.

Comments on February House Prices, FHFA: House Prices Up 7.0% YoY 00Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Case-Shiller: National House Price Index Up 6.4% year-over-year in February; FHFA: House Prices Increased in February, up 7.0% YoY. Excerpt: S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for February ("February" is a 3-month average of December, January and February closing prices). January closing prices include some contracts signed in October, so there is a significant lag to this data. Here is a graph of the month-over-month (MoM) change in the Case-Shiller National Index Seasonally Adjusted (SA). The MoM increase in the seasonally adjusted (SA) Case-Shiller National Index was at 0.41%. This was the thirteen consecutive MoM increase, and a larger MoM increase than the previous three months. On a seasonally adjusted basis, prices increased month-to-month in 19 of the 20 Case-Shiller cities. Only Tampa saw a month-over-month decrease in February. Seasonally adjusted, San Francisco has fallen 8.2% from the recent peak, Seattle is down 6.1% from the peak, Portland down 4.0%, and Phoenix is down 3.1%.

Inflation Adjusted House Prices 2.4% Below Peak; Price-to-rent index is 7.5% below 2022 peak --Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Inflation Adjusted House Prices 2.4% Below Peak Excerpt:It has been over 17 years since the bubble peak. In the February Case-Shiller house price index released on Tuesday, the seasonally adjusted National Index (SA), was reported as being 71% above the bubble peak in 2006. However, in real terms, the National index (SA) is about 10% above the bubble peak (and historically there has been an upward slope to real house prices). The composite 20, in real terms, is 1% above the bubble peak.People usually graph nominal house prices, but it is also important to look at prices in real terms. As an example, if a house price was $300,000 in January 2010, the price would be $429,000 today adjusted for inflation (43% increase). That is why the second graph below is important - this shows "real" prices.The third graph shows the price-to-rent ratio, and the fourth graph is the affordability index. The last graph shows the 5-year real return based on the Case-Shiller National Index…The second graph shows the same two indexes in real terms (adjusted for inflation using CPI).In real terms (using CPI), the National index is 2.4% below the recent peak, and the Composite 20 index is 3.1% below the recent peak in 2022. Both indexes were mostly flat in February in real terms.In real terms, national house prices are 10.2% above the bubble peak levels. There is an upward slope to real house prices, and it has been over 17 years since the previous peak, but real prices are historically high.

Construction Spending Decreased 0.2% in March --From the Census Bureau reported that overall construction spending increased:Construction spending during March 2024 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,083.9 billion, 0.2 percent below the revised February estimate of $2,087.8 billion. The March figure is 9.6 percent above the March 2023 estimate of $1,901.4 billion.Private spending decreased and public spending increased:Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,600.8 billion, 0.5 percent below the revised February estimate of $1,608.5 billion. ...In March, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $483.1 billion, 0.8 percent above the revised February estimate of $479.3 billion. This graph shows private residential and nonresidential construction spending, and public spending, since 1993. Note: nominal dollars, not inflation adjusted.Residential (red) spending is 8.8% below the recent peak in 2022.Non-residential (blue) spending is 1.1% below the peak two months ago.Public construction spending is 1.1% below the peak three months ago. The second graph shows the year-over-year change in construction spending.On a year-over-year basis, private residential construction spending is up 4.4%. Non-residential spending is up 11.1% year-over-year. Public spending is up 17.9% year-over-year.This was below consensus expectations for 0.3% increase in spending, and total construction spending for the previous two months was revised down. This is probably just the start of weakness for private non-residential construction.

Hotels: Occupancy Rate decreased 0.3% Year-over-year --From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 20 April -- U.S. hotel performance showed mixed results from the previous week, according to CoStar’s latest data through 20 April. ... 14-20 April 2024 (percentage change from comparable week in 2023):
• Occupancy: 66.8% (-0.3%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$158.60 (+1.5%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$105.94 (+1.2%)
The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average. The red line is for 2024, black is 2020, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2023. Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking last year, and slightly above the median rate for the period 2000 through 2023 (Blue). The 4-week average of the occupancy rate will move mostly sideways seasonally until the summer travel season.

Q1 2024 GDP Details on Residential and Commercial Real Estate --The BEA released the underlying details for the Q1 advance GDP report on Friday. The BEA reported that investment in non-residential structures decreased at a 0.1% annual pace in Q1. The first graph shows investment in offices, malls and lodging as a percent of GDP. Investment in offices (blue) increased slightly in Q1 and was up 4.1% year-over-year. And declined slightly as a percent of GDP. Investment in multimerchandise shopping structures (malls) peaked in 2007 and was down about 1% year-over-year in Q1. The vacancy rate for malls is still very high, so investment will probably stay low for some time. Lodging investment decreased in Q1 compared to Q4, and lodging investment was up 1% year-over-year. All three sectors - offices, malls, and hotels - were hurt significantly by the pandemic. And the office vacancy rate is at a record high, and this will hold down office investment. The second graph is for Residential investment components as a percent of GDP. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, RI includes new single-family structures, multifamily structures, home improvement, Brokers’ commissions and other ownership transfer costs, and a few minor categories (dormitories, manufactured homes). Investment in single family structures was up to $433 billion (SAAR) (about 1.5% of GDP) and was up 16% year-over-year. Investment in multi-family structures was down in Q1 compared to Q4 to $133 billion (SAAR), but still up 12% YoY. Investment in home improvement was at a $351 billion (SAAR) in Q1 (about 1.2% of GDP). Home improvement spending was strong during the pandemic but has declined as a percent of GDP recently. Note that Brokers' commissions (black) increased sharply as existing home sales increased in the second half of 2020 but declined when mortgage rates increased. Brokers' commissions were up 3% year-over-year in Q1.

Energy expenditures as a percentage of PCE --During the early stages of the pandemic, energy expenditures as a percentage of PCE hit an all-time low of 3.3% of PCE. Then energy expenditures increased to 2018 levels by the end of 2021. With the invasion of Ukraine, energy expenditures as a percentage of PCE increased further in 2022. Here is an update through the March 2024 PCE report. This graph shows expenditures on energy goods and services as a percent of total personal consumption expenditures. This is one of the measures that Professor Hamilton at Econbrowser looks at to evaluate any drag on GDP from energy prices. Data source: BEA. In general, energy expenditures as a percent of PCE has been trending down for decades. The huge spikes in energy prices during the oil crisis of 1973 and 1979 are obvious. As is the increase in energy prices during the 2001 through 2008 period. In August March 2024, energy expenditures as a percentage of PCE were at 4.1% of PCE, up from 4.0% in February, and down from the recent peak of 5.2% in June 2022. This is close to the pre-pandemic level of PCE.

Vehicles Sales Increase to 15.7 million SAAR in April; Up Slightly YoY -- Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for April: U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales Trudge Along with Tepid Growth in April (pay site). Affordability continued to dominate the sales mix as gains in entry-price CUV and car segments more than offset downturns recorded in most other segments. While the SAAR and the daily selling rate were up, raw volume declined year-over-year due to April 2024 having one fewer selling day than in 2023. Sales in the first four months of 2024 totaled 5.1 million units, up 3% from January-April 2023’s 4.9 million. This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards Auto's estimate for April (red). Sales in April (15.74 million SAAR) were up 1.6% from March, and up 0.4% from April 2023.The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. Sales in April were slightly above the consensus forecast.

Fatal crashes involving Ford’s partially automated driving system prompt investigation --Federal regulators have opened an investigation into Ford’s partially automated driving system after two fatal crashes.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in recent filings that its Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) is looking into collisions involving Ford’s BlueCruise — which Ford describes as its “hands-free highway driving technology.” The feature includes a hands-free lane change assist and in-lane repositioning in certain vehicles. The filing states that the ODI received reports of two incidents of Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles that “collided with stationary vehicles” and each resulted in at least one fatality. The filing noted that both collisions occurred at night on the “travel lanes of controlled-access highways.” BlueCruise can only be engaged while the vehicle is on certain roadways and in vehicles where the feature is equipped. Ford states on its website that BlueCruise does not replace drivers, who need to be paying attention when the feature is engaged. Initial investigations of the two incidents found that BlueCruise was engaged immediately before the crashes, the filings state. NHTSA said the investigators “will evaluate the system’s performance of the dynamic driving task and driver monitoring,” according to the filing.

ISM® Manufacturing index Decreased to 49.2% in April -- (Posted with permission). The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion. The PMI® was at 49.2% in April, down from 50.3% in March. The employment index was at 48.6%, up from 47.4% the previous month, and the new orders index was at 49.1%, down from 51.4%.From ISM: manufacturing PMI® at 49.2% April 2024 Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® “The Manufacturing PMI® registered 49.2 percent in April, down 1.1 percentage points from the 50.3 percent recorded in March. The overall economy continued in expansion for the 48th month after one month of contraction in April 2020. (A Manufacturing PMI® above 42.5 percent, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy.) The New Orders Index moved back into contraction territory after one month of expansion, registering 49.1 percent, 2.3 percentage points lower than the 51.4 percent recorded in March. The April reading of the Production Index (51.3 percent) is 3.3 percentage points lower than March’s figure of 54.6 percent. The Prices Index registered 60.9 percent, up 5.1 percentage points compared to the reading of 55.8 percent in March. The Backlog of Orders Index registered 45.4 percent, down 0.9 percentage point compared to the 46.3 percent recorded in March. The Employment Index registered 48.6 percent, up 1.2 percentage points from March’s figure of 47.4 percent. This suggests manufacturing contracted slightly in April. This was below the consensus forecast.

More Stagflation Signals As Manufacturing Surveys Show Soaring Prices, Orders Tumble -- While 'hard' data has been improving recently (albeit then downwardly revised a month later), it is the 'soft' survey data that has collapsed amid Bidenomics.And this morning continued that trend as S&P Global's US Manufacturing PMI (survey) fell from 51.9 in March to 50.0 as the final print for April (49.9 flash). ISM's Manufacturing survey also missed, dropping from 50.3 to 49.2 (contraction).Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said:“Business conditions stagnated in April, failing to improve for the first time in four months and pointing to a weak start to the second quarter for manufacturers. Order inflows into factories fell for the first time since December, meaning producers had to rely on orders placed in prior months to keep busy.“However, there are some encouraging signs. The drop in orders appears to have been largely driven by reduced demand for semi-manufactured goods – inputs produced for other firms – as factories adjust their inventories of inputs. In contrast, consumer goods producers reported a further strengthening of demand, hinting that the broader consumer-driven economic upturn remains intact.“Producers on the whole also seem confident enough in the business outlook to continue adding to payroll numbers at a pace that compares well with the average seen over the past two years, investing further in operating capacity.But, under the hood it was not pretty - ISM New Orders tumbled, Employment rose modestly, but Prices Paid soared (to their highest since June 2022)...Prices charged for goods rose at a slower rate than the 11-month high seen in March. But, as S&P Global notes, the rate of increase nevertheless remains elevated by historical standards – and well above the average seen in the decade prior to the pandemic – as firms continued to pass higher commodity prices on to customers.However, input costs increased sharply, with the rate of inflation quickening for the second consecutive month. Higher prices for oil and metals were mentioned in particular.So, stagnating growth and sharply rising input costs... Stagflation signals everywhere.\

BLS: Job Openings Decreased to 8.5 million in March - From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary 00 The number of job openings changed little at 8.5 million on the last business day of March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, the number of hires changed little at 5.5 million while the number of total separations decreased to 5.2 million. Within separations, quits (3.3 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.5 million) changed little. The following graph shows job openings (black line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS. . Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs. The spike in layoffs and discharges in March 2020 is labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data. Jobs openings decreased in March to 8.49 million from 8.81 million in February. The number of job openings (black) were down 12% year-over-year. Quits were down 13% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (See light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

Job Openings Tumble, Quits Plunge, Hires Unexpectedly Crater To January 2018 Levels -- After several months of relatively boring JOLTS prints, this morning Janet Yellen's favorite labor market indicator once again got exciting, and not in a good way. Starting at the top, according to the March JOLTS reported, job openings unexpectedly tumbled by 325K - the biggest drop since October 2023 - from an upward revised 8.813 million in February to just 8.488 million, far below the 8.690 million expected - and the lowest number since February 2021 when it last printed below 8 million. The 192K miss to estimates of 8.690 million, was the biggest since last October. According to the DOL, in March job openings decreased in construction (-182,000) and in finance and insurance (-158,000), but increased in state and local government education (+68,000) because when all else fails, just "hire" more government zombies, ideally in the form of unionized illegal aliens to boost wages and inflation. The kicker: construction jobs openings plunged from 456K to 274K, a 182K one-month drop and the biggest on record! In the context of the broader jobs report, in March the number of job openings was 2.059 million more than the number of unemployed workers (which the BLS reported was 6.429 million), down significantly from last month's 2.355 million and the lowest since June 2021.

ADP: Private Employment Increased 192,000 in April - From ADP: ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 192,000 Jobs in April; Annual Pay was Up 5.0% -- Private sector employment increased by 192,000 jobs in April and annual pay was up 5.0 percent year-over-year, according to the April ADP® National Employment Report produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (“Stanford Lab”). ... “Hiring was broad-based in April,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Only the information sector – telecommunications, media, and information technology – showed weakness, posting job losses and the smallest pace of pay gains since August 2021.” This was above the consensus forecast of 180,000. The BLS report will be released Friday, and the consensus is for 210 thousand non-farm payroll jobs added in April.

April Employment Report: 175 thousand Jobs, 3.9% Unemployment Rate From the BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 175,000 in April, and the unemployment rate changed little at 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing. ... The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised down by 34,000, from +270,000 to +236,000, and the change for March was revised up by 12,000, from +303,000 to +315,000. With these revisions, employment in February and March combined is 22,000 lower than previously reported. The first graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021. Total payrolls increased by 175 thousand in April. Private payrolls increased by 167 thousand, and public payrolls increased 8 thousand. Payrolls for February and March were revised down 22 thousand, combined.The second graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968. In April, the year-over-year change was 2.80 million jobs. Employment was up solidly year-over-year. The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged at 62.7% in April, from 62.7% in March. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. The Employment-Population ratio decreased to 60.2% from 60.3% (blue line). I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later. The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate increased to 3.9% in April from 3.8% in March. This was below consensus expectations; and February and March payrolls were revised down by 22,000 combined.

April jobs report: counterbalancing March’s blockbuster good report, the first significant “ding” to the soft landing scenario in months --In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing; and more specifically:

Whether there is further deceleration in jobs gains compared with the last 6 month average, vs. a “soft landing” stabilization - and even whether the recent increase in monthly jobs numbers signifies a re-strengthening.
Based on the leading relationship of initial and continuing jobless claims, whether the unemployment rate is neutral or decreasing; or whether there is further weakness.
Based on the leading relationship of the quits rate to average hourly earnings, whether YoY wage growth would continue to decline slightly. It did continue to decline to a new post-pandemic low - but still at 4%.

All three of these metrics came in negative, in the sense of the lowest gain in jobs since last October, and the 4th lowest in over 3 years. The unemployment rate increased. And average hourly wage growth decreased to its lowest rate in almost 3 years as well. Here’s my in depth synopsis.

175,000 jobs added. Private sector jobs increased 167,000. Government jobs increased by 8,000.
February was revised downward by -34,000, while March was revised upward by 12,000, for a net decline of -22,000. This continues the pattern from nearly every month in the 16 months of a steady drumbeat of downward net revisions.
The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report, showed a paltry 25,000 increase. On a YoY basis, in this series only 529,000 jobs, or 0.3%, have been gained. This is the lowest YoY increase since the pandemic lockdowns.
The U3 unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 3.9%, tying February’s 2 year high.
The U6 underemployment rate also rose 0.1% to 7.4%, 0.9% above its low of December 2022.
Further out on the spectrum, those who are not in the labor force but want a job now rose 194,000 to 5.637 million, vs. its post-pandemic low of 4.925 million set just over 12 months ago.
the average manufacturing workweek, one of the 10 components of the Index of Leading Indicators, declined -0.1 hours to 40.7 hours, and is still down -0.8 hours from its February 2022 peak of 41.5 hours.
Manufacturing jobs rose 8,000.
Within that sector, motor vehicle manufacturing jobs declined -2,100.
Truck driving declilned -300.
Construction jobs increased 9,000.
Residential construction jobs, which are even more leading, rose by 2,800 to another new post-pandemic high.
Goods producing jobs as a whole rose 14,000 to another new expansion high. These should decline before any recession occurs.
Temporary jobs, which have generally been declining late 2022, fell by another -16,400, and are down almost -500,000 since their peak in March 2022. This appears to be not just cyclical, but a secular change in trend.
the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or fewer rose 73,000 to 2,262,000.
Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.06, or +0.2%, to $29.83, for a YoY gain of +4.0%. With revisions, the YoY growth in these have been sliding almost relentlessly since 2 years ago. This is the lowest YoY gain since June 2021, vs. its post-pandemic peak of 7.0% YoY in March 2022.
the index of aggregate hours worked for non-managerial workers declined -0.2%, and is up 1.4% YoY.
the index of aggregate payrolls for non-managerial workers rose 0.1%, and is up 5.5% YoY, the second lowest YoY advance since the end of the pandemic lockdowns. This is 2.0% above the most recent YoY inflation rate, and despite the decline in growth remains powerful evidence that average working families have continue to see gains in “real” spending money. On the other hand, most likely once April’s CPI is reported, there will be a month over month decrease.
Professional and business employment declined -4,000. These tend to be well-paying jobs. This series had generally been declining since last May, but in the previous 4 months had resumed their increase; but are still only higher by 0.4% from one year ago.
The employment population ratio declined -0.1% to 60.2%, vs. 61.1% in February 2020.
The Labor Force Participation Rate remained steady at 62.7%, vs. 63.4% in February 2020.

SUMMARY: After last month’s extremely strong report, it was perhaps inevitable that this month’s report would be relatively disappointing. And disappoint it did, as the Establishment survey was very mixed, and the Household report was *very* weak.There were some good points, as job growth continued in manufacturing, construction, and goods production in general. I would expect all of these to turn down before.- in the case of the first two, well before - any recession were to hit. And the reason for the relatively poor headline jobs number was the paltry growth in government jobs. Growth in the private sector was actually average for the past 18 months.But these were overwhelmed by most of the bad points. In the Establishment Survey, auto, trucking, and temporary help jobs declined. Revisions were once again net negative. The manufacturing workweek declined slightly. Worse, the aggregate number of hours worked declined. And aggregate payrolls rose a paltry 0.1%. In the Household Survey, only 64,000 jobs were gained, while unemployment increased by 25,000, driving an increase in the unemployment and underemployment rates. The YoY gain of 0.3% in jobs in this survey historically has been recessionary. On net, this report mainly balances last month’s great report. It doesn’t set off any alarm bells, but it’s the first significant ding in the “soft landing” hypothesis in many months.

Comments on April Employment Report – McBride - The headline jobs number in the April employment report was below expectations, and February and March payrolls were revised down by 22,000 combined. The employment population ratio decreased, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9%. Construction employment increased 9 thousand and is now 604 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing employment increased 8 thousand and is now 181 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Earlier: April Employment Report: 175 thousand Jobs, 3.9% Unemployment Rate Prime (25 to 54 Years Old) Participation Since the overall participation rate is impacted by both cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old. The 25 to 54 years old participation rate increased in April to 83.5% from 83.4% in March, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 80.8% from 80.7% the previous month. Both are above pre-pandemic levels. Average Hourly Wages The graph shows the nominal year-over-year change in "Average Hourly Earnings" for all private employees from the Current Employment Statistics (CES). There was a huge increase at the beginning of the pandemic as lower paid employees were let go, and then the pandemic related spike reversed a year later. Wage growth has trended down after peaking at 5.9% YoY in March 2022 and was at 3.9% YoY in April. The number of persons working part time for economic reasons increased in April to 4.47 million from 4.31 million in March. This is slightly above pre-pandemic levels. These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that increased to 7.4% from 7.3% in the previous month. This is down from the record high in April 2020 of 23.0% and up from the lowest level on record (seasonally adjusted) in December 2022 (6.5%). (This series started in 1994). This measure is above the 7.0% level in February 2020 (pre-pandemic). This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more. According to the BLS, there are 1.250 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job, up from 1.246 million the previous month. This is down from post-pandemic high of 4.174 million, and up from the recent low of 1.050 million. This is close to pre-pandemic levels. Through April 2024, the employment report indicated positive job growth for 40 consecutive months, putting the current streak in 5th place of the longest job streaks in US history (since 1939). Summary: The headline jobs number in the April employment report was below expectations, and February and March payrolls were revised down by 22,000 combined. The employment population ratio decreased, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9%. A solid report.

Walmart closing health care clinics, ending virtual services Walmart will close all of 51 of its health care centers across five states and end virtual care services, the company announced Tuesday. After five years since the launch of Walmart Health centers, the company said it determined “there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue.” The Walmart Health centers were started in 2019 and were located next to Walmart Supercenters. The health centers offer labs, X-rays, primary and urgent care, dental work and behavioral health services. The centers are located in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas. “The decision to close all 51 health centers across five states and shut down the virtual care offering was not easy,” the company wrote in a statement. “We understand this change affects lives – the patients who receive care, the associates and providers who deliver care and the communities who supported us along the way.” “This is a difficult decision, and like others, the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time,” the statement continued.

Family of teen shot after ringing doorbell at wrong house sues homeowner --The family of Ralph Yarl, the Black teenager who was shot in the head after going to the wrong house, have announced a civil lawsuit in Missouri against the accused shooter and the homeowners association. The complaint, filed on behalf of Yarl’s mother, Cleo Nagbe, names Andrew Lester, the shooter, and the Highland Acres Lakeside Heights Homeowners Association. Neither the association nor Lester’s attorney, Steve Salmon, were immediately available for comment. The suit alleges that “carelessness” and “negligence” led Yarl to “suffer and sustain permanent injuries.”The lawsuit argues that Yarl “never posed or issued a threat to Defendant, Andrew Lester.” It adds that the association “was aware of or should have been aware of Defendant, Andrew Lester’s, propensity for violence, access to dangerous weapons and racial animus.”The suit also states that Yarl “suffered and sustained permanent injuries, endured pain and suffering of a temporary and permanent nature, experienced disability and losses of normal life activities, was obligated to spend large sums of money for medical and attention and suffered other losses and damages.” Yarl, who turns 18 next month, suffered a traumatic brain injury after the shooting, according to his mother, but he continues to heal. Lee Merritt, the family’s attorney, said the civil suit is to “give the family a chance to be in the driver’s seat in pursuing justice for Ralph,” according to The Associated Press. Lester shot Yarl, who was 16 at the time, on April 13, 2023. Yarl said he mixed up the street name of the house where he was sent to pick up his siblings. Lester, 84, has been charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action for the shooting. His trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7.At Lester’s hearing last year, Yarl testified that he rang the doorbell and then, as Lester opened the inner door, he reached for the storm door. Lester told Yarl, “Don’t come here ever again.” Lester then shot Yarl in the head, knocking him to the ground, and then shot the teen in the arm.Lester was detained by police for about two hours the night of the shooting. He told police he saw Yarl pulling on an exterior door handle and that he was “scared to death” due to the boy’s size, according to court documents. But Yarl’s family said he was 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds.Still, Lester’s defense team is arguing the retired aircraft mechanic acted in self-defense.

Florida Governor DeSantis signs new law mandating teaching the “evils of communism” to children as young as five -- On April 24, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into state law a directive to teach young people throughout the state’s public schools about the “evils of communism” beginning in kindergarten and extending through high school. The measure pledges “age-appropriate” curriculum changes across K-12. Currently, the state standards require anti-communist instruction in seventh grade and high school. Coursework on “Victims of Communism Day,” a designation DeSantis manufactured in 2022, is a graduation requirement. Educators have noted that no similar instruction on fascism or its history exists within the state education standards. “Is there also a bill mandating teaching the horrors of fascism in our schools?” said one commentator on Facebook, adding, “BTW—our capitalism is not working so well.” Another critic cited the long use of anti-communism across the American South “to quell movements for freedom, justice and equality.” An educator denounced the measure and cited the fact that Florida’s teachers’ pay ranks 48th in the nation and per-pupil funding ranks “F” nationally. The sponsors of the original bill, which received Republican and Democratic support, say they were motivated by the fact that that “too many” American youths today view communism in a positive light. Indeed, every poll for the last decade has shown growing numbers of young people identifying as “socialist.” Since 2021, when 54 percent of Gen Z said they viewed capitalism negatively, these numbers have only increased. The governor’s goal, his office said, is to prepare students “to withstand indoctrination on communism at colleges and universities.” DeSantis’s reactionary mandate was accompanied two days later by a call for repression against the explosion of protests against Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza on campuses including those in Florida. Libeling protesters as “violent” without citing any evidence, the governor called for reprisals against pro-Palestinian students, including the expulsion of American students and the deportation of international students.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten promotes slander of Gaza protests as “antisemitic,” covers for brutal government repression --As mass arrests take place at universities across the US, from New York to Ohio to California to Minnesota and more, Randi Weingarten, the millionaire president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has closed ranks with the bipartisan slander of protesters as “antisemitic.”As police were advancing on students at Columbia University in New York on Monday, Weingarten wrote on Twitter/X: “The antisemitic chants from protestors outside of Columbia University are horrific, unacceptable examples of antisemitism. This hatred and vitriol understandably puts Jewish students, professors and the community on edge. Hate speech that threatens violence is not protected speech under the law & must be condemned–-calling for divestment is protected free speech, calling for the killing of Jews is not. I've said it before and I'll say it again: hate does not belong on campus.”Weingarten is repeating the “big lie” that the protests are dominated by antisemitism and even, according to her, “killing Jews.” In reality, there has not been a single antisemitic instance which she can point to, and a large number of people arrested at the protests are Jewish.Weingarten’s statement is a serious attack, which puts the immense resources of the AFT and its 1.7 million members, most of whom are opposed to Israel’s genocide, behind the attack on the rights of students and teachers to protest. It underscores the need for educators to organize a rebellion against the corrupt pro-war bureaucracy Weingarten heads, which falsely claims to speak in their name.She is contributing to an environment which could result in deaths. Right-wing senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley have already called for the deployment of the National Guard like at Kent State in 1970, where guardsmen killed four anti-Vietnam War protesters. But her statement is hardly surprising. Weingarten, a member of the Democratic National Committee with close ties to the Clintons, “Genocide Joe” Biden and other war criminals, personifies the role of the AFL-CIO bureaucracy as a mouthpiece for US imperialism abroad and austerity at home. A self-proclaimed Zionist, she has given political cover for the Democratic Party’s central role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has officially killed over 30,000 Palestinians--mostly children and women--and left virtually all infrastructure in ruins.The ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza includes the deliberate and systematic destruction of the education system, which the UN has referred to as “scholasticide.” In addition to destroying every university in the Gaza Strip, Israel has sought to obliterate K-12 education. A report published Tuesday by Education Cluster, using satellite footage to verify ground reports, found that over 85 percent of school buildings in Gaza have been damaged, and 72.5 percent require full or major reconstruction to be functional again. Israel has killed at least 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors, according to the UN.From the beginning, all of Weingarten’s efforts have been against the emergence of opposition to the genocide. Initially, she vociferously opposed a ceasefire resolution in a discussion of the AFL-CIO leadership, insisting on Israel’s “right to defend itself.” Her only opposition came from American Postal Workers Union president Mark Dimondstein, who is Jewish, exposing her slanders of antisemitism as a conscious lie.

As University of Michigan cracks down on protesters, AFT-affiliated lecturers' union blocks strike, signs sellout tentative contract - On April 23, three days after their contract had expired, University of Michigan (U-M) lecturers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. But the last thing the leadership of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization (LEO) wanted was a work stoppage. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT)-affiliated union, the bargaining agent for the university’s 1,800 non-tenure track lecturers, refused to authorize a walkout and instead initialed a tentative agreement on April 26. The deal sells out the fight for a livable wage and pay parity across U-M’s three campuses (Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint). Other provisions have not been made public. According to the union, the TA includes base salary increases of 8 percent, 6 percent, 6 percent and 5 percent over the next four years for lecturers on the Ann Arbor campus. At UM-Flint and UM-Dearborn, lecturers receive only 3 percent base salary increases in each of the contract’s four years, with lump sum payments of 3 percent in the first year, 2 percent in the second year and $1,000 in the final year. The lecturers have been fighting unsuccessfully for years to obtain a living wage. They earn between $57,000 and $89,000 per year, while bearing huge responsibilities for the education of students. The University of Michigan has an endowment now estimated at some $18 billion and charges about $60,000 a year for out-of-state students. These wage bumps—which will be largely eaten up by current and future inflation and do not compensate for past losses in real wages—are an insult to hard-pressed educators who have faced years of record inflation and soaring childcare expenses. Lecturers also demanded a reduction in course loads, increased professional development and pay parity between the Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses. The rushed settlement was a political decision. It was imposed by the U-M administration and the LEO leadership in a joint effort to prevent a strike under conditions of growing student protests against the genocide in Gaza in the US and internationally, including at the University of Michigan. The U-M campuses have been convulsed by pro-Palestinian protests for months. On April 22, students set up an encampment on the Ann Arbor campus’ central “Diag” in solidarity with Columbia University students and thousands of other protesters who are being slandered as “antisemites” by the Biden administration and the Republicans, suspended and expelled by university administrations, and attacked and arrested by the police. At U-M, the encampment is in direct defiance of a new “anti-disruption” policy recently announced by President Santa Ono and the Board of Regents, which amounts to a de facto ban on protests.

Riot police drag away protesters at University of Texas as Gaza tensions flare - — State troopers in riot gear moved on Monday afternoon to clear out students attempting to occupy a quad at the University of Texas at Austin. Dozens of protesters were arrested on site, escalating tensions that began Wednesday when the pro-Palestinian protest movement sought to establish a camp on the South Mall, immediately below the looming UT Tower, which houses campus administration. University President Jay Hartzell has taken a notably hard-line position toward the protests, which have erupted on campuses across the country, spurring a backlash among hundreds of faculty who have moved to hold a no-confidence vote seeking his removal. Dozens of protesters were arrested by state police Wednesday. Thursday featured renewed protests — but no occupation, minimal police and no arrests. But Monday, tensions flared once again after students moved quietly and without warning to university administration to set up a small protest camp in the shadow of the Tower. Protesters brought tents and umbrellas to shield themselves from the suffocating heat, and other students surrounded the encampment and linked arms to keep police back. State troopers arrived early in the afternoon, and by 3 p.m., a line of police with face shields, body armor and billy clubs stood in a circle around the slowly shrinking encampment, as other officers — including university and city police — slowly pulled or cajoled protesters out of the camp. With temperatures nearing 90 degrees, sweat-stained police officers negotiated with students sitting or lying prone on the grass, dragging off those who would not leave willingly. Every time a student was grabbed — many of them going limp, so that two or three officers were needed to remove them — hundreds of students surrounding the small encampment erupted in shouts of “Let them go! Let them go!” and “We are peaceful! You are violent” and, simply, “Shame.” But the dominant shout, as police dragged away student protesters one by one, was “Off our campus! Off our campus!” and “We don’t see a riot here! Why are you in riot gear?” Protest leaders are pressuring the administration to divest from arms manufacturers and Israeli companies. But Hartzell’s decision to call Texas state police onto campus last week opened another axis of controversy — forcing a debate over whether campus administration should enlist law enforcement to quash student speech or dislodge a student occupation. On Monday, 539 faculty members wrote that Hartzell “needlessly put students, staff and faculty in danger. Dozens of students were arrested for assembling peacefully on their own campus.” Fifty-seven people were arrested at Wednesday’s protest, but city prosecutors dropped all charges, citing lack of probable cause. Hartzell, the faculty wrote, “has shown himself to be unresponsive to urgent faculty, staff, and student concerns. He has violated our trust.”Faculty announced intentions to hold a no-confidence vote, which could potentially lead to Hartzell’s removal.

