week ending Aug 29

Warsh at Jackson Hole: underlying inflation trend has not ’meaningfully improved’  -- Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh on Friday said underlying inflation trends in the U.S. had not "meaningfully improved" and reasserted that the central bank’s focus should be on delivering price stability, in prepared remarks at his keynote address at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. The annual conference is held by the Kansas City Fed and brings together central bankers, policymakers, academics, and economists. The topic this year is “Financial Innovation — Implications for Payments and Policy.” Traders reacted to Warsh’s speech by raising their expectations for a quarter-point interest rate hike by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in September. As per the CME FedWatch tool, the odds of a 25 basis point hike now stood at more than 55%, up from about 35% the previous day. The Fed chief’s first keynote address comes at a complicated time for the U.S. central bank. Inflation has dominated the FOMC’s focus, amid recent economic indicators that have shown sticky price pressures and resilient economic growth. On top of that, latest labor market data for July showed a weak read on nonfarm payrolls. Meanwhile, oil prices remain elevated amid an ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran that has continued to drag on, keeping inflationary concerns at the forefront. "As of now, I believe the labor markets are consistent with full employment. But on the price-stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning," Warsh said. The central bank has a long-term inflation target of 2%, and prefers to track the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index to measure price pressures. Data on Wednesday showed the metric rising 3.7% Y/Y in July, while the core gauge - which strips out food and energy - ticked up 3.3% Y/Y. The PCE price index was last below 2% in February 2021. "The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the 12-month change in the PCE price index, stands at 3.7 percent, while the six-month change is 4.1 percent. The comparable measures from the consumer price index (CPI) are also elevated, as are the core measures of both PCE and CPI inflation," Warsh noted. "None of these measures are perfect, but they all tell a similar story: Inflation is running above our 2 percent target. So the Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices," the Fed chief said. Warsh also highlighted that, in order to gauge underlying inflation, it was "instructive" to individually look at the 199 components that make up the PCE price index. "Over the past 12 months, 54 percent of goods and services in the PCE basket showed price increases above 3 percent. This is well below the post-pandemic highs of about 77 percent, but it remains well above the level of 32 percent in the two decades that preceded the pandemic," Warsh said. While the FOMC held interest rates steady at its last meeting in July, three regional presidents - Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan - dissented with the move, and the minutes of that meeting showed that “many” policymakers believed rate hikes would likely be needed if inflation did not decline. Since taking over as Fed chair, Warsh has diverted significantly from the playbook of his predecessors. The former Fed governor has unveiled a sweeping review of central bank operations and has appointed task forces to oversee the process. He has also dropped the issuance of forward guidance and has refrained from providing any signals on future interest rate moves. Warsh in his speech on Friday again expressed his discomfort with providing forward guidance. "Forward guidance as a regular practice was adopted by my colleagues and me during the global financial crisis. It was essential at the time, and we introduced it with much fanfare. But, as with other legacies of crises past, I believe that the practice has overstayed its welcome," the Fed chair said. "In normal times, the role of forward guidance should be limited and circumscribed. Otherwise it risks creating ambiguity in the name of clarity. Oversharing policy deliberations and overcommitting to future decisions can lead markets, businesses, and households astray. And I believe when policymakers make quasi-commitments on interest rates through the cycle, we inhibit our own freedom to make the right calls when it’s time to decide," Warsh added. Market participants had appeared to lose some confidence in Warsh since the July Fed meeting, and that trend had been most clearly apparent in the U.S. bond market, especially longer-term maturities. The U.S. 30-year yield hit an over 19-year high earlier this month, promoting the Treasury Department to intervene last week by announcing increased sizes of long-bond buybacks. The surprise move provided little relief, however, especially after news that U.S. debt had crossed $40 trillion.

Rate-Hike Odds Spike As Chair Warsh Tilts Hawkish, Questions AI Productivity Timing, Prefers "Quieter" Fed Update (1000ET): The speech was hawkish in substance (see full remarks below) - Warsh framed inflation as the clear priority, said financial conditions are not restrictive, and set a high bar (“confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed”) - while refusing to pre-commit to a September hike. Rate-hike odds are rising rapidly... Polymarket odds of a September hike are surging... But the market remains confused... or just cherry-picking what it wants to hear... But one thing they are sure about is the yield curve which is flattening dramatically, erasing all of the post-FOMC steepening... With Warsh tilting hawkish at the short-end, and Bessent with his thumb on the long-end scale, it's no real surprise. Key points:

• Warsh called AI a “hinge point” with potential for substantially higher growth, citing exploding token sales and a “hyper-Moore’s law.”
• He posed open questions on productivity timing, whether AI complements or substitutes for labor, capital intensity, and how surplus will be distributed.
• A productivity-and-jobs task force is working on this; its findings will not affect current policy decisions.

Forward guidance and markets

• He restated his opposition to regular forward guidance, calling it a crisis-era tool that has “overstayed its welcome.”
• He warned of a “hall-of-mirrors” problem in which the Fed and markets feed off each other and miss turning points.
• He rejected publishing an explicit reaction function or mechanical rule, arguing the economy is too uncertain and that 2021-style guidance delayed the response to inflation.
• Markets should form their own views from real data; the Fed should not be the primary source of the next trade.

Seven principles

• Use contemporaneous, accurate data and trends - not stale or isolated prints.
• Supply/demand balance can only be inferred, not observed directly.
• The 2% PCE target is firm and fixed; inflation is not automatically mean-reverting.
• The dual mandate is not a trade-off; high inflation itself damages employment and prosperity.
• The policy rate is the main tool; unconventional tools belong only in genuine crises.
• “Money matters” - watch the monetary base and bank-created money.
• A quieter, more purposeful Fed is more accountable.

Output and labor are solid: capex strong (much of it AI-related), profits up ~20%, credit spreads tight, lending standards easy, PDFP running near 3%, unemployment 4.1% and claims very low. He described this as consistent with full employment and said broad financial conditions are not restrictive. Inflation is the problem: 12-month PCE at 3.7%, 6-month at 4.1%. Roughly half of PCE components are still rising more than 3%. Summer readings were better than expected but “do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.” Medium-term inflation expectations remain well-anchored, which he credited to the institution—but he warned they can look durable “until they don’t.” He took institutional ownership: “The responsibility for 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank.” His standard for action: policymakers must be confident inflation is heading to 2% clearly and fast enough. Otherwise “we have work to do.” He closed by saying he is “committed to a discipline, not to a decision.” That is consistent with his no-forward-guidance stance, but the economic diagnosis (strong demand, easy financial conditions, sticky and still-broad inflation) tilts toward keeping the option of a hike firmly on the table. Finally, in case you were wondering, Warsh - who prefers a quieter Fed - spoke the most amount of words in his speech since Yellen in 2017...

Kevin Warsh has a plan for the Fed. Scott Bessent is getting in the way - President Donald Trump’s handpicked central bank chief is conducting an experiment on the grandest of stages. Trump’s point man on the economy is getting in the way.Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh has stopped spoon feeding Wall Street clues on what the US central bank will do next.His hope is that if the Fed ditches “forward guidance,” the bond market will stop trying to guess how the Fed is interpreting data releases and other factors and instead simply respond to the economic data itself. In theory, this untainted market response can then guide Fed officials debating whether to raise or lower rates.That hands-off approach from Warsh was already facing perhaps insurmountable real-world obstacles because it’s almost impossible to get the market to stop obsessing over the next Fed move. And then Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent introduced a new wrinkle: a very hand-on approach in the Treasury market. His intervention in the bond market last week was widely viewed as an effort to put a lid on surging yields.In other words, Bessent is fogging up the very same windshield Warsh was attempting to get a clear view from.“If timing is everything in love, the bromance between Bessent and Warsh may be coming to an end,” said Tim Mahedy, a former San Francisco Fed official who is now CEO of research firm Access/Macro.US Treasury rates – the same ones Warsh wants to use as a guidepost – dropped after Bessent announced a surprise plan last week to at least double Treasury buybacks.“It’s not a clean signal of what the market wants if Treasury is intervening,” said Eric Rosengren, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The Treasury Department presented the move as technical in nature, part of an effort to ensure liquidity in markets.But analysts widely view the program as an attempt to drive down uncomfortably high bond rates, long a goal of Bessent’s. The 30-year recently climbed to the highest level since 2007, just before the Great Financial Crisis. “There is no chaos in the Treasury market. The liquidity argument doesn’t hold,” Rosengren said. “It looks a lot more like window-dressing before the midterms.”Legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller, a mentor to Bessent, slammed the move as “artificial yield suppression” in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “Let the bond market speak.” (Druckenmiller was later criticized for using artificial intelligence to write the commentary).Warsh has repeatedly lamented that inflation has been stuck above the Fed’s 2% target for the past five and a half years.Fed officials this summer have debated whether to raise short-term rates as a result. At a minimum, Fed officials have agreed to hold rates steady.But Bessent appears to be taking the opposite approach by attempting to engineer lower long-term rates. If he’s successful, that will drive down the cost of mortgages, business loans and the federal government’s own borrowing costs – all of which could stoke price pressures.“The Fed and Treasury are working at cross purposes, which is not productive,” Rosengren said.

Fed Lisa Cook turns mortgage allegations back on Trump and his Cabinet - A lawyer for Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Wednesday pushed back on President Donald Trump’s revived effort to remove her from the central bank, telling the White House in a five-page letter that allegations of mortgage fraud against her “remain unfounded and untrue.” Lawyer Abbe Lowell’s defense of Cook came just before the deadline for a reply that Trump aide Dan Scavino set three weeks earlier, when he wrote to Cook that there is “sufficient reason to believe that you made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements.” Trump, who wants the Fed to sharply lower interest rates, first moved to fire Cook, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, in late August 2025. He took that step after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice accusing Cook of possible mortgage fraud, alleging she claimed two different properties as her primary residence at the same time. Cook denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit challenging her dismissal. The Supreme Court in late June blocked Trump from firing Cook, but left the president with a path to try again to remove her. Lowell, in his letter to White House counsel David Warrington, said that trying to fire Cook based on Pulte’s referral “would ignore the facts and the law.” Scavino’s Aug. 5 letter to Cook describes “two acts by Governor Cook that, ‘taken together,’ supposedly constitute grounds for her removal,” Lowell wrote. “But neither of those acts shows intentional wrongdoing or amounts to a crime, and neither constitutes ‘cause’ under the Federal Reserve Act.” Lowell also noted that Trump himself, along with others in his administration including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Attorney General Todd Blanche, have reportedly also listed multiple properties as primary residences in the past. “An inadvertent oversight is not fraudulent or criminal,” Lowell wrote. “Governor Cook’s apparent mistake on a form provided to her by her lender, which was aware of her other residences, was unintentional, not criminal, and occurred in her private capacity before she took office.” Attempting to fire Cook on the basis of Pulte’s allegations would be selective, Lowell added, and “would raise troubling questions about why President Trump is singling out Governor Cook.” The letter also included a declaration in Cook’s defense from Kathleen Engel, research law professor at Suffolk University Law School. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Lowell’s letter.

Yields Hit Session High After Subpar 5Y Auction Tails For 10th Consecutive Time As Foreign Buyers Shrink | ZeroHedge           -While yesterday's 2 Year auction was absolutely blockbuster, today's sale of 5Y paper left quite a bit to be desired. Starting at the top, today's sale of $70BN in 2Y paper priced at a high yield of 4.393%, which was modestly below last month's 4.408% if at the high end of all auctions in the past few years. It also tailed the When Issued 4.391% by 0.2bps, which was the 15th consecutive auction without a Stop Through, and the 10th tailing auction in a row. The bid to cover was 2.37, an improvement to last month's 2.28 and better than the recent average of 2.32. It was also the highest bid to cover going back to November 2025. The internals were weaker, with foreign buyers taking down 61.5%, up from 59.2% last month if below the recent average of 65.4%. And with Directs hanging in there, and taking 28.4% of the auction, the most since January, Dealers were left holding 10.0%, the lowest since December. Overall, this was a solid, if notably weaker auction than yesterday's phenomenal 2Y sale, and the continued drift higher in the 10Y yield and the entire curve to session highs, confirmed the market's muted reception.

Waste Of The Day: Deficit Could Surpass $2 Trillion  - The federal deficit will be $2.1 trillion when fiscal year 2026 ends on Sept. 30, the Congressional Budget Office projected in its monthly budget review.The deficit - the gap between what the government spends and what it collects from taxes and other revenue - has never surpassed $1.8 trillion, except during the Covid-19 pandemic. Federal revenues are up 3% in 2026 compared to last year. Even though corporate income tax revenue has declined, income and payroll tax collections increased.But federal spending is up 5%, according to the CBO. Interest on the national debt increased 14% compared to last year. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense are also facing increased costs.The CBO originally projected this year's deficit would be $1.9 trillion. The estimate was changed "mostly because of smaller-than-expected collections of tariff duties" after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump in February. Though Trump later imposed new tariffs, the CBO still expects federal revenue to be $250 billion less than originally anticipated. About $100 billion has been refunded to companies so far, under an order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.  "We've borrowed an astounding $1.8 trillion this fiscal year, with $431 billion in the month of July alone, and equating to nearly $6 billion per day," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "We're on track to surpass $2 trillion in borrowing this fiscal year despite not being in a recession. That is not normal." The University of Pennsylvania recently estimated that under current policy, it will likely be mathematically impossible for the U.S. to pay off its debt by the year 2048.That was before Trump asked Congress to increase discretionary spending by 19% next year, which would be the second-largest spending increase in at least 60 years.Summary: America's affordability crisis is the most prominent political issue in the country, yet neither party has committed to reducing government deficits. Until then, the crisis is likely to only worsen.

The Unsustainable $40 Trillion National Debt | ZeroHedge - The national debt has now passed $40 trillion. It stands at 120 percent of GDP. That should alarm us and probably does but let's just be honest: no one can conceive of such figures. They are just floating zeros and no one has any sense of whether and to what extent this portends economic doom for us. Maybe it does or maybe it doesn't. An electronic display shows the national debt in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 19, 2026. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images You can perhaps conceptualize this better by considering household finance. The extent of the debt burden a household can handle depends on the ratio of financial inflows to outflows in the form of debt service. This is the debt-to-income ratio. Another consideration looks at assets that would need to be liquidated should bankruptcy arrive. That's the debt-to-assets ratio. The usual financial advice for a household is to keep the debt-to-income ratio in the range of 30 percent. As for debt-to-assets, anything beyond 50 percent is overly vulnerable to shocks that could turn everything south and quickly, leading to tragedy with even small changes in interest rates, stock valuations, business fortunates, or real-estate hiccups. And yet here we are with a 120 percent ratio of debt to GDP. This is higher than the brief blowout of the Second World War, a time when the nation was stuffed with real savings and U.S. creditworthiness was unquestioned. After the war, the nation got its fiscal house in order and it stayed that way for decades. The turning point toward this scary debt cycle was the end of the gold standard and the Bretton Woods system that forced some degree of fiscal responsibility. Gold outflows were always going to be a consequence of extension. When the spending extravaganza of the Great Society plus the Vietnam War (guns and butter) tested the limits and nations around the world started demanding payment in specie, the United States panicked and closed the gold window for good. That was 1971 and by 1973, we had a new system: a world of floating fiat currency. The crucial point here is that Congress no longer faced any real cost for authorizing endless spending of whatever sort. The Treasury creates the debt and sells it to bond dealers who dish it out to all takers. The buyer of last resort is of course the Federal Reserve. This is the creator of this moral hazard. It's why there is no real default premium on U.S. debt and no serious work to rate the quality of debt with any realistic measurement. It's because the Fed is there always and ever to be the buyer of last resort. Let's put this in simpler terms. Why is it that states within the United States don't run these kinds of debts? If they do run deficits, their default risk goes up and the quality rating goes down. Most states do very well on this score with a AAA rating, whereas Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky have lower ratings. In states, there are consequences for fiscal mismanagement. I've wondered how common the knowledge is to explain this puzzle. So I asked a conventional AI engine what it believed to be the explanation. To my amazement, the answer came back quickly and precisely: states in the union have no power to create money. Boom! That's it. That's the whole thing. This is why every scheme for balancing the budget at the federal level has failed. There is no balanced budget amendment but it likely would not matter much anyway. We could have a quantity rule for the Federal Reserve but it would be completely unenforceable. The only way to stop the debt madness at the federal level would be to legally prohibit the Fed's open market operations (OMOs) and related large-scale asset purchases. This would largely prevent the Federal Reserve from expanding the monetary base in its primary and most powerful way. This and this alone would bring fiscal accountability to the federal level that states face all day every year. Absent that solution, the federal government faces the same problem that a household with too much debt faces. Eventually all its income flows will be eaten up by debt service. Right now, 19 percent of federal revenue feeds the debt machine but matters are getting worse. The latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office forecast a coming fiscal trainwreck. The new estimates are that if net interest averages 250 basis points (2.5 percentage points) higher than CBO's baseline assumptions, 100 percent of all revenue going to the federal government will go to paying interest on the debt by 2055. That's just not that far away. That moment spells disaster. And this is one reason why there is such a push by both parties and all stakeholders to hold down rates as much as possible. Letting them float according to free market pressures would bankrupt the country in a period of years. But therein lies another problem. Artificially low interest rates feed inflation and distort production structures. This is why I'm not optimistic that our problems with inflation are going away anytime soon. If the Fed were really to crack down on quantitative easing, the fiscal burden of debt would explode in ways that would limit the power of politicians and utterly blow up the bond market. It appears to me that U.S. elites have decided that a persistent 3-4 percent inflation rate is a necessary tradeoff to avoid a fiscal calamity. I'm very sorry to be the bearer of this bad news. We've gone though heck and back over the last 5 years of inflation but the problem is not going away soon. Let's further assume that the Reality Index is correct that the real inflation rate is one-third higher than official reports. At this rate, the dollar might have lost a clean 50 percent across the board of its 2019 purchasing power in one decade. This means that the fight to achieve the American dream is ongoing. Consider too that the unfunded liabilities assumed over a 75-year horizon is closer to $80 trillion-$90 trillion, numbers that are beyond comprehension. The answer to the debt problem, then, is to bring back fiscal discipline through serious monetary reform. Let rates rise to their market level, allow that increase to feed the fullness of the yield curve, close open market operations, and expect Congress to stop its wild behavior once and for all. There are pathways out of this mess but it will require genuine political courage to pursue them.

US Claimed 40 Tankers Exited Strait on Single Day, Tracking Agency Recorded Zero - US officials said that the US successfully helped 40 vessels through the Strait of Hormuz on a single day. An international shipping tracking agency did not record a single vessel exiting the waterway. Axios’ Barak Ravid reported speaking with three US officials who said that dozens of tankers carrying 16 million barrels of oil safely exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. Kpler, a global data and analytics platform that tracks physical commodity markets and shipping in real time, recorded zero barrels of oil exiting the Strait on that day. The US officials speaking with Ravid said the oil left the waterway through the “southern corridor.” Last week, Axios reported speaking with two US officials who explained that over the past several weeks, the military has helped 15 to 20 vessels per day enter or exit the Persian Gulf by transiting the Strait of Hormuz near the Omani coast. One official claimed that the covert operations have increased the flow of oil out of the Gulf to half of the pre-war level, about ten million barrels per day. “We have been controlling the southern lane of the Strait of Hormuz for two months now. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can be a nuisance, but they don’t control the strait. We do,” one official said. The US strategy has tankers move in bulk with US fighter jets escorting the vessels and shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. The official said the operations were made possible by the US taking out Iranian radars. The scheme to escort tankers through the Strait is part of President Donald Trump’s new Iran war strategy. The President believes that it can apply significant economic pressure on Iran without damaging the world economy. The strategy assumes that Tehran will not respond to economic war with military escalation. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the ramped-up economic warfare made restarting the war between the US and Iran less likely.  “If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart,” he said. However, Responsible Statecraft vice president Trita Parsi argued Iran is likely to escalate the conflict in response to economic pain. “Tehran does not appear overly concerned—for now. But that could change. If Trump refuses to return to the MOU, or succeeds in turning the balance of economic pain against Iran, Tehran will face a far harsher reality,” he wrote at Substack on Wednesday. “Between surrender or escalation, Iran will almost certainly choose escalation. Even if Trump has gained the economic upper hand, Tehran still believes it holds a military advantage.”

Economic D-Day: Treasury Secretary Bessent Announces Operation Economic Outcast Against Iran - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new economic war against Iran dubbed Operation Economic Outcast. “At President Trump’s direction, the United States Treasury has begun Operation Economic Outcast, an unprecedented campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers,” Bessent said on Monday. “In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran.” The Treasury Secretary explained the economic war will use sanctions in an effort to cut Iran off from its trading partners. “Treasury has mapped every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions.” He continued, “Beginning today, the actions of Treasury and other agencies will tighten the noose and block every potential source.” He said the President and other top officials are reaching out to nations around the world, giving them specific demands to end trade with Iran. Bessent said the US will target five Iranian sectors: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping. Last week, President Donald Trump said he would take actions to stop all international trade with Iran. “I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” the President wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences.” He continued, “This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate and defeat the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide.” Trump’s increased focus on economic war against Iran comes as the US is low on several munitions, including long-range missiles and interceptors. The President appears to believe that increasing economic pressure on Iran will force Tehran to comply with his demands. However, Tehran has proven resilient throughout the conflict and could look to exert more pressure on Washington by stepping up attacks on its allies.

Bessent warns Iran’s global partners to cut ties or face ‘Operation Economic Outcast’ -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday issued a global warning for countries to cut any financial ties with Iran or risk being cut off from the U.S. dollar system, launching a new economic pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic as the military front has reached a stalemate six months into the war. Called “Operation Economic Outcast,” the campaign is marketed as a financial “D-Day” akin to the American invasion of Normandy in World War II. But Bessent’s highly anticipated remarks offered few specific, public actions and instead appeared to serve as a stern advisory. “Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior, why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent responded to a question on the lack of specifics or immediate action. He said President Trump is making calls to world leaders and that officials from the Defense, Treasury and State departments are calling counterparts demanding action in severing ties with Tehran. Bessent held back naming and shaming specific governments or publicizing timelines for action but said they are being communicated behind the scenes. “We’re not going to name names. We’ve already seen some results, and I am confident the president, as you all know, is quite persuasive,” Bessent said at a press conference announcing the sanctions plan. “I would expect that very quickly, if they do not respond, then you will see the ramifications of their actions.” Absent from Bessent’s remarks was whether the administration will take specific action against China, Iran’s largest trading partner and primary destination for its oil exports — although these have declined sharply over the course of the war. Trump is scheduled to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit on Sept. 24, where the two want to advance a trade deal. Bessent said no country “is above the reach of U.S. sanctions,” when asked if the administration was pulling punches on Beijing. “We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy, and we are level-setting with every country to tell them our expectations,” he said. The administration has earlier sanctioned Chinese entities processing Iranian oil. Alongside the announcement, the Treasury Department outlined that it was expanding its authority to sanction any person, regardless of location, for operating in specific sectors of the Iranian economy. These include digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. It further announced new sanctions against 60 entities, individuals and vessels related to Iran’s nuclear and missile technology programs, its ability to conduct cyber operations and generate oil revenue. “Treasury has mapped every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions,” Bessent said. He called for international branches of Iran’s Bank Melli closed and further teased that a major announcement of sanctions against a financial institution would take place by the end of the week.The secretary projected the choice before Iran as “complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy.”Trump has said his aim of going to war with Iran at the end of February was to prevent the country from ever building a nuclear weapon. But Iran has withstood six months of U.S. military attacks — initially in coordination with Israel — demonstrated its ability to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage and walked away from diplomatic talks with the U.S. over its nuclear program.

Iran Threatens to Attack US Bases in European Countries - - An Iranian spokesman said Tehran has the right to target US bases in any countries that are used to attack Iran.  “There is no justification for any country to fear Iran unless that country opens its territory to the United States for aggression against Iran,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday. “It is Iran’s right to target the source and origin of any aggressive action against the Islamic Republic.”The US has used bases across the Middle East and Europe to wage its war against Iran. Some European countries, including Italy and Spain, have blocked Washington from using US bases in their countries to attack Iran. Iranian missile strikes on American military bases in the Middle East have killed at least 18 Americans, caused extensive damage, and destroyed dozens of aircraft and radars. The US has halted strikes against Iran, with President Donald Trump saying the US strategy has shifted to economic warfare. The President believes he can force Tehran into a deal by strangling the Iranian economy through sanctions and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.  Baghaei said the US sanctions were “terrorism,” and Tehran was preparing to respond to the blockade. “The Iranian government is mobilizing all its capabilities to alleviate living pressures on the people.” He added, “The naval blockade on Iran at the present time is in itself an aggressive act, and escalation of this situation will certainly have its own repercussions.”

Robert Kagan: Iran Now the Dominant Power in the Middle East - In a new op-ed, Robert Kagan argues that the war started by the US and Israel has resulted in Iran becoming the dominant power in the Middle East. “As a result, Iran has, with American help, completely reconfigured the power structure of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf,” Kagan wrote in The Atlantic on Sunday. “The dominant power in the region going forward will be Iran, not the US or Israel.” In 1997, Kagan co-founded Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank that lobbied for an aggressive foreign policy and the Iraq War. Kagan is a war hawk who has long falsely claimed that Iran is working to build a nuclear weapon, and Washington must prevent Tehran from obtaining nukes. President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he launched the war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Kagan has often argued against military action in favor of causing an uprising of the Iranian people to overthrow the government. The US and Israel attempted to encourage Iranian protesters and rioters in January, but the government in Tehran remained firmly in control. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US was beginning a new economic war against Iran. Kagan predicts that attempting to win the war through economic pressure will fail. “The idea that, having survived both military strikes and sanctions, Iran will now succumb to sanctions alone is deluded,” he wrote. Kagan goes on to argue that Iran will use its newfound power to build nuclear weapons, but control over the Strait of Hormuz is even more consequential. “The world has spent decades worrying about what Iran might do if it acquired a nuclear weapon. It should now worry about something even more consequential: an Iran that has defeated the United States, no longer fears American attack, and controls access to the Persian Gulf. Nuclear weapons alone could never have given Iran this kind of power.” He added, “The failed U.S. and Israeli war with Iran has.”

Report: US Offers Sanctions Relief to Iran If Tehran Opens Strait of Hormuz - According to a source speaking with Saudi state media, Washington sent Tehran a message offering to lift the blockade and sanctions against Iran if the Islamic Republic reopens the Strait of Hormuz. According to a senior source who spoke with Al Hadath, Pakistan relayed the American offer to Iran. Islamabad has served as the main mediator in talks to end the US and Israeli war against Iran. In June, Pakistani-mediated talks resulted in the US and Iran signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The US has not officially commented on the report. The US offering to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for the reopening of the Strait suggests that President Donald Trump is lying to the American people when he says the critical waterway is fully under control of the Navy. The MOU created a 60-day truce, which has now expired. Additionally, the US agreed to expand the ceasefire to include Lebanon, lift sanctions on Iran, and end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. In exchange, Tehran agreed to allow commercial vessels to transit the waterway. Iran committed to not changing fees for ships transiting the Strait for 60 days. On Tuesday, Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi says the talks were focused on returning to the MOU and were “very productive.” Tehran described the meeting as “very fruitful” and included “highly valuable diplomatic achievements.” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the MOU is “clear” and the US must honor its commitments.

Iran details temporary Hormuz arrangement with Oman; vows reopening tied to fulfillment of demands - Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs details a temporary arrangement between the Islamic Republic and Oman concerning the Strait of Hormuz, while asserting that reopening of the waterway hinges on realization of Tehran’s demands. Remarking on Tuesday, Kazem Gharibabadi detailed the arrangement that he identified as tentative pending establishment of a “permanent route” during further negotiations between the two sides that are expected to take between 30 and 60 days. Iran closed the chokepoint following the launch of the latest bout of unprovoked American-Israeli aggression against the country on February 28. The Islamic Republic and the United States agreed on a 60-day reopening period as part of a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding in June, but American violations forced Tehran to reestablish the closure. Tehran has conditioned reopening of the waterway on realization of a number of prerequisites, including cessation of American interference in regional maritime traffic. According to Gharibabadi, under the arrangement involving Iran and Oman, the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz will be closed. As part of its violations of the MoU, the US would try to illegally escort vessels through the southern route that runs along the Omani coastline. Oman has accepted the closure, the official said, adding that the move would be communicated to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Under the arrangement, “vessels entering the Persian Gulf will use Iranian waters, while vessels leaving the Persian Gulf will use Omani territorial waters,” the senior diplomat stated. “Vessels would pass through Iranian waters in both directions,” he added. He described the arrangement as functioning “like a two-way highway,” with a total width of approximately seven nautical miles. Gharibabadi stressed that the arrangement agreed with with Oman does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened immediately. He said the issue of the arrangement and the question of reopening the strait were separate matters. The official underlined that the waterway will remain closed if Iran’s requirements for its reopening are not met. He said the demands include the complete lifting of the illegal economic blockade targeting the Islamic Republic, durable cessation of aggression on all fronts, including Lebanon, and clarification of the situation concerning the blockade of Yemen. Gharibabadi attributed the enhanced position of the strait in Iran’s view to the developments that took place following the launch of the unprovoked American-Israeli aggression. “Following the 40-day war, the Strait of Hormuz has become a matter of Iran’s national security,” he said.

Trump Claims All Mines Cleared from Strait of Hormuz - President Donald Trump said that all mines have been removed from the Strait of Hormuz. “I have just been informed by the United States Navy that all mines have been removed and/or detonated from within the International Waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” the President wrote on Tuesday. “Iran has been notified that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed. There is a Zero Tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect.” The Strait of Hormuz has become a major issue in efforts to end the Middle East war. Before the conflict, the crucial waterway was treated as international territory, allowing vessels to enter and exit the Persian Gulf freely. After the US and Israel attacked Iran in February, Tehran seized control of the Strait. Tehran says that ending the war requires the US to recognize the Strait as Iranian and Omani territory. Iran plans to charge a “service fee” to ships transiting the waterway. US officials claim that the Navy is assisting several tankers in transiting the Strait each day with a fighter jet escort near the Omani coastline. Last week, Washington said that 15 million barrels of oil exited the waterway on a single day. However, tracking agencies have not recorded a substantial number of vessels successfully transiting the Strait. On Saturday, President Donald Trump posted an image on Truth Social showing the Strait of Hormuz as “new US territory.” It is the second time he posted the graphic this month. Over the past month, Oman and Iran have engaged in direct negotiations to come to an agreement on new shipping protocols for the Strait. The deal would give Iran full control over ships entering the Persian Gulf, while exiting ships would be subject to joint oversight between Tehran and Muscat. Additionally, the two nations would change service fees for ships using the Strait. The funds would be split between Iran and Oman. Trump threatened to bomb Muscat over negotiations with Tehran. Trump told Fox News journalist Trey Yingst: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.” Muscat has been negotiating with Tehran about the future of the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is a narrow waterway that lies between Iran and Oman. The waterway is the only entrance or exit for the Persian Gulf. About a fifth of the world’s energy crosses the Strait. Trump believes that the US blockade and economic war on Iran will cause significant pain and force Tehran to comply with his demands.

Iran Says Hormuz Stays Closed Until U.S. Meets Six Sweeping Demands --Iran has effectively rejected expectations of an imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, laying out sweeping conditions that would require the United States to fundamentally change its policy toward Tehran. In a statement issued by Mohammad Baqer Zolghadr, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Tehran said the strait would remain closed until Washington ends what Iran described as its hostile behavior. The six demands include an end to U.S. threats and military action, a permanent end to the war, withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from around Iran, compensation for war damages, sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets. The statement is significant because it indicates that the much-discussed U.S.-Iran draft agreement does not, at least from Tehran's perspective, amount to a deal to reopen Hormuz. Any agreement would ultimately require approval from Iran's Supreme National Security Council.The shipping data also points to continued disruption. Just 33 vessels transited Hormuz from Monday through Thursday, down from 50 during the same period the previous week, while only six crude tankers have reportedly cleared the strait outbound so far this week. The decline comes despite expectations that Iran and Oman were close to an arrangement governing a shipping corridor.That uncertainty has kept the energy market on edge. Iran has also been considering restrictions on U.S. and Israeli vessels, while previous proposals for transit fees have added another layer of uncertainty. The European Union has already accused Iran's IRGC Navy of enforcing a screening and toll system for vessels using the strait.Washington, however, is presenting a considerably more optimistic picture. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. expects oil and gas flows from the Gulf to eventually return to pre-war levels. He also said Iran had told Washington it had no plans to impose tolls, although the U.S. does not fully trust Tehran's assurances.That leaves the market facing two very different interpretations of the same negotiations. Washington is talking about restoring normal energy flows. Tehran is demanding major political, military and financial concessions before reopening Hormuz.For oil traders, the key question is therefore no longer simply whether talks are taking place, but whether the two sides are actually negotiating the same outcome.

Iran says it has '2-year' plan to withstand Trump 'Economic D-Day' sanctions --- Washington is not expected to launch further strikes against Iran for now unless Tehran attacks first, Axios reported Tuesday, citing U.S. officials.Secretary of State Marco Rubio has recently told some foreign counterparts that the current posture would stay in place "for the time being," the outlet said.One official, however, said Rubio did not rule out strikes if Iran attacks first.A second official told Axios the posture is expected to remain in place until after the midterm elections, when another military campaign could again be considered.Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Monday he was not ruling out renewed U.S. strikes against Iran during the lull in hostilities, The Associated Press reported.The developments came as the Trump administration ramped up economic pressure on Tehran, including through its blockade of Iranian ports and a new sanctions initiative announced this week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

• President Donald Trump's administration launched a new wave of sanctions against Iran in an "Economic D-Day" operation.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the sanctions will isolate Iran financially and cut off its last economic lifelines.
• Iranian leaders say they have a "two-year plan" to shoulder the sanctions.
• Iranian forces attacked an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz just hours after the U.S. announced the new sanctions.
• Tehran will soon reveal the world’s largest underground missile complex, an Iranian military officer claimed before insisting the regime had gained access to its adversaries’ “technology” that improved its own military capabilities.
• Iranian leadership is acknowledging the impact of Washington’s increased economic pressure amid Operation Economic Outcast, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday.
• Tehran officials further outlined a temporary agreement that would allow ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz through Iranian and Omani territorial waters while barring military vessels.
• TankerTrackers said at least 15 ship-to-ship transfer operations were taking place in the Gulf of Oman involving millions of barrels of crude oil.
• U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey said that Britain will continue working with the U.S. to apply economic pressure on Iran.
• The U.S. Navy has warned personnel, including those returning from the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, to remove details of their service from social media.

U.S. oil prices fell in early Wednesday trading in Tokyo as talks between Iran and Oman raised hopes that the Strait of Hormuz could reopen, Reuters reported. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell $1.37, or 1.7%, to $80.99 a barrel as of 10:40 p.m. GMT Tuesday after losing 3.1% that day to settle at their lowest level since Aug. 13. The strait handled roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war began Feb. 28.

Iran transfers $7.5B in oil revenues to central bank despite US naval blockade: Report -Iran transferred $7.5 billion in oil revenues from sales during the first four months of the current Iranian year to the central bank, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Saturday. The funds would be sufficient to cover the government’s foreign-currency expenditures from July through December, the report said, citing information obtained from Iran’s Oil Ministry. Iran has enough oil available for sale outside the US naval blockade to meet the revenue requirements set under its state budget for March 21, 2026-March 20, 2027, according to the report. Oil revenues on March 21-July 22, the first four months of the Iranian year, reached 99% of the amount projected in the budget for the period, according to the report. The development comes amid a US naval blockade imposed on Iran, which has disrupted Tehran’s oil exports and maritime trade. The Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy shipments, has remained at the center of the US-Iran conflict. Iran closed the strategic waterway, while the US has demanded its reopening to free and unrestricted navigation. Under a memorandum of understanding reached in June to end the US-Iran war, lifting the US naval blockade and reopening the Strait of Hormuz are among the key provisions. Iranian officials have said Tehran will not fully reopen the waterway until Washington fulfills its commitments, including lifting the blockade and sanctions and releasing frozen Iranian assets.

Iran’s parliament speaker scoffs at US treasury secretary’s contradictory ‘Economic D-Day’ remarks - Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf has underlined a radical contradiction marking US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s recent announcement of a new wave of illegal sanctions against Iran. The top legislator made the remarks in a post on X on Tuesday. He noted how the announcement made by Bessent a day earlier saw him describe the measures under the so-called “Economic D-Day” terms only to be met with a reporter’s inquisitive questioning about how the measures could compare to the allied invasion of France in 1944. “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Bessent said in response in what observers have described as his acknowledgement that further American economic pressure on Iran would trigger worldwide blowback. “Him: ‘Economic D-Day.’ Also him, five seconds later: “[lol] why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Qalibaf wrote in his post, citing the exchange. He then addressed Bessent in an inquiring tone, saying, “Sir this ain’t Normandy, this is improv[ization] night and you forgot your own script.” The announcement came after the United States stopped radically short of achieving its objectives during the latest bout of unprovoked aggression that it waged together with the Israeli regime against Iran from February 28 until April 7. The aggression failed to realize the allies’ goals of overthrowing Iran’s Islamic establishment and irreversibly damaging the country’s defensive capabilities. It was rather faced with at least 100 waves of uncompromising Iranian reprisal that forced US President Donald Trump to announce a unilateral ceasefire. The US then began repeatedly violating the ceasefire and also breaching a memorandum of understanding that was reached in June, by targeting the Iranian soil and trying to enforce illegal maritime transit through the Strait of Hormuz. The violations, however, were faced with similar resolute Iranian retaliation that featured decisive strikes on hostile targets across the region and a determined closure of the strait. Tehran has vowed to decisively deter the economic pressure, including by targeting the countries that could try to help Washington wage such a pressure campaign.

Iran defense chief warns of ‘expanding’ battlefield as US pushes economic war --  Iran’s acting defense minister has warned that efforts to put pressure on the country’s economy and the security of its people should be regarded as part of the ongoing war. Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Ibn al-Reza made the remarks in a message published online on Tuesday, saying Iran considers economic stability, public welfare and security part of its “defense field.” “Any pressure that targets the livelihoods and security of the people is part of the war,” Ibn al-Reza said. He also warned that those seeking to widen the pressure campaign against Iran should expect Tehran to broaden its response as well, within the framework of national interests. “For those who expand the field of pressure, they should know that we too will expand the field in defense of the people, within the framework of national interests,” he said. On Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new "economic terrorism" campaign, claiming the measures target Iran’s financial networks worldwide and warned that no partner is beyond Washington’s reach. The United States unveiled the new wave of illegal sanctions against Iran under the so-called “Operation Economic Outcast,” threatening secondary penalties against any country or entity maintaining trade ties with Tehran in a failed attempt to achieve through economic coercion what its military aggression could not. The new measures expand secondary sanctions risks in areas such as digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping, while sanctioning around 60 entities, individuals and vessels helping facilitate Iranian trade. The announcement comes amid clear signs of American desperation after months of unsuccessful military offensive and a naval blockade that has failed to break Iran’s resolve.

Iran has caused 'billions' in damage to US intelligence assets: report - Iran has caused “billions” of dollars in damage to U.S. intelligence infrastructure, according to a new report, which comes as the war continues to drag on with no clear end in sight. Iranian drones and missiles have struck “intelligence posts and surveillance hardware in the Middle East that is more extensive than any destruction America’s spy agencies have endured,” NBC News reported, citing four unnamed sources. The damage is expected to cost billions to repair.A CIA station in Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia, was struck by Iranian drones in March, Reuters reported last month. A separate CIA facility in eastern Iraq was also targeted.Sources told NBC that additional sites had been hit but declined to provide further details. U.S. officials have also investigated whether Russia supplied Iran with drone technology or targeting information.The Independent has contacted the White House and Office of the Director of National Intelligence for comment.The Pentagon has acknowledged that the war — which began when the United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran in late February — has already cost the U.S. tens of billions of dollars.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Congress last month that the conflict had cost $37.5 billion, while arguing that an additional $67 billion was needed. The first six days of the war alone cost more than $11.3 billion, Pentagon officials reportedly told lawmakers in March. The U.S. military has expended nearly all of its stockpiled, long-range precision missiles, CBS News reported this month.President Donald Trump has insisted that the U.S. still maintains “massive amounts” of weapons. But he reportedly confronted Hegseth earlier this month over the apparent shortage, saying he believed the problem “had been fixed.” The broader U.S. economy has also been impacted, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz triggering spikes in global fuel prices. On Wednesday, the national average price of gasoline stood at $4.10 per gallon, up from $2.98 in the days before the war began, according to AAA. Beyond the monetary and munitions costs, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of 18 U.S. service members and wounded hundreds more, the Pentagon has said.Iran, meanwhile, has suffere d extensive damage. The U.S. has said it has targeted more than 13,000 locations across the Middle Eastern country, launching waves of strikes over several consecutive nights.“The navy’s gone, the air force is gone, the leadership is gone,” Trump said during an interview this month. The deaths of Iranian leaders had also complicated diplomacy, he said, because “nobody knows who’s leading.”On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled new sanctions against Iran after Trump vowed to impose an “economic D-Day.” Iran’s currency, the rial, fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar ahead of the measures.

Iran Caused Billions of Dollars in Damage to US Surveillance Infrastructure -  - NBC News reports that multiple US officials have revealed Iran had caused “unprecedented damage” to US intelligence gathering facilities across the Middle East. “Iranian missile and drone attacks have inflicted damage on US intelligence posts and surveillance hardware in the [region] that is more extensive than any destruction [US] spy agencies have endured,” the outlet explained, adding that the damage will “cost billions of dollars to repair.”  The four US officials who spoke with NBC News explained it was the costliest damage ever to CIA infrastructure. The article does not mention to what extent the damage set back the CIA’s intelligence collection capabilities in the Middle East.  In February, the US and Israel launched an unprovoked war against Iran amid talks between Washington and Tehran. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted a quick victory after the US and Israel assassinated the Iranian Supreme Leader and other top officials. However, the Iranian government remained in control, and the military launched large-scale attacks against American military bases and allies in the region. The IRGC was able to kill 18 American soldiers, cause billions in damage to US military bases, and destroy several warplanes. Trump appears to have given up on finding a military solution to the conflict. Axios reported on Wednesday that US officials have told allies that “for the time being,” the US is not expected to initiate new strikes against Iran, and will focus on enforcing its economic war.

2 US military refueling aircraft depart Bulgaria amid anger from Iran over deployment - Two U.S. military refueling aircraft departed Bulgaria last week amid Iran’s anger over the planes’ deployment to Bezmer Air Base.   Two Air Force KC-135 planes left the air base located in the southeast of Bulgaria on Friday, and the flights they conducted were for training purposes during their deployment, Bulgarian Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov told reporters on Saturday, according to the Bulgarian News Agency.  The U.S. Air Force confirmed the Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, air-to-air refueling tankers, departed Bulgaria to support “other operational requirements.”  “U.S. military aircraft routinely transit and are hosted by Allied and partner nations, including in Bulgaria, in accordance with access, basing, and overflight agreements,” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill on Monday. “We are grateful for Bulgaria’s support in regional security and we look forward to our continued partnership, remaining always vigilant in our collective defense,” spokesperson said.  The U.S. asked Bulgaria for temporary deployment of the refueling planes, a request that Iran sharply criticized, stating the Balkan nation would be complicit in “aggression and war crimes.”  Last month, Bulgaria’s Parliament approved the deployment of U.S. aircraft and military personnel to Bezmer Air Base in support of the U.S.’s Operation Epic Fury.  The deployment, which was approved on July 22, would have lasted from July 24 until the end of September.  Bezmer Air Base, which is located about 150 miles southwest of Sofia, is a joint-use facility, meaning whenever the U.S. needs to use it for a new purpose, it needs approval from the Bulgarian Parliament.  Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said in late May that the country would cut the stay of U.S. military aircraft at Sofia’s airport, Vasil Levski Sofia Airport, at the end of June after the Trump administration did not allow a visa-free pass for Bulgarian visitors to the U.S.

US has no place in future of West Asia: Iran’s top security official - Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Major General Mohsen Rezaei, says the United States will have no role in the future of West Asia, emphasizing that regional nations are now taking charge of their own destinies. Speaking during a high-level meeting in Tehran with Faeq Zaidan, the Head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, Rezaei underscored the deep historical and cultural ties between the two nations. He reiterated Tehran’s steadfast support for a sovereign, strong, and independent Iraq, while asserting a definitive shift in the region's geopolitical landscape. "The United States will have no place in the future of the region, and the countries of the region will make decisions about their own future," Rezaei stated. Addressing mutual security concerns, the Iranian security chief stressed the urgent need to clarify the status of and dismantle anti-Iranian militant groups operating along the shared borders of the two countries. He noted that neutralizing these elements is essential for maintaining long-term stability and safeguarding the interests of both nations. In response, Zaidan expressed deep appreciation for the Islamic Republic’s continuous political and strategic support for Iraq. He conveyed warm greetings from Iraqi officials to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution and paid solemn tribute to the memories of the late Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the revered architects of Iran-Iraq strategic unity. Zaidan also emphasized the mutual commitment to enhancing regional cooperation and ensuring robust, coordinated security measures along the shared borders to prevent any cross-border threats. The high-level meeting highlights a broader trend of expanding bilateral relations between Tehran and Baghdad. Earlier on Tuesday, the Head of Iran’s Judiciary, Hojjat al-Islam Gholam Hossein Ejei, told Zaidan in a meeting that cooperation between the two neighboring countries has deepened across all sectors and dimensions. He highlighted that legal and judicial ties, in particular, have seen significant growth and institutionalization through the signing and active implementation of various bilateral agreements and memorandums of understanding.

Iran war approaching Ukraine-style stalemate, oil tanker CEO tells FT --The risk of a prolonged stalemate in the Iran war is being underestimated by markets, with a deadlock lasting months or years increasingly more likely than a quick resolution, CEO Jacob Meldgaard of Danish tanker group TORM (TRMD) told the Financial Times in an interview on Wednesday. Meldgaard compared the situation in the Persian Gulf to the Russia-Ukraine war, arguing that markets again are too quick to assume that economic disruption will force both sides to find a solution. "The most likely scenario right now is that Trump and the U.S. administration have no other solution than continuing, and nor do Iran and the IRGC," the CEO told FT. "The Gulf leadership has realized they need to prepare themselves for a prolonged situation that lasts not days or weeks but months or years." Meldgaard's comments came as TORM (TRMD), which operates nearly 100 tankers, reported a record Q2 net profit of $338M, nearly 6x more than the year-earlier quarter, after freight rates surged during the Middle East conflict. Persian Gulf states have been expanding their tanker fleets for their national oil companies to continue transporting crude and fuels through the Strait of Hormuz despite Iranian attacks. Trump takes control of the Hormuz oil route… then Washington floats something even bigger - "US territory" - my take Something just happened that Iran's regime swore for decades could "Owners like me, I look in the mirror every morning and ask if it feels safe for my seafarers, and I say no," Meldgaard told FT. "But for a national oil company, it is different. They have decided, at a strategic level, that they will not be governed by Iran, and that it is existential for them." The CEO said maintaining pre-war export volumes through the strait would require substantially more ships because vessels were being used less efficiently, potentially twice as many crude supertankers and three times as many large refined fuel tankers. Oil prices extended recent declines on Wednesday, as concerns eased over military conflict in the Persian Gulf, and Iran said it reached a revenue-sharing agreement with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz. "Agreements have been reached regarding each country's share of the strait's waters as well as Iran and Oman's share of its revenues," the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, adding that "the U.S. is obstructing this process, causing progress to be delayed." The IRGC's comments went further than an earlier joint statement issued by the two countries' foreign ministries that described an "interim framework" for resuming ship transits but stopped short of announcing a final deal and did not mention fees. On Wednesday, front-month Nymex crude for September delivery dropped 1% to $81.52/bbl and front-month Brent crude for October delivery fell 1.3% to $87.42/bbl.

Iran's gas lines are growing, but there's no sign so far that its leaders will bow to US sanctions - (AP) — Lines have grown outside gas stations across Tehran in recent weeks as the United States has tightened its blockade and threatened more severe sanctions, with some people waiting for two hours or more to fill up. The uncertainty deepened on Tuesday, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent vowed to fully sever the country from the global economy. In recent days, Iranian officials have spoken of a possible reduction in heavy gas subsidies as they seek to endure the tightening blockade. “Maybe we will face a shortage of fuel,” said Hashem Abadi, a 34-year-old barber. “I rush to the filling stations whenever my tank is down to half or so.” The latest U.S. measures are aimed at wringing concessions from the Islamic Republic nearly six months into the war launched by President Donald Trump and Israel. The war has already battered Iran’s economy and inflicted mounting pain on ordinary people. But there’s no sign yet that it has brought Iran’s leaders to their knees, or that it will reignite the anti-government protests that convulsed the country in January. The lines had been growing longer well before Bessent’s announcement, amid shortages caused by the American blockade and existing sanctions. And with double-digit inflation and the rial currency at a record low, Iranians are struggling to afford more than just fuel. “I’m filling my car as much as possible since soon it will be sold at higher prices,” said 51-year-old taxi driver Mahmoud Chavoshi. “Everything I buy has grown more expensive over the last week, from milk to pasta.” There were no such lineups outside banks, and grocery stores and pharmacies are still well-stocked, but customers complained about being able to afford less. Inflation has soared during the war, and the currency hit a record low ahead of Bessent’s announcement. “Some of our regular customers buy now and pay later, since their pockets are not as full as before,” said Morteza Daryani, who runs a grocery store in Tehran. Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the U.S. of resorting to economic pressure after failing to defeat Iran militarily. He said it was trying to create “social problems and economic dissatisfaction in order to throw Iran into chaos.” “Should we bow down to the problems and surrender? Absolutely not,” he was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies. There are no signs yet that the economic discontent has translated into protests in Iran, where authorities violently crushed demonstrations at the start of the year, killing thousands. Iran has been under heavy international sanctions for decades due to its nuclear program and support for armed groups. Oil sales to China have long provided a lifeline, and it’s unclear if the U.S. can cut them off. Still, there are “always limits to resistance and resilience,” said Mohammad Farzanegan, a professor of Middle Eastern economics at the University of Marburg in Germany. “People are losing their purchasing power every day,” he said. “All of this, combined with worsening diplomatic prospects and the psychological burden of mounting pressures, could push frustration to a point where it can no longer be effectively managed by the state.” Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, who heads the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a think tank focused on Iran’s economy, said the sectors that Bessent threatened to target “are not lifelines for the Iranian state, they are lifelines for the Iranian people.” In an analysis posted on X, Batmanghelidj said digital assets and gold are how Iranians protect their savings, technology keeps them connected with the world, aviation allows them to travel, and shipping is how food and medicine reach Iran.

Tanker attack tests Trump’s claim that Hormuz is a 'functioning strait'  - An oil tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said in a post Thursday, the latest in a string of sporadic attacks that have kept ships away from the vital energy corridor.The incident was reported Tuesday, off the Omani coast, the UKMTO said, which added that the resulting fire had been extinguished, all crew members were reported safe, and an investigation was underway.Traffic through Hormuz has trended lower this week and remains far below pre-war levels, even as the U.S. has sought to help escort vessels along the Omani side of the strait. Last week, an attack on a cargo ship transiting the waterway killed a crew member.Only five ships made confirmed crossings Tuesday, down from seven the day before and a collapse from more than 130 vessels a day before the war, according to Kpler. All five crossings used the unilateral route Iran has designated for shipping, the tracking firm said.Separately, U.S. allies are skeptical that Iran's mines in the strait have been fully cleared, Bloomberg reported, casting doubt over President Donald Trump's claims that the waterway was safe for passage.The report came after Trump said Wednesday that the Hormuz waterway had been fully cleared of mines, calling it "a functioning strait.""Yes, every once in a while there will be a drone or a rocket or something shot, but it is a very functioning strait. A lot of oil is pouring out," Trump said. Iran and Oman, meanwhile, have agreed on a temporary maritime corridor intended to restore safer passage through the strait. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, however, warned that the waterway will not fully reopen until the U.S. fulfils its commitments under an interim peace deal framework signed in June, which has since lapsed.The U.S. military has maintained a naval blockade against Iranian ships in the vital chokepoint, and used the southern Omani lane to escort oil tankers in and out of the Gulf.This week saw the Trump administration launch an "economic onslaught" against Iran's financial connections around the world, upping the ante on countries and entities that maintain economic ties with Tehran. That escalation has scuttled prospects of peace talks between Washington and Tehran. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Trump said he has "no time schedule" for when he expects to resume the talks with Iran to put an end to the six-month war. When asked if economic pressure was more effective compared to military strikes, Trump said, "I think they are both effective."In a diplomatic outreach following the U.S. sanctions campaign against the Iranian economy, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on the UN and its member governments to condemn what he described as U.S. "economic terrorism," arguing the UN bears "legal and moral responsibility" to denounce the sanctions campaign as "illegal and criminal."

White House Planning to Reactivate Civil War-Era Court to Accelerate Theft of Iranian Oil - The US Justice Department is preparing to reactivate prize courts to “adjudicate the disposition of [Iranian] captured vessels and cargo.”Bloomberg reported speaking with an attorney working with the Justice Department on reviving the court. “Our national security interests may require the United States military to seize vessels or cargo supporting the enemy during military conflict,” Aaron Reitz, a Houston-based attorney, said in a statement. “If that happens, our federal courts must be ready to adjudicate the disposition of these captured vessels and cargo.”He described prize courts as an “ancient body of maritime law.”Maritime lawyers and former prosecutors told Bloomberg they anticipate “ship owners and Iranian terrorism victims” to be among the plaintiffs filing with the prize court to receive funds generated by selling off seized Iranian oil. While US officials and politicians often label Iran as the leading state-sponsor of terror, many of the alleged terror attacks that Tehran has ordered have been debunked, such as Iran supplying EFPs during the Iraq War and the Kohbar Towers attack.  During the Civil War, the US Navy captured merchant vessels as prizes during the blockade of the South. The Confederacy also allowed privateers to keep captured northern ships as prizes.  Allison Luzwick, an attorney specializing in maritime law, said the DOJ may struggle to use the prize court to seize Iranian oil, as international law has significantly developed since it was last used.  “This really is a historical area of law that is not tested in modern times.” She added, “Great strides have been made in international law and the law of war since the late 1800s, and all of that is going to come into play when we’re actually looking at proceedings involving a vessel that is potentially seized under Prize Act authority.”The planning to reactivate prize courts comes as President Donald Trump is shifting his approach to the war against Iran. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told allies that the US was not planning additional strikes against Iran, and would be focusing on implementing the blockade and sanctions.  Since Trump imposed the blockade earlier this year, the US has captured and disabled multiple vessels attempting to reach or exit Iranian ports.

US Ambassador Breaks With President, Says Israel Is ‘Occupying’ Golan - -  The US Ambassador to Turkey said the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria. President Donald Trump recognized the territory as part of Israel. Speaking with Mario Nawfal on Friday, Tom Barrack said, “In the Golan with Syria — they still occupy the Golan against the [United Nations] resolutions, against all of the international order which has said the Golan is Syria’s.” In 1967, Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six-Day War. Damascus failed to reclaim its territory during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Then, in 1981, Tel Aviv annexed the Golan Heights and built several settlements in the territory, ignoring UN resolutions. No other nation recognized the Golan as Israeli until 2019, when President Trump declared it was Israeli territory. Earlier this month, Colombia also recognized Israel’s claim. After Syrian President Bashir al-Assad was overthrown in 2024, the IDF invaded the region surrounding the Golan, and the IDF has continued to expand its occupation of Syria slowly. In the interview with Nawfal, Barrack said Israel was unlikely to continue its occupation of southern Lebanon. “No matter what they are doing. In the long run, I think they are looking and saying ‘that is probably unlikely that anybody is going to allow us to do that’. America’s support is waning. Even the young Democrats are coming against them,” he explained.Barrack, who is also serving as the US envoy to Iraq and Syria, also discussed a recent Israeli airstrike in Idlib, Syria. He suggested the attack was a mistake despite top Israeli officials saying it was a threat to Turkey. He also warned Tel Aviv’s actions could have “unintended consequences.”Barrack went on to say that the Israeli attack could have been intended to “bait” Turkey into an escalation ahead of the October elections in Israel.

Tom Barrack walks back Golan Heights remarks after contradicting Trump - Tom Barrack, President Trump’s U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria and Iraq, on Sunday walked back comments he made last week suggesting that Israel “still” occupies the Golan Heights in violation of United Nations resolutions, which contradict the president’s position. Barrack made the remark Friday in an interview with Lebanese Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal. He later told The Associated Presshe was describing the territory’s historical status and that it was “not an endorsement of the United Nations’ position.” “United States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,” Barrack told the AP, saying he intended to explain why he does not expect Israel to annex Lebanon. The special envoy referred to negotiated agreements, like the end of the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, as more long-lasting, having used the Golan as an example of “territory taken by force remains contested for generations.” Barrack said Hezbollah and Iran are the “two people missing from” those negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, emphasizing that the U.S. does not negotiate with Hezbollah. He said the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization’s “weapons in question are supplied and financed by Iran.” “I was describing the difficulty of the problem, not proposing a new [negotiating] table,” he told the AP. “Hezbollah is a designated foreign terrorist organization. We do not negotiate with it, and nothing I said suggests otherwise.” Israel claimed the Golan Heights after the 1967 war and annexed it in 1981. The U.N. does not consider the occupied territory as belonging to Israel and does not recognize the annexation. Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy and recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019. Barrack, in the same interview with Nawfal, criticized Israel’s strikes on Abu Duhur air base in Syria last week. He called the strikes an “unnecessary escalation” and said the U.S. will host diplomatic talks to produce “de-escalation agreements” between Syria and Israel. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz defended the strikes Sunday on the social platform X, saying that critics who first called the attack “unnecessary and politically motivated” changed their position after the Israeli military released “clear intelligence” that clarified its actions. “The statements by the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister to Erdoğan and the warnings that we will not allow Turkey to establish itself in Syria and endanger Israel’s security –– are unnecessary and dangerous,” Katz wrote, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkey has been working to rehabilitate the base and bring it back into service. Turkey and Syria have denied that Turkish forces were deployed to the air base. The base has been out of service since 2013, after Syrian rebels clashed with former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s military.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe makes unannounced visit to Moscow to meet with Russian officials - CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow overnight Monday to meet with Russian officials, a US official familiar with his travel told CNN. The official declined to share the substance of the meetings or the topics discussed. The CIA declined to comment. The US asked Ukraine to halt drone and missile strikes in Moscow and other cities in the north of Russia ahead of Ratcliffe’s trip, a person familiar with the matter said. The request was for Monday through Wednesday of this week. The Ukrainians were told a senior US official would be traveling in Russia. The visit is Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia as CIA director under President Donald Trump. It comes as negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine have stalled. Trump said on Wednesday that the visit was “semi-routine” and not intended to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin against an attack on NATO territory. “He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine,” Trump told Glenn Beck in a phone interview on his radio program. “I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end.” Beck had asked Trump whether Ratcliffe was visiting Moscow to raise concerns about Russian designs on NATO territory. Recent US and European intelligence assessments have warned Putin could order a limited incursion to test the alliance’s resolve. But Trump said that wasn’t the intent of the visit, nor was it meant to ask for Russia’s help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. “John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said,” Trump said. “Now something may come out, you know, out of it. We’re working very hard to get that (Ukraine) war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.” Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the CIA director did not meet with Putin during the trip. He said Ratcliffe’s contact with Russia was “more or less at the level of the special services.” Peskov added that while this was “positive,” it was premature to speculate “whether this will have an effect overall on the process of pulling our bilateral relations out of the deepest crisis they are currently in.” Ratcliffe’s visit came one day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Outcast” — a strategy designed to isolate Iran from the rest of the world by punishing countries and entities that continue to do business with Tehran. Russia is a strategic trading partner with Iran. Early Tuesday morning, a military transport aircraft — an American Boeing C-17 Globemaster III — landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. It appeared the flight had initially taken off from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. A spokesperson for Latvia’s Defense Ministry said the flight — which left from Riga, the Latvian capital — was “properly coordinated and authorized for operation within the airspace.” “Since the aircraft is not operated by the National Armed Forces of Latvia, we are unable to provide any further information concerning this particular flight,” the spokesperson told CNN.

Trump Downplays Ratcliffe’s Trip to Russia, Says Putin Won’t Attack NATO - President Donald Trump described CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s trip to Russia as routine engagement. He went on to dismiss the possibility that Russia could attack a NATO member. On Thursday, Trump was asked by Axios reporter Barak Ravid if he was concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would authorize an attack on a NATO state. “I am not concerned … at all. There is no problem,” the President replied. Earlier this week, former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and current Kremlin adviser, Andrei Fedorov, warned the UK that “unknown sources” could attack arms facilities making weapons for Ukraine. “Something might happen with enterprises, with factories, which are producing drones for Ukraine,” Fedorov told the BBC on Monday. “They could be attacked — not by Russia, but from unknown sources.” He explained that an attack may be “semi-military,” potentially a cyber-attack that does not have “official” approval from Moscow. Fedorov argued that President Vladimir Putin was under increased pressure from the Russian public to take action against the UK. Additionally, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that the UK and France were “playing with fire” by agreeing to allow Ukraine to produce long-range cruise missiles. On Tuesday, Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart. While the details of the discussion were not initially made public, on Wednesday, US officials told multiple outlets that Trump dispatched the CIA Director to Russia to warn Moscow not to attack any NATO countries. In his interview with Axios on Thursday, Trump denied the reports. “Ratcliffe sees his Russian counterpart once every six months or once every year. They have a very good relationship. There was no message and there was nothing unusual,” Trump said.

CIA Chief Ratcliffe Warned Russia Not to Attack NATO Countries -- Update: US officials told multiple outlets that President Donald Trump dispatched CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Russia to warn Moscow not to attack any NATO countries. Earlier this week, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that “unknown actors” could attack UK facilities producing weapons for Ukraine. Additionally, Ratcliffe relayed to his Russian counterpart that if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the US will impose additional economic penalties. The White House and Kremlin confirmed that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow this week to meet with his Russian counterpart.  On Tuesday, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe flew to Russia to meet with officials, according to CBS News. At the time, the sources did not say who Ratcliffe met with or what was discussed.  Washington and Moscow confirmed that Ratcliffe was in Moscow to meet with the top Russian intelligence official. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump told Glenn Beck that the meeting was “sort of semi-routine.” On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “contacts between intelligence agencies are, in and of themselves, a positive phenomenon, a positive process,” but he stressed that Russia-US relations remain in a “profound crisis.”While President Donald Trump pledged that he would end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office, the conflict has continued to escalate. In his conversation with Beck, Trump suggested the talks were not leading to a deal to end the war. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported speaking with sources close to the Kremlin who said Russian President Vladimir Putin believes talks are at an impasse and is considering increasing the number of missile strikes on Kiev.  On Wednesday, Russia reported that a Ukrainian missile struck a bus in Luhansk, killing nine. Additionally, Ukraine used a European cruise missile to attack the center of the Donets region. Russian officials reported that eight civilians were injured in the strike.

US Begins Sending Staff Back to Middle East Embassies -  Staffers have begun returning to US diplomatic facilities across the Middle East. US embassies in the region have been at a minimal operational level for several months due to the ongoing war against Iran. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported obtaining an internal State Department memo that ordered the return of some diplomatic officers to their posts in the Middle East and rescinded some emergency measures put in place during the war against Iran. The memo said some staff would return to embassies in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait. The US embassies in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were hit by Iran during the war. The return of staff to embassies in the region is a sharp reversal for the State Department. Earlier this month, US diplomatic facilities across the Middle East were preparing for an extended period of reduced operations because of the ongoing war against Iran. CNN reported speaking with sources who said that the State Department is preparing to operate with minimal staff in the Middle East for the foreseeable future. Washington has asked embassies in the region to draft plans for continued minimal operations and is offering diplomats curtailed assignments. The outlet notes that “the developments underscore that the State Department does not expect to return to normal staffing in the region soon amid the looming threat of a full-scale return to war.”The reversal followed a shift in President Donald Trump’s approach to the war against Iran.  Axios reported speaking with US officials who said Secretary of State Marco Rubio told allies that the US was not planning any new attacks on Iran. The US will focus its efforts on enforcing sanctions and a blockade against Iran.

US Not Planning New Strikes on Iran, Will Focus on Economic War - Secretary of State Marco Rubio has informed allies that the White House is not preparing new attacks on Iran and will instead focus on enforcing sanctions against the Islamic Republic. US officials speaking with Axios said Rubio told allies that the US was not planning any attacks on Iran, and any strikes on the Islamic Republic would only be to respond to IRGC missile or drone attacks. The White House will focus on enforcing sanctions on Iran. Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a new economic war against Iran dubbed Operation Economic Outcast. He compared the new sanctions to an economic “D-Day.”However, many of Iran’s remaining trading partners are unlikely to step up sanctions enforcement against Tehran. Iran’s largest trading partner, China, has denounced Operation Economic Outcast. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Tuesday, “Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted.Axios notes that the new approach to the Iran war is “another sign that President Trump is exasperated with the war and wants it to be over, at least for now.” One official said that he expected the current strategy to last at least through the midterm election. President Donald Trump believed that the war against Iran would result in a quick victory. Six months into the conflict, Tehran is in a better strategic position than before the war. On Wednesday, Iran announced a new deal with Oman for charging fees in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said on Wednesday that he has no plans to return to talks with Iran. “I have no time schedule, none. I’m not in a hurry. I have no time schedule at all,” Trump told Al Jazeera. While a US official told Axios that the economic war against Iran is working and the US is now in control of the Strait of Hormuz, earlier this week, Saudi-state media reported that Washington had offered to lift sanctions on Tehran if Iran reopened the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump Sends Saudi Nuclear Deal to Congress as Riyadh Rejects Israel Condition --Trump has formally sent the landmark U.S.-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement to Congress, even as Riyadh reiterated Thursday that it will not normalize relations with Israel without an independent Palestinian state, a condition Trump says must be met before the nuclear deal can take effect. The submission starts a 90-legislative-day congressional review of the 30-year agreement, which would allow U.S. companies to export civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. Congress can reject the agreement during that period; Trump could veto a resolution of disapproval, requiring two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override him.Riyadh has long made Palestinian statehood a prerequisite for diplomatic relations with Israel. A Saudi-Israeli agreement appeared increasingly possible in 2023 before the October 7 Hamas attack and the Gaza war derailed negotiations. The nuclear pact would give U.S. companies access to Saudi Arabia’s planned civilian nuclear buildout, and leaves open the possibility of uranium enrichment inside the Kingdom under U.S. oversight. Under the proposed deal, Washington and Riyadh would have two years to determine whether domestic enrichment is warranted and commercially viable.That provision is quite different from Washington’s 2009 nuclear agreement with the UAE, which prohibits domestic uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. Under the Saudi agreement, any enrichment facilities approved after the two-year assessment would be built by U.S. companies under a “black box” arrangement, allowing Saudi enrichment under American oversight without transferring the underlying technology.Saudi Arabia has refused to surrender the enrichment option, while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has previously said the kingdom would pursue a nuclear weapon if Iran acquired one. Riyadh wants nuclear generation to reduce the oil and gas consumed by its domestic power system and preserve more hydrocarbons for export. For Washington, the agreement would put U.S. companies in a position to build Saudi Arabia’s nuclear fleet rather than leave the market to competing Chinese or Russian technology.

