Fed Officials See Earlier End for Bond Buying, Emphasize Patience – WSJ - Federal Reserve officials suggested that they might need to pull back their support for the economy sooner than they had anticipated because of stronger-than-expected growth this year. Fed officials discussing the matter at their June 15-16 policy meeting weren’t ready to reduce their $120 billion in monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage securities, according to minutes of the gathering released Wednesday. But an unspecified number thought that time could be approaching.“Various participants mentioned that they expected the conditions for beginning to reduce the pace of asset purchases to be met somewhat earlier than they had anticipated at previous meetings in light of incoming data,” the minutes said. Others saw recent reports of weaker-than-expected hiring as reason to be patient in assessing their next moves.The minutes offer a strong sign officials will ramp up more formal deliberations at their next meeting, July 27-28, over when and how to reduce the bond buying. Officials generally judged that, “as a matter of prudent planning, it was important to be well positioned to reduce the pace of asset purchases, if appropriate, in response to unexpected economic developments, including faster-than-anticipated progress” toward the Fed’s inflation and employment goals or risks of too much inflation. The minutes showed officials still expect recent inflation surges to be temporary, driven primarily by bottlenecks and shortages stemming from the pandemic. But some officials raised concern that consumers’ and businesses’ expectations of future inflation “might rise to inappropriate levels if elevated inflation readings persisted,” the minutes said. Central bankers believe inflation expectations can be self-fulfilling. At last month’s meeting, 13 of 18 officials projected they would raise interest rates from near zero by 2023, with most expecting to raise their benchmark rate by 0.5 percentage point. Seven expected to raise rates next year. In March, most officials expected to hold rates steady through 2023. The projections revealed growing divisions over the likely path for policy two years from now and jarred some investors who hadn’t expected more officials to project rate rises over the next 2½ years. The minutes largely reflect similar rifts, with one camp stressing risks of unwelcome inflationary pressures and another warning against drawing firm conclusions given the nature of the recent shocks.
FOMC Minutes: "Inflation Risks tilted to upside", Begin reducing asset purchases "somewhat earlier" -- From the Fed: Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, June 15-16, 2021. A few excerpts:In discussing the uncertainty and risks associated with the economic outlook, participants commented that the process of reopening the economy was unprecedented and likely to be uneven across sectors. Some participants judged that supply chain disruptions and labor shortages complicated the task of assessing progress toward the Committee's goals and that the speed at which these factors would dissipate was uncertain. Accordingly, participants judged that uncertainty around their economic projections was elevated. Although they generally saw the risks to the outlook for economic activity as broadly balanced, a substantial majority of participants judged that the risks to their inflation projections were tilted to the upsidebecause of concerns that supply disruptions and labor shortages might linger for longer and might have larger or more persistent effects on prices and wages than they currently assumed. Several participants expressed concern that longer-term inflation expectations might rise to inappropriate levels if elevated inflation readings persisted. Several other participants cautioned that downside risks to inflation remained because temporary price pressures might unwind faster than currently anticipated and because the forces that held down inflation and inflation expectations during the previous economic expansion had not gone away or might reinforce the effect of the unwinding of temporary price pressures. [...] Participants discussed the Federal Reserve's asset purchases and progress toward the Committee's goals since last December when the Committee adopted its guidance for asset purchases. The Committee's standard of "substantial further progress" was generally seen as not having yet been met, though participants expected progress to continue. Various participants mentioned that they expected the conditions for beginning to reduce the pace of asset purchases to be met somewhat earlier than they had anticipated at previous meetings in light of incoming data. ...Various participants offered their views on the Committee's agency MBS purchases. Several participants saw benefits to reducing the pace of these purchases more quickly or earlier than Treasury purchases in light of valuation pressures in housing markets. Several other participants, however, commented that reducing the pace of Treasury and MBS purchases commensurately was preferable because this approach would be well aligned with the Committee's previous communications or because purchases of Treasury securities and MBS both provide accommodation through their influence on broader financial conditions. In coming meetings, participants agreed to continue assessing the economy's progress toward the Committee's goals and to begin to discuss their plans for adjusting the path and composition of asset purchases. In addition, participants reiterated their intention to provide notice well in advance of an announcement to reduce the pace of purchases.
US Fed minutes reveal divisions but money flow set to continue - The minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s June 15–16 meeting reveal there were significant differences among the members of its governing body over the direction of monetary policy amid considerable uncertainty over the path of the US economy. Pointing to what it called a “vigorous debate,” the Financial Times said the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee “showed two prevailing camps wrangling over whether the US economy was ready for a speedier reduction of its $120bn asset purchasing program.” The debate would take “centre stage” in coming months, it suggested. The Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC (Source: Wikimedia/Rdsmith4) The minutes are written in anodyne language, which does not fully capture the extent of the differences, but what happened is clearly evident from the record and what followed. The differences centred on two key questions: the direction of interest rate policy and at what point the Fed should start winding back its program of monthly asset purchases comprising $80 billion of Treasury bonds and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The Fed has said it will start to wind back support for financial markets, initiated in response to the near meltdown in March 2020, when there is “substantial further progress” towards its stated goals of inflation at 2 percent and full employment. According to the minutes, the committee’s standard was “generally seen as not having been met, though participants expected progress to continue.” They went on to note that “various participants mentioned they expected the conditions for beginning to reduce the pace of asset purchases to be met somewhat earlier than they had anticipated at previous meetings in light of incoming data.” However, this assessment was countered by others who urged caution in reading too much into current data and that information in coming months would provide a “better assessment of the path of the labour market and inflation.” However, in a concession to those pushing for a speedier move towards a tighter monetary policy, the minutes noted that “as a matter of prudent planning, it was important to be well-positioned to reduce the pace of asset purchases, if appropriate, in response to unexpected economic developments.” The issues centre on whether present level of inflation, running at 5 percent in the year to May, is “transitory”—as maintained by Fed chair Jerome Powell and others—or whether it will become a permanent feature as a result of government and monetary stimulus—as warned by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and others. The minutes recorded that “a few” officials said they expected the economy would be ready for a rise in interest rates sooner than had been previously expected. But there was a pushback against this assessment. “Several participants emphasised… that uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook was elevated” and this implied “significant uncertainty about the appropriate path for the federal funds rate.”
Interest Rate Paths for the Treasury Ten Year - Menzie Chinn - As the pace of growth has picked up, forecasts of ten year Treasury yields have risen as well. Here are some recent ones. Figure 1: Ten year constant maturity Treasury yields (black), CBO (red), Administration (blue), Survey of Professional Forecasters (teal), and WSJ April (gray x). Dates in graph pertain to forecast finalization.Source: CBO An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook (July), FY2022 Budget (June), Philadelphia Fed SPF (May), WSJ survey (April). While there are some notable divergences, what is true is that through mid-2022, the CBO projection is not far off from professional forecasters as surveyed by WSJ or Philadelphia Fed. On the other hand, the upward shift in the projected trajectory has largely followed recent actual developments in yields, with reversion to mean in the out years (which is based on 1994-2004 averages of input variables as described in this document). Figure 2: Ten year constant maturity Treasury yields (black), CBO July 2021 Outlook (red), February (blue), July 2020 (teal), January 2020 (gray). Dates in graph pertain to forecast finalization. Source: CBO, various dates. The 50 bps increase in yields for the two year period to 2023Q2 is about equal to the 40 bps increase in actual yield going from January to June.This pattern of forecast revisions — with predictions generally overshooting actual in recent decades — is not specific to CBO. More on this in this post.
The Delta Variant: Macro Implications - Menzie Chinn - From DB, does the UK presage the US? Graphics Source: Yared, “The case against cases,” Deutsche Bank, June 29, 2021. Goldman Sachs presents data on the share of cases now accounted for by Delta Variant in various countries: While cases might rise rapidly in parts of the US that have low vaccination rates, Yared et al. conclude that given the timing (summer), and the fact that hospitalization rates haven’t risen in tandem with cases in the UK:(1) the focus should shift from cases to hospitalisations and (2) the delta variant should not materially impact the reopening in the EZ and the US. I hope that’s an accurate prediction. See here for an examination of how vaccination rates vary across the geographic distribution of GDP.
Seven High Frequency Indicators for the Economy - These indicators are mostly for travel and entertainment. It will interesting to watch these sectors recover as the pandemic subsides. The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data is as of July 5th. This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA for 2019 (Light Blue), 2020 (Blue) and 2021 (Red). The 7-day average is down 18.9% from the same day in 2019 (81.1% of 2019). The second graph shows the 7-day average of the year-over-year change in diners as tabulated by OpenTable for the US and several selected cities. This data is updated through July 4th, 2021. This data is "a sample of restaurants on the OpenTable network across all channels: online reservations, phone reservations, and walk-ins. Dining picked up during the holidays, then slumped with the huge winter surge in cases. Dining is generally picking up, but was down 13% in the US (7-day average compared to 2019). Florida and Texas are above 2019 levels. This data shows domestic box office for each week and the median for the years 2016 through 2019 (dashed light blue). The data is from BoxOfficeMojo through July 1st. Movie ticket sales were at $140 million last week, down about 54% from the median for the week. This graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four week average. Occupancy is now above the horrible 2009 levels and weekend occupancy (leisure) has been solid. This data is through June 26th. Hotel occupancy is currently down 7% compared to same week in 2019). Note: Occupancy was up year-over-year, since occupancy declined sharply at the onset of the pandemic. However, the 4-week average occupancy is still down from normal levels. This graph, based on weekly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows gasoline supplied compared to the same week of 2019. As of June 25th, gasoline supplied was down 3.4% compared to the same week in 2019 (about 96.6% of the same week in 2019). Five weeks ago was the only week this year when gasoline supplied was up compared to the same week in 2019. This graph is from Apple mobility. From Apple: "This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions, sub-regions, and cities." This is just a general guide - people that regularly commute probably don't ask for directions. There is also some great data on mobility from the Dallas Fed Mobility and Engagement Index. However the index is set "relative to its weekday-specific average over January–February", and is not seasonally adjusted, so we can't tell if an increase in mobility is due to recovery or just the normal increase in the Spring and Summer. This data is through July 4th for the United States and several selected cities. According to the Apple data directions requests, public transit in the 7 day average for the US is at 94% of the January 2020 level and moving up. Here is some interesting data on New York subway usage. This graph is from Todd W Schneider. This is weekly data since 2015. Schneider has graphs for each borough, and links to all the data sources.
Biden administration rolls out red carpet for Saudi prince implicated in Khashoggi murder --Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s deputy defense secretary and younger brother to the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS), was given the red-carpet treatment in Washington this week, meeting with top US diplomatic, military and security officials. The prince is the first senior member of the Saudi ruling family to visit the US since Democratic President Joe Biden took office last January. A month later, his administration released an assessment by the US intelligence agencies confirming what the entire world already knew: the savage October 2018 assassination and dismemberment of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul could only have been carried out on the order of Crown Prince bin Salman. The Biden administration ordered sanctions against the assassins and the senior advisor who supervised their bloody work, but took no action whatsoever against MBS himself. The crown prince’s younger brother Khalid was the kingdom’s ambassador to the US between 2017 and 2019 during the assassination and its aftermath. When he first arrived in Washington, he threw a lavish dinner party at the Saudi embassy for CEOs like Blackrock’s Larry Fink and Lockheed Martin’s Marilyn Hewson, along with top US government officials. . After Khashoggi was butchered by the Saudi death squad, the prince repeatedly denounced “malicious rumors” that the journalist had been abducted and killed at the Istanbul consulate, insisting that the royal family was only concerned for his welfare. Incontrovertible evidence—including Turkish audiotapes recording the death squad killing Khashoggi and then cutting up his body with a bone saw—made this pretense increasingly untenable. After intelligence reports surfaced that Khalid himself had played a key role in setting up the assassination, instructing Khashoggi that he could pick up documents he needed for his marriage at the Istanbul consulate and assuring him he would be safe, he quietly abandoned his diplomatic post. Now he is back and receiving a royal welcome. During his campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, candidate Biden vowed that his administration would make the Saudi monarchy “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s savage murder and that he would turn its rulers into “the pariah that they are.” After he took office and ordered the release of the sanitized US intelligence report on the Khashoggi assassination, Biden declared that his objective was to “recalibrate and not rupture” US-Saudi relations. This week, the character of that “recalibration” has clearly emerged. While there was a shamefaced character to the encounter—there was no advance notice of the Saudi prince’s visit—Khalid bin Salman was given a welcome that is unprecedented for a deputy defense minister from any country. At the State Department, he held talks with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and Counselor Derek Chollet. At the Pentagon, he met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley. He was granted audiences with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and met with other senior members of the National Security Council dealing with the Middle East.
House, Setting a Marker for Talks, Passes $715 Billion Infrastructure Bill - — The House on Thursday laid down its marker for this month’s infrastructure negotiations, approving a five-year, $715 billion transportation and drinking water bill that would do more to combat climate change than the Senate’s bipartisan measure embraced by President Biden. Democratic leaders see the bill as a baseline for talks with the Senate aimed at producing the largest investment in infrastructure since Dwight D. Eisenhower began the interstate highway system. The House measure, which would authorize a 50-percent increase over current spending levels, passed by a vote of 221-201, largely along party lines, a break from past infrastructure bills and a mark of how polarized Congress has become. It would devote $343 billion to roads, bridges and safety. Its $109 billion for transit would increase federal spending by 140 percent. An investment of $168 billion in funds for wastewater and drinking water includes a new program to forgive the unpaid water bills of Americans struggling through the pandemic, and then to help pay bills in the future, much as the government helps pay home heating and air conditioning costs. But with heat records being set from Arizona to Seattle, House Democrats emphasized the billions that would go toward electric car and truck charging stations, zero-emission transit vehicles and shoring up roads, bridges, tunnels and rail lines to withstand severe weather and rising seas driven by a changing climate. Funding for Amtrak would be tripled, to $32 billion, and high-speed rail planning would be underwritten. “We have to rebuild in ways that we never even thought about before,” said Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, adding, “This is the moment. We have to be bold.” Just how the House Democratic vision of infrastructure will be melded with the deal struck by five Republicans and five Democrats in the Senate is anything but clear. The House bill and the Senate deal are not far apart in spending numbers on traditional infrastructure. Both efforts take up Mr. Biden’s call to replace all of the country’s lead drinking water pipes. But while the Senate framework only lays down broad categories of spending, the House bill extends surface transportation policies and user funds that are set to expire Oct. 1. It also established new policies like water bill assistance, buy American requirements and a pilot program for low-income transit access. “I’m suggesting that substantial amounts of the policy in our bill should be negotiated by the White House and the Senate and the House to be part of that bipartisan proposal,” Mr. DeFazio said, adding that he was encouraged by the movement in the Senate.
Infrastructure negotiations: How much money could Biden raise through tougher IRS enforcement? It's not clear - President Joe Biden wants to raise money for his ambitious economic agenda by ramping up enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service -- a way for the federal government to spend more money without raising taxes or adding to the deficit, making it a win-win in the eyes of lawmakers. The latest infrastructure proposal agreed to by the White House and a bipartisan group of senators suggests that an additional $100 billion could be collected by the IRS over the next 10 years by simply beefing up enforcement and making sure the government is collecting what taxpayers actually owe -- also known as closing the "tax gap." Biden also suggested earlier in the year that if he could boost the IRS's budget by $80 billion to pay for enforcement, he could increase revenue for the government by $700 billion over 10 years -- money he'd use to fund his American Families Plan, which would invest in child care, pre-K and colleges. But it's unclear exactly how much could be raised and how much it would cost to increase enforcement. The difference between taxes owed by law and the amount actually paid to the IRS -- known as the "tax gap" -- could fall somewhere in the range of $381 billion to $1 trillion annually. The latest IRS report available says that nearly 84% of federal taxes are paid voluntarily and on time, leaving $441 billion uncollected. After late payments are made and enforcement actions taken, the gap narrows to $381 billion, according to the report. But that's based on tax years 2011, 2012, and 2013 and IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig told lawmakers earlier this year that he believes the tax gap could be much bigger now -- up to a massive $1 trillion a year. One reason the earlier report may underestimate the tax gap? There's been an increase in the use of virtual currencies since 2013, which comes with new compliance challenges. The earlier estimates may have also underestimated unreported offshore income and the use of pass-through entities. The Biden administration has put the figure somewhere in the middle. A recent Treasury analysis found that the tax gap totaled nearly $600 billion in 2019 and could rise to about $7 trillion over the course of the next decade if left unaddressed -- roughly equal to 15% of taxes owed.
Sinema emerges as Senate dealmaker amid progressive angst -Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is leaning into her role as the Senate’s newest dealmaker amid rising pressure from progressives who are increasingly irritated over the centrist’s support for the filibuster. Sinema is betting that she’ll be able clinch big bipartisan agreements that have become increasingly elusive, burnishing her credentials back in Arizona, where frustrated activists are already sending early warnings about a 2024 primary. She won an early victory with the bipartisan infrastructure deal endorsed by President Biden, a moment that allowed her to hit back at skeptics. The deal, she said, “shows that when a group of people who are committed, with shared values, to solving the problems and challenges our country faces, we can use bipartisanship to solve these challenges.” The Arizonan’s role in the talks is her highest-profile negotiation but not her only bipartisan effort. She is also involved in minimum wage and immigration talks and helped broker a deal last year between then-Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) that smoothed the way for a coronavirus relief bill. It’s the sort of work that leans on Sinema’s deep ties with GOP senators, cultivated since she joined the chamber in 2019. “She was really the chair of the operation and moved things forward and pushed both sides on various issues to get to a middle ground,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), adding that Sinema was a “can-do person, and I like working with a can-do person.” Sinema and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) quietly negotiated over the deal for months while keeping their talks on the back burner as Biden publicly met with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Portman, who noted that he had collaborated with Sinema “a lot,” praised her, saying that she “did a great job leading the effort.” Progressives are less enamored with Sinema. They see her as endangering a broader agenda with her opposition to ending the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to pass the Senate. “It’s really frustrating to feel like there’s an agenda on the table that is popular, that is exciting and that Sinema is ... focusing instead on bipartisanship for bipatisanship’s sake,” said Emily Kirkland, the executive director of Progress Arizona. Sinema has shown no signs of backing down, even as activists warn she’s increasingly out of step with her own voters. “I think the way that she has positioned herself and the corner she has backed herself into if she doesn't move is not sustainable. ... She is just not accepting the reality of today’s Senate,” said Eli Zupnick, a spokesperson for Fix Our Senate.
While the Senate debates infrastructure details, House members anxiously await- Members of Congress are back in their home districts tonight. While they are home, they are reviewing the tentative infrastructure agreement before what is expected to be a busy round of voting later this month. Representatives in the U.S. House have been watching the Senate’s infrastructure talks closely. U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii), a member of the House Transportation Committee, is among the Democrats who believes the proposed $1.2 trillion framework agreed to last month is a good start. That’s due in part to Hawaii’s “D+” infrastructure rating, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2021 report card. “Our roads, our bridges, our water systems need serious investment,” Kahele said. Kahele’s vision for a bold, progressive deal is an example of the wheeling and dealing Democratic leaders are facing this recess: balancing the wishes of the left-wing of the party, with the demands for a less-expensive deal from the moderate wing. “We just can’t wait any longer to make the necessary investments we need to be competitive in the 21stcentury,” Kahele said. Across the aisle, Republicans are largely supporting only physical infrastructure. U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) is the top Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, where there is bipartisan work to expand broadband internet nationwide. “In some areas, you’re going to find sufficient broadband of significant bandwidth to be able to handle the things that we need,” Thompson said of internet access in his rural Central Pennsylvania district. “But next door, there may be zero to none.” If the Senate strikes a deal on the President Biden’s so-called “human infrastructure” proposal known as the American Families Plan, which is expected to cost anywhere from $2-6 trillion, House Democrats would need all of its members on board as well because of their slim majority over Republicans. “People can try and redefine whatever they want,” said Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.). “But, the American people know what real infrastructure is. Infrastructure is not social programs.”
Bipartisan House group's endorsement of Senate infrastructure plan could trip up Pelosi's strategy - A group of Democratic and Republican House members on Tuesday endorsed the bipartisan infrastructure framework crafted by senators and the White House, but potentially complicated its path to passage along the way. The 58-member Problem Solvers Caucus said in a statement that it "strongly supports" the Senate proposal.. If the group's 29 GOP members vote for the plan, House Democrats have room to lose support from skeptical progressives and still pass the roughly $1.2 trillion infrastructure framework. However, the group signaled it could try to trip up House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's strategy to pass the bipartisan plan in concert with a separate Democratic proposal to invest in child care, education and efforts to fight climate change. In its statement, the Problem Solvers Caucus called for "an expeditious, stand-alone vote in the House" on the bipartisan framework. Pelosi has indicated she will not take up either the compromise infrastructure bill or Democrats' plan until the Senate passes both of them. The risky strategy came about as Democratic leaders try to ensure their centrist and liberal members back both proposals. President Joe Biden's support for tying the bills together threatened the bipartisan deal until he backtracked, assuaging the GOP senators who backed the infrastructure plan. The 29 Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus did not explicitly threaten to withhold support from either plan if the House does not vote on them separately. However, the group's statement underscores the challenges Democratic leaders face in trying to get both the bipartisan plan and their broader priorities through Congress in the coming weeks. A Pelosi aide said the two proposals are expected to work their way through Congress at the same time, and the Problem Solvers Caucus call for a vote on the bipartisan plan is consistent with Democratic leaders' plans. The Senate plans to move first to pass both proposals in the coming weeks — or months — after it returns from its Fourth of July recess. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he aims to move toward votes on the bipartisan framework and a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to approve a second bill without Republican support. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure measure includes $579 billion in new spending. It would put more than $300 billion into transportation, and more than $250 billion into power, broadband and water infrastructure. While at least 21 senators and the White House have signed on to the plan, lawmakers have not yet turned it into legislative text. Several liberal senators have threatened to oppose the bipartisan package. Among other concerns, they say the proposal does not invest enough in countering climate change or boosting electric vehicle adoption. By pairing the more narrow proposal with a larger bill filled with Democratic priorities, party leaders hoped to keep progressives on board with both measures.
Bipartisan spending deal meets fresh resistance from key Democrats -The bipartisan infrastructure deal endorsed by President Biden is facing fresh skepticism from key Senate Democrats who are concerned about plans to pay for the $973 billion package. Two major financing mechanisms for the spending proposal — repurposing unspent funds for unemployment benefits and for state assistance — are meeting resistance from a group of Democratic senators who say higher corporate tax rates should be the primary revenue source. Leading the charge is Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has been working on his own proposal to pay for a major infrastructure package and is now waiting for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to signal when he can unveil the revenue-raising bill. The Oregon Democrat is focused on raising an estimated $1 trillion from corporations as well as more than $300 billion from taxing unrealized capital gains, according to a source familiar with internal Democratic discussions. Wyden has argued that corporations, which saw their tax rates slashed in 2017 under former President Trump, will benefit substantially from new infrastructure investment and must therefore shoulder much of the cost. The bipartisan proposal, however, calls for raising money in a variety of other ways that shield corporations from tax increases. The most controversial among Democrats are plans to redirect unused unemployment insurance funds and repurpose $125 billion in untapped COVID-19 relief funding previously designated for state and local governments. Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, who were not involved in negotiating the bipartisan package, are raising red flags about clawing money back from unemployment insurance accounts after Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department showed the unemployment rate inched up to 5.9 percent in June. About two dozen states — almost all led by GOP governors — have cut off the additional jobless benefits from Washington, arguing they were encouraging too many residents to stay on the sidelines instead of rejoining the labor force. “I continue to believe that the real motivation of this from these Republican governors is essentially to find a way to cut back assistance to some of the most vulnerable Americans, particularly women, who are not just losing their $300. … It’s the extra weeks, it’s the coverage for gig workers; a lot of these people may have exhausted their state benefits,” Wyden said of efforts by Republicans to cut federal unemployment benefits included in the American Rescue Plan.