Escalating campus protests come to a boil - Colleges across the country are barreling toward crisis as ~~pro-Palestinian~~ anti-genocide student protesters show no signs of relenting, posing growing risks to the schools and threatening to become a major election-year issue. The unrest, which could be coming to a head at Columbia University as demonstrators blow past a school-imposed Monday deadline, has already caused one college to cancel its main commencement ceremony and is causing a rift between liberals supportive of Israel and those who oppose its handling of the Hamas war. Republicans, meanwhile, have been unrelenting in their criticism of the protesters and the university administrators. “Instead of cancelling graduation ceremonies out of fear of antisemitic disruptions, institutional leaders should grow a backbone and fight back against antisemitism on their campuses with decisive action and moral clarity,” House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) told The Hill on Monday. But ~~pro-Palestinian~~ anti-genocide protesters are not planning on going away any time soon and see graduation ceremonies as an opportunity to make their voices heard. “We have students here who are dedicated to stay here all throughout commencement and even beyond over the summer. We are dedicated to staying as long as it takes to achieve divestment for Israel,” Amira Pierotti, a student at Wesleyan University, told The Hill. The University of Southern California (USC) is so far the only school that has dropped its main graduation ceremony due to unrest on campus. USC was already taking heat over its decision to drop the traditional speech from this year’s class valedictorian, who is a pro-Palestinian supporter. And fears of interruptions during graduations are not unfounded, as protesters say it is prime time for getting more faces to see their demands. From the Wesleyan’s “Palestinian Solidarity Camp,” which is in the field beside where commencement will take place, Pierotti said the celebration of graduation cannot move forward without acknowledging what is happening in Gaza. “We are going to make sure that we will be visible, and that Wesleyan cannot continue with business as usual without physically and viscerally remembering the genocide which we are profiting from and contributing to,” they said. Columbia, where the encampment protests began and which so far intends to move forward with its commencement, told students Monday they had to disperse from the camp by 2 p.m. and sign a document pledging to obey university rules on their way out or they would be suspended from the school. It also mentioned how it will adjust its protesting rules after commencement takes place. “Exams are beginning and thousands of your peers are due to graduate. These are among the most significant aspects of students’ academic programs. Many of this year’s graduates were deprived of a graduation celebration from high school because of the pandemic. For many of their families, this will be the first time anyone in their family has completed college and received a degree,” the university said. “We urge you to remove the encampment so that we do not deprive your fellow students, their families and friends of this momentous occasion. The University will offer an alternative venue for demonstrations after the exam period and commencement have concluded,” the document read. That 2 p.m. deadline has now come and gone, with the encampment still in place. Republicans have been united in their support of Israel and opposition to the student protests, but Democrats are divided amid growing controversy over Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza. A group of more than 20 Democratic House members sent a letter to Columbia University on Monday urging the administrators to end the encampment. “We, the undersigned, write to express our disappointment that, despite promises to do so, Columbia University has not yet disbanded the unauthorized and impermissible encampment of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish activists on campus,” the Democrats wrote. “As a result of this disruption on campus, supported by some faculty members, many students have been prevented from safely attending class, the main library, and from leaving their dorm rooms in an apparent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” they added. Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), however, are among those who defended the demonstrators and accused the schools of violating the protesters’ rights. “I had the honor of seeing the Columbia University anti-war encampment firsthand. Contrary to right-wing attacks, these students are joyfully protesting for peace and an end to the genocide taking place in Gaza,” Omar, whose daughter was among those arrested in New York, said after visiting with the activists. “I’m in awe of their bravery and courage.” Democrats acknowledge the issue divides their party, but say they are still united in their opposition to Republicans and their standard-bearer, former President Trump. “What I will say to those who may have some disagreements with those who are in Democratic Party, they should be reminded that the disagreements we may appear to have on the surface do not compare to the disagreements we have with the other side beneath the surface,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic political strategist and founder and CEO of Blueprint Strategy LLC. “And I think that’s an important perspective for those who are out there protesting and those who are using their right to express themselves. I think it’s important for them to have context about this.” But students may not see it the same way, viewing casting a vote for either Trump or President Biden as a non-starter and potentially opting out of the election entirely.

Columbia Student Protesters Break Into, Barricade Themselves Into Building After Deadline To Disperse Passes - Dozens of Columbia University students broke into Hamilton Hall on the New York campus early Tuesday and barricaded themselves inside, hours after the school began suspending students who violated a deadline to disperse from a pro-Palestinian encampment."The safety of every single member of this community is paramount," said Ben Chang, vice president for communications at Columbia University, in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, adding "In light of the protest activity, we have asked members of the University community who can avoid coming to the Morningside campus to do so; essential personnel should report to work according to university policy." As the Epoch Times' Katabella Roberts notes further; According to The New York Times, the students began occupying the hall at around 12:35 a.m.The protesters linked arms and blocked off the main entrance to the building at the Ivy League institution after previously marching around campus to chants of “free Palestine,” according to the publication.A statement shared on the social media platform Instagram by student groups said the protesters had “taken matters into their own hands,” and would remain in the building until the university “divests from death.” Protesters have been urging the university to pause its investments in companies that, they claim, are profiting from Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The statement included video footage that appeared to show the students carrying metal barricades into Hamilton Hall as other students cheered them on.“This escalation is in line with the historical student movements of 1968, 1985, and 1996 which Columbia repressed then and celebrates now,” the statement read. “This action will force the university to confront the blood on its hands.”

Canadian students defy threats of state repression with anti-genocide encampment at Montreal’s McGill University -- Following the example of students in the United States, Europe, and Australia, students at McGill University’s downtown Montreal campus set up an encampment Saturday to oppose the Israeli regime’s genocide against the Palestinians and Canadian imperialism’s complicity in it. Representatives of the political establishment and university administration have responded furiously, urging the deployment of ruthless state repression to crush the peaceful protest. Students and faculty at the encampment on the campus of McGill University in downtown Montreal, April 27, 2024 The encampment was initiated by students who set up two dozen tents on Saturday and quickly won enthusiastic support from students at other universities and local residents. Seeking to discredit the protest but inadvertently acknowledging the widespread support it enjoys, McGill’s administration wrote in a statement Monday, “The number of individuals who have set up tents on campus has tripled since Saturday. We have become aware that many of them, if not the majority, are not members of the McGill community.” Invoking the catch-all justification for the brutal suppression by the Canadian ruling establishment of opposition to the genocide in Gaza since October 2023, the university asserted that it had seen “antisemitic language and intimidating behaviour” at the protest camp, without providing a shred of evidence to back this up. Making an ominous threat, the university added that the protesters violate both the university’s policies as well as the law. Higher Education Minister in the right-wing chauvinist Quebec government Pascale Déry gave her stamp of approval Sunday to a state-led crackdown on the encampment. She said that the “state” is “very preoccupied and concerned about the situation on campus because we’ve seen what happened in the last couple weeks and days in the United States and Europe.” Déry confirmed that she is in regular contact with Public Security Minister François Bonnardel so that the situation does not “get out of control.” In other words, Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government wants the same police state measures used in the US, where hundreds of arrests have been made, and in Germany, where close to a thousand cops stormed and violently dispersed a Palestine Congress in Berlin April 12. Students are demanding that the university divest from Israeli companies and speak out against the genocide. A statement from a protest organizer sent to CBC called for McGill and Concordia universities to “divest from funds implicated in the Zionist state as well as [cut] ties with Zionist academic institutions.” The organizers cited 50 companies financed by McGill that are “complicit in upholding the apartheid regime of Israel.” One of the organizers said Sunday that students plan to remain indefinitely.

Northwestern University encampment organizers end anti-genocide protest, provoking widespread opposition: “I hope the other encampments do not follow suit” -- On Monday afternoon, organizers of the student encampment at Northwestern University (NU) in the north suburb of Chicago reached an agreement behind closed doors with the university administration and shut down the protest against the genocide in Gaza. The move was widely denounced by students and supporters, even as a similar encampment was set up at the University of Chicago on Monday morning. Over the past week, thousands of students have protested across the Chicago region against the US-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Protests and walkouts against genocide have broken out at multiple other Chicago universities and colleges, including Roosevelt University, Loyola University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College and others. The latest protest encampment was set up Tuesday morning at DePaul University. Northwestern’s administration put out a statement that the organizers of the protest agreed to end the encampment in return for practically nothing. The statement issued by Michael Schill (president of Northwestern), Kathleen Hagerty (provost) and Susan Davis (vice president of student affairs) read: “We have reached an agreement with a group of students and faculty who represent the majority of the protestors on Deering Meadow to bring the demonstration into compliance with University rules and policies.” In fact, these decisions were arrived at completely undemocratically. A small layer of students with the Northwestern University Divestment Coalition came to an agreement with the administration, which has also been shared and endorsed by SJP Chicago. In exchange for ending the encampment, the university offered pro forma to discuss its investments with the divestment coalition, a promise that itself is highly conditional. Even the limited goals of a previous joint resolution by various student groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, to continue the encampment until all university investments with the Israeli government have been abandoned was dropped. The previous resolution included demands for NU to end its Israel Innovation Project (IIP), an institutional partnership with Israeli research institutions focusing on the sciences including chemistry, computer science and AI, renewable energy, neurobiology and materials science. The IIP is planning to host a conference at Northwestern May 8 and 9 focused on water resource management. Northwestern dispensed further crumbs, including restarting an advisory committee on investment responsibility in the fall. Additionally, it claimed to “support visiting Palestinian faculty and students at risk” by funding two faculty members and giving full tuition to five Palestinian undergraduates. Northwestern also agreed to provide Muslim students with a “temporary space” and to renovate a MENA (Middle East and North Africa)/Muslim house on campus. More importantly, Northwestern has made clear it intends to enforce harsher limits on the activities of students and community members, stating, “Only Northwestern students, faculty and staff will be allowed in the demonstration area, except if otherwise authorized by the University. The University and student representatives will work to maintain safety and ensure participation in the demonstration area is limited to University community members and allows for other reserved events to occur on Deering Meadow… The above applies to Deering Meadow. All other demonstrations on campus must also comply with University policies.” This rotten sellout agreement was met with an outpouring of anger by students and workers on Northwestern University Divestment Coalition’s Instagram account and other social media. One student wrote, “Were your demands a space for MENA/Muslim students? Really? in the middle of a genocide??” Another person added on the joint working groups between the student organization and Northwestern: “I was part of working groups in undergrad. THEY DO NOTHING. They’re waiting for all you troublemakers to graduate in four years and keep the working groups trudging until everyone is tired.”

Docs show why the oil industry pours money into certain universities -- Over decades, major oil and gas companies have poured millions into academia to back up their policy stances, boost their influence and track new technology. Newly released House and Senate documents shed fresh light on companies' motivations for providing funding for external research programs — a practice long accepted and disclosed, but nonetheless opaque. For example, BP has funded research on climate science, energy and policy at Princeton University, via their Carbon Mitigation Initiative, for more than two decades.Along with ExxonMobil, BP supported Princeton's highly influential "Net-Zero America" report that came out in 2020. It helped inform the White House's approach for its landmark climate law enacted in 2022. BP's internal communications made it clear that the company saw access to a Biden administration-in-waiting as a good use of their investments. "If Presidential elections go the way it looks now, I would not be surprised to see some of our friends in senior government policymaking roles as well!" wrote Robert Stout, then head of BP's US policy, in a 2020 email. The documents were released as part of an investigation by Democrats on the House Oversight and Governmental Affairs Committee as well as the Senate Budget Committee.They show that BP, for example, does not just view its spending on Princeton's programs as a way to keep current on climate science and policy. It also sees it as an opportunity to bolster its views on natural gas and carbon capture and storage techniques, for example. In that same 2020 email, Stout referred to the CMI's work as "increasingly synergistic" with BP's stances, "as of course we had planned." Documents describe the Princeton-BP tie-up as a "genuine collaboration," which the company felt contrasted with its funding of some other higher education institutions that received less money over a shorter period. BP's investment in CMI's work over the years has been complemented by more policy-oriented research, as the company supported programs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.One internal memo, addressed to Dev Sanyal, then executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy at BP, laid out the case for renewing a program at Fletcher that cost the company about $200,000 per year in 2016, and a $400,000 program at Harvard. Such relationships, plus the investment in Princeton can "provide BP access to unparalleled expertise at the forefront of research in the areas of climate change science, technology and policy," the memo states. BP also saw the projects it funded as a way to push its priorities with academic backing, rather than just gaining information from universities."It has also been an opportunity for us to provide business perspectives to help shape international policy thinking in low carbon energy discussions," the memo states.About its relationship with Harvard, an internal document notes what makes the school so attractive for BP: "Harvard is a revolving door for US government officials." Stanford University is looking into fossil fuel industry funding of its Energy Modeling Forum, after E&E News reported on documents showing the program offered the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas lobbying group, pre-publication access to its research.API is still listed as an affiliate of the program. House and Senate Democrats, in a joint committee report, say the documents show how fossil fuel companies use academic partnerships as a way to "enhance their credibility, shape academic research programs to provide studies supportive of a prolonged life for oil and gas, leverage the resulting research to their advantage, and bolster access to policymakers."The industry's academic ties provide new evidence of companies using their funding to advance their business aims. They are reminiscent of playbooks followed by other sectors involved in polarizing business activities.However, these relationships aren't illegal, and it is ultimately up to individual institutions to put conditions on the funding or turn it down altogether.It is only when viewed from a 30,000-foot level that a broader, more problematic picture emerges, given how much fossil fuel companies knew about climate change as early as the 1950s, and the tactics they have pursued since to delay action.

Tens of thousands of medical tests to now fall under federal oversight --The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is revising long-standing rules to place laboratory tests under the same jurisdiction as other testing, which the agency says will help ensure better safety and efficacy. Since 1976, the FDA has not enforced legal requirements on most laboratory developed tests (LDT) due to the Medical Device Amendments. Generally speaking, this has meant that requirements such as good manufacturing practices, premarket reviews prior to use in patients and adverse event reporting has not been enforced. LDTs are diagnostic tests that are made and used within a single laboratory. As the FDA noted in its rule Monday, LDTs were typically manufactured in small volumes to diagnose rare diseases. At the time, the FDA’s rationale for not enforcing regulations on these tests were that they were low-risk and were employed for a small patient population. But LDTs have grown in use over the years, as have concerns over their lack of regulatory oversight. Common LDTs today include tests for COVID-19, blood level tests and tests for drug abuse. While LDTs in the ’70’s were carried out by laboratory personnel with expertise, current-day tests now use high-tech instrumentation and software to generate results. “Today’s LDTs are also more commonly manufactured with instruments or other components not legally marketed for clinical use and are more often used to inform or direct critical treatment decisions, to widely screen for common diseases, to predict personal risk of developing certain diseases, and to diagnose serious medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease,” the FDA said in its final rule on LDTs. The FDA cited these factors when announcing the change. “LDTs are being used more widely than ever before — for use in newborn screening, to help predict a person’s risk of cancer, or aid in diagnosing heart disease and Alzheimer’s. The agency cannot stand by while Americans continue to rely on results of these tests without assurance that they work,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf said in a statement. The announcement was welcomed by health groups. The American Cancer Society called the change “a positive step toward ensuring uniform review of all tests intended for the same purpose.” The move also drew some blowback, however. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, blasted the decision. “The FDA does not have the authority to unilaterally increase its regulatory jurisdiction. This rule will undermine access to essential laboratory tests, increase health care costs, and ultimately harm patients,” Cassidy said in a statement.

Coronavirus dashboard, 4 years into the pandemic: all-time low in hospitalizations, deaths likely to follow - On Friday the CDC updated its COVID death statistics through March 31, which means that we now have 4 full years of data. It also updated its hospitalization data through April 20, and to cut to the chase, last week saw a record low hospitalizations for COVID - 5,615 - since its onset. So this is a good time to look at the state of the now-endemic pandemic. When it comes to both hospitalization and death statistics, the first two years and the last two years look entirely different by scale. Let’s start with hospitalizations. Here are the first two years: The worst hospitalizations ever were just over 150,000 in the week of January 15, 2022 during the original Omicron BA.1 wave. The lowest week until the end of the first two years was 12,821 during June 2021. At the very end, in the week of April 2, 2022, a new all-time low of just over 10,000 was set. Now let’s look at the last two years: Note the complete difference in scale. The same week of April 2, 2022 is nowhere near the lowest number, which as I wrote at the outset, was set last week at 5,615. The worst week was just under 45,000 in July 2022. And it isn’t just the extremes that were lower. Below is the 52 week cumulative average of hospitalizations for the last 3 years (since the CDC didn’t start reporting this data until August 2020, I’ve excluded the first year: (table) The trend of declining hospitalizations YoY has been continuing throughout the past year. Here are some of those numbers: (table) This is a story of almost relentless decline. And it’s the same story with the data on deaths. Here are the first two years: There were almost 26,000 deaths in the first week of January 2021 alone, the worst week of the entire pandemic. The lowest number were 1,543 in the first week of July 2021 (when we all hoped that mass immunization might work to end the pandemic). During the week ending April 2, 2022, there were still just over 1,900 deaths. Now here are the last two years. Once again, notice the complete difference in scale: April 2 of 2022 was a comparatively high week. The highest number of deaths were 3,869 during the week of January 7, 2023. The lowest were 491 during the week of July 7, 2023. As of March 30 of this year (the last week of complete data), there were 648. As I’ll describe further below, we will probably set a new all-time record low for deaths as well once all of April’s data is in. The same pattern of ever fewer deaths YoY appears as we saw for hospitalizations: (table) Once again, the deceleration has been ongoing in the past year. Here are YoY cumulative deaths for some of the last 6 months: (table) Because COVID expresses seasonality, with worse waves during the cold weather and generally lower numbers during warm weather, below I’ve divided deaths into two 6 month periods. Here’s the cold weather period: (table) And here’s the warm weather period: (table) As you can see, in each year there are more deaths during cold than during warm weather. And the pattern of YoY improvement is apparent for each period. This is all good news. So where do we go in the near term? The trends continue to be positive. Recall that wastewater counts lead hospitalizations by several weeks, which in turn lead deaths by several weeks. So here is the latest wastewater count from the CDC: Wastewater particles are down 87% since their Holiday season peak, and continued to decline last week. This means that both hospitalizations - as of last week down 84% from their Holiday peak - and deaths - as of March 30 down 75% from their post-Holiday peak - should both continue to decline. And if deaths decline to a number 87% below their post-Holliday peak, that would mean only 333 deaths in a few weeks. Finally, how does this compare with the flu? Well, the typical flue season gives rise to about 35,000 deaths +/-10,000. So even at 64,000 COVID is presently the equivalent of a very bad flu season. If the trends of the past several years continue, then in 1 or 2 years we will be down in the vicinity of 35,000 deaths per year. I am cautiously hopeful that is where we are headed. Because every single variant in the past 2+ years has been a descendant of the original Omicron BA.1 strain - including BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, BA,5, XBB, JN.1, and the newest variants, KP.1&2. So long as that remains the case, I will remain optimistic.

High-risk patients with COVID symptoms should use PCR rather than rapid tests, study suggests Study findings that reveal a sensitivity of 47% for COVID-19 rapid antigen tests (RATs) compared with reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests during Omicron variant predominance should prompt clinicians to consider using the latter test in high-risk patients eligible for antiviral drugs, the authors say.The study, published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, also showed a RAT sensitivity of 80% compared with viral culture.From November 2022 to May 2023, a team led by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Vanderbilt University compared the results of SARS-CoV-2 RATs and same-day RT-PCR and viral culture among participants in a household virus-transmission study enrolled within 7 days of symptom onset. Participants completed daily symptom diaries and collected two nasal swabs for 10 days and reported RAT results.Among 354 participants with 2,244 RAT results in 129 households, 67% tested positive for COVID-19 and were included in the study. For infected participants, the researchers calculated the proportions of positive RAT, RT-PCR, and culture tests daily after symptom onset or, for symptom-free participants, from the date of positive result. Only one commercially available RAT was used.Participants were aged 2 months to 83 years (median, 36 years), 56% were White, and 59% were female. Forty percent of participants had received a COVID-19 vaccine dose within the last year, and 35% had received at least two doses, with the most recent dose received more than a year before.In total, 24% were unvaccinated or had received only one dose, and 43% had self-reported or serologic evidence of previous COVID-19 infection. At least one symptom was noted by 93% of participants, including 77% and 66% who reported cough and fever, respectively.

Common diabetes drug lowers SARS-CoV-2 levels, clinical trial finds --Today, researchers from the University of Minnesota published evidence that the common diabetes drug metformin decreases the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the body and helps reduce the risk of rebound symptoms if given early in the course of non-severe illness.The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests metformin may also help prevent long COVID.The researchers tested metformin against a placebo in 999 adults infected with COVID-19. More than 50% of the study enrollees were vaccinated, and treatment took place when the Omicron variant was the most dominant strain in the United States.Moreover, according to Carolyn Bramante, MD, principal investigator of the study and an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, the study participants represented a standard- risk population, a group that currently lacks effective treatment options for the novel coronavirus."This is not a high-risk population," Bramante told CIDRAP News. Instead, participants were 30 years or older, had a body mass index of 25 or higher (overweight), and did not require hospitalization for their COVID-19 infection.In several trials, Paxlovid has been shown to prevent deaths and hospitalization in high-risk, unvaccinated people, but standard-risk populations have not shown improvement in either time to resolution of symptoms or the incidence of hospitalization or death.Bramante said that these patient population demographics suggest metformin may be a clinical tool in outpatient medication that could be widely used."The data support that someone would be justified if they prescribed it for outpatient treatment," she said.

Caregiver stress lessened after pandemic lockdowns lifted, study finds --A study based on a national survey in Australia shows caregiver and parental stress during the pandemic lessened in 2022 and 2023 after lockdowns were lifted, but female caregivers reported more stress throughout the 3-year study. The study was published today inPediatrics and is based on responses to Australia’s National Child Health Poll, which was conducted across six waves from June 2020 to April 2023. A total of 12,408 caregivers and 20,339 children aged 0 to 17 years participated in the poll.Caregivers were asked to report mental health for themselves and each child, as well as perceived impacts of the pandemic on their own and their children's mental health (negative versus none/positive).Three surveys were conducted during Australia's lockdowns, which occurred until October 2021. Those surveys were followed by three surveys given in the post-lockdown period, beginning in April 2022.The peak of negative mental health reporting for both children and caregivers was July 2021. Seventeen percent to 20% of caregivers reported poor mental health in the lockdown periods of 2020-2021, compared to 12% to 14% in 2022-2023. From June 2020 to July 2021, caregivers reported that 6% to 13% of children had poor or fair mental health, with that percentage reducing to 6% in April 2023."Perceived negative mental health impacts were more commonly reported by female than male caregivers," the authors said.

After COVID vaccine rollout, negativity on Twitter spiked -Negativity about vaccines surged 27% on Twitter after COVID-19 vaccines first became available, according to a new study presented this week at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global Congress.In the years prior to COVID-19, there were more negative statements about vaccines than positive ones, but the introduction of vaccines and news about mandating vaccines caused negative statements to spike on Twitter, now called X.The study used data from an open-source software (the Snscrape library in Python). The program downloaded tweets with the hashtag "vaccine" published on Twitter from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2022. A total of 567,915 tweets were extracted and analyzed, with 458,045 classified as negative and 109,870 as positive by a machine-learning algorithm. After the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines at the end of 2020, there were on average 10,201 more vaccine-related tweets per month.The program identified 310,508 tweets (12,420 a month on average) with negative sentiment after December 11, 2020. This represents a 27% increase in negative tweets than would be expected had the COVID-19 vaccines not been introduced (9,785 a month, 95% confidence interval, 9,282 to 10,249).April 2021, the month the White House announced that all people aged 16 and older would be eligible for the COVID-19, had the highest number of negative tweets. "The damage caused by negative voices is already apparent, with clusters of measles re-emerging in countries where it was previously considered eradicated."

X's crowdsourced tool to counter COVID untruths mainly accurate, credible, researchers say --Community Notes, a crowdsourced COVID-19 vaccine misinformation countermeasure on X (formerly Twitter), generally corrected false posts accurately and pointed readers to more credible sources, according to researchers who evaluated the posts.The University of California at San Diego (UCSD)-led team assessed the accuracy and credibility of a random sample of 205 Community Notes on COVID-19 vaccines from the year after the tool's December 2022 launch. The reviewers included an infectious-disease doctor and a virologist. The results were published last week in JAMA.For the open-sourced Community Notes, anonymous, ideologically diverse volunteers independently flag posts containing erroneous COVID-19 and vaccine information and suggest corrections, or "notes." Notes labeled as helpful by contributors who disagreed on previous notes are shown alongside the original posts. The process is public rather than company-controlled."Social media can magnify health misinformation, especially about vaccination," the study authors noted. "Platform countermeasures have included censoring, shadowbanning (limiting distribution without disclosure), and adding warning labels to problematic content. Yet, evaluating these countermeasures is challenging due to restrictive public disclosures about their inner workings." A total of 1.4% of the 45,783 notes mentioned COVID-19 vaccines. Monthly note rates rose from 22 to 186 over the study period. Of the randomly sampled notes, there was strong agreement on note topics (90%), source credibility (87%), and accuracy (96%) before disagreements were resolved.The most common note topic was adverse events (51%), followed by conspiracy theories (37%), vaccine recommendations (7%), and vaccine effectiveness (5%). Nearly all (97%) of the notes were accurate, 2% were partially accurate, and 0.5% were inaccurate. Of all notes, 49% cited high-credibility sources (eg, peer-reviewed studies), while 44% were of moderate credibility (eg, news stories, fact-checking sites), and 7% were of low credibility (eg, blogs, tabloids). Views of the 189 posts with view data totaled 201 million (average, 1 million).

Dip in alcohol consumption in early pandemic linked to less social drinking -With the closures of indoor dining, bars, theaters, and concert venues in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, heavy drinking young adults found themselves consuming 13 less drinks per month compared to pre-pandemic months, according to a new study in the journal Nature Mental Health. Moreover, this decline in consumption was still evident in 2022 after the initial pandemic restrictions had ended."These results highlight the social nature of drinking and speak to the importance of the social context in driving drinking behavior," said Aidan Wright, PhD, of the University of Michigan in a press release from Carnegie Mellon.The protective study followed study prospectively examined the drinking patterns of 234 heavy-drinking young adults ages 21 to 29 years. Participants were asked about their drinking habits every six months from February 2018 to March 2022. Heavy drinkers were those who said they consumed four (women) or five (men) drinks in one sitting at least 4 times per month. The authors said the drop in number of drinks consumed each month was largely driven by significant decreases in weekend (versus weekday) drinking quantity and frequency and drinks per drinking day.

Undocumented Latinos vaccinated against COVID at same rate as US citizens, study suggests - A University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) study late last week in JAMA Network Open finds that, despite less access to healthcare, undocumented Latino workers who visited the emergency department (ED) received COVID-19 vaccines at the same rate as US citizens.The researchers interviewed a sample of adult non-Latino patients, legal Latino residents or citizens, and undocumented Latino patients at two California healthcare centers from September 2021 to March 2022.The median age of the 306 participants was 51 years, 48% were women, 68% were Latino, 14% were White, 11% were Black, and 7% were of other race. Of undocumented Latinos, 25% were uninsured, and 30% usually visited the ED for healthcare.Among all participants, 87% said they had received one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and 13% reported declining the vaccine. Concern about potential adverse effects of the vaccine was the most common reason (37%) for not getting vaccinated. Relative to undocumented Latinos, non-Latino patients were much less likely to believe that undocumented workers could receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States (odds ratio [OR], 0.09). Thirteen percent of interviewees said they knew undocumented people who didn't get vaccinated because they worried about deportation. Of those who had declined the vaccine, 22% said they were interested in receiving a dose in the ED.Undocumented Latino workers were much more likely to report a previous COVID-19 infection than non-Latinos (OR, 3.42) and legal Latino residents (OR, 2.73)."We would have expected Latinx patients to have lower rates of vaccination, considering higher rates of infection, hospitalizations, and death," lead author Jesus Torres, MD, MPH, said in a UCLA news release. Torres noted that EDs are one of the main healthcare access points for undocumented workers, who make up about 3% of the US population but are not often included in research.

COVID booster linked to 25% lower odds of long COVID --A new cross-sectional study published in Vaccine of US adults demonstrates that people who received the COVID-19 booster vaccine had 25% lower odds of having long COVID than their unvaccinated counterparts.The study was based on 8,757 respondents to the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, with data from a weighted sample size of 87,509,670 Americans. Authors used self-reported COVID-19 booster vaccination status and self-reported long-COVID status (defined as having new or persistent symptoms 3 or more months after an initial COVID-19 infection) to calculate odds ratios (ORs) of developing long COVID.Overall, 22.2% (19,396,656) had not received any COVID-19 vaccine, 17.3% (15,151,843) had received only one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 33.3% (29,184,366) had completed the initial series of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 27.2% (23,776,806) received the COVID-19 booster vaccine. Among all respondents, 19.5 % reported experiencing long COVID (17,102,276). People receiving the COVID-19 booster vaccine had significantly lower adjusted odds of long COVID (OR 0.75, 95 % confidence interval 0.61 to 0.93) compared to unvaccinated people.

Global survey shows COVID booster uptake in question -- A new survey of 23,000 adults in 23 countries taken in October 2023 finds a lower intent to get a COVID-19 booster vaccine (71.6%), compared with 2022 (87.9%).Moreover, 60.8% expressed being more willing to get vaccinated for diseases other than COVID-19 as a result of their experiences during the pandemic, while 23.1% reported being less willing.“This study reveals that a substantial proportion of individuals express resistance to vaccination and that concerns about COVID-19 vaccination appear to have spilled over to affect other vaccine-preventable disease,” the authors write.The findings, published in Nature Medicine, offer a new global snapshot of COVID vaccine attitudes and show that vaccine hesitancy and trust challenges remain throughout the world today."The repercussions of pandemic disruptions in healthcare services, the effects of the inequitable and slow global vaccine distribution, and the prevalence of misinformation and mistrust in health authorities continue to be felt," said lead author Jeffrey V. Lazarus, PhD, CUNY professor of global health, in a press release from CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. "They represent major obstacles for health practitioners struggling to meet the urgent need to get people caught up on routine immunizations and ready to face the next pandemic."While booster uptake dropped from 2022 to 2023, the number of respondents with at least one COVID vaccine dose increased to 87.8% in 2023, compared to 36.9% in 2021 and 70.4% in 2022.The reluctance to get a booster could spell trouble for nations now trying to handle COVID-19 as a seasonal threat best tempered by seasonal, annual vaccines."The SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to circulate and mutate," said Ayman El-Mohandes, PhD, a senior author of the study and dean of the CUNY School of Public Health. "Variant-adapted boosters are available, but public health statistics show that many older people and others who are at higher risk of severe disease and death have not accepted them."This is the fourth annual survey to assess attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines conducted by this research group. The 23 countries included were Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.Willingness to get a booster dose of vaccine dropped most notably in high-income countries compared to middle-income countries. In the richest countries surveyed, 85.1% of respondents in 2022 said they were willing to get a booster, compared to just 63.3% in 2023.Across high-, middle-, and low-income countries, trust in health authorities who recommended COVID-19 vaccination was higher than trust in governments’ management of the COVID-19 pandemic, at 65.4% and 56.4%, respectively.

WHO COVID vaccine advisers recommend switch to JN.1 strain -- The World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition, which meets about every 6 months to assess if any changes are needed, has recommended that the next COVID vaccine formulations use a monovalent (single-strain) JN.1 lineage. The group met in the middle of April to review the genetic and antigenic evolution of SARS-CoV-2, with an eye toward vaccine composition implications. In a statement, the experts note that the XBB lineage has been displaced by JN.1 and said that, over the short-term, circulating variants will likely be derived from JN.1. A year ago, the group recommended a switch to XBB.1.5 for COVID vaccines, but evidence from animal studies and human sera experiments suggests that XBB.1.5 and JN.1 are antigenically distinct. Animal studies and tests on human blood following exposure to XBB.1.5 from vaccination or infection suggest that neutralization titers against JN.1are two to five times lower than titers against the XBB.1.5 vaccine antigen. "There are further reductions in cross neutralization of JN.1 variants with F456L and/or R346T substitutions," the advisory group said. The two substitutions have been nicknamed FLiRT (F for L at position 456 and R for T at position 346), and virologists had seen them crop up in earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants.In the United States, for example, a JN.1 spinoff called KP.2 that contains the FLiRT substitutions edged out the JN.1 parent virus as the most commonly detected variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its latest variant proportion estimates.The WHO experts said the few studies that estimate relative vaccine effectiveness (VE) for the XBB.1.5 vaccine during JN.1 circulation suggest some protection during the first 3 months after vaccination, but with a slight reduction in VE against JN.1 for protection against severe and symptomatic disease, similar to what neutralization antibody titer studies found. They added, however, that the ability for XBB.1.5 vaccination to protect against symptomatic disease may be less robust as SARS-CoV-2 evolution continues from JN.1.Meanwhile, a single immunogenicity study in humans of a candidate monovalent JN.1 vaccine suggests that it produces higher neutralization antibodies against co-circulating JN.1 variants such as KP.2 than does the XBB.1.5 vaccine.The advisers acknowledged several limitations of their analysis, including gaps in genetic surveillance, low numbers of viruses sequenced, and the difficulty of predicting public health impacts of mutations seen with the more recent JN.1 variants.They urged countries to continue to use any COVID vaccines that are emergency listed or prequalified by the WHO and emphasized that COVID vaccination shouldn't be delayed while waiting for updated versions.The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) will meet on May 16 to discuss and make strain-selection recommendations for 2024-25 COVID vaccines. The meeting is available online, and the group said it will post the background materials its members will use during the deliberations on its website at least 2 days before the meeting

US respiratory virus levels tail off to low levels --US indicators for flu, COVID, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) declined further last week, with no states reporting moderate, high, or very high activity, down from one the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly updates.For flu, the percentage of outpatient visits for flulike illness remained below the national baseline for the fourth week in a row, and CDC saw declines in test positivity, hospitalizations, and overall deaths. However, it received 10 more reports of pediatric flu deaths, raising the season's total to 158. The deaths occurred between early January and the middle of April. Six were due to influenza A, and of four subtyped viruses, three were 2009 H1N1 and one involved H3N2. Three kids died from influenza B infections and one death occurred in a child who was coinfected with influenza A and influenza B.Meanwhile, the CDC's latest COVID data updates show further declines in severity markers, which include hospitalizations and deaths, as well as its early indicators, which include emergency department visits and test positivity. Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 detections, another early indicator, remain at the minimal level.The CDC recently announced that as of May 1, hospitals are no longer required to report COVID hospital admissions, hospital capacity, or hospital occupancy data to the Department of Health and Human Services through the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network, which will change how the data appear on the COVID data tracker going forward.Instead of national admission counts, the data will show COVID hospitalization rates per 100,000 population though COVID-NET, which covers 300 hospitals across 13 states. The CDC said it encourages states to continue to report COVID hospitalizations voluntarily.The HHS has proposed a new rule that would require hospitals to report weekly data apart from a public health emergency, according to a recent Federal Register notice. According to the rule, which if finalized would take effect on October 1, hospitals would have to electronically report information on COVID, flu, and RSV.The rule is part of a broader group of rule changes, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is taking comments through June 10.