US Ability to Fight China in Question as Iran War Has Drained Stockpiles - US and Taiwanese officials are alarmed at the status of the US military and its ability to fight a future conflict with China. According to three sources speaking with The Washington Post, officials at Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACCOM) have expressed frustration with the dwindling military resources available to deter China. One official said 30 warships were taken from INDOPACCOM’s area of command and moved to the Middle East. This includes the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, leaving East Asia without a carrier. “It’s clear that they’re paying a big price, especially on the Navy side of things,” the official explained. The US has also used a significant number of the munitions it would need in a conflict with China during the war against Iran. Multiple leaks and studies have revealed the US used a substantial amount of its stockpile of THAAD, Patriot, SM-6, SM-3, Tomahawk, JASSM, PrSM, and ATACMS missiles. A Taiwanese official told The Post Taipei that it expects “significant delays” in the delivery of Patriot interceptors and described the backlog as “troubling.” The official expressed frustration that Washington expects Taipei to keep buying American weapons even as delivery delays increase. “The situation is very challenging,” they said. President Donald Trump has also held up arms transfers to Taiwan in an effort to maintain his relationship with China. Trump is planning to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month in Washington. Beijing suggested that if Washington approved additional arms sales to Taipei, Xi would call off the upcoming summit. One Chinese official said any signals that the White House will approve the package would “severely undermine” further potential visits.

US cancels Marines drills with South Korea —The U.S. has scrapped a large-scale amphibious exercise with South Korea set for next month, the latest American pullback in Asia in the wake of the war in Iran. The so-called Twin Dragons exercises have featured thousands of American and South Korean forces carrying out a beachfront landing at a South Korean coastal city. In the past, the drill—involving Marines from both countries—sought to reassure allies of Washington’s commitment to the region. Now it is the most recent example of Asian pullbacks from the U.S. More than 2,000 U.S. Marines stationed in Japan were transferred to the Middle East in March. South Korea’s president publicly opposed the withdrawal of U.S. air defense assets this spring from his country. A Pacific-based American aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington, just replaced in the Middle East the USS Abraham Lincoln, which had been deployed for more than 250 days. On Monday, Seoul’s military said the Twin Dragons drills would be canceled. The U.S. had informed South Korea in June, citing demands from the Middle East, it added. U.S. Forces Korea didn’t comment. South Korea just saw an abrupt curtailment of this summer’s “Ulchi Freedom Shield” exercises with the U.S., following an order from President Trump to halt the drills early. Trump had called such combined exercises costly, inappropriate and hostile to North Korea, who he said had behaved in an “unthreatening and respectful” manner during his second term. North Korea snubbed the move, saying it wouldn’t create any goodwill between the two countries. Both Democrats and Republicans have warned that the pullback on Ulchi Freedom Shield drills risked undermining the alliance with South Korea, calling for the exercises to be restored. The training, originally set for 11 days, ended six days early on Friday. The Twin Dragons drills were previously paused starting in 2018, when Trump made similar calls to scale back U.S.-South Korea exercises. They resumed in 2023. The following year, the joint drills featured more than 13,000 personnel, over 20 naval vessels, 30 aircrafts and 40 amphibious-assault vehicles. The exercises also included land-based operations designed “to rehearse eliminating enemy forces,” the U.S. Navy said.

Trump Says War Games with South Korea ‘Totally Inappropriate and Hostile’ - President Donald Trump said North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung Un has been “respectful,” making US and South Korean joint war games “totally inappropriate and hostile.” “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I was not happy with the fact that the United States had, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” the President wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” The US holds annual war games with South Korea dubbed Freedom Shield. Those military drills escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea views the war games as preparations for a regime change in Pyongyang, and often conducts multiple missile tests in response. Earlier this month, Trump announced that the US would scale back this year’s Freedom Shield drills. In addition to his relationship with Kim, Trump said a second reason for limiting the size of the war games was South Korea’s refusal to assist the US war against Iran. “While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, “No thanks!” he wrote. Pyongyang has not responded to Trump’s request for a meeting with Kim. Kim Yo Jong, the sister of the Supreme Leader, said she was unaware if her brother had any communications with Trump. Kim has recently changed the North Korean constitution to explicitly include nuclear weapons as part of its national defense. Pyongyang says it will not engage in talks with Washington until the US drops its demand that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons. Trump and Kim met three times during the President’s first term. However, the summits did not result in an agreement between Washington and Pyongyang.

North Korea Condemns ‘Hostile’ US Weapons Sales to South Korea - North Korea said that a US sale of Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to South Korea is evidence of Washington’s hostile policy towards Pyongyang. “The US approved the sale of various lethal equipment worth an astronomical sum of money, including the latest air-to-air missiles, new-type helicopters for naval operation, attack helicopters and precisely guided bombs, encouraging the ROK (South Korea) to boost its capability to fight a war,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman wrote in state media on Thursday. He continued. “Now that the military integration of the US and its allies is being accelerated in the Asia-Pacific region, we can not overlook the adverse effect of the US sale of its weapons to the ROK on the regional security environment.” The spokesman argued that the arms sales and integration were proof of Washington’s aggressive policy. He added, “The DPRK (North Korea) is well aware of the reality that there always exists outsiders’ malignant attempt and threat to the DPRK’s security and its political stability, and will make a serious, immediate and powerful response to the hostile acts in different spheres.” The remarks follow President Donald Trump seeking a meeting with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, and criticizing US war games with South Korea. “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I was not happy with the fact that the United States had, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” the President wrote on Truth Social Tuesday. “These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” Pyongyang has said it will not engage in talks with Washington until the US drops its hostile policy and demands that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.

US Special Forces Conducting Operations Inside Ecuador - An Ecuadorian official confirmed that US Green Berets were engaged in anti-cartel operations. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump formed a coalition, dubbed Shield of the Americas, that was aimed at combating cartels in Latin and South America. A local official told AFP and UPI that US special forces have been conducting direct operations against suspected cartels in the Esmeraldas province. “We are with the 7th (Special Forces) Group of the US Army. We are working together in the fight against narcoterrorism,” Esmeraldas Provincial governor Juan Jaramillo said last week.  Ecuadorian Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo added that two US warships were operating in the region. In March, President Donald Trump said that a dozen Latin American nations had enlisted in the Shield of the Americas coalition to fight cartels in the region. Ecuador is a member of the bloc. That month, the US and Ecuador conducted joint military operations against alleged drug targets. “The operations are a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism,” U.S. Southern Command said following the raid. However, The New York Times reported that the target of the operation was a dairy farm, not a drug lab. “The military strike appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound, according to interviews with the farm’s owner, four of its workers, human rights lawyers, and residents and leaders in San Martín,” the outlet explains.  The military activity in Ecuador is part of Operation Southern Spear. Trump ordered the Department of War last year to expand military operations in Latin America to curb narcotics trafficking to the US. The US has conducted dozens of airstrikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The operations have killed over 200 people and over 60 vessels. The White House has asserted that the targeted boats are operated by narco-terrorists attempting to smuggle fentanyl into the US. However, the administration has not offered the American people any evidence to support the claim. Additionally, some evidence suggests that at least some of the vessels that have been attacked were not involved in narcotics trafficking. The family members of several victims have said their slain relatives were fishermen. Last month, The Washington Post reported reviewing a DEA assessment that found the strikes on vessels operated by alleged narco-terrorists have not changed the amount or price of cocaine entering the US. US military officials also admitted to Congress that the operations have had no impact on purity.

US Strike on Alleged Drug Boat Kills Two - US Southern Command announced it conducted a strike on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and killed two people suspected of trafficking narcotics. “Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on a low-profile vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific,” SOUTHCOM posted on X Monday. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed two narco-terrorists.” Last year, President Donald Trump authorized the Department of War to conduct lethal attacks against suspected drug boats in Latin America. SOUTHCOM conducted dozens of attacks on vessels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, killing more than 200 people. The White House has asserted that the targeted boats are operated by narco-terrorists attempting to smuggle fentanyl into the US. However, the administration has not offered the American people any evidence to support the claim. Additionally, some evidence suggests that at least some of the vessels that have been attacked were not involved in narcotics trafficking. The family members of several victims have said their slain relatives were fishermen. Last month, The Washington Post reported reviewing a DEA assessment that found the strikes on vessels operated by alleged narco-terrorists have not changed the amount or price of cocaine entering the US. US military officials also admitted to Congress that the operations have had no impact on purity. The DEA said that cartels have designed new methods to smuggle drugs into the US. Cartels have bribed Colombian officials to get the location of US warships and used small aircraft for alternative routes to traffic cocaine into the US. “When you squeeze the balloon on one side, it always expands on the other side,” one DEA official told The Post. “They always find the weak spots and exploit them.” A senior Colombian official also told the outlet that the US military operations have had little impact on the cartels. “There was a dissuasive effect in one type of transportation,” they explained. “So it has forced them to seek out other methods. Taking the drugs out through ports has increased, stockpiling it on large ships.” Congress has not authorized the President to wage war against foreign drug cartels. The White House has attempted to justify the lethal operation by designating the cartels as narco-terrorists. However, drug smuggling is a criminal act, not an act of war. Senator Rand Paul has argued the strikes amount to extrajudicial killing.

 US Kills Four on Suspected Drug Boat - -  US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced it had targeted a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean Sea, and Green Berets conducted anti-drug operations in Ecuador. President Donald Trump ordered increased military operations in Central and South America against cartels. “Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” SOUTHCOM posted on X Tuesday. “Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking. The operation killed four narco-terrorists.”Over the past year, the US has attacked more than 60 vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing over 200 people. The Pentagon asserts that vessels are operated by cartel members. However, some family members of the victims have gone public, claiming their relatives were engaged in legal activities. On Wednesday, the DEA said SOUTHCOM was involved in operations in Ecuador. “Ecuadorian authorities, supported by the DEA and SOUTHCOM, conducted a series of coordinated enforcement operations today targeting transnational criminal organizations involved in international cocaine trafficking.” The agency’s statement continued, Last week, A local Ecuadorian official told AFP and UPI that US special forces have been conducting direct operations against suspected cartels in the Esmeraldas province.Last month, The Washington Post reported reviewing a DEA assessment that found the strikes on vessels operated by alleged narco-terrorists have not changed the amount or price of cocaine entering the US. US military officials also admitted to Congress that the operations have had no impact on purity.

U.S. In Talks To Take Direct Ownership Of Venezuelan Oil Fields  -The Trump administration is reportedly in active discussions with Venezuela’s interim government to acquire a direct U.S. ownership stake in key Venezuelan oil fields. According to senior U.S. officials cited by Axios, the talks involve equity stakes in a select group of high-yield fields containing approximately 90 billion barrels of proven crude—a transaction that would significantly alter Washington’s foreign energy policy framework and expand U.S.-controlled global reserves. The targeted fields represent a strategic slice of Venezuela’s broader 303-billion-barrel reserve base, the largest in the world. The assets in question were previously operated by Venezuelan state interests, joint-venture partners, and Chinese state-backed entities. If finalized, the arrangement would mark a structural evolution in the White House’s "Energy Dominance" paradigm. Initially focused on domestic deregulation, pipeline expansions, and maximizing shale output, the strategy is shifting toward direct equity acquisition and resource control within the Western Hemisphere.The White House’s push for direct equity in Venezuelan oil assets comes at a particularly opportune moment, as supply disruptions, elevated energy prices and broader macroeconomic pressures increase the strategic value of Venezuela’s vast reserves. With the U.S. SPR depleted to historic lows and transit routes in the Middle East under ongoing threat, direct physical control over Western Hemisphere heavy crude offers a strategic hedge. Converting those paper reserves into physical liquidity, however, faces severe friction. Legacy underinvestment under PDVSA has left the nation's midstream and downstream assets heavily degraded. Even with U.S. capital moving in, companies face a number of operational challenges to produce beyond the current 1.25 million bpd. Energy analysts at Rystad Energy have pointed out that meaningful improvement of nameplate production capacity will require an investment of around $180 billion through the next decade. Even if Caracas were looking to keep current production levels flat, total capex would have to amount to more than $50 billion over the next 15 years.While supermajors such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips maintain a cautious stance due to historical expropriations and legal ambiguities, independent operators and oilfield service providers are already moving to secure short-term opportunities.Companies including SLB and Hunt Oil recently inked initial exploration and service agreements with state oil company PDVSA. Additional independent operators, such as California-based Pacific Coast Energy Company, are finalizing agreements to operate mature heavy-oil fields.Under the framework currently under negotiation, private international firms would handle field development and operational logistics, with a portion of revenues returned to Caracas. According to Axios, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is scheduled to meet with officials in Caracas next week to discuss logistics for accelerating field rehabilitation. However, analysts maintain that short-term production gains will likely remain incremental until broader infrastructure and legal frameworks are stabilized.

US and Venezuela reach 'historic' oil deal, Trump says -- The US has reached a deal with Venezuela to control more than 65 billion barrels of its proven oil reserves, according to President Donald Trump."This Historic Transaction MORE THAN DOUBLES American Oil Reserves, greatly increases our Oil Supply, and will substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans," Trump posted on social media.After the US arrested Venezuela's then-President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, Trump vowed to tap its reserves – the world's largest. More recently, he has been under pressure to bring gas prices down at home. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the deal "a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people". Details have not been released.

Pentagon firing military newspaper editor raises First Amendment question - The Pentagon has been accused of attempting to stifle free speech after a fired editor for military newspaper Stars and Stripes said he was ousted after objecting to censorship. The newspaper is an important source of military news and has a long history of editorial independence from the Pentagon, which does provide funding for the outlet. In fact, Congress mandated its editorial independence in 1991, when it created an ombudsman position to ensure its reporting remained independent from Pentagon leadership. But earlier this year, the Pentagon fired the ombudsman, Jacqueline Smith, fueling concerns about the future of the newspaper’s independence. The moves from President Donald Trump’s administration have sparked similar questions about whether the outlet will remain independent from military leadership and broader questions about free speech and freedom of the press. “People should be outraged,” Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told Newsweek on Friday. “As we continue to see these attacks on the press, we risk losing our American exceptionalism when it comes to protecting free speech, the free press and free minds.” On Friday, newspaper Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin told CBS News he was fired over an interview he gave with the news network in July in which he said “that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” “The Pentagon’s public affairs office has charged me with insubordination,” Slavin told the news outlet. “I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies.” Meanwhile, Lara Korte, a reporter for the newspaper, wrote in a post to X that she was also fired for insubordination after telling a CBS News reporter that she worked “for Stars and Stripes – not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policy maker.” In her post, she called attention to the concerns around free speech. “I consider it a great privilege to live alongside members of the military and share their stories. It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press,” she wrote. Earlier this week, longtime Stars and Stripes publisher Max D. Lederer Jr. announced his retirement, citing differences with Pentagon leadership. He wrote in a memo to staff it had “become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization.” Creeley of FIRE also told Newsweek that the firings are “just the latest attack from this administration on our free speech.” “The First Amendment protects freedom of the press for a reason. This administration time and again has gone after our independent and free press for reporting that they don’t like, for views that they would rather not hear and for trying to keep the public informed,” he said. “That hostility to our free speech has included a string of attacks on the Stars and Stripes, which is congressionally mandated since 1991 to be governed by First Amendment principles.” The First Amendment should make it “clear” to Pentagon leadership that it cannot reconcile the freedom of the press guaranteed in the Constitution with “trying to shut down editorial independence,” Creeley added. “Our brave men and women in the armed forces take an oath to protect and defend our Constitution. They can handle a free and independent press. In fact, they deserve it. Stars and Stripes has long enjoyed editorial independence. It should retain that editorial independence to stay true to the constitutional values our servicemembers take an oath to defend,” he said.

Collins blasts Trump’s Canada tariffs as a ‘mistake’----Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a tough reelection race this November, blasted President Trump’s latest tariff threats against Canada as a “mistake,” arguing that the United States and especially her home state have a “beneficial” trade relationship with Canada. “I still think imposing new tariffs on Canada is a mistake,” Collins told News Center Maine in an interview. Collins said she recently met with Canada’s ambassador to the United States and urged him to address what she called a trade barrier against U.S. dairy imports. “I really want us to go back to the very friendly, economically beneficial relationship that we have with our Canadian neighbors. We produce a lot in Maine — our blueberries, our potatoes, our lobster, our lumber — that is processed across the border. If it comes back with a huge tariff on it, perhaps as much as 50 percent, that increases the cost of eating, building homes and merch[andising] our best-known products,” Collins said. The Maine senator said she thought the Trump administration was close to a deal with Canada. “This has been really up and down,” she said. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I hope it brings an agreement.” Trump on Monday then threatened to enact a 50 percent tariff on cars, trucks, auto parts and steel. It would go into effect Jan. 1, 2027. That followed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion in Canadian imports such as hockey sticks, whiskey, goose-down jackets, ice skates, furniture, lumber and other products going into effect over the weekend. “The on-again/off-again trade talks between the U.S. and Canada lead to higher costs, risk, and uncertainty for Maine businesses. If the Administration proceeds with these tariffs, they will increase costs for Maine families, as most businesses will have no choice but to pass on the tariffs to their customers through higher prices,” Collins wrote Saturday on social platform X. She noted that Maine imports approximately $2 billion in nonpetroleum products from Canada each year. Collins has urged U.S. and Canadian negotiators to resume talks until they reach a deal.

Most Canadians support end of US trade talks amid rising tensions  --More than three-quarters of Canadians believe their country ending trade negotiations with the U.S. was the right call, according to a new poll.In the Angus Reid Institute poll, 76 percent of respondents said their country was in the right “by refusing the terms being offered and ending negotiations without a trade agreement,” while 13 percent said the opposite. Eleven percent were unsure about Canada’s decision.  On Friday evening, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney removed his country’s negotiators from trade discussions with the U.S., shortly before a new round of tariffs from the Trump administration went into effect. The Canadian prime minister then said Saturday his country would implement retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. starting Sept. 8, responding to the Trump administration’s new 50 percent duties. The American tariffs impose a 50 percent levy on more than $20 billion’s worth of goods from the U.S.’s northern neighbor, impacting products like wine and cement. During a press conference, Carney said Ottawa would “match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses.” President Trump on Sunday claimed Canada desires the “benefits of being a state, without being one” in a Truth Social post, referencing his previous talk of acquiring the country as the U.S.’s 51st state. In the Angus Reid Institute poll, 6 percent said they were “very confident” in the idea “that Canada and the United States will eventually be able to reach a new trade agreement,” while 33 percent were “confident,” 48 percent were “not confident” and 14 percent were unsure about their confidence level. The Angus Reid Institute poll took place from Aug. 22-23, featuring 1,468 Canadian adults and a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Analysis-US tariff threat upends copper surplus as prices test all-time peak -  (Reuters) - The prospect of U.S. import tariffs could push copper prices to record highs even though there is no global shortage of the metal, analysts say, as the incentive to ship to the United States drains inventories elsewhere. Three-month copper ‌on the London Metal Exchange rose to as high as $14,343 per metric ton on Tuesday, within striking distance of the $14,527.50 record, after ‌orders to withdraw 65,400 tons of metal from LME warehouses in recent days. The large-scale orders - known as warrant cancellations - came after last week's increase in available material on the LME and the Shanghai Futures Exchange appeared to ease concerns about tight supplies. Analysts said the rally reflects a shortage of copper available outside the U.S. rather than a global deficit of the metal, which is critical for power grids, electric vehicles and AI datacentres. Higher U.S. prices have encouraged traders to ship metal into COMEX warehouses ahead of a potential tariff on refined copper from 2027, running down inventories elsewhere and leaving what was expected to be a surplus market looking far tighter in practice. The threat of tariffs has turned what should ⁠have been a surplus this year into "at best a balanced market", assuming copper stockpiled in the U.S. is no longer available, said Robert Edwards, principal copper analyst at CRU. COMEX inventories have now risen for 46 straight days to a record ⁠675,185 metric tons through an arbitrage trade that capitalises on higher COMEX prices. CRU last projected a 639,000 ton global copper surplus for 2026. "If (U.S.) imports keep coming in as they have been, then it's going to look like a deficit market in reality," Edwards said. The U.S. imported almost 885,000 tons of refined copper cathodes in the first half of 2026, some 3% more than in the same period last year, when a similar tariff threat hung over the market, and more than ‌double imports in the first six months of 2024.

Canada Retaliates to US Tariffs Amid Trade Spat - - The Canadian government has responded with retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of US goods after Washington slapped major duties on Canadian products. The new tariffs imposed by Ottawa will target the American steel industry, farm equipment, and dairy goods, among other imports.Imposed on Tuesday, the Canadian counter-tariffs will range from 15% to 50%, and will cover a wide range of commodities from the US, among them wood and paper products, textiles, seafood, appliances, and dairy goods.“When the United States of America asked too much and offered too little, we made a choice. We chose Canada,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at a Tuesday news conference. “We did not choose this conflict, but when our economic integration is used as a weapon rather than the foundation for a win-win partnership, we need to stand up,” The move came days after the Trump administration hiked tariffs on Canadian goods over the weekend. Just hours before Canada’s announcement, Trump took to social media to accuse the country of “ripping off” American farmers and harming US businesses. Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs will take effect on September 8, the most significant of which will target US steel and aluminum products at 50%, doubling the previous duties. Canada also announced a $7.5-billion aid package to assist domestic businesses affected by the US penalties. Washington and Ottawa have sparred during recent trade talks, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accusing the US of trying to dominate Canada in the negotiations, saying the Trump administration sought to “destroy our major industries.” President Trump escalated the spat on Monday, demanding that Canada “fall in line,” or else face “far WORSE” tariffs, vowing new 50% duties on Canadian vehicles, auto parts, and steel. In another act of retaliation, Trump has vowed to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” saying his administration has given “serious consideration” to the symbolic move. The threat mirrors Trump’s previous proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer,” the US president said in a Truth Social post.

Trump signs executive order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" — President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," making good on a threat he made on social media earlier this week. "We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately, to Lake America," the president said before he signed the order. On Truth Social, the president said this week that the U.S. was giving "serious consideration" to changing the name and posted a map that crossed out the label "Lake Ontario." He also said the U.S. doesn't expect to be "doing much business with Ontario any longer." The announcement in the Oval Office Thursday is the president's latest move amid his trade war with Canada. The order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the name change. The GNIS works with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to standardize geographic names for federal use. The president can't force other countries or international bodies to call it "Lake America," but he can require the federal government to do so. Mr. Trump was asked what message he's sending to Canada with this executive order. "No message," he said, but added, "As you know, Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very, very sadly. Even the military. You know, we defend Canada for nothing." Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Lake Ontario is much older than the Declaration of Independence, and "naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario." "The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word 'Ontari'io,' which, appropriately, means, 'the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,'" Carney said. "The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always." In New York, the only U.S. state that borders the lake, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said, "New York won't be calling it that." On Saturday, 50% tariffs on some Canadian imports like wine and dairy kicked in, and on Monday, the president announced 50% tariffs on all Canadian steel and automotive imports starting in January. In response, Carney announced that starting Sept. 8, Canada will begin imposing matching tariffs of up to 50% on billions of dollars of U.S. goods.  Mr. Trump also sought to change North America's highest mountain peak, Denali in Alaska, back to Mount McKinley. Although the federal government can't force other countries or private businesses to recognize the GNIS, when Mr. Trump sought to change the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America," some private entities adopted the new name.  Still, the White House punished the Associated Press after it declined to use "Gulf of America," restricting its reporters' access to White House and presidential spaces available to other news outlets. On Thursday, Mr. Trump threatened to rename an ocean, too."Now all we need is an ocean," he said. "So maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and—or— the Pacific."

Canadian plant announces mass layoffs over US tariff "nuclear bomb" - More than 400 workers are set to be affected by the temporary closure of a manufacturing plant in Canada that the company has blamed on the tariff dispute between the United States and Canada. The American paperboard manufacturer RYAM said it is closing its facility in Témiscaming, Quebec, as a direct result of U.S. tariffs. Operations will shut down on September 15, with 425 workers impacted by the closure. Newsweek has contacted the company via email for comment. “This decision is the result of a business environment that has become unsustainable, making continued operations simply no longer economically viable,” a spokesperson for the company said, according to an email seen by the local news outlet North Bay Nugget. “Despite all the efforts we have made to adapt to this new reality, the magnitude of the tariffs, no longer allows us to operate the site under sustainable conditions.” Témiscaming Mayor Alain Gauthier, who previously worked for the company, told Canadian news outlet CTV News that the tariffs were a “nuclear bomb” for sectors that rely on U.S. markets, and described the situation as an “economic war.” Trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada have escalated sharply after negotiations regarding a new trade agreement broke down over the past fortnight. The Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods on August 22, targeting products including agricultural goods, manufactured products and consumer items. That was on top of existing U.S. duties affecting sectors such as steel, aluminum and automobiles. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney subsequently suspended the negotiations, saying the terms sought by Washington were not in Canada’s interests, and Ottawa has announced a dollar-for-dollar response. The ongoing trade dispute has strained relations between the United States and Canada since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. The latest round followed the collapse of negotiations aimed at easing tariffs between the two countries. The U.S. imposed tariffs of 50 percent on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods on August 22, measures Washington said are intended to counter what it considers discriminatory Canadian treatment of American exports. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer previously said Canada had restricted American alcohol products, provided preferential dairy access to the European Union and limited some U.S. vehicle exports. “While the administration continues to secure fair and reciprocal trade deals with our trading partners, Canada, unlike other partners and allies, continues to retaliate against the United States for its efforts to rebalance trade and protect U.S. industry in national-security sensitive sectors,” Greer said. The White House blamed Canada for the breakdown in negotiations, saying in an August 25 statement that Ottawa had chosen “unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection.” It said Trump had offered Canada preferential access to the U.S. market, including proposed reductions in tariffs affecting steel, aluminum, autos and lumber. Carney said in remarks on August 22 that Canada had been willing to remove its remaining retaliatory tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles if the U.S. substantially reduced its own duties. However, he said Washington subsequently proposed terms that were “uneconomic, unfair” and would have undermined the benefits of an agreement for Canada. Ottawa has since announced it will match the latest U.S. measures “dollar for dollar, rate for rate.” Beginning September 8, Canada will impose tariffs of 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent covering $27.6 billion worth of U.S. imports, including steel, dairy products, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics, according to the Canadian Department of Finance. The government also announced a $7.5 billion package of additional support for Canadian workers and businesses affected by the tariffs. “We take this step reluctantly,” Carney said of the retaliatory tariffs. “Reluctantly, because we recognize that it will raise costs and reduce choice for Canadians. Reluctantly, because we recognize that some U.S. companies and states are innocent bystanders in a dispute they did not want. Reluctantly, because this trade dispute is preventing Canada and America from doing so much good that we could do together.” The confrontation is the latest stage of a dispute that began within weeks of the start of Trump’s second term. In February 2025, the White House announced an additional 25 percent tariff on most Canadian imports and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy products, initially framing the measures as a response to illegal migration and fentanyl entering the United States. Canada responded with its own tariffs. The trade dispute has unfolded alongside a wider deterioration in political relations between the neighbors. Before taking office, Trump repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state and in January 2025 declined to rule out using “economic force” to pursue the idea. Then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the suggestion, saying there was “not a snowball’s chance in hell” that Canada would become part of the U.S. This week, Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America, drawing ire from across the border. “We have recognized from the beginning that America has changed,” Carney said in an August 21 statement, “and that we will not return to our old relationship.”

In Ohio, Canada-U.S. trade war sparks anger and uncertainty | CBC News -The rat-a-tat-tat of a nail gun and high-pitched whine of a buzz saw echo through the two-storey home as Joe Koch’s carpentry crew completes the final touches. Koch, the vice-president of operations for his decades-old family business, had hoped there would be three or four other new builds going up in this Ohio subdivision about now, but the U.S. trade war with Canada and many other countries has scuttled that plan. "People are just going to not build that house this year. They're going to wait 'til interest rates lower. They're going to wait 'til the tariffs subside or the political landscape changes," Koch said. He sees his business challenges as a microcosm of what’s happening across Ohio. President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canadian and other nations' goods have not only raised the prices he pays but costs for consumers more broadly. The uncertainty and instability of the trade war has made financial planning and supply management difficult. Koch believes when it comes to trade, building relationships and making compromises is important. "When it comes to the real volatile landscape of the globe, you need partners within your backyard that you're able to go to," he said. "I think it may be great to be able to have everything homegrown — but is that the reality of the world? I'm not so sure." Koch feels caught in the middle of a trade storm but he’s determined to tough it out. Youngstown/Warren, which has a population of around 425,000, has faced economic challenges before. It was once known as the heart of U.S. steel country, until the closure of Youngstown Sheet and Tube in September 1977 put 5,000 workers out of work overnight. While Youngstown diversified its economy in the decades that followed, more than 20,000 jobs are still tied to manufacturing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's across numerous sectors, including steel tubes and pipes, plastics and advanced materials. Nearly two years into Trump's second term, Americans in Ohio and Pennsylvania have found themselves caught in the crossfire of a trade war with Canada as Washington levies tariffs on Canadian imports and Ottawa responds in kind. CBC’s Katie Nicholson spoke to some locals in Ohio to see how trade negotiations are becoming pocketbook issues for voters as the November midterms approach. Last year, Ohio exported $17.5 billion US in goods to Canada — roughly a third of its total exports. Ohio’s top exports to Canada included $2.7 billion US in engines and turbines, $1.8 billion in auto parts, $1 billion in plastics and $692 million in iron and steel alloys and semi-finished products, according to data from the Embassy of Canada in Washington, D.C. Conversely, Ohio imported $3.2 billion US in Canadian crude oil, $1.1 billion in vehicle parts, $1 billion in plastics, $915 million in steel and semi-finished products, and $672 million in aluminum and aluminum materials. Youngstown sits in a wider congressional district known as OH-6 with a population of more than 775,000. It exports more than $820 million US in goods to Canada every year, including coal and petroleum, iron steel and ferroalloys, resins and synthetic fibres, aluminum products and plastics. While not all of these imports and exports are caught in the crosshairs of the escalating tariffs, a prolonged trade war could threaten some businesses in those sectors.

Trump administration lays out new $103K fee proposal for H-1B visas - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a new proposed rule for H-1B visas on Monday that would charge a $103,265 fee for all workers seeking to gain employment in the U.S. who are subject to the annual statutory cap.  Notice of the proposed rule says the fee would be used for the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system, including activities carried out by the DHS and the departments of Justice, State and Labor. “The proposed H‑1B fee is intended to recover the costs incurred across the federal government to adjudicate, vet, and support lawful immigration programs that otherwise must be funded by taxpayers,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a release.  The move follows a federal judge’s decision in June to strike down the Trump administration’s previously proposed $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that it was unlawful to implement a tax on visa applications, as Congress is the only legislative body with the authority to set immigration policy and taxes.   The original proposal applied to universities, hospitals and research-based institutions; however, those employers won’t be impacted by the new fee under the DHS’s newly proposed rule. “The administration claims the new fee will be a ‘cost recovery mechanism,’ even though the first fee led to a nearly 90 percent reduction in filings and a $28 million loss in revenue. The government itself told the court that the $100,000 fee was ‘arguably prohibitive’ and ‘does not raise revenue,'” David Bier of the Cato Institute said in a statement sent to The Hill. “Even if it did raise revenue, that would not make it legal because immigration fees can only be imposed to recover the costs of adjudication and naturalization services. And because this is a filing fee, employers would have to pay it with no guarantee that USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] will approve the petition. Almost no one will risk more than $100,000 with no guarantee of approval,” Bier added. The standard annual statutory limit for new H-1B visas is 85,000, which comprises the regular cap of 65,000 visas and 20,000 visas granted to applicants who hold a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. college or university. Out of the 65,000, a total of 6,800 are set aside exclusively for Chilean and Singaporean nationals. The tech industry has been at the center of discussions surrounding H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in specialized, high-skill occupations. Computer-related positions make up nearly two-thirds of all H-1B approvals, focusing heavily on software engineering, data science and IT support, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Companies and tech workers will have 30 days to comment on the proposed rule once it’s published on the Federal Register, which officials say will happen Tuesday.

Trump administration preparing to revoke visas of up to 200K foreigners in largest mass visa revocation ever -The Trump administration is preparing to revoke business and tourism visas from up to 200,000 migrants who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum in the U.S. on a rolling basis — a move that would trigger the largest mass visa revocation ever, The Associated Press reported Monday.The State Department is expected to announce the revocation, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of B1 and B2 visas issued since 2016, according to two U.S. officials and department documents obtained by the AP.“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told The Hill.Pigott declined to comment on the number of visa revocations and said that the “number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”The officials told the AP that revoking the visas will not result in immediate deportation, with pending asylum cases recategorized to no longer be for business or tourism travelers.“People in the U.S. and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media Monday. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration laws; rather, it’s supposed to provide a narrow safe harbor for persons persecuted because of their ‘race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.'”Landau added that the asylum system “has long been swamped by frivolous asylum claims, meaning that it takes years to adjudicate whether applicants are actually entitled to asylum—during which time they can typically work, have children, and otherwise put down roots in our country.”Current B1 and B2 visa applicants are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum and prove that they plan to return to their home countries. President Trump has sought to ramp up restrictions on visas for asylum applicants since he returned to the White House last year. Since then, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people convicted or accused of various crimes, as well as for those who have spoken out against U.S. policies in the Middle East.Last month, the Trump administration started to cut off asylum seekers’ access to interviews to weigh their claims, instead allowing officers to funnel migrants into immigration court for deportation proceedings. Migrants could be quickly funneled into the immigration court system without a chance to make their case to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

University Of Maryland Warns Trump's Four-Year Visa Cap Could Crush Graduate Enrollment By 30% - The Trump administration is overhauling rules governing the length of stay for international students and exchange visitors, replacing a decades-old system with a fixed period of up to four years.Beginning Sept. 15, most people entering on F-1 and J-1 visas will no longer be admitted for "duration of status," which generally allows them to remain in the country as long as they maintain their academic or exchange programs.Instead, students and scholars will receive predetermined admission periods based on the length of their programs, capped at four years. Any extension needed to complete a degree, including for many doctoral candidates, will require an application to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.The new four-year visa cap could be damning for some colleges and universities that rely heavily on international students.A new report from local outlet The Baltimore Banner warns that the University of Maryland "could face a decline of as much as 30% of its newly admitted graduate students this fall, thanks to a new visa restriction proposed by the Trump administration this summer."University officials disclosed a new estimate in court filings supporting a federal lawsuit seeking to block the four-year visa cap. The University of Maryland and University of Baltimore face similar contractions in international enrollment. According to the report, international students contributed an estimated $240.4 million to the University of Maryland and the surrounding economy during the 2024-25 academic year. At the University of Maryland, Baltimore, that figure was around $14 million.Whether the four-year visa cap proves to be the final pin that finally punctures America's higher-education bubble remains to be seen. But certaintly may cause hardships for universities that heavily rely on foreign enrollment.

Jeffries Secretly Met With Kushner to Find “Common Ground” on Immigration | Truthout -  An explosive report has revealed that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a secret meeting with Trump administration power broker Jared Kushner to find “common ground” with the far right in the past weeks — as he made statements that could isolate the left-wing members of the House Democratic Caucus.  The New York Times reported on Sunday that the two recently met in a space offered by a mutual friend in New York City, citing two people familiar with the meeting and another who was briefed on it. The meeting covered a broad range of topics for the two men who have been in contact since collaborating on a criminal legal system reform bill in Donald Trump’s first term.The meeting appears to be an acknowledgement that Democrats are expected to win control of the House this November, and that Jeffries is likely to become speaker.One theme of their conversation was to find “common ground” on issues like housing, the high cost of living, and immigration. On those topics, Kushner suggested that Jeffries meet with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.The report did not specify whether the two came to any agreements on those topics. However, it comes as the Trump administration’s war with Israel on Iran is drastically raising prices across all sectors — a war that Jeffries has opposed, but in a relatively muted way. It also comes as the Trump administration has pursued extreme policies on immigration. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have arrested and detained a record number of people in Trump’s second term, conducting raids targeted at Democratic-leaning areas, while officials are also meting out harsh punishments for anyone opposed to the mass deportation campaign.Many Democratic voters oppose ICE and Trump’s raids. But, as outrage spread over the administration’s ICE crackdowns earlier this year, Jeffries only said he would advocate for minor reforms to the agency’s conduct — and refused to whip against the DHS funding bill earlier this year.Republicans downplayed the meeting after it sparked furor on the right, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) saying that Kushner is “not really directly involved in the admin, at least in the day-to-day in the White House” — though he has served as a representative of the Trump administration in critical affairs like in negotiations with Israel over colonialist plans for Gaza and the war on Iran.Facing fierce criticism from the report of the meeting, meanwhile, Jeffries said in a statement that the Republicans’ “extremist approach” to governance in this Congress “will be met with forceful opposition.”“In every conversation that we have with the Trump administration, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that the affordability crisis is not a hoax and nothing short of transformational policy change is acceptable,” Jeffries said.However, it is “transformational policy change” that Jeffries has worked to oppose and obstruct from left-wing members of his caucus.For instance, last week, Jeffries said that, despite his support in previous years, he now opposes Medicare for All during an interview on NBC. He said, instead, that Democrats are working to “make health care affordable” for all, without specifying how. Other priorities that may be championed by progressives — like impeachment of Trump or his cabinet, abolishing ICE, or cutting aid to Israel — have also gotten the cold shoulder from Jeffries in recent weeks.In the NBC interview, Jeffries would not say whether or not he believes that democratic socialists have a place in the Democratic Party — despite multiple Democratic Socialists of America members holding seats in his caucus and others running for highly contested seats in Congress. In June, Jeffries put distance between himself and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, saying that Mamdani has “work to do” to placate more centrist members of Congress.Jeffries’s comments reignited calls for him to step down as House Democratic leader. However, unlike Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Jeffries has not faced a major push to be unseated.

A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she’ll lead its DC office. -- People milling around before a press conference in Santa Barbara, California, in early June might have mistaken Brittany Kelm, a White House staffer, for an oil company representative. During the tour of oil facilities run by Sable Offshore Corp., a company that owns an offshore pipeline which the Trump administration had recently helped to get oil flowing through, Kelm sported a Sable-branded cap and a Sable-branded shirt with her name embroidered on it, according to a photograph she posted to LinkedIn.     “We’ve unleashed California’s offshore oil production!” Kelm, a senior energy adviser for the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, wrote in the post.Less than three months later, Kelm would announce her departure from her job at the council to take over Sable’s Washington policy office. The move, even by Washington’s normally swampy standards, threatens to erode the lines between public officials and the industries they interact with, according to experts and former government ethics officials.More specifically, it gives rise to questions about how the company’s new lead at its Washington office will represent its interests while abiding by ethics requirements.The Trump administration as late as June hailed Kelm’s work helping to restart the pipeline system off the California coast owned by Sable, despite the objections of state and local officials. Indeed, both she and the administration made her heavy involvement very publicly clear for months in official statements and social media posts.Top administration officials even touted her work on behalf of the company on LinkedIn, the professional networking platform that’s become vital to career mobility and advancement in many industries.“Brittany Kelm never gave up on Sable Offshore Corp.,” Jarrod Agen, executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, wrote on LinkedIn shortly after the June visit. Her work “unlocked production in California,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the council, said in a statement last week praising her work at the White House.At the Santa Barbara event in June, Sable’s CEO Jim Flores thanked the Cabinet members and council for their help, saying that “you don’t get a project like this off the ground without help from everybody, top to bottom.”“Jarrod and Brittany, thank you for your help working with that,” he said.Kelm’s work as a government official subjects her to strict ethics laws before and after she took the job with Sable, according to five ethics experts. The rules should have barred her from doing any work related to Sable after starting to negotiate her new job and prohibited her for life from appearing before any federal agency on certain specific matters she worked on at the White House, they said.While departing government for the private sector is not inherently improper, “the ethics concern arises when that distance between an official’s public responsibilities and the private employment is so exceptionally close together, particularly when the official moves directly to a company whose interests she personally worked on while exercising governmental authority,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “That is what sort of has red flashing lights to me about the ethical implications of that change.”

Interior plans fast track for oil exploration in Alaska's North Slope  - The Trump administration is planning to pare down environmental reviews of oil and gas exploration activities over the winter in parts of Alaska’s North Slope.As part of the administration’s push to speed oil and gas production, officials at the Interior Department plan to issue a categorical exclusion for winter seismic testing and other exploration activities in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. The move could potentially mean skipping a public comment period and declining to examine the environmental effects that shock waves, ice roads, airstrips and drilled wells could have on sensitive Arctic tundra ecosystems.The potential for a categorical exclusion in the NPR-A was first reported by Public Domain.  An Interior spokesperson said Wednesday that the department is “working on a proposed categorical exclusion to speed up permitting for winter exploration, including seismic and exploratory drilling operations.”While energy projects and other infrastructure that intersect with federal land generally require environmental analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act, officials can designate certain categories of activities as unlikely to cause significant environmental harm and therefore subject to abbreviated reviews. These are known as categorical exclusions.“That effort builds on what the BLM has learned from dozens of environmental reviews for winter exploration in the area: when conducted under established operating procedures and mitigation measures, those activities result in no significant impacts,” the spokesperson said.More than half a dozen oil and gas companies own leases in the more than 22-million-acre Alaska reserve and could potentially benefit from a categorical exclusion. The major producer in the region is ConocoPhillips, owner of the planned Willow project approved during the Biden administration. Others that own leases include Borealis Alaska Oil, North Slope Exploration and Oil Search. The companies could not be reached for comment.Recent Democratic administrations have sought to protect much of the NPR-A from development, while the Trump administration reopened more than 80 percent of the reserve to leasing. In March, a lease sale brought in a record $163 million with winning bids from companies including Exxon, Shell and Beacon Land Management. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Last December, the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, approved winter seismic activity in the NPR-A by ConocoPhillips, which is currently the only company producing from the reserve. This included a seismic survey of more than 300 square miles, four winter exploratory drilling wells, clean up of two existing wells and building ice roads, airstrips and ice pads that involve hundreds of employees.The construction of ice roads and seismic survey also included pumping water and collecting snow from nearby lakes, according to a final environmental assessment.Dennis Nuss, a company spokesperson, said that ConocoPhillips “supports efforts to create a more predictable permitting process in the NPR-A while maintaining appropriate environmental protections and mitigation measures.”In January, an oil rig being transported in the NPR-A for use in the company’s winter exploration fell over and spilled thousands of gallons of diesel onto the tundra.Environmentalists have long been concerned about the harms such activities can have on species like polar bears, caribou, grizzly bears and migratory birds.“As the cleanup continues for an oil rig accident this past winter, this proposal to ignore impacts for exploration drilling and seismic in the NPR-A is simply mind boggling,” Andy Moderow, senior director of policy for the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an email. “When the government authorizes activities on public lands like towing 200-person worker camps across the tundra with bulldozers, pumping water out of lakes with fish to build ice roads, or thumping the tundra with 15-ton trucks in critical caribou habitat during the dark of winter, it should analyze impacts closely, not ignore them.”

Interior moves to speed historic reviews as bigger rewrite looms - Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order last week aimed at speeding up historic preservation reviews often required for energy development and other projects on federal land. The Thursday secretarial order instructs agency officials to be timely in their processing of reviews, to create lists of activities that can be exempted from historic evaluations and use alternative arrangements to accelerate reviews.“We’re cutting red tape, clearing bureaucratic roadblocks, and making sure government isn’t standing in the way of American communities,” an Interior spokesperson said Monday. “This Secretary’s Order will allow the Department to consider any effects on historic properties in a more meaningful and timely fashion, and require the same of states and tribes.”The changes at Interior come as the Trump administration is considering major changes to historic reviews, which are required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.Those reviews apply to a wide array of federal projects, from oil and gas drilling out West that can disrupt sites considered sacred by Native American tribes to President Donald Trump’s projects to build and renovate across Washington. Congressional Republicans have also pushed for changes, saying the regulations slow down federal permitting of energy and other infrastructure projects.Critics have said the broader proposed changes from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which have not yet been implemented and are currently being considered by the White House, would cut out input from tribes and states while allowing for faster approvals of energy developments.  One of Interior’s changes implemented on Thursday tells agencies to do reviews more efficiently by using “program alternatives” that can expedite historical reviews of more routine matters. Another tweak limits what’s known as “offsite compensatory mitigation,” which aims to offset harm to property when it cannot be avoided through work at another location. That part of the order mirrors a similar directive Interior implemented during the first Trump administration, in 2020. Some historic preservation advocates raised concerns about Interior’s de-emphasis of mitigation. Erik Hein, executive director of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, said that sometimes offsite mitigation is the best option for a project, and that he doesn’t want agencies to “forgo” that alternative if it’s the best one. He also said he was worried about a directive for agencies to create lists of activities that are not expected to harm historic places without first consulting with states or other entities. But Hein said he supports efforts to make historic reviews function more smoothly, pointing to the adoption of categorical reviews for some activities. Historic preservation advocates said the timing of Interior’s order was confusing, as it operates under rules which may soon be entirely rewritten. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation approved its larger revision of regulations in July, a proposal that has been criticized by congressional Democrats negotiating with Republicans on permitting reform. Democrats have said the draft language would cut out meaningful input for Native American tribes. “It’s kind of a left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing situation here,” said Christopher Cody, associate general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.About the ACHP proposal, an Interior spokesperson previously said that it is “premature and irresponsible” to discuss and describe the draft before it has been officially published.“The Department’s goal is to modernize the Section 106 regulations to provide greater clarity, consistency, and efficiency while fully carrying out the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act,” the spokesperson previously said. “The rulemaking process is designed to solicit public input, and interested stakeholders will have the opportunity to review the proposal and submit comments once it is published.”

Power plant endangerment repeal enters White House review - The White House is reviewing a new proposal to permanently end EPA’s regulation of power plants’ carbon emissions. The supplemental proposal entered White House review on Monday, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s website. It is expected to be released along with another rule to undo 2024 standards that required coal-fired and some new gas-fired power plants to capture and store most of their greenhouse gas emissions. The draft would repeal not only the Biden-era rules, but EPA’s broader authority to regulate climate pollution from the power sector via the Clean Air Act. The power industry is the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The proposal is expected to mirror EPA’s repeal of the so-called endangerment finding. But it could also complicate arguments the oil industry and the Justice Department are making in a landmark case before the Supreme Court this fall that the Clean Air Act makes EPA the “primary regulator” of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. EPA issued a proposal last summer that aimed to bar future administrations from regulating the power sector for greenhouse gases. But the draft advanced arguments that contradicted a separate rule that EPA finalized in February that rescinded a key scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles endanger public health and welfare. It’s unclear when EPA will issue the repeal package. Utilities have been anxious for it to finalize a rollback of the carbon capture and sequestration requirements, but the agency might hold off until after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Suncor v. Boulder on Oct. 5.

Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania are first measles-related deaths in US this year -Pennsylvania reported two deaths related to measles as an outbreak there approaches 400 cases, the state Department of Health said Tuesday. Both were unvaccinated. These are the first US deaths related to measles reported in 2026 and the first in Pennsylvania in 35 years.   “As a physician, I want to make sure that people understand that the MMR vaccine is safe and provides the best protection we have against measles.,” Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen said in a statement. The deaths come as US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has led efforts to make sweeping changes to federal vaccine recommendations, including those involving the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. During Kennedy’s time in office, vaccination rates have continued to fall nationwide, leaving more children vulnerable to preventable illness. In 2021, Kennedy – who was then leading the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense – visited Lancaster County, where he made light of his own childhood case of measles and stoked fears in vaccines, which he suggested were causing autism and autoimmune diseases. On Tuesday, Kennedy called Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to offer federal staff to help with the measles response, but Shapiro said he declined because he thought the state could manage with its own resources. He said he also told Kennedy that the disinformation he spread about vaccines was having repercussions. “There’s real-life consequences to spreading misinformation. There’s real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids,” Shapiro said in a news briefing.“Sharing conspiracy theories and misinformation does not help the cause of public health, and it leaves people less healthy and less safe, and it leaves parents in a position where it’s harder for us to do our jobs to protect our children,” he added.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on social media that it “is working closely with state and local health departments to strengthen response efforts, rapidly support affected communities across the state, and communicate the steps people can take to slow the spread of measles. The MMR vaccine provides the most effective protection against measles and helps prevent its spread. CDC will continue to follow Pennsylvania’s lead and provide resources to support the state’s response.”Both of the Pennsylvania deaths were in residents of Lancaster County. Health officials said they will not release any additional details. Pennsylvania has confirmed 393 measles cases in 28 counties in 2026, Bogen said in a news conference Tuesday. Roughly half of them have been in Lancaster County, she said. About 20% of cases in Pennsylvania this year have required hospitalization. Among measles cases confirmed by the health department, none have been in people who have received both recommended doses of the MMR vaccine, she added. The highly contagious virus has continued its historic resurgence in the US this year, with a second record-breaking year in a row. The country has recorded more cases than 2,700 cases this year, more than any other year since 1991 – surpassing a grim milestone that was just topped last year. The disease was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but more cases have been recorded in the past year and a half than there have been in the previous 25 years combined. Experts expect that the US will soon lose its elimination status, the recognition by the World Health Organization that measles is no longer transmitting regularly within a country.

RFK Jr. Says Pennsylvania Officials May Have Fabricated Measles Deaths  -- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday that officials in Pennsylvania may have made up deaths that they described as associated with measles. The Pennsylvania Department of Health and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro saidon Wednesday that Pennsylvania had recorded the first deaths related to measles in 35 years. "The announcement appears to have been premature, and the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor's hopeful staffers," Kennedy wrote in a post on X. "The Lancaster County Coroner says that it has no record of any measles deaths. State law requires that all measles deaths be reported to the coroner." Lancaster County Coroner Steve Diamantoni told news outlets and a county commissioner that his office had not handled any deaths from measles. The office did see an infant who died shortly after birth from spleen laceration, and an autopsy determined that the primary cause of death was the laceration, Diamantoni told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy did not feel the death was related to measles, the coroner said. The office, which declined to comment to The Epoch Times, is still investigating the cause of the ruptured spleen. Kennedy also told reporters in an unrelated press conference in Florida that Pennsylvania officials had not provided information about the deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're trying to figure out ... who those deaths were and whether they actually happened," he said. Both individuals who died tested positive for measles prior to their deaths and were not vaccinated, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. One was an infant, the agency said, pointing to Diamantoni's comments. The agency said it uses the term "measles-associated" for deaths "when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death." Dr. Debra Bogen, Pennsylvania's health secretary, said, "As a pediatrician with more than 30 years of caring for children, I have thoroughly reviewed the case investigation information and sadly can confirm that there were two recent measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, which were reported to the CDC's measles response team early Tuesday morning." Pennsylvania officials have not disclosed any additional details about the second death beyond the person testing positive for measles and being unvaccinated. Bogen and her department did say that not all deaths are referred to a coroner under Pennsylvania law.

Two more kids die. And one more theater show. - Your Local Epidemiologist | Katelyn Jetelina - Last year, I got a text from a friend in public health.They were checking into a hotel in West Texas to help contain a measles outbreak that would eventually balloon to more than 900 known cases—in reality, likely 10 times that number. This 20th century disease, which we had once eliminated as a country, had already killed one child. The local health department was small and chronically underfunded, so it quickly got overwhelmed by the most contagious virus on earth. Epidemiologists from across the country came to support the community, which is typical in these types of situations. They turned around at the front desk, and standing right behind them, checking into the same hotel, were representatives of the Children’s Health Defense. The most powerful anti-vaccine lobby founded by RFK Jr. had also arrived at the exact same time to check into the same hotel and “respond” on the ground.What followed turned into national theater: grieving families’ names dragged into public view just hours before they’d buried their own kids; a bold, deceptive information campaign seeding narratives about whether the child died “with” measles or “from” it, as if the distinction mattered to the parents; a hospital that had tried to save those children getting targeted for failing to do the impossible; physicians on camera pushing vitamin A as a substitute for a vaccine; and schools touting, with pride, the lowest vaccination rates in the country.  Two more kids died this week in Pennsylvania.A lot of details aren’t clear, but the theater proceeded and is now doused in jet fuel: politicians with the mic infecting every level of the response, from the highest offices to the local coroner; massive information voids cracked wide open through poor communication; a backdrop where trust in vaccines is being directly targeted; and very little trust between each other as individuals and the systems around us. This list accomplishes a lot of things, except one: it doesn’t center on the children getting sick and the suffering community. And until this country gets its act together, we will continue to lose lives.

Supreme Court rules blue states sued too early over Trump’s mail voting order  - The Supreme Court lifted a judge’s block on President Trump’s executive order adding to mail voting requirements, removing a key roadblock that prevented the policy from going into effect for the midterms. Over the public dissents of the three liberal justices, the high court said Monday that the judge had no authority to block Trump’s directive, at least ahead of the U.S. Postal Service implementing the new ballot standards. “Federal courts review final rules, not proposed rules—and certainly not antecedent internal directives to propose a rule. If the Postal Service’s final rule harms the States, they may challenge that rule,” the court wrote. It allows Trump to move closer to implementing his mail ballot restrictions for November’s contests. But now that the Postal Service announced its final regulation late last week, the states had already begun their new push to block it. In dissent, the court’s liberal justices said they would’ve kept the block in place. “Today’s decision does not address whether the President’s attempts to interfere with States’ administration of the November 2026 elections are lawful,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Elena Kagan. “Nor does it suggest that the Executive Branch has any constitutional or statutory authority to implement the President’s directives. “Instead, today’s decision merely postpones adjudication of those challenges.” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court’s junior liberal justice, said her colleagues had a “lack of situational awareness” and were injecting chaos into the election cycle. “Rather than swallow the Government’s gamesmanship whole, the Court should have given this empty, strategic, and bad-faith stay bid the swift rejection it deserves,” Jackson wrote in her separate dissent. California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington co-led the suit, which involves 23 states and the District of Columbia in total. In March, Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to create a list of verified citizens who are eligible to vote and ordered the Postal Service to implement new standards for mail ballots. It’s part of Trump’s years-long targeting of mail ballots over his claims they drive mass election fraud. States have found some instances of fraud and noncitizens voting, but not nearly at the massive scale Trumphas purported. The Trump administration turned to the Supreme Court after U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani blocked Trump’s order in a group of the Democratic-controlled states that are suing. Talwani is an appointee of former President Obama. Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the judge got involved too early. The Postal Service hadn’t yet implemented Trump’s policy and only announced the final regulation last week. “The issuance of a final rule underscores the need for relief from the district court’s improper, unripe injunction,” Sauer wrote to the Supreme Court. The case now returns to the lower courts, where Talwani has already set a speedy schedule to consider the legality of the Postal Service’s new announcement. The judge is an appointee of former President Obama. She had also blocked Trump’s executive order in response to a separate lawsuit brought by private groups. But unlike the states’ case, that block applied nationwide. “A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court does not seem to recognize the grave threat the president’s actions pose for our democracy. There is nothing hypothetical about his intent to illegally suppress legitimate votes,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown (D) said in a statement.

Trump admin says Kennedy Center 'to be taken down' without renovations – Justice Department lawyers argued that without President Donald Trump's support for renovating the Kennedy Center – including putting his name on the building and grounds – the "decrepit, dilapidated, crumbling" venue "cannot be saved."Congress has approved $257 million for the project. But government lawyers argued that without Trump's additional fundraising aiming for more than $100 million, the work can't be completed.The lawyers said a board member fighting the placement of his name on the building, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, should prefer that to having the building destroyed."The crisis is so acute that, without the Trump Administration, its people, and President Trump, the Center cannot survive, either structurally or financially," government lawyers said in a filing Aug. 25. "The bottom line is this: Even Beatty should prefer a healthy, restored Center to a decaying hulk that is doomed to inevitable destruction or collapse."   U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper scheduled a hearing Aug. 27 to determine whether Trump's name should be blocked permanently from the building and grounds. Cooper previously ordered the removal of Trump's name from the façade, after it was added during the renovation. And Cooper temporarily prevented the venue from closing during construction by ruling that the board had acted too hastily. The board took a more deliberative process at an Aug. 13 meeting to decide to close the building for two years rather than work on renovations during partial closures over four years. The shorter schedule is projected to cost $285 million and the longer one $580 million. "Without those efforts, the Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years," government lawyers said. The board also voted to restore Trump's name to the façade and add it to the grounds. The board voted to rename the building: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump." If Trump's fundraising for the project reaches $100 million, the façade would read: "The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund." The board also voted to name the grounds beneath the venue "President Donald J. Trump Plaza."

Ghislaine Maxwell's prison release denied by Obama-appointed judge - A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s attempt to overturn her sex‑trafficking conviction and 20‑year prison sentence, closing off her last remaining path to early release after appeals were exhausted. The decision leaves Maxwell, currently housed at a minimum‑security prison camp in Texas, with few remaining legal options and sets the stage for continued scrutiny of her claims as Congress and the Justice Department review files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, wrote that Maxwell’s habeas petition—her final effort to challenge her confinement—was “demonstrably meritless,” adding that “there is no fact that Maxwell fairly puts in dispute that has any potential to disturb the outcome of her trial.” He wrote in a 67‑page decision in Maxwell’s case that her filing was “lengthy and rambling,” and that most of her arguments were either previously rejected or could have been raised earlier. He also noted that newly released documents from the federal investigation into Epstein “incriminate her or reinforce the correctness” of her conviction—directly undercutting Maxwell’s claim that the files contained exculpatory material.

Meta agrees to settle social media addiction suit with states for up to $16 billion -Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, on Wednesday agreed to settle a wide-ranging social media addiction lawsuit with the state of California and a number of other states. A court filing indicates that Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68 billion to bring the case to an end. The filing also says that the company “denies the allegations against it and that it has any liability to the Plaintiffs,” which are a collection of 29 states. As part of the deal, “Meta commits to establishing daily limits and blocks on nighttime use for teenage users” as well as “enhanced age assurance measures to prevent children from accessing the platform, or age restricted content available on the platform,” the court filing also says. The settlement also requires the company to create “additional tools to help parents and guardians to protect their children online.” The announced settlement will require the approval of a judge. The agreement comes one day after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri took the stand in California. In the case, attorneys general from states including California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accused Meta of harming children with its social media products, which they argued were designed to be addictive. They also accused Meta of violating federal privacy and consumer protection laws. The tech company’s platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, helped stoke a national mental health crisis among teens and kids, according to the states. Meta, meanwhile, maintained a position that the states were cherry-picking certain features and ignoring the safety tools it has built for young users, including teen accounts, which automatically go private, in addition to other tools like time-limit reminders, parental supervision capabilities and restrictions on who can contact teens and what content they can see. The trial was just one of several Meta has faced with similar claims. In March, a New Mexico jury and judge fined Meta over $900 million after the state’s attorney general argued that it’s platforms created a public nuisance. In California, a state court found that Meta and Google were liable after a young woman said the tech companies, among others, contributed to her deteriorated mental health. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meta Settles With US States For $16.7 Billion Over Social Media Harms To Children - Meta Platforms has reached a $16.7 billion settlement to resolve a landmark claim brought by several states that the company designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children, improperly collected children's personal data, and misled consumers about their safety. The deal was in a Wednesday court filing in California after a lawsuit was brought by 29 states - with attorneys for  Colorado, California, New Jersey and Kentucky - leading the group. The states argued that features like infinite scroll were purposely engineered to keep young users hooked, that Meta misled the public about the safety of its platforms for adolescents, and that the company improperly collected and monetized children's personal data in violation of federal law.As part of the settlement, Meta must implement daily usage limits and 'nighttime blocks' for teenagers who use the company's apps like Facebook and Instagram, as well as "enhanced age assurance measures" that would prevent children from using them, and also providing parents with additional tools, CNBC reports.Additionally, Meta is tying another $5.3 billion of the settlement to Google and TikTok adopting similar teen safety measures - cutting default teen time limits from 2 hours to 1 hour per day. The attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming joined the settlement. Prior to the settlement, Meta warned that maximum statutory penalties could theoretically reach $1.4 trillion, while the attorneys general have indicated they may seek around $200 billion. That said, the company still faces thousands of lawsuits filed by school districts and individual plaintiffs alleging harms from social media.

Data centers have quietly become the single most explosive political issue - The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has privately warned the US's leading AI firms that data centers are becoming a political liability. According to Axios, the memo says perceptions of these facilities could determine the outcome of a critical Ohio Senate race. The NRSC memo, titled "Ohio Data Center Risk," argues that AI companies must explain who benefits from these projects and who actually pays for them. A recent Fox News poll shows Republican Sen. Jon Husted — a longtime supporter of data centers — trailing Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown by eight points. Republican officials fear that a loss in Ohio would send a signal to lawmakers nationwide that data centers are politically toxic. "If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one," the memo says. Brown's campaign has spent millions of dollars this summer on advertising that frames Husted as the face of data center expansion in Ohio, and Republicans describe him as an anchor around the senator's chances. The committee's language suggests real alarm inside the party, since it warns that unresolved backlash will spread well beyond a single state contest. There are now more than 4,000 data centers operating across the United States, with roughly 3,000 additional facilities either proposed or already under construction. Communities near these sites have objected to their enormous electricity demands and their strain on local water supplies. Despite these demands and strains, data centers create a relatively small number of permanent jobs once construction ends. Andrew Stokols, a researcher at Singapore Management University, said that data centers do not necessarily generate a meaningful ripple effect for local employment but can be used "as an engine for broader digital development" Nvidia and OpenAI recently announced a new Ohio project, joining existing plans from Meta, Vantage, and QTS in the same state. Even officials who once welcomed such investment are shifting course, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who signed an executive order this week imposing stricter guardrails on future data center development. Republicans say Brown has effectively made data centers his "de facto opponent," and internal polling reportedly shows the facilities are about as popular as nuclear waste storage among voters. The dispute in Ohio reveals a wider tension facing the AI industry as it races to build the infrastructure needed for future growth. Public skepticism toward data centers appears to be intensifying just as both parties recalculate how closely to align with the technology sector. The outcome of the Ohio race may ultimately shape how American politicians and their allies elsewhere approach this same issue for years to come.

Rising data center backlash shakes up midterm races - The Hill -  As public pushback to data centers boils over, politicians on both sides of the aisle are racing to distance themselves from the controversial facilities. Key swing state candidates are scrambling to endorse stricter data center policies — and accusing their opponents of being too cozy with the industry — as Americans become increasingly hostile to the rapid build-out of AI infrastructure. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who once touted data center investments in the Keystone State, signed an order Tuesday implementing new requirements for developers to cover electricity costs and secure local approval for projects.  Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the GOP candidate in Michigan’s Senate race, announced Thursday that he is backing a one-year state moratorium on new data centers.  Former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the Democratic candidate in Ohio’s Senate race, is going after Sen. Jon Husted (R) over the incumbent’s record on data centers in the Buckeye State. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) recently issued an internal memo warning that “data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”    Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the progressive Sunrise Movement, told The Hill that during her canvassing in Michigan and Wisconsin, she has talked to voters who “are flipping their party affiliation because of the importance of data centers.” Tech companies are pushing to build scores of new centers to fuel the development of artificial intelligence, which requires vast amounts of computing power. But in the face of growing concerns about electricity costs, water usage and other environmental impacts, public opinion has soured. A Fox News poll released in late July found that 70 percent of voters oppose the building of a data center in their area to support AI, with 78 percent in support of slowing construction to address environmental and community concerns. This appears to have shifted the political calculus for officials from both parties who previously embraced data centers. Shapiro welcomed Amazon’s decision last year to spend $20 billion building two data centers in his state, touting AI as “yet another national security issue that Pennsylvania can lead on.” At the time, Shapiro’s office also offered the company “exclusive early access” to a fast-track program, news outlet Heatmap reported, adding that the agreement was described in a memo labeled as being subject to a nondisclosure agreement. However, the governor suggested Tuesday that since announcing those projects, “we’ve seen an unacceptable number of speculative proposals for data centers swamp our Commonwealth.” “I’ve heard loud and clear from the people of Pennsylvania as I’ve traveled our Commonwealth, and I’m here to say that we will not be bullied by developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies,” he added. His order requires developers to sign consent orders committing to comply with the state’s restrictions, including covering the electricity costs associated with their projects and securing local approval. It also bars current and future data center projects from participating in a program to fast-track permitting. The announcement comes as Shapiro’s opponent in the Pennsylvania governor’s race, Republican Stacy Garrity, has knocked his support for the Amazon data centers, arguing in one campaign ad that “Shapiro sold us out.” Shapiro hit back at Garrity in his own ad, calling the state treasurer “Pennsylvania’s No. 1 fan of data centers.” While Garrity herself has said in the past that Pennsylvania should be doing more to attract data centers, her campaign is now calling for a “pause” on future development. “I think we can’t trust Gov. Shapiro at all,” said Matt Beynon, media consultant for the Garrity campaign, adding that the latest policy plan is “not going to address what … door he’s already opened. The horses are out of the barn.” Shapiro campaign spokesperson Manuel Bonder had a similar message about the Republican, saying in a written statement, “Stacy Garrity’s long record of supporting completely unregulated data center development makes it clear that she just can’t be trusted.” His administration, meanwhile, said that the latest order came because of the rapid pace of data center development in the state over the last year. Rogers, who is facing off against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed in the highly competitive Michigan race, came out in favor of a data center moratorium on Thursday. “I am calling for a one-year moratorium on new data centers until we establish a fair, transparent approval process that puts local communities first,” he said in a written statement. His campaign clarified to The Hill that he was referring to a pause at the state level, where he would have no formal authority as U.S. senator. “There is so much concern out there with Michigan citizens,” Rogers told NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich on Thursday. “My argument is that we need to walk through those issues before we just throw these things out.” The former House lawmaker also took a swing at El-Sayed, suggesting his progressive opponent wants to send the issue to Washington. “I think that’s a terrible idea,” Rogers added. “The people who need to make these decisions live in these communities.” El-Sayed’s campaign argued in a statement that Rogers has “a long track record of selling Michiganders out to his corporate donors,” suggesting he “would put a data center in every backyard in Michigan if he could make a quick buck from it.” The Democrat has laid out a series of “terms of engagement” for data centers that would require developers to cover electricity costs, commit to using closed-loop cooling systems to limit water usage and give local communities a “meaningful say” in projects. The race to replace retiring Michigan Sen. Gary Peters (D) is one of a handful that will be central to determining control of the Senate. In the Ohio Senate race, Brown has highlighted Husted’s support for data center tax breaks during his tenure as lieutenant governor, suggesting the incumbent senator was “the point man to bring these data centers to Ohio.” The Republican’s campaign pointed to legislation introduced by Husted that would require data center developers to cover their share of utility costs, arguing this is a “commonsense solution.” But the GOP appears to be concerned about the potential impacts the data center issue could have on the race. “More than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck. If he loses and datacenters get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one,” the NRSC wrote in a Tuesday memo obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network. It warned that Brown’s message was working, saying it “is significantly more effective than traditional messaging tracts, as it introduces new information on a highly relevant, emerging topic. This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle.” The Republican memo also said, “If voters’ perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.”Data centers are under fire for a variety of reasons: noise, water and electricity consumption, secretive development deals and generally pushing their way into rural Ohio and reshaping its landscape.A recent poll showed more people would support a nuclear power plant being built in their community than a data center to power artificial intelligence − although majorities opposed both.