McConnell vows 'hell of a fight' over infrastructure plan - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is vowing to make the passage of a partisan infrastructure package as difficult as possible — calling Democrats’ multi-trillion dollar spending plans “wildly inappropriate” due to the impact previous mammoth spending packages have had on the national debt. McConnell noted that Democrats can use the reconciliation process to bypass the filibuster, which requires 60 votes in the upper chamber for passage, but added that there is going to be a “hell of a fight” if members across the aisle attempt to sidestep Republicans. “There is a process by which they could pass this without a single Republican. But we’re going to make it hard for them. And there are a few Democrats left in rural America and some others who would like to be more in the political center who may find this offensive,” he said at an event in Kentucky on Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called for the upper chamber to take up both the $1.2 trillion bipartisan deal and a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to pass a sweeping companion bill without Republican support by the end of the month. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the lower chamber will only take up the smaller-scale bill when the Senate moves on a reconciliation package. The Kentucky Republican said that the $1.2 trillion agreement would be met with support from Republicans, but sees the second infrastructure plan being pushed for by progressives as a nonstarter. “The era of bipartisanship on this stuff is over. This is not going to be done on a bipartisan basis. This is going to be a hell of a fight over what this country ought to look like. I don’t think we’ve had a bigger difference of opinion,” he said. McConnell went on to praise President Biden as “a nice guy,” but argued that he hasn’t “seen any evidence yet of moderation,” casting doubt on the probability of the passage of a deal that appeases both sides. “We’re not going to have an agreement. We’re going to have a big argument,” he said. ”There’s no mandate to do this stuff. So we’re there to argue about this and to hopefully in the end prevail.”
Any Democrat could sink Biden's infrastructure aspirations, and some are flexing their muscles - In the nearly evenly divided Senate and House, the tenuous Democratic majorities need all hands on deck if they hope to pass President Biden's sweeping legislation to boost the economy and help families. That means just about every Democrat has tremendous leverage over what goes into a pending multi-trillion-dollar budget deal, as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has shown this year by demanding Democratic bills hew toward the moderate center."We're all Joe Manchin right now," says House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)."In a crucial moment for Democrats, party leaders are hunting for a sweet spot that would satisfy their rival moderate and progressive wings," and they "are finding their search for middle ground arduous," The Associated Press reports. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has floated a $6 trillion bill that could be based via budget reconciliation, negating the need for Republican votes, while Biden's vision would come in at around $4 trillion and Manchin has proposed capping such legislation at $2 trillion.Manchin was part of a bipartisan group of senators who came up with a consensus $1 trillion infrastructure package with nearly $600 billion in new spending. There are already enough votes to pass that package once it is turned into legislation, Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition tells AP. "And when you have the votes you should take the vote." Progressives say they may not vote for that package unless Congress also advances a budget deal that finances health care expansion, climate change mitigation, housing aid, child care and other family benefits, and expanded legal immigration.Democrats can lose three or four House members for that vote but no Senate Democrats. That essentially gives every Senate Democrats and most House Democrats effective veto power, if they choose to use it — as GOP leaders evidently hope they will. "Everybody needs to advocate as clear as possible for their priorities," Yarmuth tells AP. "But everybody ultimately has to vote for whatever comes up, or we get nothing."
Biden promotes infrastructure deal with emphasis on early education — The Biden administration says they want to get an infrastructure deal that also invests in education and childcare for the future of the U.S. economy. President Joe Biden visited Illinois on Wednesday to talk about what his administration has accomplished to help families so far. Biden said investing in early education will help those children get better jobs in the future and grow the economy. “Does anybody think in the 21st century with the changes taking place in technology across the board that 12 years of education is enough?” Biden asked. As part of his Human Infrastructure Plan, Biden proposes providing free preschool education for all American children as well as free community college. “That could boost earnings of high school graduates with low-wage jobs by nearly $6,000 a year on average,” Biden said. The president said expanding child tax credits, lowering health insurance premiums and making childcare more accessible and affordable will help middle class families. “My plan will also provide with up to 12 weeks of paid family leave for medical care,” said Biden. “In the most difficult moments someone will ever face, no one should have to choose between a job and a paycheck and taking care of someone you love.” In addition to long-term benefits, Biden said his infrastructure package will also provide an immediate boost. “We’re going to make the biggest investment in roads and bridges since the construction of the interstate highway system, literally creating millions of good-paying jobs,” he said. “If you’re really serious about this, let’s look at traditional infrastructure — roads, bridges and rural broadband which is so important to the country right now — and not muck it up with things that have nothing to do with infrastructure,” said Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX).
Democrats race to push bipartisan infrastructure bill through Senate - The White House’s long sought-after bipartisan infrastructure deal could hit the Senate floor as early as the week of July 19, according to multiple House and Senate Democratic sources with knowledge of the conversations. White House legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell and deputy legislative affairs director Shuwanza Goff told Hill Democrats on a call Wednesday that the administration is working alongside the Senate to have the bipartisan infrastructure bill ready for floor consideration as early as the next two weeks, said two sources on the call. But some Democrats cautioned that the bill’s substance remains fluid and that leaders and the White House are navigating a delicate situation as they try to appease Democrats eager for a big Democrat-only reconciliation package. “As [Senate Majority] Leader [Chuck] Schumer has said, he wants to move on both the bipartisan plan and the budget resolution during the upcoming July/August Senate session,” a White House official said in an email. “Our understanding is that the process could begin as early as the week of 7/19, given that committees are still finalizing legislative text for both the budget resolution and the bipartisan bill.” “We of course support going forward as fast as possible, but it would be a mistake to think of July 19 as anything more than the opening of a window,” the official added. Terrell and Goff were updating Hill aides on the president’s speech outside Chicago later that day, one that would highlight the bipartisan deal. They also took questions about infrastructure and the upcoming budget reconciliation package, through which the party is expected to move components of President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan. The White House officials were also asked whether surface transportation earmarks — or congressionally directed spending on member-designated projects — would be included in the bipartisan bill. The administration deferred to committee chairs but did not take a position, according to multiple sources on the call. Democratic staffers were also concerned the White House might be considering the sale of federal government property or assets as a way to pay for the bipartisan deal but White House aides said the sale of federal assets would not be an option, according to a source on the call. The call was the latest indication that after months of negotiations, Democrats increasingly feel a sense of urgency to move an infrastructure package through Congress. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed that if there is a bipartisan bill to consider, it will happen before the Senate leaves for August recess. The group of more than 20 senators that pieced together the framework for the infrastructure deal — consisting of centrists in both parties — is laboring to turn its proposal into legislative language over the current recess. They have split into specific sub-groups focused on pieces of policy like broadband or financing and are moving rapidly to turn that into legislative language. The group of moderate senators are aiming to draft their legislative language by next week in preparation for floor action, according to sources in both parties, but that could be aspirational. Lawmakers are still trying to figure out how exactly to make their revenue sources, which include no new taxes, cover nearly $600 billion in new spending.
Democrats wrestle over control of the infrastructure throttle - Democrats are hurtling toward their most consequential stretch of legislating since the passage of Obamacare, with major decisions left unmade as they wrangle over the size and scope of President Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic agenda. July and August will render a decisive verdict on Democrats’ so-called “two-track” strategy of enacting Biden’s jobs and families plans via twin bills, one with GOP support focusing on physical infrastructure and the other on a partisan spending plan centered on fighting climate change, increasing child care and raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Work on both items is nearing a climax, with senators in both parties drafting that centrist bill for a July Senate vote and the Senate’s 50 Democrats haggling over how big to go in their own party-line endeavor. Some House moderates are urging party leaders to focus squarely on the bipartisan bill, while many liberals remain skeptical it will happen at all — and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has threatened to sideline it without an accompanying Democratic package. A failed bipartisan result would force Democrats to write one huge spending bill marrying all their priorities. Taken together, Democrats’ decisions in the coming days will define what may be the largest spending bill in history, offering their best chance at reshaping the federal government for years to come. Biden’s party has a rare opportunity with full control over Congress and the White House, but its majorities are so slim that even attempting the two-part move will be a daredevil act. “If you add the two plans together, it would be the biggest bill in the history of the country,” said House Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “There's no way it’s going to be easy." After three months of plodding negotiations, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has laid out an aggressive timetable that envisions passage of both a budget resolution to allow a huge Democrats-only tax and spending package plus a vote on a deal with Republican centrists to plow nearly $600 billion into roads, bridges and broadband. Schumer will reiterate the timetable in a Dear Colleague letter to Democrats on Friday, according to a Democratic aide, and warn of the possibility of working long nights, weekends and into the August recess to finish that work. The majority leader has been constantly dialing up White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, as well as his members in the bipartisan group and committee chairs in charge of a party-line spending bill, whose work will run into the trillions. Every Democrat knows that the partisan legislation could be this year’s last big train to which they can hitch their long-sought priorities, and demand is high. Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants Medicare expansion, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is pressing for immigration reform and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) is pushing her colleagues on child care spending. A whole slate of progressives want a major climate focus. And there will be restraints on spending from moderates and from the Senate parliamentarian on what can pass muster and avoid a GOP filibuster. While Sanders initially suggested spending $6 trillion to complement the bipartisan deal, more moderate members are likely to tamp that down to $4 trillion or even lower — depending in large part what moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) agree to. Asked if she had a number in mind, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) replied: "Yeah, $6 trillion."
Senate may work into August to pass infrastructure plan, set the stage for huge spending bill - The Senate may work into its August recess to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure plan and a budget resolution that would allow Democrats to enact a range of priorities without Republican support, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday. In a letter to his caucus, the New York Democrat said senators are working with the White House to turn the $1.2 trillion infrastructure framework into legislation. The Senate Budget Committee is also crafting a measure that would allow Democrats to pass a sprawling child-care, health-care and climate policy plan without a GOP vote. "My intention for this work period is for the Senate to consider both the bipartisan infrastructure legislation and a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions, which is the first step for passing legislation through the reconciliation process," Schumer wrote ahead of the chamber's return to Washington next week. "Please be advised that time is of the essence and we have a lot of work to do. Senators should be prepared for the possibility of working long nights, weekends, and remaining in Washington into the previously-scheduled August state work period," he continued. The Senate is scheduled to leave Washington from Aug. 9 to Sept. 10. The coming weeks will shape the agenda Democratic leaders President Joe Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can pass before next year's midterm elections. They aim to create a stronger social safety net, jolt the post-coronavirus economy and set the groundwork to curb climate change. The Democratic leaders have to balance competing interests within their party to push both huge proposals through Congress. Some liberals have criticized the lack of funding in the bipartisan plan to address the climate crisis and transition to green energy. A few centrist Democrats, led by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have questioned spending trillions of dollars on a Democrats-only bill. Senate Democrats cannot lose a single vote on the reconciliation bill in a Senate split 50-50 by party. Pelosi, a California Democrat, also has to navigate a slim majority in the House. Pelosi reiterated Thursday that she wants the Senate to pass both the infrastructure plan and budget reconciliation measure before the House takes up either proposal. "I have said that I really cannot take up the reconciliation, until we see the infrastructure and — cannot take up the infrastructure until we see infrastructure and reconciliation addressed by the Senate," she said. Eleven Republican senators have supported the bipartisan plan, enough for it to pass if all Democrats get on board. However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has not yet endorsed the framework. About two dozen business and labor groups backed the infrastructure proposal Thursday, potentially giving it a boost as the Senate tries to bring it to a vote. The organizations, including the Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO, said they "urge Congress to turn this framework into legislation that will be signed into law," adding they are "committed to helping see this cross the finish line."
Biden to Target Railroads, Ocean Shipping in Executive Order - WSJ —The Biden administration will push regulators to confront consolidation and perceived anticompetitive pricing in the ocean shipping and railroad industries as part of a broad effort to blunt the power of big business to dominate industries, according to a person familiar with the situation. The administration, in a sweeping executive order expected this week, will ask the Federal Maritime Commission and the Surface Transportation Board to combat what it calls a pattern of consolidation and aggressive pricing that has made it onerously expensive for American companies to transport goods to market. The administration says the relatively small number of major players in the ocean-shipping trade and in the U.S. freight rail business has enabled companies to charge unreasonable fees. In the case of the seven Class 1 freight railroads, consolidation has given railroads monopoly power over sections of the country where theirs are the only freight tracks, the person said. The executive order will encourage the STB to take up a longstanding proposed rule on so-called reciprocal or competitive switching, the practice whereby shippers served by a single railroad can request bids from a nearby competing railroad if service is available. The competitor railroad would pay access fees to the monopoly railroad, but could win the shipper’s business by offering a lower price, using the rival railroad’s tracks and property. The STB proposed a competitive switching rule in 2016 but hasn’t yet acted on it. “The consolidation brought about much-needed rationalization in the system 25 years ago, but the net result is a lot of shippers who are subject to a market-dominant railroad,” said a government official briefed on the White House’s proposal for the STB. But a move to mandate switching would guarantee a battle with the freights and the railroad trade association, the Association of American Railroads, which has long opposed the policy. “Competition remains fierce across freight providers, and any proposal mandating forced switching would put railroads—an environmentally friendly option that invests $25 billion annually in infrastructure—at an untold disadvantage,”
Progressives ramp up Medicare expansion push in Congress --Progressives are ramping up their push to expand Medicare in an upcoming legislative package, with the goal of lowering the eligibility age and adding new benefits. The Congressional Progressive Caucus made its case to White House counselor Steve Ricchetti in a meeting Tuesday, saying they want eligibility to kick in at 60 instead of 65 and coverage extended to dental, vision and hearing. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is also vocally pushing the group’s proposals, saying too many seniors “can’t chew food properly” because they don’t have dental coverage. But the campaign faces headwinds from a slew of health care priorities competing for a limited amount of dollars, as well as concerns from the industry and moderate Democrats who worry about lowering the Medicare age. Advocates and congressional aides say adding new benefits has a significantly better chance of making it into the Democratic-only package than lowering the eligibility age. Changing the age is more politically controversial, as it opens up the debate about moving toward “Medicare for All.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the White House is not opposed to adding the Medicare provisions, and is even supportive, provided the votes are there in both chambers. “As long as we can get to 218 votes and 50 votes in the Senate, they're excited about it,” Jayapal told The Hill. But she said she has also been pressing the White House for more public support. “We've been asking them to continue to push for that, to make it a real priority, and mostly we get positive answers,” she said. The White House budget request for fiscal 2022 includes a call to lower the Medicare age and add dental, hearing and vision benefits, but those proposals were notably left out of President Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, prompting questions about whether expansion is a top priority for the administration. “We knew it wasn’t gonna be in there,” Jayapal said. “But I think the main thing is, can we get it in there? I mean, the president proposes and we write.” The health care industry is opposed to lowering the Medicare eligibility age, seeing it as a step toward more government-run coverage and away from private coverage. The Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a group including pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and insurers, is running ads against lowering the Medicare age, as part of a seven-figure ad buy. “What sounds too good to be true usually is. As analysis tells us, what seems so simple would actually result in the largest and most costly overhaul of Medicare,” Chip Kahn, CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, said last month. In addition to the cost to taxpayers, hospitals worry that Medicare pays lower rates to medical providers than private insurers do, which industry leaders warn could lead to damaging cuts. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that lowering the Medicare age to 60 would cost $200 billion over 10 years. Adding dental, vision and hearing would cost another $358 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2019. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices could provide savings of up to roughly $500 billion to help pay for these measures, but it is also possible that proposal will be scaled back, depending on moderate Democratic concerns.
Democrats Prepare to Privatize Medicare, Using Medicare Advantage as Their Opening Wedge (and New York Unions?) - Lambert Strether --The Democrats, flushed with triumph at having taken Medicare for All “off the table” — during a pandemic! — when they “beat the socialist,” have initiated a process that will culminate in Medicare’s complete privatization. (This after having implemented an NHS-style “free at the point of care” vaccination program, too.) In this post, I’ll first look at the current state of Medicare; the neoliberal infestation is bad. Then, I’ll look at the Democrat’s privatization scheme. (I am looking at Medicare through the lens of political economy; sadly, I cannot give advice on Medicare for your individual state, but there is a program of volunteers who can do that. I believe we have at least one reader in this program.) This will be a long post, but I feel it’s important to lay down some markers, here.
Next Challenge to the PPACA? - We have been through several constitutional tests on the legitimacy of the PPACA. In each case and also in a congressional vote, the Republicans have failed to disenfranchise US citizens on healthcare. The next issue being brought to the forefront is just as divisive and has the backing of five right-leaning justices. It remains to be seen if they can be successful. There is supporting documentation at the end of this post. “The legal arguments in are not exactly good arguments, but five justices have signaled they agree with them.” The suit before the Texas federal judge Reed O’Connor having given SCOTUS the last PPACA challenge appears ready to lob another suit its way. Kelley v. Becerra will eventually get to SCOTUS unless there is enlightened federal judge stopping it or Appeals Court with SCOTUS refusing to review it. It is currently pending in Texas before Judge Reed O’Connor. If you do not recall, Texas Judge Reed O’Connor struck down the entire Affordable Care Act on the basis that parts of the PPACA are not severable. The theory being, the PPACA must be struck in entirety as parts of it can not be excluded (in this case the mandate). The Roberts Supreme Court refused to take it up. Not really a win as it should have never got this far. Kelley v. Becerra complainants are individuals and small companies wanting to buy insurance that excludes coverage for contraception and pre-exposure prophylaxis. The complainants object to on religious and moral grounds. The kind of insurance they are looking for is impossible to find, they say. The complainants blame the Affordable Care Act. Via Vox comes the argument:Kelley v. Becerra is the fourth round of litigation attacking major provisions of the Affordable Care Act.The complainants seek to remove the provisions of Obamacare governing forms of preventive care such as birth control, immunization for children, etc., cancer screenings, etc. which is covered by health insurers under the PPACA.The argument relies on the kind of outdated legal arguments in the federal courts more than 80 years ago. Only an originalist would think of this.Several provisions of the Affordable Care Act require group and individual health plans to cover various preventive treatmentsand to not “impose any cost sharing requirements,” such as copays, deductibles, for them. When Congress wrote Obamacare, however, it did not itemize which treatments must be covered. Instead, it delegated that power to three different government bodies.Supreme Court: A new lawsuit attacking Obamacare is a serious threat to the law, VoxThere in lies the issue, the delegation of authority without detail and to non-officers of the government. This is similar to the issue with the Risk Corridor Funding. Congress did not allocate funding. Sessions, Upton, and Kingston blocked theAdministration from allocating or transferring funds. The Executive branch can not allocate funding, only Congress can (GAO-letter to Sessions). Follow the link for an explanation.
Pressure grows for Biden to ease pandemic travel bans -The Biden administration is coming under pressure to ease travel bans for international tourists that were originally put in place to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. With Europe opening its borders to American tourists and vaccination rates increasing in the U.S., public health experts and travel industry groups are saying the time is right to restart international travel. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the U.S. is looking to the advice of medical experts on the best course of action, but that a group of American and European officials are working together on an agreement. But critics say the administration needs to move faster, slamming travel bans as unrelated to the spread of COVID-19 and raising concern about the loss of revenue from international business travel, summer vacations and foreign students trying to arrive before the fall semester. The administration’s travel bans are “frozen in time,” said Steve Shur, president of the Travel Technology Association, a trade organization that partners with online travel agents, airlines and hotels. “We believe it’s possible now, at least for countries of low risk, to start to reopen international travel” to the U.S., he said. Travel into the U.S. from abroad is largely shut down, with exceptions for American citizens returning from abroad, family members of U.S. citizens and individuals from exempted groups such as international students. The U.S.-entry bans target travelers from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and South Africa. In April, President Biden banned travel from India as COVID-19 cases surged in the country. But experts say picking and choosing countries based off of COVID-19 infections is arbitrary because the disease, including the more dangerous delta variant, is already entrenched in the U.S. “It makes no sense, if you look at that list of countries, it’s completely nonsensical,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law. “Even if you could accurately pick and choose, which you really can’t, by the time you’ve implemented the policy it’s changed,” he added, noting that by the time large outbreaks of COVID-19 rose to international attention in India or Brazil, travelers from these countries were already coming and going through the United States.
Coronavirus infections surge among detained immigrants in US -As the number of migrants imprisoned in US detention centers grows, immigration officials are reporting a major surge in COVID-19 infections among detainees. Very few detainees are vaccinated against the virus, and public health experts worry that the crowded detention facilities could fuel outbreaks not only among those detained, but also in the general population. As of June 23, there were 765 active COVID-19 cases among migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. According to ICE, the number of migrants being held in detention centers has nearly doubled in recent months. In April, the agency reported some 14,000 migrants in detention. Last week the agency reported that more than 26,000 people were being detained. Within that same period, more than 7,500 new COVID-19 cases have been reported in US immigration facilities, accounting for more than 40 percent of all cases reported in ICE facilities since the pandemic began, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. ICE previously confirmed over 10,000 cases of COVID-19 among detainees in its detention facilities across the US as of March of this year. It also confirmed eight deaths. The virus also impacted over 27,000 Border Patrol employees, who either became infected or were unable to work due to illness or quarantining, including 24 who died. The increase in apprehensions, detentions and infections takes place amid the Biden administration’s escalating campaign against immigrants. Vice President Kamala Harris visited Guatemala and Mexico last month. In addition to telling migrants, “Do not come,” she urged the authorities to shore up their security forces to violently suppress the flow of Central American migrants seeking to escape societies ravaged by more than a century of US imperialist exploitation and oppression. In April, the Biden administration summarily deported 111,714 of the more than 178,000 migrants detained by US Border Patrol. The administration is continuing to invoke Title 42, a Trump-era Centers for Disease Control and Prevention public health order ostensibly aimed at controlling the pandemic by closing the southern border, as justification for its violation of international and US laws on the right to asylum. The tens of thousands of migrants trapped in immigration jails face inhumane conditions, with immigrants, including children, subjected to overcrowding, extreme cold and inedible food. As of May, according to ICE’s latest available data, only about 20 percent of detainees passing through the centers had received at least one dose of a vaccine while in custody. Such conditions guarantee a rapid spread of the disease. Nearly one in three inmates of federal and state prisons and jails are currently testing positive for the virus.