Quality improvement effort linked to more appropriate antibiotics for pediatric infections -A national quality improvement (QI) initiative was associated with increases in appropriate antibiotic prescribing for pediatric infections at 118 US hospitals, researchers reported yesterday in Pediatrics.The initiative, implemented at hospitals participating in the American Academy of Pediatrics Value in Inpatient Pediatrics Network, aimed to increase the proportion of children receiving appropriate empiric, definitive, and duration of antibiotic therapy for community-acquired pneumonia, skin and soft tissue infection, and urinary tract infection—the three most common infections for which children receive care in the emergency department (ED) or hospital. Interventions included monthly audit with feedback, educational webinars, peer coaching, order sets, and a mobile app containing site-specific, antibiogram-based treatment recommendations.The study included 43,916 encounters of children from 60 days to 18 years who were evaluated in the ED or hospital. Appropriate prescribing was measured during an 18-month baseline (30,799 encounters) and a 10-month intervention period (13,117 encounters) from 2020 to 2022. The overall median adherence to empiric, definitive, and duration of antibiotic therapy for all infections combined was 67%, 74%, and 61%, respectively, at baseline and 72%, 79%, and 71%, respectively, during the intervention period. Interrupted time series analysis revealed a 13% (95% confidence interval [CI], 1% to 26%) intercept change at intervention for empirical therapy and a 1.1% (95% CI, 0.4% to 1.9%) monthly increase in adherence per month for antibiotic duration above baseline rates. No change was observed for definitive antibiotic therapy.Although the goal of 85% or higher adherence to appropriate prescribing was not achieved, the study authors say the observed rates of appropriate prescribing observed in the study were higher than reported in previous studies.

Trial data support non-antibiotic treatment for bacterial vaginosis The results of a randomized controlled trial conducted in Europe indicate that a common bacterial infection in women could be treated without antibiotics. The trial investigated the efficacy of the broad-spectrum antiseptic dequalinium chloride for treating bacterial vaginosis (BV), which affects an estimated 25% of reproductive-age women and has a high recurrence rate attributed to bacterial biofilm. The standard treatments are the antibiotics clindamycin and metronidazole.The results, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open,showed that when compared with metronidazole, dequalinium chloride was not only noninferior but also had better tolerability and fewer adverse events. The investigators also note that while dequalinium chloride has been on the market for 30 years, there are no reports of clinically relevant resistance."Dequalinium chloride could help reduce antibiotic consumption and thus warrants consideration as first-line treatment for BV due to its broad spectrum, efficacy, safety, tolerability, and less likelihood of resistance," the study authors wrote.The phase 4 trial enrolled women aged 18 and older with symptomatic BV from 11 gynecology practices and 1 hospital in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia from July 29, 2021, to August 25, 2022, with a 1-month follow-up. Patients were randomized 1:1 to receive dequalinium chloride vaginal tablets (10 mg once daily for 6 days) or oral metronidazole (500 mg daily for 7 days).The primary outcome measure was a noninferiority margin of 15 percentage points in the absolute difference in clinical cure rates between dequalinium chloride and metronidazole 7 to 11 days after treatment in the intention-to-treat (ITT) and per-protocol (PP) populations. Investigators also assessed tolerability and safety.Of the 147 women (mean age, 36.7 years) enrolled in the trial, 72 were treated with dequalinium chloride and 75 with metronidazole. The clinical cure rate in the ITT population was 64 of 69 (92.8%) in the dequalinium chloride group and 69 of 74 (93.2%) in the metronidazole group, with an absolute difference in cure rates of –0.5 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI], –10.8% to 9.8%). In the PP population, the clinical cure rates were 54 of 58 (93.1%) for the dequalinium chloride group and 48 of 53 (90.6%) in the metronidazole group, with an absolute difference of 2.5 percentage points (95% CI, –9.4 to 14.4 percentage points)."These results confirm the noninferiority of dequalinium chloride," the authors wrote.Assessment at a second visit 20 to 40 days after treatment found that the cure rates were lower for both treatments (79.7% vs 87.3%), but dequalinium chloride remained noninferior.

Quick takes: Colorado ramps up congenital syphilis response, measles in Wisconsin | CIDRAP

Amid a sharp rise in US maternal and congenital syphilis cases over the past few years, Colorado's governor recently issued a statewide public health order to address the state's persistent and sharp increase in congenital syphilis. In a recent statement, officials said congenital syphilis cases rose sevenfold from 2018 to 2023. So far this year, 25 cases have been confirmed, including five stillbirths and two neonatal deaths. The public health order expands access to testing during pregnancy and stipulates that healthcare providers must offer testing more frequently during pregnancy. Also, it requires testing at correctional facilities.
Health officials in Madison, Wisconsin, recently reported a measles case involving someone who traveled to and works in neighboring Rock County. In a statement, Public Health Madison and Dane County said it is working with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS) and the Rock County Department of Health to identify contacts and potential exposures. The WDHS identified potential exposures at two healthcare facilities in Janesville, as well as a gas station in Milton, an electronics repair shop in Madison, and a fast food restaurant in Cottage Grove. The infection is part of a rise in global cases, including in the United States. In its latest weekly update, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 26 reported three more cases, raising the national total to 128 from 20 jurisdictions, more than double the cases reported for 2023.

Global mpox trends reveal hot spots in Africa, Europe, Americas =Low-level mpox transmission continues in many parts of the world, with Africa, Europe, and the Americas reporting the largest portion of recent cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a monthlysituation update yesterday, which covers cases reported in March. Adding a caveat that a decline in surveillance may underestimate infections, the WHO said 466 new cases, 3 of them fatal, were reported in March. In Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—experiencing an outbreak of a novel clade 1 virus—reported the most cases.Ten countries reported case rises in March, with the Republic of Congo reporting the largest rise in Africa. Other hot spots were the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico in the United States, and Vietnam.The WHO said the risk is high for the DRC's general population and moderate for countries that have historically reported mpox infections and for men who have sex with men, gender-diverse people, and sex workers. The general population risk for countries that haven't experienced earlier outbreaks is low.Over the past 6 months, monthly cases have fluctuated between 400 and 1,000 cases, with most reported in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Though sexual encounters are the most common mode of transmission, patterns in Africa are more diverse and include the zoonotic route.WHO vaccine advisers met in March, and they said populations to consider for vaccination include adults and children in geographic areas with documented exposure risks, people with multiple sexual contacts, health workers with repeated exposure, and known contacts of infected people. The group called for strong measures to promote mpox and vaccine research in Africa, along with equitable access to vaccines. The committee expects to release its final recommendations on mpox immunization in May.

FAO launches efforts to reduce antimicrobial use on farms The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) last week announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at reducing the need for antimicrobials in the food and agriculture sector.The initiative, dubbed RENOFARM (Reduce the Need for Antimicrobials on Farms for Sustainable Agrifood Systems Transformation), will work with governments, farmers, the private sector, and civil society organizations to provide countries with policy support, technical assistance, capacity building, and knowledge sharing to help reduce the use of antimicrobials in livestock production and prioritize animal health and welfare. In 2017, antimicrobial use in animals represented 73% of all antimicrobials used worldwide."The persistent use of antimicrobials in livestock production is concerning for human health, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability," FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in a video message announcing the launch of the initiative. "We must explore innovative pathways to curb the use of antimicrobials and promote sustainable practices that safeguard public health and our planet's well-being, while improving livestock productivity."Reducing the use of antimicrobials and animal and plant agriculture has been a significant part of the One Health antimicrobial resistance strategy promoted by the Quadripartite, which comprises the FAO, World Health Organization, World Organization for Animal Health, and the UN Environment Programme.

Analysis of cow, cat H5N1 avian flu samples raises concerns about spread to other animals - Microbiological examination of cow, milk, and cat samples early in the investigation of H5N1 avian flu in some of the first affected states found that the cats died shortly after they were fed raw colostrum from sick cows, highlighting the risk of spread from cows to other animals through contaminated milk.A research team based at Iowa State University reported its findings on some of the earliest samples from cows and cats today in Emerging Infectious Diseases.For the study, the scientists examined samples—milk, serum, and tissues—from cows on early affected farms in Texas and Kansas. They also analyzed samples from cats that died on the farms. The initial H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) findings prompted the initial announcement from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on March 25. The tissue samples in cows came from a three that were euthanized and three that died naturally. The researchers also performed postmortem exams on two adult cats from one of the farms, which had about 24 cats. The cats started showing symptoms a day after clinical disease was noted in the cows, and about half of the cats died.Microscopic examination revealed that the H5N1 virus infects epithelial cells of mammary alveoli where milk is produced, prompting acute inflammation in the udder, which could explain the drop in milk production and high virus levels that have been turning up in milk.The authors said the case series shows that H5N1 infection has more dramatic symptoms in cows than reflected in earlier reports of influenza A viruses in the animals. Meanwhile, they wrote that the clinical disease in cats, especially neurologic symptoms, is consistent with earlier reports of H5N1 in cats and tracks with reports of cats eating infected wild birds and poultry products.Though wild-bird consumption can't be ruled out in the cats from the dairy farms, known consumption of unpasteurized milk and colostrum from infected cows, a fluid that contained a high viral load, makes it a likely exposure route, the team wrote."Therefore, our findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 virus and raise new concerns regarding the potential for virus spread within mammal populations," they said.Ingestion of feed contaminated with feces from wild birds is the most likely initial source of infection on dairy farms, according to the authors, who said more studies are needed to clarify transmission routes and pathogenesis within infected cattle. Egg inoculation tests were negative for live infectious virus in retail milk samples that were positive for H5N1 fragments in earlier polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in an April 26 update. It noted that the test results are preliminary but affirm its assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.The FDA also said it tested several samples of retail powered infant formula and powdered milk products marketed as toddler formula, and all were negative for H5N1 remnants on PCR testing.Work is still under way on 297 retail samples from 38 states. The agency said that samples that are positive on PCR testing will go through egg inoculation testing.

USDA genome study sheds light on H5N1 avian flu spillover to cows, but data gaps remain - The H5N1 virus infecting dairy cattle in multiple states was probably circulating in the animals for 4 months before scientists confirmed it in late March, and missing data and surveillance gaps raise the possibility of undetected transmission chains, a research team led by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) reported in a new preprint study. In the first published report that interlaces genetic sequencing findings with what's known from the epidemiological investigation, the group said asymptomatic cattle movement to other states is likely driving transmission and that they are already seeing a few variants with mutations that could lead to interspecies transmission. The group published their findings yesterday on the preprint server bioRxiv. In other H5N1 developments, the USDA last night announced that its tests on retail ground beef from affected states were negative, and two affected states—Michigan and Colorado—announced new emergency measures. Phylogenetic analysis using genome sequencing suggests that there was a reassortment event in late 2023 between the current highly pathogenic 2.3.4.4b clade in wild birds and a low-pathogenic wild bird strain, which produced the B3.13 genotype now circulating in dairy cows. The NP gene acquired during reassortment may have played a role in the emergence in cattle, they wrote, noting that the NP gene seems to allow influenza viruses to spread more easily in pigs. Their analysis suggests there were as many as five B3.13 introductions from cattle to poultry, one to a raccoon, two to domestic cats, and three to wild birds. Though the findings track with epidemiological findings of spread through movement of herds to other states, they emphasized that there are still gaps. "We cannot exclude the possibility that this genotype is circulating in unsampled locations and hosts as the existing analysis suggests that data are missing and under surveillance may obscure transmission inferred using phylogenetic methods," they wrote. For example, they said the B3.13 virus from the human infection doesn't nest within cattle sequences, which could suggest that viruses from unsampled cows were the source of the infection or that evolution within the host was enough to result in a different phylogenetic grouping. "It is most likely, however, that asymptomatic transmission and undersurveillance in epidemiologically important populations drove this pattern." They conclude that the potential for B3.13 to become endemic in cattle will influence the zoonotic risk from the virus and warned that if the low level of mammalian adaptations they're seeing become dominant, the risk of interspecies transmission will be higher.

Case report bolsters evidence for H5N1 avian flu spread from cow to Texas dairy worker --Scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and their collaborators in Texas today shared new details about an investigation into a recently reported H5N1 avian flu infection in a dairy worker— likely the first known transmission of the virus between mammals and a human.The team detailed their clinical and genetic sequencing findings today in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. The man's infection, which was mild and consisted of conjunctivitis, was first reported on April 1, and the CDC shared its initial sequencing findings the following day.The man's right-eye conjunctivitis began in late March. He didn't have contact with sick or dead birds or other animals but did have direct contact with healthy dairy cows, as well as ones that had illness signs that were similar to those at nearby facilities where H5N1 was confirmed. He said he wore gloves while working, but not respiratory or eye protection. Researchers said the man's eyes could have become infected by touching them with virus-contaminated hands, or from exposure to respiratory droplets or aerosols from sick cows or activities in the dairy setting.Health workers collected nasopharyngeal and conjunctival swabs, which were positive for H5N1 in PCR testing. There was enough RNA in the conjunctival sample for full genome sequencing, and scientists were able to grow the virus from both specimens.The patient also developed redness in his left eye. He and his household contacts received oseltamivir, and over the following days, the man recovered, and no symptoms were reported in his contacts.A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services told CBS News that the Texas dairy worker came to a Texas field office for testing and did not disclose the name of their workplace.Initial sequencing found that the virus belonged to the same B3.13 genotype circulating in dairy cows, and virus isolation from both specimens yielded identical viruses. As reported earlier by the CDC, the virus in the man's specimen had a change, PB2 E67K, that has a known link to virus adaptation to mammalian hosts.In the supplementary appendix, the group said when they compared the sequence from the patient with the available cattle sequences, they found that the human sequence lies just outside the larger cluster of cattle sequences from Texas, though it is closer to cattle than B3.13 genotype viruses from wild birds or wild mammals.

USDA to test ground beef samples for H5N1 traces as more poultry outbreaks reported --The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said yesterday that it will test ground beef samples from retail stores in states that have reported H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in dairy herds.In other H5N1 developments, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) reported more poultry outbreaks in two states: Michigan and Idaho. The USDA will use PCR tests to test the ground beef, according to Reuters, which cited a media statement released yesterday. PCR testing can detect virus fragments, not live virus, and is the same method the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used to test retail milk.Officials said they were confident that the US meat supply is safe. They also noted that they will use a virus surrogate to see how the virus is affected when the meat is cooked to different temperatures.So far, the H5N1 detections have had little impact on international trade. Colombia is the only country to put import restrictions on US beef.To date, no H5N1 infections have been reported in beef cattle. At a scientific symposium on H5N1 hosted by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) last week, a USDA official said the risk profile for virus spread to and among beef cattle is probably different. Dairy cows are managed differently, often kept in more confined spaces and sharing the same food and water sources.The Meat Institute, a trade group that represents meat and poultry packers and processors, suppliers, and distributors, recently said dairy cows make up 6.8% of US beef production. In a recent statement, they said properly prepared beef remains safe and called for federal guidance to protect workers at beef facilities.In other H5N1 developments, APHIS reported two more outbreaks in poultry flocks, part of a spike in activity over the past month.In Michigan, the virus struck a commercial turkey farm housing 27,700 birds in Gratiot County, which is in the central part of the lower peninsula. Michigan is the hardest hit state in the recent spate of poultry outbreaks, with the virus hitting multiple large layer farms that are located in the same counties where H5N1 were found in dairy herds.Elsewhere, the virus struck a backyard flock of 40 birds in Idaho's Cassia County, the same county where the virus was reported in Idaho dairy cows.

FDA finds no live H5N1 avian flu virus in sour cream or cottage cheese, will assess raw milk - In updates today from federal agencies involved in the response to H5N1 avian flu outbreaks in dairy cows, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said egg inoculation tests on cottage cheese and sour cream that tested positive for traces of the virus traces showed no live virus. At a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) briefing, Don Prater, DVM, acting director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, revealed preliminary data on a second set of retail dairy samples, a group of 201 that had tested positive on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, which can only identify virus fragments.Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that preliminary tests on 96 PCR-positive retail milk samples were negative for live virus on follow-up tests using egg inoculation, considered the gold standard for determining viability.Today the agency announced egg inoculation results for 201 more PCR-positive dairy product samples, which also included cottage cheese and sour cream. None showed any evidence of live virus, which Prater said reaffirms the FDA's assessment that the nation's retail milk supply is safe. So far, the FDA has tested 297 total retail dairy samples.Earlier this week, the FDA said PCR tests were negative on samples of powered infant formula and powdered formula marketed for toddlers. Prater said the FDA will continue to analyze and share its data, but when asked if the agency has seen a regional pattern in the PCR-positives, he said milk bought in a state doesn't mean it was processed and pasteurized there.Prater said the FDA has plans for more testing, including raw milk, which he said will give the agency a better picture of the viral load before pasteurization. In a statement, the FDA said it will test pooled raw milk that has been routed to pasteurization and processing for commercial use.Even before the H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows was first detected in late March, the FDA recommended against drinking raw milk due to potential contamination with pathogens. Rosemary Sifford, DVM, deputy administrator veterinary services and chief veterinary officer with the USDA, said 36 outbreaks have now been reported in dairy herds from nine states. Yesterday the USDA added 2 earlier outbreaks from New Mexico to its total.Sifford said so far the extent of the spread isn't clear and that the agency hopes to learn more, now that the federal order for sampling lactating dairy cattle before interstate movement is in effect as of April 29.Evidence still suggests that the source of the virus is a single spillover from wild birds to dairy cattle in multiple herds in the Texas panhandle and that the virus is spreading among cows through milk, Sifford said. "We think milk is the primary vector."

High levels of resistant E coli found in uncooked meat, raw dog food - An analysis of raw chicken intended for consumption by people and animals found high levels of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli,researchers reported last week at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global Congress.In the study, which was also published on a pre-print server in March, researchers from the University of Bristol analyzed 58 samples of raw beef, chicken, pork, and lamb sold for human consumption at grocery stores in Bristol and 15 samples of chicken-based raw dog food from specialty pet stores for the presence of resistant E coli. The samples were tested for resistance to amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, cefotaxime, ciprofloxacin, spectinomycin, streptomycin.Overall, 81% of the meat samples for human consumption and 87% of the chicken-based raw dog food samples were positive for E coli. Among the grocery-store purchased meat samples, uncooked chicken had the highest levels of E coli resistant to amoxicillin (93%), spectinomycin (100%), streptomycin (100%), and the critically important antibiotic ciprofloxacin (47%)—significantly higher than found in uncooked beef, pork, and lamb. Similar levels of resistant E coli were found in the chicken-based raw dog food samples, with 87% positive for resistance to spectinomycin and streptomycin and 47% positive for ciprofloxacin resistance.The analysis also found that the most common E coli sequence types (STs) in the chicken-based raw dog food samples (ST10, ST162, and ST744) were the same as those found in a previous study on fluoroquinolone resistance in dogs by the same research team. In that study, the presence of those STs in dog fecal samples was strongly associated with a raw meat diet."Our findings that raw dog food is similarly contaminated with resistant bacteria provides an explanation for why dogs fed raw meat are more likely to excrete these bacteria," the authors said in an ESCMID press release.The authors add that the findings highlight the need for consumers to cook meat thoroughly and follow the same appropriate hygiene practices when handling uncooked meat and raw dog food.

DeSantis signs bill banning lab-grown meat - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill banning lab-grown meat in his state Wednesday, in what he described as an effort to “save our beef.”“Today, Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals,” DeSantis said in a press release Wednesday. “Our administration will continue to focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers, and we will save our beef.”The bill, SB 1084, makes it “unlawful” for people to “manufacture for sale, sell, hold or offer for sale, or distribute” lab-grown meat in Florida. “Florida is taking a tremendous step in the right direction by signing first-in-the-nation legislation banning lab-grown meat,” Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson (R) said in the press release. “We must protect our incredible farmers and the integrity of American agriculture. Lab-grown meat is a disgraceful attempt to undermine our proud traditions and prosperity, and is in direct opposition to authentic agriculture,” Simpson continued.GOOD Meat, which says it is “the first company in the world to sell cultivated meat” on its website, said it was “disappointed” that DeSantis “signed into law the criminalization of cultivated meat in” the Sunshine State in a post on the social platform X Wednesday.“In a state that purportedly prides itself on being a land of freedom and individual liberty, its government is now telling consumers what meat they can or cannot purchase,” GOOD Meat said in its post.

Organic walnuts tied to 2-state outbreak of E coli infections -- At least 12 people in California and Washington state have been sickened and 7 people hospitalized in anEscherichia coli O157 outbreak traced to Gibson Farms organic walnuts that are sold in 19 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a food safety alert yesterday.Two patients developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious and potentially fatal kidney condition. The CDC said in a news release, "Almost all sick people purchased organic walnuts from bulk bins in food co-ops or natural food stores in California and Washington." Two people bought bulk walnuts from the same store.In a recall notice yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Gibson Farms has voluntarily recalled the implicated walnuts. "Gibson Farms Organic Light Halves and Pieces shelled walnuts were sold in bulk boxes in Net Wt. 25 lbs quantities and can be identified by lot 3325-043 & 3341-501 with expiration dates 5/21/25 & 6/7/25."The agency added, "A full investigation is currently under way to determine the potential source of the contamination."The CDC said the nuts were distributed to natural food and co-op stores in Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. The FDA has posted a list of stores that sold the walnuts.The 12 patients—6 in California and 6 in Washington—range in age from 6 to 84 years, with a median age of 57. Eight are female. Of 10 patients who reported racial information, 9 are White and 1 is Black.Illness-onset dates range from February 1 to April 4. No deaths have been reported."The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely much higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses," the CDC said.

CWD confirmed in Pierce County wild deer, Wisconsin officials report -For the first time, a wild deer in Pierce County, Wisconsin, has been confirmed to have chronic wasting disease (CWD), the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reports today.The 4- to 5-year-old doe, which had showed signs of illness, was found in Spring Lake, which is located within 10 miles of the Dunn and St. Croix county borders. As a result of the finding, Pierce County will begin a 3-year baiting and feeding ban on May 15, St. Croix County will ban baiting and feeding for 2 years starting on the same date, and Dunn County will renew its current ban. The DNR said it will also host a public meeting.Found in deer and other cervids such as moose and elk, the infectious illness is caused by misfolded proteins known as prions. The disease poses an ongoing threat to cervids, given that CWD can spread from animal to animal and through environmental contamination. No human cases have been reported, but health officials urge people to avoid eating the meat of infected animals and to take precautions when field-dressing or butchering cervids.

Illinois officials announce CWD detection in another county -- The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) yesterday announced that chronic wasting disease (CWD) has spread to Ford County, in the northern part of the state.Officials confirmed that a wild deer exhibiting signs of CWD tested positive for the fatal prion disease in mid-March. A total of 21 counties in northern and northeastern Illinois have reported cases since it was first identified in Winnebago County in 2002.The IDNR said it is scheduling public meetings to discuss the state's CWD management strategies and answer questions."Current management efforts include encouraging hunter harvest and testing of deer in counties with confirmed cases of CWD, targeted removal in CWD infection zones to slow the spread of the disease, and ongoing statewide CWD surveillance in counties where CWD has not been detected," officials said in a news release. CWD, a neurologic disease caused by misfolded proteins called prions, affects cervids such as deer, elk, moose, and reindeer. The disease poses an ongoing threat to cervids, given that CWD can spread from animal to animal and through environmental contamination. It isn't known to infect humans, but officials recommend that hunters not eat meat from a sick animal and use precautions when field-dressing or butchering cervids.

Consumption of contaminated venison suspected in cases of deer hunters with prion disease -A small team of medical workers and researchers in the U.S. has published a case study of two men, both deer hunters, who developed a rare prion disease. In their study,published in the journal Neurology, the group describes the symptoms of the two patients and how they died.Prior research has shown that some wild animals, such as deer, can become infected with a type of prion disease known as chronic wasting disease. In humans, the resulting disease is known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), also called mad-cow disease, when it is caused by eating infected beef.Prion diseases come about when misfolding of prion proteins occurs in the nervous system. They all progress until the infected person dies. Prior research has shown that progression occurs due to initial misfoldings, which impact proteins in the same physical area, causing them to fold, and so on, resulting in propagation of the disease.In the case study, a 72-year-old male was admitted to the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. He reported that he had been experiencing confusion and emotional problems. Over time, he also began to experience other symptoms, such as seizures. He died just a month after admission. The patient was diagnosed with CJD.The diagnosis was surprising because it reminded the team of another patient who had died contemporaneously from the same disease. A little detective work showed that the men knew each other and were both local deer hunters who had consumed venison.The medical team suggests that two patients with the same rare disease at nearly the same time implies they had both eaten venison from the same animal or another in its group—an extremely rare case of novel animal-to-human transmission of chronic wasting disease.The researchers acknowledge that they do not have proof of the disease coming from the same animals, but suggest more research is required both to better understand the disease in deer and its possible transmission to humans and to ascertain whether other hunters should be warned not to eat local venison.

6 million health care workers call for stricter limits on global plastics - Millions of health care workers around the globe are calling for world governments to put significant limits on the plastics industry. Representatives of 900 health care civil society groups called for caps on the production of plastics, the restriction of toxic chemicals, and full transparency around what goes into plastics in an open letter Monday. The letter went out to the national teams concluding the U.N. Environment Program’s fourth round of plastics negotiations in Ottawa, Canada, where delegates are divided over the question of whether plastic pollution can be reduced without cutting plastic production. “Plastic poses an ongoing crisis for human and planetary health, which will inevitably worsen with the planned dramatic increase in plastics production, unless global action is taken,” according to the open letter from Health Care Without Harm. Six million health care workers around the world signed the letter, which warns that plastics pose grave threats to human health both through direct poisoning and — because of the industry’s dependence on fossil fuels — through their role in heating the climate. “There are health impacts at each stage of the plastics life cycle,” the writers note. “Plastics used in health care require thousands of hazardous additives (including carcinogens, neurotoxicants, endocrine disruptors) that can leach from products and waste, and persist in the environment, threatening patients, communities, workers (including waste workers), and ecosystems.” They argue that these impacts are of particular concern to “vulnerable patients” including children, fetuses and newborns — and that they add significant costs to the global health care system. They also argue that many of these dangers are made worse because they are hidden, writing that “the lack of full product ingredient information impedes efforts to reuse, recycle, and to move to safer alternatives.” The letter is significant because medical plastics are a key domain that industry advocates point to when they argue against caps on production.

Every breath you take: Following the journey of inhaled plastic particle pollution - With recent studies having established the presence of nano and microplastic particles in the respiratory systems of both human and bird populations, a new study has modeled what happens when people breathe in different kinds of plastic particles and where they end up. Led by Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering Dr. Suvash Saha, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) research team has used computational fluid-particle dynamics (CFPD) to study the transfer and deposition of nano and microplastic particles of different sizes and shapes depending on the rate of breathing. The results of the modeling, published in the journal Environmental Advances, have pinpointed hotspots in the human respiratory system where plastic particles can accumulate, from the nasal cavity and larynx and into the lungs. The paper is titled, "Transport and deposition of microplastics and nanoplastics in the human respiratory tract." Dr. Saha said evidence was mounting on the significant impact of nano and microplastics on respiratory health and the UTS study would provide essential insights for the development of targeted strategies to mitigate potential risks and ensure effective health interventions. "Experimental evidence has strongly suggested that these plastic particles amplify human susceptibility to a spectrum of lung disorders, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, fibrosis, dyspnea (shortness of breath), asthma, and the formation of what are called frosted glass nodules," Dr. Saha said. "Plastic particle air pollution is now pervasive and inhalation ranks as the second most likely pathway for human exposure. "The primary types are intentionally manufactured, including a wide array of cosmetics and personal care products such as toothpaste. "The secondary ones are fragments derived from the degradation of larger plastic products, such as water bottles, food containers and clothes. "Extensive investigations have identified synthetic textiles as a principal source of indoor airborne plastic particles, while the outdoor environment presents a multitude of sources encompassing contaminated aerosols from the ocean to particles originating from wastewater treatment." Every breath you take: Following the journey of inhaled plastic particle pollution Computational model of the respiratory tract, featuring detailed views of the mesh at the (a) Inlet of the right nostril and (b) One of the outlets in the left superior lobe. Credit: Environmental Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.envadv.2024.100525 Dr. Saha said the UTS team's modeling found that breathing rate along with particle size and shape determined where in the respiratory system plastic particles would be deposited. "Faster breathing rates led to heightened deposition in the upper respiratory tract, particularly for larger microplastics, whereas slower breathing facilitated deeper penetration and deposition of smaller nanoplastic particles," he said. "Particle shape was another factor, with non-spherical microplastic particles showing a propensity for deeper lung penetration compared to spherical microplastics and nanoplastics, potentially leading to different health outcomes. "These findings highlight the imperative consideration of breathing rates and particle sizes in health risk assessments associated with respiratory exposure to nano and microplastic particles."

People with gas and propane stoves breathe more unhealthy nitrogen dioxide, study finds A study of air pollution in U.S. homes found that households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide. "I didn't expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off," said Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Professor Rob Jackson, senior author of the paper appearing in Science Advances. Pollution from gas and propane stoves isn't just an issue for cooks or people in the kitchen, he said. "It's the whole family's problem." Among other negative health effects, breathing high levels of nitrogen dioxide, or NO2, over time can intensify asthma attacks and has been linked to decreased lung development in children and early deaths. Although most exposure to NO2 is caused by cars and trucks burning fossil fuels, the researchers estimate that the mix of pollutants coming from gas and propane stoves overall may be responsible for as many as 200,000 current childhood asthma cases. One quarter of these can be attributed to nitrogen dioxide alone, according to the paper's authors, who include scientists from Central California Asthma Collaborative, PSE Healthy Energy, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "We found that just how much gas you burn in your stove is by far the biggest factor affecting how much you're exposed. And then, after that, do you have an effective range hood—and do you use it?" said lead study author Yannai Kashtan, a Ph.D. student in Earth system science. Beyond asthma cases, the long-term exposure to NO2 in American households with gas stoves is high enough to cause thousands of deaths each year—possibly as many as 19,000 or 40% of the number of deaths linked annually to secondhand smoke. This estimate is based on the researchers' new measurements and calculations of how much nitrogen dioxide people breathe at home because of gas stoves and the best available data on deaths from long-term exposure to outdoor NO2, which is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The death toll estimate is approximate in part because it does not factor in the harmful effects of repeated exposure to extremely high levels of nitrogen dioxide in short bursts, as occurs in homes with gas stoves. It also relies on past studies of health impacts from nitrogen dioxide encountered outdoors, where additional pollutants from vehicles and power plants are present.

Activity in a room stirs up nanoparticles left over from consumer sprays, study shows - Common household products containing nanoparticles—grains of engineered material so miniscule they are invisible to the eye—could be contributing to a new form of indoor air pollution, according to a Rutgers University study.In research published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, a team of Rutgers researchers found that people walking through a space where a consumer product containing nanoparticles had been recently sprayed stirred residual specks off carpet fibers and floor surfaces, projecting them some three to five feet in the air. A child playing on the floor nearby would be more greatly affected than the adult, experiments showed."If an adult is walking in a room, and steps on some of these deposited particles, we found that the particles will be re-suspended in the air and rise as high as that person's breathing zone," said Gediminas Mainelis, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, who led the study. "A child playing on the floor inhales even more because the concentrations of particles are greater closer to the ground."While it's still too early to gauge the long-term effects of these particles on people's health, Mainelis said the results are important to contemplate. "At this point, it's more about increasing awareness so that people know just what they are using," he said.A nanoparticle is a fleck of material ranging in size approximately between 1 and 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. The human eye only can see particles larger than approximately 50,000 nanometers.

EPA bans most uses of cancer-causing chemical used as paint stripper -The Biden administration on Tuesday banned most uses of a toxic chemical that is used as a paint stripper. Long-term exposure to the chemical, methylene chloride, can cause cancers of the liver, lung, breast, brain, blood and central nervous system. It has also caused at least 88 deaths from short-term exposure since 1980, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It has been used in a variety of ways, including in adhesives, automotive products and paint and coating removers. In addition to the ban on many uses, the agency is also adding new workplace safety requirements where methylene chloride will still be used. “Exposure to methylene chloride has devastated families across this country for too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a written statement. He added that the agency’s latest action “brings an end to unsafe methylene chloride practices and implements the strongest worker protections possible for the few remaining industrial uses, ensuring no one in this country is put in harm’s way by this dangerous chemical.” All consumer uses of methylene chloride will be barred, as will most industrial uses, but it will still be allowed to be used in producing other chemicals, producing electric vehicle battery components, and in plastic and rubber manufacturing. These uses will continue with restrictions including worker exposure limits, monitoring requirements and employee training requirements. This rule is among the first actions taken by the EPA under a 2016 revamp of a chemical control law that gave it additional authority to review chemicals that are already on the marketplace.

Biden to announce $3 billion to replace lead pipes -President Biden will announce Thursday that his administration will be doling out $3 billion in funds to replace lead pipes, which can pose a health hazard.Biden will announce the funds, part of a total of $15 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, during a trip to Wilmington, N.C., to replace these pipes. He will also announce the first Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded lead pipe replacement in Wilmington is underway. North Carolina is slated to get $76 million of the total $3 billion being dispersed. That $3 billion is expected to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the White House said. The U.S. currently has an estimated 9.2 million lead service lines. While the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s funding is expected to make a significant dent in the nation’s lead pipe problem, environmental advocates have expressed concern that it is not enough. No safe level of lead in drinking water has been identified. Exposure to the substance can damage children’s brains and nervous systems. The most infamous incident of lead poisoning in the U.S. was the water crisis in Flint, Mich., though numerous other areas have also dealt with such problems. The Biden administration has proposed to require most of the nation’s lead pipes to be replaced in 10 years, though concerns have been raised that some cities, like Chicago, could maintain some of their lead pipes for years or even decades under the proposal. In addition to the funding for lead services line replacement, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is announcing Thursday nearly $90 million to reduce health hazards in public housing, including lead-based paint — as well as carbon monoxide, mold, radon, and asbestos.