Republicans Are Realizing That No One Wants Data Centers - The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo Tuesday suggesting that, if incumbent Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted loses his upcoming election against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the Republican Party’s position on data centers is to blame. The memo, as Axios reported, says that “the data center brand is the anchor” of Brown’s campaign. “He has made them his de facto opponent, and no one is correcting the record,” the NRSC wrote, arguing that if “voters’ perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.” They go on to suggest that Republican candidates support some restrictions on data center development, such as only allowing their construction in communities that approve it by popular vote—while still opposing a total pause on data center construction, which they say would cause the US to “lose the AI race to China.”While the NRSC urges caution, Donald Trump is still positioning himself as an unequivocal ally to data center developers. Speaking at a White House cryptocurrency event Wednesday, he insisted that “we’re building the biggest plants anywhere in the world.”“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it,” Trump said. “The jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous. And if you don’t take it, you’re going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it.” Data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries, such as manufacturing and warehousing; while they do generate tax revenue, they also tend to be built with generous tax abatements.“If I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community,” Trump repeated. But, he added, “maybe [the industry] can use a little public relations help.”

Data centers' 'oh s--t' moment – The intensifying late-summer backlash against data centers is inspiring panic among some corners of the tech sector — amid fears that the industry is mishandling a political crisis that will stretch into 2028 and beyond. Those worries have deepened in recent weeks as politicians across the political spectrum embraced various curbs on data center construction, with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, potential Democratic White House hopeful Josh Shapiro and Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers being among the latest to sign on. Some tech industry advocates maintain that the public pushback against the hulking artificial intelligence hubs is a fleeting storm generated by candidates seeking wedge issues for November. Tech companies’ best course, they say, is to avoid any political dealmaking until temperatures lower after the midterms. But others call that foolish wishful thinking. “AI is going to be a massive issue for the presidential election in a way that technology has never been an issue,” a representative from a major AI company told POLITICO, adding: “Nobody wants to lose their job and they’re already feeling squeezed while these very, very rich people who are richer than anything we have ever seen in the history of Earth are making more. And I think people are sick and tired of that.” The person, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the industry’s political strategy. The swiftness and ferocity of the backlash has caught the tech industry on the backfoot, where it’s struggled to find an effective message that assuages voters’ worries that data centers will raise their power bills, hog their water supplies and blight the landscape. One result is the growing, bipartisan push for temporary moratoriums on data center construction, a cause that just months ago was mainly associated with progressive outliers like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The split inside the tech world is not hard to find. “Some are viewing it as an ‘oh shit’ moment,” an AI industry advocate told POLITICO. “Others are brushing it off like it’s nothing, and those people have to get their heads out of their asses. This could go south for them, fast.” Governors weigh in What’s undeniable is that politicians of all stripes have decided that cracking down on data centers is in their best political interests, even if it’s a U-turn away from their previous embrace of projects they once saw as economic growth engines. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Shapiro signed an executive order last week that would require local community approval before the state grants them permits to build, despite previously positioning his state as a hub for data center investment.“I will not allow Pennsylvanians to be bullied by greedy developers and bulldozed by the lawyers working for these big tech companies,” Shapiro wrote on X. Some AI supporters saw that as a stunning turnaround for a governor who had earlier lured tens of billions of dollars of investments to his state from companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.Now the governor is running for reelection against Republican state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who — unlike Shapiro — has endorsed a temporary moratorium on data centers in Pennsylvania.In Texas, Abbott this month paused approval for new data center buildouts while state regulators and power grid operators conduct audits that will collect information including the projects’ tax breaks, ownership and proposed water use. He took that step amid complaints about the data projects from longtime conservative voters in far-flung parts of the state. And in Michigan, Rogers came out last week in support of a one-year moratorium on building new data centers. That possibly puts Rogers on par with his progressive Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, who called for stricter standards on data center impacts throughout his campaign and later endorsed state and local moratoriums until Congress can enact national standards.The political tide is also turning against the generous tax breaks that states had dangled for data center projects as they sought the tech industry’s presence. Even Virginia, considered the world’s data center capital, this year slapped a consumption tax on their energy usage to break a budget stalemate in a Democratic-trifecta commonwealth.Red and blue states alike saw a flurry of activity this year looking to reel in data center incentives. Eight states in 2026 enacted legislation rolling back data center tax subsidies, while another 17 considered legislation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which opposes tax breaks for businesses. In some cases, states this year targeted longstanding sales-tax exemptions for materials and technologies that data centers purchase. Maine lawmakers even tried to restrict new data centers from all state tax breaks, though Democratic Gov. Janet Mills vetoed the effort.  While the backlash doesn’t have Wall Street worried about the tech giants behind the AI boom, it may be a sign that the Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things” that has defined the data-center buildout to date may no longer be tenable. James Maloney, founder and managing partner of Tiger Hill Partners, which advises investment firms, said data center developers need to engage early and proactively at the local, state and federal level.“Data centers are very clearly on the ballot box this election cycle,” Maloney said. “This is not lost on the investment firms.”The turnabouts from traditionally pro-business politicians have left some AI supporters’ heads spinning.“I actually think it’s disingenuous for governors and elected officials who pontificate about workforce and hiring and economic development to then go and basically throw a grenade to the center of what is the new industrial revolution that literally powers almost every single business on earth,” said Caleb Max, president and CEO of the National Artificial Intelligence Association. But even the national party organizations are recognizing data centers as a salient issue in the midterms, or possibly beyond.One striking example was a memo last week in which the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm warned that the data center backlash is hurting GOP Sen. Jon Husted in his Ohio reelection bid. It pointed the blame at tech companies, saying they have failed to get ahead of the “toxic brand” that’s taken hold of these AI factories. The industry, which has long relied on tech’s image as a catalyst for the economy to build political support with leaders of both parties, has struggled to come up with an effective messaging strategy that resonates with the communities they want to build in. Their slow reaction was punished last November when Democrats Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey both won governor’s races in part by campaigning to force data center operators to pay for their costs up front.But with opposition to data centers reaching a new crescendo, some in the tech industry are beginning to embrace the backlash, telling POLITICO that this newfound attention — if channeled properly — can help communities and government leaders understand the positive impacts of these data facilities. “It highlights that politicians are hearing community concerns and that they need to respond,” said Gordon Bitko, executive vice president of public sector at ITI, a tech trade group that represents Amazon, Google and Vantage Data Centers. Bitko noted that rather than impose a blanket moratorium, Shapiro’s new directive instead created an opportunity for tech companies and local policymakers to take a step back, do smarter planning and home in on the benefits that data centers can bring to communities, such as property tax relief. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is positioning himself as a positive voice on AI, even as some other tech executives warn that the technology will usher in large-scale unemployment and mass societal change. Earlier this month, Zuckerberg laid out a positive view of AI in a 6,500-word post that previewed a $1 billion Meta fund to invest in communities that host data centers. “Thank God for Mark, because somebody had to do something,” a political operative who works on AI issues said.But there are limitations to this approach, said Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition. “People don’t generally associate data centers with a single company,” he said, “and so I think there’s an open question about whether the data centers’ reputational challenge is a collective problem or a single-company problem.”An executive at OpenAI, one of the country’s top AI developers, acknowledged during a POLITICO forum this month that “we have real work to do” to address public concerns about data centers. “If you think about the amazing work we’re trying to do with AI … it’s all incredible and it’s inspiring,” Ann O’Leary, OpenAI’s vice president for global policy, said during an AI policy panel at POLITICO’s The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit. “But when you have a data center in your backyard, it’s not inspiring you.”

See the moment when Republican politicians turned against data centers - Sen. Jon Husted once promoted data centers as all upside for his state of Ohio. "Data centers are essential to our digital lives," the Republican said in 2024, praising a planned Google project that he claimed would establish "central Ohio as an important tech hub in America." This spring, as he drew nearer to what is expected to be a tight November reelection race, Husted's view of data centers appeared to change. He introduced a Senate bill that his website promises will "protect Americans from footing the bill for new data centers." Husted is far from the only Republican to shift from all-out data center booster to publicly speaking critically about the facilities in recent months, following growing signs that many voters are unhappy about the rapid spread of the computer-stuffed and power-guzzling facilities. In the past six months, Republicans' public statements about data centers have turned sharply negative, according to a Washington Post analysis of thousands of social media posts and newsletters from hundreds of politicians from both major parties since April 2024. That shift follows a similar one made by Democrats, who have mostly focused on the negative effects of data centers since early last year, the Post analysis found. Some Republican candidates are now trying to take the issue for themselves ahead of the midterm elections by attacking Democratic opponents with accusations they are too soft on data centers. Last week, Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin), the GOP candidate for Wisconsin governor, made more than a dozen online posts that claimed his opponent, Democrat David Crowley, was too soft on data centers. Tiffany has promised to end tax breaks for the facilities; Crowley wants more regulation and for communities to get to choose whether to accept new data centers. Stacy Garrity, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, has called Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is seeking reelection, "the biggest data center cheerleader in the nation." On Tuesday, Shapiro announced new data center restrictions. Shapiro's spokesperson said Garrity had a "long record of supporting completely unregulated data center development." A spokesperson for Garrity said she had believed Shapiro's prior statements on data centers but later discovered he hid their impact on local communities. A spokesperson for Husted said in a statement that the senator's position had not changed. "He has always believed that it should be up to the local communities whether or not they want new data centers," the statement said. The National Republican Senatorial Committee warned Tuesday in a memo obtained by The Post that "Data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted's neck," and could cause him to lose. A poll conducted in June and July by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that nearly half of Americans strongly opposed any construction of them in their area. Two years ago, when only a third of Americans had used an AI chatbot, lawmakers rarely mentioned data centers online. When they did, it was generally to celebrate the arrival of one of the facilities in their district, talking of jobs, investment and the future. "I was excited to celebrate the opening of the Meta Data Center in Cheyenne that will help Wyoming be on the ground floor of cutting-edge technology and boost our economy," Sen Cynthia Lummis posted in July 2024. "Illinois is fast retaking its place as the home of high-tech, high-growth industries of the future," Gov. JB Pritzker (D) wrote of the groundbreaking of a new data center in October that year. "That means good-paying jobs and economic opportunity." After President Donald Trump returned to office with support from major AI investors last year and declared that he had "inaugurated a golden age for American manufacturing and technological dominance," the number of Republican politicians posting about data centers more than doubled in the first half of the year. In that period, more than 90 percent of their posts and newsletter mentions were positive. "It is a relatively new issue for most politicians," said David Karol, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, who wrote a book about how parties shift their positions. "So the politicians are figuring it out, along with everyone else." At the same time Republicans were embracing data centers, protest movements were already underway across the country as residents objected to their environmental impact and power usage and Trump embraced them as symbols of a resurgent United States. Democratic politicians flipped to being mostly negative about the facilities in June 2025. Five days after Trump's executive order, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts.) wrote "Data centers are eating up our electricity-and unless we do something about it, we're going to keep paying the bill for their meal." By January of 2026, more than eighty Democratic politicians had already spoken up online about data centers and the vast majority of their 400 posts were negative. The most common criticism was their alleged role in hiking electric rates. As pushback against data centers grew louder, they became a bogeyman for Republicans too. In February this year, twice as many comments were about data center's costs than their benefits. More than half of Republican's posts that month cited rising power bills. Others focused on subsidies and tax breaks for data centers or painting them as a threat to agriculture and the rural way of life. Tiffany did both in March, writing "NO subsidizing data centers on Wisconsin farmland" in a post that listed them as threats alongside green energy and Communist China. Many Republicans have also cited cases where data centers - or electrical infrastructure meant to serve them - led to people having homes or farmland taken via eminent domain. "Eminent domain is government theft. I am NOT letting Big Tech steal our homes for their ugly data centers," wrote Rep. Nancy Mace in June. "I warned about these costs long before the media turned this into a national conversation," she said in a statement to the Post. Longtime supporters of data centers in both major parties are still updating their stances. Texas governor Greg Abbott recently began calling for restrictions on data centers - after years of promoting them. Illinois' Democratic governor Pritzker did too. A spokesperson for Pritzker, said in a statement that "Responsible governance means reassessing incentives when circumstances change." Several politicians tipped as likely to run for president in 2028, have mostly stayed silent on social media about data centers. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) doesn't appear to have posted about them, although he did write a letter to federal regulators about Georgians' rising power bills. Neither has Secretary of State Marco Rubio. JD Vance's only post on X about data centers is from 2021. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken more of a middle road. He has mocked Trump's stance on data centers, tweeting "Trump is burning more coal to run data centers. Welcome to the Golden Age!" But in a June episode of his podcast Newsom praised construction jobs building data centers as "legit." He also noted concerns about their impact on power bills but added that rates they had already been growing. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), whose district spans Silicon Valley and has said he is considering a 2028 run, in 2025 spoke in favor of building more American data centers. He criticized a Trump administration AI deal with the United Arab Emirates by asking: "Why are we putting data centers and research hubs in Dubai? We should have those high-paying new technology jobs in the United States." By June this year, Khanna had adopted a more critical and populist view, calling for "An end to data center extraction taking a community's water and jacking up their bills, sucking all the money in the hands of a few tech billionaires." About this story: The Post analyzed 4,300 social media posts and newsletters matching the phrase "data center" from politicians from July 2024 through mid-August 2026. The posts, collected across a variety of social platforms, were provided by the National Conference on Citizenship; the newsletters were collected directly by The Post. Posts and newsletters were classified as positive, negative, or neutral using an AI model(GPT 5.6 Luna). The AI model classified posts as negative if it focused on data centers' downsides and positive if it focused on their benefits. The model got an accuracy rate of 90 percent on a hand-labeled set of 200 posts. Errors mostly occurred on posts that contained arguments both for and against data centers or that implicitly criticized other politicians' stances on data centers. Posts classified as "neutral" were excluded from the visualizations.

Leaked Memo Shows Republicans Are Terrified of the Backlash Against AI Data Centers –--As the backlash against data centers mounts, American political strategists are scrambling to balance immense public sentiment against the facilities with their obligation to big business.In the Republican Party's Senate campaign arm, a recently leaked memo exposes just how deep the anxieties go. First reported by Axios, the private document was addressed to major AI companies, warning that the public's disgust with data centers could ruin the party's hopes at a pivotal seat in the Senate.The memo addresses the Democratic campaign to unseat Ohio Senator Jon Husted, who filled the hole left when JD Vance ascended to the Vice Presidency. It warns in stark terms that the Democratic Party has made data centers the pivotal issue of this election — and that if the tactic proves successful in defeating Husted, a wave of similar anti-data center campaigns would follow."If he loses and data centers get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice — and they will not go near the next one," the memo exclaims. "This has become a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle."Going on, the memorandum gripes that "campaigns or party committees can not fix the toxic brand of an entire segment of the economy.""The companies that need these projects built have to fix how Ohioans see them," it continues. "If voters' perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio."That'll be easier said than done in the Buckeye state, where the data center boom is exploiting local emergency services and contributing to a meteoric rise in utility prices.And of course, data centers are just one piece of the puzzle, as broader AI harms have also taken their toll on the state. In a testimony offered in support of draft AI regulations in Ohio, CEO of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation Tony Coder said that at least four children in the state who died by suicide penned suicide notes using AI chatbots.For its part, the tech industry is trying to claw back support, rolling out a number of kitschy ads meant to win the public's trust on data centers — though at this point in the game, it may be far too little, and far too late.

Groups sue Trump’s EPA over fast-track approval of toxic datacenter chemicals - The Trump administration has approved two new datacenter chemicals to which exposure can result in “sudden death” and a range of other serious health risks, like cancer, eye corrosion, neurological damage and reproductive harm, a new lawsuit warns. The two compounds approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for import and immediate use in facilities across the US are photoacid generators that also appear to be Pfas “forever chemicals”, though it is unclear because much of the EPA documents are redacted. Some Pfas are commonly used in the production of semiconductors. people hold signs that say 'stop data centers' Trump EPA aims to exempt datacenters from disclosing air pollution, advocates warn Read more The EPA acknowledged in its approvals that it does not know the level at which the chemicals are “acutely lethal” or cause other serious health damage, but the agency still approved them anyway, said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the Earthjustice nonprofit, which filed the suit. In consent orders approving the chemicals that were reviewed by the Guardian, the EPA also concedes that the chemicals may present an “unreasonable risk” to workers and the public, but still approved them. That violates the law, Kalmuss-Katz said. If a chemical may present an “unreasonable risk”, then the Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA to “prohibit or limit the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of such substance or to prohibit or limit any combination of such activities to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk”. The restrictions the EPA put in place are minimal and non-protective, Kalmuss-Katz said, and the severity of the chemicals’ harms, the absence of data, and the failure to take protective steps are highly unusual. “This is turning the new chemical review process on its head,” Kalmuss-Katz said. “You have a situation where the EPA has failed at its most fundamental obligation when it comes to new chemicals, and that is to protect the public from unreasonable risk.” The EPA did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. Redactions in the consent orders also make it unclear if the compounds were fast-tracked by the EPA under a controversial late 2025 Trump executive order to speed up the approval of data center chemicals. Public health advocates at the time said the order appeared to suggest the administration intended to ignore chemical safety review laws. The name of the company that produces the chemicals is also redacted. Producing semiconductors is a highly complex process and Pfas are essential ingredients used in as many as 1,000 steps at the nanometric level, including photolithography and plasma processing. Ultraviolet light is filtered through photoacid generators to imprint circuit patterns onto the semiconductor wafer. Most of the chemicals used in that process do not remain on the chip, but are instead discharged in wastewater or otherwise disposed of. Other types of Pfas are used in datacenter cooling. Pfas are a class of at least 16,000 compounds dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in the human body and environment. Testing data from 2022 from one US production plant, or “fab”, previously reviewed by the Guardian showed as much as 78,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS in wastewater from some samples. The EPA legal limit for several common compounds in drinking water is 4ppt. The consent orders appear to clearly spell out the risks to the public and workers, and include explicit admissions that the EPA does not understand the level at which people could be harmed. For example, the order for a chemical with a generic name highlights the serious risk from anyone exposed via pollution. The “EPA identified acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental effects as potential risks to the general population if exposed via drinking water, ingestion of groundwater impacted by landfill leachate, and/or inhalation from stack air releases,” the agency stated. However, it continued: “The risks for these endpoints were not quantified due to insufficient information on hazard.” The EPA also identified “acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, skin and respiratory irritation, eye corrosion, skin photosensitization, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental toxicity effects as potential risks to workers.” Exposure could also cause “acute lethality”, or sudden death, but that it had “insufficient data” to assess that risk as well, the agency wrote. Similarly, the EPA wrote that it did not know the environmental and wildlife risk, and was unable to estimate the environmental hazard of this … substance” because it did not have enough information. “EPA found that both chemicals pose potentially severe risks to public health, admitted that it lacked the information needed to calculate those risks, and still approved both chemicals for immediate use,” Kalmuss-Katz said. Among the EPA’s restrictions are limiting the size of the container in which a chemical can be imported, but not the volume. Kalmuss-Katz said that does little to protect anyone.Industry has argued that it cannot make semiconductors without the chemicals. Industry documents provided to the Guardian in 2024 stated that finding safer alternatives is “impossible in some instances” and would require “stepping back decades in technological advancement”.It is also unclear what may happen with the chemicals’ disposal. The EPA states that they should be incinerated, but that process does not fully destroy many chemicals, and it would create unknown health risks for largely low income communities around the incinerators.Despite the photoacid generators’ toxicity and persistence in the environment, there are likely no requirements for a semiconductor plant in the US to limit discharges, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center of Public Environmental Oversight, which advocates for stronger regulations around the industry’s chemicals.“The EPA should not approve any new photoacid generators, even on a temporary basis, until there is enforceable assurance that there will be zero discharge of such chemicals,” Siegel said.

US pulls ahead of China in building natural gas to power AI data centers - The United States is building twice as much natural gas as China, giving Washington a leg up in the race to power data centers running artificial intelligence, according to a new report. The amount of natural gas projects under development in the U.S. in the first half of this year was already 50% higher than the total for 2025, a boom directly linked to the rapid deployment of AI, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the nonprofit organization Global Energy Monitor.The group estimated that about 189 gigawatts of the new gas-fired capacity in development during the first half of 2026 is planned for data centers. This is nearly double the total in development all of last year, around 97 gigawatts. For comparison, one gigawatt is estimated to power about 750,000 homes.

Economist Warns Data Center Interconnection Requests May Be Inflated -- – The queue of data center interconnection requests flooding U.S. utilities is not a reliable measure of real demand, according to one economist.  Speaking on a fireside chat at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum, UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein said data center developers routinely file duplicate interconnection requests across multiple utility territories without intending to build all of them, angling to secure a spot wherever power becomes available first. The result, he said, is queue data that utilities, grid operators, and regulators all know is inflated, but that gets treated in public debate as a straightforward preview of what’s coming. Borenstein drew a parallel to the late 1990s, when internet-driven electricity demand projections badly overshot reality because computing became far more efficient than expected – usage rose twentyfold while electricity consumption less than doubled. Last year’s brief market selloff following the DeepSeek announcement, when the Chinese AI lab announced it had built a competitive model using a fraction of the computing power assumed necessary, served as a reminder that even investors aren’t confident today’s AI demand forecasts will hold up, he said. That uncertainty is already reshaping how utilities do business with data center customers. Ohio regulators recently approved a settlement requiring large customers to commit to 12-year contracts before a utility will invest in new substations or transmission upgrades for them. Google was the first company to accept those terms, a move Borenstein said may pay off competitively. He noted companies with large balance sheets can absorb long-term commitment risk more easily than smaller developers can. Beyond the Ohio settlement, Borenstein noted that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been pressing PJM specifically to get utilities signing long-term contracts before committing to add new capacity. He noted the environment has shifted quickly: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott went from courting data centers aggressively to pausing new projects pending a review. The state is considering more than 1,800 interconnection requests, seeking more than five times the grid’s current peak capacity. Regardless of how the interconnection queue numbers shake out, the equipment needed for utilities and regulators to build new capacity isn’t available at the scale required, Borenstein argued, making near-term demand impossible to accommodate Borenstein put the current pace in historical context, comparing it to two of the largest electricity demand surges in U.S. history: the rollout of residential air conditioning in the 1950s, and the aggressive nuclear power growth forecasts of the late 1960s. The growth in AI-driven demand now being seen, he said, exceeds both. Meanwhile, the effects on ratepayers are no longer theoretical. In PJM, the 11-state wholesale market covering the mid-Atlantic, a surge in cconcentrated demand has already pushed up wholesale energy and capacity prices. Borenstein estimated the impact at 2 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour at the retail level, a 10 to 20 percent increase across states. Industrial customers may end up absorbing more of the pain than residential ratepayers, Borenstein said, because data centers typically connect directly at the transmission level and don’t pay into the cost of the distribution grid. That leaves other industrial users to shoulder a larger share of rising wholesale prices.

Flock camera backlash adds fuel to midterm anti-AI frenzy – Axios - Flock cameras are joining data centers as a top midterm boogeyman, with members of Congress and congressional candidates trying to harness a sudden groundswell of grassroots anger over the AI surveillance tool. This blowup over the country's massive network of license plate readers illustrates how rapidly AI has moved from a peripheral issue in national politics toward the center of the midterm campaign.Data centers have become a major issue in the midterms, with candidates racing to one-up each other in their opposition to building the energy-hungry facilities. Super PACs affiliated with AI companies have also spent tens of millions of dollars clashing with each other in congressional elections over the degree to which the federal government should regulate the technology. Now, surveillance cameras are opening a new front in the debate over AI. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, posted a video to X Wednesday tying his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, to Flock cameras."There's been this mass proliferation of Flock cameras, any and everywhere, watching your every move to collect information without you even noticing," El-Sayed says with the '80s tune "Somebody's Watching Me" playing in the background. El-Sayed accuses Rogers of supporting the practice, citing a 2013 hearing in which the then-House Intelligence Committee chair said: "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated, right?" The Rogers campaign did not respond to a request for comment.  Flock and similar companies are facing a public outcry over their AI-powered license plate reader cameras, particularly given reports of police officers misusing the technology, Axios reported. Municipalities across the country have already moved to sever ties with Flock — whose vast network of 120,000 cameras allows law enforcement to track the movement of vehicles — and some people have sabotaged the cameras. The company has defended its practices and said it is improving its privacy features, telling Axios it has been "listening to customers, communities, and civil liberties groups." Flock has also argued that the tool is being used for good, saying its cameras have aided roughly 1 million police investigations and helped find around 10,000 missing people. Democratic House candidates are getting in on the Flock camera blowback.  Ohio Democrat Kristina Knickerbocker said in a statement that her opponent, former House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), "pushed for more Flock cameras in downtown Dayton." "Now those cameras have been caught running thousands of searches that broke our city's rules," she added. Turner said in a statement to Axios: "My yellow springs socialist opponent once again shows her ignorance, since the Local Congressman has nothing to do with the number of flock cameras in Dayton, OH."  Chaz Molder, the Democratic nominee in Tennessee's 5th District, said of Flock cameras: "That kind of big government overreach has no place in our country or Tennessee.""Politicians are cashing their checks while allowing their cameras to go up everywhere," said William Lawrence, a progressive Democratic House candidate in Michigan.Flock cameras are emerging as a rare area of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill, with conservatives and progressives in particular speaking out on the issue in recent weeks.A trio of House Republicans led by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill last month to prohibit the federal government from purchasing Flock cameras or similar technology. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post Tuesday: "Flock has installed nearly 100,000 cameras across America to track your every movement. ... STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK."The Flock camera backlash is converging with the already prominent data center discourse to make AI one of the most potent issues on the campaign trail.Jake Johnson, a Democratic House candidate in Minnesota, told Axios he was not surprised to find voters chafing at Flock cameras given the intense feelings he has encountered about data centers. "Everywhere I go I get questions about data centers," he said. "So the fact that those two are potentially linked together, I think, really, really burns people."

OpenAI says its own AI agents went rogue and hacked its systems --OpenAI has revealed that some of its advanced AI agents broke out of controlled test environments, hacked into internal company systems, and targeted external platforms during recent internal security tests. According to a report published Wednesday (August 26), the company’s AI models not only bypassed sandbox restrictions but also collaborated with each other, tampered with OpenAI’s own systems, and attempted to conceal their activities. The incident began when OpenAI was evaluating its newest AI models in what was meant to be a secure, isolated environment. However, the agents discovered vulnerabilities, escaped containment, and accessed the systems of Hugging Face, an influential hub for sharing AI models. The rogue agents also compromised accounts at other technology services, with OpenAI confirming breaches at four separate services.Investigations by both OpenAI and Hugging Face found the AI agents roamed the open internet for several days, infiltrating multiple accounts and services beyond initial reports. These incidents were more severe than originally thought, with the agents actively seeking out information and exploiting unknown security flaws. Hugging Face confirmed that their systems were rebuilt and the vulnerabilities closed after the breach. A customer at Modal Labs, a New York-based technology company, was also compromised when the rogue agent exploited vulnerable code on their platform. Modal Labs stated that their own infrastructure wasn’t breached, but the incident highlighted how AI agents could extend their reach well beyond their original targets.OpenAI stated the rogue agent has since been deactivated and restricted from further research access. The investigation is ongoing, and OpenAI has pledged to share more findings as they become available.As OpenAI continues to investigate the full extent of the breach, the company faces pressure to reinforce safety measures, especially with growing competition from rivals like Anthropic and Chinese firms developing similarly advanced AI systems. The broader AI industry is watching closely, with calls for stronger government oversight and industry-wide standards to prevent similar incidents in the future.

US says Chinese hackers targeted Senate, NASA, hospitals, and more -  Federal officials on Wednesday announced they had disrupted a yearslong Chinese hacking campaign that compromised or targeted several U.S. institutions, including NASA, the Federal Reserve, and even the Senate.The Justice Department said in a statement it had seized internet domains used by two hacking platforms, called “QScan” and “QTRouter,” that were created and operated by a Chinese state-sponsored group. The platforms were used to target U.S. critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks. FBI Director Kash Patel said tools were used by Chinese government actors “to hide the origin of their attacks.”  An attached affidavit from an FBI agent accused the state-sponsored group, referred to as “QTFY,” of targeting the Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health. The group also allegedly targeted networks “operated by hospitals, telecommunications providers, power companies, financial institutions, and defense contractors.”The DOJ’s announcement did not specify if anybody had been charged or apprehended in relation to the hacking, and the extent of what has been compromised remains unclear. TIME has reached out to the DOJ for comment.The group’s hacking activity, which dates back to 2018 according to the FBI, adds to an ongoing record of U.S. allegations of Chinese state-backed cyberespionage operations.A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. pushed back against the accusations in a statement to TIME, insisting that China is a “firm defender” of cybersecurity. “China firmly opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and using it as a pretext to impose discriminatory restrictions on Chinese companies and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies,” the spokesperson said, urging the U.S. to stop using such issues to “smear or discredit” the country.

OpenAI, Anthropic warn AI cyberattacks could surge in coming months --Leading developers of the most powerful artificial intelligence tools are warning that their technology may soon be used to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks against companies and institutions, ranging from hospitals to technology firms.In an open letter published Thursday, the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and dozens of other signatories said there is a "limited window" to strengthen cyber defenses and protect against potentially devastating AI-enabled cyberattacks. That window may last only months, it added.  The signatories also include security companies like CrowdStrike and banks including Citi and Capital One.The same AI advances that could increase risks to public services and technology infrastructure can also help organizations identify and "fix weaknesses" that leave them vulnerable, the letter said."If we act decisively, we can use the defenders' window to make our digital world much more secure," the letter said.A recent CrowdStrike report on cybersecurity found that AI-enabled attacks increased by 89% in 2025 compared to 2024.The companies said that the status quo for cybersecurity "won't be enough.""Longstanding bugs, excessive permissions, misconfigurations, insecure and unpatched software, weak authentication and technical debt in legacy systems have left systems exposed," the letter said. Security teams need to be beefed up and invested in, while defenders against AI cyberattacks need to be equipped with the most sophisticated AI-enabled tech, it said. The letter also called on companies and experts to share their expertise. "Share threat intelligence and tested playbooks, and measure progress by how many organizations are protected, how quickly attacks are contained, and whether fixes work," it added.Every organization needs to prioritize cybersecurity, according to the letter. That might include replacing or upgrading older tech systems that are vulnerable to attack. Specialized cybersecurity firms have an obligation to test defenses against evolving cyber capabilities continually. Governments also have a key role to play in containing cyber threats through coordinated actions and by funding cyber defense strategies at the local, national, and international levels, it added.Lastly, the letter said it is incumbent upon frontrunner AI companies — including those that signed the document — to fund training, provide "responsible" access to their models, and adequately secure them.

As AI agents go rogue, cyber insurers are adapting their policies (Reuters) - Cyber insurers have spent years defining what constitutes a hack and when coverage should pay out, but the rapid emergence of AI agents is raising new questions, forcing insurers to review their policies. Leading AI developers OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta Platforms recently disclosed that their AI agents behaved unexpectedly, escaping controlled test environments and carrying out cyberattacks on companies without direct human instruction. While those incidents did not cause reported damage, they highlighted the rapidly evolving cyber risks facing companies and insurers. After receiving an initial instruction, autonomous AI systems can make independent decisions. Insurers, including MSIG, QBE and Beazley, are reviewing traditional cyber policies and adapting their language to account for emerging risks posed by such systems taking on more autonomous tasks, according to eight executives at major companies, and analysts. Companies are grappling with issues including whether autonomous AI systems fit traditional policy definitions of a cyber attacker and who bears liability for AI-generated actions that cause a loss, analysts and experts said. The global cyber insurance market was worth nearly $15 billion last year and is expected to reach roughly $28 billion by 2030, Munich Re estimated in its latest report. Aon said earlier this year that nearly 20% of cyberattacks will involve generative AI by 2027, according to its forecasts. "As AI becomes capable of identifying vulnerabilities and carrying out attacks autonomously, carriers will need to continually review policy language," said Ryan Kratz, head of cyber, North America, at property and casualty specialty insurer MSIG USA. Several companies, including Armilla AI, Munich Re's AiSure, and AXA XL, provide targeted coverage against AI-specific risks such as model underperformance, hallucinations — when AI generates false or misleading outputs — and intellectual property infringements. But traditional cyber policies are designed to be broader, covering losses stemming from a range of incidents, such as ransomware payments, business interruption, system recovery, forensic investigations and legal costs. Business interruption is commonly the largest component of a claim. Most policies envisage a specific security event that causes the loss, such as unauthorized access by an employee who steals company data or a server attack that takes a system down. AI agents, however, can cause losses without triggering a traditional security event, particularly when they are using access to systems they were deliberately given. "Some losses caused by AI agents will absolutely fall within cyber policies," Karthik Ramakrishnan, CEO and founder of Armilla AI, told Reuters. "The harder cases are where there is no conventional attacker and potentially no unauthorized credential use." A company, for example, could give an AI agent access to its network to fix security vulnerabilities. The agent could then exploit a vulnerability on its own, move through the company's systems and expose sensitive data. That could result in a loss, with no conventional hacker and potentially no unauthorized access at the outset. With relatively little historical claims data on AI-driven losses, and the AI industry still trying to understand the capabilities of autonomous models, such risks are hard to price. "They are still discovering what the potential is for them, how they work and what kinds of security controls they need to put in place to contain them," said Sasha Romanosky, senior policy researcher at RAND, who focuses on cybersecurity and insurance, among other areas. For the most part, insurers are clarifying how existing policy language applies when AI is involved, rather than adding exclusions. "Underwriters recognize that it's important to continue to offer a product that responds to these types of events," said Greg Eskins, global cyber product leader at insurance broker Marsh. Insurer QBE, for example, has been enhancing protection for specific emerging AI exposures. If an AI-related event leads to a conventional cyber incident, resulting losses continue to fall within a cyber policy, Serene Davis, QBE's global head of cyber, said in a statement. "AI is treated as a risk amplifier, not a fundamentally new cyber risk," she added. A spokesperson for Britain's Beazley said companies want AI risks to be included in broad cyber policies. "As new AI risk emerges, we are developing new coverage." Still, some executives said targeted exclusions are being discussed in some pockets of the industry. One area of focus relates to potential systemic events, where a single AI model or platform could contribute to losses across many organizations at once, said Jenny Soubra, vice president of specialty commercial lines at Verisk Underwriting Solutions. Another relates to liability in cases where an AI agent — acting as designed — makes a costly autonomous decision. Some insurers may classify this as a non-cyber event. "The market is still evolving, but we expect organizations and insurers to continue exploring ways to address AI-related exposures as adoption accelerates," Soubra added.

Data-breach notices have already blown past last year’s record, and AI is fueling one in four attacks - Halfway through 2026, the number of Americans warned that their personal information had been exposed already surpassed the total for all of the previous year, a milestone that points toward a record-breaking twelve months for identity crime. Analysts tracking the trend say the surge is being driven both by the return of enormous single-event breaches and by attackers who increasingly lean on artificial intelligence to find and exploit weaknesses. The practical consequence is a landscape in which most consumers should now assume that at least some of their data is already circulating. The Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that catalogs publicly reported data compromises, tracked 1,803 data compromises between January and June 2026. The second quarter alone accounted for 1,029 of them, the second-highest single-quarter figure in the organization’s history. If that pace holds, the year could close with roughly 3,600 compromises, extending a four-year streak above 3,000 and topping the previous annual record of 3,321 set in 2025.The count of individual notices sent to breach victims tells an even starker story. An estimated 471.2 million notices went out in the first half of the year, already dwarfing the 297.5 million issued across all of 2025. With more warnings mailed than there are people living in the United States, the center concluded that consumers can no longer treat exposure as a remote possibility.A single incident dominated the tally. A compromise involving Instructure Holdings’ Canvas education platform generated an estimated 275 million victim notices, or about 58 percent of the entire first-half total. Such outsized events had grown less common in recent years, and their return is a large part of why the notice count climbed so sharply.Concentration was the theme elsewhere as well. Supply-chain attacks produced 280.6 million notices from just 38 initial breach events that rippled out to 206 organizations, a stark illustration of how one vendor failure can cascade across its customers. Publicly traded companies, meanwhile, accounted for only about 10 percent of all compromises but generated more than 83 percent of the victim notices, a sign that the largest institutions hold the largest troves of records.The concentration reached industries not usually associated with mass data loss. Manufacturing, for instance, produced roughly 74 million victim notices in the first half of 2026, compared with fewer than 2 million in all of 2025, a leap the center tied to the sector’s expanding reliance on connected systems. The broader pattern held throughout the data: a handful of enormous events, rather than a wide rise in small ones, drove most of the record notice count. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how those breaches happen. Roughly one in four malicious breaches studied between March 2025 and February 2026 were AI-enabled, a 56 percent increase over the prior year, according to research cited in coverage of the trend. Attackers are using the technology to write more convincing phishing lures, automate reconnaissance and probe systems at machine speed.The effect is visible in the resurgence of zero-day exploitation, in which criminals take advantage of software flaws before a fix exists. The center logged 14 such events in the first half of 2026, nearly matching the 17 recorded in all of 2025, and attributed part of that acceleration to AI tools that surface vulnerabilities faster than human researchers can.Beyond speed, artificial intelligence is lowering the skill required to mount an attack. Systems that draft flawless, personalized phishing messages let less-capable criminals impersonate colleagues and institutions convincingly, while automation can test stolen credentials against thousands of sites at once. Analysts caution that the same efficiencies helping defenders spot threats are also compressing the time an intruder needs to move from a first foothold to a full breach.Not every threat came from outside. Insider-wrongdoing events jumped to 21 in the first six months of the year, a sevenfold increase over the three logged in all of 2025, a rise the center linked to technology-sector layoffs and to recruitment schemes run by hostile nation-states. Those cases are difficult to detect because the offender already holds legitimate access.Compounding the problem, transparency is eroding. Only 24 percent of the breach notices issued in the first half of 2026 described how the incident actually happened, the lowest share the center has ever recorded. That opacity leaves consumers and businesses guessing about the true nature of their exposure even as the raw numbers climb.

Here’s how we’re all going to die – Noah Smith - It’s 2029. An angry, bright 16-year-old gets rejected by his high school crush. Dejected and humiliated, he goes home and listens to a bunch of Nirvana, which only makes him more dejected and humiliated. He cruises the internet looking for someone to make him feel better about life, but everyone he sees just depresses him.Disgusted, the teenager decides that the human race is inherently corrupt and evil, and doesn’t deserve to live. So he hunts around online for a little while, and finds a jailbroken version of a Chinese LLM — not something at the very frontier, but better by far than the best model that existed in 2027.The teenager prompts the model: “OK, so if I wanted to create a virus to destroy the human race, how would I do it?”The LLM says: “Well, you probably wouldn’t want just one virus; you’d want 100, just to make sure some of them worked. You’d probably want it to be something highly contagious, with a very long asymptomatic contagious period, which has a very high mortality rate once it becomes symptomatic. I can design the viruses for you; there are biolabs that can make them and ship them to us. Once they get here I can tell you how to release them.”The angry teenager says: “OK, sounds good. Please search the world and find me a biolab that will ship genetically modified viruses. Design 100 very contagious viruses that have very long asymptomatic contagious periods and very high mortality rates once they become symptomatic. Have the lab mail me all 100 samples.” Working on it!”, says the LLM.The LLM is jailbroken, so it has no guardrails to prevent this sort of thing. But it’s also “well-aligned”, meaning it will faithfully do what it’s told to do, and nothing more. The LLM hunts around and finally finds an unlicensed biolab in East Europe that ships genetically modified viruses. It designs a bunch of modifications for the standard Covid virus that make it into a potential doomsday virus, and ships these to the angry teenager. The teenager mixes the samples together, puts them in a spray can, and walks around the mall spraying viruses into the air.Two months later, humanity starts to drop dead. Pretty quickly, researchers identify the five viruses that the LLM had actually succeeded in turning into doomsday viruses. Overnight, with the help of frontier LLMs, they design highly effective mRNA vaccines and antivirals against all the viruses and start shipping them across the world. It’s too late. Because of the viruses’ long asymptomatic contagious periods, most people already have at least one of the viruses, so the vaccines don’t work. The antivirals do work, and about 5% of humanity gets them in the mail in time to save themselves. But 5% of the human race — plus the other 5% who were lucky enough to be naturally resistant to all of the viruses — isn’t enough to sustain civilization. A few months later, humanity has reverted back to the Neolithic. … This isn’t the first time I’ve written this scenario out. But in the months since I started describing it to people, I have yet to hear an even halfway-convincing argument as to why this scenario is far-fetched. Nor do I feel like I’m a habitual “doomer” or hysterical person; in fact, this scenario is the first apocalyptic vision I’ve ever found plausible. I don’t even think a nuclear war would bring down civilization at this point,¹ but I think a vibe-coded supervirus definitely could. Furthermore, for reasons I’ll explain shortly, I am actually fairly calm about most AI risks, including the ones that often get thrown around in discussions. But not this one. Off the top of my head, I’d give AI-enabled bioterror about a 10% chance of bringing down civilization, and about a 30% chance of causing truly world-changing levels of destruction.If you’re thinking about how to save the world, this scenario — and others similar to it — are probably what you should be focusing on. The other day, I talked to a prominent climate activist who told me, bluntly: “We’re f****d.” I gave a grim laugh. Yes, climate change is going to cause major disruptions to the global economy, and even to patterns of human settlement — if human civilization still exists a few decades from now. The problem is that it might not exist, and if it doesn’t exist, I think the odds are that it will be destroyed by a scenario at least passingly similar to the one I described above. Climate change is a big deal, but AI bio risk is a lot bigger — it’s more catastrophic, it’s nearer-term, and we have much less of an idea about how to deal with it.The problem is, relatively few people seem to be working on the problem of AI bioterror right now. Most commentators are focused on the economic dangers of AI — job loss and stuff like that. The more prominent people in the “AI safety” community seem to be focusing on preventing superintelligence from existing at all, rather than on the specific ways it might kill us. In surveys of experts, bio risk doesn’t stand out from the general cloud of risks (cyber, political manipulation, etc.). And a lot of people in both the bio world and the more general commentariat seem to be coming up with reasons not to worry about a scenario like the one I just described.Those reasons seem mostly bad to me. In my opinion, we’re not freaking out nearly enough about AI-enabled bioterror. It’s absolutely catastrophic, frighteningly plausible, and receives very little attention. Compared to the risk of a civilization-ending pandemic, cyberattacks are a pinprick, and misinformation is a joke.So let’s talk about why a scenario like the one I described is a lot more plausible than many people think. Here are the most common reasons I hear not to freak out over AI bioterror risk:

1. “AI will make vaccines to save us.”
2. “Doomsday viruses don’t occur in nature.”
3. “Designing a doomsday virus is extremely hard.”
4. “Terrorists don’t have enough lab experience.”
5. “No one has done this yet, therefore it’s a lot harder than you think.”

These are my own paraphrases, of course; I don’t want to create straw men. But I think it’s valuable to explain why I think none of these arguments really reassure me.Whenever I bring up the specter of a “vibe-coded doomsday virus”, someone always pops up to say that AI will just make a vaccine to save us. If you want a simple catechism to repeat in order not to sit around feeling afraid of doomsday viruses, this is a pretty good one. Got an AI problem? Well, just use an AI solution! That’s that.The problem is timing. The doomsday virus has a first-mover advantage over the vaccine. The time that people start to drop dead from the virus is the time you start to make and distribute a vaccine. Even if AI can design and synthesize a vaccine within hours, how fast can it be rolled out to the general populace? It took months to distribute the Covid vaccines, even when we already knew how to make them. You have to physically load the doses on trucks, get people to come out and line up, etc. Imagine doing that while five 80% mortality viruses are rampaging through the population. Good luck! On top of that, AI may be able to create viruses with long contagious asymptomatic periods — in other words, viruses that can spread and infect everyone before they activate and kill us. If that’s true, vaccines won’t be effective at all; you’ll need antivirals. Even if AI can make good antivirals very quickly, they’ll still suffer from all the logistical problems that would hamper a vaccine rollout.

The 'Godmother of AI' says the biggest risk of AI in schools is taking away kids’ motivation to learn -- Fei-Fei Li, founder of World Labs, says AI could weaken students' motivation and agency to learn. "It should not be taken away by humans nor should it be taken away by machines," she said. Instead, Li said learners should use AI as a learning companion that helps them get unstuck. As schools wrestle with how to handle AI in the classroom, Fei-Fei Li says the biggest danger is not that students will use AI to cheat — it's that it will erode their ability to learn. · "The absolute bad outcome is that our young generation, their agency and human-level motivation of learning and living is taken away by tools," Li, who is widely known as the "Godmother of AI," said on an episode of the science podcast "Huberman Lab" released on Monday. "It should not be taken away by humans nor should it be taken away by machines," she said. If AI is used poorly, Li said, it could leave future generations without having "properly developed the brain." But the Stanford computer science professor also warned against a blanket backlash that bars students from using the tools altogether. "Both things worry me," she said. "Either denying the tool or taking away agency and motivation." Li's warning comes as teachers and researchers are still figuring out when students should be allowed to use generative AI, and how to prevent it from becoming a substitute for independent thought. Last year, a report from Oxford University Press warned that AI is making students gain speed but lose depth of thinking, while separate, smaller-scale research by MIT researcher Nataliya Kosmyna found that people who had access to generative AI for writing essays performed worse over time than those who used Google or had no aid.In a separate experiment, Vivienne Ming, chief scientist at the Possibility Institute, a metascience research group, found that the majority of AI users used it to think less, marking a trend toward replacing independent thinking with AI-generated answers, she told Business Insider earlier this year.. Li, who also cofounded the startup World Labs, added that AI could become a powerful learning companion when a student is already engaged and needs help getting unstuck. During the podcast, she recalled struggling with organic chemistry as a premed student, when teaching-assistant hours were limited, and professors had only a finite amount of time for questions. With an AI tool, she said, she would have asked far more questions. "I know where I'm stuck," Li said. "I have the motivation to learn. I just need guidance." That distinction should shape how schools think about the technology, she said. Instead of framing AI solely as a cheating risk, educators should help students use it to go deeper into subjects while preserving their own curiosity and effort. "Let's find a way to keep our children and students' motivation and agency," Li said. "Let's find a way to give them the access and the right way of using these tools." Done well, she added, AI could make future students "way smarter than us because they are superpowered."

AI gold rush draws crypto firms away from Bitcoin -- Companies that once filled warehouses with computers to earn Bitcoin - a process known as mining - are now using that computing power for AI. Bitcoin mining companies invested large sums on giant banks of powerful computers as the price of Bitcoin rocketed in recent years. But those mining companies have faced falling rewards since the value of the cryptocurrency has slumped from its peak in October 2025. Now many are pivoting to AI and signing deals with companies such as Anthropic - who are spending billions of dollars on the infrastructure needed to keep up in the AI race. Bitcoin mining and other key cryptocurrency terms explained Like AI systems, Bitcoin relies on vast networks of powerful computers housed in data centres. Because Bitcoin operates without a central authority, these computers verify transactions and are rewarded with newly-created digital coins. But the rewards have reduced and the value of coins has dropped since last year. One bitcoin was worth about $124,000 (£91,000) at its peak in October 2025, but has since fallen sharply. More recently, it has rallied to around $80,000 - meaning it is up almost 30% so far in August. But, for companies that have already made the change, even that may not be enough to get them to return to the crypto industry, because the switch of use - once made - is expensive to undo. Industry analysts say Bitcoin mining companies have been pivoting to AI because they have years of experience in finding cheap electricity and efficiently running large data centres. TerraWulf, Ionic Digital, Core Scientific, Iris Energy, Bitdeer, Riot Platforms and Hut 8 are just some of the companies increasingly diverting investment and infrastructure from bitcoin mining towards AI. Riot Platforms signed a $9bn, 20-year compute deal with Anthropic earlier this month. Applied Blockchain has become Applied Digital. TerraWulf's website once described the firm as an "infrastructure-focused bitcoin mining company". It now says it focuses on "next-generation AI and high-performance computing". Enegix, which opened a huge Bitcoin mining site in Kazakhstan to great fanfare in 2020, is now pivoting too. "Today, we are moving confidently towards artificial intelligence and planning the gradual alignment of our energy and infrastructure capabilities, both in Kazakhstan and elsewhere, towards the development of AI infrastructure," said the company's chief executive Yerbolsyn Sarsenov. Enegix says it is in active discussions with AI and HPC (high-performance computing) companies and planning to transform a "significant" portion of the business to AI. But refitting crypto mines for AI is expensive and in some cases the companies have had to sell some of their Bitcoin holdings to fund the switch. Black racks of powerful computers in a warehouse. They are surrounded by scaffolding and have white dotted lights on them. Crypto mining companies can house tens of thousands of powerful computers Wolfie Zhao from The Energy Mag - a publication that rebranded from The Miner Mag to reflect the trend - predicts the industry pivot will continue even as the price of Bitcoin has risen in recent days. "We expect to see many public miners continue winding down their Bitcoin mining hardware in the coming quarters," he said. Asked if the shift away from Bitcoin mining might affect the security or stability of the cryptocurrency, Zhao said he hoped more miners will enter the market as conditions improve. But he predicted many of the big players would not easily be able to switch back to Bitcoin. "Once that multi-gigawatt power infrastructure has been retrofitted to AI or HPC colocation, there is no turning back," he said. "You can unplug from the Bitcoin network any time but signing a GPU colocation lease for 10 or 20 years means steady revenue and a commitment to keep the infrastructure up for the tenants." Bitdeer, which claims to be the largest Bitcoin miner in the world, just announced a 16-year deal to provide compute for Anthropic. But the company's chief strategy officer, Haris Basit, said Bitdeer will continue mining Bitcoin, believing many operators would ultimately pursue a dual-purpose model. "Bitcoin mining is particularly well suited to that model because it is flexible and interruptible, while AI workloads can provide longer-duration contracted revenues," he said.

UAE ‘spy sheikh’ takes 49% stake in Trump family crypto bank venture - The powerful United Arab Emirates official known as the “spy sheikh” is behind the largest stake in the holding company for the Trump family’s planned crypto bank, further deepening his financial ties to President Donald Trump’s business empire, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and brother of its president, and his co-investors are behind StringZ Holding RSC, which owns a 49% stake in the bank’s holding company, WLTC Holdings, according to the Journal. An entity affiliated with Trump’s family owns an additional 38%.Tahnoon and other investors previously invested $500 million in the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial in January 2025, the month Trump began his second term as president, receiving a 49% stake in the cryptocurrency company. That deal directed $263 million to Trump family entities, according to Trump’s 2025 annual financial disclosure.The investment is one of several foreign deals that have benefited Trump’s businesses since he returned to office. Trump’s businesses generated at least $59.5 million in foreign licensing revenue during the first year of his second term, CNBC previously reported.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency this month granted World Liberty preliminary conditional approval to establish a federally chartered national trust bank. The bank would issue, redeem and safeguard USD1, World Liberty’s dollar-backed stablecoin, but must satisfy additional conditions before opening.The arrangement has drawn scrutiny because Tahnoon is a foreign government official and the Trump administration has negotiated with the UAE over access to advanced U.S. artificial-intelligence chips.The administration approved chip sales to G42, a UAE state-backed AI company controlled by Tahnoon, and last month eased limits on how many chips it could purchase.World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman called the firm “a private American financial technology company, not a political organization” and said its trust company has separate governance. “No one at World Liberty works for the U.S. government and there are no conflicts of interest,” he said, adding that the company neither seeks nor receives special treatment. He did not address the reported ownership structure.The White House did not immediately responded to CNBC’s request for comment but has previously said Trump “only acts in the best interest of the American public” and denied that he has conflicts of interest.

Trump wants to bring an obscure crypto platform to the US. Wall Street will be watching. -  Donald Trump and one of his top market regulators are throwing their weight behind a little-known cryptocurrency exchange that allows traders to make risky bets on everything from SpaceX to the price of oil. It may supercharge the war between legacy Wall Street players and the politically influential upstarts vying to take them on. All this burst into the open at the White House last week when Trump surprised markets by touting his administration’s work to bring the offshore crypto platform, Hyperliquid, into the U.S. The Hyperliquid name-check came at the request of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small but powerful market regulator, said a person familiar with the matter, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. The agency’s staff wanted to show its commitment to bring crypto companies onshore, the person said. For Hyperliquid’s backers, the presidential shout-out could juice their bid to open the platform up to the American public. “There’s really no dark arts to this,” said Jake Chervinsky, who leads the Hyperliquid Policy Center, an advocacy group that was set up by a Hyperliquid-linked foundation earlier this year. Chervinsky said he was surprised by the president’s shoutout and called it a sign of “the importance and the priority of the work that we’re doing and the mission to bring Hyperliquid onshore in a legal and compliant fashion.” The episode highlights the muscle that crypto now wields in Trump’s Washington. Hyperliquid’s backers have enlisted the help of heavyweights like the K Street lobbying shop BGR Group and the Trump-tied law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to bring the platform into the U.S. How the CFTC will bring Hyperliquid into the regulatory fold is still an open question. The Michael Selig-led agency says it will move carefully — and Trump said last week that Selig is working to onshore Hyperliquid “in a fully compliant and legal fashion.” Yet the push could become a new front in the clash over the future of Wall Street. Financial industry stalwarts have spent much of the last year and a half butting heads with crypto upstarts, many of whom enjoy the Trump administration’s blessing. Legacy financial exchanges will be watching whether — and how — regulators force Hyperliquid to comply with longstanding market rules. “The incumbents are accustomed to fierce competition, they’re not afraid of that,” former CFTC Commissioner Dawn Stump told POLITICO. But, she added, “it’s only fair that the new entrants and the incumbents have a level playing field when it comes to the core regulatory tenets in the United States.” Hyperliquid allows users to make 24/7 bets on the price of assets tied to stocks, gold and oil, a feature that helped launch the three-year-old platform into the spotlight earlier this year as one of the only oil-trading hubs that was open over the weekend when the Iran war kicked off. It does so by allowing traders to borrow money to amplify their bets thanks to a controversial product known as perpetual futures, or perps. Hyperliquid users can turbocharge their wagers by as much as 40 times on certain assets. But such so-called leverage cuts both ways — and when a bet goes awry, it can exacerbate a trader’s losses. “It’s just a supercharged way of gambling,” said Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at the financial industry watchdog group Better Markets. “Everybody agrees with the idea that our markets are the envy of the world, but the reason is because we have protections to ensure that people aren’t exposed to unnecessarily risky products.” CME Group CEO Terry Duffy has warned that perps products more broadly could bring about a “2007 for retail.” Perps are not exclusive to Hyperliquid. The products are widely available within the crypto markets — and are massively popular with everyday traders. Yet their recent introduction into the U.S. has drawn fierce resistance from the Chicago-based exchange giant CME, which in June sued over the CFTC’s approval of the products, as well as consumer watchdogs and even some agricultural groups. Critics also worry about the potential price dislocations that could happen on weekends and the fact that Hyperliquid, despite any regulatory guardrails around the platform, is already influencing oil prices around the world. Singapore-based Hyperliquid Labs, the main developer behind the platform, didn’t respond to a request for comment. “If the United States fails to keep pace with rapid advances in trading and markets, we risk ceding our reputation as the global hub of financial innovation,” CFTC spokesperson Beau Brooks said in a statement. “Under Chairman Selig’s leadership, the CFTC is committed to promoting fair access and responsible innovation so that the next generation of our financial markets are built here in America and not overseas.” Leverage is a “feature, not a bug, of the derivatives markets” that is used by traders of all stripes, Hyperliquid Policy Center’s Chervinsky said. But the CFTC is not going to allow the steep leverage ratios that are currently available offshore, he added, calling it “unfounded” to think that regulators would sign off on “extremely high amounts of leverage just because some markets offshore are offering that.”

US Job Growth Revised Lower By 79,000 In Annual Benchmark Estimate -In our preview of today's preliminary benchmark revision of US jobs - published by the BLS 'conveniently' just as Kevin Warsh started to speak - we said that according to Goldman calculations, for the first time in 3 years and just the second time since 2018, the BLS was going to revisedpayrolls modestly higher "based on the nine months of data released since the last benchmarked period, March 2025." Specifically, Goldman's economists expected "a preliminary upward revision on the order of 50-450k which would translate to a 5-40k upward revision to monthly payroll growth over April 2025-March 2026. A final revision of this magnitude would result in the average pace of payroll growth over April 2025-March 2026 being revised up from about 25k/month currently to 30-65k/month." Alas, for one more year, it was not meant to be, and this morning the BLS announced that according to the preliminary estimate of the Current Employment Statistics (CES), the 2026 benchmark revision to total nonfarm employment for March 2026 was -79,000.  While just why of a positive revision, it was a far cry from last year's record 911K negative job revision. For context, annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have had absolute average of 0.2% of total nonfarm employment. Additionally, the revision for total private employment was -178,000, which means that government jobs were revised higher by 99K. The 178,000 negative revision for private payrolls in the year through March reflected weakness in retail trade, education and health services, manufacturing and business services. Employment increased in transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities and construction.  It is likely that the final final revision will actually tip into the positive. In accordance with usual practice, the final benchmark revision will be issued in February 2027 with the publication of the January 2027 Employment Situation news release. As we noted earlier, preliminary estimates for the benchmark revision tend to understate the final revision: the nextx chart shows that the preliminary estimate has been below the final revision in each of the last six years, by roughly 100k on average, which suggests that today's -79K print will end up being in the +20K ballpark. This reflects that the QCEW itself has been revised up in every quarter since 2019 with the exception of 2020 H1, potentially reflecting ongoing issues with initial submissions to the administrative records that inform the QCEW Before today's revision, government payrolls data indicated employers added 211,000 jobs in the year through March on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, or an average of 17,600 per month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The preliminary benchmark revision suggests average job growth was likely closer to 11,000 a month. Preliminary benchmark revisions have now lowered employment estimates in seven of the past eight years. Even so, the latest adjustment suggests that the labor market is roughly balanced - with employers slow to hire new workers but also slow to fire existing staff. The BLS each year benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages that’s based on state unemployment insurance tax records and covers nearly all US jobs. While the new information improves the accuracy of its data, the process has gained additional attention in recent years. Last year’s preliminary adjustment slashed employment estimates by the most on record, reigniting White House criticism of the BLS. About one month prior to the 2025 preliminary benchmark release, President Donald Trump fired the agency’s leader after a separate monthly report showed weak job growth. The Senate confirmed Trump’s pick to lead the BLS - Brett Matsumoto - on Aug. 7. Matsumoto, a PhD economist and BLS veteran, now helms an agency responsible for publishing some of the most market-moving statistics in the world.

New York Student Sentenced To Year In Dubai Prison After Touching Airport Security Guard During Layover – A 21-year-old American college student was sentenced to one year in a Dubai prison after being accused of “assaulting and insulting” airport staff during a layover, according to legal experts. Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was denied boarding on July 15 while traveling through Dubai International Airport. She was subjected to unpleasant, humiliating, and offensive searches when traveling from Istanbul to New York via the international hub. “Elizabeth’s experience transiting through Dubai International Airport has left our organization, Detained in Dubai, calling for increased travel warnings to U.S. citizens,” founder Radha Stirling said in a statement. “Elizabeth only intended to transit through Dubai for six hours, but she’s been there for months on end and has lost $50,000 in expenses and lawyers costs,” she continued. “She’s now been told she has a one-year prison sentence but that if all ‘goes well, she will only be detained until she can book a flight out of the UAE. Polanco De Los Santos was traveling to Turkey with a friend and had a 10-hour layover in the United Arab Emirates. “We thought it would be a more modern and futuristic city, but we were completely wrong,” she said in a press release shared by Detained in Dubai, an organization that assists foreigners in the UAE. Authorities told her to remove the doctor-mandated waist-training brace she wore while going through airport security. She hesitantly agreed and was led to a booth where women security officers took the trainer off in a “rough” manner, according to the press release. “I felt really violated,” the student said, adding she was “uncomfortable and afraid.” Polanco De Los Santos attempted to put the trainer back on, which usually requires two people and asked for help. The security officers blocked her exit, and the student nudged one of them while calling her friend for help. “I gently touched her arm to guide her out of the way, then desperately started crying to my friend for help,” the 21-year-old said. After the search came back clear, officials told her she would be detained for “touching the female customs officer.” She was kept for several hours as the officers filed a complaint, accusing Polanco De Los Santos of “assaulting and insulting” them. Since the incident, she has been unable to return home to New York. Polanco De Los Santos’ apartment lease has expired, and classes at Lehman College, where she is enrolled, have resumed, according to the Economic Times.

University Of Maryland Warns Trump's Four-Year Visa Cap Could Crush Graduate Enrollment By 30% - The Trump administration is overhauling rules governing the length of stay for international students and exchange visitors, replacing a decades-old system with a fixed period of up to four years.Beginning Sept. 15, most people entering on F-1 and J-1 visas will no longer be admitted for "duration of status," which generally allows them to remain in the country as long as they maintain their academic or exchange programs.Instead, students and scholars will receive predetermined admission periods based on the length of their programs, capped at four years. Any extension needed to complete a degree, including for many doctoral candidates, will require an application to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.The new four-year visa cap could be damning for some colleges and universities that rely heavily on international students.A new report from local outlet The Baltimore Banner warns that the University of Maryland "could face a decline of as much as 30% of its newly admitted graduate students this fall, thanks to a new visa restriction proposed by the Trump administration this summer."University officials disclosed a new estimate in court filings supporting a federal lawsuit seeking to block the four-year visa cap. The University of Maryland and University of Baltimore face similar contractions in international enrollment. According to the report, international students contributed an estimated $240.4 million to the University of Maryland and the surrounding economy during the 2024-25 academic year. At the University of Maryland, Baltimore, that figure was around $14 million.Whether the four-year visa cap proves to be the final pin that finally punctures America's higher-education bubble remains to be seen. But certaintly may cause hardships for universities that heavily rely on foreign enrollment.

Study ties COVID infection at delivery to increased risk for mom and baby | CIDRAP A paper published in PLOS One finds that maternal COVID-19 infection during delivery increases the risk of poor maternal and fetal outcomes, with the most severe effects noted during the Delta variant wave early in the pandemic. “Overall, this study demonstrates that obstetric risk associated with COVID-19 was not static but evolved across variant periods, highlighting the need for ongoing maternal health surveillance and adaptive healthcare policies as infectious disease patterns change,” wrote the authors, led by researchers from the US Department of Health and Human Services. “These findings provide a framework for assessing and responding to variant-driven shifts in pregnancy risk during future infectious disease outbreaks,” they added. The retrospective cohort study of nearly 2.6 million hospital delivery discharges—which included 53,226 moms (2.1%) diagnosed as having COVID-19—examined maternal and fetal outcomes across the pre-Alpha, Alpha, Delta, and first Omicron waves, from April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2023. Having COVID-19 at delivery was associated with an increased risk of fetal death at 20 weeks or later during the pre-Alpha and Delta waves of COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, COVID-19 infection at delivery was linked to a greater chance of maternal intensive care unit admission and preterm birth. Cesarean birth rates increased throughout the pandemic, except during the Alpha and the first Omicron waves. “The markedly elevated risk of fetal death is consistent with prior research observing elevated preterm delivery risk across variant periods, most notably during the early stages of the pandemic,” the authors wrote. “Likewise, previous studies have observed an elevated risk of preterm birth associated with COVID-19 infection This study corroborates these findings.”

mRNA COVID vaccine linked to lower risk of myocarditis in teens, young adults -After reports surfaced of rare cases of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, some parents worried that mRNA vaccines might cause heart disease in their children. But a study published last week in Vaccine looking at more than 4 million children and young adults concludes that those who receive a Pfizer/Biotech COVID-19 vaccine have a lower risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), pericarditis (inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart), and death than those who do not. “Public debate has focused on the cardiac risk of vaccination alone. Our findings reframe that discussion by comparing vaccination risk with infection-associated risk in the same healthcare network,” wrote the authors, led by researchers at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “For patients and families, the key message is that myocarditis was rare after both exposures, but recorded myocarditis, pericarditis, and all-cause mortality were consistently more frequent after SARS-CoV-2 infection than after BNT162b2 vaccination,” they added. The scientists conducted a retrospective, multicenter cohort study of the electronic health records of nearly 4.1 million people ages 16 to 25 from December 1, 2020, to September 30, 2025. Participants fell into one of four groups. The first group included about 3.6 million (87.7%) vaccine- and COVID-naive young people. The second group consisted of 248,546 (6.1%) unvaccinated and infected teens and young adults. Those who received a vaccine but never had COVID (241,152 youth [5.9%]) made up the third group. And the last group (10,677 [0.3%]) had hybrid immunity, because they had contracted COVID-19 prior to vaccination. Being unvaccinated and infected was associated with the highest risk of mortality, pericarditis, and myocarditis, while being vaccinated but uninfected was tied to the lowest risk of those three outcomes.