Thousands Of Convicts Freed During Pandemic Will Soon Be Sent Back To Prison --Across the US, thousands of formerly incarcerated prisoners were released from prison (albeit with the understanding that their limited freedom would likely be temporary) as COVID swept through America's prisons, sparking riots and unrest in some penitentiaries. Now, there's probably no other group in America that is more anxious to see the Delta variant spark another wave of official paranoia. Since they were freed by a provision of the Cares Act, the second stimulus package passed by President Trump and Congress last spring, the DoJ's official interpretation of the law will eventually determine when (or if) they're returned to prison to finish out their sentences.According to the guidance left in place by the Trump Administration - guidance that still stands - many of the inmates will return to prison when the pandemic is declared officially over.In a story about the dilemma facing the freed prisoners, Bloomberg cited as an example a former FBI agent serving a 15-year sentence after being convicted on bribery charges. The cafeteria at the federal prison camp in Fairton, N.J., is rarely the site of much celebration. But one afternoon in spring 2020, the room was buzzing. A provision of the pandemic-relief package passed by Congress had given some of the inmates the chance to leave prison early and serve time under home confinement.With dozens of prisoners gathered in the cafeteria, a Bureau of Prisons official read aloud a list of inmates who’d qualified for the new program. The names were greeted with high-fives and cheering. Among them was Robert Lustyik, an ex-F.B.I. agent who was about halfway through a 15-year sentence for bribery. “It was a feeling as if I had won the Heisman Trophy,” Lustyik says.A few weeks later, Lustyik, 59, moved back in with his wife and two children in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., next door to the cemetery where Washington Irving is buried. Over the past year, he’s started a personal-training business out of his garage and complied with all the rules of home confinement, wearing an ankle bracelet and checking in with prison officials every day.But as the pandemic approaches an end, the clock is ticking for Lustyik and thousands of other federal prisoners released under the Cares Act.
Covid-19 Vaccination Update; Vaccinations In The Have Practically Come To A Standstill -- July 7, 2021 - This is the reason the White House is considering draconian measures to get folks vaccinated: vaccinations nationwide have practically come to a halt.CDC data here. These are the most recent statistics.Over the July 4th weekend, the CDC did not report on a daily basis. The CDC reported it had distributed 383,068,740 doses as of July 4, 2021, Sunday's report.Today, the CDC reported it has distributed 383,068,740 doses of July 7, 2021, today's (Wednesday's) report.In other words, the CDC distributed no additional vaccine between after July 4, 2021, through today. None. Nada. Zip. The CDC distributes vaccine based on how much state health departments order. In other words, the state health departments have not ordered any vaccine doses since July 4, 2021. The day prior, only 1,180 doses.Because the CDC did not post data every day for the past few days, one had to average the number of doses given the last few days. On average, only 350,000 vaccinations have been given each of the three past days. It's very likely the majority of those vaccinations were the second of two doses, suggesting that very few "new" folks are getting their vaccinations.
Kagan rips colleagues in blistering 41-page voting rights dissent - Justice Elena Kagan ripped her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court on Thursday in a blistering 41-page dissent, accusing them of ignoring the legislative intent of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as well as the high court’s own precedents. Kagan’s fiery dissenting opinion in a voting rights case, which was joined by the two other liberal members of the court, Justices Stephen Breyerand Sonia Sotomayor, accused her conservative colleagues of undermining Section 2 of the landmark Voting Rights Act and tragically weakening what she called “a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness.”“Never has a statute done more to advance the nation’s highest ideals. And few laws are more vital in the current moment. Yet in the last decade, this court has treated no statute worse,” she wrote, in what is likely to become a rallying cry for Democratic lawmakers and progressive activists pushing for election reform laws, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, in Congress. She warned that “efforts to suppress the minority vote continue” yet “no one would know this from reading the majority opinion.”Kagan said the court in its 6-3 decision penned by stalwart conservative Justice Samuel Alito gave “a cramped reading” to the “broad language” of the voting law and used that reading to uphold two Arizona voting restrictions “that discriminate against minority voters.” .Kagan argued that “in recent months, state after state has taken up or enacted legislation erecting new barriers to voting” and those laws shorten the time polls are open, imposed new prerequisites to voting by mail, make it harder to register to vote and easier to purge voters from the polls.The court’s majority opinion upheld both policies and overturned an en banc decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that held the restrictions disproportionately impacted minority voters and thus violated the Voting Rights Act.Alito wrote that the policies were not enacted “with a racially discriminatory purpose” and that the disparities in voting outcomes were too small to indicate the restrictions rendered the polls more open to some groups than others.“The mere fact there is some disparity in impact does not necessarily mean that a system is not equally open or that it does not give everyone an equal opportunity to vote,” he wrote.With respect to transporting voters ballots to election officials, Alito noted that district court found that the ballot-collection restriction was unlikely to cause “meaningful inequality” because the restriction applied equally to all voters.On the subject of discarding out-of-precinct ballots, Alito wrote that "having to identify one’s own polling place and then travel there to vote does not exceed the 'usual burdens of voting.' " But Kagan shot back by arguing that Alito and the rest of the majority ignored the historical context of the Voting Rights Act as well as the court’s own precedents. “The majority’s opinion inhabits a law-free zone. It congratulates itself in advance for giving Section 2’s text ‘careful consideration’ … and then it leaves that language almost wholly behind,” she wrote. "So too the majority barely mentions this court’s precedents construing Section 2’s text.”She argued the plain reading of the law would have justices look at the effect of voting restrictions and not just the intent of the state legislators who drafted them, contending that any reduction in a polling place’s hours or ability to send a ballot to an election official via a third party are most likely to affect minority voters. “The majority says as little as possible about what it means for voting to be ‘equally open’ or for voters to have an equal ‘opportunity’ to cast a ballot,” she wrote. “It only grudgingly accepts — and then apparently forgets — that the provision applies to facially neutral laws with discriminatory consequences.” She cited late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the 1991 case Chisom v. Roemer in which he opined a supposedly neutral law that limited voter registration to only a few hours a week and thus made it more difficult for Black voters than white voters to register because of life circumstances would result in Black people having “less opportunity to participate in the political process than whites." She argued that in enacting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Congress “documented many similar (if less extreme) facially neutral rules” such as registration requirements and voting and registration hours and purging policies that resulted in disparities of voting opportunities.
New government program helps you snitch on your family members -Recently a senior White House official announced a “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism”.And this new strategy includes programs for people to “seek help” from the government on behalf of anyone they “perceive to be radicalizing”.Their objective here is to prevent violence and domestic terrorism. That sounds noble enough.But even basic truths about violence are completely tainted by ideology and politics.Angry, menacing rioters rampaging through the streets, torching cars, looting stores, and destroying property? They’re “mostly peaceful”, hence this White House program doesn’t apply to them.But the man who grabs a weapon to defend his family against those angry, menacing rioters? He’s a violent radical who should be reported. Then there’s Dr. Aruna Khilanani, who earlier this month lectured at Yale University about her fantasies of killing white people.Again, though, she’s neither considered radical nor potentially violent… so she doesn’t fit into this new White House program. Saying, however, that “a man cannot get pregnant,” which was enough for Twitter to ban a Spanish politician recently, is absolutely considered radical. The rules are terribly confusing. Fortunately the US government will be bringing in the Big Tech companies to monitor our behavior and keep us all in check.
Virginia ‘Bible study’ group was cover for violent militia plans, prosecutors say -- After storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Northern Virginia man began forming his own militia-like group in the D.C. suburbs and building up a supply of explosives under the guise of a Bible study group, according to federal prosecutors.Fi Duong, 27, appeared in court Friday and was released to home confinement pending trial, over the objections of prosecutors who sought stricter terms. According to the court record, at the time of his arrest he had several guns, including an AK-47, and the material to make 50 molotov cocktails. Details of the case — one of the first if not the first in which the government publicly disclosed it had someone undercover to continue monitoring a Jan. 6 defendant — were made public Tuesday.An attorney for Duong declined to comment. Duong entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors, telling an undercover federal agent he climbed the building wall, delivered a letter to lawmakers and filmed others opening a door with a crowbar. An undercover officer with the D.C. police first encountered Duong at the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the government. Duong described himself as an “operator” and later explained that he wore all black to look like an anti-fascist activist, the government alleged in court documents. In video later seen by investigators, Duong is identified in court documents as shouting “We’re coming for you Nancy” and pushing a fellow protester toward the doors on the Senate side of the building.They stayed in touch, and a week later Duong allegedly told the undercover officer he was part of a “cloak and dagger” group that will “build resistances . . . for what will inevitably come.” In March, he told associates, “Keep your guns and be ready to use them.”He and others held “Bible study” where they discussed firearms and other training, according to court documents; Duong also brought someone he described as a “three percenter” to one meeting. The right-wing Three Percenters movement, formed in 2008, is named after the false claim that only 3 percent of colonists fought in the American Revolution. Several adherents have been charged with conspiring to storm the Capitol. Duong said he had attended some rallies with the group but preferred to stay independent.
Judge Orders Ghislaine Maxwell Documents Relating To Clinton Family Released This Month - Finally, after all this time, a judge has ruled that dozens of documents in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell’s should be made public, including her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the Clintons. Maxwell’s lawyers had argued that releasing these documents would prevent her from being able to have a fair trial, but Judge Loretta Preska disagreed in a recent ruling and unsealed the documents.The documents will be made available to the public in roughly two weeks. The exact details contained in the documents are still unknown, but her previous legal cases against Epstein’s victims are likely to be included.The Daily Mail reported that financial records will show that Maxwell received funding from the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation.It is possible that Prince Andrew of the British royal family could also be implicated in this trove of new documents. Judge Preska has slowly ruled on the release of documents over time, but so far most of the information released to the public is only confirmation of what has already been reported so far. Very little new information has come from these documents, but this release is expected to be much different, because they contain sensitive information from the private defamation case that Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre filed against Maxwell in 2016.Giuffre filed the lawsuit because Maxwell called her accusations lies. Giuffre had gone public with her story about how she was recruited by Maxwell when she was 16 and quickly became wrapped up in Epstein’s trafficking network, which led her to be abused by many powerful men, including Prince Andrew.Vital information about her finances are also expected to be in these documents, including tax returns, and balance sheets for companies Maxwell controlled, as well as financial statements for organizations she ran with Epstein.According to court documents, some of the information to be released includes:‘From January 2012 to the present, produce all documents concerning any source of funding for the TarraMar Project (Maxwell’s nonprofit) or any other not-for-profit entities with which you are associated, including but not limited to, funding received from the Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Foundation (a/k/a William J. Clinton Foundation, a/k/a/ the Bill, Hilary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation),and the Clinton Foundation Climate Change Initiative’. (see embedded doc) Former president Bill Clinton reportedly had an intimate dinner with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2014, along with a very small group of other high profile figures. This meeting took place years after the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein were exposed, and long after Maxwell’s involvement with the disgraced financier had first made headlines. In fact, Clinton’s PR team was concerned that Maxwell would be spotted by a photographer or journalist at the meeting, and were relieved that their gathering didn’t make the news. These details were revealed in a recent report by The Daily Beast, in which the site interviewed numerous Clinton associates who were willing to speak under the condition of anonymity.
Another Little Black Book That Once Belonged To Epstein With New Names Is Found -It is well-known that the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein kept detailed records of all the powerful people that he stayed in contact with. There is a notorious “little black book” that was published by Gawker in 2015, which exposed many of the powerful people in his circle. This book is believed to contain the contacts that he most frequently called around 2004 and 2005. However, a new list of contacts, recently published by The Insider, reveals new names that were friends with Epstein in the 1990s.The new black book has the names of 349 people, many of whom did not appear in the list that was previously released to the public.Among the names on the list are Suzanne Ircha, who’s married to Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, famous wall street investor Carl Icahn, supermarket owner John A. Catsimatidis, actress Morgan Fairchild, former New Republic owner Marty Peretz; and Cristina Greeven, the wife of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. The new black book was made public through a strange twist of fate. A woman initially found the book in the late 1990s and saved it for many years until she finally sold it on eBay. Denise Ondayko, the woman who found the book, said she was walking down Fifth Avenue in the mid-’90s when she spotted a black address book on the ground. She said that she didn’t realize it was Epstein’s book at the time, because he was pretty much unknown to the public, but she did realize that it had a lot of famous names and figured that it might be worth something, so she held onto it.Last year, Ondayko was cleaning out an old storage unit where she was keeping some of her things and she stumbled upon the book. Now that Epstein was all over the news, the information contained in the book was much more obvious to identify.
Biographer Says Bill Gates Hosted Naked Pool Parties And Loved Getting Drunk - In the early days of Microsoft Bill Gates had a terrible reputation. He was seen as a cutthroat monopolist who played dirty tricks in business and stole from his competition. However, over the years he has managed to restore his public image after stepping away from Microsoft and working on philanthropic projects instead.This carefully crafted public image has now started to fall apart after news of his divorce and his friendship with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein have been made public. Now, even more information is being reported that sheds new light on the kind of life that he really lived.According to Biographer James Wallace and former gossip columnist Robert X. Cringely, Gates partied much more than he allowed the public to see. They also say that Gates would regularly pay dancers from local strip clubs to swim naked at his home, according to Business Insider.According to a shocking report published in the Wall Street Journal, Melinda Gates began meeting with divorce lawyers in October of 2019, which is around the same time that Bill Gates was listed among Jeffrey Epstein’s close associates.According to sources close to the Gates family that were interviewed by the Journal, and documents shared with the site, Melinda said that her marriage with Bill was “irretrievably broken.”The divorce was set into motion immediately after Bill Gates was implicated as a close friend of Epstein. In reports at the time, it was noted that Gates began his relationship with the notorious pedophile after he was already convicted of crimes against children.However, Bill’s friendship with Epstein was a source of contention in his marriage long before his wife filed for divorce. In fact, she warned him not to associate with Epstein due to his notorious reputation and criminal convictions, an employee of the Gates Foundation told The Daily Beast. Despite this warning, Bill and some of his employees at the foundation continued to meet with Epstein.
Trump sues Facebook, Twitter, Google over platform bans - — Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he filed class-action lawsuits against tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google — along with their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai — because of bans imposed on him and others. "We're demanding an end to the shadow banning, a stop to the silencing, a stop to the blacklisting, vanishing and canceling," Trump said at a news conference in Bedminster, New Jersey, adding that "we are asking the court to impose punitive damages." He spoke from behind a lectern bedecked with an insignia designed to look like the presidential seal and in front of a backdrop reminiscent of a White House portico. Trump argued that the suspension of his social media accounts amounts to an infringement on the First Amendment's guarantee that speech won't be curtailed by the government. Fundamental to that case is his relatively novel contention that the major tech firms function as arms of the federal government rather than as private companies. "The Founding Fathers inscribed this right in the very first amendment to our Constitution because they knew that free speech is essential to the prevention of, look ... the prevention of horror," said Trump, who called the case a "pivotal battle" for the right to free speech. Trump is filing the suits as class actions instead of simply on his own behalf, contending that the social media platforms should not enact limits on other conservative users. Throughout his statement and a question-and-answer session with reporters that followed it, Trump veered far off the lawsuit to offer his thoughts on combating Covid-19, criminal justice, crime rates, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and other current events. But the focus of his commentary, and that of lawyers and policy advisers who accompanied him, was on a lawsuit that represents an escalation of his long-running battle with social media platforms that have suspended his accounts. In January, Trump's Twitter account — with 88 million followers — was permanently banned. Representatives for Twitter and Facebook declined to comment. Dorsey said in January that the service faced an "extraordinary and untenable circumstance" given the risk of real-world violence. He said in a series of tweets that banning Trump was the right decision, even as he said it raised questions about how to keep the internet open to all. Unlike Twitter, which banned Trump, Facebook and YouTube have not deleted his accounts. Trump has 35 million followers on Facebook, 24 million on Instagram and 2.8 million on YouTube
Trump Can’t Beat Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in Court – but the Fight Might Be Worth More Than a Win --After the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by rioters bent on preventing Congress from certifying President Biden’s electoral win, all of the major social platforms – Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – pulled the plug on Trump’s accounts. The companies cited internal rules about misuse of their platforms to spread misinformation and incite violence. Trump’s lawsuit barrage seeks not just to overturn his own bans but to invalidate a 1996 federal statute, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, that entitles website operators to choose who and what appears on their pages without fear of liability. His attorneys are arguing – creatively, but I believe without much legal foundation – that the Communications Decency Act is unconstitutional in that Congress has given platforms too much speech-policing power. Section 230 has been called the law that “created the internet,” as it enables anyone who operates or uses a website – not, as Trump claims, only social media behemoths – to disavow responsibility for what outsiders come onto the site and say.The law does enable YouTube to deactivate videos, or entire accounts, without assuming “ownership” of anything libelous that remains viewable. But it also allows the proprietor of a small-town news site to entertain reader comments without being considered the “publisher” of – and thus liable for – every scurrilous statement that ends up in the comments section. Social networks have enforced their “content moderation” rules spottily and without much transparency. That’s a bad business practice, and it’s arguably unfair. But the Constitution doesn’t offer a remedy for all of life’s adversities. It certainly doesn’t offer one for Donald Trump here.
Mary Trump: Ivanka 'much less likely to stay loyal' to father than Weisselberg - Mary Trump, former President Trump’s niece and vocal critic, says that his daughter Ivanka Trump is “much less likely to stay loyal” to her father than Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who is facing more than a dozen fraud and conspiracy charges.Weisselberg pleaded not guilty last Thursday to 15 charges against him, including tax fraud, conspiracy, grand larceny and falsifying business records. He and the Trump Organization have denied wrongdoing, though prosecutors have indicated that their investigation is ongoing and more charges could be coming.Weisselberg is accused of avoiding paying taxes on about $1.7 million in income between 2005 and 2017.In an episode of "The New Abnormal" podcast, Mary Trump, an author and psychologist, said that prosecutors might not need to rely on Weisselberg's cooperation because other people may be willing to flip on the former president, potentially including her cousins.“If there are two sets of books for Allen, there are two sets of books for other people. And I think we’re also going to find that in these millions of pages of documents there will be more evidence,” Trump said.“So either they’re not going to be solely relying on Allen Weisselberg to flip because either there’s documentary evidence of Donald’s direct wrongdoing or there will be other people who might be more willing to flip than Allen. And I think among those might well indeed be my cousins,” she continued.Mary Trump then pointed to reporting from The New York Times last year, indicating that Ivanka Trump had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in “consulting fees” while she was an executive for the Trump Organization.“She’s much less likely to stay loyal than Allen Weisselberg,” Mary Trump said. “I think Ivanka has one, more to lose, and two, more to hang onto. Her husband’s family is legitimately very wealthy,” she said, referring to Jared Kushner.
5 takeaways from the trial of Paul Manafort’s banker | American Banker - Prosecutors wrapped up their case Wednesday in the bribery trial of Stephen Calk, the onetime bank CEO accused of approving millions of dollars in loans in exchange for a potential job in the Trump administration. During the two-week trial, prosecutors have portrayed Calk as motivated by a lust for power when he approved loans to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Defense attorneys have argued that Calk was unaware of Manafort’s financial troubles at the time the loans were approved, and have also attacked the credibility of a key government witness. The trial, held in federal court in Manhattan, has featured testimony from a top official at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and onetime White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. But much of the drama has involved employees of the Chicago-based bank where Calk was chief executive, as defense attorneys have sought to pin blame on bank staffers even as lower-level employees have pointed the finger at their former boss.
Pelosi husband won big on Alphabet stock - Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband gained nearly $5 million on a trade of stocks in Google parent company Alphabet Inc. and also added bets to Amazon and Apple ahead of the House Judiciary Committee’s vote last month to advance five antitrust bills targeting major tech giants. According to a recently released financial disclosure report signed by the Democratic leader on July 2, Paul Pelosi, who owns a real estate and venture capital investment firm, exercised 40 call options to gain 4,000 shares of Alphabet at a strike price of $1,200. Paul Pelosi gained $4.8 million from the trade, which has since risen to $5.3 million, Bloomberg reported. The transaction, dated June 18, followed previous actions in May purchasing 20 call options for Amazon with a strike price of $3,000 and acquiring 50 call options for Apple with a strike price of $100, the disclosure report noted. The options, which have a June 2022 expiration date, suggest that Paul Pelosi expects Amazon and Apple to continue their gains. Late last month, the Judiciary Committee voted in favor of moving forward bills aimed at addressing concerns over a lack of competition amid the overwhelming influence of a small group of tech giants. The bills include one aimed at prohibiting platforms from giving their own products and services precedence, and another that would prevent tech giants from acquiring competitor companies. When reached for comment on Paul Pelosi’s recent financial moves, spokesman Drew Hammill told The Hill that Nancy Pelosi “has no involvement or prior knowledge of these transactions.” Hammill emphasized that the transactions are listed in the financial disclosure report as moves made by a congress member’s spouse, as required by disclosure laws, adding that the Speaker “does not own any stock.”
State Attorney General Files Suit Charging Wall Street Mega Banks with “Multi-Year Bid Rigging and Price Fixing” Conspiracy in Credit Default Swaps Market - By Pam Martens - - Last week the New Mexico Attorney General’s office filed a breathtaking, 128-page anti-trust lawsuit in federal court in New Mexico on behalf of the state’s $31 billion investment fund, the New Mexico State Investment Council. The Council manages a permanent endowment along with money for 23 state agencies.The lawsuit alleges, backed by striking evidence, that the following banks have engaged in a 16-year conspiracy of “bid rigging and price fixing” in the Credit Default Swap (CDS) market: Bank of America/Merrill Lynch; Barclays; BNP Paribas; Citigroup; Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JPMorgan Chase; Morgan Stanley; and RBS.The lawsuit also names a swaps trade association, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), as a defendant, noting that a “majority of ISDA’s board members” are employed by the bank defendants. The lawsuit characterizes ISDA as a “front organization.” Two other companies involved in the allegedly rigged Credit Default Swap protocol are also named: Creditex and Markit. The lawsuit draws attention to the fact that “Until mid-2014, Markit was majority-owned and controlled by a consortium of approximately 16 investment banks,” including each of the bank defendants (along with HSBC and UBS) who sat on its board of directors.The general outline of the conspiracy is described as follows in the lawsuit: “Since 2005, the Wall Street banks that comprise the major dealers of credit default swaps (‘CDS’) have been engaged in a conspiracy to manipulate the CDS ‘final auction price,’ the benchmark price used to value all CDS contracts market-wide at settlement. The final auction price is generated through an auction process that was introduced to the market by the Dealers in 2005. The Dealers – Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and RBS…have implemented this conspiracy by using their power over the CDS auction process to rig the CDS auctions and produce a (typically) supra-competitively low CDS final auction price. Working with three entities over which the Dealers yield significant power and influence – Creditex, ISDA, and Markit (together, with the Dealers, the Defendants) – the Dealers’ conspiracy has yielded them billions of dollars in cartel profits at the expense of non-dealer market participants like Plaintiff and the putative Class members.” One has to hope that the federal judge overseeing the case has a strong skill set in mathematics or statistical analysis because the lawsuit includes actual formulas that were used to compile a statistical regression analysis that found the following: […] Of course, one of those mechanisms would be improper conduct on the Bloomberg terminal. (See Why Was Libor Rate Rigging Committed Over the Bloomberg Terminal.)Even the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who had previously been thecrony President of the New York Fed, makes a cameo appearance in the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, the banks approached Geithner during the 2008 financial crisis, while he was President of the New York Fed, and told him that they would “incorporate the auction process that the Dealers and Creditex had created into the standardized contracts that are used to trade CDS.” The lawsuit doesn’t say that the New York Fed allowed these banks to hold their secret meetings at the New York Fed, or under its auspices, but based on how the New York Fed has condoned similar groups, we wouldn’t be surprised.