Scripps News Investigation: A decade, a contempt order, and $100M later, 'Flint is not fixed' - A cost-saving decision 10 years ago created one of the more shocking public health scandals in the country — killing a dozen residents and exposing 100,000 others in Flint, Michigan, to poisonous water contaminated with lead — all while city and state officials claimed the water was safe.When the errors were exposed more than a year later, city and state officials vowed to clean up the mess and replace the corroding pipes poisoning residents. But neither time nor tens of millions of dollars in funding — not even orders by a federal judge — have brought an end to this devastating chapter in Flint.“Everybody's out there acting like Flint's fixed, and Flint is not fixed,” Flint resident Melissa Mays told Scripps News.Scripps News has discovered dangerous lead pipes are still pumping water into at least 200 addresses, with potentially more to be found. Over 1,000 houses still have not yet been inspected, and when they will be is anyone’s guess: Work on the project has ceased since December, 2023.A Scripps News investigation in 2023 showed thousands of residents likely still needed their service lines inspected, with the city missing deadline after deadline to complete the job.A federal judge cited the investigation when he found the city in contempt last month. We found in 2023 the Environmental Protection Agency and state officials warned it wasn’t safe for any resident to drink the water in Flint without special filters until every last dangerous line was replaced.Last spring, an exclusive Scripps News analysis of progress reports the city submitted in the court case showed that the pace of work slowed to a crawl after the current mayor took office in 2019.When presented with our findings, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley couldn’t say how many pipes were left to inspect and replace. He told Scripps News the project was "more than 90% complete" — a claim he had previously made years earlier.He said the pandemic and poor records from the previous administration accounted for delays, but said the project was a priority.“We're rounding out this project that we're scheduled to be able to complete this very, very soon,” he said at the time.Eleven months later, a federal judge wrote in his contempt order that the city’s failure to complete he job was causing hardships to Flint residents. Though plaintiffs had asked, the judge declined to hold Mayor Neeley himself in contempt. Neeley is now running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.We checked back with the city after the March contempt order, and were told the project was near completion with some two dozen homes remaining.“Under the settlement agreement, there are approximately 30 addresses requiring lead service line excavation remaining.”Scripps News obtained state and city records through a public records request earlier this month showing officials know of at least 200 homes with lead service lines. We were the first to tell some residents their drinking water was running through lead pipes.We found other residents who say they have been waiting for years to get the city to inspect their pipes. Our analysis of city and state records shows more than 1,000 addresses still haven’t been inspected by the city.

Oil palm plantations are driving massive downstream impact to watershed -The global demand for palm oil—the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet, in everything from instant noodles to lipstick—is driving worldwide tropical deforestation. While many studies have shown the loss of biodiversity when rainforests are converted to oil palm plantations, researchers at the University of Massachusetts of Amherst are the first to show far-reaching and wide-ranging disturbances to the watersheds in which such plantations occur. Because many Indigenous peoples rely on water downstream from the plantations for their daily needs, the marked decrease inwater quality has the potential to exacerbate public health issues in Indigenous communities.The study was published recently in Science of the Total Environment. To conduct their research, lead author Briantama Asmara, who completed this work as part of his graduate studies at UMass Amherst, and senior author Timothy Randhir, professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, focused on the Kais River watershed of West Papua, the western half of New Guinea's island, an area of more than 1,000 square miles. Approximately one-quarter of the watershed has been turned into oil palm plantations. The watershed is also one of the oldest continually inhabited homes for different groups of Indigenous Papuans."The Kais River watershed, like many of the places where oil palm plantations are situated, is very remote and not particularly well studied," says Randhir.Asmara adds, "Though the palm oil companies have lots of data about what pesticides they're using, the timing of their irrigation efforts, issues with runoff, etc., that information isn't making it out to the downstream communities. I conducted this research because I wanted to get better, publicly available data to the people whose lives are being most affected."The team modeled three different scenarios: the historical baseline, using land-cover data from 2010–15; an altered scenario, representing the contemporary landscape with its large oil palm plantations as of 2015–21; and a future scenario, forecast from 2024 out to 2034, that assumed a steady rate of plantation expansion and which also included the next 10 years' worth of changing climate data.Their findings show that the transition from tropical rainforest to contemporary oil palm plantation has increased precipitation, runoff and soil moisture. Water quality has gotten dramatically worse since the plantations began: Sedimentation has increased by 16.9%, nitrogen by 78.1% and phosphorus by 144%.Though the worst effects on water quality will moderate somewhat according to the team's future scenarios—the total tonnage of phosphorus carried by the watershed will decrease from 2,418 tons to 2,233.7 tons—the water quality will remain far worse, and there will be more runoff than before the rain forest was converted to oil palm plantation."The downstream Indigenous people who rely on the rivers and the streams in the watershed are highly vulnerable," says Randhir. "They are bearing all the environmental and public health costs, while the international palm oilcompanies are reaping the rewards."

Catastrophic damage, at least 4 fatalities after severe tornado outbreak hits Oklahoma - ( 9 YouTube videos) A severe tornado outbreak on Saturday, April 27, 2024, has resulted in the deaths of at least four individuals and inflicted significant destruction across several cities in Oklahoma, marking one of the most destructive days in the state’s recent history.The NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) received 39 tornado reports on April 27, down from 86 on April 26. 18 were reported in Oklahoma, 14 in Kansas, 5 in Missouri, and 2 in Texas. On April 26, 38 tornadoes were reported in Iowa, 33 in Nebraska, 6 in Texas, 5 in Kansas, and 4 in Missouri.A series of tornadoes began to unfold across several states on April 27, impacting communities with varying degrees of damage. The first report came at 18:21 UTC from Hillsdale, Garfield County, Oklahoma, where buildings and trees were damaged. Shortly thereafter, at 18:55, a tornado was reported approximately 5 km (3 miles) northwest of Robinson in Brown, Kansas. At 19:09 UTC, another tornado touched down approximately 13 km (8 miles) north of Robinson, Kansas. Only six minutes later, another tornado touched down roughly 3 km (2 miles) west-southwest of White Cloud in Doniphan, Kansas. By 19:47, a tornado was reported by emergency management approximately 6 km (4 miles) northwest of Goff in Nemaha, Kansas. The reports continued in Texas where, at 20:06, a tornado was spotted roughly 5 km (3 miles) west of Knox City at the intersection of FM 222 and 1292. The intensity and frequency of tornado occurrences increased thereafter. At 20:27, another tornado struck approximately 10 km (6 miles) southwest of Morrison in Payne, Oklahoma, closely followed by a small tornado about 5 km (3 miles) south-southwest of Dexter in Cowley, Kansas at 20:31. The pattern of severe weather continued moving northeast, with a notable sighting at 21:08 near Seymour in Baylor, Texas, which began about 10 – 13 km (6 – 8 miles) west of Seymour and roped out near Lake Kemp. At 21:13, significant structural damage occurred approximately 5 km (3 miles) southeast of Gentry in Gentry County, Missouri where a metal roof was torn off a residence, and large debris was reported. Just a few minutes later at 21:19, the Missouri Highway Police reported another tornado crossing Highway 169 near Gentry. Damage was reported about 6 km (4 miles) north-northwest of Calumet in Canadian, Oklahoma at 21:30 and a landspout causing damage 16 km (10 miles) north of Kendall in Hamilton, Kansas at 21:35. Multiple brief tornadoes were spotted just south of Moline in Elk, Kansas at 21:42, around the same time a wedge tornado was reported near Howard. By 21:54, another tornado was sighted approximately 2 km (1 mile) northwest of Longton in Elk, Kansas. The reports of brief tornado touchdowns continued with one approximately 5 km (3 miles) northeast of Fredonia in Wilson, Kansas at 22:35, and another 8 km (5 miles) east-northeast of Benedict in Wilson, Kansas at 22:56. At 23:40, a brief tornado touchdown occurred approximately 3 km (2 miles) east of Laclede in Linn, Missouri, followed by a visual report of a cone tornado approximately 3 km (2 miles) south of Devol in Cotton, Oklahoma at 23:54. As the UTC day turned, tornadoes continued to be reported, including two near Cole in McClain, Oklahoma at 01:20 and 02:20 UTC, showing clear tornado debris signatures on radar. Damage assessments revealed extensive impacts in several areas, particularly in Marietta, Love, Oklahoma, where extensive damage to buildings and trees was reported at 04:10 UTC. This sequence of events demonstrated the widespread and severe nature of this tornado outbreak, affecting numerous communities across the central United States. The reports concluded with additional radar observations near Morris in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, and Porter in Wagoner, Oklahoma, indicating the prolonged and severe nature of this meteorological event. At least two fatalities were confirmed in Holdenville, Oklahoma including an infant, with additional deaths reported in Marietta and Sulphur, bringing the total number of casualties in the state to four. “It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed now here in Sulphur,” Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt told reporters, highlighting the extensive impact on the community, particularly in Sulphur where the damage was reminiscent of an EF-3 tornado. “It’s definitely the most damage since I’ve been governor that I’ve seen.” The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management (OEM) reported that 14 homes were either damaged or destroyed in Holdenville alone, with significant debris blocking Highway 9. Emergency response teams, including the Oklahoma City Task Force One, were deployed to the affected areas to aid in search and rescue efforts. Significant structural damage was also recorded in Marietta, affecting the local hospital and other infrastructure. Despite the chaos, no injuries were reported from within the hospital as patients and staff had taken appropriate shelter. The storms forced the closure of Interstate 35 North at the Texas state line, complicating rescue and recovery operations. The Marietta tornado was rated at least EF-3. In Sulphur, Murray County Emergency Management noted extensive damage and multiple injuries. The response was further compounded by severe weather conditions continuing across the region, with approximately 43 000 utility customers losing power initially, though numbers dropped to below 10 000 by Sunday evening, April 28. Governor Stitt declared a state of emergency in Carter, Cotton, Garfield, Hughes, Kay, Lincoln, Love, Murray, Okfuskee, Oklahoma, Payne, and Pontotoc counties. The declaration aims to mobilize resources to address the immediate needs of the affected communities and begin the recovery and rebuilding process. The death toll from the dayslong tornado outbreak that has ravaged the central U.S. stands at five, as of early April 29. Among the victims was an Iowa man who died after a tornado struck the town of Minden on Friday. He was trapped in his basement when a massive twister ripped through the area, approximately 48 km (30 miles) northeast of Omaha, Nebraska. Despite being rushed to a hospital for treatment, he succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. The National Weather Service forecasts persistent severe weather conditions across the central United States, with the potential for additional strong to severe thunderstorms. The unsettled weather pattern is expected to affect a broad swath of the Great Plains through the coming days, posing ongoing risks to the already battered regions.

Marietta tornado rated EF4, Oklahoma’s first violent tornado in 8 years - (8 YouTube videos) The tornado that hit Marietta, Oklahoma at 23:08 CDT on April 27, 2024, was rated EF4 by the National Weather Service (NWS), making it Oklahoma’s first violent tornado in nearly 8 years. This event resulted in one fatality and extensive structural damage across multiple counties. The tornado touched down near Marietta in Love County at approximately 23:08 CDT (04:08 UTC, April 28) on April 27, 2024. Rated as an EF4, the tornado generated peak winds estimated between 265 to 274 kilometers per hour (165 to 170 miles per hour), causing significant damage over its course. The tornado’s path stretched over approximately 43 km (27 miles) before dissipating near Gene Autry in Carter County at 23:32 CDT (04:32 UTC, April 28). The maximum width of the tornado reached about 822 m (900 yards). Authorities confirmed the death of one person. Information regarding the number of injuries has not yet been determined, as authorities are still assessing the extent of the impact. The tornado significantly affected the area starting southwest of Marietta and moving north-northeast across Interstate 35 into Marietta, then continuing towards Lake Murray and through Dickson. The destruction along its path included severe damage to buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure, particularly in the vicinity of Marietta. “The April 27 Marietta tornado is the first tornado to produce EF4 damage in the state since May 9, 2016,” meteorologists at the NWS office in Norman, OK said on X. “The November 4, 2022 tornado in McCurtain Co was rated EF4 because of damage in Texas, but there was no EF4 damage on OK on that one.” Later that evening, two additional EF3 tornadoes hit Oklahoma, resulting in additional destruction and loss of life. The first EF3 tornado touched down in Sulphur (population 4 951), Murray County, at approximately 22:25 CDT (03:25 UTC, April 28), producing peak winds estimated between 258 to 266 km/h (160 to 165 mph). The tornado carved a path approximately 12 km (7.5 miles) long and reached a maximum width of 402 m (440 yards), before dissipating northwest of Hickory in Pontotoc County at 22:37 CDT (03:37 UTC, April 28). This tornado caused extensive damage in Sulphur, notably affecting the downtown area. Tragically, one person was killed due to the storm. YouTube video YouTube video YouTube video The second EF3 tornado touched down south-southwest of Spaulding in Hughes County at 22:36 CDT (03:36 UTC, April 28). With peak winds ranging from 225 to 233 km/h (140 to 145 mph), it extended over approximately 27 km (17 miles) and had a maximum width of approximately 1 609 m (1 760 yards). This tornado passed through the region just west of Holdenville (population 5 961) and continued its destructive path north-northeast, crossing Highway 9 west of Wetumka, before dissipating north-northwest of Yeager at 22:58 CDT (03:58 UTC, April 28). The impact of this tornado resulted in two fatalities. It’s important to note that these are preliminary survey results, as of 14:04 CDT on April 29, and may change as investigations continue. YouTube video YouTube video In addition to the severe EF4 and 2 EF3 tornadoes, the state had 25 other confirmed tornadoes on April 27, including 2 EF2-rated tornadoes, 9 rated EF1, and 4 rated EF0. The EF2 tornadoes were recorded in Goldsby and Ardmore. The Goldsby tornado caused extensive damage to trees and some homes, while the Ardmore tornado traveled through the west side of the city toward Springer, with investigations ongoing to assess the full extent of the damage. Among the EF1 tornadoes, the tornado near the McClain-Grady County line damaged trees and a mobile home. Northwest of Calumet, trees and powerlines were downed and trailers overturned.

Flood stages on the rise, flood warning expected --The Mississippi River is on the rise, with some crests above the flood stage. The Mississippi River flood stage is 30 feet, and at the time of the last observed, it was just shy of 26 feet. The number is expected to climb through the week, likely rising past the flood stage by Thursday. A flood warning will go into effect late Tuesday night through early Sunday morning for the Mississippi River in St. Louis, as well as areas upstream and downstream. “We’re expecting conditions to rise and then initiate actions per our waterway action plan…to ensure that we take all the actions that we can to mitigate conditions and protect mariners,” LCDR. Sarah Rodino with the United States Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard keeps a watchful eye on water levels and works in conjunction with the Army Corp of Engineers to take further action. They warn recreational users and mariners to stay off the water due to large amounts of debris floating in the river. “If you’re a recreational boater, you should especially take caution…make sure you have a life jacket and stay off the river if you can,” Rodino said. “We would encourage anybody who has a boat tied up on the river right now to make sure it’s properly secured so it’s not broken away during these conditions.” While the drought has come to an end in St. Louis, Gov. Mike Parson has extended the drought alert in Missouri. Dry to moderate drought conditions are still present in Jefferson County and southward. Until Missouri groundwater and streamflow conditions improve, this drought alert will be extended through Sept. 1.

Mississippi River continues to rise, recreational boating discouraged – The flood threat continues from a swelling Mississippi River. Massive amounts of debris being carried down the river have become a prime concern.Trees along the river are on the frontlines when flooding occurs, bearing the brunt of the Mississippi waters. The rush on incoming water carries large amounts of debris, from tree branches to limbs, from trunks and buoys to trash. Recreational boating is strongly discouraged due to the obstruction of large debris being carried down the river.

Residents around the Missouri River warned of impending flood situation (KCTV) - Residents around the Missouri River have been warned about an impending flood situation as forecasted rain is expected to swell already bursting tributaries.The Missouri Levee and Drainage District Association announced on Sunday, April 28, that recent heavy rains across the Show-Me State have swollen tributaries. This will cause the Missouri River to rise over the next few days.The association indicated that some areas below Chamois will see the river rise as much as 14 inches. Additional rain also remains in the forecast which could exacerbate the issue.Those along the river have been asked to remain river-aware. Monitor river stages locally as well as levees and flood gates. The forecast information below from the National Weather Service includes rainfall predictions:

Waverly - Flood stage is 20 feet. The river is expected to crest at 20.8 feet on Monday night.
Miami - Flood stage is 18 feet. The river is expected to crest at 20.7 feet on Monday night.
Glasgow - Flood stage is 25 feet. The river is expected to crest at 28 feet on Tuesday morning.
Boonville - Flood stage is 21 feet. The river is expected to crest at 26.2 feet on Tuesday morning.
Jefferson City - Flood stage is 23 feet. The river is expected to crest at 24.4 feet on Tuesday.
Chamois - Flood Stage is 17 feet. The river is expected to crest at 21.9 feet Tuesday night.
Hermann - Flood stage is at 21 feet. The river is expected to crest at 25.8 feet Tuesday night.
Washington - Flood stage is at 20 feet. The river is expected to crest at 22.1 feet on Wednesday morning.
St. Charles - Flood stage is at 25 feet. The river is expected to crest at 26.7 feet on Wednesday.

Mississippi River up almost 15 feet since April 25— The Mississippi River in Alton has risen almost 15 feet since April 25 and will crest Thursday in minor flooding range. The tainter gates at the Melvin Price Locks and Dam 26 are raised to allow an "open river" flow of water downstream. The National Weather Service Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service puts the river at 24.6 feet on Thursday and predicts it will steadily drop over the next 10 days. No damage is reported, but the river is full of debris and floating trees moving swiftly downstream. The access road to the south side of the dam, a popular fishing spot, has been closed due to the minor flooding. The forecast takes into account anticipated rain for the next 48 hours but heavy rain beyond that could change future predictions.

Minor flooding amid rising river levels in St. Louis area -– Area rivers have been cresting over the week and we’re experiencing minor flooding in many locations.“It was kind of a wakeup call, right? We haven’t seen flooding here in a long time. And to have that large scale of an event that involved both the Mississippi and the Missouri and the Illinois (rivers),” Mark Fuchs, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service in St. Louis, said.At the St. Louis riverfront, floodwater is covering up some of the Arch steps. The Mississippi River downtown has passed it’s crest, just shy of 30 feet, which begins minor flooding at this location. Water levels are decreasing and are forecast to drop below action stage on Friday afternoon. But it’s been a while since we’ve experienced flooding in the region.“Lots of cobwebs have shaken loose on the flood warning side of life,” he said. These high levels are quite a contrast from the persistently low levels of the recent past.“It really is a blessing in many respects. The fact that we’re getting this much rain over that large of an area to produce that much minor flooding for the most part,” Fuchs said.The river should crest just below levels that would require flood gates to be closed in the city.Meanwhile, farther up the Mississippi in Alton, the river has passed its crest, although minor flooding is ongoing and is expected to continue until early next week.Along the Missouri River, water levels at Hermann, Washington, and St. Charles are all in minor flood stage, with levels coming down. In St Charles, the Missouri River crested late Tuesday at 27.61 feet. And despite more rain in the forecast, we aren’t expecting flooding to return to these levels in the near term. “We know there’s a chance of that if any one storm or series of storms accumulates enough rainfall in one specific basin. But as far as the big rivers are concerned, I don’t necessarily expect renewed flooding like what we just saw,” Fuchs said.

Lake Conroe water level: Residents south of dam near San Jacinto River told to prepare for potential significant flooding - ABC13 Houston - ABC13 has learned that Lake Livingston is now releasing 124,000 cubic feet of water per second, according to a post by Lake Livingston Dam. ABC13 Chief Meteorologist Travis Herzog said the previous record was 110,600 cubic feet per second, which was during Hurricane Harvey and in October 1994. Officials continue to warn residents south of Lake Conroe Dam near the San Jacinto River that they should prepare for significant flooding due to a release of water from the lake to account for ongoing heavy rain. Walker and northern Montgomery counties saw rainfall totals as high as 16 inches overnight. That, coupled with already saturated grounds, caused the San Jacinto River Authority to release 13,400 cubic feet per second (CFS) from Lake Conroe, according to a notification sent just before 7 a.m. Thursday. According to Herzog, the record release from Lake Conroe is 79,100 cubic feet per second during Harvey. Officials predicted that amount will have to increase due to the amount of water the lake is receiving. "This is going to cause significant flooding to areas south of Lake Conroe. Montgomery County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (MCOHSEM) is working with the San Jacinto River Authority to understand the effects of these releases downstream," the county said in a statement. By lunchtime, the gate release had risen to 66,100 (CFS). Officials urged residents south of Lake Conroe Dam near the San Jacinto River to take immediate action and stay aware of the possibility of significant flooding along the river. By late afternoon, Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough issued a voluntary evacuation order for flood-prone areas, including River Plantation, Mosswood, Woodloch, and the Idle Wilde/Idle Glen areas. "If you live in these areas, you are encouraged to evacuate as we are expecting another 10-12 feet of rise in the river over the next several hours. Shelters are available in The Woodlands, Cleveland, and Montgomery at this time. Pets are welcomed at all shelters," Keough posted on social media. Earlier, ABC13 spoke with Jason Millsaps with the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management concerning the flooding and the release of water from area dams. "If you live south of Lake Conroe along the west fork of the San Jacinto River, you need to heed the warning that this is a significant flooding event coming your way," Millsaps said. "You need to move to higher ground and get your valuables to higher ground. Get your vehicles to higher ground and prepare to get out of your home fast." He explained that when water is released from the dam, it takes about eight hours to make its way south to I-45. It's likely that by late tonight or early Friday morning, it'll be an issue in east Montgomery County, and then as it moves out of that area into Harris County and Kingwood until it gets to Lake Houston. "(The San Jacinto River Authority) will start gradually seeing it as it builds up because the River Authority was releasing at slower increments, and then they kept increasing the releases as their model forecasts was showing that they were having far more water inflow into the lake than they are releasing," he said. "As the lake level rises, they have to raise the gates. Otherwise, you have an uncontrolled release and it's a very dangerous situation for everybody. And so it's an unfortunate thing when you have 17 inches of rain overnight in the northern watersheds that already had 10 inches of rain two days earlier. That's, added up, almost Harvey-level amount of rainfall."

East Texas officials stress worst yet to come as torrential rains persist and flash flood risk rises anew – Heavy showers and thunderstorms continued to pour rain into East Texas Friday, adding more water to swollen rivers that have prompted mandatory evacuations as water levels rise in some towns to levels rivaling Hurricane Harvey's devastating floods of 2017. And as bad as the flooding was early Friday, officials stress the worst is yet to come for many in the hardest hit regions as a surge of water works its way downriver and rain continues to fall. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center has upgraded the flash flood threat back up to a Level 3 out of 4 for southeast Texas on Friday as thunderstorms persist and tap into ample moisture still streaming into the region. Rainfall rates are holding at 1.5 to 2 inches per hour with additional accumulations of 2-3 inches likely with spots up to 4 inches. "Any further rainfall would at best slow the recession of existing flood waters, and at worst, aggravate this flooding," the WPC wrote Friday morning. Some 24-hour rainfall totals exceeded 7 inches in the region, with storm totals over the past few days surpassing 12 inches. Rain gauges along Lake Livingston have recorded from 17-20 inches just since Sunday. Flood Watches remain in effect for much of southeastern Texas, including Houston, and even stretched into western Louisiana. Officials remain particularly concerned about the East Fork of the San Jacinto River, which is already experiencing major flooding and forecasts have the river still to rise several more feet, not cresting until late Friday."We are very concerned," Meteorologist Jeff Lindner with Harris County Flood Control told FOX Weather. "Just upstream from New Caney (Texas) is Plum Grove, and we have very, very serious flooding ongoing in the Plum Grove area of Montgomery and Liberty Counties. And that water is coming very quickly down towards the northeast part of Harris County." Texas' Harris County still dealing with extensive flooding north of HoustonJeff Lindner with Harris County Flood Control joins FOX Weather to give an update on the worst flooding to strike the region in years. Harris County Executive Judge Lina Hidalgo said for the east side of the East Fork of the San Jacinto River, the event is turning out "to be worse than we imagined." On Thursday, she declared mandatory evacuations along the east side of the river, running from FM Road 1485 to Lake Houston, and Hidalgo warned flooding impacts may stretch as far as a half mile inland from the river bank. "This is different than what happened Tuesday," Hidalgo said. "This is significantly higher water, which is going to impact mobility and your ability to take care of yourself and your family. We want you out of this area. We can’t force anyone to do anything, but this is a life-threatening situation." Hidalgo said the river normally flows at 45-50 feet but was up to 70 feet Tuesday as more water surged in from upriver – with floodwaters covering up to the top of stop signs. What's worse, forecasts indicate the river will rise another 8 feet starting Friday – to just 3 feet below the devastating floods of Hurricane Harvey in 2017. "That means elevated structures will get water … it means the water will be hitting power lines, which puts our emergency evacuation vehicles at risk because they’re not going to be able to see those power lines," Hidalgo said. "Please evacuate that area as soon as possible." Hidalgo said farther upriver in Polk County, about 700 homes have flooded. But in Harris County so far, Hidalgo said Friday that 26 people had been rescued along with 30 pets. An official with the Crosby Independent School District said a school bus drove into high waters and some students had to be rescued, though they did not provide the number of students on board.

Houston area facing 'catasrophic' flood conditions as severe weather pummels Texas - ABC News The Houston area is bracing for "catastrophic" flooding Friday as severe downpours and extreme weather pummel parts of Texas. Harris County's Office of Emergency Management moved to its highest activation level Friday morning in anticipation of the imminent flooding, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo told reporters during a news conference. Hidalgo warned residents that the forecast has changed as heavy rains have already fallen in northern Polk County and will make their way to Harris County sooner than expected. "Right now, you may think if you live in those neighborhoods that things have leveled off and we're good to go, but this threat is ongoing and it's going to get worse," she said. "It is not your typical river flood." A flood watch is in effect in southeastern Texas and Louisiana. Numerous flash flood warnings are also in effect in Texas. About 45 miles north of Houston, in Cleveland, Texas, a 12-hour old baby was medevaced by the Coast Guard due "reportedly experiencing low oxygen levels at Texas Emergency Hospital, which does not have a neonatal intensive care unit." Due to flooding in the area, emergency workers were unable to transport the baby by ambulance. Hidalgo noted that 700 homes have already flooded in Polk County. "In some way seeing what's taking place there, it's like seeing the future," Hidalgo said. The judge estimated that 100 Harris County homes are at risk for flooding. Harris County issued a disaster declaration Thursday and called for mandatory evacuations for residents living closest to the banks of the East Fork of the San Jacinto River. Those unable to leave will likely be trapped in their homes for two to three days, she warned. "If you stay there, not only are you a sitting duck, but you're putting our law enforcement in danger," Hidalgo said. Hidalgo said first responders have rescued 26 people and 30 pets since Thursday night. Hidalgo said she has been in touch with Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued a disaster declaration Thursday. "As flooding conditions and severe weather continue in multiple regions across Texas, I expanded the disaster declaration to add 59 counties to ensure Texans and their communities receive the assistance and support they need to stay safe," the governor said in a statement. "For Texans in at-risk areas, it is important to remain weather-aware, follow the guidance of state and local officials, and avoid traveling in dangerous flood conditions. The State of Texas continues working with emergency management and local officials to deploy any additional resources needed to provide ongoing support and protect our fellow Texans," he added. The East Fork of the San Jacinto River was up to 75 feet above sea level Friday afternoon and expected to crest at 78 feet later in the day, according to the forecast. The record is 81 feet set during Hurricane Harvey.Typically, the river is 45 to 50 feet above sea level, Hidalgo said.

Houston-area flooding: Homes in Montgomery County full of water — Several days of relentless rainfall has flooded homes in Montgomery County neighborhoods.In the River Plantation community, several homes are full of water. The Ortiz family lives along Ravensworth Drive. They evacuated Thursday with kids, pets and important documents and are grateful they made it to safety.“Even last night, I thought, you know, let's keep it at about five feet and below, and we'll just deal with that,” Jordan Ortiz told us. “And so really, in an odd way, I was just thankful because it could have been a lot worse. And there's people in this neighborhood who have it a lot worse than I do right now.”The family said their street flooded in January and they got water inside the home but it was nothing like what they’re experiencing now.Arnold and Angela Reeps live on River Plantation Drive and they also evacuated Thursday night. They returned Friday morning and learned their home now has five feet of water and they can’t get to it.“We don’t know what it's going to be like when we get back in there,” Arnold said. “And if the house is gone, where do we go?” Angela asked. The family says they’re thankful to be okay, but it’s still a difficult situation.First responders rescued several people Friday who were trapped on River Plantation Drive.First responders have been working around the clock to rescue people trapped in the floodwaters. The Caney Creek Fire and Rescue said they haven't slept because they've been too busy taking people to safety. The community is opening the River Plantation Recovery Center starting Monday at 451 River Plantation Drive. They are asking for supplies like water, gloves, fans and shovels.

Evacuations ordered, homes damaged in Texas as rivers surge to Hurricane Harvey levels | CNN — videos - Flooding is intensifying in Texas in the wake of strong storms and heavy rainfall, sweeping away vehicles, damaging homes and triggering evacuations.This week’s storms were just the latest in a series of brutal weather events that have pounded the state since early April. Dozens of tornadoes have hit from the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast, some areas of the state have been pounded with softball-sized hail and months of rain has fallen in East Texas in intense spurts, causing rivers to rise to levels not seen since the devastating floods of Hurricane Harvey in 2017.Some communities north of Houston picked up nearly two months’ worth of rain Thursday. This rainfall plunged roadways underwater and forced rivers to overflow, leading to evacuations and water rescues.

• San Jacinto County, 60 miles north of Houston: About 100-200 homes are affected by floodwaters and mandatory evacuations are in effect. The event is “85% worse than Hurricane Harvey,” Emmitt Eldridge, the county’s emergency management coordinator, told CNN. Eldridge said since they are downstream from Dallas along the Trinity River, “we are expecting to see a lot more water” because of additional rainfall. “Anything they deal with, we deal with,” he added. According to Eldridge, there have been at least 58 water rescues in the county so far. More rain is expected in the area next week.
• Walker County, about 70 miles northwest of Houston: Authorities are calling the floods historic there as well. “This has been a historic flood for Walker County. We have flooded more from this event than we did during Hurricane Harvey,” Sherri Pegoda, Walker County’s deputy emergency management coordinator, told CNN. According to Pegoda, two communities are underwater along the Trinity River and are only accessible via high-water vehicles. “Almost all roads in Walker County were completely submerged Monday night and into Tuesday,” Pegoda said. “We still have approximately 43 roads that are flooded with several major washouts and a couple of bridges that have been compromised.” At least 42 high-water rescues have been performed in the county since April 28, she added.
• Polk County, about 80 miles northeast of Houston: Roughly 700 homes have been flooded, according to emergency management officials, who warned additional rainfall could keep flood levels on the rise in the coming days. A total of 1,000 homes are in a mandatory evacuation zone in the county, Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy told CNN. A flood warning remains in effect Friday for the County. The judge said they were concerned and keeping an eye on what was happening north of the county with the flooding because it would impact the area. “Due to continuous rainfall across East Texas and rising levels in creeks and rivers, flood levels may increase. Please remain aware of changing flood levels along the Trinity River and ALL low-lying levels. If you wish to evacuate, please do so now!,” the emergency management office recently said in a Facebook post.
• Harris County, which includes the city of Houston and several northern suburbs: Mandatory evacuations have been in place since Thursday for residents on the east side of the East Fork of the San Jacinto River. The river hit major flood stage on Thursday and is forecast to crest Saturday morning just a few feet shy of the record level during Harvey. “We want you out of this area… this is a life-threatening situation,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference. The level of water rise anticipated will impact elevated structures and may rise to reach rooftops or power lines, according to Hidalgo.
In the Harris County suburb of Crosby, a school bus driver spotted flooding over a road that had not yet been barricaded, stopped the bus and had the middle and high school students on board exit through the rear door, according to a statement from the school district. Another bus brought the students to school, where they were provided with breakfast and dry clothes, the statement added.
• Liberty County, about 45 miles northeast of Houston: The Coast Guard transported a 12-hour-old baby girl by helicopter from Cleveland, Texas, Friday. The girl was experiencing low oxygen levels at Texas Emergency Hospital, which does not have a neonatal intensive care unit, according to a news release from the Coast Guard. Due to flooding, she could not be transported by ambulance on the ground. The helicopter took the girl and her mother to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where the baby was reported to be in stable condition, the release added.