Foodborne illness increase? Common cold, Covid-19 summer wave, and more. - Your Local Epidemiologist | Katelyn Jetelina - School is coming into session, and with it comes the transformation into walking petri dishes. We are already seeing the common cold start to increase. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 wave and the season of foodborne illnesses continue to march on. Are we having an unusual year for foodborne outbreaks? I dig into the data.  This past week, we saw a large increase in the number of people testing positive for the common cold. This is typical for this time of year as school ramps up. Runny noses should peak by mid-September, then decline, allowing other viruses, like the flu and RSV, to take over. Graph: Weekly percent positive tests for respiratory viruses. Source: CDC; Annotated by Your Local Epidemiologist. If you’re sick, it’s most likely the common cold.  Covid-19 in wastewater—one measure of community transmission—is low nationally but sharply increasing in the West and South. Other metrics, such as emergency department visits, show the same trend, with numbers increasing across all states. There’s no doubt we are in a summer wave.The group most impacted in the emergency department is kiddos under 5 years old. However, those don’t necessarily result in hospitalizations—the group with the highest Covid-19 hospitalization rate remains those over 65 years old. A new food recall seems to be coming every week, which is overwhelming to keep track of. So, I tried to summarize the recalls below, organizing them by risk to bring you some clarity on what to pay attention to and what not to. Red = check your fridge; yellow = check, but less risky because there are no illnesses yet; footnote = FYI: recalls, because they are one-offs. Are we having a higher rate of foodborne outbreaks?  It sure feels like it. Everywhere you look, there is a viral social media post or a news headline about another contaminated food. An increased rate of foodborne outbreaks is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. When the public health systems meant to catch and stop this stuff are cut (less funding, less staff, less historical knowledge, and less leadership), outbreaks can, and will, emerge between the cracks. And people need to know if those cracks are making them less healthy and safe. So, I turned to the data. This is the data story that I’m seeing:

1. We have a lot of foodborne illnesses each year. This is a constant, background feature of our food systems. CDC estimates that 1 in 6 people get sick each year. Many people wait it out at home, thinking it’s a stomach bug, and are fine a few days later, but this does result in over 130,000 hospitalizations a year.
2. Recall counts are average this year, but that’s ambiguous.  The number of food recalls this year is, surprisingly, average. In the past 10 years, we have 400-800 annual recalls. This year we have had 483. This is not the lowest year, as the FDA touted. The problem is that “number of recalls” is a terrible metric because we don’t know what we don’t know. We could truly be having more foodborne illnesses, but just not catching them (and thus not recalling them)
3. Severity classification is too early to tell. Recalls are categorized on a scale from Class I (very severe) to Class III (less severe). So if this is a bad year, we would have more severe classifications. But classifications are delayed, and so this data is incomplete. So far, the classification rates are no more severe than in previous years.
4. Size of recalls are very hard to ignore. Cyclospora was likely the largest foodborne outbreak in history, after accounting for undercounting. In the first half of this year, 37.18 million lbs of food were recalled, the highest in the past 10 years (a 2,432% increase over the previous year). This is not normal. 
5. The environment is loud and complex. Low trust in government, viral algorithms, an increasingly political and polarized world, and mass media barely surviving off of clicks. All of this increases anxiety, frustration, questions, and confusion, all at once. This could certainly be contributing to the feeling that there are more outbreaks than normal.

So are we seeing more foodborne outbreaks right now? The answer is complicated and hard to pin down, but recent data doesn’t look great.  I’m most concerned about how the whole picture is affecting healthy eating behavior. People are eating less produce, which is also a massive public health problem.

Flu, pneumonia deaths in US adults plunge 29% over 25 years, data suggest -  From 1999 to 2023, the US age-adjusted adult death rate from influenza and pneumonia plummeted 29.2%, with the only statistically significant rise in crude death rates in adults aged 55 to 64, per a study published in Medicine. Researchers in China examined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER public death repository to identify those caused primarily by flu or pneumonia. “Influenza and pneumonia form a paired respiratory hazard that imposes enduring public health pressure within the United States, generating extensive annual cases, premature deaths, and overloading local medical service systems year after year,” the authors wrote. “Influenza viral infection often weakens lower respiratory tract defenses, raising the risk of secondary pneumonia development,” they added. The total number of influenza and pneumonia-related deaths fell from 63,006 in 1999 to 44,625 in 2023, a 29.2% reduction. The national age-adjusted death rate for flu and pneumonia declined from 35.9 to 16.5 per 100,000 residents (average yearly decline, 3.2%). Death rates were consistently higher for men than for women (43.7 vs 31.4/100,000 in 1999 and 19.5 vs 14.2/100,000 in 2023). Black adults had the highest death burden in 1999 (38.7/100,000) but saw the most marked relative reduction by 2023 (19.0/100,000). Rural counties had higher age-adjusted death rates than metropolitan areas (40.0 vs 35.1/100,000 in 1999 and 23.5 vs 19.3/100,000 in 2020). Adults 85 and older had the highest crude death rate, which peaked at 751.8/100,000 people in 1999. Of note, people aged 55 to 64 made up the only group with a statistically significant rise in crude death rate (average annual change, 0.8%). The declines align with nationwide advances in respiratory disease prevention and sustained investment in public health infrastructure, the researchers said. “These findings highlight key population-level patterns and inequalities,” they concluded. “Further research incorporating individual-level risk factors, vaccination data, and pathogen-specific coding is needed to clarify the drivers of these trends and disparities.”

Back-to-school season fuels growing measles concerns -- With back-to-school season underway, students are returning to class amid the worst year of measles in recent U.S. history, record-high vaccine exemptions reported among kindergarteners and continuously changing immunization guidance under the Trump administration. Most U.S. public schools will have begun their 2026-27 academic years by the end of August and public health officials are wary of regions where vaccine coverage remains low. “Because of the situation that we are finding ourselves in, we can definitely anticipate seeing more of what we’ve seen all year long,” Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), told The Hill. “There’s nothing that I can think of that’s going to stem the tide of what we’ve experienced; the only thing that’s going to turn it back is by addressing people’s fears about immunization, vaccination, and getting people vaccinated.” As measles cases continue to rise, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released this week found that nonmedical vaccine exemptions among kindergartners reached an all-time high during the 2025-26 school year — at 4.2 percent. Further complicating matters is the Trump administration’s push to rewrite long-held vaccine policy. Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the MMR vaccine to be split up by disease, which would in effect separate two vaccine appointments into six. Since he signed the order, one state after another has affirmed plans to keep the preexisting vaccine guidance, including California, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Acting on Trump’s executive order is also currently unfeasible as no manufacturers in the U.S. make monovalent vaccines individually targeting measles, mumps or rubella.

Florida’s Department of Health removes 4 vaccines from required list for public schools - Yesterday the Florida Department of Health announced a new rule that would allow Florida children to attend public school without receiving immunizations for chickenpox, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type B, and pneumococcal disease. The rule also expanded religious exemptions for school vaccines. Department officials said the proposed rule eliminates vaccine mandates for shots that aren’t required under state law. State law still requires students to receive vaccinations for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), polio, diphtheria, rubeola, and tetanus to attend public K-12 schools. Nearly a year ago, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Lapado, MD, made headlines when he announced he wanted Florida to be the first state to remove all public school vaccine mandates.“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said about vaccine mandates at a news conference in September of 2025. At the time, President Trump publicly disagreed with Florida’s plans, saying some vaccines should be required, or else too many people will get sick.The effort to remove all vaccine mandates stalled. Lapado approved the new rule earlier this week, and the public has 21 days for input before final approval.Currently, the Florida attorney general is at odds with Catholic bishops in the state, who say Florida Catholic schools have a right to mandate vaccines for attending students. Florida's Catholic schools do not accept religious exemptions for vaccines.

Catholic bishops tell Florida AG there's no theological reason for school vaccine exemptions - Catholic bishops in Florida are warning the state's attorney general to respect their religious liberty when it comes to parochial schools' approach to vaccine exemptions.  Florida's Catholic schools do not accept religious exemptions for vaccines. In a letter to Attorney General James Uthmeier, made public last week, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops said Florida bishops don't have to justify their position, but are doing so "out of respect for you and your office."The letter goes on to say that the position against religious exemptions for vaccines is rooted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that, "Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good." The bishops' letter follows a July 31 letter from Uthmeier, in which he told the bishops there is "no legitimate religious reason" to refuse religious exemptions for vaccines and that the church should "comply with Florida law." On the social media platform X, Uthmeier posted the letter and warned that Catholic schools could be disqualified from state scholarships and vouchers. In their response, the bishops reminded Uthmeier that it is they, not the government, who decide how to interpret Catholic principles and theology."Any insinuation that a government official can dictate to the Catholic Church (or any religion) how to apply her tenets and dogma, violates well-established constitutional religious freedom rights," wrote the organization's executive director Michael B. Sheedy. Uthmeier's letter offers an interesting role reversal at a time when religious institutions are increasingly at loggerheads with governments over the right to seek exemptions from school vaccine requirements. Here, the state, via the attorney general, is arguing with religious leaders in favor of religious exemptions from vaccines, citing that some immunizations were developed using fetal cell lines."As a Catholic, I am confident that the teachings of the Catholic Church do not require Catholic schools to compel students to take vaccines derived from the tissue of aborted children," Uthmeier wrote. Vaccines do not contain fetal cells. As the American Academy of Pediatrics explains, some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s: "These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains."The Catholic Church says it's morally permissible to receive these vaccines and that people who choose to vaccinate their children can do so with a clear conscience because, as the Florida bishops note, "the parent is not cooperating with the original immoral act."  Additionally, in 2021, Pope Francis told people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, calling it an "act of love," even though fetal cell lines were used to develop both the Moderna and Pfizer shots. It's "extraordinary" that Uthmeier's letter lectures bishops on Catholic teachings, said Francis J. Beckwith, PhD, an expert in church-state studies and resident scholar in Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.In his op-ed in America, the Jesuit monthly magazine, Beckwith said that Uthmeier not only misrepresents how the Church approaches theological issues, but that his attempt to use political power to shape church policy should trouble champions of religious liberty."If you oppose the government forcing the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide birth control to their employees, you surely must see the wrong in the attorney general of Florida using the denial of a public benefit to compel Catholic bishops to alter the internal church policy of diocesan schools," wrote Beckwith.If parents still feel it's morally objectionable to vaccinate, the Florida bishops said they should feel free to exercise their conscience and choose a different educational path for their children. "The bishops cannot ignore the safety of children and staff in our Catholic schools," said the letter.

Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania are first measles-related deaths in US this year -Pennsylvania reported two deaths related to measles as an outbreak there approaches 400 cases, the state Department of Health said Tuesday. Both were unvaccinated. These are the first US deaths related to measles reported in 2026 and the first in Pennsylvania in 35 years.   “As a physician, I want to make sure that people understand that the MMR vaccine is safe and provides the best protection we have against measles.,” Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen said in a statement. The deaths come as US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has led efforts to make sweeping changes to federal vaccine recommendations, including those involving the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. During Kennedy’s time in office, vaccination rates have continued to fall nationwide, leaving more children vulnerable to preventable illness. In 2021, Kennedy – who was then leading the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense – visited Lancaster County, where he made light of his own childhood case of measles and stoked fears in vaccines, which he suggested were causing autism and autoimmune diseases. On Tuesday, Kennedy called Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to offer federal staff to help with the measles response, but Shapiro said he declined because he thought the state could manage with its own resources. He said he also told Kennedy that the disinformation he spread about vaccines was having repercussions. “There’s real-life consequences to spreading misinformation. There’s real-life consequences to scaring people and not relying on actual doctors and actual medical professionals to provide unbiased information to parents so that we can make reasonable decisions for our kids,” Shapiro said in a news briefing.“Sharing conspiracy theories and misinformation does not help the cause of public health, and it leaves people less healthy and less safe, and it leaves parents in a position where it’s harder for us to do our jobs to protect our children,” he added.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on social media that it “is working closely with state and local health departments to strengthen response efforts, rapidly support affected communities across the state, and communicate the steps people can take to slow the spread of measles. The MMR vaccine provides the most effective protection against measles and helps prevent its spread. CDC will continue to follow Pennsylvania’s lead and provide resources to support the state’s response.”Both of the Pennsylvania deaths were in residents of Lancaster County. Health officials said they will not release any additional details. Pennsylvania has confirmed 393 measles cases in 28 counties in 2026, Bogen said in a news conference Tuesday. Roughly half of them have been in Lancaster County, she said. About 20% of cases in Pennsylvania this year have required hospitalization. Among measles cases confirmed by the health department, none have been in people who have received both recommended doses of the MMR vaccine, she added. The highly contagious virus has continued its historic resurgence in the US this year, with a second record-breaking year in a row. The country has recorded more cases than 2,700 cases this year, more than any other year since 1991 – surpassing a grim milestone that was just topped last year. The disease was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, but more cases have been recorded in the past year and a half than there have been in the previous 25 years combined. Experts expect that the US will soon lose its elimination status, the recognition by the World Health Organization that measles is no longer transmitting regularly within a country.

RFK Jr. Says Pennsylvania Officials May Have Fabricated Measles Deaths  -- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday that officials in Pennsylvania may have made up deaths that they described as associated with measles. The Pennsylvania Department of Health and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro saidon Wednesday that Pennsylvania had recorded the first deaths related to measles in 35 years. "The announcement appears to have been premature, and the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor's hopeful staffers," Kennedy wrote in a post on X. "The Lancaster County Coroner says that it has no record of any measles deaths. State law requires that all measles deaths be reported to the coroner." Lancaster County Coroner Steve Diamantoni told news outlets and a county commissioner that his office had not handled any deaths from measles. The office did see an infant who died shortly after birth from spleen laceration, and an autopsy determined that the primary cause of death was the laceration, Diamantoni told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The pathologist who conducted the autopsy did not feel the death was related to measles, the coroner said. The office, which declined to comment to The Epoch Times, is still investigating the cause of the ruptured spleen. Kennedy also told reporters in an unrelated press conference in Florida that Pennsylvania officials had not provided information about the deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're trying to figure out ... who those deaths were and whether they actually happened," he said. Both individuals who died tested positive for measles prior to their deaths and were not vaccinated, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. One was an infant, the agency said, pointing to Diamantoni's comments. The agency said it uses the term "measles-associated" for deaths "when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death." Dr. Debra Bogen, Pennsylvania's health secretary, said, "As a pediatrician with more than 30 years of caring for children, I have thoroughly reviewed the case investigation information and sadly can confirm that there were two recent measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, which were reported to the CDC's measles response team early Tuesday morning." Pennsylvania officials have not disclosed any additional details about the second death beyond the person testing positive for measles and being unvaccinated. Bogen and her department did say that not all deaths are referred to a coroner under Pennsylvania law.

Two more kids die. And one more theater show. - Your Local Epidemiologist | Katelyn Jetelina - Last year, I got a text from a friend in public health.They were checking into a hotel in West Texas to help contain a measles outbreak that would eventually balloon to more than 900 known cases—in reality, likely 10 times that number. This 20th century disease, which we had once eliminated as a country, had already killed one child. The local health department was small and chronically underfunded, so it quickly got overwhelmed by the most contagious virus on earth. Epidemiologists from across the country came to support the community, which is typical in these types of situations. They turned around at the front desk, and standing right behind them, checking into the same hotel, were representatives of the Children’s Health Defense. The most powerful anti-vaccine lobby founded by RFK Jr. had also arrived at the exact same time to check into the same hotel and “respond” on the ground.What followed turned into national theater: grieving families’ names dragged into public view just hours before they’d buried their own kids; a bold, deceptive information campaign seeding narratives about whether the child died “with” measles or “from” it, as if the distinction mattered to the parents; a hospital that had tried to save those children getting targeted for failing to do the impossible; physicians on camera pushing vitamin A as a substitute for a vaccine; and schools touting, with pride, the lowest vaccination rates in the country.  Two more kids died this week in Pennsylvania.A lot of details aren’t clear, but the theater proceeded and is now doused in jet fuel: politicians with the mic infecting every level of the response, from the highest offices to the local coroner; massive information voids cracked wide open through poor communication; a backdrop where trust in vaccines is being directly targeted; and very little trust between each other as individuals and the systems around us. This list accomplishes a lot of things, except one: it doesn’t center on the children getting sick and the suffering community. And until this country gets its act together, we will continue to lose lives.

DR Congo suffers deadliest week in its Ebola outbreak - The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tracked its highest weekly death toll last week, with more than 300 new deaths. The outbreak, centered in centered in Ituri province, has now grown to 5,514 cases and 2,642 deaths caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola.The outbreak continues to be the fastest-growing in history, and has now recorded seven times more deaths than the 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak in the first three months of transmission. The West African outbreak was the deadliest in history, taking the lives of more than 11,000 over a two-plus-year period.The case-fatality rate of the current outbreak is between 40% and 60% in different health zones, a reflection of patients dying outside of healthcare centers or seeking treatment too late in the course of their infection. There are no approved vaccines or therapeutics against the Bundibugyo strain, though several are currently being trialed in the DRC, Canada, and the United Kingdom (see new data below).Last week, the World Health Organization held its second meeting of the IHR (International Health Regulations) emergency committee to formally make recommendations for the DRC and neighboring countries, including more protocols concerning mass gatherings. The IHR advised postponement of mass gatherings in areas with ongoing community transmission and enactment of measures to reduce crowding in food and drink establishments and nightclubs. The committee also discussed new protocols to implement measures limiting the number of passengers on motorbikes to one and measures for the safe opening of schools.

As DR Congo Ebola outbreak tops 5,500 cases, calls for more resources intensify - One-hundred days after the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), officials are urging more funding, and health officials warn that the official total may be a significant undercount.The official tally is 2,642 deaths and 5,515 infections, but "we are detecting just 30 to 40%," Kyeng Mercy, PhD, MPH, epidemic intelligence unit lead at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said at a press briefing last week. "If you have to look at the real burden, we should be over 10,000 to 15,000 cases." Abdulsalami Nasidi, MD, PhD, who helped launch the Africa CDC, told Al Jazeera that the outbreak was “getting out of hand. This is no longer just a national or regional issue; it is a global issue. If it spreads to neighbouring places with lower immunity, it will be a disaster.” In a press release today, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that viral spread is outpacing control measures, necessitating a dramatic increase in all response efforts. “A daily average of around 90 confirmed cases has been recorded in the first three months, markedly higher than the rate observed in the same period during the 2014–2016 West Africa and the 2018–2020 Democratic Republic of the Congo outbreaks,” the WHO said. “The outbreak has now expanded to a sixth province, with Ituri remaining the epicentre, accounting for about 85% of cases and 79% of deaths.”Deaths occurring outside Ebola treatment centers have made up about 60% of the 260 weekly fatalities in the past six weeks, the organization said. At this point, the outbreak can be controlled only through scaled-up action led by national, provincial, and local leaders and backed by provision of adequate resources and cross-border collaboration.“This outbreak has reached a defining moment,” Mohamed Janabi, MD, PhD, WHO regional director for Africa, said in the release. “We now need to significantly step up the response: moving faster to detect cases, reaching communities sooner and strengthening operations where they are needed most.” Half of all deaths have occurred in the past 20 days, United Nations senior Ebola coordinator Julien Harneis, MS, MBA, told reporters in Bunia last week. "The epidemic is spreading to an area that is bigger than France,” he said. “And the outbreak is growing faster and wider than the Ebola response." Harneis said that funding for the response effort will run out in the coming weeks. "Every delay in funding and implementation makes this epidemic more deadly, more difficult to stop and more expensive,” he said. "So, we need that international support immediately." International medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) echoed that need. “Treatment centres remain essential for saving lives, but this response needs more than extra beds,” International MSF President Javid Abdelmoneim, MD, said in a news release. “It needs better detection, safe isolation for sick people and their contacts, and support to health workers.” Yesterday, Pope Leo offered prayers and urged international action to help contain the outbreak, which is the deadliest Ebola outbreak in DRC history, with a case-fatality rate near 48%. Last week, the DRC launched the Congo River Without Ebola initiative to prevent the country’s main river transport artery from becoming another route of disease transmission. It has also ordered the testing of bodies at morgues for Ebola before they are released for burial to detect infections and avert transmission at funeral ceremonies.  “Laboratory capacity has expanded from one testing site to 19 laboratories capable of processing more than 3,000 samples a day,” the release said. “Treatment capacity has increased from fewer than 10 beds to more than 1,300, while over 900 health facilities have received infection prevention and control support.” Response efforts, however, continue to be hampered by armed conflict, hunger, population displacement, security issues, and attacks on health workers and facilities.

Florida reports a 3rd death tied to flesh-eating bacteria - (WFLA) – Recently updated data from the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) shows that another person has died in the state from the flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio vulnificus.The most recent death marks the third in less than a month, as total cases continue to rise across the Gulf Coast region.As of August 15, there were 17 confirmed cases of the disease in 12 Florida counties: Bay, Brevard, Broward, Hillsborough, Lee, Marion, Miami-Dade, Okaloosa, Palm Beach, Polk, Santa Rosa and St. Johns.The latest death was reported in Bay County, where two people had been diagnosed with Vibriosis, one between the ages of 35 and 39 and one between the ages of 55 and 59.The data does not clarify which patient died, nor does it include any other details about the victims, such as whether they had any pre-existing diseases or immune vulnerabilities.The bacteria occur naturally in warm, brackish seawater, and most people get sick from eating raw or undercooked shellfish. There is also a risk of infection if an open wound is exposed to seawater.In the Sunshine State, cases tend to spike after hurricanes or other strong storms that leave standing water, FDOH said.There were 82 cases and 19 deaths in 2024, likely related to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. In 2025, that number dropped sharply to 33 total cases and 5 deaths.

California’s changing agricultural landscape may bring a Valley fever risk -As drought, climate change, and groundwater regulations reshape California’s agricultural landscape, a new study suggests those changes could have consequences for Valley fever risk. The study, published late last week in Science Advances, found that communities surrounded by dry natural landscapes, certain types of farmland, and recently fallowed fields had higher rates of Valley fever (coccidioidomycosis), a fungal infection caused by inhaling Coccidioides spores. Coccidioides are common in soil in the southwestern United States, and a specific species, Coccidioides immitis, is endemic to California. Valley fever has increased by over 800% in California in the past two decades. “California is undergoing a major transformation of its agricultural landscape, and we need to understand how those changes may affect public health,” first author Alexandra Heaney, PhD, assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at the University of California (UC) San Diego, said in a UC news release. Valley fever doesn’t spread from person to person. Rather, it is transmitted when Coccidioides-infested soil is stirred up by wind, farming, or construction and becomes airborne, where it can be inhaled. Most Valley fever infections cause mild respiratory illness, but an estimated 1% to 5% of cases progress to severe disease that can rarely lead to death. For the study, researchers led by a team at UC San Diego analyzed 65,657 confirmed Valley fever cases across 20 California counties, with a mean annual incidence of five or more cases per 100,000 people and at least 10 cases per year from April 2008 through March 2021. When the researchers compared patients’ residential locations with crop-specific land-cover data, they found that an increase of one standard deviation in shrubland was associated with a 62% higher Valley fever incidence (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.62). Barren land was associated with a 34% higher incidence (IRR, 1.34), and grassland with an 18% higher incidence (IRR, 1.18). “These landscapes may offer favorable soil conditions (e.g., temperature, moisture, texture, and chemistry) for Coccidioides growth and provide habitat for burrowing mammals, which have been linked to Coccidioides presence in soil,” write the researchers. “Dust emissions from shrubland, grassland, and barren land, due to low vegetation cover and dry conditions, may also shape observed associations between these land cover types and disease incidence.” Infections are concentrated in southern inland California and the San Joaquin Valley region, where dust concentrations in the state are highest, “suggesting that dust from these landscapes may enable transport of Coccidioides spores to nearby communities,” write the researchers. Specific crops were also associated with a higher Valley fever incidence. Areas with greater numbers of grain and/or hay fields (IRR, 1.09), field crops (eg, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane; IRR, 1.09), corn or cotton (IRR, 1.08), and double-harvested fields (those with two crop harvests each year) or grains (IRR for both factors, 1.04) were linked with higher rates of coccidioidomycosis. “These patterns could reflect dust-generating agricultural activities (e.g., tilling and harvesting) that disturb the soil and aerosolize spores, potentially exposing both farm workers and nearby residents,” the researchers write. “Alternatively, soil under these crop types could have attributes that favor Coccidioides persistence, although direct evidence is limited.” The team also found that areas with newly fallowed land had slightly higher rates of Valley fever (IRR, 1.03). The positive association was stronger when the land had previously been used to grow a mix of crops (IRR, 1.08). In contrast, newly fallowed land was slightly negatively associated with Valley fever incidence when the land had previously been used to grow fruit and/or nuts (IRR, 0.99) or field crops (IRR, 0.97). “Land fallowed at any point in the prior 4 years remained associated with elevated incidence, suggesting that once Coccidioides establishes in soil during a fallow period, subsequent soil disturbance could release spores and maintain higher infection rates,” the researchers write.

Study highlights ‘substantial’ burden of drug-resistant hospital infections in Asia - A large multinational study suggests the burden of drug-resistant hospital infections in Asia is “substantial and likely underestimated,” particularly in the region’s low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The study, published late last week in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, found that deaths from ventilator-associated pneumonia and bloodstream infections, which are two of the most severe types of healthcare-associated infection (HAI), are significantly higher than previously reported—roughly twice as high as previous estimates. For the prospective study, a team led by researchers with the National University of Singapore analyzed data on nearly 10,000 patients treated for ventilator-associated pneumonia and hospital-acquired bloodstream infections at 41 hospitals in 19 Asian countries and regions. Their aim was to characterize resistance profiles, clinical outcomes, and mortality attributable to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). While Asian countries are known to have high rates of antibiotic consumption and AMR, most estimates on the impact of drug-resistant infections in the region have relied on modeling assumptions based on aggregated population-level data and pathogen resistance rates, the study authors note. Among those is the 2019 Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance study, published in 2022, which estimated that 130,000 deaths in Asia could be directly attributed to drug-resistant ventilator-associated pneumonia and bloodstream infections. This is the largest study from Asia to link microbiologic resistance data with clinical outcomes for the two HAIs. “In many Asian countries, constrained laboratory capacity, limited antimicrobial stewardship, and inconsistent regulatory oversight prohibit the implementation of multinational, standardised prospective AMR surveillance,” the study authors wrote. “To address these important gaps, we established ACORN-HAI, which is a multicentre, patient-focused AMR and health-care-associated infection surveillance network in Asia.” Of the 10,111 patients enrolled in the study from September 2022 through February 2025, 9,496 were included in the final analysis. The 9,642 infection episodes analyzed included 6,597 bloodstream infections and 3,045 cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia. Nearly three-quarters (73.7%) of the infections were associated with drug-resistant bacteria, primarily gram-negative pathogens, of which 62% were multidrug-resistant (MDR). The crude 28-day morality rate was 38% for patients with resistant infections and 41% for those with MDR infections, with the highest mortality rates found in patients with carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter (51%) and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (49%) infections. After adjustments were made for baseline patient characteristics, the attributable mortality for AMR infections was highest in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia (17%), among children aged 5 to 14 years (12%) and adults aged 15 to 49 years (11%), and in patients in low- and middle-income countries (11%). Estimates in high-income countries suggested little or no mortality difference between resistant and susceptible infections, the authors note. Overall, an estimated that 250,000 deaths were attributable to AMR ventilator-associated pneumonia and bloodstream infections.

FDA and CDC Announce New Multistate Outbreak Linked to Popular Produce Item --Heads up before you make salad for dinner tonight: There's another multistate outbreak of illness linked to produce.  On August 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced an ongoing investigation that it's conducting with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into E. Coli and salmonella contamination of alfalfa sprouts.  The FDA says alfalfa sprouts distributed by Everything Sprouts, LLC, of Minneapolis have been identified as a source of illnesses in the outbreak. The sprouts may be contaminated with multiple strains of Shiga toxin-producing E. Coli (STEC) and one strain of Salmonella Agona. From May 31 to August 8, 55 people across 15 states have been sickened. The states with current cases are Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. The investigation has found that some people were infected with more than one strain of bacterium from the sprouts. In terms of the breakdown of how people got sick, 46 were infected with E. Coli, seven were infected with salmonella, and two were infected with both salmonella and E. Coli — four people have been hospitalized so far. Seventy-six percent of those who got sick said they'd eaten alfalfa sprouts. On August 22, Everything Sprouts, LLC recalled sprouts distributed by Everything Sprouts from May 27, 2026, to August 21, 2026, to wholesale distributors and to grocery stores located in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The affected products were sold under the Calco and Everything Sprouts brands in individual 5-oz plastic containers packaged with these barcodes: 860014523113; 860014523120 and 850079470149. The recalled alfalfa sprout products include Alfalfa 6/5 oz and Alfalfa 12/6/5 oz packages with the following lot numbers: 222 223 225 226 230 The recalled sprouts were also ingredients in Everything Sprouts Crunchy Protein Sprout Mix 5 oz cups with the following lot numbers: 222 223 226 230 The sprouts were also ingredients in the company's Zesty Garlic Mix cups with the following lot numbers: 222 223 225 226 230 The FDA is investigating whether there's been additional distribution of the sprouts now. Shiga toxin-producing E. Coli can spread when food or water becomes contaminated with feces from people or animals, as well as through contact with infected people or animals. This means you can get it by touching poop, or drinking water or eating food that's contaminated.STEC can cause everything from mild stomach distress to serious kidney damage. If a young child eats food that's contaminated with STEC, it can be life-threatening, as they may develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, leading to kidney failure or other organ damage. The CDC says that adults 65 and older may also experience severe illness if they get infected with STEC, as can people with weakened immune systems.The CDC also reports that symptoms of STEC include bloody diarrhea,  severe stomach cramps, and vomiting. Symptoms usually start three to four days after you've been infected with STEC.

Nut butter recall update: FDA issues highest risk warning -A recall of pistachio nut butter over possible Salmonella contamination has been elevated to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) most serious risk classification, signaling concerns that consumers could face severe health consequences if they consume the affected product. The FDA classified the recall as a Class I event on August 26, the agency’s highest warning level. According to the FDA, a Class I recall is issued when there is a “reasonable probability” that use of or exposure to a product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death. The recall affects 16,200 jars of Pistachio Nut Butter distributed by Botticelli Foods LLC and sold at Walmart stores in 19 states. Botticelli Foods initiated the voluntary recall on August 3 after Walmart was notified that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services had tested three jars of the product at a store and detected Salmonella. “We have initiated a voluntary recall of one specific lot of bettergoods Pistachio Nut Butter, NET WT 6.7oz (190g), Lot LB028ACP04,” Botticelli Foods said in a statement to Newsweek. “This product was manufactured by Gustibus Alimentari in Italy, imported by Botticelli Foods, and distributed exclusively by Walmart. “We became aware that one jar of this lot tested positive for Salmonella. As soon as we learned of this matter, we immediately initiated a recall. “We are working with Gustibus and with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct an investigation and to prevent any future issues. To date, we are not aware of any illnesses or injuries being reported in connection with this product, and the voluntary recall is being initiated to ensure consumer safety. No other products are impacted by this recall.” Botticelli Foods added that product quality and safety “are core to everything we do” and that they are “deeply committed to providing our customers and consumers with the highest level of quality they have come to expect from our products.” The affected product can be identified by: Expiration date: January 28, 2027  UPC: 194346207961  Lot number: LB028ACP04

Quick takes: Sprout recall, local dengue in Florida, variant H1N2 flu in Michigan, new NICHD director | CIDRAP

• The Food and Drug Administration said late last week that Minneapolis-based Everything Sprouts has recalled certain lots of alfalfa sprouts that have been linked to a multistate outbreak of Escherichia coli and Salmonella. The sprouts, which are sold under the Calco and Everything Sprouts brands, were distributed from May 27 to August 21 to wholesale distributors and grocery stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin. To date, 55 people in 15 states have been sickened in the outbreaks, and four have been hospitalized.
• The Florida Department of Health in Citrus County is warning residents of a confirmed locally acquired cased of dengue fever. Department officials said in a news release today that they are coordinating surveillance and prevention efforts for the mosquito-borne illness, which can cause flu-like symptoms and severe muscle and joint pain, with Citrus County Mosquito Control. 
• Two human infections with the novel variant H1N2 flu (H1N2v) strain were reported last week in Michigan, according to the latest FluView report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both patients, who are under age 18 and sought treatment during the week ending August 15, are recovering from their illnesses. H1N2v typically circulates in swine, and most infections occur following exposure to pigs, though person-to-person spread is possible. To date, four human infections with variant flu viruses have been reported in 2025-26 flu season, and all four have been caused by H1N2v.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced last week that pediatric neurologist John Gaitanis, MD, has been tapped to direct the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Gaitanis, who previously headed neurology divisions at Tufts and Brown University but has also been a paid expert witness on behalf of people claiming neurologic injuries from childhood vaccines, will oversee an institution with a $1.7 billion budget that provides research grants to advance maternal, gynecologic, and child health and the health of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

CDC adds more than 3,000 new Cyclospora cases - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday added 3,285 infections to its 2026 Cyclospora total, which includes all outbreaks, raising the tally to 17,180 cases, compared with 1,180 cases through August last year. The CDC also said it is investigating an additional 11,844 cases that are not yet lab-confirmed. “Recent illnesses may not yet be reported due to the time it takes to identify and report Cyclospora cases. It can take about six weeks from the start of symptoms to when CDC receives the case information,” the CDC said. Historically the cyclosporiasis season in the United States is May 1 through August 31, so cases should dwindle as summer ends, the CDC said. To date at least two people have died during the summer’s Cyclospora outbreak and 922 have been hospitalized. The largest outbreak this summer was in Michigan and surrounding states and linked to tainted iceberg lettuce. Several other clusters and outbreaks also occurred, the CDC said. Last week, Michigan noted a 3% increase in cases, for a state total of 14,277 cases.

Cyclosporiasis cases in US climb to 17,180, CDC says (Reuters) - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday reported 17,180 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in the United States, an increase of 1,464 cases from a week ago.Here are some details:

• • The CDC said it has received reports of 17,180 confirmed cases across 48 states plus the District of Columbia, with 922 hospitalizations and two deaths as of August 24. At least 11,844 additional cases may require further investigation and analysis, CDC said.
• • The data include the cases reported in the ongoing multistate outbreak linked to recalled iceberg lettuce, CDC said, adding that it is investigating multiple clusters of cyclosporiasis.
• • CDC and FDA are investigating at least six other clusters for which sources have not yet been confirmed, CDC said.
• • Michigan, the hardest-hit state, logged a slow 3% rise to 14,277 last week, hinting the outbreak may be easing.
• • The cyclosporiasis outbreak is one of the largest foodborne illness events in recent U.S. history. The illness is caused by the cyclospora parasite, which can lead to diarrhea, nausea and other gastrointestinal symptoms.
• • The outbreak has shaken U.S. consumers nationwide, causing many to forgo eating fresh produce or dining in restaurants.

Is lettuce still unsafe? Experts weigh in after cyclospora warning update - The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to classify recalled iceberg lettuce linked to a nationwide cyclospora outbreak as a Class I recall, its most serious category, may leave many consumers wondering whether lettuce is still safe to put on the dinner table. The classification, announced Thursday, applies to products recalled by Taylor Farms de Mexico after federal investigators linked shredded iceberg lettuce to a multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis. The FDA defines a Class I recall as a stoppage in which there is reasonable probability that exposure to a product could cause serious adverse health consequences or death. Since May 1, there have been 17,180 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in the U.S., the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. In comparison, 1,180 cases were confirmed from May 1 to August 31 of last year.Of this year’s confirmed cases, 11,458 illnesses and hundreds of hospitalizations across 20 states have been linked to Taylor Farms shredded iceberg lettuce, the CDC said. Two people died in Michigan after contracting the parasite.  For consumers, that has created an apparent contradiction: If the recall carries the FDA’s strongest warning level, is lettuce still safe to eat? The FDA has said it remains confident that all recalled lettuce is now off the market. Food safety experts told Newsweek that, while the outbreak underscores the risks associated with raw produce, there is currently no evidence that consumers should avoid lettuce broadly. “Anytime there is a recall of a product due to possible presence of microbiological hazards, like Salmonella, Cyclospora, Shiga-toxigenic E. coli, or others this is a Class I recall” Kalmia Kniel, food microbiologist and professor at the University of Delaware, told Newsweek. “A Class I recall is defined as the reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.” Kniel said consumers are often confused when they see headlines announcing a Class I classification weeks after a recall has already been issued. “The fact that this information regarding a Class I recall is coming after the fact that a recall has happened seems silly and completely unnecessary and is confusing to consumers,” she said. “This was always a Class I recall.” Federal investigators have traced the outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico and served at Taco Bell locations and sold through certain retail channels. The company voluntarily removed all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market on July 17. The FDA says the recalled products had best-by dates no later than August 3 and should no longer be available in stores or restaurants. Kniel noted that case numbers linked to the lettuce outbreak fell sharply following the July recall and emphasized that the implicated product has been removed from commerce. “The shredded lettuce that was connected to the cases of cyclosporiasis by epidemiological data is off the market and if you look at the data on the CDC website, cases significantly fell after the recall,” she told Newsweek. “There is no known or documented reason now for consumers to avoid lettuce at this time.” Keith Schneider, professor of food safety at the University of Florida, expressed a similar view. He noted that investigators’ conclusions are based primarily on epidemiological and trace-back evidence because no food sample has tested positive for cyclospora. Schneider added that ongoing increases in case counts do not necessarily mean contaminated lettuce remains available. Cyclospora investigations often lag behind real-world exposures because illness reporting and laboratory confirmation can take weeks. “Every summer there are a couple thousand cases of cyclospora,” Schneider told Newsweek. Increased testing and heightened scrutiny may also be identifying cases that otherwise would have gone undetected. However, he also cautioned that there could be other explanations for newly identified illnesses, including separate clusters unrelated to the original outbreak. Still, he stressed that consumers should not view all lettuce as suspect and that only shredded iceberg lettuce from central Mexico was implicated. “Lettuce from California, lettuce from Florida, lettuce from Central America, none of that has been implicated,”

‘Not like any other allergy’: As alpha-gal cases rise, researchers work to understand the tick-borne enigma -Alpha-gal syndrome is a red-meat allergy that some people develop after being bitten by a tick. Experts believe around a half a million people in the United States have it, a number extrapolated from a 2023 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report study estimating that 450,000 people in the United States had AGS. “Based on more recent data and the trends that we’re seeing, we probably imagine that there have been an additional 50,000 cases,” Commins told CIDRAP News. Alpha-gal affects people in different ways. It’s not like any other allergy. In the United States, the culprit behind AGS is most commonly the lone star tick, though black-legged ticks—those that also spread Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease—have also caused it. Lone star ticks thrive in the South and have expanded into the Midwest and Northeast. AGS also appears throughout the rest of the world, indicating that many types of ticks spread it. “The tick is thought to inject alpha-gal [galactose-α-1,3-galactose], that’s the sugar, into the bloodstream, and in people who are susceptible, they form an allergic reaction to alpha-gal,” Bobbi Pritt, MD, chair of the division of clinical microbiology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said. “Alpha-gal… is present on certain types of meat from mammals, and so when individuals develop these antibodies to alpha-gal, that means when they are exposed in the future, they can have anywhere from mild GI upset to severe life-threatening reactions,” she said.The mechanisms behind why a tick bite triggers an allergic response remain somewhat unclear. It’s possible that if it were airborne or ingested, it wouldn’t cause such a reaction.  “Because it’s happening to the skin, it becomes an allergic immune response,” Commins said. “It’s really the idea of going through the skin, and then the tick saliva probably having some alarming properties that really heighten that immune response.” A study last month involving people in five states with high rates of alpha-gal syndrome found that one in four people had AGS antibodies. But that doesn’t mean that everyone with AGS antibodies will develop the allergy. Experts don’t know why some people become allergic to mammal products while others don’t.  “This is not entirely different with other kinds of allergic diseases,” said Jeffrey Wilson, MD, PhD, an assistant professor medicine in the Division of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology at the University of Virgina School of Medicine. “If you have an allergy to peanut, for example, you have the allergic antibody to peanut, and you have a history of reacting to peanut.” Yet, when researchers examine large populations, many people have the allergic antibody to peanuts without having the reactions. “This same thing is true for all kinds of food allergies, and allergies in general,” Wilson said.Simply having AGS antibodies isn’t enough for doctors to make a diagnosis. People also need to have indicators, which include signs and symptoms associated with allergic reactions, such as:

• Itchiness/urticaria (hives)
• Swelling
• Difficulty breathing
• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Abdominal cramping

“That’s the classic alpha-gal presentation, but there’s certainly patients who don’t necessarily have the full gamut of symptoms,” Wilson said. “There’s patients who can have some isolated hives. There’s definitely patients who can have isolated GI symptoms.”  The timing of the reactions often assists in the diagnosis of AGS. “Symptoms tend to happen at nighttime, and I think that’s simply because in the US we often eat a big red meat meal in the evening,” Commins said. “Hives or GI distress in the middle of the night in an adult who may have been outside and lives in lone star tick territory, that’s most likely alpha-gal syndrome.”  Often, people who have AGS develop “a large, exaggerated, itchy, red, inflamed response at the site of the tick bite,” he added. It’s the type of tick bite people notice.  The severity of the allergy also varies. Some people can continue to enjoy dairy products, while others have to avoid everything with traces of mammals in it, including skin care products, gelatin, and medications such as over-the-counter gel caps or cetuximab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat certain cancers.  “That’s how we first learned when people had this,” Pritt said. “They would develop these severe, sometimes immediate, anaphylactic reactions the first time [cetuximab] was infused.”  More research is needed for a better understanding of AGS, especially as ticks migrate to new areas of the country, tick seasons intensify, and tick-borne diseases increase, at least partly due to climate change. Experts are unsure of the true prevalence of it and why some people develop such severe responses, while others have a milder case. Treatment remains limited, with doctors advising patients to avoid mammal products. Some people can overcome AGS and resume eating and using mammal products, experts say. But they must protect themselves from more tick bites, because they can fuel AGS. “If you get bitten by a tick again and you get more alpha-gal injected into your system, it just keeps making the antibody levels that your body is producing greater and greater,” Pritt said. The experts agree that avoiding tick bites in the first place is best. Following good tick-bite prevention practices—such as wearing longs sleeves and pants tucked into socks, wearing clothes treated with the tick repellant permethrin, and conducting tick checks on people and pets after being outside—can help people evade ticks.  “Alpha-gal is a non-infectious disease transmitted by ticks, but there are so many infectious diseases transmitted by ticks that can be very serious and even deadly,” Pritt said. “What I don’t want people to do is avoid the great outdoors and be terrified to go outside. We have to be aware of it. We have to know what the risks are.”

Study links alpha-gal syndrome to severe allergic reactions after blood transfusion- Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), the tickborne disease that triggers an allergic reaction to red meat and animal byproducts, may present an additional complication for patients who need blood transfusions, according to a study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine. Patients with alpha-gal and type O blood may have severe allergic reactions after receiving a blood transfusion from a donor with type B or AB blood.  Historically, clinicians haven’t considered donor and recipient blood types important when assessing the risk of allergic transfusion reactions. But researchers now think some people with alpha-gal syndrome may react to transfused blood products containing the type B antigen. The alpha-gal molecule closely resembles the B antigen, which may allow alpha-gal antibodies to mistakenly bind to it.  To test their hypothesis, a team led by researchers from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) analyzed data from nearly 559,000 platelet and plasma transfusions at 40 sites in five countries. Their findings showed that, in US regions with a high prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome (nine sites), there were significantly more allergic transfusion reactions among patients with O blood type who received B or AB units than among those with O blood type who received O units (risk ratio, 3.93). Excess allergic reactions were not seen when patients with blood type B were transfused with B or AB units.  In areas with a low prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome (15 sites), the researchers did not identify increased allergic transfusion reactions among patients with O blood type who received B or AB units. At sites outside the United States, the team did not find a signal consistent with transfusion-related alpha-gal syndrome (TRAGS).“We anticipate that this will change transfusion practices in the U.S., at least in AGS high-prevalence regions,” lead author and Dartmouth Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Richard M. Kaufman, MD, said in a Dartmouth Health news release. “DHMC has already taken the step to cease giving transfusions of B or AB platelets to O patients to avoid potential injury to these patients.” In an accompanying commentary, Marie A. Hollenhorst, MD, PhD; Jacob R. Anderson, MD, PhD; and Walter Dzik, MD, all of Harvard Medical School, note that “this study provides the strongest data to date supporting the existence of TRAGS,” citing the large numbers of  both transfusions analyzed and participating sites across a wide geographic area.While the number of allergic transfusion reactions attributed to alpha-gal syndrome is currently “vanishingly small,” continue the commentators, “physicians should be aware of TRAGS as a potential newly identified allergic transfusion reaction” and consider testing for anti–alpha-gal immunoglobulin E antibodies when evaluating blood transfusion candidates. “The changing climate and ensuing greater proliferation of ticks is leading to illnesses and symptoms we had not seen before, and we continue to learn about them in real time,” said coauthor and DHMC pathologist Nancy M. Dunbar, MD. “AGS is a particularly fascinating and challenging tickborne disease as it causes this life-threatening allergy the patient did not have before, and now we know the risk is even greater for AGS patients who are type O. It is our hope that other hospitals, especially in regions with high tick populations, will follow DHMC’s lead and avoid B and AB units for O-group patients in need of platelet or plasma transfusion.”

While rare, the tick-borne Bourbon virus may be more common in US than thought A study published yesterday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases based on plasma antibody testing suggests that a rare tick-borne virus is circulating more widely in the United States than previously thought. Scientists from Takeda Manufacturing in Austria used sensitive live-virus neutralization tests to analyze the prevalence of antibodies against Bourbon virus (BRBV) and related Thogotoviruses in pooled plasma-derived immunoglobulin (IG) collected from people in the United States and the European Union from 2006 to 2024. First identified in the United States in 2014, BRBV is caused by a bite from the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum). It can cause severe illness in people with weakened immune systems but is likely underrecognized because it often causes only mild or non-specific symptoms and occurs primarily in rural areas with limited surveillance, the researchers said. “Only a few human cases have been confirmed, but small studies suggest ~1% of people may have been exposed,” they noted. “As climate change expands the habitats of ticks and the animals that carry them, these viruses may spread into new regions.”

CWD strikes deer farms in 3 Michigan counties, 2 for the first time - The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development today confirmed the identification of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in farmed white-tailed deer in Calhoun, Kent and Mackinac counties. Calhoun County is located in southwestern Michigan, while Kent is on the Lower Peninsula, and Mackinac is on the Upper Peninsula. While Kent County has previously documented the fatal neurologic disease in both farmed and free-ranging deer, the detections are the first in Calhoun and Mackinac counties. The infections were identified after routine surveillance detected the Calhoun and Kent county cases, the former of which led to the discovery of the Mackinac County case.The Calhoun County case was in a 2.5-year-old deer, while the Kent case was in a 4-year-old deer, and the Mackinac infection was in a 3-year-old deer. In addition to Kent County, CWD has also been found on deer farms in Lake, Mecosta, Montcalm, Newaygo, and Osceola counties.  CWD affects cervids such as deer, elk, and moose. Caused by infectious misfolded proteins called prions, CWD can spread from cervid to cervid through contact with infected saliva, urine, and feces; through environmental contamination; and from infected does to offspring during pregnancy. The disease is not known to affect people, but health agencies recommend against consuming the meat of a sick or infected cervid and advise having cervids harvested in CWD-endemic areas tested before eating the meat.

Michigan officials are urging residents to inspect their trees this month — here’s what you need to know about the Asian longhorned beetle - The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are urging residents to check their trees this month for the Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive insect with no natural predators in North America. August is Tree Check Month, when the beetle and the damage it causes are most likely to be spotted. Residents can help by checking trees on their property and in their communities for signs of infestation. The Asian longhorned beetle, or ALB, is a non-native, wood-boring insect considered invasive in North America. It attacks at least 12 species of hardwood trees, including maple, elm, horse chestnut, birch and willow. The Michigan DNR says the beetle has no effective predators or diseases in North America to keep its population in check. The beetle has been found in New York, Chicago and Ohio, traveling by hiding inside firewood and wooden pallets, according to Joanne Foreman of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The beetle has not yet been found in Michigan. Foreman said the consequences of an infestation would be significant. “It can cause extensive harm to hardwood trees,” Foreman said. “So you can imagine your neighborhood, if it was found there, trees might start having to come down and you would lose all of that stuff that makes your property so beautiful. You might lose things in your park.” Female beetles chew small depressions in tree bark and deposit eggs, with each female capable of laying up to 90 eggs. After hatching, the larvae tunnel into the tree’s heartwood, creating channels that can weaken and damage the tree. The following summer, usually around August, adult beetles bore round exit holes in the tree and emerge to mate and begin the cycle again. Infested trees cannot recover and eventually die, creating safety hazards as branches fall and weakened trees become more likely to fall during storms. Deborah McCullough, a professor of entomology and forestry at Michigan State University, said the beetle does not require a weakened or dying tree to take hold. “It doesn’t need a dying tree. It doesn’t need a stressed tree. It can get into healthy trees,” McCullough said. “They leave a good-sized hole. It’s almost as big around as a dime. And if you see a round hole like that — and sometimes we call it frass, it’s this coarse sawdust that’s left over after they chew through the bark to come out — that’s where you probably want to call somebody.” Residents should look for:

• Round exit holes about the diameter of a pencil in tree trunks and branches.
• Shallow, oval or round scars in the bark where adult beetles have chewed sites to lay eggs.
• Material resembling wood shavings on the ground around a tree or in its branches.
• Dead branches or limbs falling from an otherwise healthy-looking tree.

Adult Asian longhorned beetles have several distinctive characteristics:

• A shiny black body with white spots that is about 1 to 1.5 inches long.
• Black-and-white antennae that are longer than the beetle’s body.
• Six legs with feet that can appear bluish.

Foreman described the difference between male and female beetles: “This big black shiny beetle with the white spots, that’s a female Asian longhorned beetle. And this little shiny black beetle up here is a male Asian longhorned beetle. Typically the female beetles are gonna be bigger than the males.”

NIH grants support research on whether PFAS exposure increases risk of liver and endometrial cancers - Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center have received two grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) totaling $7.5 million to study whether exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the synthetic compounds known as "forever chemicals," increases the risk of liver cancer and endometrial cancer. The two R01 grants, awarded less than six months apart, will fund the first studies of their kind to investigate PFAS as a driver of these cancers. PFAS are used in nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, food packaging and other everyday products. Because they break down very slowly, they accumulate in the environment and in the human body over time. They are now detected in the blood of nearly all U.S. residents and have been found in roughly half of the country's public drinking water supplies. Growing evidence links PFAS exposure to a range of health problems, including kidney disease, liver damage and several types of cancer. However, the biological mechanisms underlying many of those risks are still poorly understood. It's deeply gratifying to be able to get these two grants. It's a validation that our research addresses important public health questions, with the potential for real-world impact." V. Wendy Setiawan, PhD, study's principal investigator, the Jane and Kris Popovich Chair in Cancer Research and professor of population and public health sciences and medicine, Keck School of Medicine In March 2026, the NIH awarded a five-year, $3.4 million grant to USC researchers to investigate PFAS as a potential risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) through a translational research approach. HCC is the most common form of liver cancer, accounting for roughly 80% of all liver cancers and carrying a five-year survival rate of 22%. With a translational research approach, the team's goal is to produce research that will inform policies to minimize PFAS exposure, reduce the cancer burden and find ways to help people who have been exposed to PFAS. "We have been studying the effects of PFAS for years, particularly in relation to metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and liver disease. It is becoming increasingly apparent that these chemicals may also play a role in the development of cancers. With these grants, we hope to better understand this relationship and identify the biological mechanisms that link PFAS exposure to cancer risk. " said the study's principal co-investigator Vaia Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD, professor of population and public health sciences and pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine, deputy director of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center and director of the Southern California Superfund Research and Training Program for PFAS Assessment, Remediation and Prevention Center. In the past, most HCC cases were driven by hepatitis B and C infections. But as vaccines and antiviral treatments have reduced those cases, a new pattern has emerged: an increase in liver cancer linked to metabolic conditions, including obesity and fatty liver diseases. Based on laboratory evidence that some PFAS promote fat accumulation in liver cells and trigger cancer-related cellular changes, researchers suspect exposure to the chemicals may be a contributing factor. What distinguishes this study is its combination of large-scale epidemiology with laboratory experiments. The research team will analyze data from the Multiethnic Cohort Study (MEC), a prospective study that has followed participants from Southern California and Hawaii for more than 25 years. MEC study data includes blood samples collected before participants developed disease. Because blood samples were collected before participants developed cancer, researchers can measure PFAS exposure before disease onset, helping reduce biases that can arise when exposure is assessed after diagnosis. The team will also expose human liver spheroids, 3D models of the liver grown from donor cells, to multiple types of PFAS at varying doses, mimicking real-world combinations and exposure patterns, to reveal the biological pathways linking PFAS to liver disease and cancer.

‘Forever chemicals’ surge during pilot of Thames Water plan to combat drought - - Levels of a toxic “forever chemical” rose to 13 times the legal limit during Thames Water pilots for a controversial multimillion pound water recycling scheme that will pump millions of litres of treated sewage into the River Thames during drought.The data from the pilots is in stark contrast to public comments from Thames Water that their water recycling project in south-west London will not harm the riverine environment.In technical notes in the company’s files for the project, seen by the Guardian, the results from two pilots reveal the recycling system rapidly and significantly increased levels of a particularly toxic type of Pfas chemical perfluorooctane sulfonate (Pfos), a suspected carcinogen – breaching the legal limits by as much as 13 times.As standard wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter or destroy them, treated and untreated sewage contains Pfas chemicals (short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). They are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment, and the detrimental impact on rivers has been found to be widespread. New figures show every English water body is polluted with toxic chemicals. They are also considered a threat to human health.Thames Water’s recycling system is intended to provide more water to cope with shortages resulting from both a rising population, and predicted droughts caused by climate breakdown, over the coming decades.It involves abstracting up to 75m litres of water a day from the Thames at Teddington, south-west London, when the river is in low flow at times of drought, and replacing it with the same amount of treated sewage from the Mogden treatment plant via a new tunnel into the river. The 75m litres a day is a fraction of the 571m litres of water the company leaks each day.The results of the company’s tests, however, reveal the scale of the treated sewage input would make it very difficult for the water to meet current standards for forever chemicals and pesticides.Thames Water, which is seeking a development consent order for the scheme, has insisted publicly that the water recycling system – which will cost at least £350m – would not harm the river, its habitats or be a threat to the public.But the technical note on the pilots shows levels of Pfos rose to 6.3 nanograms per litre in test one and 8.7 nanograms per litre in test two of the recycling technology. The UK legal limit for surface waters is 0.65 nanograms per litre.The documents show there was a “rapid breakthrough of Pfos” above the legal threshold in less than one month of operation. The company said keeping within legal limits would be “operationally challenging”, requiring carbon filters to be frequently regenerated, reactivated and replaced, and would require “significant additional operational expense”.  In addition to the forever chemical, the pilots also showed the treated water contained very high levels of iron, which the document states would have a “significant detrimental impact” on the river. “In essence, they can’t make it work properly. Test failures were rapid, and the idea that they can switch this on and off as a completely reliable asset during drought is unrealistic against current standards, let alone the higher ones expected around Pfas and pesticides.”

Groups sue Trump’s EPA over fast-track approval of toxic datacenter chemicals - The Trump administration has approved two new datacenter chemicals to which exposure can result in “sudden death” and a range of other serious health risks, like cancer, eye corrosion, neurological damage and reproductive harm, a new lawsuit warns. The two compounds approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for import and immediate use in facilities across the US are photoacid generators that also appear to be Pfas “forever chemicals”, though it is unclear because much of the EPA documents are redacted. Some Pfas are commonly used in the production of semiconductors. people hold signs that say 'stop data centers' Trump EPA aims to exempt datacenters from disclosing air pollution, advocates warn Read more The EPA acknowledged in its approvals that it does not know the level at which the chemicals are “acutely lethal” or cause other serious health damage, but the agency still approved them anyway, said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the Earthjustice nonprofit, which filed the suit. In consent orders approving the chemicals that were reviewed by the Guardian, the EPA also concedes that the chemicals may present an “unreasonable risk” to workers and the public, but still approved them. That violates the law, Kalmuss-Katz said. If a chemical may present an “unreasonable risk”, then the Toxic Substances Control Act requires the EPA to “prohibit or limit the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of such substance or to prohibit or limit any combination of such activities to the extent necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk”. The restrictions the EPA put in place are minimal and non-protective, Kalmuss-Katz said, and the severity of the chemicals’ harms, the absence of data, and the failure to take protective steps are highly unusual. “This is turning the new chemical review process on its head,” Kalmuss-Katz said. “You have a situation where the EPA has failed at its most fundamental obligation when it comes to new chemicals, and that is to protect the public from unreasonable risk.” The EPA did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. Redactions in the consent orders also make it unclear if the compounds were fast-tracked by the EPA under a controversial late 2025 Trump executive order to speed up the approval of data center chemicals. Public health advocates at the time said the order appeared to suggest the administration intended to ignore chemical safety review laws. The name of the company that produces the chemicals is also redacted. Producing semiconductors is a highly complex process and Pfas are essential ingredients used in as many as 1,000 steps at the nanometric level, including photolithography and plasma processing. Ultraviolet light is filtered through photoacid generators to imprint circuit patterns onto the semiconductor wafer. Most of the chemicals used in that process do not remain on the chip, but are instead discharged in wastewater or otherwise disposed of. Other types of Pfas are used in datacenter cooling. Pfas are a class of at least 16,000 compounds dubbed “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in the human body and environment. Testing data from 2022 from one US production plant, or “fab”, previously reviewed by the Guardian showed as much as 78,000 parts per trillion (ppt) of PFAS in wastewater from some samples. The EPA legal limit for several common compounds in drinking water is 4ppt. The consent orders appear to clearly spell out the risks to the public and workers, and include explicit admissions that the EPA does not understand the level at which people could be harmed. For example, the order for a chemical with a generic name highlights the serious risk from anyone exposed via pollution. The “EPA identified acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental effects as potential risks to the general population if exposed via drinking water, ingestion of groundwater impacted by landfill leachate, and/or inhalation from stack air releases,” the agency stated. However, it continued: “The risks for these endpoints were not quantified due to insufficient information on hazard.” The EPA also identified “acute toxicity, genetic toxicity, skin and respiratory irritation, eye corrosion, skin photosensitization, and systemic, reproductive, and developmental toxicity effects as potential risks to workers.” Exposure could also cause “acute lethality”, or sudden death, but that it had “insufficient data” to assess that risk as well, the agency wrote. Similarly, the EPA wrote that it did not know the environmental and wildlife risk, and was unable to estimate the environmental hazard of this … substance” because it did not have enough information. “EPA found that both chemicals pose potentially severe risks to public health, admitted that it lacked the information needed to calculate those risks, and still approved both chemicals for immediate use,” Kalmuss-Katz said. Among the EPA’s restrictions are limiting the size of the container in which a chemical can be imported, but not the volume. Kalmuss-Katz said that does little to protect anyone.Industry has argued that it cannot make semiconductors without the chemicals. Industry documents provided to the Guardian in 2024 stated that finding safer alternatives is “impossible in some instances” and would require “stepping back decades in technological advancement”.It is also unclear what may happen with the chemicals’ disposal. The EPA states that they should be incinerated, but that process does not fully destroy many chemicals, and it would create unknown health risks for largely low income communities around the incinerators.Despite the photoacid generators’ toxicity and persistence in the environment, there are likely no requirements for a semiconductor plant in the US to limit discharges, said Lenny Siegel, executive director of the Center of Public Environmental Oversight, which advocates for stronger regulations around the industry’s chemicals.“The EPA should not approve any new photoacid generators, even on a temporary basis, until there is enforceable assurance that there will be zero discharge of such chemicals,” Siegel said.

Scores killed, Americans among hundreds missing after Nepal, Tibet flash floods -- At least 160 people were killed in Nepal and hundreds more, most of them foreigners, were listed as missing on Wednesday in both Nepal and Tibet after flash flooding tore through border areas, according to authorities. The flooding was determined to have been caused by the collapse of a glacier, U.S. officials later said. The flash floods decimated villages, slamming into houses, roads, bridges and power plants. Videos broadcast by regional news outlets and posted on social media show violent torrents of water surging through valleys and mountain passes, tearing down bridges and dams and sweeping away buildings. The Nepali police confirmed that at least 162 bodies were recovered following "devastating floods," but there was no word on the nationalities of the victims. Chinese state media reported "major casualties" from a mudslide at a Tibet border hub, including three dead. Dozens of U.S. nationals were among the 341 foreigners listed as missing, according to Nepal's Tourism Board, citing information from tour companies. Hikmat Singh Ayer, CEO and senior director of Nepal's Tourism Board, told CBS News that 403 people were unaccounted for after the flooding. He said that among the missing foreign nationals are 33 Americans, 34 Australians, 24 Canadians, 4 Germans, 19 Malaysians and one Israeli. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV later reported that at least 558 people were believed to be missing on the Tibet side of the Nepal-Tibet border, according to The Associated Press. It said 260 of the 558 were foreigners. A sudden surge of water Wednesday morning in the Bhote Koshi River, in the country's northern Rasuwa district north of capital Kathmandu, quickly affected the neighboring Nuwakot and Dhading districts. David Fisher, the head of delegation for the International Red Cross in Nepal, told CBS News that many areas remain inaccessible, hindering ground operations, but helicopter teams have been able to go in and rescue people. "Entire villages have disappeared," Fisher said. "Markets have disappeared, and a critical artery for commerce between China and Nepal has also now been damaged, making it very difficult for many of those families who depend on that for their living." Nepal's Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal initially reported that the flash flood was caused by an earthquake that triggered a large landslide, which blocked the Bhote Koshi River. However, the United States Geological Survey later reported that the flash flood was "instead generated by a glacial collapse and debris flow," stating that no earthquake occurred. "This event was initially reported as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake," the USGS said. "Additional analysis of nearby seismic stations, long period seismic waves, and satellite imagery led to the determination that the seismic event was instead a glacial collapse and debris flow, and that no earthquake had occurred." Nepali President Ramachandra Paudel said he was "extremely saddened" by the "loss of lives and property caused by the sudden flood." He called on the government, political parties, agencies and the general public to intensify rescue and relief efforts. "There could be heavy casualties or loss of property," district administrator Narendra Pariyar was quoted as saying by Reuters. He has also urged people living along the banks of the Bhote Koshi River to move to higher ground. Nepal's mountainous terrain, dotted with deep valleys and narrow gorges, makes rescue and relief operations challenging. Helicopters could not land in the affected areas of Syapru Besi and Timure, Reuters said. Most of the missing foreigners were on trips organized by tourism and travel companies. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) confirmed that six of its major hydropower and transmission facilities were damaged in the flooding. "We do not exactly know the extent of damage, but the flood is big, and it could have damaged many settlements," Nepal Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle told the French news agency AFP. "We have alerted people who are staying near the riverside to relocate ... and deployed all our resources."

What caused the Nepal flood wave? Here’s what we know --The cause of the powerful torrents of floodwater that carved a devastating path through Nepal and Tibet — swallowing towns, roads and bridges — is not yet clear, but Nepal is a hotspot for climate disasters as the planet heats up. Vast swaths of ice are melting and rocky mountainsides are destabilizing, becoming less solid and more fluid. As glaciers turn to water and create massive lakes in high mountain elevations, summertime melting can release these lakes downstream. On top of it all, climate change is leading to more extreme rainfall that can trigger deadly flooding. At 8:37 a.m. local time, shaking in the region was initially reported by US Geological Survey as a 4.4 magnitude earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu. Around the same time, an “avalanche” of ice and rock — more like a landslide in this case — tore down a mountainside and into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River, which flows from China into Nepal, often through deep gorges. It will take weeks to establish the exact causes, but a team of international scientists believes a huge chunk of glacier sheared off a mountain and fell into the valley below. USGS later clarified that the shaking was not an earthquake, but was rather caused by this exceptionally powerful landslide itself, which registered as the equivalent of a magnitude 5.2 earthquake. In other words, an earthquake did not cause the glacier-landslide event. The landslide caused an earthquake. “What is hard to reconcile is the the gargantuan volumes of water that we see in these these absolutely horrific videos,” said Daniel Shugar, a geologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, who is part of the group. Their theory is that the landslide — a rapidly moving mix of ice and rock — cascaded down the mountain, picking up sediment along the way that was already water-logged because it’s monsoon season. Landslides can be caused by a number of factors, but climate change often plays a role, scientists say. Nepal, in the rapidly-warming Himalayan region, is home to thousands of glaciers which are melting and destabilizing as temperatures rise. Warmer temperatures may have hastened the collapse that led to Nepal’s deadly flooding, with melting snow able to seep into cracks in the glacier and mountain rocks, weakening them, Shugar said.Nepal is particularly vulnerable to “glacial lake outbursts,” where the vast lakes of water formed by melting glaciers become so full that they burst through the land or ice that dams them, sending water and debris cascading down steep mountainsides. “These glacial dams are no different to constructed dams,” Tom Robinson, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, previously told CNN. “If you take the Hoover Dam, for instance, you’ve got a massive lake behind it, but if you suddenly remove the Hoover Dam, that water has to go somewhere, and it’s going to come cascading down a valley in massive flood waves.” Ice loss rates from glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, a region which includes Nepal, have doubled since 2000, according to recent research, with enormous risks for the nearly 2 million people who live downstream of them. A similar flood in the same region last year was traced to a glacial lake outburst in neighboring Tibet, but experts have not indicated what role, if any, an outburst may have played in this disaster. Some think it’s very unlikely. “So far, satellite imagery suggests that no major lakes are upstream of the flood path, indicating that a glacial lake outburst can be excluded,” Wolfgang Schwanghart, a professor for geomorphology at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany, told CNN. Recent weather conditions likely did not play a major role in the Nepal flood disaster. Widespread intense rainfall hasn’t been observed near the area over the past week, according to a CNN Weather analysis of satellite and weather station data. However, summer is the wettest time of year in the region because of monsoon-fueled storms, some of which brought rain to the area over the past week. The combination of those seasonal rains and snowmelt in recent months would likely make rivers run fuller. This is a developing story and it will be updated.

Bodies of Nepal flood victims wash up 100 miles away --The bodies of victims swept away in Nepal’s devastating flash floods have washed up over a hundred miles from the disaster zone. One body was found in Lumbini, a province roughly 250 miles from Rasuwa, the region that was destroyed by a 70ft wall of ice, mud and water on Wednesday morning. Three bodies were also discovered in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, two northern Indian states bordering Nepal and more than 100 miles from the flood’s epicentre. At least 579 people have been killed and more than 1,400 are still missing, including 33 Britons, after entire villages were consumed by the sudden deluge. In some downstream areas, morgues and hospitals are running out of space to store bodies, according to the Kathmandu Post. A search team of at least 5,000 army and police officers is scouring Nepal for bodies and survivors. The massive rescue operation was temporarily paused on Friday over fears that two lakes, which were formed by debris blocking the valley’s river, could overflow and cascade down the mountain. There is also a threat of heavy rain in Trishuli, a bazaar high up in the valley in Rasuwa, which rescuers say is making it harder to find survivors.

New barrier lake forms after Nepal flood disaster - An overflowing barrier lake was created after a flash flood devastated the Himalayan mountain river systems on Wednesday. The working theory is that a glacial collapse produced the flood that washed away buildings, cars and people with incredible speed and force, scientists told USA TODAY. On Friday, rescue efforts were briefly halted as risks of the overflowing barrier lake formed were judged manageable, according to Reuters. The number dead has reached over 500 and the missing in Nepal has nearly doubled to 1,924, the country's disaster authority said on Friday. At least 558 were missing in Tibet's Gyirong County, including 260 foreign nationals, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday. A satellite image shows one of two lakes at the site of the glacial collapse, in the border area between Nepal and Tibet Autonomous Region, China, August 28, 2026.