Court Documents Reveal that JPMorgan Chase Was Entangled in Another Giant Ponzi Scheme at the Same Time It Was Propping Up Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme -After reading the documents released by the Justice Department in January 2014 in connection with JPMorgan Chase’s settlement over its role in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, the Los Angeles Times asked this question: “Bernie Madoff: Was he part of the JPMorgan ring, or was JPMorgan part of his ring?” Given the facts of the case, the question was more than fair.In January of 2014 JPMorgan Chase paid $2.6 billion in fines and restitution, signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department and walked away from further criminal charges over its 22-year involvement with Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The Madoff Ponzi scheme was the largest in U.S. history with fictitious investment account statements showing his clients held $64.8 billion in securities with his firm. (Madoff never actually bought any stocks or other securities for his investment clients.)The Madoff case commanded headlines for years. But a recent review of federal court filings by Wall Street On Parade shows that at the same time that JPMorgan Chase was deeply involved with Madoff, it was simultaneously entangled with another multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme being orchestrated by Thomas Petters. JPMorgan Chase’s involvement in the Petters case has been largely ignored by mainstream media.Both the Petters’ Ponzi scheme and the Madoff Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008 during the financial crash on Wall Street. The Petters’ fraud collapsed after one of his employees contacted law enforcement. Federal agents raided Petters’ offices and arrested him on October 3, 2008. Madoff confessed to his sons in early December 2008 and he surrendered to Federal authorities on December 11, 2008 – just a little more than two months after the arrest of Petters.On June 29, 2009 Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. Madoff died on April 14 of this year in the medical facility of the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.In December 2009 a Minnesota jury found Petters guilty on all 20 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. Petters is serving a 50-year sentence in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.How is it possible that the largest federally-insured bank in the United States, with thousands of employees engaged in risk management, anti-money laundering and compliance, could become involved in two of the largest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history – over the same span of time? (For what JPMorgan Chase has been up to since these Ponzi schemes were revealed, see JPMorgan Chase Admits to Two New Felony Counts – Brings Total to Five Felony Counts in Six Years – All During Tenure of Jamie Dimon.) JPMorgan Chase used unaudited financial statements and skipped the required steps of bank due diligence to make $145 million in loans to Madoff’s business, according to Irving Picard, the Trustee of the Madoff victims’ fund. Lawyers for the Trustee wrote that from November 2005 through January 18, 2006, JPMorgan Chase loaned $145 million to Madoff’s business at a time when the bank was on “notice of fraudulent activity” in Madoff’s business account and when, in fact, Madoff’s business was insolvent. The reason for the JPMorgan Chase loans was because Madoff’s business account was “reaching dangerously low levels of liquidity, and the Ponzi scheme was at risk of collapsing.” JPMorgan, in fact, “provided liquidity to continue the Ponzi scheme,” according to Picard.
Shake-up at OCC: Supervision teams will report to agency's chief — The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced a series of organizational changes Tuesday that will result in key bank supervision units reporting directly to acting Comptroller Michael Hsu.The changes, which the OCC said in a press release were designed “to enhance the agency’s efficiency and effectiveness,” will include the elimination of the chief operating officer's position. That position is currently held by former acting Comptroller Blake Paulson, who will take on the role of senior deputy comptroller for supervision risk and analysis, the agency said. Traditionally, the agency's COO has had authority over several supervisory departments, including the offices of Bank Supervision Policy, Midsize and Community Bank Supervision, Large Bank Supervision, and Supervision Risk and Analysis, as well as the Office of Management. Under the restructuring, all five of those divisions will report to Hsu.
Banks combat identity thieves by segmenting customer warnings - Crooks are getting craftier about how they steal from consumers, and in response banks are developing more creative ways to warn their customers. ID theft originating from scams — where criminals trick the victim into giving up personal information, such as by text or email — produced $43 billion in consumer losses in 2020, according to a study released this year by Javelin Strategy & Research. It was the first year the company sought to measure this more sophisticated spin on old-fashioned identity crime. Financial services providers sustained an average loss of $1,100 in such incidents, the study found.
Banking regulators expected to advance Biden agenda despite 'acting' tag — The Supreme Court's decision last month allowing President Joe Biden to fire the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency not only resets the policy trajectory of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator. It also meant yet another agency without a Senate-confirmed leader.Three financial services regulators are now led by an "acting" appointee. After Biden ousted FHFA Director Mark Calabria, senior agency official Sandra Thompson was quickly named as the interim director. She joined Dave Uejio, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu. Without permanent heads in place, long-term policy goals such as reforming the Community Reinvestment Act and charting a future for Fannie and Freddie could be slowed, some observers said. But analysts say that the acting leaders are likely taking their cues from officials within the White House and the Treasury Department, giving the administration greater power to set policy.
Wall Street rise continues amid warnings of instability - When the US jobs figures for June were issued on Friday, Wall Street’s S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes both climbed to new record highs, because the jobs data were regarded as a “Goldilocks” moment—neither too hot, nor too cold. Coming in at 850,000, the jobs growth number—beating economists’ estimates of 720,000 and well above the figure of 583,000 for May—was regarded as a sign of recovery for the US economy, but not enough to push the Federal Reserve towards tightening its monetary policy, as the data showed there were still 9 million people unemployed, compared with 5.7 million in February 2020, before the pandemic hit. As one analyst told the Financial Times, the jobs figures “couldn’t have delivered better news for Wall Street. Enough new jobs to confirm the economy is on a roll, [but] enough jobless to give the Fed’s current strategy a warm hug.” Another part of the good news for Wall Street was that, despite evidence of labour shortages in parts of the US economy, and the payment of higher wages, the rise in average hourly earnings for the month was only 0.3 percent, down from the increases in April and May. The significance of the wages, jobs growth and overall employment data for Wall Street is not so much what they signify in and of themselves—though that is factor—but their implications for the policies of the Fed. Since the Fed’s massive intervention in March 2020, when it stepped in to halt a meltdown of the financial system with the injection of around $4 trillion, Wall Street has become ever more dependent on the flow of ultra-cheap money from the central bank. This inflow is continuing at the rate of $120 billion a month—more than $1.4 trillion a year—through the purchase of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, and the financial markets are fearful that even a slight lessening of this support could have major effects. Consequently, some analysts are issuing warnings that the present situation, in which markets continue to rise, based on continued economic growth, combined with monetary support from the Fed, is inherently unstable. In a comment published in the Financial Times last week, Mohamed El-Erian noted that, as recorded by a recent Bank of America survey, markets were currently dominated by three core hypotheses: durable high economic growth; transitory inflation and “ever-friendly central banks.” El-Erian wrote that while he did not have a serious quarrel with the higher growth scenario, he did “worry a great deal about the widespread conviction that the current rise in inflation will be transitory.”
The Robinhood Conundrum - Last week Robinhood filed their S-1 to register for an IPO. Here’s the good and bad of it: Robinhood now has close to 18 million active users on its platform and manages around $80 billion in assets. More than half of those 18 million customers said this was their first-ever brokerage account. And Robinhood believes close to 50% of all new retail funded accounts opened in the U.S. between 2016 and 2021 were done so on its platform. Robinhood has gotten millions of young people involved in the markets. Nearly 47% of those users use the product on a daily basis. That’s basically just below the most successful social media companies. Among those customers who visted the app on a daily basis, the average number of visits was seven per day. There’s an old saying that successful investing should be like watching paint dry. I’m not exactly sure you’re supposed to check the dryness of the paint that many times a day. More than 98% of users use the app on a monthly basis. This type of engagement and usage is insanely high for an investment product. This seems good: Robinhood’s customer growth numbers are off the charts in the past 15 months: There are many reasons for this but people have decided they are now interested in the markets in a big way. This seems bad: This growth is coming at a cost. Robinhood just paid a $70 million fine to FINRA for outages and misleading their clients, the largest such fine ever enforced. The company is also subject to 15 putative class action lawsuits at the moment. I would expect that number to grow in the years ahead as their growth outstrips the company’s ability to deal with problems. This seems good: Robinhood estimates they provided customers $1.5 billion in price improvements and saved as much as $1.6 billion in crypto transaction fees from January 2020 through March 2021. Thank you free commissions. Robinhood is making a lot of money on its customer assets. They made $959 million in total revenue in 2020 (up from $278 million in 2019). In the first quarter alone they made $522 million (up from $128 million in Q1 2020). It’s good for business if Robinhood’s customers trade more and pay higher spreads. This was a risk factor listed in the S-1:
Morgan Stanley discloses breach of stock-plan customer data - Morgan Stanley on Thursday disclosed that a data breach at one of its contractors led to the theft of personal information about some customers whose stock accounts had gone dormant. The bank said in a notice to affected clients that the cyber intrusion affected Guidehouse, a consulting company that Morgan Stanley uses to find current addresses for clients of its stock-plan business whose accounts had been inactive for long periods of time and whose assets were at risk of being liquidated and turned over to the state. The exposed information included customer names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and company names but not passwords to access the accounts, the bank said. The breach was previously reported by Bleeping Computer.
Hackers demanding $70M to restore data in massive cyberattack: report -Hackers believed to be responsible for a massive worldwide ransomware plot demanded $70 million on Sunday in exchange for the data they are holding hostage.The demand was posted on a blog usually used by the Russian-linked REvil cybercrime gang, Reuters reports. This group is considered to be among the world's most ardent extortionists. The ransomware attack was carried out on Friday, targeting Miami-based technology firm Kaseya. The group used Kaseya's access to clients as well as some of their clients' clients to immobilize the computers of hundreds of technology firms worldwide, Reuters noted. According to Kaseya, less than 60 of its clients were directly affected by the hack. About a dozen countries were affected by the breach, as were institutions such as schools, travel and leisure organizations, credit unions and public-sector bodies. Though it is often unclear who is speaking on behalf of the organization due to its affiliate structure, cybersecurity expert Allan Liska told Reuters that these demands are "almost certainly" from REvil's core leadership. The White House on Sunday said it is reaching out to the victims of the hack, Reuters reported. Anne Neuberger, White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said the FBI and Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm "will reach out to identified victims to provide assistance based upon an assessment of national risk." President Biden said he had directed the U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate who was responsible for the attack. Liska told Reuters that the believed REvil had taken on more than they could handle with this massive hack and the $70 million demand is likely the organization's attempt at making the best of an awkward situation. "For all of their big talk on their blog, I think this got way out of hand," Liska told the news service.
The Oncoming Ransomware Storm - Let me paint a picture of a bleak future, that seems to be racing towards us much faster than the public may know about. It’s a future in which ransomware and mass data theft are so ubiquitous they’ve worked their way into our daily lives.Ransomware, for those that don’t know, is the automated exploitation of computer networks that aims to extract cash from the owner of that network. These attacks are usually done by foreign actors and they use cryptocurrency as the medium of exchange for extortion between them and their victims.Now this is not a new phenomenon by any means. But what is new is that the level of these attacks has gone parabolic in the last few years because of one simple fact. With the addition of bitcoin to the problem it’s insanely profitable, low-risk, and almost the perfect crime. It’s also a very real economic tool that nation states can use to disrupt each other’s infrastructure.The singular reason why these attacks are even possible is due entirely to rise of cryptocurrency. Consider the same situation on top of the existing international banking system. Go to your local bank branch and try to wire transfer $200,000 to an anonymous stranger in Russia and see how that works out. Modern ransomware could not exist without Bitcoin, it has poured gasoline on a fire we may not be able to put out.When you create a loophole channel (however flawed) for parties to engage in illicit financing of anonymous entities beyond the control of law enforcement, it turns out a lot of shady businesses models that are otherwise prevented move from being impractical and risky to perversely incentivized. Ransomware is now very lucrative to the point where there is a whole secondary market of vendors selling Ransomware as a Service picks and shovels to the criminals.And the scale of the net that can be cast across the world is vast. In the last week we’ve seen a large chunk of the east coast energy grid infrastructure disabled due to an attack. Across the pond we’ve seen the entire NHS hospital service shutdown because hackers will indiscriminately target the weakest and most vulnerable IT targets regardless of the human cost. Hospitals, schools, charities … everyone is an indiscriminate target in this brave new world.
Why Bitcoin isn’t always deflationary - It’s often forgotten in the bitcoin world that it’s not just quantity of money that influences inflation, but velocity too. And in the bitcoin economy there’s a lot of pent up velocity to contend with, not least because of all those wallets bearing huge sums of value that never transact (like Satoshi’s own stash).In the conventional “fractional reserve” fiat world, velocity is a function of monetary multiples, which are basically a function of how quickly the commercial banking sector can reuse or re-lend the underlying reserves in the system. This in turn influences the money pyramid and the overall money supply. As the grand experiment with QE has shown, the broader money supply is not just a function of core central bank liabilities, but the wider system’s capacity to reuse those reserves and turn them into private liabilities.In a fiat-based fractional reserve system you cannot escape the money multiplier effect. If you keep your wealth in the banking system, somebody somewhere is putting it to work by re-lending it.This, however, is not true of bitcoin. In a hyper-bitcoinised world you have the ability to opt out of the perpetual re-lending loop. While you can if you wish, engage in having your savings re-lent to earn a bit of extra return (say to those who want to use the loans as a shorting mechanism), at the end of the day it’s entirely voluntary. The underlying system, at least in theory, is fully reserved.Those who believe a full reserve system is a better and more stable system will argue that’s a good thing. And maybe it is, or isn’t. That’s beyond the scope of this post.Our point is simply this: just because a system is fully reserved and all lending is done with the explicit conscious consent of the wealth holder doesn’t mean it is resistant to inflation. Bitcoin looks disinflationary right now. But this is because those who choose to opt out of putting their money to work effectively reduce the velocity of their money to zero. The delightful thing about bitcoin is that thanks to the openness of the bitcoin ledger we can see quite clearly how much cash never transacts in this way. For example, according to a report by Crystal Blockchain, as of July 2020, there were over 10m bitcoins (worth $85bn at the time) accumulated in dormant bitcoin addresses with no outgoing transactions at all in 2019. More recent data from bitinfocharts suggests some 17.8m bitcoins out of roughly 18.75m outstanding are currently classified as residing in dormant addresses.
Where consumers got pandemic relief, complaints to CFPB fell - New data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suggests that goverment efforts to ease households' financial strains during the pandemic have reduced the number of complaints filed with the agency. The CFPB issued a 17-page bulletin Thursday analyzing consumer complaints related largely to evictions and federal student loans. Consumer complaints in those areas generally fell between the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, prior to the enactment of relief measures, and May 2021. Still, acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio has called out financial firms collectively for their slow response to consumer complaints. In a statement Thursday, he warned companies not to let poor customer service undermine pandemic relief measures.
MBA Survey: "Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.87%" - Note: This is as of June 27th. From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Decreases to 3.87%: The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) latest Forbearance and Call Volume Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance decreased by 4 basis points from 3.91% of servicers’ portfolio volume in the prior week to 3.87% as of June 27, 2021. According to MBA’s estimate, 1.9 million homeowners are in forbearance plans.The share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance decreased 3 basis points to 1.99%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance decreased 3 basis points to 5.10%, while the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) decreased 5 basis points to 7.92%. The percentage of loans in forbearance for independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers decreased 3 basis points to 4.00%, and the percentage of loans in forbearance for depository servicers declined 3 basis points to 4.11%.“For the first time since last March, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance dropped below 2 percent. The share in every investor type and almost every loan category dropped as well, bringing the number of homeowners in forbearance below 2 million,” said Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. “The rate of forbearance exits and new forbearance requests remained at low levels, but we expect the pace of exits to increase with reporting next week for the beginning of July.” This graph shows the percent of portfolio in forbearance by investor type over time. Most of the increase was in late March and early April 2020, and has trended down since then. The MBA notes: "Total weekly forbearance requests as a percent of servicing portfolio volume (#) remained the same relative to the prior week at 0.04%". Note: Deferral plans are very popular. Basically when the homeowner exits forbearance, they just go back to making their regular monthly payments, they are not charged interest on the missed payments, and the unpaid balanced is deferred until the end of the mortgage.
Black Knight: Number of Homeowners in COVID-19-Related Forbearance Plans Decreased Sharply - Note: Both Black Knight and the MBA (Mortgage Bankers Association) are putting out weekly estimates of mortgages in forbearance. This data is as of July 6th. From Andy Walden at Black Knight: Significant Improvement in Active Forbearances: In our last post, we mentioned that last week’s minor reduction in forbearance plans had “set us up nicely for what could be a larger improvement next week as some 218,000 plans were still scheduled for review by Wednesday, June 30.” Well, that larger improvement arrived this week. Since last Tuesday, the overall number of active plans has dropped by 189,000, pushing the population of homeowners in forbearance down below 2 million for the first time early in April of last year.The decline, as mentioned above, was driven by the large volume of early entrants reaching their 15-month quarterly review, and significant declines were seen across all investor classes. Loans held in bank portfolios and private label securities led the way with a 78,000 reduction in plans, while FHA/VA and GSE forbearance volumes dropped by 67,000 and 44,000 respectively. All in all, that puts us down 254,000 (-12%) from the same time last month.Nearly two thirds of the more than 325,000 plans reviewed for extension or removal over the prior week resulted in exits. That’s the highest weekly exit rate in more than six months and the highest weekly removal volume since the first wave of plans went through their 12-month reviews a few months ago.Forbearance plan starts also continue to fall, with both new and repeat starts down this week for a total of fewer than 26,000, a new pandemic-era low.As of July 6, 1.86 million (3.5% of) homeowners remain in COVID-19 related forbearance plans including 2.2% of GSE, 6.8% of FHA/VA and 4.6% of Portfolio/PLS loans. Another 400,000 plans are scheduled to be reviewed for extension/removal over the next 30 days.
MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest Weekly Survey - From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey - Mortgage applications decreased 1.8 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 2, 2021. .. The Refinance Index decreased 2 percent from the previous week and was 8 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent compared with the previous week and was 14 percent lower than the same week one year ago.“Mortgage application activity fell for the second week in a row, reaching the lowest level since the beginning of 2020. Even as mortgage rates declined, with the 30-year fixed rate dropping 5 basis points to 3.15 percent, both purchase and refinance applications decreased,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting. “Treasury yields have been volatile despite mostly positive economic news, including last week’s June jobs report, which showed ongoing improvements in the labor market. However, rates continued to move lower – especially late in the week. The 30-year fixed rate was 11 basis points lower than the same week a year ago, but many borrowers previously refinanced at even lower rates. Refinance applications have trended lower than 2020 levels for the past four months.”Added Kan, “Swift home-price growth across much of the country, driven by insufficient housing supply, is weighing on the purchase market and is pushing average loan amounts higher.”...The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($548,250 or less) decreased to 3.15 percent from 3.20 percent, with points decreasing to 0.38 from 0.39 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.The first graph shows the refinance index since 1990.With low rates, the index remains elevated, but has been declining recently.The second graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index
Buyers’ Strike? Mortgage Applications Drop 8% Below 2019, as Home Buyers Get Second Thoughts about “Raging Mania” -- The evidence has been piling up for months in bits and pieces: While investors still have the hots for this housing market, potential buyers that need a mortgage and those who want to live in the home they’re thinking of buying are getting second thoughts, as evidenced by sharply dropping sales of existing homes and new houses even as inventories for sale have now risen for the third months in a row and new listings are coming out of the woodwork.So here’s the latest piece of evidence: Demand from buyers who need a mortgage to fund the purchase of a home has been declining for months and in the week ended July 2 fell further and is now down 14% from the same week in 2020 and down 8% from the same week in 2019, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association this morning. Mortgage applications are now at the low end of the range in 2019. The entire Pandemic boom has now been worked off, plus some (data via Investing.com): Mortgage applications to refinance mortgages in the week through July 2 fell to the lowest level since February 2020, having now also worked off the entire Pandemic spike, despite mortgage rates that are much lower than they were a year ago. Refi mortgages go through boom-and-bust cycles based on mortgage interest rates, with lower-than-before mortgage rates triggering a refi boom, and with higher-than-before mortgage rates putting a damper on refis.So refi applications in the week through July 2 remained 55% higher than the same week in 2019, when mortgage rates were a full percentage point higher than today; and refi applications were over twice the very low levels of 2018 when mortgage rates were grinding their way to 5%: Can you imagine what this immensely overpriced housing market would look like with mortgage rates at 5% — meaning barely at the rate of CPI inflation? Me neither. The average interest rate on 30-year fixed rate mortgages with conforming balances and a 20%-down-payment was 3.15% in the week ended July 2, according to the MBA today. The rate is down about 20 basis points since the recent high in late March and has remained in the same narrow range since late April:It is interesting that mortgage rates have dropped 20 basis points from their recent high in late March, while the 10-year Treasury yield has dropped 40 basis points over the same period, widening the spread between them.There is now consistent taper-talk coming from the Fed, including ideas about tapering its purchases of MBS sooner or faster than tapering its purchases of Treasury securities. Several Fed governors have now publicly expressed concern over the housing bubble, over investors’ involvement in the housing bubble, and over the Fed’s providing fuel for the housing bubble.The first effects of this Fed talk concerning tapering purchases of MBS may already be showing up in the widening spread between the 10-year yield and mortgage rates – that’s maybe what we’re looking at here.
NMHC: Rent Payment Tracker Shows Households Paying Rent Decreased Slightly YoY in Early July - From the NMHC: NMHC Rent Payment Tracker: The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)’s Rent Payment Tracker found 76.5 percent of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by July 6 in its survey of 11.7 million units of professionally managed apartment units across the country. This is a 0.9 percentage point decrease from the share who paid rent through July 6, 2020 and compares to 79.7 percent that had been paid by July 6, 2019. This data encompasses a wide variety of market-rate rental properties across the United States, which can vary by size, type and average rental price. This graph from the NMHC Rent Payment Tracker shows the percent of household making full or partial rent payments by the 6th of the month compared to 2019 and to the first COVID year. Although payments are down from 2019, rent payments are mostly unchanged from last year. This is mostly for large, professionally managed properties. The second graph shows full month payments through June compared to the same month the prior year.For June, rent payments were down compared to June 2019 and 2020. CR Note: There are some timing issues month to month.
CoreLogic: House Prices up 15.4% Year-over-year in May -- The CoreLogic HPI is a three month weighted average and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA). From CoreLogic: Torrid Demand and Scarce Inventory Fuels Double-Digit Home Price Growth in May, CoreLogic Reports: CoreLogic® ... released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for May 2021. Converging pressures of severe inventory shortages and sustained demand pushed home prices to record highs in May, with the year-over-year increase in home prices at its highest level since 2005. While many millennials and Gen Z home buyers continue to move into the hot market thanks to low borrowing rates, high prices are likely deterring increasing numbers of prospective buyers — especially first-time and low-income families. Currently, 82% of consumers note housing affordability as a key problem, according to a recent CoreLogic survey. Additionally, 33% of respondents noted they would wait to buy or not buy at all rather than make sacrifices on their purchase. “First-time buyers are hitting a wall in many places around the country as the pace of home price rises outpace the benefits of lower borrowing costs. Younger and first-time buyers, including younger millennials, are faced with the challenge of having sufficient savings for a down payment, closing costs and cash reserves,” said Frank Martell, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “As we look to the balance of 2021, we expect price rises to continue which could very well push prospective buyers out of the market in many areas and slow home price growth over the next year.” “There are marked differences in today’s run up in prices compared to 2005, which was a bubble fueled by risky loans and lenient underwriting,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist at CoreLogic. “Today, loans with high-risk features are absent and mortgage underwriting is prudent. However, demand and supply imbalances — fueled by a drop in mortgage rates to less than one-half what they were in 2005 and a scarcity of for-sale homes — has fed the latest run up in sales prices.” ... Nationally, home prices increased 15.4% in May 2021, compared with May 2020. On a month-over-month basis, home prices increased by 2.3% compared to April 2021. At the state level, Idaho and Arizona continued to have the strongest price growth at 30.3% and 23.4%, respectively. Utah also had a 20.4% year-over-year increase as home buyers seek out more affordable locations with lower population density and attractive outdoor amenities.