Voluntary evacuations due to flooding were also in place for Montgomery County, just to the north of Harris County.Disaster declarations are active for over a third of Texas counties after Gov. Greg Abbott expanded the storm-related declarations in response to the flooding, according to a news release. Additional counties could be added in the coming days, particularly with more storms in the forecast.Parts of eastern Texas have received anywhere from three to seven times their typical rainfall over the last three to four weeks. The repeated bouts of heavy rainfall soaked soils, making many areas extremely prone to both flash and river flooding. Nearly a foot of rain fell in some spots from Thursday to Friday morning, delivering the final blow. Periods of rain will continue through Friday evening, and an additional 1 to 2 inches of rain are possible.The worst flooding is confined to southeastern Texas where at least a dozen river gauges – including parts of the San Jacinto and Trinity rivers – are in major flood stage, the highest level, as of Friday morning. Several more sites are forecast to experience major flooding by the weekend and could meet or exceed record levels set during Harvey. Hurricane Harvey created a widespread flooding disaster in Houston after dropping 30 to 40 inches of rain across the entire metro in just 48 hours. While this week’s ongoing flooding is notable, it’s much less widespread and occurring north of where Harvey’s worst rain fell.As torrential rain flooded eastern Texas, severe thunderstorms spun up tornadoes both north and south of the Abilene area in west Texas. There were eight reports of tornadoes Thursday, according to the Storm Prediction Center.A “large and extremely dangerous” tornado impacted the towns of Hodges and Hawley – about 10 miles north of Abilene – Thursday evening.Around 30 homes in Hawley were shredded by the tornado’s winds, with entire sections of some homes left completely exposed. Cars in the area also sustained damage from flying debris. There were “numerous” injuries, but no deaths as of Friday morning, Hawley Police Chief Brad Wilson told CNN.At least one area school district is allowing students to study from home or take time to recover Friday, following Thursday evening’s damaging tornado.“The Hawley community has been hit pretty hard and we have several families that have lost homes,” the Hawley Independent School District said in a Facebook post.

On the U.S. Gulf Coast, flooding risk grows as sea level rise accelerates - It had been raining off and on for days and John Corideo, chief of the Fowl River Fire District, knew that if it continued, his department could be outmatched by floodwaters. It kept raining. Water filled the ditches and climbed over roads, swallowing parts of a main highway. About 10 residents who needed to be rescued were brought back to the station in firetrucks. More remained stranded in floodwaters, out of the department’s reach. “That week … we just caught hell,” Corideo said. What the residents and rescuers of the Fowl River region faced on that day was part of a dangerous phenomenon reshaping the Southern United States: Rapidly rising seas are combining with storms to generate epic floods, threatening lives, property and livelihoods. In the Fowl River’s case, unusually high tides slowed floodwaters as they went downstream to drain. This increased the water’s depth and flooded a wide expanse — even several miles upstream. The result was deluged roads, washed out cars and damaged houses from a flood that was larger, deeper and longer-lasting due to rising seas. These supercharged floods are one of the most pernicious impacts of an unexpected surge in sea levels across the U.S. Gulf and Southeast coasts — with the ocean rising an average of 6 inches since 2010, one of the fastest such changes in the world, according to a Washington Post examination of how sea level rise is affecting the region. The Post’s analysis found that sea levels at a tide gauge near the Fowl River rose four times faster in 2010 to 2023 than over the previous four decades. Chart showing sea level rise at Dauphin Island, Alabama. The chart shows the rate of sea level rise from 1980 to 2009 which was 0.1 inches per year, and the rate from 2010 to 2023 which was 0.5 inches per year. The chart also compares these rates to the overall rates in the Gulf of Mexico, which in the former period were slower than and in the latter period were faster than the Gulf. The rapid burst of sea level rise has struck a region spanning from Brownsville, Tex., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., where coastal counties are home to 28 million people. Outdated infrastructure built to manage water, some of it over a century old, cannot keep up. As a result, the seas are swallowing coastal land, damaging property, submerging septic tanks and making key roads increasingly impassable. “Our canary in the coal mine for sea level rise is storm-water flooding,” said Renee Collini, director of the Community Resilience Center at the Water Institute. “Each inch up of sea level rise reduces the effectiveness of our storm water to drain and the only place left for it to go is into our roads, yards, homes and businesses.”

Dam collapse in western Kenya claims at least 48 lives, leaves 49 missing - (2 YouTube videos) At least 48 people have died and another 49 are missing after the Old Kijabe Dam near Mai Mahiu in Nakuru County, Kenya, collapsed due to heavy rainfall. The collapse caused severe infrastructural damage including a major road cut-off. The Old Kijabe Dam located near Mai Mahiu in Nakuru County, Kenya, failed catastrophically in the early hours of Monday morning, resulting in a death toll of at least 48 people. 49 people from 26 families are still missing, as of Monday afternoon. 109 people were rescued and rushed to hospitals, the Kenyan Red Cross reported. The breach sent a powerful surge of water through residential areas, sweeping away dozens of homes and severing a vital roadway in Kamuchiri village, which has exacerbated the transport and logistical challenges in the area. Governor Susan Kihika of Nakuru expressed concerns that the number of casualties may rise as rescue and recovery efforts continue in the mud-engulfed areas. The collapse occurred amid a period of intense rainfall that has plagued East Africa since mid-March. This season’s rainfall has been intensified by the El Niño weather pattern, leading to an unusually harsh wet season. As of the latest reports, the overall death toll for the region during this March-May wet season has risen to more than 120, up from 76 just two days prior, on April 27. Over 200 000 residents across Kenya have been affected by these conditions, particularly in the capital city of Nairobi, where numerous homes are submerged, forcing inhabitants to seek temporary shelter in educational facilities. The ongoing crisis has prompted significant disruptions in the education sector, with Ezekiel Machogu, the Education Minister, announcing a postponement of school reopenings. Originally scheduled for early May, the reopening of primary and secondary schools has been delayed by one week to ensure the safety of students and staff amidst the ongoing disaster. The Kenya Meteorological Department has issued warnings that the heavy rains are expected to persist, urging the public and authorities to remain vigilant. The broader East African region is similarly afflicted, with neighboring countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, and Burundi also reporting severe flooding incidents and associated casualties. Tanzania reported deaths of 155 people while over 200 000 are affected in neighboring Burundi. Uganda has also suffered heavy storms that have caused riverbanks to burst, with two deaths confirmed and several hundred villagers displaced.

Kenya flood toll rises to 181 as homes and roads are destroyed (Reuters) - Floods and landslides across Kenya have killed 181 people since March, with hundreds of thousands forced to leave their homes, the government and Red Cross said on Wednesday, as dozens more were killed in neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi. Torrential rain and floods have destroyed homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure across the region. The death toll in Kenya exceeds that from floods triggered by the El Nino weather phenomenon late last year. In the central Kenyan town of Mai Mahiu, where at least 48 died in flash floods on Monday, two bodies were recovered from the debris on Wednesday, Kenya Red Cross South Rift Regional Manager Felix Maiyo said. Military personnel accompanied by sniffer dogs had joined the search, Maiyo said. Earlier on Wednesday, government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura said the total death toll had risen by 10 to 179. Last year's rains followed the worst drought in large parts of East Africa in decades. In Kitengela, 33 km (20 miles) from Nairobi, Kenya Red Cross workers were helping to rescue residents whose homes were marooned by flood waters. They were also trying to rescue tourists trapped at camps in Narok, 215 km from Nairobi, the Kenya Red Cross said on social media platform X. Kenya's national highways authority said it had closed a section of a highway leading to the city and at least three other roads across the country due to flooding and debris.

Kenya floods death toll tops 200 as cyclone approaches - The death toll from flood-related incidents in Kenya has crossed 200 since March, the interior ministry said Friday, as a cyclone barrelled towards the Tanzanian coast. Torrential rains have lashed much of East Africa, triggering flooding and landslides that has destroyed crops, swallowed homes, and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Some 210 people have died in Kenya "due to severe weather conditions," the interior ministry said in a statement, with 22 killed in the past 24 hours. More than 165,000 people had been uprooted from their home, it added and 90 others missing, raising fears that the toll could rise higher. Kenya and neighboring Tanzania, where at least 155 people have been killed in flooding, are bracing for cyclone Hidaya, bringing heavy rain, wind and waves to their coasts. Tanzanian authorities warned Friday that Hidaya had "strengthened to reach the status of a full-fledged cyclone," at 3:00 am local time (0000GMT) when it was some 400 kilometers (248 miles) from the southeastern city of Mtwara. "Cyclone Hidaya has continued to strengthen further, with wind speeds increasing to about 130 kilometers per hour," they said in a weather bulletin. Kenya's interior ministry forecast that the cyclone was likely to "bring strong winds and large ocean waves, with heavy rainfall" expected to hit the coast starting Sunday. The heavier than usual rains have also claimed at least 29 lives in Burundi, with 175 people injured, and tens of thousands displaced since September last year, the United Nations said. The rains have been amplified by the El Niño weather pattern—a naturally occurring climate phenomenon typically associated with increased heat worldwide, leading to drought in some parts of the world and heavy downpours elsewhere. Late last year, more than 300 people died in rains and floods in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, just as the region was trying to recover from its worst drought in four decades.

Flood-hit Kenya and Tanzania on alert as cyclone nears -Kenya and Tanzania were on alert on Saturday for a cyclone heading towards their Indian Ocean coastlines, threatening to pile on more misery after deadly floods that have ravaged the region. About 400 people have lost their lives in East Africa and tens of thousands have been uprooted from their homes in recent weeks as torrential rains triggered flooding and landslides engulfed houses, roads and bridges. Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday described the weather outlook as "dire" and postponed the reopening of schools indefinitely as the nation braced for its first-ever cyclone. Tropical Cyclone Hidaya is projected to make landfall at the weekend on the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts. Ruto said the storm "is predicted to cause torrential rain, strong winds and powerful and dangerous waves". Around 210 people have died in Kenya from flood-related incidents and nearly 100 are missing while 165,000 have been forced to flee their homes, according to government data. "No corner of our country has been spared from this havoc," Ruto said. "Sadly, we have not seen the last of this perilous period." The Kenya Met Department said Cyclone Hidaya was expected to hit coastal areas with powerful winds surpassing 40 knots and ocean waves over two meters (more than six feet) high. President William Ruto said Cycline Hidaya could cause torrential rain, strong winds and powerful waves President William Ruto said Cycline Hidaya could cause torrential rain, strong winds and powerful waves. On Thursday, the interior ministry had ordered anyone living close to major rivers or dams to leave the area within 24 hours or face "mandatory evacuation for their safety". It warned that 178 dams and water reservoirs were full or almost full and may spill over, posing a risk to people in their vicinity. Opposition politicians and lobby groups have accused the government of being unprepared and slow to respond despite weather warnings. 'Maximum precautions' Cyclone Hidaya will peak at gusts of 165 kilometers (100 miles) per hour when it makes landfall in Tanzania on Saturday, according to the Climate Prediction and Applications Centre for East African trade bloc IGAD. Cyclone season in the southwest Indian Ocean normally lasts from November to April, and there are around a dozen storms each year.

Dams strain as water, death toll keep rising in south Brazil - The death toll from floods and mudslides triggered by torrential storms in southern Brazil climbed to 39 on Friday, officials said, as they warned of worse to come.As the rain kept beating down, rescuers in boats and planes searched for scores of people reported missing among the ruins of collapsed homes, bridges and roads.Rising water levels in the state of Rio Grande do Sul were straining dams and threatening the metropolis of Porto Alegre with "unprecedented" flooding, authorities warned."Forget everything you've seen, it's going to be much worse in the metropolitan region," Governor Eduardo Leite said Friday as the streets of the state capital, with a population of some 1.5 million, started flooding after days of heavy downpours in the region.The state's civil defense department said at least 265 municipalities had sufferedstorm damage in Rio Grande do Sul since Monday, injuring 74 people and displacing more than 24,000—a third of whom have been brought to shelters.At least 68 people were missing, and more than 350,000 have experienced some form of property damage, according to the latest data.And there was no end in sight, with officials reporting an "emergency situation, presenting a risk of collapse" at four dams in the state. The level of the state's main Guiaba river, meanwhile, was estimated to have risen 4.2-4.6 meters (about 13.7-15 feet), but could not be measured as the gauges have washed away, the mayor of Porto Alegre said.As it kept rising, officials raced to reinforced flood protection.Porto Alegre's worst recorded flood was in 1941, when the river reached a level of 4.71 meters.Elsewhere in the state, several cities and towns have been completely cut off from the world in what Governor Leite described as "the worst disaster in the history" of Rio Grande do Sul.Many communities have been left without access to drinking water, telephone or internet services.Tens of thousands have no electricity.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the region Thursday, vowing "there will be no lack of human or material resources" in responding to the disaster, which he blamed on climate change. On Friday, it was the turn of state capital Porto Alegre, home to some 1.5 million people, to have its roads inundated by the rising waters of the Guiaba river.The central government has sent aircraft, boats and more than 600 soldiers to help clear roads, distribute food, water and mattresses, and set up shelters.School classes have been suspended state-wide. In Capela de Santana, north of the state capital, Raul Metzel explained that his neighbors had to abandon their livestock."You don't know if the water will continue to rise or what will happen to the animals, they may soon drown," he said.Climatologist Francisco Eliseu Aquino told AFP on Friday the devastating storms were the result of a "disastrous cocktail" of global warming and the El Niño weather phenomenon.

Vietnam temperature records tumble as heat wave scorches -More than 100 temperature records fell across Vietnam in April, according to official data, as a deadly heat wave scorches South and Southeast Asia. Extreme heat has blasted Asia from India to the Philippines in recent weeks, triggering heatstroke deaths, school closures and desperate prayers for cooling rain. Scientists have long warned that human-induced climate change will produce more frequent, longer and intense heat waves. Vietnam saw three waves of high temperatures in April, according to data published Friday by the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, with the mercury peaking at 44 degrees Celsius (111.2 Fahrenheit) in two towns earlier this week. The mark is only slightly below the highest temperature ever recorded in Vietnam—44.2 C on May 7 last year. In all, 102 weather stations saw record highs in April, as northern and central Vietnam bore the brunt of the heat wave, with temperatures on average 2-4 C higher than during the same period last year. Seven stations recorded temperatures above 43 C, all on Tuesday. The most dramatic sign of the extreme weather hitting Vietnam came in the southern province of Dong Nai, where hundreds of thousands of fish died in a reservoir. Images showed locals wading and boating through the 300-hectare Song May reservoir, with the water barely visible beneath a blanket of dead fish. The mass die-off was blamed on water shortages caused by the heat wave and poor management. The Vietnamese weather agency is predicting more hot weather in May, with temperatures expected to be 1.5 to 2.5 degrees higher than in previous years. While April and May are normally the hottest time of year in Southeast Asia, experts say the El Niño effect is making this year's heat particularly intense. Bangladesh and Myanmar saw April heat records broken, heatstroke has killed at least 30 people in Thailand since the start of the year, and high temperatures were partly blamed for a deadly explosion at a Cambodian ammunition dump. Roman Catholic bishops in the Philippines are urging the faithful to pray for rain and lower temperatures, after the heat forced the government to close tens of thousands of schools. The Indian megacity of Kolkata has sweltered through punishing heat, peaking at 43 C for the city's hottest single April day since 1954. Even mountainous Nepal has been hit, with the government issuing health warnings last week and firefighters battling unusually severe wildfires.

Kids study in overheated slum as Philippines shuts schools -Fourth-grader Ella Araza sat on a tiny plastic box in her Manila slum home, trying to finish her homework before the afternoon sun sent temperatures soaring to unbearable levels. The Philippines shut down more than 47,000 schools nationwide from Monday, as the temperature in Manila crossed a record high, clocking 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.4 degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend.Over 7,000 were still closed on Thursday, including 10-year-old Ella's elementary school in the capital. Many schools in the tropical country have no air conditioning and students must sweat it out in poorly ventilated classrooms but conditions at Baseco, Manila's infamous docklands slum, are even more desperate. "The heat makes her lazy. Sometimes she fails to do her online homework," Ella's mother Cindella Manabat, 29, told AFP from the slum community that houses 65,000 residents inside half a square kilometer (124 acres). In their tiny one-room dwelling, Ella squints at her mother's cell phone to decipher the day's lesson, which her teacher posts online.The apartment, which has no running water, must be kept dark because Ella's younger brother, Prince, suffers from cerebral palsy and could be hit by an epileptic seizure. Several doors down, sixth-grader Jalian Mangampo and her younger brother Sherwin lie on their shared single bed and try to finish their schoolwork on mobile phones.The online lessons do not come cheap—the siblings have to drop five pesos (nine US cents) into a neighbor's WiFi vending machine to gain three hours of internet access.Their widowed mother, shopkeeper Richel Mangampo, 43, took on a high-interest loan to buy them an 8,500-peso ($148) mobile phone. A stranger earlier gifted the siblings another phone."The heat is terrible because the ceiling is so low," the mother said, pointing to the corrugated iron roofing that she has partly covered with a scrap of plywood to keep the heat at bay."We have to step outside from time to time just to be able to breathe."But she does not allow her children to stay out too long because the blazing sun is not the only danger in Baseco. "Out of nowhere youths armed with broken bottles would be going at each other after getting high sniffing glue," she said. The state weather service has warned the extreme heat will persist for the next two weeks at least, meaning the students could be mostly stuck at home before the school year ends on May 31. "It's so hot they have difficulty falling asleep," Mangampo said.Manabat said Ella often complains because the family has just one electric fan that must be shared at night. The mother and her three kids, including a year-old baby, sleep on the bed while her boyfriend, a house decorator, sleeps in his boxers on the floor. The front door stays open for ventilation."She (daughter) gets prickly heat rash at times," Manabat said, adding the irritation distracts Ella from her schoolwork.But Mangampo, whose children also get rashes, avoids taking them to the doctor as it is too expensive."We bathe at sea on Sundays instead. The boils disappear in no time," she said, referring to nearby Manila Bay, declared by the government a "no swimming zone" years earlier due to extreme pollution.

Nepal battles raging wildfires across the country -Firefighters and local residents battled a massive wildfire on the outskirts of Nepal's capital Thursday as the Himalayan republic endures a severe fire season authorities have blamed on a heat wave. Nepal sees a spate of wildfires annually, usually beginning in March, but their number and intensity has worsened in recent years, with climate change leading to drier winters. Emergency crews worked through the night to fight the blaze which engulfed a forested area in Lalitpur, on the southern periphery of the Kathmandu valley. More than 4,500 wildfires have been reported this year across the country, nearly double compared to last year according to government data but less than the worst fire season on record in 2021. "Wildfires have increased in an unimaginable ratio, and the season is expected to last for a month more," Sundar Prasad Sharma of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority told AFP. "It is challenging to put out fires because of our difficult terrain," he added. Environment ministry spokesman Badri Raj Dhungana said the increase in the number of wildfires this year was because of a lengthy drought and heat wave conditions in Nepal's southern plains. "Generally, wildfires peak late April but this year they are still increasing because of rising temperatures," he said. Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. Large swathes of South and Southeast Asia have sweltered through a heat wave since last month, with the El Niño phenomenon also driving this year's exceptionally warm weather. Temperatures have risen above 40 degrees Celsius in the Buddhist pilgrimage city of Lumbini and other parts of the south, with more hot weather forecast in the days ahead. More than a hundred schools in the southern city of Butwal were closed on Thursday for two days out of fears the heat wave would impact the health of students.

Large avalanche strikes Sonmarg, Jammu and Kashmir - (2 YouTube videos) The Sonmarg region of Jammu and Kashmir was hit by a severe avalanche on April 29, 2024, amidst ongoing heavy rain and snowfall, leading to the closure of critical transport routes including the main Jammu-Srinagar highway. The event took place in the Sarbal area of Sonmarg, causing considerable alarm as captured in a video where livestock and locals were seen fleeing the rapidly descending snow. Concurrently, the region faced multiple landslides due to the intense precipitation, notably impacting the Jammu-Srinagar national highway, the primary all-weather route connecting Kashmir with the rest of India. The highway was obstructed at several points including Mehar, Gangroo, Mom Passi, and Kishtwari Pather in Ramban district, as reported by PTI. The landslides prompted authorities to shut down the road to ensure the safety of commuters and prevent accidents. In addition to the highway, the Mughal Road, an alternative route connecting Poonch and Rajouri districts with south Kashmir’s Shopian district, also remained closed for the third consecutive day. This closure was primarily due to snow accumulation in Peer Ki Gali and nearby areas, which rendered the road impassable. The recent weather conditions have significantly increased water levels in rivers, lakes, and streams throughout the region, posing additional risks of flooding and further landslides. Heavy rains are expected across the region for at least another 24 hours. As a precautionary measure, several schools in areas vulnerable to floods and landslides have been temporarily closed.

Major eruption at Ruang volcano, ash to 19.2 km (63 000 feet) a.s.l., Indonesia - Another high-level eruption started at Indonesia’s Ruang volcano at 18:15 UTC on April 29, 2024 (01:15 LT, April 30), producing an ash column to an estimated height of about 19.2 km (63 000 feet) above sea level. Authorities raised the Alert Level to 4 and the Aviation Color Code to Red. This powerful eruption comes just 2 weeks after a similar eruption on April 16. This intense volcanic eruption was characterized by the dramatic emission of incandescent lava that soared into the sky, illuminating it with a bright red hue. This spectacular display was further enhanced by the presence of volcanic lightning, a phenomenon associated with the eruption of ash-laden plumes into the atmosphere. Such visual manifestations are typical signs of significant volcanic activity, indicating the release of vast amounts of energy and material from within the Earth. Concurrently, a significant shower of stones and gravel occurred, extending over a broader area than during the previous eruption on April 16. This widespread fallout is indicative of the eruption’s intensity and its capacity to disperse material over a large radius. The Emergency Response Post, established 7 km (4.3 miles) outside the Disaster Prone Area (KRB) in Apengsala Village, was impacted by this extensive rain of stones and gravel. The situation began to stabilize at 00:55 UTC (07:55 LT) on April 30, although rapid assessments continued to evaluate the full scope of the impact. For safety reasons, amidst these hazardous conditions, the electricity network on Tagulandang Island has been deactivated. Additionally, the weakening of telecommunications signals has posed challenges for effective coordination and communication in the field, complicating response efforts. The Darwin VAAC reported volcanic ash eruption to 19.2 km (63 000 feet) above sea level. The Alert Level was raised to 4 of 4 and the Aviation Color Code to Red. Manado’s Sam Ratulangi airport was closed at least until noon (LT) on Wednesday, May 1. Residents near Volcano Ruang, including tourists and visitors, are strongly advised to stay vigilant and avoid entering areas within a 6 km (3.7 miles) radius from the center of the active crater. This precautionary zone is established to mitigate risks from potential volcanic hazards. For the inhabitants of Tagulandang Island located within this 6 km radius, immediate evacuation is imperative. They should relocate to safer areas beyond this specified radius to ensure their safety. Particularly for those residing near coastal areas, there is an increased risk of hazards such as incandescent rock ejections, pyroclastic density currents (commonly known as hot clouds or surges), and potential tsunamis triggered by volcanic materials entering the sea or the collapse of parts of the volcanic structure into the ocean. Additionally, the public is encouraged to wear masks consistently to shield themselves from volcanic ash, which poses significant health risks, particularly to the respiratory system. This is the second powerful eruption at Ruang since April 16, 2024. Most of the island’s population (800) have been evacuated after the April 16th eruption. It’s not clear how many of them have returned home and were evacuated again.

EPA underestimates methane emissions from landfills and urban areas, researchers find -The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is underestimating methane emissions from landfills, urban areas and U.S. states, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The researchers combined 2019 satellite observations with an atmospheric transport model to generate a high-resolution map of methane emissions, which was then compared to EPA estimates from the same year. The researchers found:

Methane emissions from landfills are 51% higher compared to EPA estimates
Methane emissions from 95 urban areas are 39% higher than EPA estimates
Methane emissions from the 10 states with the highest methane emissions are 27% higher than EPA estimates

"Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change behind carbon dioxide so it's really important that we quantify methane emissions at the highest possible resolution to pinpoint what sources it is coming from," said Hannah Nesser, a former Ph.D. student at SEAS and first author of the paper. Nesser is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow in the Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The research, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, was a collaboration between scientists at Harvard and an interdisciplinary team of researchers from across the U.S. and around the world, including universities in China and the Netherlands. The EPA estimates that landfills are the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the U.S., but the EPA uses a bottom-up accounting method that often doesn't match observations of atmospheric methane. The EPA methane estimate for landfills uses the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires high-emitting facilities to self-report their emissions annually. For landfills without methane capture, the emissions are simply calculated by looking at the amount of trash that comes in and estimating how much methane trash produces over time. That figure is then scaled up to include landfill operations that don't report to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Nesser and her colleagues' top-down approach uses observations of atmospheric methane from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) aboard the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite together with an atmospheric transport model to trace the path of emissions from the atmosphere back to the ground. Using this method, the team zoomed in on 70 individual landfills across the U.S. In these facilities, the researchers found emissions that were on median 77% higher than the estimates from the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The disparity is wider for landfills that collect methane as part of their operations. Landfills don't measure the exact amounts of methane they are losing, but rather estimate how efficient their collection systems are. The EPA assumes the default efficacy rate for methane collection is 75%. But Nesser and her colleagues found that in fact, landfills are much less effective at collecting methane than previously thought. Of the 70 landfills the team studied, 38 recover gas. Among those facilities, the researchers found that methane levels were on median more than 200% higher than the estimates from the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. "Our research shows that these facilities are losing more methane than they think," said Nesser. "The EPA uses 75% efficacy as the default for methane collection, but we find that it's actually much closer to 50%." The EPA estimates also do not capture one-off events, such as construction projects or temporary leaks, which could lead to a massive increase in methane emissions and contribute to the discrepancy between EPA estimates and observed atmospheric methane. The research team also compared their analysis to the EPA's new state-level greenhouse gas inventories. The researchers found 27% higher methane emissions from the 10 top methane-producing states, with the largest increases in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Oklahoma. The team found that those 10 states are responsible for 55% of U.S. human-caused methane emissions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Texas is responsible for 21% of anthropogenic methane emissions in the U.S., 69% of which is from the oil and gas industry. At the city level, the researchers found that on average, the 10 cities with the highest urban methane emissions actually have 58% higher emissions than previously estimated. Those cities include New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Miami and Philadelphia.

Louisiana carbon pipeline rupture renews safety concerns - A carbon pipeline rupture in Louisiana is highlighting concern about pipeline safety as a similar potential project in South Dakota continues to face pushback from landowners. The rupture occurred on a pipeline operated by a company partnered with fuel giant ExxonMobil. According to New Orleans Public Radio, the rupture released over 100,000 gallons of carbon dioxide before it was repaired over an hour later.No injuries or serious illness were reported. Citizens in the area said their largest concern was that there was no alarm alerting them of the rupture.ExxonMobil representatives said they will learn from the rupture.The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration records say this was not the first carbon rupture in this location. This comes as a different company – Summit Carbon Solutions – is working to bring a carbon pipeline to South Dakota. Summit is not involved with either of the companies in the Louisiana incident.

Latest carbon dioxide leak raises concerns about safety, regulation - --It wasn’t the wail of a siren or the buzz of an emergency phone alert that warned Tanya Richard a pipeline near her home was spewing poison gas. The first hint that something was wrong came from her cats, a motley collection of free-roaming felines that fled her property as the dense cloud of carbon dioxide (CO2) rolled over a rural stretch of southwest Louisiana on April 3. “Normally, I’ve got six kitty cats out here wanting to be fed when I come home,” said Richard, who lives just outside Sulphur, a small Calcasieu Parish town about five miles from Lake Charles. “But they were nowhere to be found. Then I started to notice no cars were passing by. I said, ‘Tanya, something strange is going on.’” As it turned out, a 2-foot diameter pipeline at a CO2 pump station about a half mile from Richard’s house had ruptured, releasing about 107,000 gallons of the gas, which can cause drowsiness, suffocation and sometimes death. Colorless, odorless, and heavier than air, carbon dioxide can travel undetected and at lethal concentrations over large distances. The CO2 pipeline network is undergoing rapid expansion as companies invest in the booming carbon capture and sequestration market. With this growth come worries that communities may not be prepared or even aware of the potential for dangerous leaks. In the outskirts of Sulphur, local police and firefighters could do little more than set up roadblocks and wait for the pipeline’s owner, ExxonMobil subsidiary Denbury Inc., to send repair specialists. Calcasieu Parish issued a shelter-in-place advisory, urging everyone within a quarter mile of the pump station to close doors and windows and turn off air conditioners, but officials relied mostly on social media to convey the warning. The parish narrowed its emergency alert system to phone numbers listed for addresses within a quarter mile of the station. That amounted to about eight homes – four of which were likely unoccupied, according to parish officials. The pump station and pipeline aren’t equipped with alarms or other methods of alerting the nearby residents when leaks or other accidents occur. Several residents in the Sulphur say they received no notice of the leak or became aware of it via Facebook posts more than an hour after the gas began to spread. “There should have been alarms, and the whole community should have been notified,” The pipeline, acquired by Exxon when it purchased Denbury last year, is part of a 925-mile network stretching through Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Across the U.S., more than 5,000 miles of pipeline, including the section running near Sulphur, are primarily used for enhanced oil recovery – a process that injects pressurized carbon dioxide into old or declining oil reservoirs to squeeze out leftover deposits. Much of the current and predicted growth in the CO2 pipeline network is linked to burgeoning carbon capture technologies, which allow industrial plants to store CO2 underground instead of releasing it into the air. The Biden administration has made carbon capture a key component of its efforts to lower emissions. Billions of dollars in federal grants and tax incentives are up for grabs, spurring a host of projects along the Gulf Coast and a vast expansion of the CO2 pipeline network. Carbon dioxide pipelines could top 65,000 miles – a thirteenfold increase – by 2050, according to the Congressional Research Service. Safety regulations aren’t keeping pace, said Kenneth Clarkson, communications director of the Pipeline Safety Trust. The leak near Sulphur is only the latest mishap in an accident-prone network with weak warning and emergency response systems, he said. In 2020, the pipeline had two large-scale leaks in the small Mississippi community of Sataria, about 30 miles from Jackson. One rupture, caused by a mudslide after a hard rain, forced about 200 Satartia residents to evacuate and hospitalized at least 45 people. Emergency responders found people passed out or disoriented and struggling to breathe. “They found me, my cousin and my brother unconscious, with foam coming out our mouths,” said DeEmmeris Burns, who was fishing with family members near the Satartia leak when the CO2 cloud reached them. “They thought we were dead.” Despite being outside the shelter-in-place radius, Richard suffered headaches and drowsiness – both of which are symptoms of mild CO2 exposure. “That night, I got a massive headache, like a migraine,” she said. “Then I felt extremely sleepy, like I’d taken a sleeping pill. I could not get up. I felt…not right.”

Methane emissions from gas flaring being hidden from satellite monitors Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed. Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring. Flares are used by fossil fuel companies when capturing the natural gas would cost more than they can make by selling it. They release carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants when they burn as well as cancer-causing chemicals. Despite the health risks, regulators sometimes prefer flaring to releasing natural gas – which is 90% methane – directly into the atmosphere, known as “venting”. The World Bank, alongside the EU and other regulators, have been using satellites for years to find and document gas flares, asking energy companies to find ways of capturing the gas instead of burning or venting it. The bank set up the Zero Routine Flaring 2030 initiative at the Paris climate conference to eradicate unnecessary flaring, and its latest report stated that flaring decreased by 3% globally from 2021 to 2022. But since the initiative, “enclosed combustors” have begun appearing in the same countries that promised to end flaring. Experts say enclosed combustors are functionally the same as flares, except the flame is hidden. Tim Doty, a former regulator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said: “Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don’t see. Enclosed flaring is still flaring. It’s just different infrastructure that they’re allowing. “Enclosed flaring is, in truth, probably less efficient than a typical flare. It’s better than venting, but going from a flare to an enclosed flare or a vapour combustor is not an improvement in reducing emissions.”

Senate Democrats: Oil companies pivoted from climate denial to ‘deception, disinformation, and doublespeak’ Major oil companies have internally conceded their public vows to reduce planet-warming emissions are incompatible with their business plans, according to a three-year report issued by Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee and the House Oversight Committee. The report, which builds on an Oversight probe that stalled out after Republicans took the House majority, includes documents in which oil industry figures seemingly concede the industry’s history of knowingly suppressing the link between fossil fuels and climate change. In 2015, a joint investigation by Inside Climate News and The Los Angeles Times reported that ExxonMobil had deliberately pushed back against climate science. While the company publicly denies this, documents in the report include a 2016 email exchange in which a media relations manager writes, “It’s true that Inside Climate News originally accused us of working against the science but ultimately modified their accusation to working against policies meant to stop climate change, such as Kyoto. I’m ok either way since they were both true at one time or another.” The report alleges that major oil companies, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the trade group the American Petroleum Institute, modified their strategy over the years from outright denial to “deception, disinformation, and doublespeak.” Their strategies on this front, the report alleges, include erroneously positioning natural gas as a climate-friendly “bridge fuel” to renewables that obfuscate its emissions. They have also publicly expressed support for the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement but internally acknowledged those goals are not compatible with their long-term business strategies, according to the report. The committee also alleges that the industry publicly expresses support for climate legislation and regulations, while either privately lobbying against them or relying on trade groups to do that work. This echoes comments made by former ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy, who told an undercover activist in 2021 that the company “aggressively [fought] against some of the science” on climate change. The company has said McCoy did not speak for it in the interview. Moreover, the report alleges that ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, API and the Chamber continually obstructed the probe. “For decades, the fossil fuel industry has known about the economic and climate harms of its products but has deceived the American public to keep collecting more than $600 billion each year in subsidies while raking in record-breaking profits,” Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a statement. “As this joint report makes clear, the industry’s outright denial of climate change has evolved into a green-seeming cover for its ongoing covert operation—a campaign of deception, disinformation, and doublespeak waged using dark money, phony front groups, false economics, and relentless exertion of political influence—to block climate progress.”