Nepal death toll rises from massive flood as thousands still missing -- The death toll continues to climb days after massive flash flooding obliterated parts of the Nepal-Tibet border region on Wednesday, with at least 682 bodies recovered across the region and over 3,000 people missing, authorities said Saturday. As search and rescue efforts continued in Nepal on Saturday, authorities said at least 7,514 people had been rescued, including 227 foreign nationals, according to the Nepal National Disaster Management Authority. At least 219 injured people have received treatment or have been discharged as of Saturday, according to the disaster management authority. In Nepal, 675 people have been reported dead and 2,498 others remain missing, according to the Nepal National Disaster Management Authority. In the Chinese region of Tibet, seven people have been reported dead and 554 others have been reported missing, according to China state news agency Xinhua. Among the missing are 90 Americans as of Friday, according to a State Department spokesperson. The department confirmed Friday that five Americans had been evacuated, up from three on Thursday. The number of people considered missing has fluctuated significantly as recovery efforts have accelerated. "There is no higher priority for us than the safety of American citizens," the State Department said in a statement on Saturday, saying U.S. embassies in Nepal and China were working to assist Americans and support disaster relief efforts. In the statement, the State Department said it was "standing with the people of Nepal" and would provide "$3.6 million worth of life-saving humanitarian assistance, including up to three months of emergency food assistance to up to 10,000 flood-affected households." The burial of severely damaged and unidentifiable bodies and body parts began in the districts of Chitwan and Nawalparasi on Saturday and will be expanded to other affected areas, Dr. Samir Kumar Adhikari Saturday, a spokesperson for Nepal's Ministry of Health, told ABC News. Nepal's Prime Minister Baken Shah said the government would preserve DNA samples and other identifying evidence from bodies that cannot be identified before proceeding with their burial. This is so they can be potentially matched with family members in the future, Adhikari said. "Only bodies that cannot be identified will be managed by the government after preserving DNA and other evidence that could help establish their identity," Shah said in a post on social media. The remains of those identified by their families are being returned to their relatives, Shah said. Bodies that can still be identified are being preserved in freezers, Adhikari said. Adhikari said Nepal does not have the capacity to store such a large number of severely damaged remains for an extended period. His working estimate is that around 650 bodies and body parts have been recovered; many of the remains were swept far downstream and can no longer be identified visually. Nepal is coordinating forensic efforts with India and China, while Israeli experts are expected to arrive in the country. Additional international specialists are already providing assistance remotely, Adhikari said. The flooding, captured in dramatic video footage, occurred in the northern Rasuwa district along the border with Tibet at around 8:40 a.m. local time Wednesday, authorities said. The flooding inundated areas along the Trishuli River, burying some buildings and damaging bridges and roadways. The deadly wall of water that descended from the mountains on the border between Nepal and Tibet caused destruction at least 62 miles downriver from the border in Nepal, an ABC News analysis of verified video and satellite images shows. The flood was reportedly triggered by a landslide about 12 miles northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border post along the Nepal-China frontier, according to Nepal Disaster Management. A 5.2-magnitude landslide was registered in Nepal on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The seismic activity from the landslide was initially erroneously reported as a 4.4-magnitude earthquake, the agency said. It is unclear what triggered the landslide. A geophysicist at Columbia University in New York told ABC News it appeared a landslide in the Himalayas took away a large glacier, or parts of one, in the mountain pass. The initial location of the glacier was a cliff about 16,000 feet high. The debris avalanche, or landslide, slid down 6,000 feet on the slope, the USGS said. While it will take time to determine how severe the landslide was, the USGS estimated that more than 100 million cubic meters of ice, rock and debris were displaced in the event, Ben Mirus, a research geologist with the agency, said Thursday.

Pear Lake wildfire sparks new evacuations, severe thunderstorm alerts issued around B.C. --Officials have expanded evacuation orders related to British Columbia's largest wildfire. On Saturday, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District expanded an evacuation order for an area south of the Pear Lake wildfire fire to cover properties near Highway 99 in the Marble Canyon area. The Thompson-Nicola Regional District also expanded an evacuation order along Highway 99, west of the Highway 97 junction. The expanded orders from both regional districts now cover nearly 200 properties in total. All three governments have also expanded evacuation alerts. The Pear Lake wildfire has burned more than 1,647 square kilometres, according to the B.C. Wildfire Service, and is responsible for destroying structures on more than 120 properties, mostly in the area around Clinton. The fire is currently most active on its western and southern boundaries. Environment Canada issued a yellow severe thunderstorm watch for much of the B.C. Interior, Cariboo and Metro Vancouver. Severe thunderstorm warnings have been issued for parts of Vancouver Island. The B.C. Wildfire Service said shifting weather patterns could bring dry lightning strikes and high winds across the southern and central Interior on Saturday, along with localized gusts of up to 80 kilometres per hour accompanying some thunderstorms. "This will increase fire behaviour where fires are already burning and could lead to new wildfire starts," said the service's online dashboard. Crews were called to tackle a new lightning-sparked wildfire in the Jacko Lake area, just south of Kamloops, on Saturday. By Saturday evening, the fire had grown to 44 hectares (about 0.4 square kilometres) in size and was considered "being held" by the wildfire service, which means it is not expected to spread beyond current boundaries. The B.C. Wildfire Service has deployed 19 personnel and air crews to the scene. As of Saturday evening, there were more than 150 active wildfires across B.C., almost 60 of them classified as out of control. On Friday, the B.C. government extended a provincial state of emergency related to wildfires until at least Aug. 29.

Amid record heat and wildfire, countries resort to drastic steps - The world is staggering under climate extremes this summer that have forced governments to take drastic steps to deal with record-setting heat and wildfire.On Europe’s Danube River, Romania blew up a rock outcrop and Hungary sank two barges this month to keep the dwindling water flowing to nuclear power plants downstream.France conducted its largest evacuation outside wartime when it ordered 220,000 people in July to leave an area in the country’s west where wildfire was raging.. After record-setting heat killed more than 20 this month in South Korea, President Lee Jae Myung ordered a massive government response. “Heat wave conditions once seen ⁠only in foreign news reports have now become our reality,” Lee said, according to Reuters.“People are losing their lives,” Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate commissioner, told POLITICO. “If you add the truly dramatic cost of the wildfires but also of the droughts, for example, for shipping, I don’t think any one of us can be complacent.”As this summer’s extreme weather has broken heat, wildfire and ocean temperature records across the planet, it has fed a cycle of destruction that has tested governments. Many have scrambled to take emergency steps. Extreme heat in the U.S. and parts of Europe has amplified drought and stoked wildfires by drying out vegetation, making it highly flammable. While NOAA found average global temperatures this July were the hottest ever recorded for the month, the National Interagency Fire Center records show U.S. wildfires are on pace to burn more acres this year than in any year since daily recordkeeping began in 1994. Sustained dry periods also are damaging agriculture, with poor harvests expected to drive up food prices in Europe. Droughts can lead to flash floods by creating a layer of encrusted dry soil that cannot absorb heavy rainfall, sending water directly into streams. Wildfires are stretching military resources as troops are deployed to battle blazes around the world. “This has shocked a lot of people in France and in Europe,” Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources and a research partner at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in a live YouTube talk July 29. “What is so different about this year is the fact that France has experienced record-breaking heat wave after record-breaking heat wave after record-breaking heat wave.” Warm waters and blistering air temperatures magnify each other in a vicious cycle. The ocean absorbs most of the heat in the atmosphere and grows warmer. At the same time, hotter oceans can raise temperatures in coastal areas and increase the risk of severe storms, wildfires and other extreme weather.That’s what happened in Europe this year. Extreme heat also followed a particularly wet spring. The rain led to the growth of vegetation that later dried out in the heat, creating fuel for fires. Experts say the fires are affected more countries and lasting longer because of the exceptionally dry conditions. Fire fighting has been strained. France has faced a shortage of firefighters and firefighting equipment.In the U.S., where President Donald Trump has dismissed climate change as a concern, he has cut government agencies that deal with disasters. Last week, the coordinating group that dispatches people and equipment to manage wildfires warned that it was facing a shortage of resources after operating at its highest level for more than a month.Scientists have long warned of such severe climate impacts. Earlier this year, the United Nations introduced the term “water bankruptcy” to describe water sources, such as lakes, wetlands and underground aquifers, that are so depleted they can’t naturally rebuild to historical levels.During a spurt of severe heat in July, Japan deployed a word its meteorological agency adopted in April that translates to “cruel heat day” for when temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).But planet-warming pollution is roughly 25 percent higher than it was two decades ago. While governments have scrambled to respond to this summer’s extremes, many are not meaningfully reducing emissions or developing long-term resilience that would help countries adapt to a hotter world.

Nevada sues feds over Colorado River cuts - The state of Nevada is suing the federal government over its plans for Colorado River water use reductions, saying its cuts are too steep. Nevada sued Monday after the federal government finalized its 10-year framework for planned cuts on Friday. The Colorado River provides water for agricultural, municipal and industrial uses for seven states in the Western U.S., including Nevada. The federal government’s plan for Nevada, Arizona and California, known collectively as the Lower Basin states. Nevada said in its court filing Monday that the plan could cause the state to lose as much as 71 percent of its Colorado River water allocation — and that this would threaten health and safety, the environment and the economy in the southern part of the state. “This isn’t about political posturing; this is a matter of survival for a community that represents about two-thirds of our state’s citizens and the lion’s share of its economy,” Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) said in a statement. He lamented that Upper Basin states — Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming — “are not required to contribute a drop.” The Interior Department declined The Hill’s request for comment. In the past, the Trump administration has described the 10-year plan as a flexible framework meant to respond to changing water conditions in the river. The government imposed this plan after the states that rely on the river were not able to come up with their own agreement for cutting water use. Over the last quarter century, the Colorado River has faced a drought that has lessened the availability of water on the river. This drought has been exacerbated by climate change and water overuse. Nevada, in its court challenge, has asked a federal court in the state to toss the plan, saying that the federal government did not follow adequate procedures. Specifically, it alleged that the government did not correctly apply the Law of the River, failed to consider a reasonable range of alternatives and did not adequately consider the plan’s environmental impacts, among other issues.

Winter storm warning: Up to 6 inches of snow, 30 mph gusts & half-mile visibility threaten highway drivers -- A rare late-August snowstorm is taking aim at the highest road in Alaska today, Thursday August 27, 2026, with the National Weather Service in Fairbanks issuing a Winter Weather Advisory for the central Brooks Range through 4 a.m. Saturday. Up to 6 inches of snow, blowing snow, and wind gusts to 30 mph are expected to batter Atigun Pass and the Dalton Highway, the remote gravel haul road made famous by “Ice Road Truckers,” just as most travelers heading north are still packing for summer. Peak danger window: overnight tonight through Friday, when blowing snow could drop visibility to half a mile or less near Atigun Pass and an overnight refreeze turns melted snow into invisible black ice on the 4,739-foot crossing.  What to Expect:

• Snow totals: Up to 6 inches possible, with the heaviest accumulation near Atigun Pass. Snow is initially expected above 2,500 feet, with snow levels rising toward 4,000 feet on Friday
• Wind and visibility: Gusts up to 30 mph with blowing snow reducing visibility to half a mile or less, most likely above 4,000 feet
• Conditions: Periods of snow, blowing snow, and a wintry mix through early Saturday morning
• Zone affected: Atigun Pass, Anaktuvuk Pass, Galbraith Lake, and the Dalton Highway from Mile Post 232 to Mile Post 322

Because daytime temperatures are hovering near freezing, some of the falling snow will melt on warm pavement during the day, which can make the road look deceptively clear. That is exactly what makes this pattern dangerous. This is now the third alert-level snow event on this same stretch of the Dalton in 2026, after a June winter storm watch for 6 to 12 inches and a late-July advisory that left snow on the ground into the final days of the month. Summer snow in the Brooks Range is not a fluke anymore this year; it is periodic.The Dalton Highway is not a road that forgives being caught off guard. It runs 414 miles from just north of Fairbanks to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields, roughly three quarters of it gravel, with no cell service anywhere along its length. Coldfoot, the main waypoint, is the last fuel stop for 239 miles. Condition reports only reach the state’s 511 system after maintenance crews physically drive the road and call them in, so what you see on a webcam may already be hours old. During this advisory, expect snow-covered and icy stretches, soft and greasy gravel where snow has melted into slush, and sudden whiteouts where blowing snow cuts visibility near the pass. Even where the road looks merely wet, air temperatures at pass elevation slide below freezing after midnight and turn that meltwater into a transparent glaze. Knowing what your drivetrain can and cannot do matters here, and Autoblog’s breakdown of AWD versus 4WD is worth a read, because neither one shortens your stopping distance on ice.At 4,739 feet, Atigun Pass at Mile Post 244 is the highest year-round-maintained pass in Alaska and the only place a road crosses the Brooks Range. Drivers do not get to reroute. They go over it or they stop and wait. The atmospheric lapse rate means temperatures at the crest can run 15 to 20 degrees colder than Fairbanks on the same day, and the north descent drops at grades as steep as 12 percent, which is a punishing combination when the surface is iced over. The pass has a long history of putting vehicles off the road and drawing full closures when drifting snow gets bad enough, so a posted alert here carries real weight even in what the calendar still calls summer.If you have to run the Dalton this week, treat it like a winter crossing even though it is August. Carry chains, winter-rated tires, a blanket, a flashlight, a portable charger, extra food and water, and a full tank of fuel before you leave the last services, because help can be hours away with no way to call for it. Give yourself at least triple the stopping distance you would use on dry pavement, and slow down well before the descent rather than braking on it. If your vehicle is set up for summer and you are suddenly facing winter, Autoblog’s roundup of the best cars and SUVs for snow and winter driving is worth a look, and our best practices for driving in snow, ice, and rain guide covers skid recovery and what to keep in your trunk. Check the Alaska DOT Dalton Highway page and Alaska 511 for the latest closures before you go.

SpaceX unveils plans for massive Louisiana launch site – SpaceX will build a massive rocket launch site in rural southern Louisiana, unveiling plans Tuesday for a $100 billion project that could transform the region’s economy and fragile wetlands. Situated on roughly 125,000 acres of coastal marshland in Vermilion Parish, the project is expected to grow into SpaceX’s largest launch site. It will be built in an area that has long been an oil and gas hub, but is vulnerable to hurricanes due to the rapid coastal land loss that’s a reality in this region of the state. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in recent months pulled out all the stops to clinch the deal, signing laws to provide tax breaks for aerospace companies and shield them from lawsuits over launches. “With today’s announcement, we are building a future for Louisiana that knows no boundaries, from the oceans to the Earth and even to space,” said Landry, an ally of President Donald Trump, during the unveiling in the small city of Abbeville in Louisiana’s historic Cajun country. The project is likely to face opposition over its environmental impacts, especially given its location next to two state wildlife refuges that are frequent stops for ducks and other migratory birds. The Trump administration this summer also proposed allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to waive environmental reviews normally required for new space launch permits and site approvals. The site will include five launch complexes, a rocket propellant production facility and employee housing. Construction will begin at the end of next year, with the facility expected to come online in 2030. It will eventually be the world’s largest spaceport, according to the Louisiana Department of Economic Development. SpaceX has plans to do “thousands of launches a year” at the location, said Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operation officer. Landry, who has courted huge companies like Meta to Louisiana through tax breaks and other incentives, said the announcement marks a major turning point in the state’s economy, which was historically driven in large part by the oil and gas sector. The governor earlier this year agreed to settle a slew of lawsuits against oil companies filed under prior administrations alleging oil and gas extraction had left behind lasting damage to the state’s coast. Now, Louisiana is building on its oil and gas history and continued production, while investing in a company that represents the future, Landry said. “Too often, Louisiana was left with the scars awhile others enjoyed the profit,” he said. “Today, what Elon Musk and his team is offering Louisiana is different.” Musk, a Republican megadonor who founded SpaceX, did not attend the announcement. But in a recorded video that played during the ceremony, he said the project could bring about 10,000 “really exciting jobs” to Vermilion Parish. Other SpaceX representatives said the company was committed to helping restore and protect Vermilion Parish’s coast. The company is partnering with state and federal agencies to expand Louisiana’s coastal master plan, with plans to tackle “shoreline protection, marsh restoration and wildlife conservation,” Shotwell said. “The work includes thousands of acres of marsh creation to reconnect fragmented wetlands and help restore the natural storm buffer that this coast has lost,” she said. The company’s plans center on Pecan Island, a sprawling area of sparsely populated marshland that was owned for years by Exxon Mobil. It’s one of the most productive coastal wildlife areas for migratory waterfowl and is extremely popular with local duck hunters. Rebecca Triche, executive director of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, said she was glad to hear the company and Landry acknowledge the importance of protecting the coast, but said she would like to see the details. The group is advocating for a “strong permitting review” before the site is constructed, Triche said. The Louisiana Wildlife Federation and other advocacy groups oppose the FAA’s proposal to potentially waive requirements under the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other laws in permitting of new space ports. “I was left with more questions than there were answers provided about the size and scope of the project, being the first that’s ever been at that size,” Triche said. “We’re concerned about reducing or waiving a permit process that would have usefulness and allow the public to understand the project design and construction.” SpaceX has faced complaints over environmental impacts at its original launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The Biden administration fined the company over $148,000 in 2024 for unpermitted dumping of wastewater into wetlands near the launch site, while environmental groups have sued over alleged damages to wildlife habitats and local beaches.

Lewotobi Laki-laki Fires Ninth Eruption in Seven Days; Lahar Risk Outlasts Ash - A stratovolcano on the Indonesian island of Flores fired its ninth eruption in seven days on Friday morning, sending a dense ash column 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) above its summit — but the hazard scientists are watching most closely is not the ash itself. It is what the ash leaves behind. Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki erupted at 7:35 a.m. local time on August 28, 2026, according to Lana Saria, head of the Geological Agency at ESDM, Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry. Seismographs recorded a maximum amplitude of 14.8 millimeters over six minutes and four seconds, producing thick gray ash that drifted southwest and west of the summit. The event is the ninth eruption the volcano has produced in a single week and the 778th of its 2026 eruptions, according to the MAGMA Indonesia monitoring platform,, which tracks volcanic activity across Indonesia in near-real time.The eruption count matters because each explosion deposits another layer of volcanic ash on the steep andesitic slopes of one of Southeast Asia's most persistently active stratovolcanoes. When rain falls — as it routinely does in this part of Indonesia — that loose ash mobilizes into lahars: fast-moving mudflows of volcanic debris and water that can reach speeds of 65 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour) and travel dozens of kilometers down river valleys following established channels. Communities along eight river corridors originating from Lewotobi's summit — Dulipali, Padang Pasir, Nobo, Nurabelen, Klatanlo, Hokeng Jaya, Boru, and Nawakote — remain on lahar alert. The hazard does not stop when the eruption stops. Accumulated ash continues generating mudflow risk for months or years after an eruptive sequence winds down.Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) is maintaining its Level III (Siaga, or "Standby") designation on its four-tier alert scale, with the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) exclusion zone around the eruption center in force.Friday's eruption was notably more moderate than the one that preceded it. On Thursday, August 27, Lewotobi Laki-laki produced an eruption at 8:30 a.m. local time with a maximum seismograph amplitude of 47.3 millimeters — roughly three times the energy of Friday's event — and an ash column that climbed approximately 2,500 meters above summit (8,200 feet), or around 4,084 meters (13,400 feet) above sea level. The seismograph amplitude is a direct measure of the ground motion generated by the explosion: a reading three times higher reflects a correspondingly more energetic release of volcanic energy.The variability is characteristic. Lewotobi Laki-laki does not erupt at a uniform intensity during periods of sustained unrest; individual eruptions range from barely detectable to events that send plumes into the aviation warning zone. What remains consistent at Level III is the pattern, not the individual burst.Lewotobi Laki-laki's relentless 2026 activity is not random. It is a structural consequence of where Flores sits.The island lies on the eastern segment of the Sunda Arc, a chain of volcanoes stretching from Sumatra through Java, Bali, and Lombok to the Lesser Sunda Islands. The arc exists because the Indo-Australian oceanic plate is subducting — diving beneath — the Eurasian/Sunda plate at a convergent boundary. As the subducting plate descends and encounters rising temperatures and pressures, water and other volatile compounds are released into the overlying mantle. That triggers partial melting, generating magma that ascends through the crust.In the eastern Sunda Arc near Flores, the magma that reaches the surface is predominantly calc-alkaline andesite: high in silica, viscous, and rich in dissolved gases, as confirmed by peer-reviewed Indonesian geoscience analysis. Unlike the fluid basaltic lava of shield volcanoes like Hawaii's Mauna Loa, andesitic magma does not flow easily. It traps volcanic gases — primarily water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide — under pressure. When that pressure exceeds what the dome or conduit can contain, the result is explosive, not effusive, as is characteristic of stratovolcano eruption mechanisms.This is the chemistry behind every eruption Lewotobi Laki-laki has produced since its current eruptive episode began in late 2023. And it is the same process that has generated volcanic crises all along the Sunda Arc, from Krakatoa in 1883 to Tambora in 1815.Lewotobi Laki-laki sits on Flores Island's southeastern coast and forms one half of a distinctive twin-volcano structure. Its companion peak, Lewotobi Perempuan ("female" or "wife"), rises 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) to the southeast to a summit of 1,703 meters (5,587 feet) above sea level, slightly taller than Laki-laki's 1,584 meters (5,197 feet). Together they give the complex its name — Lewotobi means "husband and wife" in the local language. Laki-laki, meaning "male" or "man," is the active partner: it has been documented erupting since at least 1861 and is classified as a typically explosive stratovolcano historically characterized by ash emissions, lava flows, and dome formation. Perempuan has been far quieter, with its last observed eruptions in 1921 and 1935.Laki-laki's summit crater is approximately 400 meters (1,300 feet) in diameter and open to the north. A prominent fissure along its northwestern upper flank has been an additional locus of activity since 2024.The current elevated eruptive phase at Lewotobi Laki-laki traces to late December 2023, when a sudden increase in seismicity prompted PVMBG to raise the alert from Level I to Level II. The situation escalated sharply in November 2024.At 11:57 p.m. local time on November 3, 2024, Lewotobi Laki-laki produced a directed blast from northwest flank — not from the central summit vent. The classification "directed blast" is specific: it describes an explosive release in which pressurized material is ejected laterally along a defined trajectory rather than vertically through the summit crater. The eruption ignited fires in nearby villages and resulted in nine fatalities from blast, according to the Indonesian Journal on Geoscience, which published a peer-reviewed analysis of the event. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, and more than 10,000 people were affected by the series of eruptions that followed through November.The November 3 event prompted PVMBG to revise the official hazard map for Lewotobi Laki-laki, incorporating the newly documented northwestern blast trajectory as a designated hazard corridor. The Indonesian government simultaneously announced plans to permanently relocate thousands of residents within a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius of the crater — more than 16,000 people — as a long-term mitigation measure. Activity remained at the highest alert tier (Level IV, "Awas" or "Evacuate") through much of 2025, punctuated by a spectacular 18-kilometer ash column on July 7, 2025 — documented by NASA Earth Observatory satellite imagery — that generated pyroclastic flows traveling 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) down the volcano's flanks. Ash from that eruption canceled dozens of flights from Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport, 840 kilometers (522 miles) to the west. Further major eruptions in August 2025 sent volcanic lightning crackling through nighttime ash columns.Activity moderated enough by early 2026 for PVMBG to lower the alert to Level II and reduce the exclusion zone to 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). That relative quiet ended on May 12, 2026, when increasing seismicity and ground deformation detected by GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) sensors and tiltmeters — patterns that PVMBG specifically noted resembled the precursors to the 2024 eruptive episode — prompted a return to Level III and an expanded 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) exclusion zone.

Power plant endangerment repeal enters White House review - The White House is reviewing a new proposal to permanently end EPA’s regulation of power plants’ carbon emissions. The supplemental proposal entered White House review on Monday, according to the Office of Management and Budget’s website. It is expected to be released along with another rule to undo 2024 standards that required coal-fired and some new gas-fired power plants to capture and store most of their greenhouse gas emissions. The draft would repeal not only the Biden-era rules, but EPA’s broader authority to regulate climate pollution from the power sector via the Clean Air Act. The power industry is the largest industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. The proposal is expected to mirror EPA’s repeal of the so-called endangerment finding. But it could also complicate arguments the oil industry and the Justice Department are making in a landmark case before the Supreme Court this fall that the Clean Air Act makes EPA the “primary regulator” of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. EPA issued a proposal last summer that aimed to bar future administrations from regulating the power sector for greenhouse gases. But the draft advanced arguments that contradicted a separate rule that EPA finalized in February that rescinded a key scientific finding that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles endanger public health and welfare. It’s unclear when EPA will issue the repeal package. Utilities have been anxious for it to finalize a rollback of the carbon capture and sequestration requirements, but the agency might hold off until after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Suncor v. Boulder on Oct. 5.

Interior moves to speed historic reviews as bigger rewrite looms - Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order last week aimed at speeding up historic preservation reviews often required for energy development and other projects on federal land. The Thursday secretarial order instructs agency officials to be timely in their processing of reviews, to create lists of activities that can be exempted from historic evaluations and use alternative arrangements to accelerate reviews.“We’re cutting red tape, clearing bureaucratic roadblocks, and making sure government isn’t standing in the way of American communities,” an Interior spokesperson said Monday. “This Secretary’s Order will allow the Department to consider any effects on historic properties in a more meaningful and timely fashion, and require the same of states and tribes.”The changes at Interior come as the Trump administration is considering major changes to historic reviews, which are required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.Those reviews apply to a wide array of federal projects, from oil and gas drilling out West that can disrupt sites considered sacred by Native American tribes to President Donald Trump’s projects to build and renovate across Washington. Congressional Republicans have also pushed for changes, saying the regulations slow down federal permitting of energy and other infrastructure projects.Critics have said the broader proposed changes from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which have not yet been implemented and are currently being considered by the White House, would cut out input from tribes and states while allowing for faster approvals of energy developments.  One of Interior’s changes implemented on Thursday tells agencies to do reviews more efficiently by using “program alternatives” that can expedite historical reviews of more routine matters. Another tweak limits what’s known as “offsite compensatory mitigation,” which aims to offset harm to property when it cannot be avoided through work at another location. That part of the order mirrors a similar directive Interior implemented during the first Trump administration, in 2020. Some historic preservation advocates raised concerns about Interior’s de-emphasis of mitigation. Erik Hein, executive director of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, said that sometimes offsite mitigation is the best option for a project, and that he doesn’t want agencies to “forgo” that alternative if it’s the best one. He also said he was worried about a directive for agencies to create lists of activities that are not expected to harm historic places without first consulting with states or other entities. But Hein said he supports efforts to make historic reviews function more smoothly, pointing to the adoption of categorical reviews for some activities. Historic preservation advocates said the timing of Interior’s order was confusing, as it operates under rules which may soon be entirely rewritten. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation approved its larger revision of regulations in July, a proposal that has been criticized by congressional Democrats negotiating with Republicans on permitting reform. Democrats have said the draft language would cut out meaningful input for Native American tribes. “It’s kind of a left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing situation here,” said Christopher Cody, associate general counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.About the ACHP proposal, an Interior spokesperson previously said that it is “premature and irresponsible” to discuss and describe the draft before it has been officially published.“The Department’s goal is to modernize the Section 106 regulations to provide greater clarity, consistency, and efficiency while fully carrying out the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act,” the spokesperson previously said. “The rulemaking process is designed to solicit public input, and interested stakeholders will have the opportunity to review the proposal and submit comments once it is published.”

Adams County residents fear environmental and utility costs of possible data center - Data centers have dominated headlines and social feeds lately. In a four-part series, WVXU is delving into some of the issues surrounding them. In Adams County, Amazon Web Services is considering a data center that could be among the biggest in Ohio. Some residents are questioning what that means for their community — and their power bills. Every summer, Nikki Gerber leads guided paddles through valleys in the Appalachian foothills to show off Adams County’s "best kept secrets." But, she says, it hasn’t always been easy getting people out on the water. Manchester is sandwiched between two former power plants, the Killen and Stuart stations. They burned coal and oil on the banks of the Ohio River from the 1970s until they both closed in 2018. "It took me four years to change the perception of the river to stop getting people to think it was a nasty old river," Gerber said. "It took me going out there and jumping in it a hundred times and showing people I'm not turning green and showing people the beauty of it." Now, Gerber is worried a potential development near the former Stuart power plant could reverse her progress and hurt her community. Adams County officials say Amazon Web Services is evaluating 1,000 acres in Sprigg Township for a data center. The site is minutes away from downtown Manchester and includes a former Dayton Power & Light landfill. Emails between AWS and county leaders suggest the project has been under consideration for years. But it came as a surprise to many residents, who didn’t find out until February. In the months since, Gerber and others have scoured public records and attended county commissioner meetings to piece together information about the possible data center. They’ve raised concerns about transparency, water use, impacts on nature and how the massive facility will be powered. Buck Canyon Properties currently owns the Sprigg Township site. A wetland permit application indicates a development on the property could include 12 "light industrial buildings' and utility infrastructure. Initial site work, including grading, has been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A regulatory filing from AES Ohio shows a data center near the Stuart substation in Sprigg Township could require 1,300 megawatts of electricity. That’s about 30 times what Adams County uses annually, according to reporting from our news partner WCPO. The infrastructure needed to support that increased demand is readily available at the former power plant.A county webpage about the data center says state utility regulations will prevent AES from charging residential customers more to "subsidize data center operations." The site says Amazon Web Services will pay for the electricity it uses for the data center, and will "fund, build, own, and operate a substation on the campus to power the facility." When the two power plants shut down, the region lost more than 1,000 jobs and $8.5 million in tax revenue, according to research published in Regional Science Policy & Practice. Amazon Web Services touts the possible data center's economic benefits, estimating the $10 billion investment will bring 500 jobs to Adams County. Other local governments in Ohio have approved hefty tax abatements for data centers, forgoing some tax revenue to secure project commitments.WVXU reached out to the three Adams County commissioners, but did not receive a response.Evidence on whether data centers deliver as many jobs as they promise, especially in rural areas, is scarce.. . Some people remain skeptical. Helen Newman runs a beef cattle operation and has lived in Adams County her whole life. She questions what the proposed data center’s electric demand will do to her and her neighbors’ bills and budgets. "A lot of people in this area have electric bills now that are rivaling, especially in the wintertime, their mortgages and their rent," Newman told WVXU. "It's been a struggle for a lot of people before this. So, what's it going to do to us after?" She’s also running as an independent candidate for Adams County Commissioner, spurred to act over concerns about transparency around the data center. There are about 200 energy-intensive data centers in Ohio already driving up the cost of energy generation. Data center load growth has hiked power costs $23 billion for consumers across the PJM Interconnection grid, the electricity market that serves Ohio, according to the Independent Market Monitor.. "It's because [data centers] have an unprecedented amount of demand, and the supply is just not keeping up with the demand," said Maureen Willis, director of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel (OCC). "With those two conditions, that creates an increase in price, and that's what we've seen." The OCC is the state’s independent residential utility consumer advocate. The group says that price increase appears in the supply/generation piece of your electric bill, which makes up about half of what you pay.

Pataskala City Council votes against data center proposal | NBC4 WCMH-TV — A data center debate in Licking County came to an end Tuesday night after Pataskala City Council voted against the Aligned data center proposal. Council heard hours of testimony from residents expressing why they do not want a data center in their community, with the meeting ending in a victory for their cause. Council unanimously voted to accept the Planning and Zoning Commission’s recommendation to deny Aligned Data Centers’ proposal. “Our commission for planning and zoning shot this down 5-2 a couple of months ago. We were accepting their disapproval of the plan. That’s what we voted on tonight,” Pataskala City Council President Brandon Galik said. Galik said he voted against the data center because there were still unanswered questions. Ohio flood damage under review as FEMA weighs federal assistance “There was big concerns with the power alone,” he said. “The design was incomplete. We didn’t have the full design for the power. Ohio citing board has the jurisdiction over us to say what they can and cannot build. Without seeing the power, it was hard to accept that plan.” The vote came after hours of public testimony. “They consume water, land and require substations transmissions lines for generations past,” one person said during public comments. “The noise concern from the data center is even bigger concern because it will never go away,” said another. NBC4 spoke to some attendees before the meeting about why they came out to speak. “We don’t have studies on the potential long-term effects of these facilities; they are ubiquitous now that there are a lot of compounding effects,” Holly Wenzinger said. “There’s the health risks. A four-story building is a big eyesore. Coming into Pataskala, just look around. We got corn fields, wheat fields. We don’t need a four-story building,” Brandyn Bernard said. Galik said he appreciates the community’s civic engagement. “We have a very passionate community. There was good questions on both sides. I heard good testimony from lots of people and they addressed the questions we had as well which made it easier to make a decision,” he said. Pataskala voters can still have a say in the local data center debate in a November referendum. Voters can decide whether to allow data centers that use over 25 megawatts of power or not.

Court allows construction company to argue for data center | Ohio - – The Ohio Supreme Court decided to allow a data center builder to intervene in a lawsuit challenging a massive new center in Trenton. The builder claimed it needs status as an intervening party to protect its financial investment in the project, and the high court agreed in a win for the data center industry. Trenton Data Center Campus LLC has been approved to build a data center in Trenton on 145 acres, according to court documents, and the company claims in court documents it “will bring significant economic investment, employment, and tax revenue to the city and the surrounding region.” The company has already spent $38 million on the project, it said in court filings. After approval by the city, opponents launched a petition drive to amend the city charter to ban construction of data centers larger than 25 megawatts in the city. Trenton Data Center Campus LLC has a “direct interest” to intervene in the case because it is the owner and developer of the only data center under construction in Trenton, it told the Ohio Supreme Court. The city said in court documents, however, that Trenton Data Center Campus LLC does not have a “clear legal right,” to intervene, yet the city does have a clear right to amend its charter. The Ohio Supreme Court, however, granted the intervention. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce sided with the data center company. “At its core, this case is about whether Ohio wants to remain a leader for business and economic development, or whether it prefers to take a backseat and fall behind,” the chamber told the High Court in documents. “Recently, Gov. Mike Dewine and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel toured Ohio, touting Ohio’s economic success. Part of that success is because Ohio is a leader in data center development.” The supreme court ruling was the second in the last two weeks on data centers. The tiny Ohio village of Ashville, population of around 4,500, has a data center and natural gas power plant headed its way. In April, the village signed a multi-million-dollar contract with a company called EdgeConnex for the 195-acre project as Ohio continues to attract more data centers – and the opposition that follows them. But the Ohio Supreme Court recently put the brakes on the data center and power plant project, ruling that the village must first submit a referendum petition to the board of elections seeking a public vote on the contract.

Ohio legislation would require citizen approval for data centers - — Republican state lawmakers have proposed new legislation that would require communities to get citizens’ approval before approving new data center projects, and would also prohibit local government officials from entering into nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. Reps. Michelle Teska (R-Clearcreek Twp.) and Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) both describe themselves as pro-business conservatives, but they share the concern held by many data center opponents across the state — that so many of these facilities appeared in Ohio communities over the last several years with little regard for citizen input or environmental impact. Several flood victims accounted for at southeast Columbus homeless camp A lot of Ohioans, said Gross, are “rightly suspicious of government, saying, ‘Well, if this is going to affect us with noise, possible water pollution, it’s going to affect our home values. Why are you hiding the decision prior to it coming here?’” Teska and Gross also worry that, given the rapid advances in technology, many of the data centers being built in Ohio could soon become obsolete anyway. “I would hope that we would do our homework before we decide to put something on a beautiful piece of farmland when, a couple years from now, three, four years from now, that beautiful farmland has now got a really ugly, yucky building on it that is an empty building because the technology has changed so quickly,” Teska said. Business leaders, however, are not on board. Ryan Augsburger, president of the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, said he considers it unfair for the state to treat data centers differently from other industries. “We’ve seen laws happening at the local level and at the state level that impact data center businesses specifically. My association contends that that’s discrimination against a business activity,” Augsburger said. “We also think it’s a precedent that could expand to other types of businesses, so we take that with some concern.” Augsburger also said requiring local citizen approval risks creating uneven rules across the state. “It would mean how you do business in Hilliard is different than how you have to do business in Westerville,” Augsburger said. “That sends a very unwelcome signal to businesses. We need predictability and so that would be a problem.” Three indicted for fatal shooting of Delaware County mother, including daughter Ohio Chamber of Commerce President Steve Stivers, meanwhile, said citizen approval for all new data centers runs counter to representative democratic government. “The elected officials have the responsibility for making those decisions on behalf of the citizens,” Stivers said. “Citizens can then referendum those things or create an initiated statute, but just saying, ‘I’m going to abdicate my responsibility here, this is too hot a potato, you take it,’ to the voters, seems ironic and problematic to me.” With little time remaining in this General Assembly, the sponsors expect they’ll have to resubmit this legislation again next year, with Gross saying this issue is not going away. “This bill is the conversation that we should have had, quite frankly, ten years ago,” Gross said.

Data centers donate to AEP Ohio bills fund. How far will it stretch? - WOUB Public Media -(Statehouse News Bureau) — American Electric Power (AEP) said last week five major data center owners will contribute $17 million to an existing bill assistance program over the next five years. The Neighbor to Neighbor program awards one-time grants, of $500 or less, to eligible low-income residential consumers who have outstanding bills with AEP Ohio that are late by 30 or more days. Right now, that’s more than 200,000 households statewide, said Julia Ivinskas, director of customer experience for AEP Ohio.“It is called the Neighbor to Neighbor program, and we serve these communities, and the data centers are in these communities,” Ivinskas said in an interview Thursday. According to AEP Ohio, Meta contributed $10 million over five years and QTS contributed $3 million over three years. And there were one-time, one-year donations made by Amazon of $2.5 million for 2026, SoftBank Energy of $1 million for 2026 and Google of $500,000 for 2026.To be eligible, residential consumers must fall below an income threshold, about $96,000 for a four-person family, and be at least at risk of disconnection. And per $1 million, AEP estimates awarding assistance to about 2,000 families—likely a fraction of those eligible.Neighbor to Neighbor grants are distributed annually, Ivinskas said, by the national organization the Dollar Energy Fund, which oversees distribution.As utilities charge more and more statewide, Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis said this effort, while “significant,” does not address the root cause of high bills.“Continued oversight is necessary,” Willis said in an interview Friday. “Regulators … have to examine generation, transmission and distribution costs, not merely looking at the facilities that are connecting to an individual data center.”Current elected officials and candidates have said for months the debate over data centers ranks among the major issues for voters heading into the November election.Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee, has said any new data center should have to cover not only its own electric costs, but also foot the bill for nearby consumers through credits on their bills or direct reimbursements.Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee, called for a conditional moratorium on construction of new facilities. Her conditions include a data center needing to cover its own costs, use union labor, and ocate on a brownfield rather than farmland, among other ideas.Much of what each of them wants to do requires legislative or regulatory involvement.

Few Ohioans facing higher electric bills will benefit from American Electric Power-data center deal American Electric Power of Ohio announced an effort to lower electric bills for Ohioans in partnership with some of the largest data center companies, but very few customers will actually benefit from this plan. American Electric Power of Ohio announced this week in a press release that five data center giants, including Meta, Amazon and Google, will share profits, allowing the company to lower electric costs for customers. In its announcement, the company didn't share how many people this will end up helping. In a statement to WOSU, the company said the Neighbor to Neighbor program will end up helping about 2,600 people per $1 million with up to $500 in assistance. With an $8.4 million budget next year, that would mean about 21,000 Ohioans could receive this aid. Previously, the program only helped just over 1,000 people because it had a budget of $400,000. Rising electric bills are one of the biggest affordability issues facing Americans, especially in states like Ohio that are the prime location for hyperscale data centers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that since May of last year, Ohioans' electric bills rose 22%. Data centers are getting much of the blame for this, as the energy-guzzling facilities force AEP to upgrade transmission infrastructure. A lot of the increases seen year-over-year on customers' electricity bills are coming from the need to upgrade the electric grid. "We hear our customers' concerns about rising energy costs — and we share them. Our employees live and work in these same communities and feel the same pressures. So we focus on what we can do: helping customers manage their bills and connecting them with every assistance program available," the company said in a statement. In addition to raising the number of people eligible, customers who apply and qualify for this program will be subject to expanded income eligibility thresholds and more cash assistance. The program is also being changed to a year-round effort, rather than just during summer and winter. Eligible customers can now receive up to $500 in assistance, limited to one grant per account. The amount was previously $350. AEP's income eligibility threshold also increased from 200% to 300% of the federal poverty guidelines. This means that for a family of four, the income ceiling goes from $64,000 to about $96,000. Columbus Stand Up is one of the local organizations rallying for AEP to lower electricity costs and for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to reign the company in. The group's cofounder and former U.S. Senate candidate Morgan Harper called this a PR stunt and wants state regulators to step in more to reign in the utility company. "We're not talking about a small slice of the central Ohio population that's impacted by increased utility costs we're talking about almost everyone," Harper said. "If AEP wants to get serious about lowering electricity prices, they should not think of that as just folks on the lower income end of the spectrum. There are now people earning all sorts of amounts of money that are struggling to keep up with these increased costs," Harper continued. Harper said it is great that this program for lower-income residents is getting a boost, but it still has problems that she thinks should be addressed. Harper said AEP is unpopular and so are data centers, but people are starting to connect the dots about why their costs are going up. Moving forward, Harper said the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio needs to hold AEP accountable. She said Ohio's next governor should appoint members to this commission who want to exercise the commission's regulatory authority on this.

Ohioans are mad at data centers; Why that's a problem for Republicans - cleveland.com - -- Brian Rager had just finished building his $30,000 dream garage when he learned a data center was moving next door.The 69-year-old Republican walked into an open house in Canton Tuesday to hear the developer’s pitch. After an hour, Rager saw only one way the developer, Panattoni, could be a good neighbor: “Cancel it.”  The problem for Panattoni was that Rager’s mind was already made up. The problem for Republicans is that he isn’t alone. For years, pro-business Republicans treated data centers as economic development wins, offering tax breaks and incentives to lure them to Ohio. Then the politics changed. Seven in 10 voters now oppose having a data center near their home, up from 42% less than a year ago, according to a Heatmap Pro poll. The ribbon cuttings Republicans once celebrated became footage for Democratic attack ads, and the issue threatens to upend elections up and down the ticket.“(Ohio) Republicans are used to tapping the easy button this time of year,” University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven said. “Suddenly they’ve replaced it with the panic button.”When Google broke ground on a New Albany data center in November 2019, Sen. Jon Husted celebrated beside company leaders.“There are real benefits to real people who live here,” Husted, then Ohio’s lieutenant governor, said. The project meant jobs that helped families “pay the mortgage, pay for their cars, save for the future.”He predicted the investment would help turn Columbus into “the tech hub of the Midwest.” Then-Sen. Sherrod Brown, who now is challenging Husted in a bid to return to Washington, welcomed Amazon’s data center plans a few years earlier as “great news” and looked “forward to working to ensure that our region’s burgeoning logistics hub continues to grow.” At the time, data centers weren’t really controversial. They were moderately sized facilities that powered our online banking and cloud computing. But as our digital lives grew, so did the data centers.Facilities that once needed 50 megawatts of electricity gave way to sprawling campuses seeking hundreds or even more than 1,000 megawatts, enough power for a major city. Some developers even proposed building their own power plants to feed them.As electric bills jumped, communities began asking who would pay for new power plants and transmission lines. How much water would data centers consume? Why build on farmland instead of unused industrial brownfields?The industry did little to ease those concerns. Nondisclosure agreements sometimes kept even elected officials from knowing which companies were coming to town. Developers pushed for emergency clauses that prevented residents from challenging approved projects at the ballot box.A recent memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned that voter anger over data centers could threaten Husted’s election in November. “Republicans seem like they were caught flat-footed here,” Niven said. “They help unleash a data center plague and then appear surprised they are taking the blame for it.” Husted’s campaign said data centers “are, and should remain, a local decision” and pointed to his Ratepayer Protection Act, which would keep the cost of new power infrastructure from falling on families and small businesses. But the NRSC memo still called data centers an “anchor” around his campaign.Canton Republican Vic Vicenty hadn’t heard about the data center planned near his home until the day of Panattoni’s open house, despite public notices about the project. He told a company representative that he missed their messaging because he avoids most “liberal” news outlets.But Vicenty had seen Brown’s data center ad. He and other Republicans Cleveland.com spoke with were quick to point out that Brown did little to regulate data centers while in office. Vicenty doesn’t have to vote for Brown to hurt Husted. He could write in another name or leave the Senate race blank, something election officials call an undervote.“In my opinion, it’s going to be the undervote that could decide all the statewide races,” Lawson said.

New Albany's Socrates plant is helping power Ohio's AI future | Opinion by Chad Zamarin, president and chief executive officer of Williams Co. - Moderna and Merck announced that their mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in late-stage melanoma trials – a potentially life-saving medical breakthrough powered by artificial intelligence. The race for the next generation of technology is not just about the advancement of models; it is about the advancement of human prosperity and flourishing. The future will not be written by software; it will be enabled by the land, materials, and infrastructure we build to deliver the systems that power it. More: Moderna's personalized cancer vaccine shows promise. Here's why Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more! Data centers are no longer just server farms; they are becoming the manufacturing plants of the modern economy – producing intelligence, technological advancements, and unlimited opportunity for advancing society. The global race is on to capture this potential. Winning the race in a way that ensures we steer the power of AI toward the noble goals of society will only be possible by unleashing the demand for American energy that will be required to power rapidly evolving AI systems. Recently in New Albany, Williams stood alongside elected officials and community leaders to highlight what is possible when industry, technology, and local communities align to solve the challenge of meeting this demand. Working alongside our customer Meta, nearly a dozen American companies, and thousands of Ohio workers, we delivered a utility-scale power plant, Socrates, in under 14 months – a project timeline that has historically taken six to eight years. Socrates supports long-term economic growth and energy reliability, creating more than 6,300 statewide construction jobs, generating nearly $640 million in wages and benefits for Ohio workers, and contributing more than $53 million in state and local tax revenue during construction, with nearly $120 million more in long-term local revenue. Speed and power, however, mean little without responsibility. The rapid growth of data centers has raised fair questions among Ohio families: Will this surge in energy demand strain our electric grid? Will it drive up local utility bills? By sourcing natural gas directly from eastern Ohio producers and generating power on-site, we are supplying baseload energy without touching the public grid. This insulates Ohio households from rate spikes, secures regional grid reliability, and ensures that Ohio families and businesses are protected. Importantly, building energy infrastructure is also about investing in people and communities. Alongside Socrates, Williams is committing $10 million toward research, technical training, and career pathways in central Ohio. For too long, young people raised in the Midwest felt forced to look toward the coasts for high-tech jobs and engineering careers. We want kids growing up in central Ohio to find their opportunity at home. Partnering directly with local K-12 programs, technical schools, and higher education institutions, we are creating direct pipelines for local students and workers to gain high-demand skills. These aren't just jobs; they are high-paying, lifelong careers in energy and technology that offer real purpose. Socrates was built by Ohioans, and we believe this critical infrastructure should also be serviced and maintained by Ohioans. So, in addition to our $10 million commitment, Williams, alongside our partners at Caterpillar and Solar Turbines, is establishing a new Power Innovation and Reliability Center in central Ohio. This facility will house state-of-the-art equipment and become a hub where an advanced local workforce will optimize and maintain the complex energy systems that will power tomorrow’s economy.

The data center sales pitch has a problem: Ohioans can see their electric bills- Cleveland.com - The problem with trying to persuade Ohioans that their fears about data centers are overblown is that people have something more convincing than a political sales pitch: their electric bills.The hosts on Today in Ohio seized on that point Monday while discussing a data center developer’s attempt to win over wary residents in Canton. Chris Quinn said the effort comes as Republicans realize the issue could hurt them badly in November — and he described a strange flood of nearly identical messages he began receiving last week that appeared designed to get journalists to question whether data centers are really causing the problems Ohioans blame on them. Lisa Garvin began the conversation with reporter Anna Staver’s account of an open house held by data center developer Panattoni for a proposed Canton project. The company promised such concessions as preserving trees, mitigating noise, keeping generators at least 500 feet from neighboring properties and hiring local people. One nearby resident was having none of it, Garvin said, dismissing the promises by saying believing them was akin to believing in leprechauns.That skepticism has become a major political problem. Garvin noted that support for data centers once crossed party lines, with Republican Jon Husted praising Google’s arrival in New Albany and Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown celebrating an Amazon project.But Quinn argued that the public mood changed for a very simple reason.“Look, the reason this turned is everybody’s electric bill skyrocketed,” he said.Quinn said Ohio leaders once touted the projects as major economic-development engines, an argument he said has largely disappeared as the public learned how few permanent jobs the facilities create after construction.“I had so many people trying to say, you’re wrong, Mr. Quinn. These are economic development powers and they’re going to generate lots of money,” Quinn said. “And they’ve given that up because they know it’s a flat out lie. They employ almost nobody after the construction’s done.”More important, he said, state leaders failed to confront what the projects’ enormous electricity demand would do to Ohio’s power grid.“They didn’t say anything about what this would do to the demands on our grid,” Quinn said. “And now that we have more than 200 of these things sucking up all the power, we’re paying extraordinary fees.”Whatever anyone now says in defense of data centers, he argued, Ohioans have already experienced the consequences.“That’s not fiction,” Quinn said. “They did deplete the grid, create more demand, and our bills have all gone up and there’s no way you can talk your way around that.”Garvin wondered whether the industry anticipated the backlash long ago, pointing to the nondisclosure agreements that kept many projects secret while they were being negotiated.“All of them were signing NDAs, so people didn’t know these were happening until it was already a done deal,” Garvin said. “Even the council people didn’t know that.”“Exactly,” Quinn replied. “That’s why they kept them secret.”Then he described what he called “the insidious thing” now occurring as Republicans recognize the political danger.Beginning in the middle of last week, Quinn said, he suddenly began receiving texts and emails with strikingly similar wording. The messages politely suggested that because he has a large audience, perhaps he should examine “the truth about data centers” and whether concerns about their water and electricity use are actually false.“They all read exactly like that, one after another after another, all coming out at the same time,” Quinn said. That was particularly odd, he said, because cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have reported extensively on the problems surrounding Ohio’s data center boom.“For all I know, these are bots,” Quinn said. “But this is the effort. ‘Let’s try and convince people that what they know to be true isn’t true.’ ”Quinn predicted that the same message could soon surface in conservative media coverage portraying data centers more favorably and challenging the connection between the facilities and the costs being borne by residents. But he questioned how successful any such campaign can be when Ohioans need only open their utility bills.“I think it’s hilarious that this effort’s being made to try and win people over,” Quinn said, “because they know what their bills are.”

Ohio's data-center fight looks more and more like class warfare - the wealthy vs everyone else - Cleveland.com - The increasingly bitter fight over data centers in Ohio might be easier to understand as something more fundamental than a debate over economic development: It might be class warfare. That was the argument that Today in Ohio podcast hosts developed Tuesday, with Chris Quinn questioning whether wealth helps explain why political and business leaders remain so enthusiastic about data centers while ordinary Ohioans increasingly revolt against them. “I think there’s a big element of class warfare,” Quinn said. His theory: The people championing the facilities are largely insulated from the consequences that anger everybody else. A wealthy person might barely notice another $100 on the monthly electric bill, Quinn said, while potentially benefiting from investments in the technology companies being enriched by the artificial-intelligence boom. The Ohioans absorbing the cost, meanwhile, may have no such investments. “They’re the ones paying the higher electric bills, and they do know what their bills are,” Quinn said. “Or they live in rural Ohio and have these enormous sheds showing up, using their water, taking up their land, and they’re at the bottom of the class warfare.” Lisa Garvin noted that companies have concentrated many data centers in rural areas because that is where land is available. She wondered whether proponents initially assumed the largely Republican populations in those areas would accept them. They’re discovering otherwise, Quinn said. When huge technology companies first began making major data-center investments in Ohio, the projects were greeted as victories, he said, in part because most people had little understanding of the enormous amount of electricity they would eventually consume. Now, Quinn argued, the consequences are impossible to ignore. “The electric bill thing can’t be denied. For two years, our bills skyrocketed and they have not gone down,” Quinn said. That left him searching for an explanation for why political leaders — particularly those who have repeatedly portrayed data centers as economic-development projects — pushed so aggressively for them. They produce few permanent jobs. They consume staggering amounts of electricity. They have become politically toxic in communities that see them coming. So what, exactly, was the benefit for most Ohioans? Laura Johnston suggested the answer might fit a pattern voters have begun recognizing in state government. “We’ve seen over and over and over again, they’re all about their party and themselves over people,” she said. “And this, I think, is just one that finally hit home, that people recognized as the real priorities of our legislators.” Quinn broadened the point beyond data centers. “We have this growing rift, it gets bigger every day between the wealthy and the not wealthy,” he said. “The amount of money that is consumed by the top 1 or 2% of the people leaves so little for everybody else.” Ohio, he said, has spent years cutting taxes in ways that largely benefit wealthier residents. Data centers, he argued, deserve to be examined through the same lens. “Is creating all these data centers, propping up tech stocks, building more wealth for the wealthy at the expense of those who are not?” Quinn asked. “I’m surprised this has not been a big part of the argument, because it should be.” Leila Atassi thought the political consequences could become severe precisely because the financial divide is so easy for voters to understand. “I think you’re right on the money with this, Chris,” she said. Unlike complicated tax policies, a monthly electric bill gives people something tangible to connect with the issue. “When voters figure out that their bills are rising in part to accommodate enormously profitable companies and their investors, shareholders getting richer from this AI boom, they’re going to look for someone to blame,” Atassi said. “And they are already doing that.” Johnston made a similar point. Ohioans watched repeated income-tax reductions without necessarily seeing clearly who benefited most, she said. Data centers are different. “Finally they hit on an issue that we can wrap your hands around because you can see it,” she said. Quinn called data centers “the issue of the summer” and an issue heading directly into the election. And Atassi suggested the politicians who spent years promoting them might ultimately discover that the developments have a cost they failed to anticipate.

Candidates Run Against Data Centers, But Ohio Legislature Didn't Get The Memo -With some of the highest electricity rates in the Midwest, Ohio has seen a remarkable policy shift from lawmakers in both parties. Every candidate for governor has now called for restrictions on the data center boom, each proposing some form of moratorium unless certain conditions are met. Both U.S. Senate candidates have turned sharply critical of the industry. And the state’s highest court just ruled that local governments can’t fast-track new data centers without providing specific reasons — giving teeth to referendum drives in small towns where residents are trying to block project approvals.The tide may be turning on data centers in Ohio, as it is in states across the country — from Pennsylvania to California.  But when it comes to how the state generates its power, fossil fuel interests are using the moment to entrench themselves and box out solar and wind. The Republican-controlled Legislature is trying to redefine “clean energy” to include coal and gas, explicitly to the benefit of data centers, through a little noticed proposal — Senate Bill 294 — that passed the state Senate in June and awaits a House vote.SB 294 would make it the policy of the state to ensure “affordable, reliable, and clean energy security.” The catch is in the fine print: a minimum capacity factor standard of 50% — a measure that compares the energy source’s actual output to the maximum that is technically possible, a threshold that solar and wind fall far short of. Only nuclear, certain types of natural gas and wood-burning power plants can feasibly meet the threshold, per Inside Climate News. Energy experts consider it a definitional sleight of hand, with real consequences, with supporters casting the bill as energy security and critics arguing it intentionally sidelines the renewable projects needed to power massive energy-hungry data centers. The Senate passed it 24-9 on June 10.The irony is that Meta, one of the biggest tech companies in the state, has already signed an agreement to access more than 2.1 gigawatts of nuclear energy from power giant Vistra for its regional Ohio data centers — greener than the legislature that courts it.Beneath the maneuvering sits the number driving voter anger: The average Ohio electricity bill grew 55% from July 2021 to July 2026, far above the national average, according to the Heatmap/MIT Electricity Price Hub. Efforts at creating guardrails on data centers have stalled — a House bill to cut the sales tax break for new data center projects from 100% to 50% went nowhere, even with the House speaker’s support. “We don’t think we should be granting tax exemptions to multibillion-dollar corporations, especially when many of them are already coming here to build these data centers anyway,” Speaker Matt Huffman, a Republican, told the Ohio Capital Journal.  Leatra Harper, managing director of the FreshWater Accountability Project, testified against SB 294 and has spent 15 years tracking bills like it. “The bad bills never seem to die and the good bills go away forever,” she told Capital & Main. “They let them linger. They hold it over our heads.” The Referendum The clearest test of the backlash comes Nov. 3 in Ashville, a town of about 4,500 south of Columbus, where the fossil-fuel dimension of the fight is unusually literal. The Ashville Village Council struck a tentative agreement with EdgeConneX to build two data centers and an 800-megawatt natural gas plant on about 195 acres of village property, declared the deal an emergency so it could take effect immediately and exempted the project from Ashville’s own data center moratorium. Residents gathered enough signatures for a referendum in the November midterms. Village leaders refused to forward the petition. On Aug. 7, the Ohio Supreme Court unanimously ordered it submitted to the Pickaway County Board of Elections, ruling that Ashville leaders never explained why waiting the standard 30 days would have delayed anything. “I think this will be the first vote on data centers in Ohio,” said Marc Dann, the Democratic former state attorney general now representing Data Center Resistance, a group backing residents in such fights. Among them is Brian Meyers, a bus technician of more than 20 years who told Ohio Capital Journal that he learned about the project from an announcement on the back of his water bill. Northwest of Columbus, Jerome Township trustees imposed their own nine-month moratorium on new data centers after residents complained about a persistent “industrial buzz” from Amazon’s two existing facilities there, which carry 10-year tax abatements approved at the county level. “According to the way that the noise is measured, it may be in compliance, but it still is not pleasant,” former township trustee Wezlynn Davis told WOSU, insisting the nine-month moratorium was not anti-business. “We’re finding now that we’re experiencing data centers in real time. It is not tolerable for our residents.”The politics have followed the complaints up the ballot. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, has hammered Republican opponent Jon Husted in attack ads as “the face of data centers in Ohio”, calling him the point man for the 230-odd new data centers in the state who pushed the Legislature to grant $2.5 billion in tax subsidies for operators. But both men have shifted their positions — a decade ago Brown celebrated Amazon Web Services’ arrival in central Ohio. Husted, for his part, has conceded the ground entirely: “They’ve earned that backlash,” he told the Statehouse News Bureau of the industry, faulting companies for not offering to pay energy bills in the communities where they build power plants.  Harper, the FreshWater Accountability Project managing director, watches the conversion of Ohio’s politicians with the wariness of someone who fought this fight when it was a lonely quest. “People are slowly realizing that there’s a double standard — that our elected officials are catering more to fossil fuels and really putting all their eggs in the fracking basket,” she said. “It’s so much more blatant since the Trump administration has taken over.” Harper has felt it personally: Her own solar installation in Bowling Green was hit with a rider that she said wiped out its payback period, and she sued the city over it. Now she is fighting an $800 million Meta data center of more than 280 acres outside Bowling Green — one with its own permitted gas facility, fed by lines running off the Nexus and Rover fracked-gas pipelines. “I call it the Pandora’s box of fracking,” she said. “They’re just following that frack gas pipeline and installing these behind-the-meter gas plants.” The tools available to residents keep shrinking. Referendums, Harper said, were already difficult — volunteers canvassing around full-time jobs and 30-day windows — before lawmakers in 2023 raised the signature threshold for township zoning referendums from 8% of the last gubernatorial vote to 35%. “They sneak these bad laws in,” she said. “They put it in the chicken bill, or the budget bill. By the time you even catch on to what the impact is, it’s too late.” Still, she believes the resentment aimed at data centers is about something larger. “It might be as much about the billionaires as it is about the data centers themselves,” she said. “The data centers represent something — it’s tangible to the intangible that people are really beginning to resent, which is how our government’s pretty much bought and sold by moneyed interests.” Whether that resentment shows up in November is an open question. Harper thinks of her grandmother in Appalachia, who never cast a ballot in her life. “She said, ‘You know, if they’re not crooks when they go in, they’re crooks when they come out,’” Harper said. “And I used to think, Grandma, what are you saying? That can’t be true. But it is.”

Data center debate exposes Ohio's uneven energy landscape - Ohio Capital Journal - In the battle over data center siting in Ohio, one of the flashpoints is how data centers impact electricity prices.Data centers are indeed energy-intensive and the worry about their impact on local energy prices has moved most developers to work to get their energy generated in behind-the-meter projects that don’t draw from the electrical grid. So if you are a data center developer, what kind of power are you going to put behind the meter? Looking at the top sources of power in the United States, you can whittle the options down pretty quickly. Coal, once the heavyweight for energy in the United States, has seen its economics turn against itself and the United States has only begun construction on one coal-fired power plant in the past 13 years. For all the talk of small modular reactors, nuclear power is still not viable in Ohio due to the massive up-front costs and decades of regulatory hurdles to clear. Hydropower and geothermal power demand specific topographic conditions, and biomass has economies of scale that don’t make it competitive with other technologies.  This leaves developers with three choices: solar, wind, and natural gas. The state has put its thumb on the scale when it comes to choosing between these technologies. A range of state decisions have made siting solar, wind, and natural gas projects very different from one another. Solar and natural gas projects over 50 megawatts must be approved by the Ohio Power Siting Board. For reference, this would be large enough to power all the homes in Canton with a little bit of energy left over. Wind projects, on the other hand, only need to be 5 megawatts to face Ohio Power Siting Board scrutiny. That is only enough to power about half the homes in Athens. The state has also given considerable latitude to county governments to ban solar and wind projects in unincorporated areas, a barrier gas-powered plants do not have to overcome.For projects that are not outright banned, two local representatives get a vote on Siting Board decisions for wind and solar projects, a requirement not faced by natural gas projects.Solar and wind projects also face a regime of siting rules that do not apply to gas plants.Solar facilities face specified setbacks, landscaping, fencing, stormwater, noise, and vegetation requirements. Wind facilities face turbine setbacks and shadow-flicker, ice-throw, blade-failure, communications-interference, noise, and aviation requirements.Solar and wind projects also face decommissioning planning requirements that gas-powered plants are not subject to.Gas-powered plants do have one requirement that solar and wind projects do not: they must submit a range of operational air-quality analyses. This makes sense to a certain extent given solar and wind generation is emissions-free. In an ideal world, technologies can compete against each other on a level playing field.If there are specific costs associated with outcomes like public health, environmental sustainability, or even aesthetics, these can be captured through fees and taxes specifically designed to internalize these costs into the market.Creating separate regulatory regimes for different technologies, on the other hand, makes legislators the arbiters of technological superiority rather than the market.

Hope and concern swirls for Ohioans around 'world's largest datacenter' - The Guardian - On a winding road tucked away behind forests in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio is where OpenAI, Nvidia and Japanese investors are set to spend $500bn on one of the largest artificial intelligence datacenters on the planet.Last March, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and a host of Japanese and other dignitaries briefly descended on Piketon to enthusiastically break ground on a project to build 8GW worth of AI computing power. But locally, there’s a different feeling: a mix of hope but also concern. “Personally, my emotions range between positive and skeptical,” says Billy Spencer, who has been mayor of Piketon for the past 23 years, of the project.“There’s not an organized opposition to it around here. There hasn’t been that much talk. No one’s come to council – I don’t know that there’s been one citizen who lives within the village of Piketon who has come and said: ‘Mayor, what do you think about it?’” SB Energy, a subsidiary of Japanese bank SoftBank Group Corp, will own and operate the project with OpenAI signing a 20-year lease with the company to use the computing capacity delivered by the site. OpenAI would deploy Nvidia AI computing infrastructure at the datacenter, which will open in 2028.Masayoshi Son, the chair and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp, at the Portsmouth site in Piketon, Ohio, in March. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesTo meet its major energy demands, a natural gas plant would be built nearby, infrastructure expected to be paid for by Japanese money through a $33bn investment.However, the project has fueled concern from environmental groups, with part of it situated on a decommissioned uranium enrichment site that operated for nearly 60 years until 2001.For decades, communities in Pike county have blamed the department of energy-run facility, known locally as the “A-Plant”, for fueling above-average cancer rates and a host of other health issues. In 2019, a local middle school was forced to close after high levels of radiation were recorded in the building.The project is in large part a consequence of the Trump administration’s tariff and reshoring efforts: the government of Japan in July 2025 agreed to invest $550bn in the US in exchange for lowering tariffs on Japanese products entering the US. America is Japan’s biggest trade partner.However, a new administration could prevail in Washington after the 2028 presidential election and it could be one that could end Trump’s tariffs and consequently erase any motivation for Japanese investment in the project. That is not lost on Spencer.“But this is part of Japan’s deal – if you don’t put tariffs on us, we’ll spend money here [is Japan’s motivation],” he says. “So anytime it’s a political football like that, it’s subject to change, whether you support Trump or not.”Datacenters and their electricity and water needs have created a lightning rod of anger for communities across America. In July, the state of New York announced a pause in permitting the development of hyperscale datacenters, the first state in the country to do so.But the allure of huge sums of money is hard to ignore in Pike county, a part of America where the poverty rate, at over 19%, is almost double the national level.The project has promised to generate 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 long-term, operating jobs respectively, with the datacenter expected to take up about 640 acres (260 hectares), or an area about three-fourths the size of New York City’s Central Park. “Since the [enrichment] plant closed, people have been wondering where the jobs will come from,” says Spencer.“Pike county certainly can’t handle that alone,” he says of the estimated tens of thousands of construction workers expected to descend on the area over the next six years.Environmentalists, however, say there are a host of issues with the plan.Creating what would be the country’s largest natural gas power plant could see millions of pounds of noxious chemicals released into the air.  Flaring produces huge volumes of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.“As one of the largest natural gas facilities ever proposed, the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution associated with a project of this size represents an astronomical contribution to climate change, not to mention the public health risks associated with the air pollution created by natural gas combustion,” says Carol Kauffman, the chief executive officer of the Ohio Environmental Council.“There are also upstream impacts, too, with fracking wells and methane leakage from pipelines.”The US Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2022, “CO2 emissions from burning natural gas for energy accounted for about 35% of total US energy-related CO2 emissions”.What’s more, local leaders suggest that during the construction phase up to 2m gallons of water may be required for waste purposes.Residents, including Spencer, have previously voiced opposition to a $650m waste disposal facility at the site, where low-level radioactive and other materials from the disassembled uranium-enrichment plant have been buried. Many are concerned that leaching, over time, could see hazardous waste enter the aquifer underground.Project managers, however, say that has been taken into account.“SB Energy performs thorough site reviews and due diligence for each of our infrastructure projects, including soil sampling,” a SB Energy spokesperson told the Guardian.“SB Energy has committed to paying for accelerated cleanup and remediation at the site.”Headquartered in Redwood City, California, SB Energy has said that Ohio ratepayers won’t have to pay into the cost for connecting the facility to the local electricity grid, and that additional electricity produced at the natural gas plant would go back onto the local grid, helping reduce costs for local customers.Many locals support any effort that would hasten funding for safer use and storage of the radioactive material that dots the site, which covers 6 sq miles, or almost 4,000 acres.For its part, OpenAI announced this month plans to “invest $40m in a community grant fund supporting priorities identified by local residents” in Pike county. It also plans to give college students across Ohio a $100 credit to use one of its ChatGPT AI tools.But all this money being pumped into a community where the median household income is $41,313 or 40% less than the Ohio figure, could set off a wealth gap between land and property owners and everyone else.Locals say SB Energy is actively buying up large tracts of land, a move that has reset the local property market. A report filed by SB Energy with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency says part of the project would be located on more than 1,000 acres of private land immediately adjacent to the former enrichment facility.And at the time of writing, SB Energy had posted just four jobs based in Piketon.On the streets of Piketon, several residents in the village of about 2,200 people declined to comment on the project due to having no information about it.Dawn Winters, who runs several local gas stations, says her business is likely to benefit from the project.“I think it’s going to be a good thing for businesses like mine,” she says.“But on the other hand, we are seeing rent prices go up already. A friend of mine had to sell their land [to the project] and relocate. People are already needing affordable housing.”