Homebuilder Comments in June: “It’s not fun to be a builder anymore.”- Some twitter comments from Rick Palacios Jr., Director of Research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting: Analyzing June new home sales & pricing figures from our monthly builder survey. As one builder noted: “It’s not fun to be a builder anymore.” Lumber relief is nice but pick your poison on other issues. Market commentary from across the country to follow..#Richmond builder: “It's not fun to be a builder anymore. Cost pressure is killing us. Not only will builders like myself who take 12-24 months to build a house lose margin from increases, but the affordability is becoming a major issue.”
#Atlanta builder: “Costs have driven up prices & we’re no longer preselling. We will not sell a home until frame stage, so our sales numbers are off for June while awaiting framing stage.”
#WestPalmBeach builder: “Cost increases are still coming in daily. Materials continue to be delayed coming on site. Cycle times are increasing as much as 50%. Windows & trusses remain the biggest issue.”
#Chicago builder: “Haven’t bid a new project this year as cost increases are too great to be competitive in the infill spec market. Doing remodeling work until things settle down.”
#Indianapolis builder: “Major concern is ability to develop enough lots to supply the market. Pipe shortage & labor shortages by development contractors are creating a bottleneck.”
#Charlotte builder: “We would not let our sales team sell during the month of June. We needed to take a "pause" from mid-May to the end of June to let our design and construction teams get caught up.”
#Wilmington builder: “Sales slow as we are not offering product for sale until we have our costs set. Delivery times for trusses are now 15 weeks. Drop in lumber prices could be partially due to truss availability. Builders can't purchase lumber until trusses delivered.”
#Knoxville builder: “Only reason we have such a slow sales rate in June is we have nothing to sell. We are no longer listing any new starts for sale until drywall is in.”
#Nashville builder: “Lumber supply including Truss joists, I-joists, glue lam beams, & oriented strand board are restricting starts & sales.”
#Portland builder: “Lumber theft is a big deal. Thieves are now stealing staged material on 2nd floors of homes under construction.”
#Bend builder: “Sherwin Williams told us they are out of exterior base paint until later in July. Appliances must be ordered 6-9 months in advance. Seeing signs of price ceiling, namely upper end of market.”
#Dallas builder: “Hard to get lumber, windows, air conditioning coils, etc. Air conditioning coils are in short supply and many are backordered, causing delays in getting inspections.”
#FortWorth builder: “Experiencing windows, brick, & now paint shortages. Some prospective buyers have put off purchasing to see if prices will come down.”
#Houston builder: “We’ve seen roughly $8-10K on average of cost increases each month for the past 4-5 months. Lumber has been the key cost driver, but plumbing, electrical, insulation, & virtually every other component has also increased much faster than historical levels.”
#Denver builder: “While lumber is beginning to come down, we anticipate a number of increases in other product categories. Starts exceed sales because we’re waiting to release homes until we have at least ordered lumber & know the cost.”
#SaltLakeCity builder: “Our cameras see theft almost every other night. Getting price increase letters at least weekly. Everyone is taking advantage of every crisis they can. Plumbing supplier said COVID has caused a 75% decrease in production because of being short staffed."
#Phoenix builder: “Appliance back orders through General Electric are still a major issue at closings. Cost of plywood still out of control. Shortage of labor, & especially qualified workers is getting worse. HVAC is the farthest behind labor & material trade.”
Leading Index for Commercial Real Estate "Loses Steam In June" - From Dodge Data Analytics: Dodge Momentum Index Loses Steam In June: Following six months of consecutive gains, the Dodge Momentum Index fell to 165.8(2000=100) in June, down 5% from the revised May reading of 175.1. The Momentum Index, issued by Dodge Data & Analytics, is a monthly measure of the first (or initial) report for nonresidential building projects in planning, which have been shown to lead construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year.The decline in June was the result of losses in both institutional planning, which fell 7%, and commercial planning, which lost 4%. Uncertain demand for some building types (such as retail and hotels), higher material prices, and continued labor shortages are weighing down new project planning. Even with June’s decline, however, the Momentum Index remains near a 13-year high and well above last year. Compared to a year earlier, both commercial and institutional planning were significantly higher than in June 2020 (39% and 46% respectively). Overall, the Momentum Index was 41% higher.This graph shows the Dodge Momentum Index since 2002. The index was at 165.8 in June, down from 175.1 in May.According to Dodge, this index leads "construction spending for nonresidential buildings by a full year". This index suggests a decline in Commercial Real Estate construction through most of 2021, but a pickup towards the end of the year, and growth in 2022 (even with the decline in the June index).
AAR: June Rail Carloads down, Intermodal Up Compared to 2019 - From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators: U.S. rail volumes in June 2021 and Q2 2021 were consistent with an economy that’s growing but has more growing to do. Total U.S. carloads in June 2021 and Q2 2021 were up 19.1% and 23.8%, respectively, over the same periods in 2020 as easy comps led to big year-over-year percentage gains. That said, total carloads in Q2 2021 were the most for any quarter since Q4 2019....On the intermodal side, U.S. originations in Q2 2021 were the most ever for a quarter, and intermodal volume in the first six months of 2021 were the most ever for the first six months of a year.This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six week average of U.S. Carloads in 2019, 2020 and 2021:Total originated carloads were 1.18 million in June 2021, up 19.1% (188,164 carloads) over June 2020 and down 5.5% from June 2019....Carloads excluding coal were up 14.1% in June 2021 over June 2020 and down 4.3% from June 2019.The second graph shows the six week average of U.S. intermodal in 2019, 2020 and 2021: (using intermodal or shipping containers): U.S. intermodal originations, which are not included in carloads, rose 10.9% in June 2021 over June 2020, their 11th straight year-over-year gain. In June, intermodal averaged 277,349 containers and trailers per week, the second most for June on record (behind June 2018).
How Intel Financialized and Lost Leadership in Semiconductor Fabrication - For a half-century after the invention of the integrated circuit at Texas Instruments (TI) and Fairchild Semiconductor in the late 1950s, the United States was a leader in global semiconductor fabrication. Until 1991, TI and Motorola were the world’s leading integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), selling chips they fabricated, at which point they were surpassed by Intel, with its microprocessor having become the standard hardware in personal computers.[1]The most advanced chips are produced for smartphones as “system-on-a-chip” (SOC). The leading designers of SOCs are Apple (USA), Qualcomm (USA), SEC (South Korea), and MediaTek (Taiwan). HiSilicon, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huawei Technologies (China), was also a SOC leader until U.S. trade sanctions, implemented from August 2020, terminated its access to TSMC’s fab output.[4] TSMC and SEC use 7nm and 5nm process technology to manufacture many of these mobile processors along with the most advanced AMD computer and Nvidia gaming SOCs. According to TSMC, compared with 7nm, 5nm offers 15% faster speed, 30% less power consumption, and 1.8 times the logic density.[5]With its Apple contract, TSMC now leads the race in advanced process technology, with SEC close behind. In 2020, both TSMC and SEC transitioned from 7nm to 5nm process, and in 2021 both are making investments to commercialize 3nm. TSMC went from zero 5nm revenues in 2Q20 to 8% in Q320 and 20% in Q420.[7]SEC is intent on closing the technology gap with TSMC by allocating $28b. to capital expenditures in 2021, about the level of its 2020 plant and equipment (P&E) investments.For its part, TSMC has announced plans to spend $100b. in total on P&E and R&D over the next three years, including $30b. in 2021, up from $17.2b. in 2020. TSMC will construct a $12b. 5nm facility in Arizona and is also considering the state as the site for a $25b. 3nm fab.[8] Most of this new capacity is slated to fabricate Apple’s M-series processors.[9]Intel still leads the global semiconductor industry in total revenues. But, as an IDM, Intel manufactures almost all its CPUs at 14nm, and its 10nm capacity has been stuck, with limited output, since 2018.[10] Meanwhile, Apple is abandoning Intel processors for its Mac computers, turning instead to TSMC to fabricate Apple’s own designs.[11] Intel itself already contracts with TSMC and UMC to produce 15-20% of its non-CPU chips. Moreover, later this year, TSMC will commence production of intel’s Core i3 processors, inside advanced laptops, at 5nm.[12]Even as it has fallen behind in advanced chip fabrication, Intel has remained a very profitable company, averaging $21.0b. in annual net income in 2018-2020, with average annual P&E expenditures of $15.2b. In 2021, Intel expects to produce its first 7nm CPU, while increasing P&E spending to $20b.As part of its IDM 2.0 strategy for manufacturing, innovation, and product leadership, announced in March by the company’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, Intel plans to build two fabs in Arizona.[13 ]Included in IDM 2.0 is the launch of Intel Foundry Services “with plans to become a major provider of foundry capacity in the U.S. and Europe to serve customers globally.”[14] Yet even if Intel should achieve 7nm on a significant scale in 2021, it will fall further behind TSMC and SEC as this decade unfolds. At some point, Intel could even find itself trailing SMIC, especially if China responds to U.S. trade restrictions by developing a semiconductor equipment supply chain that is not dependent on U.S. vendors.[15]
The pandemic has exposed the problems with America's paper-thin supply chains. Industries have to change if the US wants to avoid another catastrophe. In the last several weeks, Toyota and several other carmakers have announced they will be retreating from "just-in-time" inventory, a production method that minimizes inventory levels across the supply chain and has largely contributed to the disruptions we have felt in almost every corner of our lives since the pandemic began. Governments have also announced they are intervening — from the Biden-Harris administration's formation of the Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, to the EU working to addresssemiconductor chip supply bottlenecks. The automotive industry — known for pioneering just-in-time production — may be the first to ditch the practice in favor of stockpiling critical parts like lithium-ion batteries and semiconductor chips, but it won't be the last. The end of using just-in-time inventory as a standard business practice is here, and the automotive industry is simply the canary in the coal mine. America's businesses have relied on lean supply chains for decades, but the last year has exposed problems with the practice. If the US wants to avoid another crunch, America's businesses must change their ways.Over the last 25 years, since Toyota first pioneered the practice, just-in-time has become the predominant inventory method for almost every business spanning nearly all industries — from supermarkets to chip manufacturing to software development. Supply chains across industries have operated as lean as possible when it comes to managing people, inventory, and workflow. The original idea behind just-in-time, however, wasn't what we are seeing today – rather, it was an essential pillar of the auto industry's business model. Cost, the main dimension of competition during the beginning of the previous century, was no longer the primary focus; instead, speed and variety were. Wealthier customers in wealthier nations wanted something different: better quality, more variety, and faster time to market. The just-in-time concept was built precisely for that. The idea: carry the right amount of inventory based on the disruption and risk you're facing. It wasn't long, however, before other industries followed suit – from consumer electronics to food and beverage to software – all using different incarnations of just-in-time, which quickly pushed it to become the predominant paradigm for business operations. The approach quickly evolved into a model in which businesses reduced their inventory to as little as possible, often neglecting to protect against possible risks. America's businesses were able to operate that way successfully for a long time, until COVID-19 came along and flipped the entire concept on its head via significant supply and demand shocks.
ISM® Services Index Decreased to 60.1% in June -- The June ISM® Services index was at 60.1%, up from 64.0% last month. The employment index decreased to 49.3%, from 55.3%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 contraction. From the Institute for Supply Management: June 2021 Services ISM® Report On Business® “The Services PMI registered 60.1 percent, which is 3.9 percentage points lower than May’s all-time high reading of 64 percent. The June reading indicates the 13th straight month of growth for the services sector, which has expanded for all but two of the last 137 months. “The Supplier Deliveries Index registered 68.5 percent, down 1.9 percentage points from May’s reading of 70.4 percent. (Supplier Deliveries is the only ISM® Report On Business® index that is inversed; a reading of above 50 percent indicates slower deliveries, which is typical as the economy improves and customer demand increases.) The Prices Index registered 79.5 percent, 1.1 percentage points lower than the May reading of 80.6 percent, indicating that prices increased in June, and at a slightly slower rate. “According to the Services PMI®, 16 services industries reported growth. The composite index indicated growth for the 13th consecutive month after a two-month contraction in April and May 2020. The rate of expansion in the services sector remains strong, despite the slight pullback in the rate of growth from the previous month’s all-time high. Challenges with materials shortages, inflation, logistics and employment resources continue to be an impediment to business conditions,” says Nieves. The employment index decreased to 49.3%, from 55.3% in May.
June Markit Services PMI: "Strong business activity growth rounds off best quarter in PMI survey history" - The June US Services Purchasing Managers' Index conducted by Markit came in at 64.6 percent, down 5.8 from the final May estimate of 70.4.Here is the opening from the latest press release:Commenting on the latest survey results, Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at IHS Markit, said:“June saw another month of impressive output growth across the manufacturing and services sectors of the US economy, rounding off the strongest quarterly expansion since data were first available in 2009.“The rate of growth cooled compared to May’s record high, however, adding to signs that the economy’s recovery bounce peaked in the second quarter.“Some of the easing in the rate of expansion reflects payback after especially strong expansions in prior months as the economy opened up from pandemic-related restrictions, especially in consumer-facing companies. However, many firms reported that business activity had been constrained either by shortages of supplies or difficulties filling vacancies. Backlogs of uncompleted orders are consequently rising at a rate unprecedented in the survey’s history, underscoring how demand is outstripping supply of both goods and services.“These capacity constraints are not only stifling growth, but also driving prices sharply higher. June saw the second-steepest rise in average prices charged for goods and services in the survey’s 12-year history, though some encouragement can be gleaned from the rate of inflation easing in the service sector compared to May.” [Press Release]Here is a snapshot of the series since mid-2012. Here is an overlay with the equivalent PMI survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management, which they refer to as "Non-Manufacturing" (see our full article on this series here). Over its history, the ISM metric has been significantly the more volatile of the two.
Employment: June Diffusion Indexes --The employment diffusion indexes are useful in gauging how widespread job gains are in a given month. The BLS diffusion index for total private employment was at 66.1 in June, up from 63.0 in May. For manufacturing, the diffusion index was at 62.0, down from 63.3 in May. Think of this as a measure of how widespread job gains or losses are across industries. The further from 50 (above or below), the more widespread the job losses or gains reported by the BLS. From the BLS: Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.Both indexes declined sharply in March 2020, and collapsed to new record lows in April 2020 due to the impact from COVID-19. Then the indexes increased as the economy bounced back. Both indexes were solid in June, indicating job growth was widespread across industries.
BLS: Job Openings "Little Changed" at 9.2 Million in May - From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary: The number of job openings was little changed at 9.2 million on the last business day of May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires were little changed at 5.9 million. Total separations decreased to 5.3 million. Within separations, the quits rate decreased to 2.5 percent. The layoffs and discharges rate, while little changed over the month, hit a series low of 0.9 percent. The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.This series started in December 2000. Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for May, the most recent employment report was for June. Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are usually pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market turnover. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.The huge spikes in layoffs and discharges in March and April 2020 are labeled, but off the chart to better show the usual data.Jobs openings increased in May to 9.209 million from 9.193 million in April. This is a new record high for this series.The number of job openings (yellow) were up 69% year-over-year. Quits were up 63% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").
May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows job openings held steady and quits dropped --Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her initial insights on today’s release of the Jobs and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for May. Read the full Twitter thread here.
- The layoffs rate continued to trend downwards while the hires rate softened and the quits rate fell. It’s clear the monthly data exhibits some volatility, but the labor market over the last few months continues to move in the right direction.
2/n pic.twitter.com/NBeut1IAIp— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) July 7, 2021 - Using the last three months of data by sector to smooth data volatility, it’s clear that there are still many sectors with far more unemployment workers than job openings. To be clear, these comparisons only include those who are in the official measure of unemployment.
4/n pic.twitter.com/yHZfUaH83f— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) July 7, 2021 - Today’s #JOLTS data are for May. What we know from the latest jobs report is that the labor market continued to pick up steam in June. Subsequent reports will show that this less optimistic report was a temporary blip on the way to a stronger economy.https://t.co/2bKFqKGWDA
6/n— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) July 7, 2021
Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase to 373,000 - The DOL reported: In the week ending July 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 373,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 7,000 from 364,000 to 371,000. The 4-week moving average was 394,500, a decrease of 250 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020 when it was 225,500. The previous week's average was revised up by 2,000 from 392,750 to 394,750. This does not include the 99,001 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) that was down from 114,186 the previous week. The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since 1971.The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims increased to 392,750.The previous week was revised up.Regular state continued claims decreased to 3,339,000 (SA) from 3,484,000 (SA) the previous week.Note: There are an additional 5,824,831 receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) that decreased from 5,935,630 the previous week (there are questions about these numbers). This is a special program for business owners, self-employed, independent contractors or gig workers not receiving other unemployment insurance. And an additional 4,908,107 receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) down from 5,261,991.Weekly claims were higher than the consensus forecast.
Librarian had no bias cutting biracial girl's hair: district --A Michigan elementary school librarian accused of a “modern-day scalping” for cutting a biracial girl’s hair will get to keep her job, district officials said, finding that she didn’t act with racial bias.Mount Pleasant Public Schools launched an investigation into the incident from March, when Jurnee Hoffmeyer, 7, came home in tears after the librarian cut off her curly locks.“It’s clear from the third-party investigation and the district’s own internal investigation that MPPS employees had good intentions when performing the haircut,” school board officials said in a statement Friday, MLive.com reported. “Regardless, their decisions and actions are unacceptable and show a major lack of judgment. The employees involved have acknowledged their wrong actions and apologized.”The district said the librarian, who is white, did not act with racial bias — but it did place the unnamed employee on a “last chance” employment agreement, meaning any future infraction will likely result in her termination.“We believe a last chance agreement is appropriate given that the employee has an outstanding record of conduct and has never once been reprimanded in more than 20 years of work at MPPS,” the Mount Pleasant Public Schools Board of Education said.The 7-year-old girl, Jurnee Hoffmeyer, returned to her Mount Pleasant home in March with most of her hair on one side of her head chopped off.She told her father a white classmate had snipped her locks while on a bus, prompting him to take her to a barber for a new asymmetrical look.But Jurnee returned home in tears from Ganiard Elementary School two days later after a librarian cut her hair again, leaving behind just a few inches of her curly locks.Two other school employees were aware of the incident but didn’t report it. They received written reprimands, district officials said.Jurnee’s father, Jimmy Hoffmeyer, pulled his daughter out of the school following the haircut. She’s now taking classes elsewhere, MLive reported.An investigation into the incident included interviews with district staff, students and their families, as well as a review of video, photographic evidence and social media posts, district officials said.But Jimmy Hoffmeyer, who is black and white, told the Associated Press neither he nor his daughter were questioned as part of the review.“Who did they talk to?” Hoffmeyer reportedly asked Friday. “Did they really do an investigation?”Jurnee’s mom is white.
Los Angeles teachers union reaches agreement to fully reopen schools The United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), which nominally represents more than 30,000 teachers in the country’s second largest school district, has approved a side letter tentative agreement (TA) with the district for the summer session and upcoming school year. Under the terms of the agreement, the district’s 1,000 schools, serving over 600,000 students, opened on June 23 for daily in-person instruction with only three-foot distancing between desks. Without any discussion, the school board approved the agreement only one day before schools reopened. A dangerous precedent has been set by the UTLA which will be followed by districts throughout the West Coast. The reckless school reopening agreement has been finalized as Los Angeles County, like many other parts of the US, experiences another surge of COVID-19 cases as the Delta variant has begun to take hold. In fact, the county reported 506 new infections last Thursday, its largest daily increase in coronavirus cases since mid-April. Furthermore, children under 12 years old—the majority of students returning to classrooms—are not yet eligible for the vaccine and remain unprotected from the virus. Meanwhile, the number of Delta variant cases sequenced in county labs has doubled, reaching a total of 245 last week, or roughly 44 percent of all cases sequenced, according to LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. “Given that 4 million residents in LA County are not yet vaccinated, the risk of increased spread is very real,” Ferrer said. While the union is boasting that 94 percent of teachers approved the TA, the reality is that only 12,193 out of over 30,000 classroom teachers, counselors, nurses, psychologists, social workers and librarians in district and charter schools actually voted; 18,000 abstained from the vote. “With the approval of this agreement, schools across Los Angeles will have critical COVID safety protocols in place when we welcome students back to the joys of full-time in-person learning,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz. Superintendent Austin Beutner, who retired immediately after the agreement was reached, insisted that the district implemented “the highest set of safety standards of any school district in the nation” to protect against COVID-19 as campuses welcomed back students this spring, pointing to upgraded air filtration systems, sanitation efforts and supplies of protective equipment.
Some students thrived learning from home — they deserve a permanent model -In policymakers’ quest to successfully reopen schools, there is a significant challenge we must meet head on to ensure the most equitable learning environment for America’s youth: How we build an inclusive learning environment for students who have thrived during remote learning as well as for those who need the more traditional in-school model to excel academically. Instruction must be the cornerstone of our plan for reopening, but we cannot make it one-size-fits-all. Without the development of an inclusive learning model, we risk losing the innovations and technological advances that have occurred during school closures as well as an opportunity to close equity gaps for our most vulnerable students. The pandemic has highlighted just how many unique factors go into a student’s ability to successfully learn. For every student who excels in the bustling environment of a classroom, there is another who needs a quiet and solitary space free of distractions to complete their work to the best of their ability. For every student who craves the social environment of school, there is another who is thankful for a reprieve from bullying and dreads the thought of returning in person. For every student who is distracted or unmotivated by online learning tools, there is another whoprefers the flexibility of working at their own pace. Many students with disabilities have had limited access to their Individual Education Plans (IEPs) during the pandemic, but while they’ve been at home have not been in such a sensory charged environment, which overall has been a benefit. We need to consider how to meet all of these unique needs in reopening. The pandemic has illuminated something most of us in education already knew — that some children don’t thrive in a traditional school environment. While a large percentage of students need in-person instruction and the socialization that comes from that “normal,” we cannot lose sight of the fact that many children have excelled in remote learning. As we continue to think about what school should look like post-pandemic, let’s be sure we take into account the unique needs of every student to ensure a quality, equitable and ideal education for each of our children.