Bigoted Antis Label Hydrogen from PA NatGas as “Bad” and “Dirty” ----Marcellus Drilling News - When the Bidenistas announced a $750 million “investment” of taxpayer money would flow to the Philadelphia region (actually Delaware and New Jersey, and a little bit of Philly) for a “green” hydrogen hub, wackadoodle antis pitched a fit (seeMouthy Delaware Riverkeeper Disrupts PA Gov. at Hydrogen Rally). Antis, along with selfish companies (that would economically benefit from cutting off natural gas), continue the meme that PA’s “fracked” natural gas is “bad” and “dirty” and should be replaced with using other technologies to create hydrogen — technologies that cost 5X as much as natural gas.

Bidenistas Regulate Gas Stoves, Furnaces, and Now, Water Heaters Marcellus Drilling News - First, the radicals of the Biden administration came for your natural gas stoves (seeBidenistas All-In on Banning Natural Gas Stoves in Homes). Then they came for your gas furnace (see Bidenistas Attack Your Gas Furnace with New DOE Regulations). And last year, we warned you they were coming for your water heater next (see Bidenistas Now Coming for Your Gas & Electric Water Heaters). And so they have. Yesterday the dipsy dolt Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the Dept. of Energy, unveiled new energy efficiency standards for residential hot water heaters that pretty much eliminate natural gas water heaters moving forward. We’re now close to having NO rights left under these leftist dictators.

Demand for critical minerals drives massive changes in global economy --The race to beef up global supply chains for metals and minerals crucial to the ongoing energy transition is heating up. Companies are jockeying for position within shifting production networks and legislatures are advancing packages to pull mineral processing away from China, where the industry has been concentrated for decades. At stake in the quest for mineral resources is everything from an international environmental ban on scraping the ocean floor to barbaric labor norms in developing countries, where mining operations have long been criticized by human rights groups. At the core of multiple controversies is surging demand for critical minerals — metals such as cobalt, lithium and copper that go into building batteries, magnets, electronics and component parts for energy technologies intended to replace the fossil fuels that have driven global warming and climate change. Demand for lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper is on track to outpace production through 2050, according to a recent report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Lithium tops the list, with expected demand in 2045 more than tripling the likely supply in that year of nearly 1,400 metric tons. Demand for copper in new energy systems is expected to jump from 23 percent of total demand for all uses of the metal to more than 42 percent by 2050. “To meet the increasing demand, countries need to explore new resources abundant in high-grade mineral ores and attract investments into the sector, among other essential measures,” U.N. economists wrote in a March brief. While reserves of the raw materials that go into fossil fuel production, such as natural gas and crude oil, are distributed more or less globally, critical minerals tend to be concentrated in different countries and regions, putting pressure on specific supply chains and trade relationships. More than half of the world’s lithium, an important component in batteries, is located in just three South American countries — Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Indonesia and Australia have 42 percent of the world’s nickel, and the Congo has about half of the world’s cobalt. Even more concentrated than the raw materials themselves is the purification and mineral refining capacity, which is almost exclusively carried out in China. “That is the part of the supply chain that China absolutely dominates. They dominate it for cobalt, they dominate it for graphite, they dominate it for aluminum, copper, lithium,” Tom Moerenhout, a research scholar in energy policy at Columbia University, told The Hill. “You have the concentration risk at the extraction stage but even more so in the processing stage, because it’s one single country that has so much of the processing capacity,”

OH AG Asks Court to Find Austin Master Services, CFO in Contempt -- --Marcellus Drilling News -Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is asking a Belmont County judge to find Austin Master Services (AMS) and Brad D. Domitrovitsch, who is in control of the company, in contempt for “failing to meet the court’s deadline to clean up the illegal levels of fracking waste stored at its recycling facility in Martins Ferry.” AMS is a radiological waste management solutions company operating in Belmont County, OH, close to the Ohio River. Media accounts report that AMS has stored at least 10,000 tons of fracking waste (drill cuttings with low radioactivity) at the Martins Ferry facility. The facility is rated and permitted to hold 600 tons. In March, Yost requested Belmont County Common Pleas Court to block AMS from receiving any more waste and order it to comply with its rating (see Ohio AG Sues Austin Master Services for Unsafe Storage of Wastewater). The court granted both requests with a deadline of April 17 to comply (see Court Orders Austin Master to Clean Up Martins Ferry Frack Waste). The deadline came and went. Yost says AMS is still out of compliance, hence the request for an order holding the company in contempt.

Martins Ferry Asks ODNR to Begin Cleanup of Austin Master Services --Yesterday we told you that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is asking a Belmont County judge to find Austin Master Services (AMS) and Brad D. Domitrovitsch, who is in control of the company, in contempt for “failing to meet the court’s deadline to clean up the illegal levels of fracking waste stored at its recycling facility in Martins Ferry” (see OH AG Asks Court to Find Austin Master Services, CFO in Contempt). AMS is a radiological waste management solutions company operating in Belmont County, OH, close to the Ohio River. Local residents and their political leaders, the Martins Ferry City Council, sent a letter yesterday to the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) asking the agency to begin cleaning up the AMS facility immediately.

EPA, Sunoco Reach $2.4M Deal Over Ohio Oil Pipeline Spill - Law360 (paywalled)

Utica Shale Academy Uses MPLX Grant To Advance Welding Trade Program MPLX, the midstream segment of Marathon Petroleum, presented the Utica Shale Academy in Salineville, Ohio, with a $20,000 grant for its outdoor welding program. The school purchased fire-resistant personal protective gear, crucial for the safety and comfort of students involved in the program. Emery Tyson, Utica Region Operations Director for MPLX, was touched by the academy's needs and the potential impact of this donation. "We deeply believe that safety comes first, so supporting personal protective equipment needs of students learning valuable trades is an honor," said Tyson. The tuition-free school is open to students in grades 9-12 who are considering an alternative career path in the trade workforce. Its focus is on dropout prevention and recovery through career education. The donation from MPLX and Marathon Petroleum is a significant boost to the academy's efforts to serve its 130 students from 26 school districts.

Encino Energy Spent $2M to Help 145 Ohio Nonprofits Past 5 Years | Marcellus Drilling News --Encino Energy published its annual Community Progress Report for 2023 yesterday. The report provides insight into the company’s achievements through its Community Partnership Program and highlights its investments in the communities in which it operates. In five years of active operations in Ohio, Encino has donated more than $2 million to 145 community groups and organizations in the state. In addition, Encino employees have donated more than 2,000 hours of time to volunteer. Recipients include first responders at fire and police departments, seniors groups, 4H, hospitals, and many more.

Gas line struck in Beavercreek, Ohio; 'Transit alert' issued - — A gas line has been struck in Beavercreek. The Beavercreek Police Department posted to social media that drivers traveling westbound around the 4200 block of Colonel Glenn Highway should expect delays. “Crews are actively working on the scene, but expect lane restrictions,” said police. Beavercreek police said crews will be on-site for the next number of hours to fix the issue. If you can, Beavercreek police requests that you find an alternative route.

A Plastics Plant Promised Pennsylvania Prosperity, but to Some Residents It’s Become a ‘Shockingly Bad’ Neighbor -- Shell’s new ethane cracker was supposed to be an economic “game changer” for Beaver County. But some of its neighbors are now fleeing its light, noise and air pollution–and the facility is facing two lawsuits. In 2016, Shell officially announced the construction of a new ethane cracker plant that would produce millions of tons of plastic on 386 acres along the Ohio River at a site in Monaca, about two miles from their home 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The ethane would be sourced from natural gas from wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.Like many of their neighbors, Jackie Shock-Stewart and her husband Matt Stewart were not initially worried. “They did a really good and effective job of making it seem like a positive for the community,” Stewart said. “It was very much marketed as a modern, clean industry.” Pollution from the plant has been far more disruptive than most people expected. In May 2023, Shell was fined $10 million for air quality violations. Though it had only been operational for about six months, the plant had exceeded its 12-month emission limits for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hazardous air pollutants. The same month, the Environmental Integrity Project and Clean Air Council filed a citizen suit against Shell over the Monaca plant to “redress and prevent repeated and ongoing violations of the Clean Air Act and the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act.” In February 2024, a Beaver resident named John Flynn filed another lawsuit against Shell, seeking class-action status and alleging that Shell had “wrongfully and tortiously released substantial and unreasonable noxious odors, fugitive dust and light emissions” that “invaded” nearby properties and caused damages. The lawsuit defines its class of plaintiffs as anyone who lives within two miles of the facility.“I think expectations from the beginning were extremely low,” said Anaïs Peterson, who is based in Pittsburgh and works as a petrochemicals campaigner for Earthworks, a nonprofit focused on fenceline communities and the impacts of oil, gas and minerals development. “It was very clear what kind of facility this was going to be. We all knew it was going to be bad, but it’s shockingly bad.”Before Shell even began operations, Shock-Stewart noticed sweet smells in the air outside her home in 2021, and she began to wonder about the impact the facility could have on her family. (The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited Shell for “malodorous air contaminants” in September 2021.) The plant takes ethane, a liquid hydrocarbon separated from fracked natural gas, and heats it to extremely high temperatures, “cracking” the molecular bonds holding it together to form ethylene and polyethylene pellets called nurdles. A plastics feedstock, the nurdles are then melted down to make everything from plastic bottles to car parts. Shock-Stewart reviewed map projections of the plant’s effects on air quality and saw that her children’s elementary school was “smack dab in the middle of an area of concern.” The Shell plant was expected to emit carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, PM2.5 fine particles, sulfur dioxide, VOCs and hazardous air pollutants. Both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide are associated with respiratory health effects like shortness of breath, asthma and wheezing, and nitrogen oxide has been shown to have a “more serious” impact on children than on adults. Short-term exposure to a VOC like benzene, a known human carcinogen, can cause drowsiness, vomiting, convulsions and headaches; chronic exposure can lead to blood disorders and cancer. There are at least three elementary schools within a five-mile radius of the plant. As she learned more, Shock-Stewart realized that she no longer felt comfortable living so close to the plant, and the couple decided to move to Ohio in 2022. “It was a very difficult decision. We didn’t want to leave our home and our community.” Two other families they knew in the area had also moved away because of the plant, Stewart said. “They had young kids, and the mothers of the family, just like Jackie, were particularly concerned and worried about their kids.” With the plant now operational, some in Beaver County are asking if others will follow in the couple’s footsteps, leaving the area—or choosing not to move to the county at all—because of the plant. Like Shock-Stewart, residents and activists are concerned about the consequences of the plant’s air, water, light and noise pollution. They are worried about the number of air and water quality violations that Shell has accumulated in the months since start-up and what they see as a lack of transparency from the company about those violations. And they wonder what the plant will mean for Beaver County’s long-term fortunes. Set along the banks of the Ohio, the plant is close to several neighborhoods and towns, including Beaver, the charming county seat, where Hallmark has filmed exterior shots to use as a stand-in for “the quaint setting for some fictional northern town” in its Christmas movies. The now-complete petrochemical facility cuts a striking contrast to this quiet backdrop. “It’s like the eye of Sauron. It’s like hell opened up a portal above Beaver,” said Mark Dixon, an activist and filmmaker who lives in Pittsburgh and is leading a community air monitoring effort around the plant. He has also photographed the site. His photos show the sprawling plant emitting huge plumes of smoke, lit orange against the night sky. “Western Pennsylvania is no stranger to industrial activity,” Peterson said. Down the river from the Shell plant are two other chemical plants, BASF and Styropek, and Shell replaced the Horsehead company’s zinc production facility when they bought the Monaca property in 2014. But Shell’s presence in southwestern Pennsylvania has been marred by years of violation notices, malfunctions and lawsuits. Since 2017, DEP has issued 27 notices of violation to the plant, mainly for air quality. Most of the violations were issued after the plant began operations in the fall of 2022; the most recent is from earlier this month.

Well-Plugging Bill by Pittsburgh Radical Dem Passes in U.S. House -- --Marcellus Drilling News - Sometimes, even a radicalized, anti-Semitic leftist like Congresswoman Summer Lee, Democrat from Pittsburgh and member of “The Squad” of truly Communistic radicals in the U.S. House of Representatives, can swerve into a good piece of legislation. In July 2023, Lee introduced the Abandoned Well Remediation Research and Development Act (H.R. 4877), which directs the Dept. of Energy (DOE) “to establish a research, development, and demonstration program concerning abandoned oil and gas wells.” It doesn’t actually solve the abandoned well problem, but it moves the ball in the right direction by setting up a national database to catalog such wells and propose a program to help fix the issue. Lee’s bill just passed the U.S. House in a bipartisan vote of 333-75. Credit where credit is due, although we fervently hope she is defeated in the November election.

26 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Apr 22 – 28 --Marcellus Drilling News - Two weeks ago, during the week of April 15 – 21, there were 16 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica. Last week, for the week of April 22 – 28, there were 26 new permits issued. Finally! A little good news on the permit front. Snyder Brothers took the top prize with eight new permits issued, all of them for a single well pad in Armstrong County, PA. Chesapeake Energy scored five new permits, all of them for a single pad in Bradford County, PA. EQT Corporation (using its Rice Drilling subsidiary) received four permits in Greene County, PA. Encino Energy also received four permits, all for one pad in Harrison County, OH. Antero Resources received three permits in Wetzel County, WV, and Southwestern Energy received two permits in Brooke County, WV. ANTERO RESOURCES | ARMSTRONG COUNTY | BRADFORD COUNTY | BROOKE COUNTY | CHESAPEAKE ENERGY | ENCINO ENERGY | EQT CORP | GREENE COUNTY (PA) | HARRISON COUNTY | SNYDER BROTHERS | SOUTHWESTERN ENERGY | WETZEL COUNTY

MPLX 1Q – Marcellus Gathered Volumes Increase 10% Over 2023 --Marcellus Drilling News -In late 2015, MPLX (i.e., Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see MarkWest Energy Investors/Unitholders Approve Merger with Marathon). The “new” MarkWest, aka MPLX, plays on a much larger stage now, including ownership and operation of major assets in the Permian Basin and in the Bakken Shale, in addition to the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday, MPLX issued its first quarter 2024 update. During the conference call with analysts, MPLX executives said the Marcellus is the company’s largest basin for gathering and processing. MPLX saw year-over-year volume increases of 10% for gathering and 7% for processing in the Marcellus, “driven by increased drilling and production growth.” That’s a bit of good news we weren’t expecting.

MPLX Opens Door to Growth Opportunities in 'Liquids-Rich' Marcellus, Utica and Permian --MPLX LP management said two strategic transactions announced in the first quarter would open the door to growth opportunities in the Marcellus and Utica shales and the Permian Basin. During a conference call to discuss quarterly performance, CEO Michael Hennigan told analysts that exploration and production (E&P) companies are targeting liquids-rich acreage in the Northeast. “We have already seen growth in the rich gas window of the Utica, and we see new producers moving in the region.”As such, Findlay, OH-based MPLX enhanced its footprint in the Utica by acquiring pipeline operator Summit Midstream Partners LP’s Utica assets. The package included Summit’s natural gas gathering system in southeastern Ohio and its equity interests in Ohio Gathering and Ohio Condensate,...

Deep Well Services & CNX Partner to Launch Flowback Services Co. Marcellus Drilling News - Two of our favorite companies in the Marcellus/Utica, one a driller (CNX Resources) and the other an oilfield services company (Deep Well Services), have partnered in a joint venture, creating a new company called AutoSep Technologies. The new JV uses groundbreaking new technology developed in CNX’s New Technologies unit that targets flowback, the “junk” that comes out of the borehole for the initial month or two after a well is drilled and fracked. Flowback includes methane and other hydrocarbons, sand, water, and fracking chemicals. All of the junk needs to be cleared so the well can start producing clean gas or oil. CNX has found a way to clean the junk that captures the methane (doesn’t escape into the air), is cheaper than current methods, and (most importantly) is safer. The process is being patented.

CNX Drilled 14 & Delayed 11 Wells in 1Q; Rev. Down 39%; Prod. Up 3% - Marcellus Drilling News -- Last week, CNX Resources issued its first quarter 2024 update. The company’s earnings totaled a paltry $6.8 million, or just $0.04 per share in 1Q24. That compares with $710 million, or $4.22 per share, in last year’s first quarter (down 99%). CNX’s revenue for 1Q24 fell 39% to $384.6 million from $1.28 billion last year. Production was 140.4 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in 1Q24 — which works out to 1.54 Bcfe/d — up from 135.9 Bcfe last year (up 3%). The company announced it had delayed completion activities on three Marcellus Shale pads consisting of 11 wells “due to the challenging near term gas market conditions.” By delaying, the company will produce roughly 30 Bcfe less this year for a new target of 540 to 560 Bcfe.

CNX, Appalachia Peers Defer Completions as NatGas Prices Languish - CNX Resources and other Appalachia producers are pushing out well completions and slashing production with natural gas prices near historic lows.Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based CNX Resources will defer completions on three Marcellus Shale pads, consisting of 11 wells, due to near-term challenges in the natural gas market, the company disclosed to investors last month.The company lowered its spending outlook by $50 million in response to the deferral decision. CNX also slightly lowered its full-year production forecast from 580 Bcfe (approximately 1.58 Bcfe/d) to 550 Bcfe (approximately 1.5 Bcfe/d).In order to return to its original guidance of 580 Bcfe, CNX would need to invest that $50 million in deferred well capital in early 2025, CNX said in first-quarter earnings on April 25.“However, we will continue to monitor natural gas prices as we move into 2025 and will adjust capital activity levels to reflect the best possible capital allocation decision at that time,” the company said in prepared remarks. “In other words, we will continue to follow the math.”CNX’s first-quarter production averaged 1.54 Bcfe/d (140.4 Bcfe total). CNX still anticipates generating $300 million in free cash flow in 2024, despite lower gas prices on unhedged volumes and decreased production.The deferral in capital spending, and stronger fundamentals supporting NGL prices, are expected to largely offset the declines, the company said.During the first quarter, CNX drilled 14 Marcellus wells with an average lateral length of about 16,500 ft; That included a five-well pad with average laterals of 19,700 ft.Four planned Marcellus turn-in-lines came in ahead of schedule, supporting CNX’s quarterly output of 140.4 Bcfe.CNX plans to bring online three deep Utica Shale wells in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, that were drilled last year. Other major producers in Appalachia are adjusting their spending and drilling in response to the challenging price environment.Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. is prioritizing gas curtailments and its divestiture program, but remains bullish on future gas demand stemming from LNG exports and AI data centers.EQT’s updated 2024 production outlook ranges between 2.1 Tcfe and 2.3 Tcfe, including non-operated gas curtailments and deferred well completions.And the company got a head start on its divestiture program through an Appalachian asset swap with Equinor earlier this month.Range Resources is also pushing back completions for certain dry gas wells in Appalachia into the back half of the year, the Fort Worth-based E&P said in first-quarter earnings.

Range Resources Sees Strong Natural Gas Demand, Keeps Production Steady -Range Resources Corp. kept natural gas production steady through the first quarter, even as others pulled back, and it expects to maintain the same pace through 2024.The Appalachian Basin pure play’s executives reiterated to analysts during a call to discuss first quarter earnings on Wednesday that they intend to hold output flat this year. They aim to meet strong and diversifying domestic industrial needs for natural gas as well as a looming spike in LNG demand. Range is positioned to address current needs and “to help meet future energy demand, whether that is through exports to international markets or serving our needs closer to home for further electrification of our economy related to power generation needed for artificial intelligence and data centers or increased...

Chesapeake ‘Encouraged’ by Natural Gas Demand Signals as Production Cuts Continue - Chesapeake Energy Corp. said Wednesday it would continue to curtail natural gas output until demand rebounds, forecasting another 400 MMcf/d of cuts in the second quarter. The company first announced the cuts in February and said they would mostly come by not turning wells in progress to sales. Chesapeake curbed 200 MMcf/d of output during the first quarter and expects cuts to be lower as the year progresses and its inventory of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells and deferred turn-in-lines (TIL) grows. At the end of the first quarter, Chesapeake had 50 DUCs, or twice its normal average at current rig counts. It also had 22 deferred TILs at the end of the period.

Chesapeake (CHK) Issues Common Stock to Reduce Debt Burden - Yahoo Movies Canada -- Chesapeake Energy Corporation CHK recently entered into a privately-negotiated agreement to issue a total of 250,721,554 common shares in exchange for senior notes and convertible preferred stock. This move is expected to help the company to strengthen its balance sheet.Notably, at the end of second-quarter 2019, Chesapeake had a cash balance of only $4 million. On the other hand, its net long-term debt was $9,701 million, leading to a debt-to-capitalization ratio of 69.6%. The figure was way above the industry average of 40.4%.Moreover, the company’s debt-laden balance sheet restricts its ability to gain capital from the markets while losing credibility among shareholders. Though the recent move of issuance of common stock to retire a portion of its debt dilutes equity, management’s focus to tackle leverage is appreciable.The company intends to keep lowering the debt level through several techniques like divesting non-core assets, improving capital efficiency, optimizing capital allocation program and others. Among the resources sold, the most notable one is the $1.9 billion divestment of Utica Shale assets in Ohio during late 2018. These initiatives can further improve its financial flexibility.Markedly, the common stock issuance represents 15.3% of the upstream company’s 1.63 billion shares outstanding as of Jul 31, 2019. These newly issued stocks will be exchanged for around $40 million in 5.75% convertible preferred stock, $155.8 million in 5.5% convertible senior notes due 2026, $112.7 million in 4.875% senior notes due 2022, $129.3 million in 5.75% senior notes due 2023 and $150 million in 8% senior notes due 2027.

Depth of Natural Gas Production Drop Questioned as Prices Fail to Find Momentum - Nobody is questioning the downward direction of natural gas production over the past two months, a trend hastened by soft demand during a mild winter that put prices persistently near four-year lows. Major exploration and production (E&P) companies, including Chesapeake Energy Corp. and EQT Corp., announced curtailments to activity during the first quarter – cutbacks that continue. But estimates showing production dropping from record levels around 107 Bcf/d late in 2023 and again in February to around 99 Bcf/d through much of April may be overstating the depths of the downshift, some analysts say. By extension, this may explain why more buyers have yet to step in and begin bidding up prices. The thinking is that traders see massive amounts of supply in storage and are skeptical...

Radicals Pressure NY Gov. Hochul to Block Iroquois Pipe Expansion - Marcellus Drilling News --As we told you earlier this month, the radicals who run the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are gearing up to block the Iroquois Gas Transmission system from completing its Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project (see NY DEC Attempting to Use Draft Reg to Block Iroquois Compressor). The ExC project increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England. The radicals of Food & Water Watch recruited 5,000 drones (no doubt paying some of them) to write comments against ExC in an effort to give New York’s very weak Governor, Kathy Hochul, political cover to reject ExC.

E&Ps Signaling Uptick in U.S. Drilling, but Timing Still Uncertain, Says H&P CEO - The slump in natural gas prices has pressured the U.S. land market, but signs are emerging that the rig count may be “nearing a leveling off point,” according to the CEO of Helmerich & Payne Inc. (H&P). Activity between January and March in the Lower 48 was fairly solid, CEO John Lindsay said during the recent fiscal 2Q2024 conference call. The Houston-based contractor owns the largest U.S. fleet of super specs, aka walking rigs, through its FlexRig standard bearer fleet. The North American market continues to be “somewhat choppy,” Lindsay said. The “contractual churn” in the U.S. land market “is still prevalent and pushed our rig count just below the projected exit rate late in the quarter.”

Could Summer Demand, Lower Production Curb East Region Natural Gas Inventory Surpluses? - Supplies of natural gas in storage are stout everywhere, but East region inventories are closer to historical norms than any other section of the Lower 48. Should the densely populated Northeast sizzle amid scorching temperatures as forecast this summer, utilities in the heavy-gas consuming corner of the country could burn through more gas in the coming months and have less to inject into underground stockpiles. That could trim supply excesses relative to past years and bolster prices. Spot prices in the Northeast and neighboring areas are often volatile in peak demand periods, bouncing higher when there are demand surges or supply interruptions. On Friday, NGI’s Northeast Regional Avg. clocked in at $1.235/MMBtu – low but notably above the National Avg. of 95.5 cents

WV PSC Approves Massive 2,060 MW Gas-Fired Plant for Doddridge Co. ----Marcellus Drilling News -In September 2022, Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) announced that it had selected West Virginia for a 1,800-megawatt (later upgraded to 2,060 MW), combined-cycle natural gas power station that also uses carbon capture and storage (see CPV Announces Plans for Massive $3 Billion, 1,800 MW Gas-Fired Plant in WV). At that time, CPV was not prepared to announce where the massive new power plant would be built — but later confirmed that the project, called the Shay Energy Center, would be located in Doddridge County (see CPV Confirms Doddridge County, WV Location for Gas-Fired Plant). In January of this year, we questioned why there has been no word on the status of this important project (see WV Still Waiting to Build State’s First Big Gas-Fired Power Plant). We are delighted to report the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the Shay Energy Center on Monday. Let the bulldozers start!

Mountain Valley seeks early start amid unfinished safety measures and environmental uproar Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC’s recent request to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to initiate operations of their incomplete methane gas pipeline has ignited a firestorm of criticism from environmental groups and activists. This plea, made notably on Earth Day, seeks to expedite the activation of the 303-mile pipeline that stretches through Virginia and West Virginia, reaching into North Carolina, despite significant portions of the project remaining unfinished and not fully compliant with safety regulations. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, designed to transport natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, has been mired in controversy since its inception. It has faced persistent legal challenges, environmental protests, and substantial delays. Critics argue that the project’s rush to completion disregards fundamental environmental protections and safety concerns, posing a threat to local communities and ecosystems. MVP’s request to FERC highlighted that less than two-thirds of the project had reached final restoration, with ongoing non-compliance issues related to a consent decree with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices, condemned the move as indicative of MVP’s “ongoing disrespect for the environment,” critiquing the company’s disregard for completing essential safety measures. Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition, labeled the request as “reckless and impossible,” reflecting a broader sentiment that MVP is prioritizing contractual obligations over environmental and community safety. Chisholm’s statement underscores the anxiety permeating communities along the pipeline’s route, who have already witnessed the adverse environmental impacts during the construction phase. The project’s legal entanglements include a recent challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, contesting FERC’s approval of the MVP’s planned Southgate extension. Opponents argue that the project has deviated substantially from its original plans, rendering previous governmental approvals irrelevant. This legal contention highlights a growing resistance against the pipeline, emphasizing governmental failures to protect public interests in favor of corporate gains. The pipeline has garnered significant political backing, notably from outgoing U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has been instrumental in embedding expedited construction provisions for the MVP into broader political deals, such as the debt ceiling negotiations. Financially, the pipeline is a high-stakes endeavor, with substantial investments from major financial institutions like Bank of America, which are targeted by upcoming protests. The pipeline’s route through sensitive ecological zones has raised alarms about potential impacts on endangered species and vital water sources. Environmental defenders have documented instances of water contamination and habitat destruction during the pipeline’s construction phase. The upcoming demonstration outside Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, organized by POWHR and other groups, aims to highlight these issues and press financial backers to reconsider their support. “Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years,” stated David Sligh, Conservation Director at Wild Virginia.

Is U.S. Natural Gas Infrastructure a Target for Cyberattacks? FBI Director Puts Industry on High Alert - The oil and natural gas industry should remain vigilant against cyberattacks as global tensions mount and threaten U.S. critical infrastructure, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher Wray. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has repeatedly sponsored cyberattacks against the United States and has “made it clear that it considers every sector that makes our society run fair game, and its bid to dominate on the world stage,” Wray said recently at Vanderbilt University. The issue has been prevalent for years, according to Wray. From 2011-2013, “China-sponsored hackers pre-positioned for potential cyberattacks against U.S. oil and natural gas companies.”

NFE says 'minor mechanical issue' will not affect Altamira LNG launch - US LNG player New Fortress Energy said that “a minor technical issue” which took place last week on one of its rigs as part of the Altamira LNG project will not affect the launch of production. “This was a minor mechanical issue that we experienced during the commissioning of our cold box,” an NFE spokesperson told LNG Prime in an emailed statement. “All relevant team members were assessed by medical staff and no serious injuries were reported,” the spokesperson said. “We’re in the final stages of commissioning this project and this is not expected to have an impact on our timeline to begin production of LNG,” the spokesperson added. NFE’s spokesperson did not provide any additional details regarding the issue or when NFE expects to produce first cargo. According to images posted via social media, the incident took place on Friday on Pioneer II, which is the project’s liquefaction rig. The images show the rig covered in a white, powdery substance with several comments saying that it could be perlite. The Wes Edens-led firm said in February that it was expecting “first LNG in March and first cargo in April 2024.” Prior to that, in its latest update in November 2023, NFE said it completed “sailaway, installation, and first gas for our first FLNG asset in offshore Altamira, Mexico.” The company said in its third-quarter report it expected to achieve first LNG and to reach full commercial operation by the end of the fourth quarter last year. NFE sent its liquefaction rig Pioneer II on September 26, 2023 to Altamira to start serving the FLNG project. Prior to this, NFE’s utilities and accommodation rig, Pioneer III, arrived off Altamira, as well as the gas treatment rig, Pioneer I. Besides the three rigs, the 160,000-cbm Penguin FSU serves the project as a floating storage unit.

Venture Global Aims for Plaquemines LNG First Production By Summer – Venture Global LNG Inc. is looking to import at least three liquefied natural gas cargoes to aid in commissioning of Plaquemines LNG, according to a Department of Energy (DOE) filing. The Virginia-based company asked DOE for permission to import up to 600 MMcf over a two-year period. The company also asked for imports to begin in mid-June, and expects all LNG cargoes to be received later this year. Venture Global told DOE it expects LNG production at Plaquemines to begin by mid-2024 and that sourcing LNG for cooling down the facility is the “optimal method” to begin start-up on schedule. New Fortress Energy Inc. (NFE) reported a malfunction during start-up at its offshore export terminal in Altamira, Mexico, that injured...

Federal Court Affirms Kinder’s Evangeline Pass Natural Gas Pipe Expansion to Supply Plaquemines LNG - A move to force more scrutiny of Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Evangeline Pass natural gas pipeline expansion in Louisiana was struck down Tuesday by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed a petition to halt the Evangeline Pass Expansion underway by Kinder’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC. The expansion is designed to serve the Plaquemines LNG export project by Venture Global LNG Inc. Evangeline Pass, which already has FERC approval, is expanding and modifying infrastructure on Southern Natural Gas Co. LLC and Tennessee pipelines.

US Appeals Court Upholds FERC Approvals for Gas Pipeline Expansion -A U.S. appeals court on April 30 upheld federal approvals for a natural gas pipeline system expansion project in Louisiana and Mississippi, rejecting environmentalists’ claims that the government performed an insufficient review of its climate harms. A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was right to determine the Evangeline Pass Expansion project is functionally separate from four related gas infrastructure developments being developed independently. FERC therefore did not need to analyze their emissions together, the D.C. Circuit said. The Kinder Morgan-backed project would expand existing pipelines to feed more fuel to Venture Global's Plaquemines LNG export terminal in the Gulf of Mexico. The Sierra Club and Healthy Gulf said in their 2022 lawsuit seeking to vacate FERC's approvals that the expansion and the related projects — new pipeline infrastructure projects that connect to the same export terminal and to the terminal itself — would together cause a massive release of greenhouse gas emissions. But the D.C. Circuit said on April 30 that since the other projects have separate ownership and would likely be built anyway, FERC was not obligated under federal environmental review laws to consider their collective emissions when issuing approvals. The environmental groups, Kinder Morgan and FERC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The projects are all part of a major buildup of LNG export capacity in the Gulf. The U.S. last year became the world’s largest LNG exporter, and that capacity is expected to double before the decade ends. The environmental groups had argued that FERC violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it segmented its analysis of Evangeline Pass' environmental harms from the other projects. The groups said the projects are connected because the terminal won’t be able to export gas without supply from the pipelines, and the pipelines wouldn’t have anywhere to put the gas without the terminal. FERC had argued in court that the cumulative analysis demanded by the environmental groups wasn’t necessary because the individual projects would likely proceed regardless of whether the Evangeline Pass project is approved. The Evangeline Pass expansion is currently under construction. Work on the Plaquemines terminal is also ongoing and its first exports are expected later this year.

Labor Crunch Could Push Back Golden Pass Start-Up – Three Things to Know About the LNG Market - Golden Pass LNG’s timeline for starting production could slip further into 2025. A shortage of skilled workers and other construction issues are reportedly causing delays. Market speculation about the project has grown this week as traders continue to watch U.S. export projects along the Gulf Coast for signs of new demand later this year and next as prices trend below $2/MMBtu. The 2.4 Bcf/d Golden Pass project in Texas is a joint venture of QatarEnergy, which owns 70%, and ExxonMobil, which owns 30%. ExxonMobil said late last year that exports would begin in early 2025 instead of 2024 as the partners had long signaled. Further construction delays could possibly push the start of liquefied natural gas production at the terminal into the second half of 2025

Freeport Outage Cuts Into TotalEnergies’ First Quarter LNG Sales - TotalEnergies SE said Friday that its LNG sales decreased in the first quarter mainly due to lower demand in Europe and an unplanned outage at the Freeport export terminal on the upper Texas coast. The company has 2.2 million tons (Mt) of annual tolling capacity at Freeport’s Train 3, which was offline most of the first quarter to repair damage caused by freezing temperatures in January. The other two trains are currently undergoing similar work and Freeport has reported ongoing problems with Train 3. TotalEnergies said its liquefied natural gas sales were 10.7 Mt in the first quarter, down 3% from the year-ago period and down 9% from...