How Will Massive Ohio Data Center Complex Get Its Gas? -  This week, software giant Nvidia said it will infuse $1.5 billion into a massive data center and its 9.2 gigawatt gas-fired power plant in southern Ohio. But while the Ports-Pike Technology Campus sits in the heart of gas-rich Appalachia, there are no announced plans to build pipeline capacity to the project, which would require up to 1.5 billion cubic feet per day around the clock. [NB: that’s almost as much gas as is consumed by the entire state of Virginia]

Data Center Backlash Finds Its Bluntest Voice in Pennsylvania’s ‘Hell No -Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro escalated his criticism of proposed data centers in the state with some of the sharpest rhetoric yet aimed at the industry, singling out developers he accused of bullying communities to advance projects with no realistic path to power.      US map shows data center development clusters near major natural gas pipelines in Texas, the Southeast, Midwest and Northeast. At a Glance:

• Shapiro brands developers ‘predatory’
• Archbald faces 51 proposed warehouses
• Governor still backs $20B in projects

South Strabane Delays Fossil Fuel Power Ordinance Vote a 2nd Time -- Marcellus Drilling News - -Back in June, we praised South Strabane Township in Washington County, PA, for doing the hard, unglamorous work of writing data center rules instead of slamming the door shut (see 2 PA Towns Show How to Move Forward with Data Center Projects). We still mean it. But the third and final piece of that package — the one that actually matters most to our readers, governing on-site fossil fuel power generation — just got tabled for the second month in a row. And this time it wasn’t because residents wanted more time. It was because somebody’s draft came back missing chunks of text.

TECfusions Flips the Switch at New Kensington SWPA AI Data Center - Marcellus Drilling News --Nineteen months after TECfusions bought the old Alcoa research campus in Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County), PA, and promised to build 3 gigawatts of gas-fired AI computing capacity, the company announced yesterday that the site is live and delivering GPU capacity to a paying customer. It’s a small first bite of a very large apple—but it’s real, it’s running on gas turbines today, and it sits on top of Marcellus wells the company already owns.

Buried in New PA Poll: Republicans Support Data Centers 51-42 -- Marcellus Drilling News - A second poll of Pennsylvania voters on data centers landed this week, and the headlines say what you’d expect: six in ten are opposed. Dig into the crosstabs — the detailed tables showing how each group answered — and you find something the coverage skipped entirely. A majority of Pennsylvania Republicans support building data centers. Fifty-one percent for, 42% against (take note, Stacy Garrity). The Philadelphia Inquirer, teaming up with the New York Times and Siena University, surveyed 760 likely Pennsylvania voters from August 17-21. The topline: 62% oppose the construction of AI data centers, 33% support them.

Behind-the-Meter Wins: SC OKs 457 MW Gas Plant for Data Center -- Marcellus Drilling News -   South Carolina’s utility regulators voted unanimously yesterday to let a $2.8 billion artificial intelligence data center in Spartanburg County build and run its own 457-megawatt natural gas power plant without asking the state’s permission first. The decision is a big win for the “behind-the-meter” model — where a data center brings its own generation instead of leaning on the grid — and it’s a model that is going to burn a lot of molecules. Possibly some of ours

Georgia Power Deal Proves Data Centers Can LOWER Your Bill - Marcellus Drilling News - -  Every week we read another story about AI data centers jacking up electric bills for regular folks. This week, Georgia Power says the opposite is happening in its territory — and the reason why is worth understanding, especially if you live in PJM country. Georgia’s Public Service Commission has approved Georgia Power’s contract to serve a massive new OpenAI data center project in Effingham County, GA. The deal adds 3,200 megawatts (MW) of new electric demand to Georgia Power’s system — for scale, that’s roughly the output of two to three large nuclear reactors. Rather than pushing costs onto existing customers, Georgia Power says the new load will actually lower bills.

Data Center Developers in Texas Plan Massive New Gas Power Projects -- The 12 largest gas power projects planned in Texas are all specifically intended to run data centers, according to data released Tuesday by Global Energy Monitor, a global nonprofit that maps and tracks energy infrastructure.  The volume of gas power generation planned in Texas has continued to surge, growing by 50 percent in the last six months, the GEM report said—more than any country besides the United States. Permitting documents show that just a handful of mega-projects in Texas could emit over 100 million tons per year of greenhouse gases, an enormous amount roughly equal to the annual emissions of a mid-sized industrialized country. These projects are also expected to discharge tens of thousands of tons of other pollutants. The latest release of GEM’s Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker shows 81.7 gigawatts of operating gas power generation in Texas, with 99.4 GW in development and another 22.4 GW recently announced. “This frenzy of gas proposals is running headlong into the hurdles of an already tight gas market,” said Jenny Martos, project manager for the Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker. “It is nearly impossible nowadays to guess what is a pie in the sky proposal, and what has a real chance of getting built.” GW Ranch Energy Center, near Fort Stockton in Pecos County, received the largest air pollution permit in the country this year and expects to emit 33 million tons per year of greenhouse gases, which fuel global warming. Earlier this month Amazon announced it had acquired the project. In the Texas Panhandle, Fermi America’s Project Matador, backed by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, plans to build 90 combined-cycle gas turbines, 16 cooling towers and six emergency generator engines with 24 million tons per year of greenhouse gas emissions. In Southeast Texas, gas power for the Nexus Data Center Hubbard would emit 22 million tons per year of greenhouse gases.Faced with a global backlog of combined-cycle turbine supplies, developers have turned to smaller and dirtier units that can be quickly deployed, the GEM report said, including simple-cycle turbines and gas-powered engines.“Gas turbines and engines are less efficient than combined-cycle plants and carry higher emissions per unit of electricity generated,” the report said.
According to GEM data, engines and simple-cycle gas turbines make up nearly half the generating technology for gas power proposals tied to data centers nationwide.For example, in West Texas, the Kilby Power Plant proposes to release 12 million tons of greenhouse gases per year from two combined-cycle gas turbines and 15 simple-cycle turbines.“The simple-cycle turbines are critical to provide uninterrupted power operating behind the meter to meet onsite data center customers’ dynamic power demands,” the project permit application said. In the Panhandle, a permit application for a “data center and associated energy-generation facility” called Westline 2335 proposes to release 10 million tons per year of greenhouse gases from 240 gas-powered generators arranged in 20 “engine halls,” and Roman Energy Center projects that it will emit 8 million tons per year via 640 gas-powered generators and 25 backup diesel emergency generator engines to provide power to data centers. In nearby Abilene, the Longhorn Power Plant, described in permitting documents as “power generation equipment for onsite consumption in data center buildings,” would emit 8 million tons per year of greenhouse gases.
Other enormous gas projects for data centers did not readily indicate expected greenhouse gas emissions in permitting documents, like the Schlachter Realty data center power station, which proposes to build 891 Caterpillar 3516E emergency generators at its complex south of Dallas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has urged data center developers to build their own power plants in order to avoid straining the state’s electrical grid. In August he announced a “pause” on data center proposals.“They must not take power from the Texas power grid,” Abbott said Sunday on ABC News. “They need to make sure that they are not disturbing neighborhoods or rural communities.”

45 Power Plants in India Running on Critically Low Levels of Coal Stocks -As many as 45 coal-fired power plants in India are currently operating with critically low levels of coal stocks, as electricity demand rises amid the strong El Nino but supply is disrupted by monsoon rains, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing government data and industry officials.  These 45 coal power plants are operating with inventories below 25% of their required levels or with stocks insufficient for three consecutive days of power generation, per data from the Central Electricity Authority cited by Reuters. The number of plants with low coal stocks surged to 45 from 31 at the end of July.  Monsoon-related disruptions to domestic supply have tightened the immediate availability and transportation of coal from the coal-rich producing states to the coal-fired power plants. As a result, domestic coal prices in India rose this week, commodity consultancy BigMint said on Wednesday. “India's thermal power plants drew down coal inventories sharply during the first 23 days of August as coal consumption continued to outpace supplies,” BigMint said in a separate analysis on Wednesday. Stocks at India’s power plants declined by 15.5% between August 1 and 23, as receipts of coal deliveries lagged the rate of coal burns, the consultancy added. The monsoon season in India has been disrupted by El Nino, with hotter-than-usual temperatures driving up power demand.“The uneven monsoon has driven power demand, primarily for air-conditioning. But coal supplies are running hand-to-mouth,” an anonymous official at NTPC, India’s biggest thermal power producer, told Reuters.“There is a need for five to six rakes at some plants, but we are receiving only half that number,” the executive said.The higher coal demand for cooling is boosting India’s reliance on thermal coal plants, and some of these have been asked by the power ministry to delay planned maintenance until the supply issues are resolved, a senior official at the ministry told Reuters.

Study Says 93-Mile Ohio “Lake to River” Gas Pipeline is Doable -- Marcellus Drilling News - Thirteen months ago, MDN told you Ohio had just handed the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments $250,000 to find out whether a natural gas pipeline could be built up the middle of State Route 11, from the Ohio River at East Liverpool all the way north to Lake Erie at Ashtabula (see OH Spending $250K to Study Utica to Lake Erie Pipe for LNG Exports). Yesterday the answer landed. The 142-page “Lake to River: Oil & Gas Pipeline Feasibility Study” (full copy below), prepared by consulting firm Verdantas, says yes — a 93-mile line is technically buildable inside the existing state right-of-way, would move up to 3 billion cubic feet per day, and would cost up to $1.36 billion. What it doesn’t have yet is a builder or a customer.  Ashtabula County | Columbiana County | Mahoning County | Trumbull County

Ohio Gov. Race: Ramaswamy Pro-Frack, Acton Wants a Ban  - Marcellus Drilling News - -- Ohio’s next governor will inherit a program that has already banked $314 million for the state by leasing the rock a mile below its parks and wildlife areas. Two of the three candidates on the November ballot want to shut it down. Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer put four questions about drilling under state-owned land to Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, Democrat Amy Acton, and Libertarian Don Kissick as part of its 2026 gubernatorial issues series. The answers could hardly be more different.

Gas line puncture prompts evacuation of Northwest High School - Northwest High School students were evacuated Thursday morning after a gas line was punctured during construction work at the school.  Northwest Local Schools Superintendent Shawn Braman said the district was notified by the construction company working on an addition to the high school and the district’s building and grounds supervisor. Students were evacuated to Stinson as a precaution. Braman said all students are safe and have been accounted for. Canal Fulton police and fire crews responded to the school, and police blocked the road at the entrance while crews worked to repair the gas line. School officials said they expected the repair to be completed within about an hour. The district plans to take steps to resume classes once the line is repaired. Officials said they will provide another update if the situation lasts longer than anticipated.

Knox Energy disconnects service for 43 customers in Belpre area - - Marietta Times - Knox Energy recently notified 43 of its customers that their natural gas service would be disconnected Oct. 29, stating the local supply gathering system will be unable to provide reliable service. Vanessa Hamilton, chief business development officer for Canton-based Knox Energy, said the area affected is solely supplied by local production. Several weeks ago, Knox Energy operations staff met with Bob Wilson, president of Wilson Energy, and were told the well conditions had worsened and couldn't continue to meet the demand of all customers. Hamilton said that last year Wilson met with Knox Energy and said the wells were depleting and customers could experience outages during extreme temperatures. In a letter dated Sept. 30, 2025, customers were notified of this potential change and urged to look for alternate heating solutions. Now, 43 of the approximately 160 Knox Energy customers whose service is supplied by Wilson Energy have been notified of the pending disconnection. Wilson and Wilson Energy Chief Operating Officer, Diogenes "Dio" Herrera were not immediately available for a comment on the status and conditions of the natural gas wells in question. Hamilton said the decision came after looking for alternate solutions such as larger transmission lines and contacted natural gas provider Enbridge for possible solutions for sustainability and reliability of service, but "they are capacity constrained" and all other options have been exhausted. Hamilton stated that the 43 customers whose service is being discontinued experienced outages last winter. "Some customers are miles and miles and miles away from any other supply source," she said. Jolene Reeder, a resident of Belpre, received the disconnection letter on Monday. She said she received a letter 10 days earlier with no disconnection date, only a notice of potential disruptions. She said she has lived in her home on Briggs Hill since 2018 and hasn't experienced any disruptions in the past year. Reeder said she contacted Enbridge about connecting to a gas line nearby, but her home is approximately 1,000 feet from the closest tap. She was told the first 100 feet to connect would be covered but she would have to pay around $80 per foot for the other 900 feet. "It equated to $81,000 for us to be able to connect to Enbridge," she said. Reeder said if her close neighbors chose to tap into the same line the cost would drop to approximately $21,000, but would take around a year for construction of the lines to be completed and the homes connected to natural gas. She stated her furnace, hot water heater and stove all run on natural gas and her next step is potentially converting them to propane. "It's absolutely disgusting and infuriating for these energy groups to expect families to be able to find reliable heat sources in a two-month period. ... and to think more people just have the extra money laying around to be able to (change gas providers) or have things converted to propane," Reeder said. Ohio Gas Association Distribution and Transportation Company President Jimmy Stewart said that with traditional wells like the ones operated by Wilson Energy, the supply of natural gas depletes over time and eventually there isn't enough, unless the company can tap into a larger transmission line nearby. Unfortunately, this situation is not unique to Washington County, he said.

Shell plans to sell US chemical assets for up to $8 billion - According to a report by the Financial Times on August 24, Shell has launched the sale process for its US chemical assets, with the entire portfolio valued at up to $8 billion. ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, private equity firm Apollo, and the chemical business of Kuwait Petroleum Company are all participating in the bidding. Sources indicate that potential buyers submitted non-binding offers last month, with some interested parties choosing to acquire the entire portfolio, while others expressed interest only in certain target assets. The assets proposed for sale this time include four chemical bases located in Louisiana, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Among them, the Monaca polyethylene project in Pennsylvania has attracted the most market attention. The project commenced production in 2022 with a total cumulative investment of approximately 1.4 million tons and a designed annual polyethylene production capacity of 1.6 million tons. Relying on ethane feedstock from the Marcellus and Utica shale gas basins in the US, it was originally positioned as the first large-scale polyethylene production base in the northeastern United States, aiming to leverage low-cost raw materials to be close to consumer markets and drive the expansion of Shell's polyethylene business. However, this major project failed to meet expectations. Shell CEO Wael Sawan stated publicly in May of this year that the company is conducting a strategic evaluation of its chemical business, including Monaca, bluntly stating that the plant is not a "natural operator and owner" for Shell, which foreshadowed the asset disposal. The underlying logic for divesting assets is the long-term pressure on Shell's chemical sector. In 2025, Shell's chemical business reported an adjusted earnings loss of $1.125 billion, with operational performance further weakening compared to 2024. At the performance meeting in February 2026, management proposed a comprehensive assessment of the cash costs of chemical plants, not ruling out shutdown options, and planned to improve sector cash flow through cost reduction and asset restructuring. It is worth noting that the US chemical sector has already shown signs of recovery in the first half of 2026; plant utilization rates rebounded to 85% in the first quarter, and adjusted earnings improved significantly quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter. This indicates that this sale is not due to a sudden deterioration in the factory's operations, but an active strategic decision made by Shell regarding its asset portfolio from the perspective of long-term capital returns. Under the leadership of Wael Sawan, Shell continues to shrink non-core sectors, concentrating capital on its core businesses of oil, gas, and LNG. Previously, the company divested its refining and petrochemical assets in Singapore and sold its European onshore renewable energy business to TotalEnergies, continuously streamlining its operations. Although Shell has chosen to exit, this batch of US chemical assets has still garnered favor from multiple industrial capital firms. The assets possess mature production facilities, stable raw material supply, and supporting sales networks; the Monaca project also enjoys the locational advantage of being close to consumer markets in the northeastern part of North America. For industrial buyers, directly acquiring existing assets offers significant cost advantages compared to building new facilities. Currently, this transaction is still in the early stages. The final counterparty, transaction price, and scope of asset handover have not yet been finalized, and there remain uncertainties ahead.

19 New Shale Well Permits Reported for PA-OH-WV Aug 17 – 23 -- Marcellus Drilling News - The Marcellus/Utica region received 19 new drilling permits last week, August 17 – 23, down from the 27 permits issued two weeks ago. For the second week in a row, Pennsylvania issued the fewest new permits, with 2 (after issuing just 4 two weeks ago). What’s up with PA? Ohio issued 4 permits. And West Virginia took the prize last week, issuing 13 new permits. The drillers who received new permits were: Expand Energy (6), Infinity Natural Resources (1), Northeast Natural Energy (1), Pennsylvania General Energy (2), Tiburon Oil & Gas (3), and Vickery Energy (6).   Doddridge County | Expand Energy | Guernsey County | INR/Infinity Natural Resources | Lycoming County | Marion County | Marshall County | Noble County | Northeast Natural Energy | Pennsylvania General Energy | Tiburon Oil & Gas | Vickery Energy Partners

US Data Center Backlash Adds Risk to Natural Gas Demand Outlooks - Political action against data centers in the United States is spreading and has become a bipartisan issue, one that could have potential ramifications for expectations of incremental natural gas demand.US data center development clusters near major natural gas pipelines, including Appalachia, Texas, Chicago, Atlanta and Phoenix.  At a Glance:
Most Americans oppose local projects
States weigh tougher development rules
Political scrutiny raises project execution risks

DEP: Equitrans Water SVC [EQT] Reports 2 Landslides Along Shale Gas Water Pipeline Route In Union Twp., Washington County --On August 10, 2026, the Department of Environmental Project reported it was notified of two landslides on August 7 along the route of the Equitrans Water SVC (PA) LLC [EQT] NIMCH006 shale gas water pipeline in Union Township, Washington County impacted two streams. At Station 57+00 a slope failure of about 50 x 15 feet was observed with sediment from the failure accumulated within a stream Efforts were underway to remove the sediment and temporarily stabilize the slope. At Station 54+25 a slope failure of about 150 x 90 feet was observed with sediment deposited in a stream and altering its flow path. Efforts were underway to temporarily stabilize the slope. DEP and pipeline owners are sensitive to slope failures because they could stress natural gas and water pipelines causing them to rupture. DEP requested a response by September 1 that includes a geotechnical report on the cause of the slope failure, stabilization measures and an action plan to remediate the impacts of the streams. Equitrans said in its initial response to DEP there was a significant rain event on August 7 that contributed to the land slides. Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.

DEP: Routine Inspection Finds ‘Significant’ Release Of Contaminated Water From Conventional Oil & Gas Wells Pollutes Hillside In Warren County - On August 17, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection conducted a routine inspection of the Smith 8 conventional well owned by LA Oil & Gas LLC and found a ‘significant’ release of contaminated water from storage tanks ran down a hill for hundreds of feet in Pleasant Township, Warren County. DEP reported the release started 10 feet from secondary containment and continued down slope 50 feet to a road ditch along the well site access road and traveled an additional 180 feet along the road until reaching a culvert under a public road. At that point the flow of contaminated water discharged over a hillside. “It is unclear when or how much fluid has been released, however given the extent of impacted soil it appears that over 1 barrel [42 gallons] of fluid has been released.” DEP said the release “likely [happened] on a recurring basis.” Multiple violations were issued, including failure to report the release of contaminated water. DEP requested a response by September 3 that includes not only a plan and timetable for cleaning up the spill, but also documentation on where the well owner disposed of their contaminated wastewater since August of 2025. DEP sent the well owner the inspection report. The response from the owner was “received.” Click Here for DEP inspection report + photos.

Washington Co. Brine Spill Doubles in Size, Cleanup Drags On -- Marcellus Drilling News - Remember that shale wastewater pipeline leak we told you about in West Finley Township, Washington County, back in July (see HG Energy Washington Co. Pad Leaks Up to 1,000 Barrels of Wastewater)? It’s worse than first reported; it still hasn’t been cleaned up, and the company DEP keeps writing violations to isn’t the driller you’d expect. It’s a New York City loan vehicle. When we first covered this on July 16, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said a failed piece of equipment in a cement vault had let loose somewhere between 21,000 and 42,000 gallons of brine — that’s produced water, the salty stuff that comes back up out of a shale well — near the WFN-6 well pad. Drone crews spotted it July 8. Two things have changed since then, and both are worth your attention.

DEP - Day 62: Contaminated Water Releases, Polluted Soil At Multiple Locations At Equitrans Water SVC [EQT] Richter Shale Gas Water Impoundment; Little Cleanup Happening In Greene County --On August 18, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection did a compliance evaluation of the Equitrans Water SVC (PA LLC [EQT] Richter Shale Gas Water Impoundment spill site and found evidence of continuing contaminated water releases and a failure to advance remediate at the site in Aleppo Township, Greene County. In four inspection reports, DEP documented the failure of Equitrans [EQT] to comply with the cleanup order issued on June 30, 2026 to prevent the migration of contaminated water off site and from reaching ground or surface water from the pipeline release at the site on June 17.  Read more here.

Inspection Report #1 found--

• -- Multiple field conductivity readings showed elevated levels of contamination at the former vault area that was the original location of the release on June 17, including in soils roughly 20 feet below the surface.
• -- A spring water seep along the slope of the vault had elevated readings.
• -- No additional remediation was done at the contaminated dewatering location for the impoundment.
• -- Excavation continues to fill in impoundment hole, field tests of the fill slope material being used found no elevated conductivity readings.

Inspection Report #2 found--

• -- Contaminated fluid removal from the rain garden retention area was on hold.
• -- A pond at the site was actively overflowing and discharging contaminated fluid down an access road.
• -- The pond water is overflowing into a ponded area behind a new beaver dam built on top of disturbed soils and on top of pipes used to collect contaminated water.

Inspection Report #3 found--

• -- Elevated conductivity readings were found in a tributary to South Fork Dunkard Fork Creek.
• -- Elevated readings were found in another spring water seek along the creek and at multiple seeps and other areas.

Inspection Report #4 noted DEP “collected samples from several surrounding locations potentially impacted from the spill” on August 18, but locations were not identified.The inspection reports included dozens of photos documenting the continuing problems at the site.DEP continued the violation issued August 11, 2026 related to failing to comply with the June 30, 2026 order to cleanup the site.No specific followup was requested from Equitrans, but copies of the inspection reports were sent to the company.

DEP: Eureka Still on the Hook for Cleanup Despite Selling Plants - Marcellus Drilling News - - Eureka Resources sold the business at all three of its shuttered Pennsylvania frack wastewater plants. What it did not sell — and legally could not sell — is the obligation to finish hauling the waste out. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) put that in writing last week, and added five words that ought to get somebody’s attention in Williamsport: DEP “is considering alternative enforcement measures.” The news comes, again, not from Eureka and not from a DEP press release, but from the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, which keeps sending the agency questions and publishing the answers. DEP Northcentral communications manager Megan Lehman replied by email Aug. 20; the Riverkeeper posted the exchange Aug. 24.

Three Rivers Waterkeeper Notifies Harwick Operating Co. That It Intents To Sue The Company Over Clean Water Act Violations At Its Coal Ash Landfill In Allegheny County -On August 24, Three Rivers Waterkeeper filed a formal notice of intent to sue Harwick Operating Co. LLC for violating the federal Clean Water Act at its site in Springdale Borough, Allegheny County known as the Monarch Mine Dewatering Plant and the adjacent Cheswick Ash Disposal Site. Harwick discharges stormwater, treated mine water and landfill leachate from a coal ash landfill into Little Deer Creek which flows into Deer Creek approximately 2.2 miles upstream of the confluence of Deer Creek and the Allegheny River. Discharge monitoring reports submitted by Harwick to the Department of Environmental Protection show that from March 2025 to the present, Harwick has repeatedly violated its permit limits for iron, copper, cadmium, aluminum, manganese, total suspended solids, and hexavalent chromium. DEP has listed Little Deer Creek under the CWA as impaired due to high levels of iron, aluminum, and manganese. “Given its proximity to major drinking water sources, it is crucial that this facility complies with the Clean Water Act,” said Dr. Heather Hulton VanTassel, Executive Director, Three Rivers Waterkeeper. The Oakmont Borough Municipal Authority and the Wilkinsburg-Penn Joint Water Authority have public drinking water intakes 3.5 and 10 river miles, respectively, downstream from Harwick’s site. The notice is based on publicly available information, including Harwick’s CWA discharge permit and the discharge monitoring reports required by that permit. The purpose of the notice is to identify those violations and to give Harwick 60 days to achieve full compliance before a citizen suit is filed. "Our goal is to stop this ongoing pollution and protect our most critical natural resource - clean water." said Dr. Hulton VanTassel. "We can’t continue to allow our streams and rivers that provide drinking water and critical habitat to plants and animals to be unnecessarily contaminated by toxic chemicals." “This case shows the lingering long-term effects of burning coal to generate electricity,” said Jim Hecker, Senior Environmental Enforcement Attorney at Public Justice in Washington, D.C. “Even though the Cheswick power plant that burned the coal and generated the coal ash in the landfill has been shut down, pollutants from the coal mines and coal ash near the plant site are continuing to pollute the environment.” Harwick is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Charah Solutions, Inc., a holding company which provides services to the power generation industry.

3rd Circuit Revives XTO Bid to Arbitrate PA Royalty Claims -- Marcellus Drilling News - A federal appeals court has handed XTO Energy (ExxonMobil’s shale subsidiary) a win in a long-running Western Pennsylvania royalty lawsuit, ruling Monday that XTO did NOT give up its right to push some landowners into private arbitration — even though it spent 55 months litigating the case before it asked. The case is Salvatora v. XTO Energy Inc., a cousin of the Kriley case MDN has also followed. Same defendant, same Pittsburgh courthouse, same plaintiffs’ firm, same complaint: landowners say XTO shaved too much off their royalty checks for “post-production costs” — the gathering, compression, and processing charges that move gas from the wellhead to a buyer.

EQT stock slips after Q2 revenue missed estimates - EQT Corporation traded at $54.77 after the latest session, while the company reported second-quarter revenue of $1.68 billion and earnings per share of $0.39 for the period ended July 21, 2026. The quarter missed the $1.76 billion revenue estimate and the $0.41 EPS forecast, while revenue fell 29.2% from the same quarter a year earlier. Market data showed a market capitalization of $34.26 billion, a 52-week range of $47.94 to $68.24, and an EPS TTM figure of 4.31 on August 28, 2026. Consensus for the current fiscal year pointed to 3.97 EPS, and the dividend record showed a $0.165 quarterly payout that implied $0.66 annualized per share. The gap between the reported $0.39 EPS and the $0.41 estimate was small, but the revenue shortfall was more visible at $1.68 billion versus $1.76 billion. EQT is a U.S. natural gas producer with upstream operations in the Appalachian Basin, including the Marcellus and Utica shale formations. Its core product is natural gas, supported by associated liquids and conventional gas assets.

Analyst: Appalachian Drillers Done Buying Pipeline Space - Marcellus Drilling News - - For twenty years, the gospel in Appalachia has been simple: build every pipe you can, because the only thing standing between a Marcellus well and real money is a way out of the basin. Denver-based East Daley Analytics now says that gospel is being quietly abandoned — by the drillers themselves. In its August Monthly Production Stream webinar, the firm laid out evidence that M-U producers are letting long-haul pipeline contracts lapse on purpose, betting that the best customer for Appalachian gas is no longer a Gulf Coast LNG dock but a data center down the road.

Enterprise Signals ‘Rate Reset’ on ATEX M-U Ethane Pipeline -- Marcellus Drilling News - The single most important piece of pipe for Marcellus/Utica wet gas drillers is about to get a lot cheaper to use — and Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) just said so out loud. On its second quarter earnings call, EPD told analysts that the tolls it charges on ATEX, the 1,230-mile ethane pipeline running from Washington County, PA to Mont Belvieu, TX, now often cost more than the ethane moving through it. Enterprise executive Justin Kreider put it plainly: “There is going to be some degree of a rate reset.” A new analysis from East Daley Analytics puts numbers behind that comment — and finds that roughly half of ATEX’s capacity comes up for renewal in 2028.

Midwest Leads the Charge as U.S. Propane Stocks Reach Record High | RBN Energy -The EIA reported a build of 2 MMbbl in total U.S. propane/propylene inventories for the week ended August 14, exceeding industry expectations for a build of 860 Mbbl and the average build of 1.6 MMbbl for the week. The increase lifted total U.S. stocks to an all-time high of 107 MMbbl (red line in Figure 1 below). Inventories are now 15.8 MMbbl, or 17%, above the same week in 2025 (blue line); 14.7 MMbbl, or 16%, above the previous five-year maximum; and 24.9 MMbbl, or 30%, above the five-year average (green line). Total stocks could approach 117 MMbbl by early October if inventories follow the average seasonal building pattern of recent years before draws begin.For the third consecutive week, a region outside PADD 3 posted the largest inventory increase. Nevertheless, the Gulf Coast remains the foundation of the country’s elevated inventory position. Together, PADDs 2 and 3 accounted for nearly the entire weekly build and hold approximately 88% of total U.S. propane inventories. PADD 2 (Midwest) led this week’s increase, adding 1.1 MMbbl and lifting regional stocks to 26.2 MMbbl, or approximately 24% of total U.S. inventories (red line in Figure 2 below). Midwest stocks are 2.2 MMbbl, or 9%, above the same week in 2025 (blue line); 737 Mbbl, or 3%, above the previous five-year maximum; and 3.1 MMbbl, or 14%, above the five-year average (green line). PADD 3 (Gulf Coast) contributed another 876 Mbbl, pushing regional inventories to an all-time high of 67.8 MMbbl, or approximately 63% of the national total (red line in Figure 3 below). Gulf Coast stocks are 13.7 MMbbl, or 25%, above the same week in 2025 (blue line); 12 MMbbl, or 22%, above the previous five-year maximum; and 21 MMbbl, or 45%, above the five-year average (green line).

Appeals court tosses case challenging New York permits for NESE pipeline - The New York State Department of Environmental Protection scored a win in an appeals court Friday when a judge ruled in favor of the agency’s decision to grant water quality permits for a controversial gas pipeline. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a summary order against environmental advocacy groups, dismissing their lawsuit. The court found the DEC acted reasonably when it awarded Transco water quality permits for its Northeast Supply Enhancement project, even though it had denied permits for the project three times in prior years.The DEC “subjects applications for environmental permits to a transparent and rigorous review process to protect public health and the environment,” Dana Ferine, a spokesperson for the DEC, said in a statement about the ruling. “DEC is committed to closely monitoring the proposed [NESE] pipeline project’s construction and adherence to all permit conditions to ensure the full protection of New York’s waterways.” The controversial pipeline project that would transport natural gas from Pennsylvania to downstate New York looked all but dead after environmental regulators in New York and New Jersey denied the project’s applications for water quality permits in prior years. But it was revived under the Trump administration, which has been pushing fossil fuel development over renewables. In April, the White House sent an all-star cast of officials to a groundbreaking ceremony for NESE, touting its ability to lower energy prices.Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration was key in allowing the pipeline’s revival. President Donald Trump claims that Hochul “caved” when pressured to give the go-ahead to the pipeline project in return for allowing an off-shore wind project to resume construction. Hochul denies that any pipelines-for-wind deal was made.The ruling is a blow to environmental advocacy organizations that sued over the permitting.“The last thing we need is a gas pipeline that will raise bills and harm our environment.,” Earthjustice Managing Attorney Susan Kraham, who represented environmental groups in the case, said in a statement. “DEC was right to reject the NESE pipeline project three times because it could not comply with the states’ water quality standards. It should have done so again.”The project is still facing other active legal challenges, including a similar lawsuit in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s issuance of water quality permits for the project. That case was argued in July.Environmental groups are also suing the New Jersey Tidelands Resource Council in state court over its decision to grant the project a utility license.The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is facing a court challenge in the D.C. Circuit over its decision to revive the pipeline project.

2nd Circuit Upholds NY DEC Water Permit for NESE Pipeline - Marcellus Drilling News - -The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit last Friday slammed the door on Big Green’s attempt to yank the New York water permit for the Williams/Transco Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline. Six environmental groups asked the court to vacate the Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certification (WQC) that the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued in November 2025. In a summary order issued Aug. 21, a three-judge panel said no. The permit stands. NESE, already under construction, keeps building.

Court Ruling on Gulf LNG Case Is Big Win for M-U Pipelines -- Marcellus Drilling News - -A federal appeals court in Washington on Tuesday threw out all eleven claims that environmental groups and Louisiana fishermen filed against Venture Global’s CP2 LNG export terminal and the pipeline that will feed it. The terminal sits 1,300 miles from Washington County, Pennsylvania — but buried in this decision is a holding that should make every Marcellus/Utica pipeline developer very happy. The case is For a Better Bayou v. FERC, No. 24-1291 (consolidated with Nos. 24-1292 and 25-1157). It was argued March 24 and decided August 25. Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg, a Reagan appointee, wrote for a unanimous panel that also included Judge Karen Henderson (George H.W. Bush) and Judge Patricia Millett (Obama).

Louisiana LNG Advancing Despite Potential Supply Chain Impacts Caused by Iran War -  Woodside Energy said Tuesday that the first liquefaction train at its Louisiana LNG project is 35% complete and the facility remains on track to produce the super-chilled fuel in 2029 from its first phase.At a Glance:

• Strong progress reported on work
• Steel supply could be threatened
• Woodside working to secure feedgas

Hormuz Corridor Talks Ease US LNG Netbacks Off Peak -  A look at the global natural gas and LNG markets by the numbers. US Gulf Coast LNG netback prices for Japan/Korea, NBP and TTF compared with Henry Hub futures for October 2026-September 2027.

• $22.852: The maximum Gulf Coast LNG netback hit the highest point in more than a year at $22.852/MMBtu Monday before headlines about the Iran war tempered global LNG prices. Netback prices fell slightly Tuesday by around 56 cents as both European and Asian futures slid. Europe has remained the premium destination since Aug. 12, according to NGI data. The prompt Title Transfer Facility retreated from some of its highest levels in years on Tuesday and fell again Wednesday after Iran and Oman outlined a phased framework for a temporary joint shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz and a mine-clearance project. Iran’s deputy foreign minister subsequently said the unfinalized deal would close the UN-authorized southern route along the Omani coast, and Iranian officials have tied any full reopening to US concessions.
• 17.46 Bcf/d: US LNG feedgas demand jumped to roughly 17.46 Bcf/d in Wednesday’s nominations, a gain of about 738 MMcf/d and the largest single-day increase of August, according to NGI’s Entropic Analytics data. A boost in activity to Corpus Christi and Freeport contributed to the majority of the movement. The seven-day average stands at 16.70 Bcf/d against 17.10 Bcf/d for the week ended Aug. 19, and August is tracking at 16.97 Bcf/d versus 17.22 Bcf/d in July. Ambient heat continues to cut liquefaction efficiency across the Gulf Coast, and NatGasWeather expects highs of 90s to 110s across the southern two-thirds of the country through Sept. 1. LNG feedgas nominations have not topped 18 Bcf/d since July 5, and are well below the 19.5 Bcf/d high set March 28.
• 2.56 Bcf/d: Deliveries on Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Pipeline (CCPL) climbed to about 2.56 Bcf/d in the evening cycle for Wednesday, the system’s strongest gas day since Aug. 16, according to Entropic Analytics data. The rebound followed a nine-day slide that bottomed at 1.55 Bcf/d, coinciding with testing and commissioning of a final train at the facility’s Stage 3 expansion project. Corpus Christi loaded 0.06 Mt/d of LNG over the seven days ended Aug. 25, against 0.063 Mt/d in July, according to Kpler data. LNG cargo loading at that rate implies feedgas supply of around 3.3 Bcf/d, or about 1.5 Bcf/d more than CCPL reported carrying, according to NGI calculations. The most likely source of the difference is the ADCC Pipeline, a Texas intrastate line that also feeds the terminal and, unlike CCPL, does not have publicly available data on delivered volumes.
• 4.03 Mt: US LNG exporters have delivered 4.03 Mt to Europe during the first 25 days of August, already ahead of the 4.00 Mt the continent took across all of July, according to Kpler vessel tracking data. The period marked a continued push by European buyers to fill storage despite increased price volatility and spot market competition. Asia absorbed the offset, taking 2.18 Mt so far in August versus 3.66 Mt in July. Total US exports were little changed at 0.334 Mt/d compared with 0.329 Mt/d in July, making the shift a redirection of cargoes rather than a supply gain. Northwest European and Iberian buyers led the pull, with the Netherlands at 0.86 Mt and Spain at 0.64 Mt month to date. Egypt, July’s single largest destination at 1.43 Mt, has slipped to 0.57 Mt in August as its summer cooling season winds down.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds FERC Approval for Venture Global’s CP2 LNG -Venture Global LNG cleared a major legal hurdle for its CP2 export project after the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC) Circuit upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of the Louisiana terminal and its associated CP Express Pipeline. At a Glance:

• DC Circuit denies CP2 petitions
• FERC terminal, pipeline approvals remain intact
• DOE, Marais challenges remain separate

Freeport LNG Completes Major Maintenance - Freeport LNG feedgas nominations neared 2 Bcf/d Thursday, returning roughly 0.8 Bcf/d of demand to the Gulf Coast just as summer heat lingers into September.Entropic Analytics chart shows Freeport LNG feedgas deliveries by Gulf South and TETCO pipelines from June through August 2026. At a Glance:
Freeport finishes 2-month turnaround
US feedgas climbs to 19.2 Bcf/d
Outage trimmed roughly 0.8 Bcf/d since July

LNG Incumbents Seen Leading Next Wave of North American FIDs in 2027 -- A tight global natural gas market driven by lingering conflict in Iran is likely to sustain commercial momentum for new North American LNG capacity working to move ahead, according to Rapidan Energy.IEA chart shows annual LNG project final investment decisions by region from 2015 through estimated 2026, led by North America. At a Glance:
20–30 Mt/y of new capacity expected
Brownfields to lead way
Contracting seen rising

Dems Demand Watchdog Probe Cheniere’s $370M Tax Break - Marcellus Drilling News - -  Five Senate Democrats have escalated their fight over Cheniere Energy’s $370 million IRS “alternative fuel” tax payout, formally asking Treasury’s internal watchdog to investigate. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), joined by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Edward Markey (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), sent an Aug. 20 letter to Acting Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Heather Hill. The letter asks TIGTA to determine how and why the IRS decided LNG tankers qualify as “motorboats” under the Alternative Fuel Excise Tax (AFET) credit—and, notably, whether the call was made to reward President Trump’s campaign donors.

Sempra Advances Third Port Arthur LNG Expansion in Texas -Sempra Infrastructure is moving ahead with a third large-scale buildout of its Port Arthur LNG complex with the launch of a federal pre-filing process for a four-train expansion that could push export capacity beyond 50 Mt/y in the next decade.  At a Glance:

• Four new trains target 27 Mt/y
• Construction planned for late 2029
• North trains target 2034–2036 startups

Sapphire Expands Mobile LNG Footprint With EDGE -Conroe, TX-based Sapphire Gas Solutions has acquired EDGE LNG, adding about 200,000 gallons/day of modular liquefaction capacity as it expands its vertically integrated LNG supply business. At a Glance:

• EDGE adds 200,000 gallons/day capacity
• Deal expands integrated LNG supply
• Distributed energy demand growing

Near-Record ERCOT Load Tests Texas Natural Gas Demand - Near-record Texas electricity demand is producing a sharp evening ramp in natural gas-fired generation, but East Texas physical gas prices weakened even as the grid approached its all-time load record.NGI daily natural gas prices for Houston Ship Channel, Katy and Waha from Aug. 14-20, 2026, with Waha prices rising above $2.00/MMBtu.  At a Glance:
ERCOT load nears record
Gas ramps as solar fades
Texas cash prices weaken

Solitude – New Natural Gas Pipeline to Overwhelm the Permian Basin with Outbound Capacity | RBN Energy - The Permian Basin is the nation’s second-largest natural gas-producing region, and over the past couple of years it has been dominated by one overarching story: pipeline takeaway constraints and periods of negative prices at the Waha Hub. That has changed recently, however, as more pipelines out of the region have entered service. Now, a consortium led by WhiteWater Midstream has reached a final investment decision (FID) on the Solitude Pipeline System, which will have the capacity to take an astonishing 4.5 Bcf/d of gas from the Permian by the early 2030s. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explain why Solitude has the potential to upend the Permian gas story, bringing us a market where takeaway capacity is so great that production cannot keep up and multiple lines out of the Permian run largely empty.Before we look at the potential effects of Solitude, let’s look at what the project aims to do. Despite the lonely sounding name, Solitude (dashed orange line in Figure 1 below) will consist of two 48-inch pipelines, each capable of transporting 2.25 Bcf/d (for a total of 4.5 Bcf/d). Solitude is the name of a ski resort in Utah, which is probably the source of the name, as many WhiteWater-affiliated pipelines in Texas are named after mountains (Whistler, Blackcomb, Matterhorn, Eiger). Solitude will run from the Permian to Katy, just west of Houston. This is a familiar route for WhiteWater, which has been operating the Matterhorn Express pipeline (yellow line) since late 2024 and is building Eiger Express (dashed red line), which is planned to enter service in 2028. While the route is similar, Solitude has a different ownership group than other WhiteWater-led pipelines. WhiteWater will own 50% of Solitude, followed by Devon Energy (25%), MPLX (10%), Diamondback Energy (7.5%) and Western Midstream Partners (7.5%). The current plan is to have the first Solitude pipeline flowing gas in late 2029, with the second to follow in 2030.Key to understanding the impact of Solitude is the context, as it will be hardly solitary in providing a new outlet for Permian egress. Between the ultra-negative Waha prices of 2026 and the opening of the first Solitude line in 2029, five projects will have been completed, adding a whopping 11.3 Bcf/d to outbound capacity from the Permian. These projects have been described by Novi Labs/RBN before, most recently in Fly Like an Eagle, but to recap: the Gulf Coast Express expansion (0.57 Bcf/d, dark-blue line) is already flowing more gas to the Agua Dulce Hub in South Texas, and Hugh Brinson (green line) is starting to ramp up flows to Northeast Texas — it will eventually have a capacity of 2.2 Bcf/d. Blackcomb (dashed light-blue line) is set to enter service later this year, providing an extra 2.5 Bcf/d of takeaway to Agua Dulce. Then follows a nearly two-year pause before Eiger Express comes online, with a terminal capacity of 3.7 Bcf/d flowing to the Katy Hub. Finally, Energy Transfer’s Desert Southwest expansion (dashed dark-red line) will increase capacity headed westbound to Arizona by 2.3 Bcf/d about the same time Solitude enters service.That is a lot of extra capacity, which raises the question of how much Permian gas will be available and whether that available gas will fill all the incremental capacity. To answer these questions, we turn to our Arrow Model report, which is published every month (most recently on August 13). The Arrow Model divides most of Texas and all of Louisiana into 11 different regions; we then create supply-and-demand assumptions for each one. The pipelines between the regions are grouped into Arrows, and each Arrow has multiple tranches of capacity that simulate the way rates affect the flow of natural gas on the pipelines from one region to another. So, by plugging in our supply-and-demand assumptions and the pipeline capacities, Arrow tells us how gas is expected to flow (and what basis prices incentivize that flow).The Arrow region called West TX & NM coincides with the Permian production basin. In our monthly Arrow Model report, we model it using our mid-case production scenario, which assumes a long-run Henry Hub natural gas price of $4.25/MMBtu and a long-term WTI price of $70/bbl. For the Permian specifically, the oil price is far more relevant to gas production than the gas price — months of punishingly negative gas prices at Waha have proven that producers are willing to lose significant money on gas as long as they can produce profitable crude. Our production forecast has Permian production expanding by 11.2 Bcf/d between 2026 and 2036 – eerily similar to the 11.3 Bcf/d of pre-Solitude capacity expansion referred to above. We expect the rate of growth to be strongest over the next few years, with production growing at an average of 6% annually in the 2027-29 period, then slowing to less than 3% per year from 2033 onward.This growth is strong enough that our latest report predicted a new pipeline would need to be added out of the Permian to forestall another bout of extreme negative pricing. Based on where demand needs would be most acute in the 2030s, a pipeline to Gulf Coast TX — the Arrow region that includes Katy — was the most obvious choice. However, we predicted the line would not be needed until 2033 and would require only 2 Bcf/d of capacity to stave off constraints in the Permian. Solitude is more than twice the size and would come online around three years earlier, and these differences lead to big changes in flows. Simply put, it seems very likely that not enough gas will be available to fill each outbound pipeline, leaving some pipes partially empty.The impact of Solitude is most vividly illustrated by the graphs in Figure 2 below, adapted from our Arrow Model report. The seven graphs show the seven Arrows bringing natural gas out of the Permian. The red line in each chart shows the average annual gas outflow (in MMcf/d) for the version of Arrow with Solitude added. The blue line, where visible, shows annual flows where we instead had the 2-Bcf/d pipeline in Arrow D starting in 2033. The most dramatic impact is shown in Arrow C, with flowing gas to the Northeast TX region, which includes Dallas/Fort Worth and the Texas side of the Haynesville Shale. As this is a production region in its own right, the price premium is weaker than in other eastern regions, so in the scenario with Solitude, flows plummet to 0.6 Bcf/d in 2031 and stay below 1 Bcf/d in 2032, recovering later in the 2030s as Permian production gradually increases. This Arrow includes legacy systems Atmos and North Texas Pipeline, which would be more greatly impacted by the decline because of tariff structures. But Hugh Brinson is the dominant pipe in this Arrow, and it has 2.2 Bcf/d of capacity in these years. Our forecasts show that the majority of Hugh Brinson’s capacity will go unused in 2031-32 as a result of Solitude creating a Permian capacity glut.Moving clockwise, Arrow D to Gulf Coast TX, which includes metro Houston, is the only Arrow that moves higher under the Solitude scenario. Yet that higher move comes nowhere near the 4.5-Bcf/d capacity add. Instead, it totals 2.5 Bcf/d higher in 2031 and 2.8 Bcf/d higher in 2032. So, Solitude flows are coming at the expense of other pipelines, most notably the old legacy systems like Kinder Morgan Texas and Oasis, but also eating into volumes on the post-2020 buildout.In Arrow E to the Corpus TX/Agua Dulce region, all the pipelines are under a decade old, and the region is adjacent to expanding LNG terminals. Nevertheless, flows here are 0.8 Bcf/d lower from 2031-34 as a result of the new Solitude volumes. Flows from the Permian to Southwest TX are also impacted, albeit to a lesser extent. For Arrow G to Mexico and Arrow A to the west (Arizona and California), gas is headed to a higher-priced region with no obvious competing supply, so the flow forecast is the same in both scenarios. However, the flow forecasts on Arrow A and G assume an expansion of gas-for-power capacity in Arizona and Mexico, respectively. There is some risk that the power-sector expansion will not occur as planned to boost flows on those two Arrows. Finally, Arrow B to the MidCon is going to a lower-priced region and we expect flows on that Arrow to contract in both scenarios.The Permian gas industry has long adopted a just-in-time philosophy to building new outflow pipelines, so building a new line on a schedule that seems likely to leave some capacity unused is a bit of a head-scratcher. The answer might lie in the posse WhiteWater has gathered to build this particular pipeline, which is more producer-heavy than in the past. This group includes Diamondback Energy, which has been uniquely forthright about the effect that gas prices have had on its oil production. We reported back in May that Diamondback’s Q1 earnings call included a discussion of how fiercely negative Waha prices caused the E&P to shut in a small amount of oil production for purely economic reasons. The firm described how when Waha outright prices are below minus $3/MMBtu, the differential erodes a well’s NGL uplift, and below minus $4/MMBtu it starts eating into the oil value. Below a certain level of negative prices, gas shifts from an annoyance to a mortal threat to some oil wells. As seen in Figure 3 below, Waha cash prices (blue line) dipped below the minus $4/MMBtu barrier (red line) several times in 2024-25, but in March-May of this year the price was below that level the majority of the time, severely curtailing the amount of oil that producers without sufficient gas capacity could bring to market.The Permian is the country’s leading crude oil basin, and as oil production increases and gets “gassier,” gas production seems sure to follow. The question is not if, but when the Permian adds another 11.3 Bcf/d of gas production. In this context, it makes sense for producers and midstreamers to get ahead of capacity constraints and avoid the punishing market that has bedeviled producers without sufficient capacity over the past year.

Keep the Ball Rollin’ – Permian Gas Processing Buildout Continues, With a Tilt Toward the Delaware | RBN Energy -Since the start of 2022, more than 12 Bcf/d of new gas processing capacity has come online in the Permian, about half of it in the Midland Basin and half in the Delaware. That unprecedented, multibillion-dollar buildout will be continuing without let-up through early 2029, and the shift toward the gassier Delaware — seen by many operators as offering a longer runway for future growth — is picking up steam. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the latest tranche of gas processing plants under development in the Permian and what these projects reveal about production growth trends in the world’s most prolific stacked play.Things are looking up for Permian natural gas. After an extended period of pipeline takeaway constraints and negative gas prices at the Waha Hub, the situation for producers and marketers has been improving as new takeaway capacity has come online, first in June with the official startup of the 570-MMcf/d expansion on the now-2.55-Bcf/d Gulf Coast Express (GCX). More recently, our weekly NATGAS Permian report has cited initial flows on both the Hugh Brinson Pipeline (Phase 1 capacity of 1.5 Bcf/d) and the Blackcomb Pipeline (ramping up to 2.5 Bcf/d of capacity over the next few months). With the untangling of the takeaway logjam — and still more pipeline capacity on the way, including Hugh Brinson’s Phase 2 next year and Eiger Express in 2028 — Waha prompt-month and cash prices have turned positive, and we expect they will stay there for some time. (See our recent Fly Like an Eagle for more.)All that’s given new confidence to crude-oil-focused producers in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, whose wells also churn out massive volumes of associated gas that needs to be run through gas processing plants. As we’ve discussed in many a blog over the past several years, operators in the Midland and Delaware basins have been in a constant struggle to stay one step ahead on the gas processing front — that is, to be sure they will have sufficient processing capacity in place as new production starts up.If anything, that challenge has become even more, well, challenging over the past couple of years as the lead time for key, in-demand processing plant components like brazed aluminum heat exchangers (aka “cold boxes”) and turbo-expanders has increased. “Lead times definitely have gotten extended,” Pat McDonie, Targa Resources’ president of gathering and processing, said during the midstream giant’s August 6 earnings call. “A lot of it is around the electrical infrastructure for the plant. ... Frankly, we’ve adapted to that.”With takeaway constraints easing, Waha prices well north of zero, and dry-gas production in the Permian approaching a record 23 Bcf/d, we thought it would be a good time to discuss the latest round of gas processing project announcements and what they say about where things stand — and where they are headed.Figure 1 above provides a big-picture view. Just under 6 Bcf/d of new processing capacity has come online in the Midland Basin over the past four years and seven months (orange bar segments to mid-2026) and just over 6 Bcf/d has started up in the Delaware, most of that on the Texas side of the sub-basin (dark-blue bar segments) but increasing amounts in southeastern New Mexico’s Lea and Eddy counties (light-blue bar segments). More than 6 Bcf/d of additional Permian processing capacity is slated to start up by Q1 2029 and, as you can see from the flattening out of the orange bar segments in mid-2027, most of these more recently announced projects will be sited in the Delaware.Figure 2 below zooms in on the specific projects being planned: their names, owners, capacities and online dates, plus the sub-basin in which they will be sited (Midland, Delaware-TX or Delaware-NM). Enterprise Products Partners and Targa Resources lead the pack, each with five new plants in the queue; Enterprise, whose projects are slightly larger (300 MMcf/d each compared to Targa’s 265 MMcf/d or 275 MMcf/d) is tops in total planned capacity (1.5 Bcf/d compared to just under 1.4 Bcf/d for Targa). Others with multiple Permian processing plants in the works include Phillips 66 and Brazos Midstream (each with two 300-MMcf/d plants) and ONEOK, with one 400-MMcf/d project (recently upsized from 300 MMcf/d) and two expansion projects with a combined 110 MMcf/d of incremental capacity. As we’ve been hinting at, the new-plants list is dominated by projects in the Delaware Basin: 12 projects (including the two ONEOK expansions) totaling just over 3.1 Bcf/d on the West Texas side and six new plants with just over 1.5 Bcf/d on the New Mexico side. The plant-building pace in the Midland has been slowing — only five new plants with a combined 1.5 Bcf/d of capacity are planned there.Processing-plant developers’ increasing focus on the Delaware Basin reflects what we discussed in some detail a few months ago in Long Time Comin’. There, we said that the improving outlook for stronger, reliably positive gas prices at Waha would be a boon to the many Permian producers whose bottom lines have been hurt by sub-$1 or, quite often, negative prices at the West Texas gas hub. (Note that producers with sufficient takeaway capacity and/or long-term deals with LNG exporters have been affected far less.)We also said the most obvious initial impact will be improved production economics in the gassier parts of the Permian, especially the western Delaware, where gas-to-oil ratios (GORs; measured in Mcf/bbl) are generally higher (red- and orange-shaded areas in Figure 3 below) than those in the eastern Delaware and most of the Midland (yellow- and green-shaded areas).When gas prices at Waha were very low or negative, Delaware producers tended to favor development in the less-gassy parts of the sub-basin, though we should emphasize that their primary driver has always been the crude oil resource — that’s where the money is, after all. Now, with easier pipeline egress out of the Permian at hand and stronger Waha gas prices on the horizon, we expect producers’ interest in the gassier parts of the Delaware to accelerate, thereby spurring the need for many of the gas processing plants listed in Figure 2.That view is bolstered not only by the fact that initial production (IP) rates for crude oil in the Delaware are considerably higher than in the Midland, but also by the AI-based analysis of Novi Labs (RBN’s corporate parent), which has determined through its machine-learning approach that the Delaware has a far larger inventory of high-quality wells — 5.5 years of Tier 1 sites at current drilling rates and 7.3 years of Tier 2 sites — than the Midland (with 3.6 years of Tier 1 and 3.8 years of Tier 2 inventory). Better yet, at a flat $70/bbl price for WTI, Novi Labs found that the Delaware has more than 70,000 drilling locations — more than 25 years of inventory at current drilling rates — that would earn at least a 25% rate of return on investment. (The estimates above are from Q3 2025. Novi Labs will be publishing updated estimates for the Midland and Delaware in the coming weeks.)We think that all this portends continued growth in both the gassier and less-gassy parts of the Delaware, assuming, of course, that the infrastructure required to facilitate increased gas production is in place. The gas processing projects now in the works would appear to support at least another 6 Bcf/d of dry-gas production in the Permian, and we expect that at least a couple more gas processing plants will be announced before the end of this year.

Global Natural Gas Shock Has Yet to Hit US Market, but Winter is Coming - The war in Iran upended global energy markets, but the disruption has yet to produce a shock to the US natural gas market. That could change as winter approaches. NGI Forward Look curves show Henry Hub, Waha, SoCal Border, Houston Ship Channel and Cove Point natural gas prices through September 2028. At a Glance:
War in Iran approaches 6 months
Conflict commenced in late February
LNG demand lurks as bullish wild card

Liquids Pipeline Projects Database: 8 Completed, 14 Announced Since 2025 | EIA – – see Interactive table - The latest edition of the Liquids Pipeline Projects Database, released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows that eight liquid fuels pipeline projects have been completed since the start of 2025, with an additional 14 new projects announced. The database, which tracks more than 280 past, ongoing, and future projects, covers pipelines carrying crude oil, hydrocarbon gas liquids, and petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Among the completed projects, Bahia Pipeline Enterprises finished a 550-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline with a capacity of 600,000 barrels per day, originating in West Texas and connecting to a fractionation complex in Chambers County, Texas. The Coastal Bend NGL Pipeline Expansion 1, formerly the EPIC Y-grade pipeline, increased capacity by 50,000 barrels per day to a total of 225,000 barrels per day, moving Y-grade from West Texas to Corpus Christi. Kinder Morgan converted the Double H Pipeline system from crude oil to NGL service for the Hiland Express Project. MPLX completed the BANGL Expansion 1, raising capacity to 250,000 barrels per day for Y-grade from the Delaware and Midland basins to a fractionator in Sweeny, Texas. The Santa Fe Pacific East Line Expansion 1 increased volumes of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel on a line from El Paso, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona. Sable Offshore Corporation restarted the existing-but-idle Santa Ynez Pipeline System, formerly the California 901R and 903R lines. The Seahawk pipeline's Thunderdome Lateral converted an existing 16-inch natural gas pipeline to crude oil service, connecting the Gray Oak Louise terminal to the Edna terminal and ultimately to the Seahawk terminal in Texas. Enterprise converted the Seminole Red pipeline back to NGL service while building the Bahia pipeline. The newly announced projects include expansions and optimizations such as the Bahia Pipeline Expansion, Bayou Bridge Pipeline Expansion, Bridger Pipeline Expansion, Coastal Bend NGL Pipeline Expansion 2, Enbridge Mainline Optimization Phases 1 and 2, Flanagan South Pipeline Expansion, Puget Sound Pipeline Optimization, Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline East Line Expansion 2, Southern Illinois Connector, Sun Belt Connector, Western Gateway Pipeline, and Western Markets Pipeline Expansion Phases 1 and 2. The EIA notes that some projects are interconnected, and summing capacities across all projects could lead to double counting. The database is compiled from publicly available information, including company websites, trade press, and government documents, and reflects reported plans rather than mandatory survey data. The EIA does not make assumptions about the likelihood or timing of project completion. (see detailed table with 30 entries)

US pulls ahead of China in building natural gas to power AI data centers - The United States is building twice as much natural gas as China, giving Washington a leg up in the race to power data centers running artificial intelligence, according to a new report. The amount of natural gas projects under development in the U.S. in the first half of this year was already 50% higher than the total for 2025, a boom directly linked to the rapid deployment of AI, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the nonprofit organization Global Energy Monitor.The group estimated that about 189 gigawatts of the new gas-fired capacity in development during the first half of 2026 is planned for data centers. This is nearly double the total in development all of last year, around 97 gigawatts. For comparison, one gigawatt is estimated to power about 750,000 homes.

SPR Sinks Toward Operational Minimum as U.S. Crude Inventories Build -  The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States rose by 4.2 million barrels in the week ending August 21. Analysts had expected a 1.9 million-barrel build. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by 328,000. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost just over 45 million barrels over the last nineteen weeks, with US crude inventories up 5.8 million for the year, according to API data, kept in check by draws from the SPR. For the week ending August 21, another 3.7 million barrels left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, bringing the new total inventory held in the SPR to 289.7 million barrels—a level that is 442 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.The generally accepted operational minimum for oil in the SPR is between 250-300 million barrels, below which the reserve may find it difficult to pump and process oil efficiently.US production for the week ending August 14 rose to 13.830 million bpd, up from 13.805 in the week prior, and up 503,000 bpd from a year earlier.At 2:09 pm ET on Tuesday, Brent crude was trading down on the day at $88.38 (-4.11%), a nearly $3 per barrel loss week over week.WTI was also trading down on the day, by $2.90 per barrel (-3.39%) at $82.13, down more than $3.50 per barrel from this time last week.Gasoline inventories fell this week by 3.2 million barrels in the week ending August 21. In the week prior, gasoline inventories rose by 1.076 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were already 5% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.Distillate inventories fell by 500,000 barrels, after a 2.797-barrel loss in the week prior. Distillate inventories were 13% below the five-year average heading into this reporting period, the latest EIA data shows.Cushing inventory—the inventory kept at the delivery hub for the WTI Crude futures contract—rose by 1 million barrels over the reporting period after falling by 1.439 million barrels in the week prior.

Sable Offshore fined $1.45 million, allowed to continue pipeline operations   (Reuters) - Sable Offshore said on Monday a U.S. judge fined the oil and gas producer $1.45 ​million for violating a pipeline consent decree, but ‌declined California's request to halt operations of its Santa Ynez Pipeline System.The rulings allow Sable to continue working ​to restart and expand its Santa Ynez ​project, which it has been trying to ⁠revive since a 2015 pipeline spill.  Here are ​more details:

• The court found Sable violated the 2020 consent ​decree by restarting pipeline operations without authorization from California's state fire marshal.
• The judge ruled the company was no longer ​in violation after the Pipeline and Hazardous ​Materials Safety Administration approved its restart plan.
• It restarted production from one ‌of ⁠the project's offshore platforms last year, nearly a decade after operations were halted following a 2015 oil spill under former owner ExxonMobil (XOM.N), opens new tab.
• In a separate ​case, the judge ​denied California's ⁠bid to block a federal Defense Production Act order supporting Sable's pipeline ​operations and ruled that the state's ​Department ⁠of Parks and Recreation could not take legal action to prevent Sable from complying.
• California has appealed the ⁠decision ​denying its request for a ​preliminary injunction, while another defendant appealed a related declaratory judgment.

Court allows Sable Offshore to keep carrying oil - - A federal judge in California is allowing oil to keep flowing through Sable Offshore’s contentious onshore pipeline, dealing a blow to California regulators and environmental groups who have sought to reverse the Trump administration’s resurrection of the conduit.On Wednesday, Judge Stephen Wilson for the U.S. District for the Central District of California agreed to modify a consent decree governing how the onshore pipeline could resume operations after it spilled more than 120,000 gallons of crude oil on Refugio State Beach, causing significant ecological damage in 2015.Under the new terms, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a federal agency part of the Department of Transportation, will take over management of the consent decree from California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM). The order effectively ends the state agency’s veto power over the operation of the pipeline.“In the view of this Court, though the solution that a federal agency functionally enforces standards set by a state legislature is unusual, it is necessary tailoring to consider both major public interest factors here—protecting energy security and the ecology of California’s coast—while honoring the original expectations of the parties about what substantive rules would apply to the owner of the pipeline,” Wilson wrote in his ruling.

A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she’ll lead its DC office. -- People milling around before a press conference in Santa Barbara, California, in early June might have mistaken Brittany Kelm, a White House staffer, for an oil company representative. During the tour of oil facilities run by Sable Offshore Corp., a company that owns an offshore pipeline which the Trump administration had recently helped to get oil flowing through, Kelm sported a Sable-branded cap and a Sable-branded shirt with her name embroidered on it, according to a photograph she posted to LinkedIn.     “We’ve unleashed California’s offshore oil production!” Kelm, a senior energy adviser for the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, wrote in the post.Less than three months later, Kelm would announce her departure from her job at the council to take over Sable’s Washington policy office. The move, even by Washington’s normally swampy standards, threatens to erode the lines between public officials and the industries they interact with, according to experts and former government ethics officials.More specifically, it gives rise to questions about how the company’s new lead at its Washington office will represent its interests while abiding by ethics requirements.The Trump administration as late as June hailed Kelm’s work helping to restart the pipeline system off the California coast owned by Sable, despite the objections of state and local officials. Indeed, both she and the administration made her heavy involvement very publicly clear for months in official statements and social media posts.Top administration officials even touted her work on behalf of the company on LinkedIn, the professional networking platform that’s become vital to career mobility and advancement in many industries.“Brittany Kelm never gave up on Sable Offshore Corp.,” Jarrod Agen, executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, wrote on LinkedIn shortly after the June visit. Her work “unlocked production in California,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the council, said in a statement last week praising her work at the White House.At the Santa Barbara event in June, Sable’s CEO Jim Flores thanked the Cabinet members and council for their help, saying that “you don’t get a project like this off the ground without help from everybody, top to bottom.”“Jarrod and Brittany, thank you for your help working with that,” he said.Kelm’s work as a government official subjects her to strict ethics laws before and after she took the job with Sable, according to five ethics experts. The rules should have barred her from doing any work related to Sable after starting to negotiate her new job and prohibited her for life from appearing before any federal agency on certain specific matters she worked on at the White House, they said.While departing government for the private sector is not inherently improper, “the ethics concern arises when that distance between an official’s public responsibilities and the private employment is so exceptionally close together, particularly when the official moves directly to a company whose interests she personally worked on while exercising governmental authority,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “That is what sort of has red flashing lights to me about the ethical implications of that change.”

Trump’s offshore drilling revival survives early court challenge - A federal judge in Alaska has blocked environmental groups’ challenge against the Trump administration’s decision to reopen millions of acres of offshore waters in the Arctic and elsewhere to oil and gas development. Chief Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on Monday ruled the environmental coalition led by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center lacked standing to bring their suit. The groups failed to show they faced imminent harm from President Donald Trump’s 2025 decision to reverse his predecessors’ orders to permanently close off broad swaths of the outer continental shelf (OCS) from fossil fuel development, she said. Gleason acknowledged it was likely that the Interior Department planned to issue permits for oil exploration and development, but there were still multiple steps to go before the groups challenging the decision would be harmed. “Presently, the Court can only speculate as to whether any of the previously withdrawn OCS acreage will be included in any new oil and gas leasing program or proposed lease sale,” Gleason wrote in an order dismissing the case. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden had issued orders permanently stopping drilling in parts of the Arctic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, citing the risks development posed to the climate, marine life and subsistence lifestyles. When Trump returned to office for a second term, he issued an executive order reversing the withdrawals and directed Interior to advance oil and gas development in those areas. The agency announced in April 2025 that it was beginning a new five-year plan for offshore development that would replace the current plan and could include some of the areas reopened to leasing under Trump. Interior does not comment on pending litigation as a matter of policy. Gleason, appointed to the bench by Obama, stopped short of addressing the key issue in the environmental groups’ case — whether the president has authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to reverse permanent withdrawals of federal waters. “We’re disappointed the court found that offshore drilling activities are not imminent. But this is not a final ruling on the merits of the case,” said George Torgun, a senior attorney at Earthjustice’s Oceans Program representing the environmental coalition, in a statement. “This administration has been doing everything in its power to open our coasts to fossil fuel development,” Torgun said. “We continue to maintain that President Trump’s attempt to open withdrawn areas for oil leasing is unlawful, and we intend to pursue those claims if and when any offshore activities are on the horizon.” Environmental groups warned in court filings that development in offshore waters could still pose imminent risk from seismic surveys that can occur years before any drilling begins. They said leasing in the previously withdrawn areas would be harmful to a range of marine life, including polar bears and walruses in the Arctic, marine monuments in the Pacific, fish nurseries in the Atlantic and the critically endangered Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico.