Homeschool Applications Double In California - The number of home school applications submitted to the California Department of Education (DOE) soared during the 2020-2021 school year, state data indicates. There were 34,715 private school affidavits (PSAs) for five children or less submitted during the most recent curricular year. In California, homeschools are recognized as private schools, and homeschooling families are required to submit an affidavit to the DOE annually.The most recent homeschool figures are more than twice as high as they were during the 2018-2019 school year, when 14,548 PSAs were filed. There were 22,433 PSAs filed during the 2019-2020 school year. “People are just really dissatisfied with the performance of the regular public schools during the COVID crisis,” Lance Izumi, a senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute and author of the upcoming book on homeschooling, “Voices from Home,” told The Epoch Times. Izumi said California’s increase in homeschooling is part of a nationwide trend.Between spring and fall of 2020, the percentage of homeschoolers nationwide more than doubled, jumping from 5.4 percent to 11.1 percent in less than four months.The numbers are classified as true homeschooling and do not include distance learning at a public or private school.The largest increase in homeschoolers was especially notable among minority groups, including black and Hispanic learners.In African American households, the proportion of homeschooling quintupled from 3.3 percent in spring 2020, to 16.1 percent in fall 2020.In Hispanic households, the number of households that opted for homeschooling doubled in the same time, from 6.2 percent to 12.1 percent.
CDC Releases New Mask Guidance For K-12 Schools, Says Vaccinations Should Be Tracked -After telling the public that there's no reason yet to believe they will need COVID "booster shots", the CDC released more updated guidance on Friday morning. This time, the updated guidance focused on precautions that K-12 public schools should take during the upcoming 2021-2022 school year.Most importantly, the guidance included a directive that schools should remain open regardless - even in the event of an outbreak - regardless of whether all COVID-prevention strategies can be implemented. The new federal guidelines aren't mandatory, but they're supposed to give public school administrators a framework to help navigate the complexities of teaching during the COVID era.The updated guidance, which can be read in full here, advised that in-person education is a "priority". Importantly, schools will be asked to keep track of which students and staff have been "fully vaccinated".First, the most important thing schools can do is encourage as many students and staff to get vaccinated as possible. "Achieving high levels of COVID-19 vaccination among eligible students as well as teachers, staff, and household members is one of the most critical strategies to help schools safely resume full operations," the CDC stated.Since not all students will be vaccinated by the conclusion of the upcoming school year, authorities should balance promoting vaccination with modified social distancing strategies. For example, all students should maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance inside classrooms. If this isn't possible, then schools should resort to "layered" strategies including frequent testing, ventilation, handqashing and "respiratory etiquette".School administrators should keep track of levels of COVID prevalence within the surrounding community.Students and teachers won't be asked to wear masks outside, but when levels of transmission in the surrounding community are high, even the vaccinated may be asked to mask up indoors. Additionally, the CDC recommends that bus drivers and their passengers wear masks during the ride to and from school, regardless of whether they're vaccinated or not.For staff and students who aren't vaccinated, the guidance recommends testing them at least once per week, or possibly more if transmission rates in the community rise. For students involved in sports, they may be asked to be tested twice per week.
Florida parents sue Tampa Catholic school, question its teachings - Florida parents sue Tampa Catholic school, question its teachings (AP) – A Florida couple is suing a Catholic school and demanding the return of a large donation, saying it isn’t adhering to Catholic values because of the way it’s handling issues like race and accepting the LGBTQ community. Anthony and Barbara Scarpo filed their lawsuit against the Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa last month. It comes four years after the couple pledged $1.35 million to the school. The couple claims the school has “lost its way” by embracing a “woke culture” where priority is given to “gender identity, human sexuality and pregnancy termination among other hot button issues.” The lawsuit says the Scarpos paid $240,000 toward the pledge as of 2018. The school says it is adhering to Catholic values
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Signs Bill Banning Critical Race Theory - Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation on Friday banning local governments from teaching critical race theory. The governor's office said it was just the latest action Ducey has taken to "prohibit the concerning practice of critical race theory" in the state's public schools and government entities. The office called Ducey's actions "some of the best policies in the country to keep critical race theory" out of Arizona. "I am not going to waste public dollars on lessons that imply the superiority of any race and hinder free speech. "House Bill 2906 goes a long way towards protecting Arizonans against divisive and regressive lessons. … Here in Arizona, we're going to continue to be leaders on civics education and teach important lessons about our nation's history," the governor added. The measure prohibits state and local governments from requiring their employees to undergo orientation, training or therapy that suggests an employee is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. The Arizona State House passed the bill 31-25. It passed the Senate 16-12. The bill builds on another piece of legislation Ducey recently signed that ensures students cannot be taught one race, ethnic group or sex is superior to another or that anyone should be discriminated against on the basis of these characteristics. Critical race theory, a decades-old theory, is the latest political debate in education. While it examines the impact of racism on history and teaches that racism is systemic, Republicans call it divisive, unpatriotic, discriminatory and use the term to simply imply teaching students about racism. Republican-backed bills banning critical race theory or the teaching of topics on race and inequality are advancing in states across the country and piling up in Congress. Arizona state Rep. Jake Hoffman said Arizona's first-in-the-nation legislation makes the state a "national leader in combating this divisive curriculum." "Arizona stands with Martin Luther King Jr.'s proclamation that people should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, and I'm grateful for the support of Gov. Ducey and my colleagues in passing this important legislation," Hoffman said.
Study: Nearly 10 percent of high school students experienced homelessness in Spring 2019 --- A new report finds that 509,025 (9.17%) public high school students in 24 states experienced homelessness in spring 2019 -- three times the number recognized by the states' education agencies. This under-recognition creates gaps in funding and services needed by this vulnerable population.Researchers from Nemours Children's Health and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for public schools across 24 states and 12 school districts. During spring 2019, more than 9% of public high school students experienced homelessness during a 30-day period in the 24 states. The rate was even higher in the 12 school districts, analyzed separately, where nearly 14% of students reported homelessness.The report's authors believe the discrepancy between the CDC's data, collected through the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), and the state and local school agency homelessness estimates is likely due to the more comprehensive nature and complex sampling design of the YRBSS. The YRBSS is an anonymous set of surveys conducted in public high schools every two years. The report analyzed data from all states and school districts that opted to ask about student housing and homelessness for the 2019 YRBSS.Homelessness was more likely among students who were male, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, or Native American/Hawaiian. Students who experienced homelessness reported higher rates of sexual victimization, physical victimization, and having been bullied. Even when controlling for other risk factors, students who experienced homelessness reported higher rates of severe suicidality, hard drug use, alcohol abuse, risky sexual behavior, and poor grades."Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw high rates of homelessness in public high school students and strong links between homelessness and other harmful experiences,"
Teachers pledge to break anti-critical race theory laws -More than 5,000 educators have signed a petition vowing to break anti-critical race theory laws being considered in multiple state legislatures — as the controversial curriculum faces a reckoning in districts across the country. The Zinn Education Project launched the effort in June and singles out proposed legislation in 21 states, which the signers pledge to violate should they become law. A statement attached to the pledge reads, “the major institutions and systems of our country are deeply infected with anti-Blackness and its intersection with other forms of oppression. To not acknowledge this and help students understand the roots of U.S. racism is to deceive them.” The pledge then states, “We, the undersigned educators, refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events — regardless of the law.” Below the pledge is a public list of the thousands of teachers who have attached their signatures to it. The Zinn Education Project is funded by two 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, Teaching for Change and Rethinking Schools.
Largest Teachers' Union Quietly Scrubs Pro-CRT Agenda Items From Website - The nation’s largest teachers’ union has quietly taken down a series of adopted and proposed resolutions from its website, including one that calls for the organization to defend the teaching of Marxism-rooted critical race theory (CRT) in public schools. The National Education Association (NEA), which represents more than 3 million employees in public education, previously showed on its website resolutions proposed during its 100th Representative Assembly. As of the morning of July 6, three days after the online convention concluded, visitors could use the website to track the status of those proposals, including whether they were approved, denied, or referred to a committee.On Tuesday afternoon, however, a number of those agenda items disappeared from the NEA’s website. Their pages now redirect visitors to the 2021 assembly home page instead.Among the now-hidden approved resolutions was Business Item 39, which would cost the union at least $127,600 to advance a pro-CRT agenda. According to the plan, the NEA would share and publicize information about “what CRT is and what it is not,” dedicate a “team of staffers” to assist union members who “want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric,” and provide a study that critiques “power and oppression” in American society, including “white supremacy,” “cisheteropatriarchy,” and capitalism.The measure would also affirm the NEA’s opposition to attempts to ban CRT or the New York Times’ highly controversial “1619 Project,” which recasts American history on the claim that the United States was founded, and remains today, a racist nation.
The Brandeis Language Police Have Suggestions for You - --Language does not shape thought as much as is often supposed. But words can nudge concepts in certain directions if the connection between the word and the concept is clear enough; the compound of chairand the gender-neutral person hints that, for most purposes, the listener doesn’t need to know whether the individual running a meeting was male or female. In the same vein, I heartily approve of the modern usage of they (Roberta is getting a haircut; they’ll be here in a little while). I also like the call to replaceslave with enslaved person. Slave can indeed imply a certain essence, as if it were a status inherent to some people. Enslaved person points up that the slavery is an imposed condition. The distinction matters given how central, sensitive, and urgent the discussion of slavery is in today’s America.But according to counsel from Brandeis University’s Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center, or PARC, considerate people must go further: Apparently, we must retire victim, survivor, trigger warning, and African-American too. We must do so, that is, if we seek to ignore some linguistic fundamentals while also engaging in distinctly callow sociological calisthenics. When we are to even “consider” avoiding the word prisoner (try person who was incarcerated) or walk-in (because not all people can walk) and the phrase everything going on right now (I’ll leave you to find out what’s wrong with that one), we are being preached to by people on a quest to change reality through the performative policing of manners. Sure, parc’s “oppressive Language List” is technically just one statement from one violence-awareness organization at a school in Massachusetts. Not too long ago, it’d have been a mere pamphlet that got passed around a little. But the problem is that a pamphlet in, say, 1998 would have been much less likely to contain advice so counterintuitive to ordinary perception. The PARC list is a sign of our times, in which language policing has reached a near fever pitch, out of a sense that labeling common terms and expressions as “problematic”—that is, blasphemous—is essential to changing society. The Brandeis guidance could easily have come from innumerable other advocacy groups, university bureaucracies, or corporate human-resources offices, and it merits a closer look.
Nikole Hannah-Jones rejects UNC tenure offer to take position at Howard University, backed by millions in foundation funding --New York Times Magazine staff writer and 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones announced in an exclusive interview on “CBS This Morning” with co-host Gayle King that she was rejecting an offer of tenure from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Instead, Hannah-Jones explained that she would accept a tenured professorship at Howard University in Washington D.C. as the Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at the Cathy Hughes School of Communication. Hannah-Jones will join writer Ta-Nehisi Coates (who wrote We Were Eight Years in Power about the Obama administration) in founding the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard. The center will be financed with $20 million from the Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation and an anonymous donor. According to a university press release, the new center “will focus on training and supporting aspiring journalists in acquiring the investigative skills and historical and analytical expertise needed to cover the crisis our democracy is facing.” The 1619 Project was published by the New York Times in August 2019 and has been promoted with millions of dollars in funding and a school curriculum developed by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. It falsely roots American history in an enduring racial conflict between blacks and whites. Hannah-Jones’ lead essay, for which she won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, argued that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery against the British monarchy and that President Abraham Lincoln was little more than a garden-variety racist. Her other writings have descended into outright racism against whites. The historical falsifications which she promotes and her limited journalistic record since beginning to write for the Times in late 2014—just 23 articles—would certainly qualify as red flags in her application for tenure. The announcement of Hannah-Jones’ decision came less than a week after the Board of Trustees at UNC voted 9-4 in a closed session to grant her a lifetime appointment as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media.
Nikole Hannah-Jones rejects UNC tenure offer for position at Howard University - Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones on Tuesday announced she has decided to reject an offer to serve as the chair of the journalism department at the University of North Carolina, and that she will take a similar position at Howard University. The decision follows a massive controversy at the North Carolina school, which initially did not offer Hannah-Jones tenure. "It's a very difficult decision, not one I wanted to make," she told Gayle King on "CBS This Morning." Volume 90% This video will resume in 4 seconds Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones on Tuesday announced she has decided to reject an offer to serve as the chair of the journalism department at the University of North Carolina, and that she will take a similar position at Howard University. The decision follows a massive controversy at the North Carolina school, which initially did not offer Hannah-Jones tenure. "It's a very difficult decision, not one I wanted to make," she told Gayle King on "CBS This Morning." Hannah-Jones said she will serve as the inaugural Knight chair in race and reporting at Howard, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill trustees last week voted to approve tenure for the New York Times Magazine journalist after a broad backlash against their initial decision. The move to at first deny her tenure came after conservative groups complained about her involvement in the creation of the Times’s 1619 Project. “Today’s outcome and the actions of the past month are about more than just me," Hannah-Jones said when UNC approved tenure for her. "This fight is about ensuring the journalistic and academic freedom of Black writers, researchers, teachers, and students. We must ensure that our work is protected and able to proceed free from the risk of repercussions, and we are not there yet. These last weeks have been very challenging and difficult and I need to take some time to process all that has occurred and determine what is the best way forward." On Tuesday, Hannah-Jones said that "to be denied it, and to only be granted tenure on the last possible day at the last possible moment after legal action, after weeks of protests, after it became a national scandal, it's just not something I wanted anymore." Hannah-Jones initially accepted a teaching position at UNC without tenure, but said it was "embarrassing to be the first person [to serve as chair] to be denied tenure," and added she never wanted to create a national scandal over her hiring and tenure status. "This has not become public because of anything I did," she said, noting that she was the first Black person to be tapped as chair of the department at UNC. In a statement issued through the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Hannah Jones criticized UNC for the way she said she was treated through the hiring and tenure approval process. “I was the first Black Knight Chair at UNC since the position was founded and the only one to be appointed without tenure. I would come to learn that not only had there been political interference, but the school’s top donor had been lobbying against me and questioning my credentials and integrity as a journalist," Hannah Jones said. “These last few weeks have been very dark. To be treated so shabbily by my alma mater, by a university that has given me so much and which I only sought to give back to, has been deeply painful." She called the pushback on her appointment and fight for tenure a "dangerous attack on academic freedom," saying the UNC administration "sought to punish me for the nature of my work, attacks that Black and marginalized faculty face all across the country."
Wall Street Journal Fingers Columbia as Leader in Grad Students Whose Student Debt Leaves Them ‘Financially Hobbled for Life’ -- The Wall Street Journal has done a terrific job of reporting in a new article, ‘Financially Hobbled for Life’: The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off. Even though it discusses a general phenomenon, that of too many students of modest means acquiring student-debt-funded graduate degrees where the prospects of the borrowers paying off their obligations is practically nil.The Journal documents that Columbia is the outlier, both in the ratio of “untenable if you don’t have rich parents paying for them” master’s degrees, and the particularly dreadful cost/earnings ratio (proxied by the debt/income ratio) of two programs, drama/theater arts and film. The strength of this piece is the number of damning vignettes, so my recap will fall well short of the full weight of the story. My favorite is the revelation that Columbia’s answer to “Let them eat cake” is “Let them walk dogs”:One foreign student said he notified School of the Arts officials in 2016 that he may need to drop out of the film program because he could no longer afford tuition and living expenses….He received an email that August from an administrator. “I was informed that you might be interested in additional on-campus work opportunities,” said the message, viewed by the Journal. “We were contacted by the Office of President [Lee] Bollinger who hires students for dog caretaking.” President Bollinger said he didn’t know that his Labs were being offered up as income opportunities, and offered that he paid only “pocket money” level remuneration. But the fact that an official steered a desperate student to a clearly meagerly-paid gig demonstrates how unwilling or unable Columbia was to offer meaningful help. Now I am sure many of you are saying, “Theater and film graduate degrees? What did they expect?” First, these students, often from modest backgrounds, say they felt misled by Columbia. This situation reminds me of subprime lending. From 2005 to 2008, in just about every trip I took outside NYC, when I asked about the state of the economy, at least one cabbie would volunteer that he’d looked into buying a house, and the banker had pushed him to buy a much more expensive house than he’d been looking for, arguing that he could borrow enough to acquire it. To a person, these drivers said they knew it was reckless to take on as much debt as the banks wanted them to, and rejected the advice.Here, even if these student borrowers had looked into typical pay levels for master’s degree holders in their chosen fields, they likely believed that going to a top school would enable them to earn markedly more than the norm. Entertainment, like sports, is subject to power law dynamics. A very few at the extreme end of the distribution do fabulously well, and another tier lives nicely. But the dropoff is very steep.
Biden administration cancels additional $55.6 million in student debt - The Department of Education canceled an additional $55.6 million in student loan debt for 1,800 students who were victims of a for-profit college fraud, bringing the total amount of canceled student loan debt by the Biden administration to $1.5 billion. "Today’s announcement continues the U.S. Department of Education’s commitment to standing up for students whose colleges took advantage of them,” Miguel Cardona, the secretary of education, said in the department’s statement released Friday. The latest loan cancellation is for students who attended Westwood College, Marinello Schools of Beauty and the Court Reporting Institute. This is the first time the department approved loan forgiveness to students who attended schools other than Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute and American Career Institute since 2017. “Today’s action continues efforts by the Biden Administration to ensure borrower defense and other targeted loan cancellation, forgiveness, and discharge programs deliver relief to students and borrowers,” the department’s statement said. The borrower defense is a federal regulation by the Department of Education that allows federal student loan borrowers the opportunity to seek forgiveness on their loans if they were defrauded by a college or university. With the additional 1,800 students, the Biden administration has canceled student loans for nearly 92,000 people. The $1.5 billion of canceled loan debt is an attempt by the Biden administration to address the backlog of forgiveness claims left by the prior administration. “The Department will continue doing its part to review and approve borrower defense claims quickly and fairly so that borrowers receive the relief that they need and deserve. We also hope these approvals serve as a warning to any institution engaging in similar conduct that this type of misrepresentation is unacceptable," Cardona added.
Far More Adults Don’t Want Children Than Previously Thought –- Fertility rates in the United States have plunged to record lows, and this could be related to the fact that more people are choosing not to have children. But just how many “child-free” adults there are has been tricky for researchers to pin down.National fertility data provided by the U.S. Census and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lump together all adults who aren’t parents, making it difficult to understand how many people identify as child-free. As social scientists, we think it’s important to distinguish child-free individuals from those who are childless or not yet parents. People who are child-free make the conscious decision not to have kids. They’re distinct from childless individuals – adults who want children but can’t have them – and from people who plan to have children in the future. In a recent study of 1,000 people, we found that over 1 in 4 Michigan adults did not want biological or adopted children and were, therefore, child-free. This number was much higher than those reported in the few past national studies that have attempted to identify child-free people,which placed the percentage between 2% and 9%. Although we can’t be sure why we identified more child-free people in our study, we suspect it may have something to do with how we determined who was child-free. Past studies that attempted to estimate the prevalence of child-free individuals often focused only on women and have used criteria based on fertility. These studies left out men, older adults and biologically infertile people who nonetheless didn’t want children. In our study, we used a more inclusive approach. We looked at both women and men, asking yes-no questions that allowed us to determine who was child-free based on the desire to have children, rather than fertility: In addition to examining how many child-free people there are, we also examined whether child-free people differed from parents, not-yet-parents and childless individuals in life satisfaction, personality or political views.We found that child-free people were just as satisfied with their lives as others, and there were few personality differences. However, child-free people were more liberal than parents. Although child-free people were pretty similar to everyone else, we did find that parents were less warm toward child-free people. This finding suggests that child-free individuals may be stigmatized in the United States.
The Future of Alzheimer’s Pharmaceutical Aducanumab – as a Medicine and as a Financial Product – What Happens Now? --To recap: the FDA recently (and foolishly) approved Biogen’s monoclonal antibody aducanumab as a treatment for Alzheimer’s. It did this on the basis of a surrogate endpoint, amyloid plaque reduction, even though, in NUMEROUS trials, that has not been associated with clinical improvement. The company is claiming that there IS clinical improvement based on high-dose patients in one of two clinical trials that were stopped for futility, based on a post hoc analysis. According to an NEJM Viewpoint article authored by three of the FDA advisory committee members, those patients had an absolute improvement of 0.39 on a clinical scale (the Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes) but “the minimum clinically important difference [on this scale from 0 to 18] is generally considered to be 1 to 2.” The FDA advisory committee was overwhelmingly unconvinced this showed the drug to be effective, but the FDA went the “accelerated approval” route and approved it anyhow, on the basis that it shrinks amyloid plaque.Best case for what happens now is that approval is rescinded, and I think that we SHOULD absolutely push for that sliver of a chance that that could happen. The volume of informed voices protesting the accelerated approval is somewhat heartening, and might indicate wide support for such a move. All the same, that’s a very remote possibility, with FDA leadership firmly opposed, even though a couple of congressional committees are supposed to be looking into the approval. So if rescission doesn’t happen (and I’d have to say it won’t), what now?If one listens to the proponents of the drug, what happens next is likely to be a golden era of progress in treatment for Alzheimer’s. Yes, maybe Aduhelm isn’t very effective overall, but it’s a start and may help some people much more than the average outcome indicates. As a start, it will be followed by better drugs and is the beginning of a new era. The high price is warranted because Alzheimer’s is a huge problem, so even marginal help is of immense value, especially if it accelerates greater progress as more drugmakers jump on the bandwagon.I think some people, including acting FDA head Janet Woodcock, have convinced themselves of the above golden future, but I believe this is a ridiculous fairy tale and about as likely as snow in July. So here’s my version of a rosy scenario: insurers and legislators force down the price of Aduhelm somewhat, and it’s prescribed to a large number of people but not as large as originally predicted. The brain swelling side effects prove to be not too troubling, and although clinical effects overall are marginal to none, it does help some people more than averages would indicate, and some individuals do realize a substantial benefit for themselves. Even in this most rosy of realistic scenarios, the financial impact of the drug will be major, causing huge financial stress on both individuals with Alzheimer’s and on the medical/insurance systems. As well, research on more promising avenues to treat Alzheimer’s will likely be impeded, both because it will be more difficult and complicated to enroll people in clinical trials, and because if companies are incented to develop lousy drugs and can make a fortune that way, the incentive to produce really great drugs is thereby diminished. And, as Elizabeth Rosenthal pointed out in an excellent and interesting column, after the accelerated approval, we may in fact never learn whether Aduhelm actually works or not.
Study ties milder COVID-19 symptoms to prior run-ins with other coronaviruses -- A study by Stanford University School of Medicine investigators hints that people with COVID-19 may experience milder symptoms if certain cells of their immune systems "remember" previous encounters with seasonal coronaviruses -- the ones that cause about a quarter of the common colds kids get. These immune cells are better equipped to mobilize quickly against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, if they've already met its gentler cousins, the scientists concluded. The findings may help explain why some people, particularly children, seem much more resilient than others to infection by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. They also might make it possible to predict which people are likely to develop the most severe symptoms of COVID-19. The immune cells in question, called killer T cells, roam through the blood and lymph, park in tissues and carry out stop-and-frisk operations on resident cells. The study, published online July 1 in Science Immunology, showed that killer T cells taken from the sickest COVID-19 patients exhibit fewer signs of having had previous run-ins with common-cold-causing coronaviruses. "Pathogens evolve quickly and 'learn' to hide their critical features from our antibodies," said Davis, who is also the Burt and Marion Avery Family Professor. But T cells recognize pathogens in a different way, and they're tough to fool.