Feed Gas Flows, Vessel Traffic Indicate Stabilized Production at Freeport LNG - Feed gas flows to Freeport LNG continued to tick up as a fully loaded vessel left the Texas export facility for the first time in a week, indicating Train 3 operations could be stabilizing. Nominations of natural gas to the plant began increasing April 27 after hovering near zero for several days, according to Wood Mackenzie pipeline data. Flows appeared to slip again Tuesday, coinciding with a critical notice from Gulf South Pipeline Co. LLC, but were up to near 500,000 MMBtu Wednesday (May 1). It marks the first time nominations for the Freeport liquefied natural gas export facility have been near 30% of capacity since April 10, a day before a reported issue with Train 3’s ventilation flow meter that caused a system trip.

US natgas prices jump to 12-week high on contract expiry, Freeport LNG return (Reuters) -U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 6% to a 12-week high on Monday with the start of the higher priced June contract as the front-month andforecasts for more demand than previously expected due in part toan increase in feedgas atFreeport LNG's export plant in Texas. On its first day as the front-month, gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 10.7 cents, or 5.6%, from where the June contract closed on Friday to settle at $2.030 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on Monday. That was the front-month's highest close since Feb. 5 and put it up about 26% from where the May contract closed when it was still the front-month on Friday. That was also the contract's biggest daily percentage increase since January 2022 when it jumped by a record 46.5% around the time the front-month switched from February to March. In the spot market, power and gas prices in many states, including Texas, California and Arizona, have traded below zero several times over the past month or sodue to low demand, ample renewable power supplies and pipeline outages and other workthat has trapped gas in Texas. In California, next-day power at South Path-15 (SP-15) EL-PK-SP15-SNL in Southern California fell to a record low of negative $20 per megawatt hour (MWh) on April 26, down from positive $4 on April 25. That compares with the prior all-time low of negative $15 on April 5. Next-day gas at the Southern California Border fell to positive$1.35 per mmBtu, its lowest since hitting a record low of $1.14 in June 2019, while spot gas at the PG&E hub in Northern California fell to $1.85, its lowest since July 2019. In Canada, next-day gas at the AECO hub in Alberta fell to positive 70 cents per mmBtu,its lowest since October 2022 for a fourth day in a row. Financial firm LSEG said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states fell to an average of 97.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in April, down from 100.8 bcfd in March. That compares with a monthly record of 105.6 bcfd in December 2023. On a daily basis, output was on track to drop by 1.4 bcfd over the past five days to a preliminary 14-week low of 95.7 bcfd on Monday. Meteorologists projected weather across the Lower 48 states would remain mostly warmer than normal through May 11 before turning near normal from May 12-14. LSEG forecast gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, would hold near 92.8 bcfd this week and next. Those forecasts were higher than LSEG's outlook on Friday. Gas flows to the seven big U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants slid to an average of 11.9 bcfd so far in April, down from 13.1 bcfd in March. That compares with a monthly record of 14.7 bcfd in December. On a daily basis, LNG feedgas was on track to rise from 12.2 bcfd on Sunday to a preliminary three-week high of 12.9 bcfd on Monday on signs that at least one of three liquefaction trains at Freeport LNG's export plant in Texas was exiting an outage.

US natgas prices jump 5% on higher demand forecast, lower output - (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures jumped about 5% on Thursday on a continued drop in output and forecasts for more demand next week than previously expected due to an increase in the amount of gas flowing to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants. The price rise came even though last week's storage build was slightly bigger than analysts expected. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said utilities added 59 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended April 26. That was more than the 55-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 62 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2019-2023) average rise of 72 bcf for this time of year. That leaves gas stockpiles about 35% above normal levels for this time of year. U.S. gas production has dropped by around 10% so far in 2024 after several energy firms, including EQT and Chesapeake Energy, delayed well completions and cut back on other drilling activities after prices fell to 3-1/2-year lows in February and March. Front-month gas futures for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 9.4 cents, or 4.9%, to $2.026 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 10:44 a.m. EDT (1444 GMT). Financial firm LSEG said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states fell to an average of 95.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in May, down from 98.1 bcfd in April. That compares with a monthly record of 105.5 bcfd in December 2023. On a daily basis, output was on track to drop by 2.1 bcfd over the past eight days to a preliminary 15-week low of 95.6 bcfd on Thursday. Meteorologists projected weather across the Lower 48 states would remain mostly warmer than normal through May 10 before turning to near-normal levels in the May 11-17 period. LSEG forecast gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, would rise from 91.6 bcfd this week to 92.5 bcfd next week. The forecast for next week was higher than LSEG's outlook on Wednesday. Gas flows to the seven big U.S. LNG export plants rose from an average of 11.9 bcfd in April to 12.2 bcfd so far in May with the slow return to service of Freeport LNG's plant in Texas. That compares with a monthly record of 14.7 bcfd in December. The U.S. became the world's biggest LNG supplier in 2023, ahead of recent leaders Australia and Qatar, as much higher global prices fed demand for more exports due in part to supply disruptions and sanctions linked to Russia's war in Ukraine. Gas was trading around $10 per mmBtu at both the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF) benchmark in Europe and the Japan Korea Marker (JKM) benchmark in Asia.

Lower 48 E&P Activity Waning but Renewed Opportunities Seen in Deepwater GOM - The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) for decades was the breadbasket for U.S. natural gas and oil production, but the Lower 48 took over as unconventional drilling uncorked massive reserves. As onshore activity has waned, however, the deepwater is once again beckoning. Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR) director Andy McConn recently shared the firm’s outlook about the potential in the GOM during an oversight hearing before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. “It is well known that growth momentum has shifted in previous decades from the offshore region to onshore, namely to shale resources,” he said. “But we forecast U.S. onshore oil growth to moderate significantly by the end of the decade.

Gulf Coast Petrochemical Buildout Draws Billions in Tax Breaks Despite Pollution Violations -- A booming petrochemical buildout on the Gulf Coast has drawn billions of dollars in public subsidies from state tax abatement programs despite regular violations of pollution permits, according to a new report released Thursday. The Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental nonprofit based in Texas and Washington, D.C., compiled data on all U.S. plastics projects built, expanded or proposed since 2012, almost all of them along the Gulf Coast. The report identified 50 plastics complexes built or expanded in the last 12 years, 33 of them in Texas, where they have drawn a total of $1.65 billion in property tax breaks through the state’s Chapter 313 program for energy and manufacturing companies, which the state legislature replaced last year with a new but similar program. That’s a tiny dent in Texas’ $250 billion annual tax revenue, but it’s just one visible slice of the total concessions corporations receive to do business in Texas, and it represents lost income that would have gone primarily to the state’s public schools, which are struggling with shortfalls in teachers and funding. Now, companies are proposing to build an additional 42 plastics plants, 24 of them in Texas, according to the 73-page EIP report, “Feeding the Plastics Industrial Complex.”“The industry is expanding rapidly, and more communities are being asked to consider public subsidies,” it said. “None of the state programs we examined require industries to follow the terms of their state pollution control permits.”While Texas hosts the most new plastics production, the most generous tax breaks come from neighboring Louisiana, among the nation’s poorest states, where three projects alone drew $6.5 billion in local discounts since 2013. All operating projects considered in the EIP report claimed a total of $9 billion in exchange for commitments to economic development and job growth. That money would have otherwise funded local schools and public services, said Alexandra Shaykevich, research manager at the Environmental Integrity Project. Instead, it’s given to highly profitable corporations that are often foreign-owned and likely would have located near the nation’s major oil and gas resources with or without local tax incentives, according to her group’s report. Texas Sen. Charles Schwertner, chair of the Senate Committee on Business and Commerce, said the state’s tax incentive program “bolsters economically distressed communities and enhances its competitive advantage in attracting vital industries.” “The program ensures that the Texas economic miracle continues to thrive by offering quality employment opportunities for Texans and investments in our communities,” Schwertner said. The recent growth in Gulf Coast petrochemicals, which include plastics, are a result of the ongoing boom in hydraulic fracturing upstream in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin of Texas. Pipelines carry oil and gas hundreds of miles to the coast, where refineries and chemical plants produce commercial products and load them onto ships for sale overseas. The United States . remains a world leader in petrochemical production and export thanks primarily to these industries, said Joe Powell, executive director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Houston.“We’ve got really good energy prices here on the Gulf Coast because of fracking,” he said. “That makes the U.S. Gulf Coast a really good investment opportunity, especially in petrochemicals.”Within plastics, he said, most recent growth has come from ethane crackers, facilities that turn natural gas into ethylene, which, according to the American Chemistry Council, can be made into polymers that are “used to manufacture fibers, bins, pails, crates, bottles, piping, food packaging films, trash liners, bags, wire and cable sheathing, insulation, surface coatings for paper and cardboard, and a wide variety of other products.” The U.S. is the top exporter of ethylene polymers, much of which go to China, the world’s top importer.Powell, a former chief scientist for Shell, the global energy company, said years of rapid expansions have brought a glut of ethylene to market and left the Gulf Coast overbuilt in the short term, which he called “typical of the chemical business.”

Crews try to contain oil spill in Galveston Bay - (AP) -- A barge carrying nearly a million gallons of especially thick, sticky oil collided with a ship in Galveston Bay on Saturday, leaking an unknown amount of the fuel into the popular bird habitat as the peak of the migratory shorebird season was approaching. Booms were brought in to try to contain the spill, which the Coast Guard said was reported at around 12:30 p.m. by the captain of the 585-foot ship, Summer Wind. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Kristopher Kidd said the spill hadn't been contained as of 10 p.m., and that the collision was still being investigated. The ship collided with a barge carrying 924,000 gallons of marine fuel oil, also known as special bunker, that was being towed by the vessel Miss Susan, the Coast Guard said. It didn't give an estimate of how much fuel had spilled into the bay, but there was a visible sheen of oil at the scene. Officials believe only one of the barge's tanks was breached, but that tank had a capacity of 168,000 gallons. "A large amount of that has been discharged," Kidd said. He said a plan was being developed to remove the remaining oil from the barge, but the removal had not begun. The barge was resting on the bottom of the channel, with part of it submerged. He said boom was being set up in the water to protect environmentally-sensitive areas and that people would be working through the night with infrared cameras to locate and skim the oil. The barge was being towed from Texas City to Bolivar at the time. The Coast Guard said that Kirby Inland Marine, which owns the tow vessel and barge, was working with it and the Texas General Land Office at the scene. The Coast Guard said six crew members from the tow vessel were in stable condition, but it offered no details about their injuries. Jim Suydam, spokesman for the General Land Office, described the type of oil the barge was carrying as "sticky, gooey, thick, tarry stuff." "That stuff is terrible to have to clean up," he said. Mild weather and calm water seemed to help containment efforts, but stormy weather was forecast for the area on Sunday. Suydam said almost every private cleanup outfit in the area was out there helping out under the coordination of the Coast Guard and General Land Office. Bruce Clawson, the director of the Texas City Homeland Security, told The Daily News in Galveston that the barge sank, but that there is no danger to the community, which is about 40 miles southeast of downtown Houston. Suydam said he could not confirm whether the barge sank. Tara Kilgore, an operations coordinator with Kirby Inland Marine, declined to comment Saturday. On its Facebook page, Texas City Emergency Management said the dike and all parks on the water are closed until further notice. And the Coast Guard said that part of the Houston ship channel was closed to traffic. Richard Gibbons, the conservation director of the Houston Audubon Society, said there is very important shorebird habitat on both sides of the Houston ship channel. Audubon has the internationally-recognized Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary just to the east, which Gibbons said attracts 50,000 to 70,000 shorebirds to shallow mud flats that are perfect foraging habitat. He did not know how much oil had been spilled, but said authorities were aware of the sanctuaries and had practiced using containment booms in the past. "The timing really couldn't be much worse since we're approaching the peak shorebird migration season," Gibbons said. He added that tens of thousands of wintering birds remain in the area.

Chevron’s Permian Operations See Improvements in ‘Frack-to-Pop Cycle Times’ - Chevron Corp.’s domestic operations, particularly in the Permian Basin, performed “stronger than we had anticipated” in the first quarter, with improved cycle times and natural gas and oil output, CEO Mike Wirth said Friday. During a conference call to discuss quarterly performance, Wirth explained to analysts how the Permian portfolio improved as the wellhead-to-sales times were shorter. More efficiencies helped to reduce the costs and time for drilling and fracturing (fracking). “We’ve seen reliability improvements that translate into slightly less decline in our base production,” Wirth said. “We saw significantly shorter frack-to-pop cycle time between when we completed a frack and when we put it on production.

Crews Work To Cleanup Oil Spill In Northwest Oklahoma City - Crews are focused on cleaning up the mess an oil geyser made Monday in northwest Oklahoma City. Officials say more than 80,000 gallons of oil spilled out onto the ground, creating a 30-foot geyser that spewed for multiple hours. Sam Coury, a nearby landowner, was not too worried with the oil that made its way onto his land. “We did catch some oil and some contamination,” Coury said. “We’re oil country. We have pipelines all across the state. From time to time, we’re going to have mishaps like this.” One thing to thank for the containment of the spill was the quick response of crews. “It’s been very efficient,” Coury said. “They were on it all night. They’re down now, probably removing the dirt, and that’s it.” Removing the dirt is the first step, according to Matt Skinner with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. “The contaminated soil is dug up and taken to a facility that is licensed to deal with such products,” Skinner said. The same goes for the oil that leaked into the storm water drainage system. “You flush it out with fresh water and then vacuum it up. That also goes to be disposed of in the proper facility,” Skinner said. Skinner says Oklahoma law is clear on who is responsible for the cleanup efforts, regardless of liability. “An operator, be it an operator of an oil and gas well, a pipeline, or anything of that sort, is responsible for the product,” Skinner said. Energy Transfer is the oil company that is in charge of the cleanup effort, with the OCC’s oversight. Officials say we won’t know the extent of the long-term environmental impact, if any, until the cleanup is done.

Battle to Prioritize Public Health over Oil Company Profits Heats Up - Proposed California bills would protect residents in mostly low-income communities of color by speeding cleanup of dangerous neighborhood oil wells. But industry is fighting to keep even idle wells unplugged. On a dreary afternoon in January, a geyser of oily water shot over the fence of an oil and gas company in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, splattering the street, cars and a local coffee shop with petroleum just a block away from Ashley Hernandez’s house. The frightening spectacle was just the latest in a long line of blowouts, spills and explosions to contaminate a community long dominated, and sickened, by oil drilling in the neighborhood. Hernandez, an organizer for the nonprofit Communities for a Better Environment, was three or four years old when her parents moved from the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, to Wilmington, a heavily industrialized neighborhood at the city’s southern edge. One of her earliest memories in the family’s new home was seeing her mom strap on an odd contraption while gasping for air. Hernandez grew up thinking it was normal to use a nebulizer every day. She thought it was normal to endure the headaches, nosebleeds and heart palpitations she and so many of her classmates always seemed to have. She thought it was normal to lose so many relatives and loved ones to cancer. Now 31, Hernandez wishes she knew then what she knows now. Her community straddles the Wilmington Oil Field, the third largest field in the country, where energy companies have recovered more than 2.5 billion barrels of oil and operate the largest concentration of active wells in Los Angeles. Residents of this mostly working-class Latino neighborhood live, work and play near more than 2,300 wells, including hundreds left idle. The majority of wells sit within 650 feet of residential areas, like those crowded into the block across from the Hernandezes’ house. Oil operations routinely release toxic gases that cause respiratory disorders, cancer and numerous developmental and reproductive problems, studies show. They also emit millions of tons of the climate super-pollutant methane. “We have a very peculiar cough in my family,” said Hernandez, who has worked with Communities for a Better Environment since high school. “We’re always coughing, always clearing our throats. Doctors call it the Wilmington cough.” It wasn’t until Hernandez went to a meeting after school one day that she realized oil wells surrounded the community baseball park in the block across the street. She knew there was some sort of business there, but she couldn’t tell what it was because a wall blocked her view. “It was at that meeting that I learned, whoa, I’m living next to a toxic site.” Warren Resources, an independent crude oil developer, manages close to 220 wells in that block, state records show. More than 50 sit idle. The idle wells produce no oil, but can release harmful pollutants that contaminate the air, soil and groundwater and emit even more methane than productive wells. With the easy-to-exploit oil reserves largely gone, energy giants like Chevron have left the Los Angeles Basin. Smaller operators now dominate the region, often using more polluting methods like acidization, which injects acid-based solutions with highly toxic chemicals into wells to extract the dregs. Acidizing equipment operates feet from homes at the former Jefferson Drill Site in South Los Angeles. Costs to plug idle wells vary, state estimates show, from an average of $87,000 per well in the Central Valley to $923,200 per well around Los Angeles, where urbanization increases expenses. Instead of spending the money to remediate marginal sites, most operators across the state have avoided plugging requirements by paying a nominal fee or offloading their bad assets to smaller companies that don’t have the means to properly “plug and abandon,” or clean up the sites.

Mystery Spill Returns to San Juan Harbor --The U.S. Coast Guard is working to clean up a mystery spill at the port of San Juan, Puerto Rico. According to Sector San Juan, a recurring discharge of heavy oil is seeping out of the storm drain system into the water, and experts are trying to trace it back to its source. In the meantime, thanks to funding from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, a contractor is keeping the contamination contained and pulling oil out of the water. So far, about 1,770 gallons of waste have been recovered, including 17 drums of absorbent materials. "The discharged oil is being contained and recovered," said Lt. Cmdr. Ray Lopez, Sector San Juan Incident Management Division Chief. "We suspect this spill may be tied to an unidentified inactive historical source that for years has resulted in a series of mystery spills along the Old San Juan waterfront." It is not the first time that an oil seep like this has leaked into San Juan's harbor. Three years ago, another release of a substance that looked like Bunker C occurred at Pier 4 (the San Juan cruise terminal). Recurring contamination was found in a storm drain system, as well as in the harbor, and response crews used vacuum trucks and absorbent boom for three weeks to clean it up. The responders suspected that the source might be somewhere in a network of buried oil pipelines that dated back to the early 1900s. The response crews are now planning an underground survey to find and assess the condition of long-abandoned oil pipelines that were buried in the area in the early or mid-1900s. The lines are no longer in service, but they may well have some residual oil inside. Samples of the 2021 and 2024 leaks have some similarities, according to the Coast Guard, and might come from one common source of petroleum leaking into the storm drain system. Like last time, the response team plans to do a subsurface site assessment to determine the extent of any soil contamination and determine the source of the spill.

Pemex’s Natural Gas Production Slumps as Mature Fields Decline - Mexico’s state oil and gas giant Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, reported a 7.5% year/year drop in natural gas production in the first quarter as the country’s aging offshore oil fields showed weaker output. Natural gas production, including from partners, was 3.836 Bcf/d in the first quarter, down 312 MMcf/d compared to the comparable period in 2023, management said during the first quarter earnings call. Associated gas production declined considerably, down by 12.5% year/year to 1.952 MMcf/d in the quarter. During the call, executives attributed the drop to declines at the offshore Akal and Ku fields. Non-associated gas dropped by 33 MMcf/d to 1.884 Bcf/d in the quarter. The drop was primarily due to lower production at the Quesqui field, which is considered one of…

Mexico Imports of U.S. Natural Gas Gas Surge as Domestic Production Sputters – North American natural gas futures worked their way above $2.00/MMBtu this week amid tighter U.S. production and storage levels. Mexico imports, meanwhile, of U.S. natural gas have started to hit their stride in the lead-up to summer. Over the last 10 days, Mexico imported 7.38 Bcf/d of natural gas via pipeline from the United States, including a max flow of 7.80 Bcf last Thursday (April 25). April pipeline imports averaged 6.82 Bcf/d, versus 6.45 Bcf/d the previous month and 5.76 Bcf/d in April of last year. “The over 1 Bcf/d increase in demand compared to a year ago can most likely be attributed to the increase of nearshoring industrial demand and an increase in electricity consumption across all categories as well,”

Canada E&P Outlook for Natural Gas ‘Surprisingly Strong,’ Despite Weak AECO Pricing, Says Precision CEO - The imminent startup of Canada’s Trans Mountain oil pipeline, with LNG Canada set to ramp late this year, should provide “significant tidewater access” to boost near-term activity, according to the CEO of Calgary-based Precision Drilling Corp. CEO Kevin Neveu laid out the near-term forecast for the international contract drilling expert during the recent quarterly conference call. “In Canada, we currently have 48 rigs operating, 10 more rigs than a year ago, and expect this trend to continue throughout spring break-up,” he said.

Husky Oil fined $2.5 million for oil spill – NTV -- Last week the Provincial Court ordered Husky Oil Operations Limited to pay $2 million after earlier pleading guilty to one charge under the federal Fisheries Act and one charge under the Migratory Birds Convention Act. The company was also ordered to pay $500,000 for an offence under the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act that was investigated by conservation officers with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The charges relate to a crude oil release back in 2018, at the White Rose oil field in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore area, where an estimated 250,000 litres of crude oil were released into the environment due to a failure of the subsea flowline connector from the SeaRose Floating Production, Storage and Offloading installation.

Cenovus fined $2.5 million for biggest oil spill in Newfoundland and Labrador history– Cenovus Energy has been ordered to pay a $2.5-million fine for its role in the largest offshore oil spill ever recorded in Newfoundland and Labrador. The fine was handed down in provincial court recently, and the company has 30 days to pay up. The 2018 spill from a flowline connector in the White Rose oilfield released about 250,000 litres of oil into the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast east of St. John’s. N.L. The spill happened when the field was operated by Husky Energy, which merged with Cenovus in 2020. The company expressed its deep regret for the spill in a statement today, adding that it has shared the lessons it learned with industry partners so they can prevent a similar incident. Today’s $2.5-million fine represents less than one tenth of one per cent of the $4.1 billion in net earnings Cenovus reported for 2023.

'Emergency action' - video footage shows River Mersey oil spill -A video, shared on social media, appears to show thick black oil dropping onto mud in the Mersey estuary.‘Emergency action’ is having to be taken taken to stop oil being spilled into the River Mersey. A video, shared onsocial media, appears to show thick black oil dropping onto mud in the Mersey estuary on April 28 at a dilapidated pier in Rock Ferry in Wirral following work to remove parts of the pier.It has been confirmed that an oil spill occurred in the area last week on April 25 and the videos, taken three days later, appear to show a black substance on the river bank and material still leaking from a broken pipe. The person who took the videos wishes to remain anonymous but raised concerns about the spill. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that oil was still dripping out of a broken pipe at the time he shot the clip, adding ‘the smell is horrific and stinks to high heaven of oil’.The pier’s crane collapsed in 2019 and since then, the safety and condition of the structure has continued to worsen due to severe winter storms and vandalism. In order to stop people climbing the structure, the Rock Ferry Maritime Hub which now owns the pier and slipway hired a contractor ‘to try and make it safe to prevent further collapse’ and stop trespassers getting onto the pier.The organisation has raised concerns about the condition of the pier and potential dangers to shipping and oil spill risks in the past. However as parts of the pier were taken down, it said oil left in the pipes emptied out onto the river bank which is in a protected area.It is not currently known how much oil has entered the Mersey Estuary which is a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) as “internationally important numbers of various species of waterbirds feed and roost at the site in winter, or stage at the site in spring and fall (autumn).”The Maritime Hub said it was not a continuous leak and work to prevent further spills had been carried out claiming the situation had been sorted by April 26. However data attached to the videos of the spill sent to the LDRS show they were taken at 5.12pm on April 28.The Environment Agency and Peel have been asked for further clarification about when the pollution stopped. A Peel Ports spokesperson said it understands there have been no new incidents reported since April 25. A spokesperson for the Maritime Hub said there had been numerous incidents of trespassing since the crane collapse as more of the pier fell into the river with police and coastguards needing to be called out. The most recent incident of someone trespassing on the pier occurred in December 2023.The organisation which was set up to regenerate the area said: “After demolishing the handrail it was agreed that to prevent anyone trespassing onto the pier the safest option would be to remove the first two sections of the pier.“Unfortunately as one of the sections was being removed of some residual oil seeped from one of the old pipes on to the seabed and after a site inspection with the Maritime Coastguard Agency and Peel Ports it was agreed that further emergency action would be taken to cap off the pipes and remove the remaining debris.

Equinor Says EQT Asset Swap Upgrades International Portfolio - Equinor ASA’s recent swap of U.S. onshore assets with EQT Corp. is an example of the Norwegian company “high-grading” its international E&P portfolio, the company’s CFO Torgrim Reitan said during a quarterly webcast. The swap allows Equinor to build “size and scale in certain areas where we do operate and where we can take advantage of that,” Reitan said during Equinor’s first-quarter 2024 financial webcast on April 25.“On [the] production side, it typically will add around 15,000 bbl/d in increased production, and … lower breakeven [costs], lower emissions and [generate] better returns,” Reitan said, responding to questions from analysts.“This was sort of the last piece of operated activities within U.S. onshore activity. And it was a small operation where we lacked scale and we have come to the conclusion that we don't see ourselves as a future operator within U.S. onshore activities. And we instead want to prioritize working with the best operators,” Reitan said.On April 15, Equinor entered into a swap deal with EQT subsidiary EQT ARO LLC. The deal will see Equinor divest its 100% interest in the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Appalachian Basin in southeastern Ohio, and transfer the operatorship to EQT. In exchange, Equinor will acquire 40% of EQT’s non-operated working interest in the Northern Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, the Norwegian company said in its quarterly financial statements.Equinor will pay a cash consideration of $500 million to EQT to balance the overall transaction. Following the transaction, Equinor will boost its average working interest to 25.7% from 15.7% in certain Chesapeake Energy-operated Northern Marcellus gas units, Reitan said. Closing is expected in the second quarter, subject to approval by relevant authorities.

Shell Overcomes Slumping Natural Gas Prices as Global LNG Volumes, Production Increase - Anyone wanting to perfect the basic fundamentals of trading and optimizing LNG sales on the global market probably need look no further than to Shell plc. The No. 1 global liquefied natural gas trader, and Europe’s leading oil and gas producer, overcame slumping commodity prices during the first quarter to deliver increased production and higher LNG volumes. European gas prices slipped between January and March from a year ago. The decline was expected to ding the Integrated Gas segment profits. The segment includes LNG and the gas-to-liquids (GTL) business. That, however, was far from the case. [Inside the Political Firestorm: NGI sits down with Neil Chatterjee, a former FERC chairman and commissioner, to discuss the impacts of President Biden’s LNG pause on authorizing...

Egypt Boosts LNG Import Capacity with FSRU Charter – Egypt has secured a floating storage and regasification unit from Höegh LNG Holdings Ltd. to secure more natural gas imports to the energy-hungry country as the outlook for its exports to the global market dims. Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. has brokered a deal between Höegh and Australian Industrial Energy Pty. Ltd. (AIE) to deploy the Hoegh Galleon at Ain Sokhna, Egypt for around 19-20 months. The Hoegh Galleon is chartered to AIE and was intended to be deployed at its import terminal at Port Kembla in New South Wales, Australia, which is currently under construction. Egyptian liquefied natural gas exports have cratered since last year as rising energy demand and dwindling domestic production have limited available...

Egypt Again Halts LNG Exports to Meet Domestic Demand This Summer - Egypt has halted all LNG exports beginning in May as lower domestic natural gas production has forced the North African country to divert supply to local power demand during the summer months. Last year was Egypt’s hottest summer on record, with temperatures surpassing 95 F. This summer is forecast to have similar temperatures. Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy has already resorted to daily power cuts since mid-April in some regions of the country to reduce gas consumption. Egypt’s energy minister Tarek El-Molla noted in February that Egypt had stopped liquified natural gas exports last summer, and warned it may again this summer.

Qatar Continues Push to Secure LNG Shipping Ahead of North Field Expansion - QatarEnergy has signed another three agreements to secure even more LNG shipping, this time chartering what the company calls QC-Max vessels that would be built in China. QatarEnergy signed long-term charter party agreements for four liquefied natural gas vessels from China Merchants Group, three vessels from Shandong Marine Group and two vessels from China LNG Shipping Holdings Ltd. Those companies would operate the vessels, which are part of 18 massive LNG carriers that would be built in Hudong-Zhonghua shipyards. All nine vessels would have a capacity of 271,000 cubic meters, or well above more conventional ships today that typically carry about 174,000 cubic meters.

The Oil Market Traded Lower on Monday as Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Talks in Cairo Cut Fears of a Wider Middle East Conflict - The oil market traded lower on Monday as Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks in Cairo cut fears of a wider Middle East conflict. Over the weekend, Hamas said it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza as Egypt continued its efforts to broker a deal to end the war and stave off a planned Israeli ground offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The crude market traded lower on the opening and traded slightly below the $83.00 level before it bounced off that level and posted a high of $83.91. The market, however, sold off and breached its earlier low as it retraced more than 50% of its move from a low of $80.70 to a high of $84.46. It extended its losses to $1.45 as it posted a low of $82.40 ahead of the close. The June WTI contract settled down $1.22 at $82.63, while the June Brent contract settled down $1.10 at $88.40. The product markets ended the session in negative territory, with the heating oil market settling down 1.69 cents at $2.5313 and the RB market settling down 1.59 cents at $2.7487. According the Department of Energy, the U.S. added 2.3 million barrels of oil to the SPR during the first four weeks of April, marking a sixth consecutive month where inventories have increased. The DOE reported that as of Friday, there were 366.3 million barrels in the SPR, including 143.8 million barrels of sweet crude and 222.5 million barrels of sour crude.On Saturday, Hamas said it was reviewing a new Israeli proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza as Egypt intensified its efforts to broker a deal to end the months-long war and stave off a planned Israeli ground offensive into the southern city of Rafah. A senior Hamas official said it was in response to a Hamas proposal two weeks ago. Meanwhile, according to an Egyptian official, an Egyptian delegation ended a visit to Israel where it discussed a “new vision” for a prolonged ceasefire in Gaza.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel must still do more to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the beseiged Gaza Strip and that he would use his current Middle East trip to press that case with Israeli leaders. He said that the best way to ease the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza would be to conclude an elusive ceasefire agreement that would release hostages held by Hamas. He added that Hamas has been presented with an “extraordinarily generous” offer by Israel that he hoped the group would accept.IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 865,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending May 3rd, increasing available refining capacity by 339,000 bpd. Offline capacity is expected to fall to 759,000 bpd in the week ending May 10th.Analysts at Rystad Energy said the global upstream industry is expected to see deals worth $150 billion over the rest of the year, with focus shifting to shale plays in the U.S. other than the Permian Basin. M&A activity in the global upstream industry has already crossed the $64 billion mark this year, with most of it focused around the U.S. shale patch. M&A activity in the first quarter in North America was nearly $54 billion or 83% of the worldwide total and the region is expected to be the driving force for consolidation for the rest of the year.The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said a vessel that reported an explosion in its proximity, 54 nautical miles northwest of Yemen's Mokha, has sustained damage but the ship and crew are safe and proceeding to next port of call.

Oil price news: Oil recovers near US$83 with focus on Middle East cease-fire - Oil clawed back some of its biggest drop in almost two weeks as traders weighed whether a possible cease-fire in the Middle East will help soothe political tensions in the region.West Texas Intermediate traded slightly higher near US$83. The gap between Israel and Hamas on an agreement to release hostages has narrowed in recent weeks and a deal was close, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.Crude prices endured a rocky April after surging to its highest since October following Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel. Conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as OPEC+ supply curbs, bolstered prices. But uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy and softness in some fuel markets like diesel are countering those bullish factors.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on an ongoing visit to the Middle East, urged leaders of the Hamas militant group — designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union — to quickly reach a decision on Israeli conditions for a cease-fire. “We’ve already seen crude ease a bit on anticipation of a rapprochement, but prices may now remain rangebound until the outcome of the latest push for a truce is known,” Brent for July added 0.3 per cent to $87.46 a barrel. WTI added 0.3 per cent to $82.86 a barrel.

U.S. crude oil falls below $82 a barrel after disappointing inflation, manufacturing data -- U.S. crude oil dropped below $82 a barrel on Tuesday as the market was hit with another round of disappointing inflation and economic data. Traders are increasingly pricing in the risk the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates again at some point rather than maintaining them at the current level, Consumer confidence sagged in April to the lowest level since July 2022. Manufacturing activity in the Chicago area contracted with the purchasing managers index coming in at 37.9, the lowest level since November 2022. And compensation costs for workers rose by by 1.2% in the first quarter, which was faster than the 1% expected."You've got the stagflationary environment," . "The market is pricing in the Fed fears that they're going to come out a lot more hawkish." Higher interest rates for longer would result in a stronger dollar compared to other currencies which would put pressure on oil prices, said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.Oil prices were positive earlier in the session after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed hopes that a proposed hostage deal would prevent an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.The U.S. is pushing for a ceasefire to head off an Israeli offensive against Rafah. Washington fears an invasion of the city will dramatically escalate the humanitarian crisis and regional tensions. But Netanyahu threatened to move against Rafah regardless of whether a hostage deal is reached."The idea that we will halt the war before achieving all of its goals is out of the question," Netanyahu said Tuesday at a forum of hostage families. "We will enter Rafah and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there – with or without a deal, in order to achieve the total victory." Israel has proposed the release of 33 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Senior U.S. administration officials and Arab diplomats told NBC News that Israel has indicated for the first time that it would accept a truce lasting more than six weeks."If that should occur, you're seeing geopolitical risk come out of the oil market as the probability of a supply disruption out of the Middle East would fall," Lipow said of the potential cease-fire. Oil prices fell more than 1% on Monday on hopes that a deal will ease regional tensions.A Hamas delegation discussed the proposal with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Monday. Israel is waiting for Hamas' response before sending its negotiators to Egypt, an Israeli official told NBC News.