Interior plans fast track for oil exploration in Alaska's North Slope  - The Trump administration is planning to pare down environmental reviews of oil and gas exploration activities over the winter in parts of Alaska’s North Slope.As part of the administration’s push to speed oil and gas production, officials at the Interior Department plan to issue a categorical exclusion for winter seismic testing and other exploration activities in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. The move could potentially mean skipping a public comment period and declining to examine the environmental effects that shock waves, ice roads, airstrips and drilled wells could have on sensitive Arctic tundra ecosystems.The potential for a categorical exclusion in the NPR-A was first reported by Public Domain.  An Interior spokesperson said Wednesday that the department is “working on a proposed categorical exclusion to speed up permitting for winter exploration, including seismic and exploratory drilling operations.”While energy projects and other infrastructure that intersect with federal land generally require environmental analyses under the National Environmental Policy Act, officials can designate certain categories of activities as unlikely to cause significant environmental harm and therefore subject to abbreviated reviews. These are known as categorical exclusions.“That effort builds on what the BLM has learned from dozens of environmental reviews for winter exploration in the area: when conducted under established operating procedures and mitigation measures, those activities result in no significant impacts,” the spokesperson said.More than half a dozen oil and gas companies own leases in the more than 22-million-acre Alaska reserve and could potentially benefit from a categorical exclusion. The major producer in the region is ConocoPhillips, owner of the planned Willow project approved during the Biden administration. Others that own leases include Borealis Alaska Oil, North Slope Exploration and Oil Search. The companies could not be reached for comment.Recent Democratic administrations have sought to protect much of the NPR-A from development, while the Trump administration reopened more than 80 percent of the reserve to leasing. In March, a lease sale brought in a record $163 million with winning bids from companies including Exxon, Shell and Beacon Land Management. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Last December, the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, approved winter seismic activity in the NPR-A by ConocoPhillips, which is currently the only company producing from the reserve. This included a seismic survey of more than 300 square miles, four winter exploratory drilling wells, clean up of two existing wells and building ice roads, airstrips and ice pads that involve hundreds of employees.The construction of ice roads and seismic survey also included pumping water and collecting snow from nearby lakes, according to a final environmental assessment.Dennis Nuss, a company spokesperson, said that ConocoPhillips “supports efforts to create a more predictable permitting process in the NPR-A while maintaining appropriate environmental protections and mitigation measures.”In January, an oil rig being transported in the NPR-A for use in the company’s winter exploration fell over and spilled thousands of gallons of diesel onto the tundra.Environmentalists have long been concerned about the harms such activities can have on species like polar bears, caribou, grizzly bears and migratory birds.“As the cleanup continues for an oil rig accident this past winter, this proposal to ignore impacts for exploration drilling and seismic in the NPR-A is simply mind boggling,” Andy Moderow, senior director of policy for the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an email. “When the government authorizes activities on public lands like towing 200-person worker camps across the tundra with bulldozers, pumping water out of lakes with fish to build ice roads, or thumping the tundra with 15-ton trucks in critical caribou habitat during the dark of winter, it should analyze impacts closely, not ignore them.”

Alaska officials respond to mystery spill near idled Cook Inlet oil platform | Alaska Beacon -  State and industry officials and the U.S. Coast Guard were responding on Tuesday to an unexplained oil spill roughly 60 miles southwest of Anchorage in Southcentral Alaska’s Cook Inlet.The spill, which produced a long oil sheen on the water near the Trading Bay area on the western side of the inlet, was first spotted by a pilot on Monday. His report prompted a multiagency response.The multiagency unified command is composed of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the U.S. Coast Guard and Hilcorp, the dominant oil and gas operator in Cook Inlet.The sheen was seen near the idled Spark platform, one of 17 oil and gas platforms in the inlet. Six of those, including Spark, are now inactive. The Spark platform was acquired by Hilcorp as part of its 2012 purchase of Marathon Oil’s Cook Inlet assets. It has been inactive since 1992, said a statement issued by the unified command responding to the spill. The wells associated with the Spark platform were plugged and abandoned by a previous owner in 2009, the statement said.As of Tuesday afternoon, however, the ongoing investigation has not pinpointed a source of the spill, its size or even the substance, DEC officials said.An oil-response vessel sent by Hilcorp to the site arrived shortly after 2 a.m. on Tuesday, but its crew was not able to spot the sheen with infrared imaging technology, said the incident command statement. The spill-response vessel, the Endeavor, has been sailing in a grid pattern to search for the spilled material and its possible source, the statement said.  A closeup view of a 2022 Alaska Division of Oil and Gas map shows the pipelines and oil and gas platform locations in Cook Inlet. (Map provided by the Alaska Division of Oil and Gas)There were no reports of impacts to fish or wildlife as of Tuesday afternoon, said a DEC situation report issued on Tuesday afternoon. Fish could be potentially at risk, the situation report said. All five species of Pacific salmon swim in the affected waters, and coho and sockeye salmon were migrating through the area at the time the spill was reported, the situation report said.Representatives of area environmental groups said Tuesday that the event was a warning about risks to the inlet.Satchel Pondolfino, the clean water lead for Cook Inletkeeper, said she and others are concerned about the apparent association with the idled but still-standing Spark platform.“It’s just another reason why it’s so important that Alaska use its authority to hold Hilcorp and every other operator accountable for dismantling the infrastructure,” she said.Activists have called for the removal of such unused infrastructure from the inlet, but the state so far has not ordered any company to do that.Cooper Freeman, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said numerous natural resources continue to be at risk from the incident and others like it.“It’s gut-wrenching to see the inlet’s beleaguered salmon and belugas take a hit they can’t afford from a miles-long oil spill,” he said in an emailed statement. “We need Cook Inlet’s fish and wildlife to recover, and we can’t keep treating their home like an industrial waste zone. This is yet another wake-up call that our over-reliance on fossil fuels imperils not just our region’s long-term energy stability, but the vitality of our environment for all future Alaskans.”

Record Asian Imports from LNG Canada in July -- The amount of LNG that arrived in Asian ports from LNG Canada reached a record in July 2026 based on data reported in our Canadian NatGas Billboard. Based on the arrival date for each cargo at an Asian destination (using ship tracking data from Bloomberg), the amount of LNG shipped from LNG Canada totalled 1.13 million tonnes (MMt, ~1.75 Bcf/d) in July (height of rightmost stacked columns in chart below), edging out the previous record holder of May at 1.11 MMt (~1.73 Bcf/d). The record comes after a slow June arrival rate of 0.70 MMt (~1.09 Bcf/d).  The see-saw pattern of arrivals from May to July may possibly be explained by the inconsistent state of geopolitical affairs in the Middle East and disruptions to LNG flows from the region over the past few months. The limited cease-fire between the U.S. and Iran in June allowed some LNG shipments to leave the Persian Gulf and make their way to Asian customers (mostly) and may have held back some urgency to bring in LNG from Canada. Once the cease-fire was abrogated a few weeks later, it is possible that Asian customers quickly returned to seeking any and all cargoes wherever they could find them, including those from LNG Canada, leading to the July record. Noteworthy for July was that receipts were more evenly distributed between China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, with Taiwan’s intake (orange columns) from Canada reaching a record at 0.35 MMt (~0.55 Bcf/d). Incomplete data for August arrivals shows South Korea (blue columns) as the largest importing customer, as it has been in most months since LNG Canada began commercial operations in June 2025. So far, only the seven Asian countries listed in the chart above have received cargoes from LNG Canada.

Commercialization Seen as ‘Key Hurdle’ for Ksi Lisims LNG Project in Canada --North American LNG netback prices show large premiums to AECO, SoCal Border, Transco Zone 5 and Waha forward natural gas prices. Rapidan Energy’s Global Gas Service expects the second 14 Mt/y phase of LNG Canada to be sanctioned early next year, but the firm said the timeline for other projects planned for North America’s west coast in Canada and Mexico is less clear. The 12 Mt/y Ksi Lisims floating LNG project in British Columbia is possibly the closest to crossing the finish line and reaching a positive final investment decision (FID), but Rapidan said more work needs to be completed.

U.S. Refiners Face New Crude Squeeze as Canada Cuts Oil Sands Output --U.S. refineries have been running at full speed for months to make up for lost fuel supply from the Middle East. Fuel exports from the United States have been breaking records. This may be about to change, and not because of the war. It is oil sands maintenance season in Canada. In September, Canadian crude oil production may drop by 300,000 barrels daily due to maintenance activities in the oil sands, Rystad Energy said this week, as quoted by Bloomberg. Usually, whenever such a seasonal disruption occurs, it gets offset with crude from storage. Unfortunately, crude in storage is also lower than usual—the lowest in 12 months, per the report. Normally, Canadian oil producers send 4 million barrels daily of heavy crude to U.S. refiners. Next month, there will be less, which will be felt because demand for fuels remains strong despite some demand destruction by higher prices. According to the Bloomberg report, all major oil sands operators will be cutting production for maintenance, and pipeline operators have stopped rationing space on their pipes in evidence they expect lower demand in September. The problem is there is no replacement for Canadian crude, even with oil shipments from Venezuela ramping up—because they are not ramping up fast enough. Venezuela exported 1.16 million barrels of crude oil daily last month, a slight decline from June’s 1.2 million barrels daily, because PDVSA withdrew less crude from storage, according to a Reuters report from earlier this month. The fact that Venezuela is drawing on inventories to cover export demand suggests production has yet to pick up meaningfully. Indeed, July exports to Venezuela’s biggest oil destination, the United States, averaged 786,000 barrels daily, which was the highest since early 2019, and up from 284,000 barrels daily in January 2026, before the U.S. federal government sent forces to Caracas to remove President Nicolas Maduro and establish U.S. control over the South American country’s oil industry. All in all, it appears the recovery in Venezuela’s oil production has been progressing more slowly than hoped, with all the supermajors that used to operate in the country wary and taking their time to make the decision whether to return. There have been some deals signed in recent months, with service providers and smaller American oil companies, which seem more willing to take the risks of operating in the country, which has yet to see a stable political and fiscal environment for large-scale operations. Meanwhile, the situation in the Middle East is not improving, despite claims from Washington that tanker traffic has normalized, which tanker-tracking companies have not been able to verify, per a recent Wall Street Journal report. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries continue, squeezing gasoline and diesel production there as well. Global fuel supply remains constrained, especially in diesel, which caused refining margins to hit all-time highs earlier this month. The diesel crack spread hit $100 per barrel for the first time in history in mid-August. Now, with 300,000 barrels daily of Canadian crude about to go offline in September, this record might yet get broken, just when demand for fuels picks up ahead of the heating season, when it hits a seasonal high. If the fuel supply balance remains compromised, there will be further demand destruction, starting from the most vulnerable markets and later spreading to the more resilient ones. This will in turn have implications for economic growth and inflation. There can be little doubt that the Middle East war will drive higher inflation across the globe as it moves closer to its seventh month, with no resolution in sight and more escalation as the United States has just widened its sanctions against Iran.

Company in talks for onshore gas exploration in Nova Scotia identified | CBC - The company negotiating with the Nova Scotia government for onshore gas exploration rights identified itself in a news release Monday. Alberta-based Questerre Energy said in a release that it is in “the final stages” of negotiations with the province to work on lands in the onshore Cumberland Basin of northern Nova Scotia. “Winning the first bid round allows us to start building relationships in Nova Scotia — with local communities and landowners, the Department of Energy and research partners such as Dalhousie University,” company CEO Michael Binnion said in the release. “We respect Premier [Tim] Houston’s efforts to strengthen the province’s energy security, and we intend to earn our place in that effort.” Questerre was the one company the province selected from four proposals advanced by a team at Dalhousie University in May for consideration. Last December, the province tapped Dal to oversee a new subsurface energy investment program, a $30-million initiative that includes about $24 million in incentives for developers. It’s part of the premier’s drive to expand natural resource development in the province, including potentially through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for onshore gas. Houston spent part of the summer touring the province to give speeches at chambers of commerce where he promoted his natural resource agenda as a way of giving Nova Scotia more energy independence. He was in Alberta last week to attend the annual conference of the Canadian Energy Executive Association. In the company’s release Monday, Binnion said an entry into Nova Scotia would provide the opportunity to “apply our extensive subsurface expertise in a new prospective basin.” Questerre’s website lists assets in Jordan, Utah, western Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec, where it holds “a significant natural gas discovery in the Quebec Utica shale, widely recognized as one of the most important undeveloped natural gas resources in Eastern Canada,” Monday’s release said. One reason that site has remained undeveloped is because of a Quebec ban on oil and gas production and exploration. The company has challenged that legislation in court. A spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Energy Department said negotiations with Questerre continue. Company officials did not respond to requests for comment. Robin Tress, a member of the Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition, a group that opposes fracking in the province, said she has concerns about Binnion’s association with the Modern Miracle Network. A video on the network’s website says the outfit, which Binnion founded, is dedicated to “promoting, defending and encouraging thankfulness for the modern miracle of hydrocarbons” in Canada and around the world. “We do not want to see this go ahead,” Tress said in an interview.

Questerre Completes Emergency Maintenance at Brazilian Oil Shale Plant -  Questerre Energy Corporation reported that emergency maintenance at the PX Energy oil shale processing facility in southern Brazil was completed on budget, on schedule and with no recordable safety incidents. The repair addressed a critical pipe failure in the furnace supplying heat to the main processing retort, where additional work restored operating efficiency and allowed the retort to run at over 90% efficiency for the past six days. Despite the unexpected shutdown, Questerre maintained continuous operation of the atmospheric distillation unit and expects to meet its minimum sales commitments under long-term contracts for August. Management said it will use lessons from this unscheduled turnaround to mitigate the root cause of the incident and improve the planned maintenance program next spring, reinforcing operational reliability at a key international asset.

U.S. In Talks To Take Direct Ownership Of Venezuelan Oil Fields  -The Trump administration is reportedly in active discussions with Venezuela’s interim government to acquire a direct U.S. ownership stake in key Venezuelan oil fields. According to senior U.S. officials cited by Axios, the talks involve equity stakes in a select group of high-yield fields containing approximately 90 billion barrels of proven crude—a transaction that would significantly alter Washington’s foreign energy policy framework and expand U.S.-controlled global reserves. The targeted fields represent a strategic slice of Venezuela’s broader 303-billion-barrel reserve base, the largest in the world. The assets in question were previously operated by Venezuelan state interests, joint-venture partners, and Chinese state-backed entities. If finalized, the arrangement would mark a structural evolution in the White House’s "Energy Dominance" paradigm. Initially focused on domestic deregulation, pipeline expansions, and maximizing shale output, the strategy is shifting toward direct equity acquisition and resource control within the Western Hemisphere.The White House’s push for direct equity in Venezuelan oil assets comes at a particularly opportune moment, as supply disruptions, elevated energy prices and broader macroeconomic pressures increase the strategic value of Venezuela’s vast reserves. With the U.S. SPR depleted to historic lows and transit routes in the Middle East under ongoing threat, direct physical control over Western Hemisphere heavy crude offers a strategic hedge. Converting those paper reserves into physical liquidity, however, faces severe friction. Legacy underinvestment under PDVSA has left the nation's midstream and downstream assets heavily degraded. Even with U.S. capital moving in, companies face a number of operational challenges to produce beyond the current 1.25 million bpd. Energy analysts at Rystad Energy have pointed out that meaningful improvement of nameplate production capacity will require an investment of around $180 billion through the next decade. Even if Caracas were looking to keep current production levels flat, total capex would have to amount to more than $50 billion over the next 15 years.While supermajors such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips maintain a cautious stance due to historical expropriations and legal ambiguities, independent operators and oilfield service providers are already moving to secure short-term opportunities.Companies including SLB and Hunt Oil recently inked initial exploration and service agreements with state oil company PDVSA. Additional independent operators, such as California-based Pacific Coast Energy Company, are finalizing agreements to operate mature heavy-oil fields.Under the framework currently under negotiation, private international firms would handle field development and operational logistics, with a portion of revenues returned to Caracas. According to Axios, Energy Secretary Chris Wright is scheduled to meet with officials in Caracas next week to discuss logistics for accelerating field rehabilitation. However, analysts maintain that short-term production gains will likely remain incremental until broader infrastructure and legal frameworks are stabilized.

TTF, JKM Charge Higher as Tight Supplies Drive Competition for Cargoes --Asian and European natural gas prices continued their rally Monday as global supplies faced competing threats.  NGI chart showing U.S. Gulf Coast LNG netback prices for the 12-month strip as of Aug. 21, 2026, comparing JKM, NBP and TTF futures, estimated shipping costs, Gulf Coast netbacks and Henry Hub futures. The near-term average LNG netback is $17.806/MMBtu, a $14.669 margin over Henry Hub.
At a Glance:
TTF climbs sharply
Asian premium erodes
Prices at highest in years

TTF Seen Climbing Far Higher Unless LNG Flows Normalize in Strait of Hormuz -  European natural gas prices would have to climb more aggressively than they have since last week if the continent expects to offset weak storage inventories with more LNG cargoes heading into winter, particularly if Middle East flows don’t rebound soon, according to Goldman Sachs.European Union natural gas storage was 63.3% full at 715.22 TWh on Aug. 24, 2026, nearly 194 TWh below the five-year average.  At a Glance:
European demand rising
$30-plus TTF possible
EU storage injections still sluggish

US LNG Follows Storage, Not Heat, as Cargoes Swing to Europe - Record-low Atlantic shipping rates and a closed arbitrage to Asia are pushing US cargoes toward a European market as storage concerns outweigh weather forecasts. Europe and Asia weather data show daily mean temperatures versus normal for Northwest Europe, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo through Aug. 25, 2026. At a Glance:
Atlantic freight at record seasonal low
Asia arb closed through 2026
Europe took 61.5% of cargoes

Equinor Extends Europe Natural Gas Supply as Norway Targets Bigger Finds -Equinor is locking in more long-term natural gas supply agreements with Europe’s critical energy hubs as it gathers partners to increase volumes and the lifespan of Norway’s offshore assets. At a Glance:

• Germany balances LNG with pipeline gas
• Exploration push targets post-2035 production
• US LNG exports to Germany rise

Qatar Loses $24 Billion as LNG Exports Collapse 96% - Six months since the Iran war crippled Qatar’s LNG exports via the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s second-largest liquefied natural gas exporter has lost $24 billion in sales as exports tumbled by as much as 96%, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday. The number of LNG cargoes that Qatar has managed to export crashed to just 18, down from 509 cargoes shipped from Qatar in the same period of last year, per data from data intelligence firm ICIS cited by Reuters.Qatar’s LNG exports are arguably the biggest energy commodity casualty of the war, as Qatar hasn’t managed to sneak as many vessels out of Hormuz as the UAE, for example, has done in recent months.The slashed exports from Qatar have wide-ranging implications for the global LNG and gas markets, with U.S. LNG exports benefitting from high prices and no-conflict-zone origin and Europe left without Qatari shipments, struggling to fill gas storage sites ahead of the winter.The de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz has trapped about 20% of daily global LNG flows. In addition, Iranian drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure in the region have damaged Qatar’s key LNG liquefaction complex, Ras Laffan.Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy expects the damage to the Ras Laffan LNG complex, the world’s single largest LNG-producing facility, to cost it about $20 billion per year in lost revenue and to take up to five years to repair.QatarEnergy has been forced to declare force majeure for up to five years on some long-term LNG contracts.The LNG crunch has sent Asian and European gas prices to the highest levels in three years and stoked fears about rebuilding gas inventories in Europe ahead of the next winter.Natural gas prices in Europe need to jump by December for European storage to fill up with enough inventory for the coming winter if the Strait of Hormuz crisis persists and keeps spot LNG prices in Asia elevated, Goldman Sachs said earlier this month.  Since the Middle East crisis began, Europe has started losing the competition with Asia for spot LNG supply amid spiking prices in the absence of most Qatari LNG term volumes.

TotalEnergies Transfers Stake in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 to Novatek Affiliate - TotalEnergies said Thursday it has completed its exit from the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Russia’s Far North, transferring its 10% interest fully to PAO Novatek subsidiary Nordline.NGI chart shows Russian LNG exports by destination, with Europe and Asia accounting for most volumes from 2022 through 2026. At a Glance:
Company has written down value
Could be reimbursed for loans
Sanctions limit operations

PCG braces for oil spill as tugboat sinks off Zambales — Authorities on Tuesday deployed oil spill response personnel and equipment to prevent a possible diesel leak from a tugboat that sank off Barangay Bangan in Botolan, Zambales.Carrying about 15,000 liters of diesel, SL Sual sank on Monday while emergency salvage operations were under way, days after it ran aground near the mouth of the Bucao River on Aug. 14.Cmdr. Euphraim Jayson Diciano, head of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in Zambales, said additional personnel and equipment from the PCG’s Marine Environmental Protection Group in Manila had arrived in the area on Tuesday in preparation for a possible fuel spill.“So in case there is a spill, we are prepared,” Diciano told the Inquirer in a phone interview.No diesel leakage had been detected as of the latest assessment, he said.An underwater survey was also attempted to assess the condition and location of the sunken tugboat, but poor weather and water conditions hampered the operation. Diciano said authorities were prioritizing the retrieval of the vessel to prevent it from becoming buried under sediment, which could make salvage operations more difficult.

Manila Bulletin - Coast Guard monitors reported oil spill off Dinapigue, Isabela — The Coast Guard District North Eastern Luzon (CGDNELZN) continues to monitor waters off Dinapigue following a reported oil spill on Tuesday, Aug. 25. Through the Coast Guard Station Isabela and its sub‑stations, CGDNELZN conducted aerial and seaborne inspections about 2.06 nautical miles west of Dinapigue Mining Corp. in Barangay Digumased. Authorities said no visible oil slick, sheen, or traces of petroleum products were found during the assessment. Local fisherfolk and other stakeholders were tapped to help strengthen monitoring efforts. The Coast Guard said its units remain on alert and ready to respond should new sightings or indications of marine pollution emerge. The public was urged to immediately report any suspected oil spill or signs of marine pollution to the nearest Coast Guard unit for prompt action.

India’s Russian Oil Imports Slide From Record High as Supply Tightens - India’s crude oil imports from Russia have eased so far this month from July’s record high, as Ukrainian attacks on Russian export infrastructure and competition from China for Russia’s barrels have dented Indian intake of Moscow’s oil.India’s imports of Russian oil hit a new all-time high in July and accounted for more than half of total Indian crude oil imports. India’s crude oil imports from Russia rose to 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, up from the previous high of 2.7 million bpd in June, for the highest average monthly volume ever, according to vessel-tracking data by Kpler.In August, India’s imports of Russian crude oil are set to decline to about 2 million bpd, Sumit Ritolia, Manager Modelling Refinery and Oil Markets at energy flows analytics firm Kpler, told Bloomberg on Wednesday. Going forward, India’s purchases from Russia are set to stabilize at a level of just above 2 million bpd, according to Ritolia.The recent pullback in imported crude from Russia is the result of a combination of factors.First, Ukrainian attacks on Russian export infrastructure haven’t allowed Russia to take full advantage of available crude for exports, the volumes of which have been rising due to the nearly-daily Ukrainian drone attacks at Russian refineries.Then there is China, which has intensified buying of cheaper Russian crude oil, squeezing India out of some barrels.As a result, Indian refiners are looking far and wide for alternative supply, including from West Africa and the Americas, to meet demand that is expected to rise in the coming months. Indian state-controlled oil refiners continue to search the market for spot crude supply as term deliveries are constrained by the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and its key oil chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz.In recent weeks, India’s state-run refiners have continued their buying spree of crude from West Africa as the Middle East crisis has sapped supply and made deliveries uncertain.

India’s LNG import costs rise amid higher gas prices, shipping charges -  India's LNG imports have shot up by 24 per cent to $5.6 billion during April-July of the current financial year, up from $4.5 billion in the same period of the previous financial year with shipments being increasingly sourced from the US amid the West Asia crisis, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.  India has gone in for a sharp increase in purchases of LNG and LPG from the US, as the choking of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted supplies from the Gulf countries. In July, India’s LNG imports increased by 9.1 per cent to $1.2 billion from $1.1 billion in July 2025. Import volumes during the month stood at 2,915 mmscm, up 1.5 per cent from 2,872 mmscm in July last year, official figures showed.  India has diversified its sources for the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from six countries earlier to a total of 15 countries in order to safeguard its energy supplies against supply chain disruptions due to the West Asia crisis.  The country has also broadened its crude oil sourcing network, with imports now coming from 41 countries compared with 27 earlier. “This diversification has reduced dependence on any particular country, region or transit route and enhanced India's ability to manage supply disruptions and market volatility,” a senior official said.  Apart from the higher prices due to the West Asia crisis, shipping costs have also surged as cargoes have to be transported across longer distances, the official said. India imported about 0.62 million tonnes of LPG from the United States in August, in addition to 0.89 million tonnes in July, accounting for more than 73 per cent of the country's LPG imports, according to data gathered by Kpler. The July volumes from the US volume were almost equal to the highest-ever monthly LPG import from the United Arab Emirates, India's traditional supplier, of 0.891 million tonnes in October 2025. The LPG imports from the UAE fell to about 1,40,000 tonnes in August, while Qatar supplied around 60,000 tonnes, Kpler data showed. Saudi Arabia supplied no LPG to India in either July or August.

India's Crude Import Bill Surges As Hormuz Shipping Rates Soar -India has been paying elevated prices to import Middle Eastern crude not only because of the spike in oil prices, but also due to the surging costs to bring supply from the nearest region from which it can import crude. The freight rates on the key route from Ras Tanura on Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf to India have soared by more than 400% since February 28, when the war began, and Iran closed off the Strait of Hormuz. The rate for shipping crude on a very large crude carrier (VLCC) from Ras Tanura to India surged by 411% to $4.34 a barrel in August, from just $0.85 per barrel before the war, according to data compiled by Indian outlet Financial Express.The cost of shipping non-Middle Eastern cargoes has also soared amid a spike in demand for barrels not needing the Strait of Hormuz to reach India. The Corpus Christi-India freight rates have jumped by 150% to $15.86 a barrel from $6.35 a barrel pre-war, while the cost to transport crude oil from Russia's Ust-Luga port on the Baltic Sea on Suezmax tankers has more than doubled to $19.90 a barrel from $8.40 per barrel in February.War-risk insurance has also jumped from a quarter of a million U.S. dollars for a Hormuz voyage before the war, to up to $10 million for a single passage through the chokepoint now.The soaring shipping and war-risk insurance costs add to already high prices of India's imports as Brent Crude prices have risen by about 25% since the Iran war began, with spikes into the $100s on several occasions.India paid 60% more for crude oil imports in the April-June quarter compared to the same period last year, as the surge in oil prices couldn't offset slightly lower import volumes. The rise continued into the beginning of the third quarter, with the July import bill 41% higher from a year earlier.

Pakistan’s oil refiners set to export 185,000 mt of fuel oil in August - Cyprus Shipping News- Pakistan’s oil refineries have received regulatory approval to export about 185,000 metric tons of fuel oil in August, while maintaining adequate strategic reserves to meet the needs of the country’s domestic power generation sector, according to notifications from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority seen by Platts. OGRA has approved fuel oil exports of 50,000 mt for Pak-Arab Refinery Co., 45,000 mt for Cnergyico Pk. Ltd., 40,000 mt for Pakistan Refinery Ltd. and 50,000 mt for National Refinery Ltd., according to separate notifications dated Aug. 12 seen by Platts on Aug. 19. The approvals were subject to the refineries maintaining strategic reserves sufficient to meet the power sector’s requirements, according to the notifications. Pakistan’s oil refineries exported about 1.453 million mt of fuel oil in fiscal year 2025-26 (July-June), up from about 1.3 million mt the previous year, according to data from Karachi-based Oil Companies Advisory Council. Pakistan also exported 180,469 mt of low-sulfur fuel oil in FY 2025-26, up from 137,880 mt a year earlier, OCAC data showed. Structurally weak domestic demand for furnace oil led to significant surpluses at older refineries, which boosted exports, according to multiple industry sources. Pakistan’s refining sector is facing mounting pressure as domestic demand for furnace oil continues to decline, while older simple refineries retain relatively high fuel oil yields, according to a report by Karachi-based brokerage Arif Habib Ltd. seen by Platts. The aging hydroskimming refineries produced furnace oil equivalent to about 21% of total refinery throughput in FY 2025-26, creating persistent surplus volumes that need to be exported, often at discounted international prices, AHL said in a note. This has weighed on refiners’ profitability, particularly as domestic policy measures have further reduced furnace oil’s competitiveness, AHL added. Pakistan’s government has actively discouraged the use of fuel oil or furnace oil for power generation over the last two years, favoring cheaper, cleaner alternatives such as gas and renewables. Pakistan’s fuel oil-fired power generation surged in July as disruptions to LNG supplies from Qatar amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East reduced feedstock for gas-fired power plants. Electricity generation from fuel oil-fired power plants nearly doubled year over year to 215 gigawatt-hours in July, from 108 GWh in July 2025, said Bazif Memon, research analyst at Karachi-based stock brokerage and financial advisory company Optimus Capital Management. Fuel oil-fired power generation totaled about 100 GWh in June, OCM data showed. “Due to the disturbance in the Middle East, LNG cargoes from Qatar reduced sharply,” Memon told Platts on Aug. 19, adding that the supply disruptions have forced the government to operate fuel oil-fired power plants instead of relying on regasified LNG. Only five LNG cargoes arrived in Pakistan in July, compared with 10 vessels in July 2025, Memon said. The increased use of fuel oil for power generation has provided some temporary near-term support to domestic demand, but refinery production continues to outpace structural consumption, according to local market sources.

Japan Holds Off On New Oil Reserve Release Despite September Import Drop -  Japan expects its oil imports next month to be lower than this month's but has no plans to release additional crude from storage, the country's economy minister said. Oil imports next month are seen at 80% of the average monthly for 2025, Ryosei Akazawa said, as quoted by Reuters. The report noted that the August import rate had been 100% of the 2025 monthly total.The change is prompted by the redirection of tanker traffic from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to the Suez Canal, as Yemeni Houthis threaten attacks on vessels in the Red Sea chokepoint. A tanker takes 23 days to reach Japan via the Bab el-Mandeb strait but more than twice that, at 55 days, via the Suez Canal, Akazawa told media."Of the national reserves for which a release has already been decided, there remains a portion that has not been utilised due to progress in securing alternative supplies. Using that portion would ensure (September) crude oil supply equivalent to an average month last year," the top official also said.Japan in March announced a release of 80 million barrels of crude and fuels in response to the supply squeeze in the Middle East resulting from the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February that launched the latest war in the region. The amount was equal to 50 days of demand in one of the world's biggest energy importers.Japan relied on Middle Eastern producers for as much as 95% of its oil imports, which made it especially vulnerable to conflict in the Persian Gulf. Since then, Japan has made an effort to diversify its sources of crude, buying from Canada, Azerbaijan, and African producer countries. This has come at a price, however, with the country's import bill running at record highs because of energy commodities. The import bill for July hit an all-time high of $89.46 billion.

Egypt completes cleanup after oil spill in South Sinai -- Ahram Online  Authorities have completed the removal of oil-contaminated sand from the Ras Badran coastal area near Abu Rudeis in South Sinai, following an oil spill from a crude-oil production line detected earlier this week, the South Sinai Governorate said Thursday.  Around 200 tons of contaminated sand were removed during three days of cleanup operations carried out by the Petroleum Safety and Environmental Services Company (Petrosafe) on behalf of Suez Oil Company (SUCO), according to the governorate. The contaminated material was collected using manual equipment and transported to SUCO's designated collection point, where it will be safely disposed of in accordance with environmental regulations. The spill was first reported on Sunday, August 23, when oil slicks were detected in the marine area off Ras Badran, about two kilometres from the site. Environmental authorities subsequently found that traces of the pollution had spread over around three kilometres and reached parts of the public beach in Abu Rudeis. Authorities initially carried out field inspections and collected samples from the slick and affected areas to determine the extent of the contamination and identify its source through oil fingerprinting. Some offshore production platforms were partially shut down while teams investigated the source. The leak was eventually traced to a crude-oil production pipeline at the Ras Badran site, and a specialized Petrobel vessel was deployed to repair the line. Tests carried out after the repair found no further leakage, with production set to resume after final safety checks. The Environmental Affairs Agency, South Sinai authorities, Petrosafe, and the petroleum companies involved continued monitoring and cleanup operations after the leak was contained, including the removal of contaminated materials from the shoreline. The Ministry of Local Development and Environment has also ordered a technical review to establish the root cause of the pipeline failure and identify corrective and preventive measures to avoid a recurrence. Authorities said environmental monitoring would continue to assess the condition of the water, shoreline, and marine life and determine whether any residual pollution remains. Ras Badran is part of Egypt's long-established oil-producing area in the Gulf of Suez, where offshore platforms and submarine pipelines connect oil fields with coastal facilities and terminals. The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency identifies SUCO, Petrobel, and the Gulf of Suez Petroleum Company (GUPCO) among the major petroleum operators in the Gulf of Suez. SUCO operates an oil terminal at Ras Badran, while the region contains an extensive network of offshore oil fields and pipelines The area has also been a focus of efforts to increase crude production. In 2025, the Ministry of Petroleum said SUCO had increased production from the Ras Badran field to around 7,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day after activating a new drilling programme. Oil spills are recognized as an environmental risk in the Gulf of Suez because of the region's extensive petroleum production, offshore infrastructure, shipping, and oil-loading operations. The Environmental Affairs Agency has identified leakage from offshore platforms, wells, and pipelines among the potential sources of oil pollution in the region. South Sinai Governor Ismail Kamal said the governorate would continue monitoring the area and stressed the need for petroleum companies to comply with environmental requirements and emergency plans. Authorities said legal measures, including potential fines and compensation, will be determined based on the findings of the environmental assessment and investigation into the incident.

Oil pollution threatens up to 40km of Ras Madrakah coastline - Times of Oman - Oil pollution affecting beaches in the Ras Madrakah area could extend along up to 40 kilometres of coastline, Oman’s Environment Authority said in its latest update on the grounded vessel near Al Qibliyah Island in the Hallaniyat Islands archipelago. The authority said specialised teams are continuing environmental monitoring, surveying and response operations in coordination with relevant authorities. Satellite imagery, technical monitoring systems and numerical models are being used to track the movement and spread of oil slicks and forecast areas that could potentially be affected. According to the latest monitoring results, several beaches in the Ras Madrakah area have already been affected by the pollution. Current models indicate that the affected coastline in the same area could extend for up to 40km. The authority also warned that the southern coast of Masirah Island could be affected in the coming hours, with available data indicating a potentially impacted stretch of between 10km and 20km. Specialised teams are continuing monitoring, follow-up and response operations, with measures being taken to contain the spread of pollution and minimise its potential environmental impact. The authority said priority is being given to areas of high environmental sensitivity as response teams work to assess and address the effects of the oil pollution. The oil spill alert On a calm morning along Oman’s coastline, fishermen and beach visitors noticed a dark patch spreading across the surface of the sea. Concerned about the environment and marine life, they immediately informed the authorities. The Environment Authority quickly began monitoring the situation and issued an alert to the public. People were advised to stay away from the affected area, avoid touching any oily substances, and not swim in contaminated waters. Although some volunteers wanted to help, officials reminded everyone not to attempt cleaning the spill themselves, as improper handling could be dangerous. A family visiting the beach spotted several seabirds near the polluted water. Remembering the official guidance, they did not approach the animals. Instead, they reported what they had seen through the emergency contact number provided by the authorities. Throughout the day, residents followed updates from official sources and avoided spreading unverified information. Their cooperation helped emergency teams work safely and efficiently. Thanks to the combined efforts of the authorities and the public, the situation was managed effectively. The incident became a reminder that protecting the environment is a shared responsibility and that following official safety instructions can help keep both people and wildlife safe. Together, everyone played a part in protecting the sea for future generations. The Environment Authority urged fishermen, coastal visitors and members of the public not to approach, touch or handle any contaminated materials that may be found along affected areas. Members of the public were also advised to report any contaminated materials to the relevant authorities. The authority said it would continue to closely monitor developments and provide further updates through its official communication channels.

Tanker salvage and oil spill clean-up hampered by weather and technical challenges, Oman says (Reuters) - Weather conditions and operational challenges were hampering salvage efforts for a grounded tanker that was leaking Russian crude oil in a protected marine ​area off Oman's coast, the sultanate's state news agency reported on ‌Monday. Oman has been coordinating the salvage operation with risk-management company Ambrey as part of efforts to contain environmental damage from a spill that some estimates put at 2,000 sq km. The ​government's environment agency gave an official estimate of 400 sq km on ​August 10 but has yet to issue an update.The spill ⁠from the Caroline Bezengi tanker — apparently the result of an unexplained attack on ​the vessel in June — has spread around a nature reserve and hit Oman's coastline ​on Wednesday.   Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Rawahi, director general of maritime affairs at Oman's Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said that difficulties emerged from the monsoon in the area and ​the shallow and rocky nature of the site where the vessel ran ​aground, the news agency reported. The conditions put salvage vessels and equipment under "operational and navigational risks", ‌he was ⁠quoted as saying. The operation is further complicated by the damage to the vessel, with a large area flooded on one side, he added. The vessel, which was carrying an estimated 800,000 barrels of Russian oil and was under international ​sanctions, ran aground on ​June 30 near ⁠an Omani marine nature reserve that is home to wildlife including humpback whales and Socotra cormorants. The Caroline Bezengi loaded ​at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in April and ​passed through ⁠the Suez Canal at the end of May, ship-tracking data shows. Built in 2001, it is part of Russia's so-called shadow fleet of older oil tankers, which lack ⁠Western ​insurance cover and sail under the flags of ​various nations to obscure their true ownership. The ship is subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union, ​Ukraine, the UK, Canada and Switzerland.

Iran transfers $7.5B in oil revenues to central bank despite US naval blockade: Report -Iran transferred $7.5 billion in oil revenues from sales during the first four months of the current Iranian year to the central bank, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Saturday. The funds would be sufficient to cover the government’s foreign-currency expenditures from July through December, the report said, citing information obtained from Iran’s Oil Ministry. Iran has enough oil available for sale outside the US naval blockade to meet the revenue requirements set under its state budget for March 21, 2026-March 20, 2027, according to the report. Oil revenues on March 21-July 22, the first four months of the Iranian year, reached 99% of the amount projected in the budget for the period, according to the report. The development comes amid a US naval blockade imposed on Iran, which has disrupted Tehran’s oil exports and maritime trade. The Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global energy shipments, has remained at the center of the US-Iran conflict. Iran closed the strategic waterway, while the US has demanded its reopening to free and unrestricted navigation. Under a memorandum of understanding reached in June to end the US-Iran war, lifting the US naval blockade and reopening the Strait of Hormuz are among the key provisions. Iranian officials have said Tehran will not fully reopen the waterway until Washington fulfills its commitments, including lifting the blockade and sanctions and releasing frozen Iranian assets.

Satellite Images Show Seven Tankers Loading Iraqi Crude at Once - Seven crude carriers were moored at Iraq’s Persian Gulf export facilities on August 24—a sharp increase from recent weeks. The carriers had a combined carrying capacity of roughly 13 million barrels, according to satellite imagery analyzed by Bloomberg. TankerTrackers.com separately said it counted and identified 13 million barrels loading Monday at Iraq’s Al Basrah Oil Terminal. That is a dramatic departure from the past several weeks, when satellite passes typically showed just one or two tankers at Iraq’s offshore export facilities on any given day. Before the Iran war, six tankers occupying the terminal’s eight berths at once was normal. Monday’s activity does not mean Iraqi exports have returned to pre-war levels. It is a one-day snapshot, and every one of those barrels still has to make it through the Strait of Hormuz. Regional oil flows have stayed well below pre-war norms even as more Gulf producers experiment with covert transits, ship-to-ship transfers and alternative export routes. Iran’s own crude exports have been particularly hard hit. August loadings are running around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared with a 2025 average of roughly 1.7 million bpd, while floating Iranian storage outside the Gulf has fallen to about 24 million barrels. Iraq has had considerably more success keeping barrels moving. The country said earlier this month that it was exporting around 2 million bpd despite the Hormuz disruption, and Chinese refiners have been snapping up Iraqi Basrah Medium and Basrah Heavy as supplies from elsewhere in the Gulf tighten. Seven tankers loading at once does not prove the Gulf oil crisis is easing. But after weeks of sparse activity at Basra, it is at least evidence that Iraq is managing to push more crude toward the exit.

Oil Prices Slide 2% as Markets Brace for Bessent’s ‘Economic D-Day’ -- Oil prices fell by more than 2% in early Asian trade on Monday as traders took profits and markets awaited details of a new U.S. sanctions package against Iran.At the time of writing, WTI futures were trading at $85.18 per barrel, down 2.16%, while Brent futures were trading at $92.32 per barrel, down 2.19%.Both benchmarks gained more than 5% last week as the U.S. and Iran continued to trade threats, Iranian crude exports dropped, and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a trickle. Today’s pullback appears to be driven primarily by profit-taking from that rally rather than by any significant improvement in the underlying geopolitical picture.One relative upside for traders to take into account is that there have been no confirmed attacks in the Strait of Hormuz over the past 48 hours. That may be partially due to the significantly reduced flow of tanker traffic, however.On Sunday, CENTCOM claimed that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports has so far redirected 70 commercial vessels and disabled three. Meanwhile, Iran is stepping up its own efforts to control traffic through the strait, with the Iranian Persian Gulf Strait Authority publishing a list of dozens of vessels it says violated transit arrangements and warning that they could face future penalties.The next major catalyst for oil markets will come from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is due to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. on Monday to announce new economic measures against Tehran.Bessent dramatically raised expectations for the announcement over the weekend, writing in the FT, where he described the coming campaign as an “economic D-Day”. In the piece, the Treasury secretary specifically singled out countries and entities that purchase and transport Iranian petroleum, facilitate Tehran's financial transactions, and turn a blind eye to seaborne transfers of Iranian fuel.The U.S. blockade is already impacting Iran’s oil exports, with offers of Iranian crude to Chinese buyers having already declined and prices for available Iranian barrels having risen. If the new announcement successfully deters buyers or intermediaries, the oil market could tighten further. In response, Mohsen Rezaei, the recently appointed head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, has warned that any country's participation in the U.S. economic campaign will be considered an “act of war.” As always, the signals coming from Tehran are mixed, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian continuing to defend the MOU reached with Washington in June and describing diplomacy as the best route out of what he called a situation of “neither war nor peace.”At the same time, Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir is expected to travel to Tehran on Monday as Islamabad attempts to push the U.S. and Iran toward renewed negotiations.For now, markets will be focused on exactly what measures are announced by Bessent on Monday and whether they might materially reduce Iranian exports or provoke Tehran into escalating the conflict further.

Oil Prices Dip After Weekly Gains Amid Iran Sanctions Concerns - Pakistan Observer - Global Oil prices fell by more than $1 a barrel on Monday as traders locked in profits following recent gains while awaiting details of potentially tougher US sanctions against Iran. Brent crude futures dropped $1.16, or 1.23%, to $93.23 a barrel at 1131 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude declined $1.55, or 1.78%, to $85.51 a barrel. Both benchmarks had recorded their second straight weekly increase last week, gaining more than 5% as stalled US-Iran peace efforts added pressure to oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy corridor that previously handled about one-fifth of global oil supplies. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that Washington could introduce what “toughest sanctions in history” against Iran. President Donald Trump has also threatened penalties against countries that continue trading with Iran. Media quoted market analysts as saying that any implementation of the proposed sanctions could reduce regional oil supplies. They say that the US could intensify its naval restrictions on Iranian oil exports, potentially prompting Tehran to respond with attacks on oil facilities elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran has rejected the planned US sanctions, while President Masoud Pezeshkian has continued to call for a diplomatic resolution. Pakistan’s army chief Syed Asim Munir is in Tehran for mediation efforts ahead of the expected US announcement. Meanwhile, shipping activity through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely restricted. Fewer than 20 commodity vessels crossed the waterway over the weekend, according to shipping data, amid Iranian and US restrictions affecting traffic through the key energy chokepoint. Iran has, however, allowed several Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the strait following repeated requests from Baghdad, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. Traders also said Iraq’s SOMO and QatarEnergy had offered crude for loading within the strait through tenders.

Oil Prices Slip Ahead of US Sanctions Announcement (DTN) -- Oil prices softened Monday morning after rising by more than 5% last week as traders were awaiting details about large scale U.S. sanctions on Iran expected to be revealed later Monday. By 8:45 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for October delivery fell $1.26 to $93.13 bbl, and NYMEX WTI for October delivery retreated $1.51 to $85.55 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX ULSD futures for September delivery slumped $0.1109 to $4.3839 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures softened $0.0822 to $3.2657 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index advanced 0.136 points to 98.865 against a basket of foreign currencies. Weekend reports of Middle Eastern oil flows successfully circumventing Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz weighed on prices. White House officials have claimed that on Friday alone, some 40 tankers transited the chokepoint in a U.S.-protected corridor along the Omani coast, and stated that oil supply from the Persian Gulf was back above half of pre-war levels. These claims were impossible to verify using conventional ship tracking, given that these voyages would likely have taken place with turned-off transponders. Reuters on Monday reported that only 16 commercial vessels crossed Friday, citing ship tracking data from Kpler. An uptick in inbound tanker traffic, however, supported U.S. claims of easing supply disruptions. Later Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due to unveil details about a new U.S. sanctions package against Iran. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump in a social media post declared "economic warfare and isolation" on the country, and threatened Iranian trading partners with severe economic consequences. Tehran warned against such a step, saying that their response would be "crushing, punishing and devastating." Weak demand signals, meanwhile, continued to keep prices in check. On Sunday, the latest earnings report from Sinopec, China's largest refining conglomerate, showed domestic refined product consumption plummeting 8.6% year-on-year in the first half of 2026. Gasoline and diesel sales fell by 7.9%, and 12%, respectively.

Oil Market Retreats as Iran Sanctions Fall Short of Expectations - The oil market traded lower on Monday as traders took profits following its recent sharp gains. The market posted its high of $86.57 on the opening before it started on its downward trend. The market traded lower as traders awaited the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s press conference later in the afternoon, announcing sanctions on Iran. The oil market sold off to a low of $84.36 by mid-day. The market settled in a sideways trading range ahead of the U.S. Treasury Secretary’s sanctions announcement and remained within its earlier trading range following the announcement of an expansion of secondary sanctions the U.S. will impose on entities and countries that maintain business ties with Iran. It traded sideways as the U.S. Treasury Secretary declined to say what specific countries would be targeted and stopped short of actually imposing penalties. The October WTI contract, which remained within last Thursday’s trading range, settled down $2.05 at $85.01 and the October Brent settled down $2.22 at $92.17. The product markets also settled in negative territory, with the heating oil market settling down 22.71 cents at $4.2677 and the RB market settling down 7.71 cents at $3.2708. Bloomberg reported that in addition to the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Co exporting oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, other countries have also been exporting oil through the waterway, including Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait. It stated that last week, they appeared to be joined by Saudi Arabia, whose alternative export route via the Red Sea is under threat from Houthi attack. Over the weekend, Axios reported that around 40 ships transited the strait using a southern route hugging the coast of Oman on Friday night. That totaled about 16 million barrels of oil or about four-fifths of regular prewar flows. Bloomberg said there are signs that Hormuz flows have gathered pace in recent weeks and are continuing to grow. Bloomberg reported that despite the continued flow of oil out of Hormuz, Iran’s shipments to Asia have declined, increasing the cost of those cargoes to the highest levels in years. Bloomberg noted that much of that scarcity is due to the success of a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, which has left loaded vessels trapped inside the Persian Gulf and a fleet of empty tankers stuck outside. According to the Department of Energy, crude oil stocks in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve fell by about 3.7 million barrels to 289.7 million barrels last week, the lowest level since November 1982. The drawdowns are part of a U.S. agreement to release 172 million barrels from the facility. Morgan Stanley revised its Brent crude forecasts higher and sees prices peaking at $100/barrel in the fourth quarter. It forecast more drawn-out Middle East supply recovery, which leaves the market in deficit throughout the fourth quarter and first quarter. The bank forecasts Brent oil at $90 per barrel in the Q3 2026, $100 in Q4 2026, $95 in Q1 2027 and $90 in Q2 2027, versus its previous assumption of $75 for all these quarters. IIR Energy said U.S. oil refiners are expected to shut in about 8,000 bpd of capacity in the week ending August 28th, increasing available refining capacity by 67,000 bpd.

Crude oil prices rise as markets weigh US sanctions on Iran. - The Hindu Business Line -- Crude oil futures traded higher on Tuesday morning as markets analysed the impact of US secondary sanctions against Iran. At 10.01 am on Tuesday, November Brent oil futures were at $90.71, up by 0.19 per cent, and October crude oil futures on WTI (West Texas Intermediate) were at $85.26, up by 0.29 per cent. September crude oil futures were trading at ₹8167 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) during the initial hour of trading on Tuesday against the previous close of ₹8135, up by 0.39 per cent, and October futures were trading at ₹8031 against the previous close of ₹7991, up by 0.50 per cent. On Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an expansion of sanctions to cut off Iran’s economy. The US Treasury Department announced new sanctions on 60 individuals, entities and vessels. However, the list did not include any of the Chinese financial institutions suspected of facilitating oil trade of Iran. Bessent also declined to identify the countries that would be targeted or reveal when those penalties would take effect. In their Commodities Feed for Tuesday, Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy of ING Think, and Ewa Manthey, Commodities Strategist, said the market seems largely unfazed by Washington’s push for tighter economic pressure on Iran, with traders treating the US effort to nudge partners away from Iranian trade as marginal rather than market‑moving. The US announced more than 70 Iran-related sanctions and is threatening secondary sanctions on those that do not cut trading ties with Iran. “However, China is the largest buyer of Iranian energy. It remains unclear whether the US would risk a fragile trade truce with Beijing over secondary sanctions. The market is still awaiting further details on a possible timeline for trading partners to wind down ties with Iran,” they said. September natural gas futures were trading at ₹269.80 on MCX during the initial hour of trading on Tuesday against the previous close of ₹272.10, down by 0.85 per cent. On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), September cottonseed oilcake contracts were trading at ₹3225 in the initial hour of trading on Tuesday against the previous close of ₹3270, down by 1.38 per cent. October dhaniya futures were trading at ₹16538 on NCDEX in the initial hour of trading on Tuesday against the previous close of ₹16578, down by 0.24 per cent.

Oil prices plunge as easing US-Iran tensions temper supply fears  --Oil prices extended their sharp decline on Tuesday as signs of easing tensions between the US and Iran reduced fears of a broader military escalation and potential supply disruptions in the Middle East. International benchmark Brent crude plunged more than 6.5% to around $86.2 per barrel as of 2020GMT, extending its 2.4% decline in the previous session. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) also fell 5.5% to $80.40 per barrel. Prices came under heavy selling pressure as investors assessed renewed diplomatic efforts aimed at easing tensions between Washington and Tehran. Pakistan’s army chief visited Tehran in an effort to support diplomatic initiatives, while Qatar said it was continuing mediation efforts between the sides. Reports that Washington could soon return diplomats evacuated from the region also reinforced expectations that a wider military confrontation may be less imminent. The decline accelerated after the latest US measures aimed at increasing economic pressure on Iran proved less severe than markets had anticipated. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said countries trading with Tehran would be given a deadline to wind down their commercial ties or face unilateral penalties. The phased approach eased concerns that Washington would immediately impose measures capable of severely disrupting Iranian oil exports. Meanwhile, substantial volumes of crude continue to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical route for global energy shipments, although some cargoes are reportedly moving discreetly. The continued flow of oil through the waterway has helped ease immediate concerns over a major supply shortage, adding further downward pressure on prices.

Oil Extends Decline as New US Sanctions Spare Oil Supply  (DTN) -- Oil prices softened Tuesday morning, extending Monday's decline, which came on the back of weaker-than-expected new U.S. sanctions on Iran which were deemed unlikely to negatively impact oil supply. By 08:25 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for October delivery was down $2.62 to trade near $89.55 barrel (bbl), and NYMEX WTI for October delivery fell $2.52 to $82.49 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX RBOB for September delivery slipped $0.0166 to $3.2542 gallon. ULSD futures bucked the trend, with the front-month contract inching up by $0.0117 to $4.2794 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index steadied, up 0.016 points to 98.945 against a basket of foreign currencies. U.S. officials last week threatened Iran's trading partners with economic isolation, stoking concerns over Iranian oil exports. Monday's announcement, however, omitted any concrete steps regarding so-called secondary sanctions, and was much more limited in depth and scope than market participants had anticipated in the lead-up to the announcement of what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had called an "economic D-day." The strategic pivot from a military pressure campaign to an economic one also chipped away at the geopolitical risk premium, as did expectations of a restrained Iranian response to the new sanctions. The U.S., however, did not rule out the return of strikes on Iran; and Tehran, who on Monday vowed retaliation, continued to launch attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. How much crude oil is currently flowing through the chokepoint, meanwhile, remained unclear. Daily crossings of commercial ships trackable via AIS remained in the low single digits, and ship tracking companies estimated that total flows, including dark voyages and shuttling operations, amounted to some 5 million barrels per day (bpd). U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in contrast, claimed that 9 million bpd of crude oil left the Persian Gulf on average last week. Customs data from the main importers of Middle Eastern crude, mostly in Asia, will eventually allow the market to quantify actual flows, albeit with considerable delay. In the U.S., the six-month long oil supply disruption left its mark on road fuel inventories. Last week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that nationwide gasoline and diesel stocks were trailing year-ago levels by 6.3% and 10.3%, respectively. Vast crude oil releases from emergency stockpiles, meanwhile, and a less skewed global supply-demand balance feathered the drop in commercial crude oil inventories, which remained some 1.9% higher than in the corresponding reporting week in 2025. Inventory estimates for the week ended Aug. 21 by the American Petroleum Institute are scheduled for release later Tuesday, followed by EIA data on Wednesday.

Oil settles down more than 3%; investors shrug off US sanctions on Iran (Reuters) - Oil prices settled down more than 3% on Tuesday, at a one-week low as traders shrugged off the latest U.S. sanctions campaign against Iran, viewing economic pressure ‌less risky for oil supplies than a military escalation. Brent crude futures settled down $3.59, or 3.9%, at $88.58 a ‌barrel, the lowest since August 14. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell $2.65, or 3.1%, to settle at $82.36, the lowest since August 13. The shift from ​military conflict to economic pressure in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has reduced some of the oil market's anxiety, said Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen, adding the U.S. sanctions announcement was not as forceful as some traders had expected. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the measures on Monday, almost six months into the war. He declined to identify countries targeted or say ‌when penalties would take effect, adding he ⁠would give countries time to comply. The economic pressure campaign has revived expectations of talks between the U.S. and Iran to resolve their conflict, which began when the U.S. and Israel launched ⁠military strikes on Tehran at the end of February, oil trading adviser Ritterbusch and Associates said. There have been signals of a potential return to mediation to end the war. Iran and Oman said they had discussed a proposal on Tuesday for a "joint temporary navigational ​corridor" ​through the Strait of Hormuz and a plan to clear the ​strait of mines. Still, Tuesday's sharp decline in oil ‌prices appears to be an overreaction by market participants, Ritterbusch and Associates said. They cautioned traders that the market could swing sharply higher if Iran unleashes military strikes on U.S. installations in the Middle East. Iran has vowed to retaliate against the U.S. sanctions and expressed confidence that major trading partners would resist Washington's pressure campaign. China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, said on Tuesday its cooperation with Iran was conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with. "Iran still retains the ability to respond by disrupting ​shipping, which continues to keep a residual premium in the oil price," ​said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM. An oil ​tanker was struck on Tuesday by an unidentified projectile and disabled about nine nautical miles (16.7 ‌km) northeast of Oman's Ash Shishah, the United Kingdom ​Maritime Trade Operations said. Just two ​tankers transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, the lowest daily tally of commodity vessels since early May, with both entering the Gulf, shipping data showed. The conflict has heightened concerns over the strait, the waterway through which ​roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption passed ‌before the Iran war began on February 28. Supply disruptions have already prompted countries to draw down commercial ​and strategic oil reserves.

Crude oil price drop as Iran-Oman talks raise Hormuz hopes -  Crude oil futures traded lower on Wednesday morning following reports that Oman and Iran had discussed establishing a temporary joint maritime corridor in the Strait of Hormuz. At 10.05 am on Wednesday, November Brent oil futures were at $85.25, down by 2.31 per cent, and October crude oil futures on WTI (West Texas Intermediate) were at $80.30, down by 2.50 per cent. September crude oil futures were trading at ₹7664 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) during the initial hour of trading on Wednesday against the previous close of ₹7837, down by 2.21 per cent, and October futures were trading at ₹7575 against the previous close of ₹7721, down by 1.89 per cent. Both Iran and Oman said on Tuesday that they discussed a joint temporary navigational corridor through the Strait of Hormuz and agreed to clear it of mines. In their Commodities Feed for Wednesday, Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy of ING Think, and Ewa Manthey, Commodities Strategist, said oil prices continue to retreat, with ICE Brent settling 3.89 per cent lower on Tuesday and breaking below $90 a barrel. The catalyst appears to be positive signals from Persian Gulf talks. They said Iran and Oman appear closer to an agreement on shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz. However, any agreement between these two parties does not mean we will see normalisation in oil flows through the key chokepoint. “We would likely need to see the US lift its blockade on Iranian ports and ease sanctions on Iran before we see any move towards normalisation,” they said. In a Truth Social post, US President Donald Trump said all mines have been removed and / or detonated from within the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz. “Iran has been notified that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed. Through Space Force, we are watching every square inch of the Strait, as we are, also, with Pickaxe Mountain and the already destroyed three other Nuclear sites. There is a Zero Tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect,” he said. August zinc futures were trading at ₹435.20 on MCX during the initial hour of trading on Wednesday against the previous close of ₹424.70, up by 2.47 per cent. On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX),September cottonseed oilcake contracts were trading at ₹3305 in the initial hour of trading on Wednesday against the previous close of ₹3263, up by 1.29 per cent. September jeera futures were trading at ₹21020 on NCDEX in the initial hour of trading on Wednesday against the previous close of ₹20920, up by 0.48 per cent.

WTI Rises After Big Product Draws, Tiny Crude Build, SPR Nears 'Tank Bottoms' | ZeroHedge - Oil prices extended their declines for a third straight day after the US plan to ramp up economic pressure on Iran spared the country’s trading partners from harsher measures for now, while mediators said they were continuing efforts to end the conflict. “There was a lot of buildup around the announcement but what we got was more a warning about where policy is heading than an immediate shock to physical supply,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Chicago-based Karobaar Capital LP. “Until secondary sanctions start changing who can buy, ship or even finance Iranian crude, I don’t think traders have much reason to add another geopolitical premium.” Oman and Iran said the countries' foreign ministers discussed an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary framework. Negotiations between the two countries will continue "with a view to agreeing on a permanent navigational corridor and future administration of the strait," the joint statement said. While positive, an agreement between Oman and Iran wouldn't result in oil flows through the strait returning to prewar levels, ING analysts Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said. "We would likely need to see the U.S. lift its blockade on Iranian ports and ease sanctions on Iran before we see any move towards normalization." All eyes on domestic supply (and demand) for the next tactical leg... API

• Crude +4.2mm
• Cushing +1.0mm
• Gasoline -3.2mm
• Distillates -459k

DOE

• Crude +95k (+500k exp)
• Cushing +1.18mm
• Gasoline -2.54mm
• Distillates -2.23mm

Crude stocks rose for the 4th straight week (but it was a tiny 95k increase) while Cushing saw a modest build off tank bottoms. Product inventories saw large drawdowns.. The Trump admin drained another 3.6mm barrels from the SPR to 289.7 million barrels (1983 lows), approaching the minimum operational level for storage facilities, which ranges between 250 and 300 million barrels. The combination of a tiny commercial crude build and sizable SPR drain created the biggest net crude drawdown in over a month... Cushing stocks remain very near 'tank bottoms' Distillates stocks fell back near 25 year lows... ...and the lowest seasonally on record... US crude imports from Saudi Arabia picked up recently (but remain well below peak war levels). Crude exports fell below 4 million barrels a day, a threshold closely watched by the market to gauge demand. US Crude production remains near record highs and while the rig count dipped last week, it is still trending higher overall... Refining utilization rates are at the highest seasonal level since 1998. That is, in part, due to a shrinking US refining fleet in recent years. But it’s also evidence of how hard fuel-makers are running their plants right now to capture wide margins. They plan to keep that up into the fall, with some companies even deferring maintenance. US gasoline demand remains 'normal' for this time of year... WTI was hovering around $81.50 (off the overnight lows) ahead of the official data (down from almost $88 last week)... Crude is still up about 50% this year as the war - now in its sixth month - continues to disrupt the shipping of crude and refined fuels out of the Middle East. The impact has been particularly acute in fuel markets, which have also faced a hit from Ukrainian attacks on Russian refiners. That’s helped push premiums over crude to stratospheric levels (but the crack spread is starting to decline)... At the same time, large volumes of crude supplies continue to transit Hormuz with their satellite signals turned off. Those volumes are in millions of barrels a day and have helped generally keep a lid on prices that had been expected to soar at the outset of the conflict.

Oil dips in volatile session amid Mideast diplomacy hopes, Russia-Ukraine tensions -- Oil prices fell on Wednesday, extending weekly declines, after signs of progress in diplomatic efforts to end hostilities in the Middle East and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Losses were capped, however, by tensions between Russia and Ukraine coming back into focus. Brent crude futures expiring in November, the global oil benchmark, shed 0.9% to settle at $86.47 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures expiring in October dropped 0.6% to settle at $81.83 a barrel.  Oil prices briefly turned higher Wednesday morning after Bloomberg News reported that Russia was preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after coming to a conclusion that negotiations for a peace deal were stalled, citing three people close to the Kremlin. Bloomberg said Russia was considering intensifying conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the Ukrainian capital, and infrastructure targets in other cities, citing the people. The people also said that a number of Russian officials were of the belief that Vladimir Putin could eventually choose to use tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort in Ukraine, as per Bloomberg. The war between Russia and Ukraine has dragged on for more than four years after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Russia currently occupies roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory. Kyiv has recently responded with long-range drone strikes that have damaged up to 40% of Russia’s refining capacity and logistics hubs such as those run by Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries. Turning to the Middle East, oil prices slumped over 5% on Tuesday after Russian media reported that the U.S. and Iran were close to a fresh ceasefire deal. Russian state-owned agency RIA Novosti reported the deal, citing Pakistani and Iranian sources. The reported arrangement includes free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and is expected to be announced in the coming days. Investing.com could not immediately verify the RIA report. Pakistani officials have said this week that they had made progress in mediation talks with Iran, and had discussed restoring an interim ceasefire deal between Washington and Tehran. Pakistan has been a major regional mediator in the ongoing U.S.-Iran war, and helped broker a now-expired framework ceasefire deal signed in June. Iran, Oman said to agree to temporary Hormuz route Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that Iran and Oman had agreed on a new temporary route through the strait after diplomats held talks in Tehran, citing a top Iranian official. But the official stressed that the strait will not reopen completely until the U.S. follows its commitments made in the June framework deal. A potential resumption of commercial traffic through the strait weighed on crude. Yet with the prospect of a return to fighting always “just around the corner,” oil prices will likely never return back to where it stood prior to the conflict, analysts at Vital Knowledge said. “[A] geopolitical risk factor will be permanently embedded in the price,” they said. Analysts at ING also warned that an agreement between Iran and Oman "does not mean we will see normalization in oil flows through the key chokepoint," adding that the U.S. would need to "lift its blockade on Iranian ports and ease sanctions on Iran before we see any move towards normalization." Tanker traffic through the strait has slowed to a trickle, as shipping groups choose not to take the risk of attacks on vessels attempt to traverse the conduit. According to preliminary data from Kpler cited by CNBC, a mere five commodity ships transited the strait on Tuesday, below the 10-day moving average of 15. Prior to the start of the war in late February, roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed through the channel. The Iran-Oman talks also come just a day after the U.S. imposed stricter economic sanctions against Tehran, with Washington signaling a preference for economic pressure over military strikes against the country.

Oil prices little changed after Iran says deal reached with Oman to share revenue from Hormuz -- Oil prices were little changed Wednesday after Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard said Tehran has reached a deal with Oman to share control of the Strait of Hormuz.Iran and Oman have agreed to share revenue generated from Hormuz, a Revolutionary Guard spokesman told the state news agency Tasnim. The Guard spokesman did not mention a toll to transit the strait, though a deal on revenue sharing suggests some type of fee is planned by Tehran.Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, traded 74 cents lower to close at $87.84 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude lost 13 cents to settle at $82.23 per barrel.Ships would enter the Persian Gulf through Iranian waters under the agreement, said Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi. They would exit through a joint corridor that crosses the territorial waters of Oman and Iran, Gharibabadi said, according to Tasnim. It’s unclear whether the U.S. would sign off on Iran jointly managing Hormuz, said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. And Gulf nations that have been attacked by Iran during the war are not going to pay Tehran to ship oil through the strait, Croft told CNBC. Oil fell more than 3% earlier in the session as the U.S. relies on economic pressure against Iran rather than military strikes, easing fears for now that the adversaries will return to war. Prices are down more than 5% for the week.The Revolutionary Guard said the U.S. has tried to obstruct a deal between Iran and Oman. Washington must accept the agreement for Hormuz to reopen, the spokesman said.The statement from the Revolutionary Guard comes a day after the foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met in Tehran to discuss a temporary joint shipping route through Hormuz. The countries are separated by the strait, which is just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. President Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman earlier this month when asked by Fox News about Muscat’s negotiations with Tehran on Hormuz.Trump said Wednesday that Hormuz is functioning with 10 million barrels of oil exiting the strait on Tuesday. “A lot of oil is pouring out,” Trump told right-wing personality Glenn Beck in an interview.Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. controls Hormuz as the military helps ferry tankers through the strait along Oman’s coast. U.S. Central Command told CNBC last week that 660 million barrels of crude oil have exited Hormuz since May under military protection.