Scientists identify natural SARS-CoV-2 super immunity against 23 variants. - A team of international scientists has recently identified ultrapotent anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies from convalescent donors. The antibodies are capable of neutralizing a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 variants even at sub-nanomolar concentrations. In addition, the combinations of these antibodies reduce the risk of generating escape mutants in vitro. The study is published in the journal Science. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative pathogen of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the human beta-coronavirus family. The spike glycoprotein on the viral envelop is composed of two subunits S1 and S2. Of which, the S1 subunit directly binds to the host cell angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor through the receptor-binding domain (RBD) to initiate the viral entry process.The majority of therapeutic antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 have been designed based on the native spike protein sequence found in the original Wuhan strain of SARS-CoV-2. Thus, novel viral variants with multiple spike protein mutations may likely develop resistance against these antibodies. In this context, studies have shown that antibodies developed in response to currently available COVID-19 vaccines have less efficiency in neutralizing novel variants of concern (VOCs) of SARS-CoV, including B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P1, and B.1.617.2. In the current study, the scientists have isolated and characterized anti-spike RBD antibodies from COVID-19 recovered patients. The antibodies were isolated from four convalescent donors infected with the Washington-1 (WA-1) strain of SARS-CoV-2. The spike sequence in the WA-1 strain is similar to the spike sequence in the original Wuhan strain. The B cells isolated from donor-derived blood samples were sorted for antibody identification. This led to the identification of four potent neutralizing antibodies targeting the spike RBD. These antibodies showed a high affinity for the SARS-CoV-2 spike even at nanomolar concentrations.All experimental antibodies exhibited significantly higher potency in neutralizing D614G mutation-containing variants than the WA-1 strain. Further analysis with lentiviral particles pseudotyped with spike variants indicated that the antibodies maintain high potency in neutralizing a diverse set of 10 spike variants. Importantly, three out of four experimental antibodies showed high efficacy in neutralizing 13 circulating variants of concern/interest of SARS-CoV-2, including B.1.1.7, B.1.351, B.1.427, B.1.429, B.1.526, P.1, P.2, B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2.
94% of patients with cancer respond well to COVID-19 vaccines - In a U.S. and Swiss study, nearly all patients with cancer developed good immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines three to four weeks after receiving their second dose, but the fact that a small group of the patients exhibited no response raised questions about how their protection against the virus will be addressed moving forward. Among the 131 patients studied, 94% developed antibodies to the coronavirus. Seven high-risk patients did not. "We could not find any antibodies against the virus in those patients," said Dimpy P. Shah, MD, PhD, of the Mays Cancer Center, home to UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson. "That has implications for the future. Should we provide a third dose of vaccine after cancer therapy has completed in certain high-risk patients?" "With other vaccines and infections, patients with cancer have been shown not to develop as robust an immune response as the general population," "It made sense, therefore, to hypothesize that certain high-risk groups of patients do not have antibody response to COVID-19 vaccine." "Patients with hematological malignancies, such as myeloma and Hodgkin lymphoma, were less likely to respond to vaccination than those with solid tumors," Among the high-risk groups, patients receiving a therapy called Rituximab within six months of vaccination developed no antibodies. Rituximab is a monoclonal antibody used in the treatment of hematological cancers and autoimmune diseases. Patients on chemotherapy that is toxic to cells developed antibody response, but it was muted compared to the general population. "How that relates to protection against COVID-19, we don't know yet," Dr. Dimpy Shah said. The Delta variant and other mutants of the COVID-19 virus were not examined in the study. The team also did not analyze the response of infection-fighting T cells and B cells in the patients with cancer.
16-year-old suffers suspected cardiac arrest after Covid-19 jab; expert committee advises against strenuous activities for a week after each dose — The expert committee on Covid-19 vaccination is now advising people, especially adolescents and younger men, to avoid exercise or strenuous physical activity for one week after getting any mRNA vaccine dose. The move comes as the Ministry of Health (MOH) probes the collapse of a 16-year-old male six days after his first Pfizer-BioNTech jab, just after a strenuous gym workout. He is in critical condition in hospital after suspected cardiac arrest. Previously, on June 11, the committee had stated that adolescents and younger men should avoid strenuous physical activity for a week after their second dose of the mRNA vaccines. The earlier advice did not relate to the first dose. The two mRNA vaccines in use here are the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. This change has come about due to the “small but nevertheless statistically significant risk” of myocarditis and pericarditis, types of heart inflammation, observed after vaccination with both the first and second mRNA vaccines, the expert committee added in a statement on Monday (July 5). Both the committee and MOH, in a separate release, also noted the case of the 16-year-old. The youth received his first dose on June 27. On July 3, he worked out with heavy weights above his own body weight prior to what has been preliminarily diagnosed as a cardiac arrest. The youth is being warded in the intensive care unit at the National University Hospital (NUH), MOH said. In updating its advice, the expert committee cited a Health Sciences Authority (HSA) update on Monday which said that as of June 30, the authority had received 12 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis occurring in individuals following their vaccinations with mRNA vaccines. Of the 12 cases, seven of them involved males aged under 30, which was “higher than expected for this age group based on background incidence rates”.
Report: 13-year-old dies in sleep after getting COVID-19 vaccine; CDC investigating — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating the death of a 13-year-old boy who died days after getting his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in Michigan,according to reports. The boy, Jacob Clynick, had no known underlying medical conditions, according to his family.“CDC is aware of a 13-year-old boy in Michigan who died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination,” spokeswoman Jade Fulce said in an email to the Detroit News. “This case is currently under investigation and until the investigation is complete, it is premature to assign a specific cause of death.”Clynick’s aunt, Tammy Burages, told the Detroit Free Press he received his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine June 13 at a Walgreens store. She said he had a stomachache on June 15, and had complained of fatigue and fever, common post-vaccine symptoms. He died on June 15.“He passed away in the middle of the night at home,” Burages said.County health officials told the newspaper that the medical examiner’s office had conducted an autopsy, and Clynick’s death was reported to the CDC. “The investigation as to whether there is a correlation between his death and vaccination is now at the federal level with CDC,” the Saginaw County Health Department said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the health department continues to encourage families to speak with their physicians to weigh their own risks and benefits of vaccination.” The boy’s family said an autopsy showed his heart was enlarged when he died and had fluid around it. “There will be discussions with the CDC and Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Obviously, everyone is concerned with this case. We’re doing everything we can as far as testing and looking at potential problems related to the young man’s death.” In May, the CDC said it was investigating reported cases of heart problems in teenagers and young adults who received the COVID-19 vaccine. According to CDC data, there have been more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis mostly in people 30 and under who received Pfizer’s or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Early Israeli data signals Delta strain may bypass vaccine, cause mild illness. - Rising coronavirus cases in Israel, where most residents are inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, offer “a preliminary signal” the vaccine may be less effective at preventing mild illness from the Delta variant, a top expert said Monday. But Ran Balicer, chairman of Israel’s national expert panel on COVID-19, stressed that it was “too early to precisely assess vaccine effectiveness against the variant” first identified in India in April that is surging across the globe. That is partly due to the overall low number of cases among fully vaccinated Israelis and because those cases are not evenly distributed across the population, further complicating efforts to reach conclusions about the data. Balicer, also the chief innovation officer at Clalit, Israel’s largest health maintenance organization (HMO), told AFP that the Delta variant’s emergence as the “dominant strain” in the country has led to a “massive shift in the transmission dynamic.” Israel’s vaccine rollout that began in December was one of the world’s fastest, making the country a closely watched case study on whether mass inoculation offers a path out of the pandemic. Vaccinations had brought transmission down to about five local new cases per day, but that figure has risen to around 300 in recent days, with the Delta variant raging. About half of the daily cases are among children. Some of the remaining cases appear among vaccinated adults. “To some extent that could be expected since 85 percent of Israeli adults are vaccinated,” Balicer said. “But the rates in which we see these breakthrough cases make some believe they extend beyond that expected point and suggest some decrease in vaccine effectiveness against mild illness — but not severe illness — is likely.”
Pfizer vaccine less effective against delta variant -A study conducted in Israel found that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is somewhat less effective against the more infectious delta variant, though it was still found to be effective at preventing severe illness.As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Pfizer vaccine protected 64 percent of immunized people during an outbreak of the delta variant, a sharp drop when compared to the 94 percent of people it had previously been shown to protect. However, the shot was still 94 percent effective at preventing severe illness, a slight decrease from the 97 percent that were kept from experiencing severe illness previously.The data for the study was collected from June 6 through early July, according to officials from Israel’s Health Ministry. The data and the methodology of the study was not released, according to the Journal.Some health experts expressed skepticism about the Israel study, saying mRNA vaccines like Pfizer have been shown to offer strong protection against COVID-19 infection."Speaking to colleagues in Israel, real skepticism about 64% number," Brown University School of Public Health dean Ashish Jha wrote on Twitter. "Best data still suggest mRNA vaccines offer high degree of protection against infection.""And superb protection against severe illness," Jha added. "Lets await more data but as of now If you're vaccinated, I wouldn't worry."Jha clarified that he was not saying the results of the study were incorrect, but stressed that most data has suggested a high efficacy rate in protecting against the delta variant, pointing to a British study that found it was 90 percent effective.
The world is worried about the Delta virus variant. Studies show vaccines are effective against it. - As the Delta variant sweeps the world, researchers are tracking how well vaccines protect against it — and getting different answers.In Britain, researchers reported in May that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had an effectiveness of 88 percentprotecting against symptomatic disease from Delta. A June study from Scotland concluded that the vaccine was 79 percent effective against the variant. On Saturday, a team of researchers in Canada pegged its effectiveness at 87 percent.And on Monday, Israel’s Ministry of Health announced that the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 64 percent against all coronavirus infections, down from about 95 percent in May, before the Delta variant began its climb to near-total dominance in Israel. Although the range of these numbers may seem confusing, vaccine experts say it should be expected, because it’s hard for a single study to accurately pinpoint the effectiveness of a vaccine.In clinical trials, it’s (relatively) easy to measure how well vaccines work. Researchers randomly assign thousands of volunteers to get either a vaccine or a placebo. If the vaccinated group has a lower risk of getting sick, scientists can be confident that it’s the vaccine that protected them. But once vaccines hit the real world, it becomes much harder to measure their effectiveness. Scientists can no longer control who receives a vaccine and who does not. If they compare a group of vaccinated people with a group of unvaccinated people, other differences between the groups could influence their risks of getting sick.
Pfizer and BioNTech will test a vaccine against the Delta variant. - Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Thursday that they are developing a version of the coronavirus vaccine that targets Delta, a highly contagious variant that has spread to 98 countries. The companies expect to launch clinical trials of the vaccine in August.The Delta variant, first identified in India, is believed to be about 60 percent more contagious than Alpha, the version of the virus that tore through Britain and much of Europe earlier this year, and perhaps twice as contagious as the original coronavirus. The Delta variant is now driving outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries like Malaysia, Portugal, Indonesia and Australia.Delta is also now the dominant variant in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week. Until recently, infections in the United States had plateaued at their lowest levels since early in the pandemic. Hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus have continued to decline, but new cases may be rising, although it’s not yet clear to what extent the variant is responsible. A slowing vaccination drive and swift reopenings also are playing roles.In their news release, Pfizer and BioNTech also reported promising results from studies of people who received a third dose of the original vaccine, but the companies did not provide the data. A booster given six months after the second dose of the vaccine increases the potency of antibodies against the original virus and the Beta variant by five to 10-fold, the companies claimed.The vaccine makers expect to submit that data to the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, a step toward gaining authorization for booster shots. Antibody levels in the blood may decline six months after immunization, the companies said, and booster doses may be needed to fend off variants.But antibodies are only part of the body’s immune response, and independent studies have suggested that immunity induced by full vaccination is likely to remain robust for years, even against variants. A study published in Nature on Thursday found that two doses of the vaccine are highly effective against the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants. Delta is in the spotlight now, but it is a harbinger of variants to come, underscoring the need to vaccinate the world as quickly as possible. Already the Gamma variant, first identified in Brazil, hasfound a foothold in Washington State, and a more recent variant,Lambda, is on the march in South America.
FDA, CDC Contradict Pfizer, Claim There's No Need For "Booster" Vaccines... Yet - Just hours after Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced their plan to seek federal authorization to market a "booster" jab that they said would provide better protection against COVID variants like Delta, the FDA and CDC issued a joint statement contradicting Pfizer by claiming that there's no evidence that booster vaccines will be necessary. The two federal entities said the US is "fortunate to have highly effective vaccines that are widely available for those 12 and up" and "Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time." However that could still change since the "FDA, CDC and NIH are engaged in a science-based, rigorous process to consider whether or when a booster might be necessary." If it is, then "we are prepared for booster doses if and when the science demonstrates that they are needed."After the developments of yesterday, when Dr. Fauci insisted the US-developed vaccines are extremely effective despite Israeli scientists saying the Pfizer jab might be only 64% effective against the Delta variant, the fact that these government agencies are breaking with Big Pharma is just the latest sign that - as former NYT reporter Alex Berenson posited - "they can't even keep the lies straight anymore."As we established yesterday, Dr. Fauci and his cohort of 'experts' are mainly concerned with protecting the vaccines' reputation. If Americans read that they're going to need another booster shot in 6-12 months, then it might de-motivate them to get vaccinated today.Additionally, Pfizer and BioNTech said Thursday evening that they would begin developing a version of a COVID-19 vaccine that targets the delta variant, and that they expect to launch clinical trials of that jab next month.
Recipe for even more powerful vaccines against COVID-19 found. - Scientists have found a recipe for even more effective, powerful vaccines against the coronavirus and its rapidly emerging variants based on the way human cells activate the immune system in response to COVID-19 infection.Findings of the new study—published in the journal Cell—suggest current vaccines might lack some important bits of viral material capable of triggering a holistic immune response in the human body. Researchers from Boston University and the Broad Institute of Harvard University noted this study is the first real look at exactly what types of red flags the body uses to enlist the help of T cells sent by the immune system to destroy infected cells. Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have been focused on activating a different type of immune cells, called B cells, which are responsible for creating antibodies.However, the researchers noted that developing vaccines to activate the other arm of the immune system — the T cells — could dramatically increase immunity against coronavirus, and more importantly, its variants.The researchers performed experiments on human cells infected with coronavirus, isolating and identifying those missing pieces of SARS-CoV-2 proteins inside the lab. The team, including computational geneticists Pardis Sabeti and Shira Weingarten-Gabbay, hoped to identify fragments of SARS-CoV-2 that activate the immune system's T cells.From the start of the COVID pandemic, scientists have known the identity of 29 proteins produced by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in infected cells — the viral fragments that now make up the spike protein in some coronavirus vaccines, such as the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Johnson & Johnson preventives.Spike protein helps the virus to enter and infect the human cells.Later, scientists discovered another 23 proteins hidden inside the virus's genetic sequence.However, the function of these additional proteins has been a mystery until now.The latest findings reveal that 25% of the viral protein fragments that trigger the human immune system to attack a virus come from these hidden viral proteins. "It is quite remarkable that such a strong immune signature of the virus is coming from regions (of the virus's genetic sequence) that we were blind to," said Weingarten-Gabby, the paper's lead author."Our discovery can assist in the development of new vaccines that will mimic more accurately the response of our immune system to the virus," Sabeti said.
The CDC stopped tracking most COVID-19 cases in vaccinated people. That makes it hard to know how dangerous Delta really is - From January to April, just 0.01% of vaccinated Americans — around 10,000 out of 100 million people — got breakthrough infections, or cases of COVID-19 diagnosed after they were fully immunized. That's according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also indicated that certain coronavirus variants were to blame for most of these breakthrough cases. However, the CDC only had genetic sequencing for around 5% of the post-vaccine infections, and the report didn't include data about the Delta variant. That strain, first detected in the US in March, might pose the greatest challenge to vaccine efficacy. But before more data could be collected to answer these lingering questions, the CDC stopped tracking breakthrough infections that resulted in asymptomatic, mild, or moderate cases. Since May 1, the agency has only reported and investigated coronavirus infections among vaccinated people that resulted in hospitalization or death. Sequencing efforts in the US haven't ramped up much, either: The country is still only sequencing about 1.4% of its coronavirus cases, according to data from GISAID, a global database that collects coronavirus genomes. That means it's difficult to tell exactly how much of a risk the Delta variant poses to vaccinated people. Researchers still don't know whether Delta makes breakthrough cases more common, or what the typical symptoms of a breakthrough infection caused by Delta look like. As a result, vaccinated people may have a hard time weighing the risks of returning to normal social activities or knowing what to expect should they develop a rare breakthrough case. In a recent blog post for Harvard Health Publishing, Robert Shmerling, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, called the CDC's decision not to track all breakthrough cases "surprising" and "disappointing." "By tracking only cases requiring hospitalization or causing death, we may miss the chance to learn how people with 'milder' disease are affected by Delta or other variant infections, such as how long their symptoms last and how the infection may disrupt their lives," Shmerling told Insider. He added that the US could also miss important information about which vaccines are most effective against Delta, how long vaccine protection against the variant lasts, and whether the timing of a second vaccine dose might determine one's likelihood of a breakthrough case.
The 3 Simple Rules That Underscore the Danger of Delta - Fifteen months after the novel coronavirus shut down much of the world, the pandemic is still raging. Few experts guessed that by this point, the world would have not one vaccine but many, with 3 billion doses already delivered. At the same time, the coronavirus has evolved into super-transmissible variants that spread more easily. The clash between these variables will define the coming months and seasons. Here, then, are three simple principles to understand how they interact. Each has caveats and nuances, but together, they can serve as a guide to our near-term future.
- 1. The vaccines are still beating the variants. The vaccines have always had to contend with variants: The Alpha variant (also known as B.1.1.7) was already spreading around the world when the first COVID-19 vaccination campaigns began. And in real-world tests, they have consistently lived up to their extraordinary promise. The vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna reduce the risk of symptomatic infections by more than 90 percent, as does the still-unauthorized one from Novavax. Better still, the available vaccines slash the odds that infected people will spread the virus onward by at least half and likely more. In the rare cases that the virus breaks through, infections are generally milder, shorter, and lower in viral load. As of June 21, the CDC reported just 3,907 hospitalizations among fully vaccinated people and just 750 deaths.
- 2. The variants are pummeling unvaccinated people. Vaccinated people are safer than ever despite the variants. But unvaccinated people are in more danger than ever because of the variants. Even though they’ll gain some protection from the immunity of others, they also tend to cluster socially and geographically, seeding outbreaks even within highly vaccinated communities.
- 3. The longer Principle No. 2 continues, the less likely No. 1 will hold. Whenever a virus infects a new host, it makes copies of itself, with small genetic differences—mutations—that distinguish the new viruses from their parents. As an epidemic widens, so does the range of mutations, and viruses that carry advantageous ones that allow them to, for example, spread more easily or slip past the immune system to outcompete their standard predecessors. That’s how we got super-transmissible variants like Alpha and Delta. And it’s how we might eventually face variants that can truly infect even vaccinated people.None of the scientists I talked with knows when that might occur, but they agree that the odds shorten as the pandemic lengthens. “We have to assume that’s going to happen,” Gupta told me. “The more infections are permitted, the more probable immune escape becomes.”
Moving the Covid Vaccine Goalposts --Yves Smith - Our Covid brain trust member GM has been on a tear recently with his readings of fresh studies and news reports about vaccine efficacy, particularly against the Delta variant. The bulk of this post will be quotes from his missives, but first some cheery updates. Delta is indeed looking not nice. From NPR’s The Delta Variant Isn’t Just Hyper-Contagious. It Also Grows More Rapidly Inside You (hat tip David L): After months of data collection, scientists agree: The delta variant is the most contagious version of the coronavirus worldwide. It spreads about 225% faster than the original version of the virus, and it’s currently dominating the outbreak in the United States. A new study, published online Wednesday, sheds light on why. It finds that the variant grows more rapidly inside people’s respiratory tracts and to much higher levels, researchers at the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported.On average, people infected with the delta variant had about 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than those infected with the original strain of the coronavirus, the study reported.In addition, after someone catches the delta variant, the person likely becomes infectious sooner. On average, it took about four days for the delta variant to reach detectable levels inside a person, compared with six days for the original coronavirus variant. Bizarrely, and (as usual) irresponsibly, the CDC and the FDA are recommending against booster shots soon, when Pfizer data from heavily vaccinated Israel (and recall those shots were administered in a much tighter time frame than in the US), shows the waning of immunity there translates into the need for more jabs soon. I’ve been saying for some time that the officialdom should be preparing those who have been vaccinated of the need for another round of shots in the fall/early winter, yet they are trash taking the idea.1 From CNN: Drugmaker Pfizer said Thursday it is seeing waning immunity from its coronavirus vaccine and says it is picking up its efforts to develop a booster dose that will protect people from variants.It said it would seek emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for a booster dose in August after releasing more data about how well a third dose of vaccine works.But in an unusual move, two top federal agencies said Americans don’t need boosters yet and said it was not up to companies alone to decide when they might be needed.Hours after Pfizer issued its statement, the FDA and Centers for Disease and Control issued a joint statement saying Americans do not need booster shots yet.“Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time,” they said. Pfizer and its partner BioNTech said evidence was building that people’s immunity starts to wane after they have been vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses to provide full immunity. And even though there is reason to be skeptical of Pfizer, news stories confirm that their is a rising number of breakthrough cases in Israel, including ones that contra the CDC look to have been contagious. GM’s remarks: Efficiency is down to 64% in Israel right now… And that’s efficiency against both infection and symptomatic disease, though it is still holding higher against hospitalization. The notable thing here is that Israel vaccinated first, i.e. a lot of people there are already at the 6-month mark. Moderna have been claiming that neutralization activity against the more immune-evasive variants has fallen below the protection level at the 6-8 month point in the clinical trial subjects, so seeing a lot of breakthroughs in Israel and at this time makes sense if they were indeed correct. This is being spun right now as “Vaccines work against hospitalization and death, nothing to worry about” and as “nobody promised absolute protection from infection”, which is an obvious goalpost shift because a lot of the people who have “symptoms” but are not hospitalized are far from OK, and, of course, the CDC current guidelines are very much and quite explicitly based on a presumption of sterilizing immunity. But even that narrative will fall apart eventually, because the next step in the decay progression will be for the vaccinated to also start filling up the ICUs, and it’s not far off in the future. Which is why in Israel they are seriously pondering right now whether to start giving out third doses. But that’s Pfizer, the best of the best, not the supposedly crappy Chinese vaccines. Even I did not expect boosters for the mRNA vaccines so soon… Go long masks and social distancing. They’ll be back soon.