Oil eases on higher US crude output, hopes of Israel-Hamas ceasefire (Reuters) - Oil prices lost more than $1 a barrel on Monday as Israel ceasefire talks in Cairo tempered fears of a wider Middle East conflict, while U.S. inflation data dimmed the prospect of imminent interest rate cuts.Brent crude futures for June settled at $88.40 a barrel, falling $1.10, or 1.2%. The more active July contract ended at $87.20, losing $1.01 a barrel.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures settled at $82.63 a barrel, falling $1.22, or 1.5%.Israeli airstrikes killed at least 25 Palestinians and wounded many others on Monday, as Hamas leaders arrived in Cairo for a new round of talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Egypt is hopeful but waiting for a response on the plan from Israel and Hamas, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said. "You're seeing the geopolitical risk premium leak out again today because of no new escalation in the Israel-Hamas situation," "A ceasefire or hostage negation release would take out even more risk premium." Markets were also on watch for the U.S. Federal Reserve's May 1 monetary policy review, which could indicate the direction of the central bank's interest rate decisions."The language and forward forecasts will be pored over by all market participants," Investors are cautiously pricing a higher probability that the Fed could hike interest rates by a quarter percentage point this year and next as inflation and the labor market remain resilient.U.S. monthly inflation rose moderately in March, putting a damper on expectations of rate cuts in the near future. Lower inflation would have increased the likelihood of rate cuts, which tend to stimulate economic growth and oil demand. "The sticky U.S. inflation sparks concerns for 'higher-for-longer' interest rates," leading to a stronger U.S. dollar and putting pressure on commodity prices, A stronger dollar makes oil more expensive for those holding other currencies. Additionally, the oil market was looking forward to the monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls report, which is due on Friday and closely watched by the Fed."That will likely have a significant impact on next week's oil trade," By contrast, an early look at April inflation data from the euro zone, from Spain and Germany, offers a mixed picture for the European Central Bank, but looks unlikely to derail a June rate cut.

WTI Extends Losses After API Reports Unexpected Crude Build -- WTI ended April on a down-note (closing lower on the month, as opposed to Brent which saw its fourth straight monthly gain) as hopes for cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas dampened fears of a wider conflict that could threaten crude supplies.The recent declines come as a "relief to both central bankers and consumers alike," Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, told MarketWatch.There's been a notable decrease in speculation about the possibility of U.S. benchmark WTI surpassing the $100-a-barrel threshold, at least for now, he said. This shift in sentiment can be attributed, in part, to "reduced concerns about disruptions to Iranian production, following Israel's measured response to previous drone attacks."Meanwhile, "attention should also be directed towards peace talks, as progress in this area could further contribute to a decrease in oil prices," said Innes.But, after last week's big crude draw, analysts expect another drawdown in stocks this week.

Crude +4.91mm (-1.5mm exp)
Cushing +1.48mm
Gasoline -1.48mm (-1.2mm exp)
Distillates -2.19mm (+400k exp)

Crude stocks unexpectedly rose almost 5mm barrels last week while distillates inventories declined notably...

Oil Futures Continue Slide; USD at 7-Month High as Fed Meets (DTN) -- Nearest delivered oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange extended Tuesday's losses into May, pressured by ongoing concerns over demand as consumers worry about inflation and high-interest rates, potentially denting discretionary spending and purchases of big-ticket appliances. The U.S. dollar rallied to a 106.380 seven-month high overnight ahead of the afternoon monetary policy announcement by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), with no change to the federal funds rate expected until September. The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation indicator, the Bureau of Economic Analysis' Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, increased 2.7% during the 12 months that ended in March, up from 2.5% in January and February. That's well ahead of the Fed's 2% inflation target. Data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) offered more evidence that inflationary pressure continues, reporting wages increased 4.4% during the year ended in April. BLS will publish its Nonfarm Employment Situation report Friday morning, with the market expecting robust job growth of 230,000 in April. While that would be a slowdown from March's 303,000 new jobs, the estimate is in line with the monthly average for the year ending in February of 231,000 job gains per month.The Institute of Supply Management is expected Wednesday morning to show manufacturing activity in April stalled. Weak factory activity along with a recession in freight movement has crimped demand for diesel, with Energy Information Administration (EIA) reporting distillate fuel supplied to the U.S. market during the four weeks through April 19 down 11.6% against the comparable year-ago period.EIA will update figures through April 26 at 9:30 a.m. CDT, with the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reporting a build in commercial crude oil inventory and draws in product stock levels.Shortly after 7 a.m., June West Texas Intermediate was down about $1.50 at $80.40 barrel (bbl), a five-week low. Brent's front-month contract is now for July delivery, which gapped down on the spot continuous chart to trade at a seven-week low, falling $1.30 to $85 bbl.June ULSD futures fell $0.0235 to $2.5040 gallon, holding above Tuesday's $2.4746 10-month intraday low on the spot continuous chart. June RBOB futures declined to a $2.6435 seven-week low on a spot continuous basis overnight in its debut as the front month contract, down $0.0319 at $2.6595 shortly after 7 a.m. CDT.

WTI Extends Losses After Bigger Than Expected Crude Build --Oil prices extended losses overnight (3rd day lower in a row) following API's report showing an unexpected crude build. Rising stocks would add to bearish headwinds for prices driven by hopes that peace (or some such variant of it) may break out in the Middle East.“The potential for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas has eased concerns of an escalation of the conflict and any possible disruptions to supply,” ANZ Banking Group Ltd. analysts Brian Martin and Daniel Hynes said in a note.“Continued signs of inflation also raised concerns about demand for crude oil” ahead of the US driving season, when gasoline consumption rises.Additionally, OPEC’s crude production stayed steady last month, leaving the group’s latest cutbacks incomplete. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pumped 26.81 million barrels a day in April, about 50,000 a day less than the previous month, according to a Bloomberg survey. Minor increases by Libya and Iraq were offset by reductions in Iran and Nigeria. As a result, supply curbs agreed by the group and its allies at the start of the year to avert a surplus are still unfinished. DOE

Crude +7.265mm (-1.5mm exp)
Cushing -1.089mm
Gasoline +344k (-1.2mm exp)
Distillates -732k (+400k exp)

The official data showed an even bigger crude build than API (and stocks at Cushing also rose significantly)...The Biden admin added another 594k barrels to the SPR last week...US Crude production was flat at 13.1mm b/d... WTI was hovering around $81.25 (off the morning lows) ahead of the official data and extended losses after the big build..

The Market Continued to Sell Off on the Prospect of a Ceasefire Agreement The oil market traded lower on Wednesday for the third consecutive session as the market continued to sell off on the prospect of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas. The market was also pressured by the weekly petroleum stocks reports showing unexpected builds in crude stocks. Expectations that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be in sight have grown following a renewed push led by Egypt, even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to go ahead with an assault on Rafah. The market traded back to Tuesday’s lows in overnight trading after the API reported a build of 4.9 million barrels in crude stocks late Tuesday afternoon. The oil market posted a high of $81.57 ahead of the release of the EIA report. However, the market erased it gains and sold off to $78.93 in light of the EIA report showing a build of more than 7.2 million barrels in crude stocks on the week. The market later traded sideways before it posted a low of $78.83 following the Federal Reserve’s expected decision to leave interest rates unchanged at its meeting. The June WTI contract settled down $2.93 at $79.00, the lowest settlement since March 12th, while the July Brent contract settled down $2.89 at $83.44. The product markets ended the session sharply lower, with the heating oil market settling down 6.15 cents at $2.4519 and the RB market settling down 13.34 cents at $2.5774. The EIA reported that U.S. crude oil and gasoline inventories increased unexpectedly last week as refineries slowed down operating rates. The EIA said crude inventories increased by 7.3 million barrels to 460.9 million barrels in the week ending April 26th. Crude stocks were at the highest level since June, driven by a 6.8 million barrel increase in Gulf coast inventories, increasing them to the highest level since April 2023 at 261.6 million barrels. Refinery crude runts fell by 230,000 bpd, while refinery utilization rates fell by 1% to 87.5% of total capacity.The Association of American Railroads reported that weekly railcar loadings on major U.S. railroads in the week ending May 1st fell by 6.4% on the year to 214,414. The number of railcar loadings transporting petroleum and petroleum products increased by 4.6% on the year to 9,800.IIR Energy reported that U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 987,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending May 3rd, increasing available refining capacity by 170,000 bpd.The U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday and signaled it is still leaning towards eventual reductions in borrowing costs. The Fed's latest policy statement, issued at the end of a two-day meeting, kept the main elements of its economic assessment and policy guidance intact, noting that "inflation has eased" over the past year, and framing its discussion of interest rates around the conditions under which borrowing costs can be lowered. The benchmark policy rate has been held in the current 5.25%-5.50% range since July.U.S. manufacturing contracted in April amid a decline in orders after briefly expanding in the previous month, while a measure of prices paid by factories for inputs approached a two-year high. The Institute for Supply Management said that its manufacturing PMI fell to 49.2 in April from 50.3 in March, which was the highest and first reading above 50 since September 2022.

Oil crawls back towards 7-week low-mark after US Fed keeps rates at 23-year high; Brent at $83/bbl | Mint - Oil edged back towards the previous day's seven-week low-mark on Thursday, May 2, paring earlier gains, after US data pointed to persistent labour market strength which further diminished hopes of early decline in US interest rates.Brent crude futures for July were up 40 cents, or 0.5 per cent, at $83.84 a barrel heaving earlier touched a session peak of $84.44. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for June was 27 cents, or 0.3 per cent, firmer at $79.27, off a high for the day of $79.90. Coming to domestic prices, crude oil futures declined 0.08 per cent lower at ₹6,617 per barrel on the multi commodity exchange (MCX). On Wednesday, crude oil prices fell more than three per centto a seven-week low after the US Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady and warned of stubborn inflation, which could curtail economic growth this year and limit oil demand increases.Data also showed US jobless claims held steady at lower levels last week as the labour market remains fairly tight, ahead of April's employment numbers. The oil market was supported by speculation that if WTI falls below $79, the US will move to build up its strategic reserves, according to analysts.Crude oil rates also traded under pressure by data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showing an unexpected increase in the US crude inventories, which were at their highest mark since June 2023. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) have yet to begin formal talks on extending voluntary oil output cuts beyond June, three sources from OPEC producers told news agency Reuters that such an extension could be agreed if demand fails to pick up.In the Middle East meanwhile, expectations grew that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be in sight after a renewed push led by Egypt, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to proceed with a long-promised assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.WTI crude oil futures extended declines for the fourth consecutive day and plunged almost three per cent on Wednesday. ‘’OPEC’s crude production steadied in April, at 26.81 mbpd, about 50,000 bpd less than March, as minor increases by Libya and Iraq were offset by reductions in Iran and Nigeria. With improving stability in middle-east, we might see weakness in prices,'' said Kaynat Chainwala, Senior Manager-Commodity Research, Kotak Securities.Analysts also added that crude oil prices exhibited significant price volatility, plummeting to a two-month low amidst a surprise build in US stocks. Profit-taking in the dollar index and the US Federal Reserve's indication of no further rate hikes could lend support to prices at lower levels. ‘’We anticipate crude oil prices to remain volatile. Crude oil is supported at $78.10–77.20, with resistance at $79.90–80.70. In terms of the Indian Rupee (INR), crude oil finds support at₹6,540–6,460 and resistance at ₹6,690–6,760,'' said Rahul Kalantri, VP Commodities, Mehta Equities Ltd/

Oil settles near 7-week lows, focus shifts to economy – CNA - Oil prices settled on Thursday near their lowest level in seven-weeks, narrowly mixed and under pressure from weaker global demand, rising inventories and fading hopes for a quick cut in U.S. interest rates. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 5 cents to settle at $78.95 a barrel, the lowest since March 12. Global benchmark Brent crude futures also hit the lowest since early March, then bounced off session lows to settle 23 cents, or 0.3 per cent, higher at $83.67 a barrel. Both benchmarks closed below their 200-day moving average, which is the key technical indicator of a bear market shift in crude oil prices, StoneX oil analyst Alex Hodes said. Oil investors have grown worried about a possible economic slowdown in the U.S., as the war between Israel and Hamas continues without any major hit to Middle Eastern oil supplies. On Wednesday, oil prices fell more than 3 per cent after the U.S. government reported a surprise jump in crude oil stocks and the Fed left interest rates unchanged citing stubborn inflation. "Now it's all a story of demand as risk premium from tensions in the Middle East seen last month morphs into residual risk," said Gaurav Sharma, an independent oil analyst in London. A slump in worldwide diesel demand is also feeding concerns about slowing oil demand growth in big economies. Gasoil stocks, which include diesel, rose by more than 3 per cent in Europe's Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining and storage hub during the week to Thursday, data from consultancy Insights Global showed. Diesel demand in the U.S. Gulf Coast refining hub, also called PADD 3, is estimated to be below the prior three-year range, Hodes said. "The bearish kicker is that even with these inventory builds, production of distillates in PADD 3 is at its lowest level since the start of March," he added. U.S. ultra-low sulfur diesel futures fell to their lowest since July 2023 for the third session on the trot. Supporting prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) could extend output cuts if demand fails to pick up, three sources from the group told Reuters. Traders were watching whether lower oil prices will spur the U.S. government to replenish strategic reserves. "The oil market was supported by speculation that if WTI falls below $79, the U.S. will move to build up its strategic reserves,"

Crude oil prices drop 5% in 2 sessions on sharp rise in US inventories, down 10% from April peaks -- Brent crude futures kicked off May with a significant drop, declining by 3% to reach a seven-week low of $83.29 per barrel. This decrease was driven by rising US stockpiles, signalling increased supply and raising concerns about weakening demand. Additionally, optimism surrounding a potential ceasefire in the Middle East contributed to a reduction in the commodity's risk premium. As a result, Brent crude is now nearly 10% lower than its April 2024 peak of $92.18 per barrel. In the previous session, WTI crude futures also experienced a decline, dipping below $79 per barrel to a seven-week low with a drop of nearly 3%. Both Brent and WTI crude ended their three-month winning streak in April, concluding the month with declines of 1.13% and 1.91%, respectively. The Energy Information Administration released data indicating a surprising increase in US crude stockpiles, rising by 7.3 million barrels last week, contrary to the anticipated decline of 2.3 million barrels. Additionally, the EIA reported a notable rise in US crude oil production to 13.15 million barrels per day in February, up from 12.58 million bpd in the previous month. This marks the most significant monthly increase in almost three-and-a-half years. In just two sessions in May, both Brent and Crude futures experienced a 5% decline. This drop follows last month's surge to the highest levels since October, which was prompted by Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel. The attack was seen as a response to a suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, earlier in the month. In the subsequent sessions, prices moderated as tensions between Israel and Iran did not escalate as anticipated by the markets. Additionally, the Federal Reserve's indication in its latest meeting that interest rates will remain higher for longer also influenced prices. This stance is expected to keep the dollar index elevated, thereby increasing expenses for countries reliant on crude oil imports. In April 2024, the Federal Reserve opted to maintain the fed funds rate at its current level of 5.25% – 5.5%, marking the sixth consecutive meeting without a change, as widely anticipated by the market. The Federal Reserve signalled new worries regarding inflation while suggesting that it would probably maintain higher borrowing costs for an extended period. Chair Jerome Powell remarked that it's improbable for the Fed to raise interest rates next, emphasising the need for convincing evidence indicating that current policy measures are not sufficiently restrictive to guide inflation back toward its 2% target. In the Middle East, expectations grew that a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be in sight following a renewed push led by Egypt. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to go ahead with a long-promised assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah despite the U.S. position and a U.N. warning that it would lead to "tragedy," as per the media reports. On the supply side, OPEC has failed to complete its latest cutbacks. Iraq and the United Arab Emirates continue to pump several hundred thousand barrels a day above their agreed limits, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Oil prices fall, head for steepest weekly drop - Oil prices edged lower on Friday, on course for their steepest weekly loss in three months, as investors weighed weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data and the timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut. Brent crude futures for July were down 29 cents, or 0.35%, to $83.38 a barrel at 11:30 a.m EDT (1530 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for June fell 37 cents, or 0.47%, to $78.58 per barrel. Both benchmarks are set for weekly losses as investors are concerned that higher-for-longer interest rates will curb economic growth in the U.S., the world’s leading oil consumer, as well as in other parts of the world. Brent was on course for a weekly decline of about 6.8% while WTI was headed for a loss of 6.4% on the week. U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in April and the annual wage gain cooled, data showed on Friday, prompting traders to raise bets that the U.S. central bank will deliver its first interest rate cut this year in September. “The economy is slowing a little bit,” said Tim Snyder, economist at Matador Economics. “But (the data) gives a path forward for the Fed to have at least one rate cut this year,” he said. The Fed held rates steady this week and flagged high inflation readings that could delay rate cuts. Higher rates typically weigh on the economy and can reduce oil demand. The market is repricing the expected timing of possible rate cuts after the release of softer-than-expected monthly jobs data, said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS. Energy services firm Baker Hughes on Friday is due to release its weekly count of oil and gas rigs, an indicator of future crude output from the world’s top producer. Geopolitical risk premiums due to the Israel-Hamas war have faded as the two sides consider a temporary ceasefire and hold talks with international mediators. Further ahead, the next meeting of OPEC+ oil producers – members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia – is set for June 1. Three sources from the OPEC+ group said it could extend its voluntary oil output cuts beyond June if oil demand does not increase.

Oil Slumps as Macroeconomic Data Highlight Demand Slowdown (DTN) --- Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange fell Friday and registered steep losses on the week. The geopolitical risk premium in crude prices was erased while macroeconomic data showed a U.S. economic slowdown taking hold in April, undermining fuel demand. An unexpected contraction in the U.S. service sector in April reported Friday by the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) accelerated losses in RBOB futures and weakness in the U.S. dollar. The dollar came under pressure earlier in the session from an unexpected uptick in the national unemployment rate while job growth of 175,000 was less than expected. The gasoline contract was already under pressure from souring consumer confidence reported Tuesday by The Conference Board, with consumers surveyed stating their intention to cut back on discretionary spending, including dining out and vacations. Underlying consumer concerns were inflation and an increasing belief for interest rates to remain high over the next year. These economic indicators bode poorly for driving demand, while the consumption pattern for gasoline is under pressure from increasing fuel economy efficiencies for the national fleet. June RBOB futures settled at a $ 2.5551-gallon eight-week low on the spot continuation chart, down $0.0414 on the session and $0.2095 or 7.6% on the week. June ULSD futures settled Friday's session flat at $2.4434 gallon, holding above Thursday's $2.4219 10-month low on a spot continuous basis, while down $0.1048 or 4.1% on the week. ULSD has trended lower since early April, fully retracing a first-quarter uptrend on weak demand. ISM on Wednesday reported manufacturing activity moved back into contraction in April after a short-lived recovery in March, while freight movement remains in recession. July Brent futures settled Friday's session $0.71 lower at $82.93 a barrel (bbl), and erased $6.54 or 7.3% of value this week, as concerns over a direct military conflict between Israel and Iran dissipated, erasing a buildup in the geopolitical risk premium. Building commercial crude inventory, up 15.9 million bbl or 3.6% from mid-March through April 26, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, also weighed on the U.S. crude benchmark. June West Texas Intermediate futures fell $0.84 Friday and $5.74 or 6.8% on the week to a $78.11 bbl settlement, with a 7.265 million bbl build reported Wednesday for the final week of April punctuating the growth in domestic supply.

Oil settles down on US jobs data, steepest weekly loss in 3 months (Reuters) - Oil prices settled lower on Friday, and posted their steepest weekly loss in three months as investors weighed weak U.S. jobs data and possible timing of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut. Brent crude futures for July settled 71 cents lower, or 0.85%, to $82.96 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for June fell 84 cents, or 1.06%, to $78.11 a barrel. Investors were concerned that higher-for-longer borrowing costs would curb economic growth in the U.S., the world's leading oil consumer, after the Federal Reserve decided this week to hold interest rates steady. For the week, Brent declined more than 7%, while WTI fell 6.8%. U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in April and the annual wage gain cooled, data showed on Friday, prompting traders to raise bets that the U.S. central bank will deliver its first interest rate cut this year in September. "The economy is slowing a little bit," . "But (the data) gives a path forward for the Fed to have at least one rate cut this year," he said. The Fed held rates steady this week and flagged high inflation readings that could delay rate cuts. Higher rates typically weigh on the economy and can reduce oil demand. The market is repricing the expected timing of possible rate cuts after the release of softer-than-expected monthly jobs data. U.S. energy companies this week cut the number of oil and natural gas rigs operating for a second week in a row, to the lowest since January 2022, Baker Hughes said in its closely followed report on Friday. The oil and gas rig count, an early indicator of future output, fell by eight to 605 in the week to May 3, in the biggest weekly decline since September 2023. The number of oil rigs fell seven to 499 this week, in the biggest weekly drop since November 2023. Geopolitical risk premiums due to the Israel-Hamas war have faded as the two sides consider a temporary ceasefire and hold talks with international mediators. Further ahead, the next meeting of OPEC+ oil producers - members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia - is set for June 1. Three sources from the OPEC+ group said it could extend its voluntary oil output cuts beyond June if oil demand does not increase. Money managers cut their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions in the week to April 30, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said.

ISIS Attacks Pro-Government Fighters in Syria, Killing at Least 15 - ISIS forces carried out a series of attacks against pro-government military sites In the eastern Homs desert of Syria on Friday, sparking gun battles that left at least 15 pro-government forces dead and an unknown number of others wounded.The wounded were evacuated to hospitals in Homs Province, with the number of wounded expected to rise as sites recover from the onslaught.Weakened in protracted offensives during the Syrian Civil War, ISIS has been attempting to return to its previous level of power and influence across the nation and is carrying out a growing number of attacks.In addition to the attacks on pro-government forces, ISIS reportedly threw a grenade against a house in Deir Ezzor, further to the east. One person was injured.This is the first big series of attacks since April 19, when ISIS killed 28 soldiers and other pro-government fighters across the east of the country. The majority of the pro-government fighters killed in that case were from the Palestinian Quds Force.After losing most of their territory, ISIS fighters fled into the Syrian deserts. Though some efforts were made to eradicate them from the area, these attempts mostly failed. A substantial fighting force is believed to remain inside Syria, capable of carrying out such attacks as occurred Friday.

Houthis Show Long-Range With Attack on Ship in the Indian Ocean - Yemen’s Houthis targeted an Israel-linked container ship deep in the Arabian Sea, demonstrating an ability to hit targets at a long range after Houthi Leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi vowed to expand attacks into the Indian Ocean. The attack on the MSC Orion took place last Friday but was just confirmed by maritime authorities on Tuesday. The crew of the vessel said they discovered debris that looked like a drone and reported minor damage and said no one was hurt.According to the Joint Maritime Information Center, the ship was hit in the Indian Ocean about 170 miles south of the Yemeni island of Socotra, which is not controlled by the Houthis, and about 400 miles from the Yemeni mainland.The MSC Orion is owned by London-based Zodiac Maritime, which is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. The Houthis began targeting Israel-linked shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden last year in response to the Israeli slaughter in Gaza and expanded to targeted American and British shipping after the US and UK began a new bombing campaign in Yemen on January 12.The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, restarted attacks on commercial shipping last week after about a two-week lull. During the lull, the Houthis were examining “incentives” to stop the attacks put forward by the US, which included an offer to fully lift the blockade on Yemen that’s been imposed since 2015. But the Houthis decided to stick with their position that the campaign will continue until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza.The US tried diplomacy with the Houthis after months of bombing Yemen, which only escalated the situation. From 2015-2022, the US backed a brutal Saudi/UAE war against the Houthis that involved heavy airstrikes and a blockade, and the Houthis only became more of a capable fighting force during that time.

Russia Installs 'Cope Cages' On Oil Refineries As Ukraine Ramps Up Kamikaze Drone Attacks A sudden surge in Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russia's vast energy industry materialized early last week (read here) and continued into the weekend (read here). To combat drone strikes on refineries and crude and or crude product storage tanks, "cope cages" have been installed to fortify at least one refinery against potential aerial threats. The proliferation of drones on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe, more specifically in Ukraine, has been absolutely stunning to spectate over the last two years. From suicide drones taking out infantry troops on the first and second lines to Ukraine launching drone swarm attacks on Russia's energy complex, warfare is forever changing. With that being said, military forces and even countries must adapt to this changing environment where drones and AI dominate the battlefield. And that's why Russia is now installing anti-drone cages, known as "cope cages," to protect these critical facilities that help fund Moscow's "special military operation" in Ukraine. According to EurAsian Times: The latest development involves the installation of what is commonly referred to as a “cope cage” on a Russian oil facility, likely to fortify it against potential aerial threats. An image circulating on the internet on April 27 depicted Russian oil depots equipped with these anti-drone cages. Although specific details regarding the location of the fortified depot remain undisclosed, speculations suggest it might be under the ownership of the Slavyansk ECO Group, based on the logo painted on the oil depot.X user Special Kherson Cat has posted an image of a Russian oil tank farm with anti-drone cages.

Russia seizes on final window before US weapons fortify Ukraine’s front lines - As Ukraine desperately awaits the arrival of new U.S. weapons and equipment approved last month, Russia is seeking to make the most of the remaining window. Moscow’s forces in the past week have taken several villages in eastern Ukraine after Kyiv’s threadbare army ceded ground, and they are positioned to secure additional territory in the days ahead. Russia’s relentless missile and drone strikes have also been increasingly effective as Ukraine runs short on defensive weapons to counter the attacks. But Russia’s window for exploiting Ukraine’s weakness is swiftly closing, with limited time before American weapons flood the battlefield and reinvigorate the Ukrainian forces, experts say. “Knowing that the renewed aid is on the way, Ukraine’s stiffening up their defenses. I think [Russians] are still trying to sort of push as the window closes,” Steven Horrell, a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, told The Hill. And Michael O’Hanlon, an expert with the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said Russia’s forces could “pick up the pace, and the carnage, by 10 to 20 percent” in the gap between the U.S. announcing new aid last week and when those weapons reach Ukrainian troops. The Defense Department last week announced a $1 billion package for Ukraine shortly after President Biden signed a national security supplemental into law. Much of the weapons tranche, which aims to deliver critical artillery rounds and air defense munitions to Kyiv, was already pre-positioned in Europe to be able to quickly move it into Ukraine, according to the Pentagon. “As soon as we were able to announce that $1 billion … we were ready to support Ukraine almost immediately,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Wednesday. She was not able to say, however, whether the lethal assistance had reached the front lines and the units that need them the most. Another $6 billion package announced last week was not from U.S. stocks, and could take months if not years to get to Ukraine. U.S. and Ukrainian officials and lawmakers lauded the passage of the $95 billion supplemental, which includes roughly $61 billion to support Kyiv, but Congress’s months-long delay before sending the bill to Biden’s desk proved damaging to the embattled country. Most U.S. assistance to Ukraine dried up at the end of 2023, making Ukrainian troops desperate for ammunition and air defenses as Russia pressed forward on the battlefield and pummeled key cities and energy infrastructure with artillery, drones and bombs.

Captured NATO Military Equipment Put On Month-Long Display In Moscow -Russia will soon showcase a parade of NATO vehicles captured from the battlefield in Ukraine. Or rather, we might say that Putin is about to show off his 'trophy vehicles'.A month-long exhibit displaying the Western military equipment will run starting May 1st at Moscow's Victory Park, and which will be featured alongside the capital's annual Red Square Victory Day Parade on May 9 which commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. The display will feature an array of armored fighting vehicles, including an American Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, a Swedish CV90 and a French-made AMX-10RC.It will also include destroyed American tanks, per state media:For the first time Russian troops have hauled a disabled US-made M1 Abrams tank away from the front line of the Ukraine conflict, the beginning of a journey that will eventually see the vehicle displayed at a trophy show in Moscow, officials have said.German-made Leopard main battle tanks are also being transferred to the Russian capital to be put on display.Russia's defense ministry has listed that it additionally has examples of military equipment made in Australia, Austria, France, Finland, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden and South Africa - as cited in Newsweek.Russian media sources have already begun releasing images and footage of the vehicles being staged ahead of the official event kick-off.

UN: Scale of Destruction in Gaza Not Seen Since WWII, Will Take 16 Years To Rebuild - The UN said on Thursday that the scale of destruction in Gaza hasn’t been seen since World War II and that it would take a minimum of 16 years to rebuild homes in the Strip.“We have not seen anything like this since 1945,” said Abdallah al-Dardari, a UN assistant secretary-general. “That intensity, in such a short time and the massive scale of destruction.”Al-Dardi said 72% of all residential buildings in Gaza have been partially or completely destroyed. “The United Nations Development Programme’s initial estimates for the reconstruction of… the Gaza Strip surpass $30 billion and could reach up to $40 billion,” al-Dardi said.Israel’s bombing campaign has been compared to the US and Allied strategic bombing of Japanese and German cities during World War II, which includes the firebombing of Dresden and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Israeli officials have pointed to World War II to justify the massive number of civilian casualties, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made the argument to President Biden.“It was pointed out to me that — by Bibi (Netanyahu) — that ‘Well, you carpet-bombed Germany. You dropped the atom bomb. A lot of civilians died,'” Biden said back in December. “Biden said he told Netanyahu: “That’s why all these institutions were set up after World War II to see to it that it didn’t happen again.” At the time, Biden called the Israeli bombing campaign “indiscriminate,” but nearly five months later, he continues to support it.

China Hosts Hamas & Palestinian Authority For Rare Talks - Representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Fatah party met recently in Beijing and held talks on reconciliation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday. "Representatives of the Palestine National Liberation Movement and the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] recently came to Beijing," China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said. "The two sides fully expressed their political will to achieve reconciliation through dialogue and consultation, discussed many specific issues, and made positive progress," he added. The spokesman did not clarify exactly what day the meeting took place. China, Hamas, and Fatah confirmed beginning last Friday that intra-Palestinian talks would be held in the Chinese capital. "They agreed to continue the course of talks to achieve the realization of Palestinian solidarity and unity at an early date," Jian went on to say, adding that the two sides thanked China for efforts to "promote Palestinian internal unity and reached an agreement on further dialogue."China has continued to call for a ceasefire and an end to the war in the Gaza Strip and has long been an advocate of Palestinian unity and a two-state solution between the Palestinians and Israelis. Chinese diplomat Wang Kejian met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar last month, where they both called for an end to the war in Gaza and the achievement of "political goals and aspirations of establishing an independent Palestinian state."Hamas assumed leadership of Gaza in 2006 after a political victory against Fatah in local elections. The Beijing talks come as Hamas has yet to deliver an official response to a new Israeli–Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire and prisoner release deal. While the initiative reportedly reflects an Israeli openness for the return of the displaced to northern Gaza and the establishment of a sustainable ceasefire, a Hamas official told Al-Mayadeen on Sunday that the proposal "does not reflect a fundamental shift" in Tel Aviv’s position.

Israel Threatens Rafah Invasion If Hostage Deal Not Reached - Israeli officials are threatening to invade Rafah if a hostage deal is not reached amid Egyptian and Qatari-mediated negotiations with Hamas.Axios reported on Friday that Israeli officials told their Egyptian counterparts that Israel is giving Hamas “one last chance” to reach a deal. If an agreement is not reached, Israel will order a ground invasion of Rafah, which is packed with over 1 million civilians.Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that Israel could suspend its plans to launch an assault on Rafah. “If there is a deal, we will suspend the operation,” he said. “The release of the hostages is a deep priority for us.”Hamas is currently reviewing Israel’s latest proposal, which reportedly includes a proposal to discuss a “restoration of sustainable calm” as part of a second phase after an initial round of hostage and prisoner exchanges. Israeli officials deny that the offer was an agreement to reach a permanent ceasefire, something Hamas has been proposing for months.An unnamed Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that there were no “major” issues with Israel’s latest proposal. “The atmosphere is positive unless there are new Israeli obstacles. There are no major issues in the observations and inquiries submitted by Hamas regarding the contents,” the official said.However, a Hamas official told Al Mayadeen that the Israeli proposal does not reflect a fundamental shift in Israel’s position. “[Hamas] is still studying the Israeli proposal in the negotiations, but there are no great expectations for its acceptance unless fundamental amendments are made to it,” the official said.

Israel’s Smotrich Calls for ‘Total Annihilation’ of Rafah, Other Cities in Gaza --Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday called for the “total annihilation” of Rafah and other cities in the Gaza Strip. “There are no half measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. ‘You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’ – there’s no place under heaven,” Smotrich said. Smotrich’s reference to “Amalek” was from a line in Deuteronomy, a book in the Hebrew Bible. Amalek is a nation the ancient Israelites were commanded to destroy, and in the book of Samuel, the Israelites were told to “slay both man and woman, infant and suckling.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously compared Gaza to Amalek, which has been cited as evidence of genocidal rhetoric in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember, and we are fighting,” Netanyahu said in October. The “annihilation” of Rafah would mean the death of over 1 million civilians who are sheltering there. Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday that Israel will invade the city “with or without” a hostage deal with Hamas. Smotrich said any hostage deal with Hamas would be a “humiliating defeat” for Israel. “Don’t wave a white flag. Don’t let Sinwar humiliate us again and win the war. A government that submits to international pressure and stops the war in the middle will, at that moment, lose its right to exist,” he said. He also called for the destruction of Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying Israel must “clear out, with God’s help, with one blow, wicked Hezbollah in the north, and really send a message that what will happen to those who harm the Jewish people is the same as those who have tried to harm us in the past – they will be destroyed, destroyed, destroyed. And it will echo for decades to come.”

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