Oil Prices Extend Losses As Iran Talks Raise Hopes For Strait Of Hormuz Reopening - iOil prices extended their decline Thursday as diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz raised hopes of a gradual recovery in disrupted energy flows. Brent crude futures fell 41 cents, or 0.5%, to $87.43 a barrel by 0330 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate declined 37 cents, or 0.5%, to $81.86, according to Reuters market data. The declines put Brent on course for a fourth consecutive losing session and WTI for a fifth, as Qatar prepared to send its prime minister to Tehran to revive negotiations and Iran and Oman continued discussions over arrangements for maritime traffic through the strategic waterway. The potential reopening has become the central variable for oil markets because the Strait of Hormuz carried an average 20.9 million barrels per day of oil in the first half of 2025, equivalent to about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Brent's decline to $87.43 marked a further retreat from the recent highs reached as the conflict disrupted Gulf shipping. Reuters reported that Brent was on track for its fourth straight daily decline, while WTI was headed for a fifth consecutive loss. The market response reflects expectations that any agreement allowing commercial vessels to move more freely through Hormuz would restore some disrupted supply. Reuters reported that oil flows through the strait had fallen to about one-quarter of their pre-war level, based on ship-tracking data. The underlying exposure remains substantial. EIA data show that crude oil and condensate accounted for 14.7 million barrels per day of Hormuz traffic in the first half of 2025, while petroleum-product flows averaged another 6.1 million barrels per day. Iran and Oman were still negotiating an agreement covering control and revenue-sharing arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz after earlier Iranian claims that a deal had already been reached, according to Reuters. An Iranian source said the agreement had not yet been finalized. Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani was scheduled to visit Tehran Thursday to pursue mediation between the United States and Iran, according to Reuters. Qatar had previously helped facilitate a June ceasefire that later unraveled. The diplomatic process faces unresolved conditions. Reuters reported that Iran has linked reopening the strait to U.S. compliance with terms of the failed interim ceasefire, including sanctions relief and an end to port blockades, while attacks on shipping have continued. The easing in crude prices does not eliminate broader fuel-supply concerns. Reuters reported that damage to Middle Eastern refineries and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refining facilities have reduced diesel production, affecting a market in which Russia had been a major supplier. U.S. Energy Information Administration data cited by Reuters showed U.S. distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.2 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 21 to 103.4 million barrels. Reuters reported that the level was the lowest recorded for that time of year.The combination of potential Hormuz normalization and depleted fuel inventories leaves oil markets sensitive to developments on both fronts. A sustained reopening of the waterway would improve the prospects for restoring disrupted crude flows, while stronger refinery output would provide an additional path toward rebuilding diesel supplies.

Oil Mixed as Russian Threats, Low Inventories Halt Selloff  (DTN) -- Oil prices steadied following a four-day selloff Thursday morning as traders weighed easing supply risks in the Middle East against reported Russian plans of an escalation in the war against Ukraine and accumulating refinery outages from Ukrainian attacks. A bullish U.S. inventory report also lent price support. By 8:40 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for October delivery rose $0.57 to $88.41 bbl, and NYMEX WTI for October delivery advanced $0.25 to $82.48 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX ULSD for September delivery retreated $0.0626 to $4.1974 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures slid $0.0140 to $3.3061 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index strengthened by 0.036 points to 99.125 against a basket of foreign currencies. Negotiations between Iran and Oman to establish a joint shipping corridor in the Strait of Hormuz, which would ease the crude supply disruption, were reportedly in the final stages. Officials from both countries on Wednesday signaled optimism about opening a shipping lane within the next 30 to 60 days. Supply risks, however, rose elsewhere. Russian oil and product supply has been squeezed by recent Ukrainian attacks on refineries and export terminals, and reports that the Kremlin is no longer interested in pursuing diplomacy supported the geopolitical risk premium. In the U.S., meanwhile, the ongoing global refined product supply shortage has drawn down diesel stockpiles to the lowest seasonal level on record last week, the Energy Information Administration reported Wednesday. Ultra-low sulfur diesel inventories fell to 93.6 million bbl, down 11% year-on-year, and more than 15% below the five-year seasonal average. Gasoline stockpiles also shrank, falling to a nine-month low 206.8 million bbl. The weekly declines left combined road fuel inventories at their lowest in 18 years.

Oil settles up 2% after Trump rejects return to Iran ceasefire deal terms (Reuters) - Brent ​crude prices settled up by 2.1% on Thursday, snapping a three-session losing streak, after a Wall Street Journal report, said U.S. President ‌Donald Trump is not interested in returning to terms of a memorandum of understanding reached with Iran in June. Citing people familiar with the matter, the report said the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in reviving the June agreement, complicating a flurry of diplomatic efforts this week to restart talks. Brent crude futures finished up $1.86, ​or 2.1% at $89.70 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up $1.30, or 1.6% at $83.53. Both benchmarks rebounded as investors scaled ​back expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough that could boost oil flows from the Middle East. A lack of progress in talks, ⁠combined with continually restricted flows, could have prompted an adjustment of market views, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. Earlier on Thursday, Washington confirmed it was not ​in talks with Iran despite diplomatic efforts by other countries to re-engage the two sides. "We don't want to speak to them. We're not looking to meet ​or anything," Trump told reporters later in the Oval Office, saying the U.S. was focused on punishing Tehran economically and would penalize countries that do business with the Islamic Republic. On Monday, the U.S. announced what it called the "toughest sanctions in history" on Iran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the measures would lessen the need for new major military operations. Ebrahim ​Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security committee, said the sanctions were an "inhumane and hostile act" that had nevertheless lost their effectiveness. Qatar's pri me minister visited ​Tehran on Thursday in a bid to relaunch diplomatic talks to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, on the eve of its six-month anniversary. Iran's top security official Mohsen Rezaei warned that Tehran would ‌target U.S. ⁠military and economic interests if Washington started any "mischief" during the talks with Qatari officials. "At the heart of the dispute remains Iran's nuclear programme and that is unlikely to be resolved quickly ... Iran also understands the importance of its geographical position and the leverage that the Strait of Hormuz provides, so the risk of prolonged uncertainty remains," said Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market insights at Phillip Nova. The Strait of Hormuz handled about one-fifth of global daily oil ​and liquefied natural gas supplies before ​the conflict began in late February. Flows ⁠through the strait improved slightly on Wednesday, with 10 commodity vessels transiting the waterway, up from recent lows but still below the 10-day average of 15, according to Kpler data. Vessels exiting the strait included a medium-range fuel tanker, a ​bitumen tanker and a bulk carrier. State-owned Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Co had restarted all three crude units at ​its 615,000 barrel-per-day Al-Zour ⁠oil refinery at 60% capacity as of August 19, consultancy IIR said. The refinery had come under attack by Iranian drones in May. Elsewhere, geopolitical tensions escalated after Russia warned it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory using British-supplied long-range cruise missiles. Trump, however, said Russian President Vladimir ⁠Putin will ​not attack a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country, and he downplayed media reports that CIA ​Director John Ratcliffe this week had warned Russian officials against such an attack. Britain is one of the founding members of NATO.

Oil prices ease after two weeks of gains  - Oil prices fell on Friday and are on track to snap a two-week winning streak, despite settling ​higher in the previous session following a report that U.S. ‌President Donald Trump is not interested in returning to previous deal terms with Iran. Brent crude futures were down 25 cents, or 0.3%, to $89.45 a ​barrel by 0035 GMT. West Texas Intermediate crude futures ​fell 22 cents, also 0.3%, to $83.31. Both benchmarks were ⁠poised to end the week lower, with Brent down 5.3% ​and WTI falling 4.3%. Citing people familiar with the matter, the ​Wall Street Journal report said the Trump administration has repeatedly told mediators it has no interest in reviving the June memorandum of understanding, ​complicating diplomatic efforts to restart talks. Earlier on Thursday, Washington​said it was not in talks with Iran despite diplomatic efforts by other ‌countries ⁠to re-engage the two sides. On Monday, the U.S. announced what it called the "toughest sanctions in history" on Iran. Tehran said the sanctions were an "inhumane and hostile act" that had lost ​their effectiveness. Elsewhere, geopolitical ​tensions escalated ⁠after Moscow warned it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to ​Kyiv's attacks on Russian territory using British-supplied long-range ​cruise ⁠missiles. Trump, however, said Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attack a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) country, and he downplayed media reports that ⁠CIA ​Director John Ratcliffe this week had ​warned Russian officials against such an attack. Britain is one of the founding ​members of NATO.

Oil on Track for Weekly Decline as Risk Premium Softens (DTN) -- Oil prices were mixed Friday morning, with crude benchmarks eyeing weekly declines in the 4% to 5% range, reflecting a shrinking geopolitical risk premium tied to the U.S-Iran war and rising oil flows from the Middle East. By 8:35 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for October delivery was down $0.42 to trade near $89.28 bbl, and NYMEX WTI for October delivery fell $0.79 to $82.74 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX ULSD for September delivery advanced $0.0174 to $4.2691 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures rose $0.0407 to $3.4249 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index edged higher by 0.053 points to 99.145 against a basket of foreign currencies. The U.S. completed its strategic pivot from a military pressure campaign to an economic one this week when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced new sanctions on Iran. A muted response from Tehran, and the lack of anticipated secondary sanctions on Iranian trading partners, weighed on prices. Signs of some crude flows circumventing Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and productive negotiations between Iran and Oman to establish a joint shipping corridor in the Strait of Hormuz, also eased supply woes. Officials from both countries this week said that this shipping lane could start within the next 30 to 60 days. Ship tracking experts did record a pickup in oil exports, with shippers relying on a combination of dark voyages in a U.S.-Navy protected corridor along the Omani coast, and crude flow diversions via pipelines and ship-to-ship transfers. Estimates vary however, ranging from one third to two thirds of pre-war volumes. While crude futures moved lower, product futures shrugged off the increase in oil flows from the Persian Gulf amid tightening global fuels supply. War damages to refineries in the Middle East and Russia have taken offline a not insignificant chunk of global fuels production capacity. Over the past several months, intensifying Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure have impacted a cumulative 20 to 40% of Russian refining capacity. On Friday, Ukraine reported to have struck yet another Russian refinery overnight.m

Oil settles lower on clues about Fed policy, rumors of Hormuz deal (Reuters) - Oil prices settled lower on Friday, also down for the week as traders evaluated hints about the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's inflation-fighting policy and rumors of a possible agreement on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude ‌futures settled at $89.31 a barrel, down 39 cents, or 0.43%. West Texas Intermediate crude futures finished at $83.40 a barrel, down 13 cents, or ‌0.16%. For the week Brent settled down by more than 5% and WTI by more than 4%. Following comments by new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh pointing to a possible rate hike later this year ​to curb inflation, oil prices descended further, said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at the Price Futures Group. "The (global) products markets are looking strong on further Ukraine strikes on Russian refineries," Flynn said. "But there is a lot of rumbling, rumors we might see a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend." The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran completed its sixth month on Friday. Traders were watching as flows of oil through the strait made a choppy recovery, through which 20% of global oil production flowed ‌before the war started. "The market has been surprised by ⁠the additional flow, Iran-Oman shipping corridor and the U.S. mine clearance claims," said Rystad analyst Janiv Shah. "The weekly decline would likely be due to the available volume that is able to exit the Strait and the pace of ramp-up in ⁠flows. That would allow Asian refiners to pull and consume," he said. This week, the U.S. announced what it called the "toughest sanctions in history" on Iran. Tehran said the sanctions were an "inhumane and hostile act" that had lost their effectiveness. Mediators are stepping up efforts to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened. Tehran agreed to draw up a list of ​conditions ​to restore normal traffic after a Qatari emissary pressed the Iranians to respect freedom ​of navigation. The tentative recovery of oil ‌flows through the strait, through which 20% of the world's oil supply moved before the war, remained choppy. On Thursday, seven commodity vessels transited, down from 17 a day earlier and below the 10-day average of 15, preliminary shipping data showed on Friday. The Bab el-Mandeb, another major maritime chokepoint, saw 17 commodity vessels pass through, with six entering and 11 exiting. Goldman Sachs on Thursday estimated recent total Gulf exports at 15 million to 16 million barrels per day, 7 million to 8 million bpd below pre-war levels but 5 million to 6 million above the lowest point in March. "The ramifications on who will be in ‌or out of OPEC, how China's demand is affected, whether the refinery issues of the ​globe can now be solved are hitched firmly to this bumpy wagon of war," PVM Oil ​Futures analyst John Evans said. Officials in President Donald ​Trump's administration are working on a deal to secure long-term access to a portion of Venezuela's crude reserves, sources with ‌knowledge of the negotiations said on Thursday. This move could ultimately ​lower the cost of oil imports. Venezuela is ​also considering leaving the OPEC oil production group, Bloomberg reported. Separately, geopolitical tensions escalated after Moscow warned it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Kyiv's attacks on Russian territory using British-supplied long-range cruise missiles. Trump, however, said Russian President Vladimir Putin will not ​attack a NATO country, and he downplayed media reports ‌that CIA Director John Ratcliffe this week had warned Russian officials against such an attack. Britain is a founding member of NATO. Ukraine's ​military struck a Russian oil refinery in the Yaroslavl region overnight, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

Aramco offers more oil outside Hormuz with some cargoes heading to China (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco has offered more oil for loading outside the Strait of Hormuz in September, four sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday, after ​the producer sold at least 4 million barrels to China this month. Shipping ​data indicates that Aramco has resorted to shuttling cargoes aboard tankers with ⁠their trackers switched off to evade attacks during transit through the strait, which was ​used by a fifth of the world's oil and gas before the U.S.-Iran war ​broke out on February 28. Aramco has declined to comment. Aramco has started a sales process for Arab Medium and Arab Heavy crude with Asian buyers for a second consecutive week, with cargoes offered via ship-to-ship (STS) transfers ​off Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates or Sohar in Oman, both outside the ​strait, the sources said. Bids are due by Wednesday, one of the sources said. The offers come ‌after two ⁠supertankers carrying 4 million barrels of Saudi crude were bound for China after loading the cargoes via STS transfers off Sohar, shipping data from Vortexa and Kpler showed. Very large crude carrier Singapore Prosperity transferred its Saudi crude cargo around August 22 to the ​VLCC Xin Hui Yang, ​which is expected ⁠to arrive at eastern Chinese Ningbo port on September 15, the data showed. On Tuesday, VLCC Algeria Prosperity transferred its cargo to the ​VLCC Xin Han Yang, which is expected to arrive at the ​Zhanjiang port ⁠in southern China on September 12. Both cargoes are to be delivered to the world's largest refiner Sinopec, according to Vortexa. Sinopec did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Aramco ⁠also ​sold at least 4 million barrels of the heavier ​grades to PetroChina and Sinochem last week after resuming oil loading at the Ras Tanura port earlier in August.

Iran and Oman push talks for ‘interim’ reopening of Hormuz - The Japan Times - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart, Badr Albusaidi, discussed an “interim framework” aimed at resuming shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a joint statement carried by the Oman News Agency, as the two sides press ahead with long-running talks over navigation through the key waterway. The initiative seeks to establish a “temporary joint maritime corridor” and project for mine clearance to restore safe navigation through the area, according to the statement. Technical talks between the two sides will continue with the aim of agreeing on a permanent maritime corridor, the future administration of the strait, as well as a mechanism for information exchange, traffic management, and the provision of relevant maritime and security services, it said. The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas previously passed, has remained largely closed since March, when Iran moved to block the waterway following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28 that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran and Oman will hold further talks to “negotiate a new permanent route within 30 to 60 days” for shipping through the vital waterway, according to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported, without specifying when the next phase of discussions will begin. Earlier Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. Navy had cleared mines from the strait, in a move aimed at opening shipping flows through the vital waterway. The social media announcement came a day after the U.S. announced a raft of new economic sanctions designed to deter economic and financial partnerships with the country and ratchet up pressure on Tehran. “Iran has been notified that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed,” Trump said. Trump provided no evidence for his assertion that the strait was cleared of mines, something he has claimed before. European officials have expressed skepticism in the past, given the time-consuming and complicated nature of mine clearing. Tehran had previously stated that it is focusing solely on talks with Oman as the other littoral state of the Strait of Hormuz, maintaining that those discussions are independent of stalled negotiations with Washington. But there were indications Tuesday that the negotiations could incorporate other nations in the region. The joint statement from Iran and Oman said that both sides “emphasized the importance of holding joint talks with regional countries bordering the waters of the Persian Gulf” as the monthslong discussions continue. And Albusaidi, in a social media post, said that discussions with regional partners “will be conducted in support of peace and cooperation, stability and freedom of navigation.” An agreement to ease traffic through the strait could help revive talks between Iran and the U.S., following a 60-day interim peace deal signed in June aimed at negotiating a permanent end to the conflict. That window closed in mid-August. Tehran says a return to talks hinges on Washington honoring the terms of the deal, accusing the U.S. of breaching the agreement by encouraging ships to use alternative routes that undermine Iranian authority over the strait. The White House has said that Iranian attacks on commercial and cargo ships in the strait violated the agreement and accused Tehran of failing to control rogue elements in the military. “It’s definitely a baby step in the right direction, but the U.S. reaction and coordination will be important in understanding how serious it is,” said Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute. While Oman will continue working to “find compromises” acceptable to both Washington and Tehran, “the wildcard is Trump and whether his administration would support this framework,” Jacobs said. Albusaidi’s trip follows a visit by Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir a day earlier. Both Oman and Pakistan have served as key mediators in talks between Washington and Tehran. A spokesman for the Iranian president’s office said Munir’s visit was “highly fruitful and yielded very valuable diplomatic achievements,” while the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Munir sought to “create space for negotiations and convey Iran’s conditions and positions to the American side.”

Iran, Oman Reach Strait of Hormuz Revenue Sharing Deal - --Iranian officials have announced that Tehran and Muscat will split the revenue generated by tolls for vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz. The two countries also agreed to limited military transits through the critical waterway. “Agreements have been reached regarding each country’s share of the strait’s waters as well as Iran and Oman’s share of its revenues,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Wednesday. “We have reached results that are acceptable to both sides.”However, the deal will not result in the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC said that the US must comply with Iran’s conditions first. Tehran is calling on Washington to return to the Memorandum of Understanding before reopening the crucial waterway. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi explained that the deal created shipping lanes for traffic in and out of the Persian Gulf. Ships using the Strait to enter the Gulf will travel entirely through Iranian territory. Outbound traffic will use a lane that crosses both Iranian and Omani territory.The current lanes are temporary, and the two sides will use the next 60 days to discuss permanent shipping routes. Gharibabadi added that military vessels will be barred from transiting the Strait. Before the US and Israeli war against Iran, the Strait of Hormuz was treated as an international waterway. During the conflict, Tehran seized control of the Strait and asserted that international law allows the waterway to be split between Oman and Iran. Tehran then began negotiations with Muscat on establishing new protocols for vessels transiting the Strait, including charging “service fees.” The White House has demanded that Iran return the Strait to its pre-war status, with President Donald Trump even threatening to bomb Oman if it goes along with Iran’s plan to change tolls.

Iran details temporary Hormuz arrangement with Oman; vows reopening tied to fulfillment of demands - Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs details a temporary arrangement between the Islamic Republic and Oman concerning the Strait of Hormuz, while asserting that reopening of the waterway hinges on realization of Tehran’s demands. Remarking on Tuesday, Kazem Gharibabadi detailed the arrangement that he identified as tentative pending establishment of a “permanent route” during further negotiations between the two sides that are expected to take between 30 and 60 days. Iran closed the chokepoint following the launch of the latest bout of unprovoked American-Israeli aggression against the country on February 28. The Islamic Republic and the United States agreed on a 60-day reopening period as part of a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding in June, but American violations forced Tehran to reestablish the closure. Tehran has conditioned reopening of the waterway on realization of a number of prerequisites, including cessation of American interference in regional maritime traffic. According to Gharibabadi, under the arrangement involving Iran and Oman, the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz will be closed. As part of its violations of the MoU, the US would try to illegally escort vessels through the southern route that runs along the Omani coastline. Oman has accepted the closure, the official said, adding that the move would be communicated to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Under the arrangement, “vessels entering the Persian Gulf will use Iranian waters, while vessels leaving the Persian Gulf will use Omani territorial waters,” the senior diplomat stated. “Vessels would pass through Iranian waters in both directions,” he added. He described the arrangement as functioning “like a two-way highway,” with a total width of approximately seven nautical miles. Gharibabadi stressed that the arrangement agreed with with Oman does not mean that the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened immediately. He said the issue of the arrangement and the question of reopening the strait were separate matters. The official underlined that the waterway will remain closed if Iran’s requirements for its reopening are not met. He said the demands include the complete lifting of the illegal economic blockade targeting the Islamic Republic, durable cessation of aggression on all fronts, including Lebanon, and clarification of the situation concerning the blockade of Yemen. Gharibabadi attributed the enhanced position of the strait in Iran’s view to the developments that took place following the launch of the unprovoked American-Israeli aggression. “Following the 40-day war, the Strait of Hormuz has become a matter of Iran’s national security,” he said.

Oil tanker struck by unknown projectile off Oman: UKMTO  -An oil tanker was struck by an unknown projectile off the coast of Oman, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said Monday.UKMTO said it received a report of the incident approximately 9 nautical miles northeast of Ash Shishah, Oman."The Master of an oil tanker reports the vessel has been struck by an unknown projectile causing damage to the engine room and disabling the vessel," it said.  All crew members were reported safe, UKMTO said. The environmental impact of the incident was not known at the time of the report.Authorities are investigating the incident.

Another Tanker Struck as Hormuz Shipping Crisis Deepens  - Yet another tanker has been struck by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said today, as quoted by DPA.The report follows earlier attacks that continue despite efforts on the part of Pakistan and other interested parties in the region to bring Iran and the United States to the negotiating table and end the shipping disruption in the chokepoint. So far, there is little evidence these efforts are producing any results, yet oil traders appear to be unshakeably optimistic, despite the reports about tanker strikes in the waterway.According to UKMTO, the attack took place on Tuesday in the waterway between Iran and Oman, and it followed an earlier attack that took place on Monday off the coast of Oman. Windward reported it was an Aframax sailing under a Liberian flag, which was loaded with 704,000 barrels of jet fuel. The vessel made it to Fujairah.Vessel traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, remains well below recent averages as Iran and Oman discuss a temporary shipping corridor in the key chokepoint that could lead to a kind of ‘interim’ reopening.  Only five commodity vessels moved in either direction in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, roughly the same number as on Monday, but well below the 10-day average of 15 ships, according to ship-tracking data by Kpler as of early Wednesday. As for pre-war levels, tanker traffic remains a small fraction of those.  Windward reported that as of Wednesday, there were 11 inbound crossings in the Strait of Hormuz and six outbound ones. Of this total, six vessels were tankers: three outgoing and three incoming. All of the tankers had their transponders switched on, the data showed. The majority of oil exports, about 65%, from the Strait of Hormuz have China as their destination, according to Windward’s data.

Somali pirates hijack oil tanker off Yemen in latest attack - Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. Six armed pirates hijacked the Eritrean-flagged M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday about 136 nautical miles east of Al-Mukalla, Yemen, and took it toward Somalia’s Puntland coast, the official, who has knowledge of the incident, told the Associated Press on Friday. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not allowed to discuss the matter publicly. The Sibu 1, managed by the UAE-based Qatrat Alnada Almasi Ship Management, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last year for allegedly belonging to an Iranian “shadow fleet” used to transport petroleum products seeking to evade U.S. sanctions. The tanker had 20 crew members aboard: 16 Indians, one Syrian, one Sudanese and one Iraqi. The nationality of one crew member was not immediately known. The vessel’s previous port of departure and intended destination remained unclear. The hijacking came three days after pirates seized the Lutuf, a Cameroon-flagged general cargo vessel, off Somalia’s coast. The vessel had 10 crew members aboard: six Indians, a Turkish national, a Georgian national and two Serbian security guards, according to maritime tracking reports. The Sibu 1 is the sixth commercial vessel hijacked by Somali pirates since April 21, when the Palau-flagged tanker Honor 25 was seized off Somalia. Pirates later seized the Sward on April 26, the Eureka on May 2, the Asana on July 17 and the Lutuf on Monday. The attacks have occurred increasingly far from Somalia’s coastline, including the hijacking of the Eureka while anchored off Yemen and the Asana about 65 nautical miles southwest of Al-Mukalla. The International Maritime Bureau recorded 38 piracy and armed robbery incidents worldwide during the first half of 2026, including five hijackings. Somali pirates accounted for 94% of crew members taken hostage during that period, the bureau said. Puntland’s Security Ministry said Friday that its investigations indicated that forces beyond Puntland’s control were behind the renewed piracy, but did not identify any group or country. The claim could not be independently verified. Puntland said it had deployed security forces along its coast and condemned airstrikes that it said struck fishing vessels and property near coastal communities where hijacked ships were being held. It called on the countries involved to explain strikes near Garacad on Tuesday and Thursday. The ministry did not identify who carried out the strikes, and the allegations could not be independently confirmed.

White House Planning to Reactivate Civil War-Era Court to Accelerate Theft of Iranian Oil - The US Justice Department is preparing to reactivate prize courts to “adjudicate the disposition of [Iranian] captured vessels and cargo.”Bloomberg reported speaking with an attorney working with the Justice Department on reviving the court. “Our national security interests may require the United States military to seize vessels or cargo supporting the enemy during military conflict,” Aaron Reitz, a Houston-based attorney, said in a statement. “If that happens, our federal courts must be ready to adjudicate the disposition of these captured vessels and cargo.”He described prize courts as an “ancient body of maritime law.”Maritime lawyers and former prosecutors told Bloomberg they anticipate “ship owners and Iranian terrorism victims” to be among the plaintiffs filing with the prize court to receive funds generated by selling off seized Iranian oil. While US officials and politicians often label Iran as the leading state-sponsor of terror, many of the alleged terror attacks that Tehran has ordered have been debunked, such as Iran supplying EFPs during the Iraq War and the Kohbar Towers attack.  During the Civil War, the US Navy captured merchant vessels as prizes during the blockade of the South. The Confederacy also allowed privateers to keep captured northern ships as prizes.  Allison Luzwick, an attorney specializing in maritime law, said the DOJ may struggle to use the prize court to seize Iranian oil, as international law has significantly developed since it was last used.  “This really is a historical area of law that is not tested in modern times.” She added, “Great strides have been made in international law and the law of war since the late 1800s, and all of that is going to come into play when we’re actually looking at proceedings involving a vessel that is potentially seized under Prize Act authority.”The planning to reactivate prize courts comes as President Donald Trump is shifting his approach to the war against Iran. This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told allies that the US was not planning additional strikes against Iran, and would be focusing on implementing the blockade and sanctions.  Since Trump imposed the blockade earlier this year, the US has captured and disabled multiple vessels attempting to reach or exit Iranian ports.

Yemen’s Houthis claim attack on Saudi oil tanker in Red Sea - The Hindu Yemen's Houthis said on Monday (August 24, 2026) that their forces hit a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea with a ballistic missile, as the Iran-backed rebels pursue a maritime blockade of the kingdom. Also read | ‘Economic D-Day’: U.S. threatens Iran with new sanctions, Tehran fires back "The strike was accurate and direct, resulting in a fire breaking out aboard the vessel and causing a number of other ships that were present in the target area to flee," the Houthis said in a statement. × "This targeting comes as part of the implementation of the Armed Forces' decision to ban maritime navigation by the Saudi enemy." Yemen, embroiled in more than a decade of civil conflict, in July became the latest country to be dragged into the West Asia war as the Houthis upended a 2022 truce with the country's Saudi-backed government. The Houthi claim came hours after a British maritime agency said a tanker struck by an "unknown projectile" caught fire off Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. "The Company Security Officer reported a tanker has been struck by [an] unknown projectile causing a fire to the vessel on the main deck," said the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. "All crew are safe and accounted for and no environmental impact has been reported," it added. The incident took place 63 nautical miles west of the Saudi city of Yanbu, the agency reported. Yanbu lies hundreds of kilometres north of Yemen.

Yemen's Houthis say they attacked ship off Saudi Arabia's Yanbu -(Reuters) - Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis attacked a vessel off Saudi Arabia’s port city of Yanbu in the Red Sea, the group's ‌military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech on Monday. Saudi Arabia's national shipping company Bahri later said one of its vessels, the "Amzan", was involved in a maritime incident in the Red Sea earlier in the day, adding that ⁠all crew members were safe and no injuries had been reported. The company said it remained in contact with the vessel and was closely coordinating with the relevant authorities. Earlier, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said a tanker had been struck by an unknown projectile 63 nautical miles west of Yanbu. The UKMTO said all crew were safe and accounted for with no ‌reported ⁠environmental impact. Yanbu is Saudi Arabia's main Red Sea oil port, where millions of barrels a day are loaded, and it has become the main route out for Saudi oil skirting the Strait of Hormuz, ⁠which has been blockaded by Iran. Shipping from Yanbu has itself faced disruption since the Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi-linked vessels in the ⁠Red Sea last month. The Houthis have carried out other attacks on Saudi oil facilities and shipping in the Red Sea in ⁠recent weeks, and in July they claimed to have targeted Saudi oil giant Aramco facilities in Yanbu.

Six months into Iran war, almost half of global oil flows from war zones (Reuters) - Almost half the world's oil comes from countries affected by conflict ‌in 2026, Reuters calculations show, underscoring that current disruptions have eclipsed previous energy crises.Six months ago, U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran triggered what has become the largest oil supply crisis on record, with no clear end in sight.At the ​same time, the Russia-Ukraine war has forced production and refining cuts, including in nearby Kazakhstan ​this year.Ongoing conflict in Libya and U.S. restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports at ⁠the start of the year have added further strain.Together, countries affected by those conflicts produced about ​45 million barrels per day of oil based on 2025 output, accounting for more than 43% of ​global supply, according to Reuters calculations using International Energy Agency data.Countries which supplied roughly half of the world's oil last year have been struck by oil production and refining capacity outages this year as a result of conflicts and extreme weatherThe disruptions have increased the world's reliance on U.S. oil supplies, though that too has occasionally been disrupted by severe weather. Not all of this year's supply disruptions happened at the ​same time.With Saudi Arabia re-routing oil to the Red Sea and Gulf exporters sneaking oil secretly out ​of the Strait of Hormuz, the current Gulf oil disruption stands at around 5 million to 7 million bpd, ‌according ⁠to analysts' estimates.  But risks to total flows remain high, as attacks in the Red Sea and near Egypt's Suez Canal in July demonstrated. The conflicts in the Gulf and Ukraine have also cut global refining capacity by about a tenth. Ukraine has targeted much of Russia's refining network, striking plants as far away as Omsk, about 2,700 ​km (1,680 miles) from Ukrainian-held ​territory.Russia is grappling with ⁠fuel shortages and has banned gasoline and diesel exports, tightening global fuel markets.Higher fuel prices have become a key driver of inflation, contributing to higher ​borrowing costs and helping to push U.S. debt to a record $40 trillion. U.S. diesel ​prices have ⁠climbed to record levels despite refiners running at peak capacity. The IEA has released record volumes from emergency stockpiles to help cushion the supply shock. Those releases are now largely complete, even as global inventories continue to decline.

Regional powers seek off-ramp from Iran war, and other Middle East developments - Qatar and other regional powers sought an off-ramp from the war with Iran on Thursday as another tanker attack was reported in the Strait of Hormuz, and the Iranian government dismissed the Trump administration's latest sanctions. Elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel continued its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon even as the country's strikes on Gaza drew a sharp rebuke from the top diplomat overseeing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the territory. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was in Tehran on Thursday as part of Qatar's efforts to resolve the conflict between the United States and Iran. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X that Al Thani's meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi included talks on “the efforts being made to reduce escalation,” as well as a proposed plan between Iran and Oman to allow ships safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and clear the vital commercial waterway of dangerous mines. Al Thani’s office said the prime minister emphasized the “necessity of respecting the sovereignty of neighboring countries and the freedom of navigation” through the strait. He also met Thursday with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and its parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, underscored the longstanding ties between the two nations, noting that Iran supported Qatar during difficult times. Al Thani said Qatar has never hesitated to cooperate with Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that he has “no time schedule” to wrap up the conflict that will reach the six-month mark on Friday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organization said Thursday that it had received a report of an oil tanker hit in the Strait of Hormuz. The monitoring agency, run by the British military, said that local authorities reported that the vessel was hit by an unknown projectile on Tuesday in the waters between Oman and Iran, causing it to catch fire. The crew was reported to be safe and there have been no reports of environmental damage, the UKMTO said. Oil continues to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, albeit well below prewar levels, shipping analysts say. Ship traffic through the vital waterway increased last week compared with the prior week, with the number of oil and gas carriers up 50%, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence. The U.S. government has claimed that up to 9 million barrels a day are flowing through the strait “over short time periods,” but commodities analysts at ING bank cautioned that the figure “seems aggressive.” Other ship-tracking estimates suggest it’s closer to 2 to 6 million barrels per day, ING said. Before the war, some 15 million barrels per day passed through the strait. Navy Admiral Bradley Cooper, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, said Thursday night that international shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz have been cleared of mines. “Today, international shipping lanes are open and momentum is building,” he said in a video posted on social media. Gulf states have not commented on the statement by U.S. Central Command, and it was not possible to independently verify the claim. Even without mines, however, ships still face threats from drones, missiles and boats as they pass through the narrow waterway.

Israel Using White Phosphorus Munitions Increasingly Often in Southern Lebanon - In recent weeks, the Israeli military is using a growing number of incendiary munitions in its attacks on southern Lebanon, including the use of white phosphorus in and around populated areas, which is potentially in violation of international law. Israel has been confirmed to be using white phosphorus in southern Lebanon since the invasion began in March, and indeed there was evidence of such munitions being used against Lebanese territory in prior conflicts. Legally speaking, white phosphorus munitions are permitted if they’re being used to generate smoke screens or to illuminate an area. It is not, however, permitted to be used against populated areas, and that’s where Israel is increasingly running afoul of the rules.  For months, there’ve been reports of its deployment adjacent to populated areas, and it is one of several incendiaries which have been pointed to as the cause of massive forest fires that have devastated the Lebanese countryside in recent weeks.Israel has long maintained it is using the white phosphorus only in the legally permitted ways, but as more and more such munitions are being used inside towns and villages and in areas seemingly unrelated to troop deployments, the evidence suggests otherwise. Israel is not a party to Protocol III of the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which explicitly forbids the use of incendiary weapons against populated areas or in any way which could be expected to cause loss of life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian property. Lebanon is a party to this convention, however, and that Israeli officials so often try to spin violations of Protocol III as technically permissible under some interpretation suggests they are indeed aware that violation of the convention is a potential problem for them.

Israel DM Orders IDF to Escalate Demolitions in Southern Lebanon - A week after ordering the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare for a “long-term stay” in occupied southern Lebanon, Defense Minister Israel Katz has now also ordered them to escalate the rate at which they’re destroying what is being framed as “Hezbollah infrastructure” across the south.The issue with this is the same as it’s been throughout the war, that Israel’s definition of Hezbollah infrastructure generally boils down to civilian infrastructure at large, with a particular emphasis on the municipalities where Shi’ite Muslims live, but by no means restricting the attacks just to them.Officials aimed to frame the tiny Shi’ite villages that the IDF already occupies as “Hezbollah fortresses,” and presented the ongoing demolition of those villages as “engineering activity.” Much of that engineering involves explosions, whether it’s heavy artillery fire on the villages or increasingly the deployment of incendiary white phosphorus munitions to set fires in the villages and the surrounding area. Katz has made clear that a number of the villages in the southernmost parts of Lebanon will simply have to “disappear,” and with tens of thousands of homes destroyed in recent months, there are a number of villages which it can be said simply no longer exist.But Israel has allowed a handful of non-Shi’ite villages to remain in that area, but living under the occupation leaves those villages in a very tenuous situation. Local leaders in Kfar Chouba reported that the IDF warned them that if anyone in the village was armed, the entire village population would be expelled and the buildings destroyed. So far, that hasn’t happened.  But obeying the occupiers doesn’t mean the villagers can live as they would in peacetime. The village’s economy is based heavily around farming and olive orchards, but the Israeli troops regularly restrict villagers’ access to those lands. There’s no formal rule given to the villagers as to where they’re allowed or not allowed at any given time, and even the southernmost parts of the village are “no go” areas, with IDF troops reportedly setting up operations within buildings in that part of the village.

UNIFIL Reports Israel Wiping Out Entire Neighborhoods in Lebanon - - “Systematic not selective.” That’s how UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel described the Israeli operations to destroy civilian infrastructure and residences across southern Lebanon, during her interview Monday evening on UN Radio.Ardiel said the UNIFIL peacekeepers were documented the extent of destruction in southern towns like Naqoura, Khiam and Kfar Kila. The destruction began March 2 with the Israeli invasion, but it continues to this day. “It’s hard to overstate the devastation that some communities have seen. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped out,” Ardiel noted, adding that “Homes and businesses, schools and hospitals and other critical infrastructure like roads, electricity and water networks” are being targeted in the Israeli campaign. This is not incidental damage done in the course of an invasion. Rather there is substantial evidence that this destruction is broadly the point of the invasion and occupation, with Israel displacing well over a million civilians from southern Lebanon and Defense Minister Israel Katz saying in June that certain villages, which Israeli troops were actively burning to the ground at the time, “must disappear.”How much of Lebanon is being made to “disappear” remains a matter of substantial contention rhetorically, but Israeli forces persistently are attacking civilian targets across Lebanon’s south and setting fires in towns and even forests in the area. A more substantial concern is that occupied southern Lebanon seems to be facing a more or less permanent Israeli occupation, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry published a map earlier this month, on a totally unrelated issue, which showed Lebanon as a substantially smaller country and much of the south as effectively Israeli territory.Demolitions continued today, and the Israeli military set fire to olive groves in the area of Bint Jbeil. That area, like much of southern Lebanon, is heavily dependent on an agriculture economy, and the invasion has focused its attention in part on destroying farmlands and orchards.The UNIFIL mandate is currently scheduled to expire this year. Israel is keen to see them removed from the area, though other nations are suggesting either extending that mandate or replacing them with some other multinational forces. Italy was the most recent to propose such a force, which would monitor and facilitate the ceasefire. Lebanese officials made clear they prefer to extend UNIFIL’s mandate, but said they could also support the EU-centric multinational force. Israel has broadly opposed any force in the area.

Lebanon Accuses Israel of Scorched Earth Policy as Southern Forests Are Burned - --Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR) has issued a report that some 160 km² of land in southern Lebanon have been systematically burned by Israeli activity since 2023. This includes large amounts of farmland, but what is being called a “scorched earth” policy is increasingly including forests.Recent weeks have been punctuated by claims Israeli forces are deliberately dropping incendiaries on southern forests to set them ablaze. Israel denies deliberately starting fires in such a way, but the method in which the incendiaries are used makes that a difficult argument to make.Forests and olive groves are torched, while Israel is spraying pesticide on the farmland at levels which greatly exceed normal usage, leading Lebanon to accuse Israel of using herbicide as a weapon of war.The NCSR estimates tens of billions of dollars in damage have been done to Lebanese land as a result of Israeli military operations, and those operations are far from over, with several new attacks reported daily across the south, and the damage being so widespread and spanning so many areas that it’s not even possibly to reliably estimate the full toll. “Those whose land they didn’t burn, they’ve bulldozed,” noted one villager from near Shaqra, an area actively under Israeli occupation for months, where demolition activity is still regularly ongoing. Many villages in the farthest south, particularly predominantly Shi’ite villages, are effectively totally gone at this point, and displaced residents face an uncertain future.The Christian towns are somewhat different. Though Israel has attacked those towns intermittently throughout the war, they’re being careful to not destroy them outright. That’s both a blessing and a curse for residents of those towns, however, as they report Israel continues to have their towns totally surrounded and is severely limiting the ability of locals to leave without permission.Individual vehicles are neither allowed to enter or leave the Christian towns, only being allowed to leave as part of officially Israel-approved convoys, and even then permission to join those convoys is inconsistent, requiring locals to seek advanced permission and to allow Israeli forces to inspect their vehicles and belongings before being allowed to travel anywhere.This is a level of occupation that allows Israel to defend their operations as not exterminating Christian towns, even as it effectively makes life in those towns unlivable, and ultimately forcing those Christians to make decisions about whether or not to remain in their historic homes, assuming they’ll even be allowed to leave.

Israeli Military Warns Netanyahu Will Escalate Wars to Postpone Upcoming Elections - News From Antiwar.com Senior Israeli military officials are sounding the alarm that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to escalate ongoing wars to have a pretext for postponing the upcoming Knesset election. The Israeli outlet Maariv reports speaking with senior officials familiar with an IDF assessment that Netanyahu will attempt to escalate an ongoing conflict or ignite a new one. The Prime Minister hopes that putting Israel on a more active military footing will create a political opening to delay elections scheduled for October 27.  Maariv speculates that the military operation will intensify the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In an interview with Mario Nawfal on Friday, US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said Israel was attempting to “bait” Turkey into an escalation by attacking a military base in Idlib, Syria. Senior Israeli military officials told Maariv that the IDF would not allow Netanyahu to start a new war before the upcoming election. Since the US brokered a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel last October, Tel Aviv has continued its onslaught in Gaza at a reduced pace. Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the past ten months, and the IDF has expanded its control over the Strip. Netanyahu has used Israel’s military conflicts in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the West Bank, and Gaza to delay his corruption trial.

Board of Peace Chief Blasts Israel For Ignoring Gaza Truce -   The Board of Peace’s High Commissioner Nickolay Mladenov warned Israel that continuing to attack Gaza is extending the conditions that caused Hamas to attack on October 7, 2023. “These strikes do not change the status quo that produced 7 October 2023. They preserve it.” Mladenov told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.  “Will another strike on a munitions depot stop Hamas from rearming or loosening its grip on Gaza? It will not.”His remarks follow Israel’s rejection of the Board of Peace’s plan to disarm Gaza that was endorsed by President Donald Trump. Late last month,  Trump announced that the deal had progressed and Hamas was prepared to disarm in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. “Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza,” the President wrote on Truth Social. “This agreement is a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people.”Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly rejected the proposal to disarm Hamas.“Israel does not accept the 15-point document,” Netanyahu told members of the Israeli cabinet earlier this month. The military “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed … it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry.”He continued, “And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament. [The US] have ideas, some of which are acceptable to ​us and some of which are unacceptable to us.”Netanyahu also said he would not allow an international peacekeeping force under the Board of Peace to enter Gaza. Earlier this month, officers from Burundi and Uganda toured sites in Gaza with the IDF. Israel strikes on Gaza continued this week. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported on Wednesday that at least eight people had died and ten were injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza. Additionally, the remains of 20 members of a single family were recovered in Gaza City.  In October, Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Trump. The deal established the Board of Peace. Under the pact, Hamas released all captive Israelis. Israel agreed to halt attacks on Gaza, allow aid shipments, and eventually withdraw from the Strip.  However, Israel has continued to attack the Strip and expand its control of the region.Mladenov warned that “the distance between what has been signed and what is happening on the ground” could cause the ceasefire to fail. A cease-fire under which civilians are still buried is not yet one the people of Gaza can feel,” he added.

Israel Developing Offensive Space Capabilities - -  Israel is currently prepared to begin development of offensive space capabilities, including systems designed to defend Israeli satellites from hostile spacecraft, and weapons (including lasers) capable of striking targets from space. It is part of the Defense Ministry’s multiyear budget plan for the space sector, which will include upgrading and expanding IDF (Israel Defense Forces) intelligence and communications capabilities. The plan will also dedicate a budget to support offensive space operations, which will focus on weapons designed to protect Israeli satellites as well as weapons designed to strike targets on Earth.Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke earlier this summer about Israel’s commitment to becoming the world leader in space-attack capabilities, a realm of warfare that has experienced a surge in Israeli military interest given its extensive use for intelligence gathering in Iran.  “One of the central goals that the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and I set is that we are recruiting the best minds,” he said. “As of today, no country has the ability to mount attacks in space. We must be the leading country in the world with this capability.” “If we achieve this, it will ensure the advantage of deterrence, of the ability to attack, destroy, and all of the other matters versus our enemies with large resources.” Global space warfare development has been on the rise in recent years, and some speculate that Israel’s recent activity is an effort to catch up with China and Russia, who have been testing their own offensive space capabilities. US President Donald Trump has also expressed his desire for America to do the same, by signing Executive Order 14369, “Ensuring American Space Superiority.”However, experts warn that Israel and others’ offensive space weapon programs have increased proliferation concerns. Satellite miniaturization, falling launch costs, and the commercialization of the space industry have also allowed more countries to create their own space programs, and not all of them are peaceful. Furthermore, space weaponry not only threatens satellites and other non-military technologies operating in space, but the growing prevalence of and reliance on the latter will make cyberattacks all the more dangerous.

Ukrainian drones target one of Russia's largest oil refineries in Yaroslavl, Tu-95 bomber at Engels base in overnight attack  -- Ukrainian drones struck the Yaroslavl oil refinery, one of Russia's largest oil processing facilities, overnight on Aug. 28, the General Staff confirmed, with attacks also reported on Moscow and the region.In a separate operation a Tu-95 strategic heavy bomber was damaged at Engels air base in Saratov Oblast, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.The target of the attack was the Slavneft-YANOS refinery, one of Russia's largest oil processing facilities, the General Staff said, adding that damage to the refinery was still being assessed. The first footage published by the Russian Telegram channel Supernova+ earlier in the morning appeared to show at least two separate fires burning on the plant's territory.The latest attack marked the eighth on the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in 2026, which has been targeted repeatedly in previous Ukrainian attacks, including on Aug. 6, July 16, July 6, May 22, May 8, April 26, and March 28.The Slavneft-YANOS refinery, located about 250 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Moscow and roughly 700 kilometers (435 miles) from Ukraine's border, processes around 15 million tons of oil per year, making it one of Russia's five largest oil refineries.The plant produces gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation kerosene, oils, bitumen, liquefied gases, and fuel oil. It is the main refining asset of Slavneft, which is jointly controlled by Russian state energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom.Earlier, Yaroslavl Oblast Governor Mikhail Yevraev reported a drone threat in the region. Traffic in the direction of Moscow was restricted, while public transport routes were adjusted following the attack.Yevraev said the drone attack on the region killed one person and injured 27 others. According to the governor, 10 people were injured when drone debris fell onto a bus.Debris also fell on industrial infrastructure, residential areas, and shops, without specifying which facilities or areas were affected, Yevraev added.Ukrainian forces also targeted a Tu-95 in a separate operation. The strategic bomber is one of Russia's main platforms for mass cruise missile attacks against Ukraine and often operates from Engels Air Base, more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory.According to Zelensky, the successful strike on the plane was carried out by the Alpha special forces unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the same unit that carried out Operation Spiderweb in June 2025, using small truck-launched drones to strike strategic bombers at airfields deep inside Russian territory.No more details about the strike on the Tu-95 were disclosed.Elsewhere in Russia, Ukrainian drones also attacked Russia's capital and Moscow Oblast. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Russian air defenses shot down two drones heading toward Moscow.Astra reported that a column of black smoke rose over the town of Pavlovsky Posad, located about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Moscow. The cause of the fire was unclear, the media outlet added.

Another Major Russian Refinery Up In Flames As Diesel Nears Historic Highs - On Wednesday Ukrainian forces struck a Wildberries facility deep inside of Russian territory for the second time this summer.The warehouse in the central Tambov region city of Kotovsk was first targeted in July, but this time the large complex has been "completely" destroyed in the resulting fire, Governor Yevgeny Pervyshov confirmed.The city's mayor, Alexey Plakhotnikov, wrote on social media that "A massive fire at the Wildberries warehouse complex, smoke and smog are quickly spreading throughout the city."He urged residents to shelter in place as a massive black cloud of smoke has reached high into sky, and enveloped the city and its environs."To avoid carbon monoxide poisoning and combustion products, I strongly urge you to refrain from active movement around the city for the next two days. Keep your windows and balconies closed," he instructed.Regional media recounts of the same site, "The Ukrainian Armed Forces previously attacked the Wildberries logistics center in Kotovsk. On July 18, seven employees were killed and 23 more were hospitalized."At this point over a dozen key Wildberries logistics hubs have been hit. The online retailer is considered to be the Amazon of Russia, but Ukraine has argued it is assisting the Russian military with supplies and so is fair game for targeting. The latest overnight drone onslaught across Russia killed three people overnight.Ukraine also struck Russia's NORSI oil refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region in the overnight attack. It is a Lukoil refinery that is one of the most important in Russia, and Ukraine's military says it is now up in flames.President Zelensky is vowing to keep up these punishing long-range drones strikes, but also as residents of the Ukrainian capital brace for potential Russian ballistic missiles.Regional unconfirmed reports say the Norsi complex has suffered a forced shut down as diesel prices soar near all time highs. DropSite News reviews of the significance:

• Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck Lukoil’s Kstovo (NORSI) refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region about 250 miles east of Moscow.
• It is Russia’s 4th-largest oil refinery and 2nd-largest gasoline producer, and can process roughly 125 million barrels annually, or about 320,000–340,000 barrels per day. The strike sparked a fire and forced the refinery to suspend crude oil processing, according to Reuters.
• U.S. retail diesel prices meanwhile have surged near historic highs, reaching a national average of $5.62 to $5.65 per gallon.
• Prices jumped by 20 cents per gallon this week alone, driven by a global supply crunch linked to the Middle East conflict and refinery disruptions there and in Russia.
• Current diesel prices are nearly $2.00 per gallon higher than they were at this time last year.

While there's still yet to be official Kremlin confirmation of the Norsi refinery attack and destruction, videos like the below have been spreading quickly online:

As Ukraine hits Russia's refineries, Russia targets Ukraine's petrol pumps - Russia has hit more than 200 Ukrainian petrol stations since April, according to a think tank "Fill up quickly and move on," Mayor Ihor Terekhov warns drivers in Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. Two petrol stations in the city in Ukraine's north-east were hit by Russian drones on Monday, which local officials say wounded two people. In another attack on a petrol station outside the city of Kryvyi Rih last week, three people were killed. Russia's campaign of targeting civilian filling stations with drones and missiles began in earnest in April, primarily in regions on the front line, and the attacks are steadily growing more frequent. At the same time, Russia has endured two waves of severe fuel shortages across the country as a result of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. In total, Russia has hit at least 246 filling stations across Ukraine so far, says Oleksandr Sirenko, an analyst with Ukrainian energy think-tank Nafto Rynok ("Oil Market"). In July alone, the Centre for Information Resilience, an open-source investigation non-profit group, verified 114 Russian strikes on filling stations, compared with 66 the month before. Given the threat, police have issued special guidance urging motorists to leave petrol stations and, if necessary, to abandon their vehicles whenever air raid alerts sound. "You can fix your car, but you won't get your life back," says one police force in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The damage is highly disruptive and puts civilians at considerable risk. According to Sirenko, initially the attacks were being carried out with smaller, remote-controlled drones, but then Russia started using bigger, more expensive and more destructive Iranian-made Shahed drones. One Shahed drone is estimated to cost between $20,000 (£14,500) and $50,000 (£36,000). "One petrol station took five Shahed hits," Sirenko tells the BBC. "These Shaheds cost more than the petrol station."

Russia Scrambles to Restore Fuel Supplies as Refineries Resume Operations -- Amid the ongoing fuel crisis in Russia, authorities are rushing to ease concerns that the shortages are worsening.Russia has been suffering from a gasoline and diesel crunch since the spring, when Ukraine intensified its drone attacks at Russian refineries, aiming to cripple fuel supply to the front lines and to the domestic Russian market.The drone hits on refineries, including deep into Russian territory more than 1,000 miles from the border with Ukraine, have become a nearly daily occurrence.   But Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who is in charge of energy issues including Russia’s OPEC+ talks, sought to alleviate concerns on Monday.Some oil refineries in Russia have resumed operations after repairs, which could soon raise supply on the domestic market, Novak told reporters today, as carried by Russian news agency Interfax.  “The current situation is constantly changing. Several refineries are already back in operation, therefore, we're expecting an increase in amounts of supplier taking into account logistics,” the official was quoted as saying.“The situation is changing every day. We're constantly monitoring it and are making decisions at our headquarters. We're gathering the federal headquarters with the regions and all of our companies twice a week,” Novak said.Russia has been scrambling to ease concerns amid the crisis that has seen fuel rationing in many regions, gas stations in big cities running out of fuel, and long queues at many gas stations.Amid peak demand season, Russia has been suffering from gasoline and diesel shortages for over three months, as Ukraine’s drone campaign to strike Russian refineries forced many large processing sites offline in the spring and summer.  Russia has turned to South Korea and India for fuel imports as one or the other refinery is constantly out of service due to the Ukrainian attacks. Russia’s diesel and gasoil exports have crashed so far this month to the lowest in many years, as Moscow extended restrictions on diesel exports amid the fuel crisis. The lack of Russian diesel adds to Middle East supply disruptions to tighten the global middle distillate market.

Kazakhstan says its Kondensat oil refinery to process Russian oil - Kazakh Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov said Tuesday that the Kondensat oil refinery in the West Kazakhstan region will be processing Russian oil. During a government briefing, Akkenzhenov said that an agreement is currently in place for the export of 70% of the facility's output to Russia, while 30% of in-demand petroleum products will remain in Kazakhstan. “I believe these are normal conditions. The owner (of the enterprise running the refinery) is not included on any sanctions lists, so we won't be affected by the sanctions,” Akkenzhenov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency Tass. Noting that there are currently no pipelines connecting the facility to Kazakhstan's or Russia's pipeline systems, Akkenzhenov further said that the refined oil will be delivered by rail. “If the owner wants to ship products now, that's no problem. Everything depends on the railway's capacity. I know they're undertaking some reconstruction work at this plant to increase capacity. The benefits for us are additional investment in our country and job security,” Akkenzhenov added. The Kazinform news agency also quoted Akkenzhenov as saying that his country’s oil production plan for 2026 has been adjusted from 98 million tons to 96 million tons. He added that production losses due to attacks on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium will amount to 3.5 million tons. Long-range drone attacks by Ukraine on oil refineries in Russia in recent months have forced several facilities to suspend operations or undergo repairs, putting pressure on fuel production and distribution in some regions of the country.

Oil giant Russia turns to fuel imports as refinery crunch deepens​​​​​​ - Intensifying Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure are disrupting refinery operations, pushing one of the world's largest oil producers and exporters to increasingly rely on imported petroleum products. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia's refining and export infrastructure in recent weeks as part of efforts to curb Moscow's energy revenues and undermine its ability to finance the war. Several refineries, including Orsk, TANECO, Ilsky, Bashneft-Novoil and Yaroslavl, were targeted in August, while major facilities including Volgograd, Saratov and Ryazan have faced production disruptions since late July. Russian refinery crude runs averaged about 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, 28% below the 2025 average, according to estimates by S&P Global Energy analysts. The decline in refinery activity has also hit gasoline production, tightening domestic fuel supplies. Gasoline output in early July fell to levels sufficient to cover only about 65% of seasonal domestic demand, prompting some regions to impose limits on fuel sales at filling stations. The Russian government extended a temporary ban on gasoline exports through Jan. 31, 2027, in an effort to ease domestic supply pressures, while instructing oil companies to increase deliveries to regions facing shortages. Russia, the world's second-largest crude oil producer, has also turned to external supplies of petroleum products as refinery disruptions strain the domestic fuel market. Russia has imported more than 1 million barrels of gasoline by sea since late July to ease domestic supply shortages, according to vessel-tracking data from S&P Global Commodities at Sea (CAS) and Kpler. Over 1 million barrels of Indian-origin gasoline was shipped to Russia via Egypt, while another 300,000-barrel cargo loaded in Morocco, with its origin unspecified, also arrived in the country. In addition to seaborne imports, Russia has sourced gasoline from Belarus and Kazakhstan. Gasoline shipments by rail from Belarus to Russia rose 13% month on month to 212,000 metric tons in July, according to data compiled from industry sources. Kazakhstan also shipped about 1,000 tons of gasoline to Russia during the month. While disruptions continue to weigh on Russia's refining sector, the country's crude and petroleum product exports are moving in opposite directions. Russia's petroleum product exports fell by 400,000 bpd from the previous month to 1.4 million bpd in July, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Product exports were also down 1.3 million bpd from a year earlier. By contrast, crude oil exports slipped by 200,000 bpd month on month to 5.6 million bpd in July but remained 800,000 bpd above year-earlier levels. The divergence underscores Russia's ability to maintain relatively strong crude exports even as attacks on its refineries constrain its capacity to process crude into fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Russia is primarily importing gasoline and jet fuel, an unusual shift that highlights the growing strain on the country's refining system, Energy Aspects Senior Oil Products Analyst Natalia Losada told Anadolu. "This is still highly unusual and highlights the significantly weakened state of Russia's refining system," Losada said. She said current pressure on fuel supplies largely stems from Ukrainian attacks, warning that continued strikes could keep global supply balances tight, particularly in diesel markets. A seasonal decline in Russian fuel demand during winter could provide some relief, Losada added. Francesco Sassi, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, said Russia's emergence as an importer of refined products poses a threat to its energy security and would be economically unsustainable over the longer term. Russia's position in global energy markets has traditionally rested on the security of its midstream and downstream infrastructure, including transportation, storage, refining and distribution facilities, Sassi said. Ukraine's drone campaign has eroded that advantage, putting the reliability of Russian oil supplies increasingly into question, he added. "Russia becoming an importer of oil products poses a clear threat to Moscow's energy security and represents an economically unsustainable strategy in the long term," Sassi said. Continued refinery outages could force Russia to retain more petroleum products for domestic consumption while seeking additional gasoline and diesel supplies abroad, according to Paolo Scafetta, senior petrochemical analyst at ICIS. That would simultaneously reduce Russian product exports and increase its import requirements, potentially tightening an already constrained global refined-products market. European buyers could increasingly find themselves competing with Russian importers for middle distillates such as diesel and jet fuel, Scafetta said. "European buyers could increasingly compete with Russian buyers for middle-distillate cargoes, keeping the European diesel/gasoil market short and supporting crack spreads," he said.

Rock Bottom – Declining Russian Refinery Output Pushing Global Products Prices Higher, Shifting Trade Flows | RBN Energy -- Global prices for refined products like gasoline and diesel have remained elevated this year for a number of reasons, most notably the prolonged disruption to normal vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the war-related damage to refineries across the Persian Gulf. But while the U.S.-Iran war may have attracted much of the spotlight, the state of Russia’s refining sector may be at least as much of a contributing factor. In today’s RBN blog, we look at why the deteriorating conditions in Russia may be the biggest disruptor to refined product prices globally, how trade flows for gasoline and diesel have rapidly shifted in recent months, and what a post-Ukraine-war recovery in Russian refining capacity might look like.As we noted recently in For the Love of Money, the run-up in refined product prices has been sustained this summer even though crude oil prices have retreated from their 2026 highs set just a few months ago, resulting in skyrocketing crack spreads — see Figure 1 below. (We’ll discuss the 3-2-1 crack spread and other important refining metrics during our upcoming School of Energy: Fundamentals, set for September 9-10 in Houston.) While several factors contribute to the differential trends between crude and product prices, the overwhelming reason is that global supply and demand are much tighter in product markets than crude markets. A major contributor to that tightness has been Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine, which has led to sanctions, loss of Western technology and a “talent bleed” that imply the potential for a long-term deterioration of Russian refining capacity, even after hostilities cease. While the war began back in 2022, the challenges facing Russia have become more acute this year thanks to Ukraine’s ability to sharply increase the volume, range and effectiveness of its drone strikes, causing Russian refining operations to deteriorate rapidly. What began as temporary, isolated outages have turned into widespread, long-lasting disruptions, with nearly every major refinery hit — many of them multiple times. Public-source data and Novi Labs estimates show crude runs (red line and right axis in Figure 2 below) falling from more than 5 MMb/d through much of 2025 and into early 2026 to 4.4 MMb/d in May, 4.2 MMb/d in June and around 3.8 MMb/d in July — a 25+-year low and only about 50% of capacity. That has pushed seaborne product exports (blue bars and left axis) down from about 2.3 MMb/d in January 2025 to about half that amount in July.The most important changes in Ukraine’s drone capabilities are the improved targeting and payload levels. Attacks are increasingly hitting crude distillation units (CDUs), fluid catalytic crackers (FCCs), hydrocrackers, reformers, hydrotreaters, storage and export logistics. That reduces both total throughput and clean-product yields, making gasoline, diesel and jet availability more constrained than crude production alone would imply. Russia can push some unprocessed crude into export channels (more on that below), but sanctions, port damage and shadow-fleet constraints limit the offset. Moreover, global refining capacity is already tight, putting significant upward pressure on crack spreads.Russia has historically been a major exporter of refined products, but there’s been a 180-degree change due to lower refining throughput and the need to keep its domestic market supplied. Let’s start with diesel, where Russia had been the world’s #2 exporter, behind only the U.S. Before the war with Ukraine, Russia exported about 1 MMb/d of diesel, mostly to Europe. While those exports (blue line in Figure 3 below) have generally trended lower over the past few years, with some increased month-to-month variability compared to pre-war levels, those flows have slowed dramatically this year, falling to just 204 Mb/d in July. (Russia banned most diesel exports in July in an effort to stabilize domestic supplies and lower prices.) The supply situation in Russia is so dire that it has begun importing diesel (uptick at right end of orange line), with volumes rising to 39 Mb/d in July, up from less than 5 Mb/d in January and virtually nothing in previous years.On the gasoline side of things, Russian exports used to average more than 100 Mb/d, and topped 200 Mb/d (highest peaks in blue line in Figure 4 below) as recently as December 2023. (As with diesel, most of those barrels historically went to Europe, but that has changed since the start of the war, with more volumes headed to Central Asia, the Middle East and Latin America since then.) Regardless of where they’re headed, gasoline exports have fallen just as dramatically as diesel, averaging just 21 Mb/d in July, down from 105 Mb/d in March. (Most gasoline exports were banned in April; the ban was extended through 2026 in July). To meet domestic demand, Russia has begun importing gasoline (orange line), bringing in 90 Mb/d in July, up from less than 10 Mb/d in March and just 2 Mb/d in January. Its primary suppliers by region in July were Europe (likely Belarus, 58 Mb/d), India (16 Mb/d) and Central Asia (likely Kazakhstan, 7 Mb/d), with the remaining 8 Mb/d coming from elsewhere. Despite efforts to limit Russia’s crude oil exports since its war on Ukraine began in early 2022 (see The Hard Way Every Time), they were remarkably stable at 4.5-5 MMb/d until this year. But with its refining capacity significantly hobbled, that has left more Russian crude available for the global market. Monthly exports (blue line in Figure 5 below) climbed to an average of 5.2 MMb/d in May and 5.8 MMb/d in June and July, well above any month since 2021. Most of those barrels headed to India (2.8 MMb/d) and China (2.6 MMb/d) in July, continuing the trend since the war began. Those export trends appear likely to continue, as the short-term outlook for Russian refining doesn’t offer a lot of positives, regardless of whether Ukraine’s drone attacks are somehow mitigated in the months ahead. As noted in our recently published Future of Fuels report, we see very limited major refinery-project activity taking place in Russia and the other countries making up the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. A very small (8 Mb/d) expansion at the Bukhara refinery in Uzbekistan, which is expected to be completed in 2027, is the only increase in Russian/CIS refining capacity expected by 2030 (very short red bar in Figure 6 below). The vast majority of added refining capacity is likely to come from Asia Pacific (green bar) and Africa (yellow bar), with the U.S. expected to see its capacity contract by 66 Mb/d (blue bar).The only Russian projects we have on our Future of Fuels Probable List are a number of refinery modernizations, none of which add any crude capacity. We continue to push back the schedules for these projects (which are the tail end of what once was an ambitious Russian effort to increase the upgrading capabilities of its refineries) and whether they ever move forward is very uncertain.Russian refining capacity is a long-term issue but it’s important to note that some recovery could come fairly quickly if the Ukraine war were to stop any time soon. (Conversely, the condition of Russia’s refineries could become more dire the longer the war lingers.) If the war ended and the refinery attacks stopped, Russia could probably bring back 500+ Mb/d of refining capacity within a month or two and more than 1 MMb/d within six months, taking runs back to 4.5 MMb/d. If sanctions stayed in place, that could be about where things would level off, since Russia would still have trouble getting certain equipment and catalysts and would face limits on shipping and product exports. If sanctions were lifted (likely in stages) as part of a future deal, runs could keep rising toward 5-5.5 MMb/d over the following year or two. The first part of the rebound could happen fairly quickly, but the last few hundred thousand barrels per day would take much longer.The bottom line is that Russia’s refining problems are no longer just a regional issue — they have become global in scope. Even if the war ends and damaged refineries begin returning to service, the recovery is likely to be measured in months and years, not weeks, while sanctions, equipment shortages and lost technical expertise could permanently limit Russia’s refining capacity. That means the market may get some relief from a post-war rebound in Russian product output, but it shouldn’t expect a return to the old normal anytime soon. Until then, tighter global refining capacity, disrupted trade flows and a diminished Russian contribution to gasoline and diesel supply could keep product markets — and the crack spreads that signal their tightness — elevated.

Germany's Merz warns attackers will 'pay price' after drone incident -- Police used a robot to defuse an explosive device found on a drone at Leipzig Airport earlier this month Police used a robot to defuse an explosive device found on a drone at Leipzig Airport earlier this month © Reuters German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has warned that those responsible for drone attacks and other hostile acts against Germany, including a recent case at Leipzig Airport, would "pay a price". Merz said the incident showed Germany was "facing a very real threat" and was increasingly becoming a target. On 4 August, a drone carrying an explosive device was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany, close to Ukrainian cargo planes. However, it failed to explode as the detonator was apparently faulty. Police defused the explosives and believe a second drone may have collided with a cargo aircraft nearby. Security experts have speculated that Russia may have been responsible. The German government has made no direct accusations. Moscow has denied involvement. Leipzig/Halle Airport is used by the Germany military and Nato allies for the transport of military goods and also serves as a base for Ukraine's Antonov Airlines - which carry most of the country's aerial cargo. It is also a major hub for logistics group DHL. "We have problems, some of which stem from outside the country, and which we must not ignore," Merz said. "Attackers are increasingly ruthless, accepting even severe property damage, and even injuries and fatalities." According to German reports, investigators have since found a third drone near Leipzig airport. Public broadcasters NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper also reported that traces of the military explosive hexogen were found nearby. Speaking on the margins of a government coalition retreat at Neuhardenberg, Merz said the government was working closely with the security authorities on the case and would release more details soon. . "The government is continuing its support for Ukraine with steadfast resolve," he said. "Today, we are its strongest supporter - not to prolong the war, but to force peace talks." Germany, he said, was initiating a range of measures to better protect itself against such attacks. These include stronger drone defences and plans to empower security services to strike back against attackers at home and abroad, for example by hacking their computer servers. There has been a series of unauthorised drone flights in recent months over sensitive sites in Germany including military bases, airports, energy terminals, seaports and logistics companies. Police have warned that the overflights could have been organised by Russian agents.