Fears arise that Lambda COVID-19 variant from Peru may be resistant to vaccines - Scientists fear that a highly contagious new COVID-19 variant that is ravaging Peru may be resistant to vaccines. The lambda mutation, or C.37, appears to have emerged in Peru last August — and is being blamed for the country having the highest pandemic death rate in the world.The concerning strain has since spread to around 30 countries, mostly in Latin America — but also as far as the UK, which has recorded at least eight cases, according to government figures.There are no known cases of the lambda strain in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In Peru, lambda has accounted for 81 percent of new infections tested for variants since April, according to the World Health Organization.The South American nation currently has by far the highest mortality rate in the world,according to Johns Hopkins University data.There, nearly 10 percent of those recorded as being infected end up dying — with the death rate of nearly 600 for every 100,000 citizens almost double that of the next-worst nation, Hungary, the data shows. The US is 21st with just under 185 deaths per 100,000. Lambda was last month declared a variant of interest by the World Health Organization (WHO), which noted that it was “associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple countries.” “Lambda carries a number of mutations” that may have led to “potential increased transmissibility or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies,” the WHO said. Scientists in Chile — where lambda is blamed for more than a third of the country’s infections — also warned in a recent study, published in a preprint last week, that it appears to evade vaccines better than other strains. “Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the lambda variant confer escape to neutralizing antibodies and increased infectivity,” wrote the researchers from the University of Chile in Santiago. That could explain why it has been able to take hold despite Chile “undergoing a massive vaccination program,” the study warned. “Considering that this variant has rapidly spread in Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina, we believe that lambda has a considerable potential to become a variant of concern,” they concluded in the preprint paper that has yet to be peer-reviewed.
Why health officials are watching new 'lambda' coronavirus variant -- A coronavirus variant known as "lambda" is gaining the attention of health officials as it spreads around the world.The variant, also known as C.37, was first detected in Peru in August 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). On June 14, the agency designated C.37 a global "variant of interest," or VOI, and named it lambda.VOI means the variant is increasingly showing up in communities and has mutations that are predicted to have some effect on viral characteristics, such as increased transmissibility. In contrast, officials use the term "variant of concern," or VOC, once reliable data shows that the variant has increased transmissibility — such as what's been seen with the delta variant — or other worrying features.So far, lambda has been detected in 29 countries, with high levels of spread in South American countries. In recent months, the lambda variant was detected in 81% of COVID-19 cases in Peru that underwent genetic sequencing, according to the WHO. And in Chile, the variant was detected in about one-third of cases, the WHO said. Most recently, the variant popped up in the United Kingdom. On June 25, Public Health England reported six cases of the lambda variant, all of which were tied to overseas travel.Officials are monitoring the lambda variant because it carries a number of mutations that could potentially aid its spread. The variant has seven mutations in the virus's "spike protein" compared with the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 detected in Wuhan, China. Some of these mutations have the potential to increase transmissibility of the virus or to reduce the ability of certain antibodies to neutralize, or inactivate, the virus, according to the WHO. For example, lambda has a mutation known as F490S located in the spike protein's receptor-binding domain (RBD), where the virus first docks onto human cells. A paper published in the July issue of the journal Genomics identified F490S as a likely "vaccine escape mutation" that could both make the virus more infectious and disrupt the ability of vaccine-generated antibodies to recognize the variant.
125 COVID-19 cases linked to Texas church summer camp - Over 125 people who attended a summer camp run by a church in Texas have tested positive for COVID-19, according to its pastor. Bruce Wesley, the lead pastor of Clear Creek Community Church, said the outbreak stemmed from a camp for students from sixth through 12th grade, which over 400 people attended in June, CNN reports."Unfortunately, upon return from camp, 125+ campers and adults reported to us that they tested positive for COVID-19. Additionally, hundreds more were exposed to COVID-19 at camp," Wesley reportedly said in a letter to the church community."And hundreds of others were likely exposed when infected people returned home from camp," he added.Wesley also stated that services at all five of Clear Creek Community Church's campuses south of Houston have been cancelled."From the beginning of the pandemic, we have sought to love our neighbors by practicing strict safety protocols. We are surprised and saddened by this turn of events. Our hearts break for those infected with the virus," Wesley said.CNN reports that the Galveston County Health District was notified of the first COVID-19 case on June 27. The camp itself was held outside of the county. "The health district is working closely with church leadership to investigate the outbreak, trace potential contacts and offer guidance and resources," county health officials said, according to the network. "The youth group did not leave the campground during their stay. They did have contact with counselors from their church. No other campers were on site."
Virus cases are surging at crowded immigration detention centers in the U.S. - As their populations swell nearly to prepandemic levels, U.S. immigration detention centers are reporting major surges in coronavirus infections among detainees. Public health officials, noting that few detainees are vaccinated against the virus, warn that the increasingly crowded facilities can be fertile ground for outbreaks.The number of migrants being held in the detention centers has nearly doubled in recent months as border apprehensions have risen, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. More than 26,000 people were in detention last week, compared with about 14,000 in April.More than 7,500 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the centers over that same period, accounting for more than 40 percent of all cases reported in ICE facilities since the pandemic began, according to a New York Times analysis of ICE data.Prisons and jails in America were hotbeds for the virus last year, with nearly one in three inmates at federal and state facilities testing positive. The virus infected and killed prisoners at a faster rate than it did in nearby populations because of crowding and other factors that made ideal conditions for Covid to spread.As of May, according to ICE’s latest available data, only about 20 percent of detainees passing through the centers had received at least one dose of vaccine while in custody.Dr. Carlos Franco-Paredes, an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine who has inspected immigration detention centers during the pandemic, said that several factors were to blame for the surge, including transfers of detainees between facilities, insufficient testing and lax Covid-19 safety measures.
Coronavirus infections surging in immigration facilities - Cases of COVID-19 are surging in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, as detainee populations have soared over the past few months.An analysis by The New York Times found that more than 7,500 cases have been detected since April. That represents more than 40 percent of all coronavirus cases in ICE detention since the start of the pandemic last year.The rise in infections coincides with a surge in immigrant detention, from 14,000 detainees in April to more than 26,000 at the end of June, according to the Times analysis.While President Biden has aggressively scaled back interior immigrant detentions, ICE facilities are being used to house detainees apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at borders and points of entry. According to an analysis by TRAC, aSyracuse University project that tracks immigration statistics, 82 percent of the detainees in June were apprehended by CBP, not ICE. While the number of detainees apprehended by CBP plummeted during the heights of the pandemic and rose again as more migrants were apprehended at the border, the number of people detained and held by ICE has slowly tapered off over the past two years and has plateaued at about 4,500 since May. ICE officials say the increase in infections is directly correlated to the increase in CBP detainees in their care, all of whom are subjected to testing, quarantine and cohorting once in the detention centers. Prisons, jails and detention centers have been targets of criticism during the pandemic, as populations that could be easily vaccinated have instead been at increased risk of contracting the virus. “Access to adequate health care in immigration detention centers was a problem before the COVID pandemic, and as the virus still rages in detention centers it’s an extremely urgent issue," said Rep. Jesús García (D-Ill.). "People in detention centers are completely dependent on the government for their medical care, and our communities are only safe if we ensure that all people, including immigrants, have access to testing, treatment, and vaccinations," added García. Frustration over the lack of detention vaccines is rising given the abundance of doses in the United States, and the fact that nearly 80 percent of all ICE detainees have no prior criminal record, according to TRAC. "We should be vaccinating everyone in custody to help with the pandemic and to help protect lives," said Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), who chairs the border security subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee.
COVID-19 cases up in nearly half of US states: analysis --COVID-19 cases are trending upwards in nearly half of all states in the U.S., according to a new analysis of Johns Hopkins University data by USA Today. Coronavirus infections in Alaska and Arizona more than doubled in the last week, according to USA Today. Cases in South Carolina and Kansas have increased by more than 50 percent. The number of individuals hospitalized with COVID-19 spiked by almost 30 percent over the July 4th weekend in a hard-hit Missouri area, according to USA Today’s analysis.The increase in hospitalizations in the area, which has a low vaccination rate, caused a temporary shortage of ventilators and a plea for help from respiratory therapists, USA Today reported.The state of Missouri has seen the highest number of new cases per capita over the past two weeks in the U.S., according to USA Today. Only 39.4 percent of its residents are fully vaccinated.The Delta variant, which was first identified in India, has been one of the main forces behind the rapid spread of COVID-19 throughout Missouri, the newspaper reported. The new strain has made matters more difficult for hospitals in Springfield, and has sparked fear that the circumstances could worsen following holiday gatherings.Mississippi is also seeing spikes in COVID-19 infections, which increased by nearly 15 percent in June. The state has the lowest vaccination rate in the country, with only 31 percent of its residents fully inoculated. According to officials cited by USA Today, approximately 95 percent of those hospitalized in Mississippi have been unvaccinated.Anthony Fauci, when asked during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday if he would wear a mask in Biloxi, Miss. right now, considering the state’s low vaccination rate, responded “I think there would be good reason to do that.” “Because as we've said so often, that vaccines are not, even as good as they are and highly effective, nothing is 100%. And if you put yourself in an environment in which you have a high level of viral dynamics and a very low level of vaccine, you might want to go the extra step and say, When I'm in that area where there's a considerable degree of viral circulation, I might want to go the extra mile to be cautious enough to make sure that I get the extra added level of protection. Even though the vaccines themselves are highly effective,” Fauci said.
Without Enough Boots on the Ground, California’s Vaccination Efforts Falter -— Gov. Gavin Newsom routinely boasts that California has “one of the highest vaccination rates in the United States of America.”But Newsom, facing a recall election this fall, rarely mentions that the state’s covid vaccine uptake has largely stagnated in Black and Latino neighborhoods hardest hit by the coronavirus, and in rural outposts where opposition to vaccines runs rampant. In these communities, deep distrust of government and the U.S. health care system has collided with the state’s high-stakes effort to finish vaccinating its 34 million vaccine-eligible residents.These are places where state health officials believe they can change a significant number of minds. But the Newsom administration is struggling to do so, public health experts say, hampered by its inconsistent and hastily developed public messaging and outreach campaign that relies too heavily on private advertising firms and companies such as Google and Blue Shield of California.“Many people don’t trust information being put out about vaccines because it’s coming from private companies that have profit-seeking motives,” said Dr. Tony Iton, a senior vice presidentat the California Endowment, which focuses on expanding health care access for Californians. Iton served as Alameda County’s public health officer from 2003 to 2009.What actually works, Iton and other public health experts say, are well-funded, locally designed operations led by organizations that have built trust with residents and are capable of going door to door to dispel vaccine mythology, such as local nonprofits, county health departments and community clinics.But California’s 61 local public health departments have been stunted by years of declining revenue, budget cuts and staff reductions that have stymied their ability to conduct the expensive and time-consuming public health outreach campaigns necessary to combat vaccine skepticism and hesitancy. “When something like covid-19 comes along, local knowledge is absolutely invaluable in reaching every pocket of that community, particularly in building trust in vulnerable populations,” Iton said. “The state doesn’t have that, Google doesn’t have that, and certainly Blue Shield doesn’t have that.”
The fast-spreading Delta virus is now dominant in California and at least 4 other states, experts say - Data indicates the Delta variant of the coronavirus is already dominant in five US states. The variant, which is more transmissible than previous ones, has reached all 50 states. It is widely expected to become dominant in the country over the next couple of weeks.Some states are further along the curve than others. Data suggests it has already taken over in at least five. This includes California, the most populous state.A variant is considered dominant once it causes a greater proportion of infections than any other. It can reach this level before accounting for 50% of cases, though nations where Delta has existed the longest are registering close to 100% dominance. The Delta variant made up 35.6% of sequenced cases submitted to the international GISAID database during the most recent available period, according to the California Department of Public Health. That was higher than the previously dominant variant, Alpha, which made up 34.3% of cases. Prevalence of variants of concern in California among some sequenced samples as of June 21. California Department of Public Health In the week of June 21, the Iowa State Hygienic lab sequenced 47 cases of the virus, 53% of which involved the Delta variant,according to KWWL. Fifty-six percent of sequenced Arkansas cases were due to Delta as of June 24, according to Action 5 news. St. Louis Public Radio cited Dr. George Turabelidze, an epidemiologist at the state Department of Health and Senior Services as saying that of Wednesday the variant made up about half of the cases in Missouri caused by variants.Seventy percent, or 334, of the 447 cases sequenced on the week of June 13 involved the Delta variant, according to Utah Department of Health data. In the graph below, the variants are called by their scientific names. Delta, or B.1.617.2, is orange, while Alpha, or B.1.1.7, is green. The variant is likely to be dominant in more states. Data reported here is from infections recorded a few weeks ago, a lag caused by the length of time taken to collect and analyze the data. An analysis from the Financial Times published Saturday suggests the variant could already be dominant in 21 states.
Coronavirus dashboard for July 6: bad news and *relatively* “good” news about the Delta Wave - The bad news is that the “delta wave” is spreading, and we should expect a real outbreak on the order of last summer’s by early August. The *relatively* “good” news is that the death rate is likely not to be nearly so bad, if the experience in the UK is any guide. First, here’s the bad news, graphically. Of the 25 US States with the highest rate of infections, only 5 do not show an increase: declines in CO, NM, OR, and WA, and steady cases in DE: Of the 25 States + DC with the lowest rate of infections, 5 have started to trend significantly higher: In other words, the uptrend in new cases has spread to 1/2 of all US States so far. The *relatively* “good” news is founded on the experience of the UK with its “delta wave.” The U.K. experience is a bellwether for where the US is going to be in about 4 weeks. There, the outbreak is now the worst except for last winter’s, and has quintupled in that time. BUT, while deaths typically lag cases by 4 weeks, even a quintupling in the rate of deaths in the UK would put it at perhaps only 10% (!!!) of the level during the first wave of spring 2020: Here is the same graph for the US as a whole: If the US follows the same trajectory as the UK, the daily death count might “only” go up to about 600 or 700 cases by Labor Day or so, compared with 1000 or more during most of 2020.
Delta, as expected, is now the dominant virus variant in the U.S., the C.D.C. estimates. -- The highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is now the dominant variant in the United States, accounting for 51.7 percent of infections, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.As health officials had expected, the Delta variant has rapidly overtaken Alpha, the variant that spread through the United States this spring. Alpha, first detected in Britain, now makes up just 28.7 percent of infections, according to the C.D.C.Still, overall, the average numbers of new virus cases and deaths across the country, as well as hospitalizations, are significantly down from the devastating peaks during previous national surges.Delta was first detected in India. Research suggests that most vaccines still provide good protection against it and remain highly effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.In England, for instance, where the variant now causes almost all infections, case numbers have risen sharply in recent weeks, but hospitalization rates have increased more slowly and remain low. Next week, a final decision will be made about whether to lift most remaining restrictions in England, including mask rules, on July 19.Studies suggest, however, that a single shot of a two-dose regimen provides only weak protection against Delta, and public health experts have been encouraging Americans to get fully vaccinated as soon as possible.As of Wednesday, 67.2 percent of adults in the United States have had at least one vaccine dose, and 58.4 percent are fully vaccinated.Still, vaccination coverage remains highly uneven, both in the United States and globally, and public health experts say Delta poses a serious threat to unvaccinated populations. On Tuesday,President Biden again urged Americans to get their shots, citing concerns about Delta. “It sounds corny, but it’s a patriotic thing to do,” he said.Health experts say the Biden administration may need to take more aggressive action to encourage vaccination, including urging employers and schools to adopt vaccine mandates. As of Wednesday, administering about 0.73 million doses per day on average, about a 78 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported on April 13, according to federal data.As for the virus itself, the country has been averaging fewer than15,000 new coronavirus cases a day for nearly a month, the lowest levels since testing became widely available and a fraction of what was reported in January, when the nation routinely identified more than 200,000 cases in a day.
US sees a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as the Delta variant becomes the dominant strain - No other country has so emphasized vaccine nationalism in its response to the pandemic, at the detriment of the rest of the poorer nations facing their catastrophes with the coronavirus. Nonetheless, as the Delta variant dominates all previous versions across the US, in conjunction with a vaccination campaign that has slowed to a crawl, the US itself is in a precarious position despite Biden’s professed optimism. “Today we’re closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus … we can live our lives, our kids can go back to school, our economy is roaring back,” President Joe Biden brazenly remarked during the Independence Day celebration on the South Lawn of the White House, which ushered in the complete abandonment of all public health measures to stem the rising tide of COVID-19 infections. [emphasis added] Meanwhile, the seven-day average of vaccinations has tapered off below 733,000 jabs a day. Yesterday, only 437,117 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines were administered. Only 47.6 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated. Across the country, there are trends showing a rise in new cases. According to The New York Times tracker, the two-week change has seen a 35 percent rise to an average of 15,259 daily COVID-19 cases. These dire statistics are compounded by the report released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the highly contagious variant is now dominant in the United States, accounting for 51.7 percent of all cases that were genetically sequenced, up from 30 percent just two weeks ago. Despite these worrisome trends, White House press secretary Jen Psaki remarked that the administration would not impose new national mitigation measures, nor has the CDC changed its guidelines. While Biden and his more than 1,000 guests were rejoicing over the return to normalcy, staff at Mercy hospital in Springfield, Missouri announced on July 4 that they had run out of ventilators for their patients. The chief administrative officer at the hospital, Erik Frederick, tweeted that his employees “spent the night looking for ventilators because we ran out.” Of the 47 patients on the ventilators, “a lot of those” were due to COVID-19 infections. With a second COVID-19 ICU unit opened, there are calls for more respiratory therapists to relieve those working grueling long shifts caring for extremely ill patients.
Delta variant said to be far more widespread than federal estimates --The more-transmissible Delta coronavirus variant is believed to be significantly more widespread than the current federal projections, according to two senior Biden administration health officials with knowledge of the situation.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released late Tuesday showsthe Delta strain accounted for more than 51 percent of new Covid-19 cases from June 20 to July 3. But the reality on the ground is likely much higher because states and private labs are taking weeks to report testing results to the CDC, the officials said.“It is everywhere now,” one of the officials said, adding that recent data shows the Pfizer Covid vaccine works well against the Delta variant. “The risk really is in the unvaccinated community. We’re starting to see more and more people get sick and need medical attention.”Covid-19 hospitalizations are up more than 40 percent over the last two weeks in Arkansas, Iowa and Nevada. And emerging evidence from a repository of genetic sequences compiled by Scripps Research's Outbreak.infosuggests that the Delta strain accounted for as much as two-thirds of new Covid cases nationwide over the past two weeks. The site notes the data "may not represent the true prevalence of the mutations in the population."The CDC's data on where the variant is spreading and at what rate relies on reports from state and private labs that sequence samples that test positive for Covid-19. But the process often relies on testing batches of samples that can take weeks to complete. That delays the speed with which Delta infections are reported, according to the Biden health officials and multiple state public health officials.The lack of real-time data has left local health officials unprepared as hospitalizations have surged in parts of the Midwest and Southwest. It also raises questions about how the officials can control the spread as the pace ofvaccination slows.
A leading US disease expert says there's 'no doubt in my mind' that vaccinated people are helping spread Delta - The US is celebrating robust COVID-19 vaccine coverage. Strangers are standing shoulder to shoulder in bars, fans are singing along at packed indoor concerts, and travelers are flying in numbers not seen since before lockdowns began in 2020. "While the virus hasn't been vanquished, we know this: It no longer controls our lives," President Joe Biden said on Sunday, as hospitalizations, cases, and deaths trended down. "America is coming back together," he added. But a quiet new wave of severe COVID-19 infections is brewing, fueled by the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant. "We actually have states where hospitalizations are going up more than cases," Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told Insider, stressing that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may mask the virus' true spread. As the CDC's guidance is not to test vaccinated people unless they're symptomatic, "we're probably missing a bunch of transmission in vaccinated individuals," Murray said. "We have 14 states where transmission has started to go back up," said Murray, who's also the lead modeler at the IHME, which the White House has leaned on for disease projections throughout the pandemic. That's "due to the Delta variant and the fact that everybody's stopped wearing a mask and just basically stopped most precautions," he added. Disease modelers at Scripps have estimated that Delta could be responsible for about 60% of COVID-19 cases across the US. COVID-19 vaccines don't prevent every infection — they are designed to better defend your body against the virus. The vaccines authorized in the US do that very well, even against Delta. Some vaccinated people get a mild, cold-like illness, with a headache and a runny nose. Others could get infected but never know it, becoming silent spreaders. Delta has wreaked far greater havoc among the unvaccinated. Hospitalizations are trending up in several states, including Missouri, Arkansas, Utah, and Mississippi, according to IHME data. Those are some of the same places where vaccination rates are lagging.
Arkansas reports more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases for third straight day Arkansas reported more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases for the third straight day on Friday.The state reported 1,155 new coronavirus cases on Friday, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Health.The number is greater than the 1,000 new infections reported Wednesday but less than the 1,210 new cases reported Thursday.The state has seen a surge in coronavirus infections in recent weeks due in part to the rise of the delta strain of the coronavirus first discovered in India and a lagging vaccination rate.Late last month, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) implored residents to get vaccinated amid the surge.“The overwhelming majority of COVID patients in the hospital have not been vaccinated. These vaccines are effective, but we need more Arkansans to get the shot,” he said at the time.Just under 35 percent of the state’s population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC).According to The Associated Press, Hutchinson has begun a series of town halls aimed at increasing vaccinations.As of Friday, Arkansas has reported 355,460 coronavirus infections since the pandemic began. The state reported four new deaths on Friday, bringing the cumulative death toll to 5,948.The CDC said earlier this week that the delta variant now accounts for the majority of new coronavirus cases across the country.The variant is attributed to a rise in coronavirus infections across several states.Missouri, for instance, is seeing its own surge in cases due in part to the variant. On Friday, the state also recorded more than 1,000 new coronavirus infections for the third day in a row.
Thousands in India given fake coronavirus vaccines at scam drives, officials say - Indian officials said that thousands of people were given fake coronavirus vaccines at scam inoccuation drives, CNN reported on Monday.CNN News affiliate News 18 reported that the scam vaccinations centers took place during late May and early June, with authorities beginning their investigation after some of the scam victims became suspicious of the vaccination certificates they got. A resident told the news source that one of the fake vaccine drives took place at a housing society where they had to pay cash and no one got any symptoms. Mumbai Police Department senior official Vishal Thakur told CNN that 12 fake vaccination sites had been held in the city, saying that the fake doctors were using saline water to inject their victims. Thakur said that an estimated 2,500 people received fake vaccine shots with the organizers making $28,000 in charged fees, according to CNN. This comes as India has battled the second wave of the virus, which infected millions of people and killed tens of thousands of others, for nearly three months. Thakur told CNN that they have arrested 14 people on suspicion ofcheating, attempts at culpable homicide, criminal conspiracy, and other charges in the vaccination scam "We have arrested doctors," Thakur said. "They were using a hospital which was producing the fake certificates, vials, syringes."
Fighting junk science in COVID-ravaged India -“Cow dung can save you from getting COVID-19.” “Eating raw onions with sea salt is a surefire COVID cure.” And “5-G telephone signals are helping to spread the deadly coronavirus across India.” These are just a few of the dozens of bizarre theories rampantly spreading on Indian social media. All countries seem to have their fair share of COVID-19 junk science, or “COVID Quack” as some commentators have labeled it. The U.S. is hardly immune to such misinformation, but preposterous theories seem to crop up more frequently and spread faster in India than most places. A London-based investigative journalism nonprofit recently identified more than 150 examples of COVID-19 misinformation posted on Indian Facebook pages in April and May; they had an audience of more than 100 million people. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found more than 60 examples of COVID-19 misinformation shared on Indian Twitter accounts, too, reaching more than 3.5 million followers. Some of the quackery is almost comical. There was the Indian guru who told his rapt audience: “If you take steam, there is no way you will get COVID.” Other medical amateurs swear that putting drops of mustard oil or lemon juice in the nose can stop the virus. The Modi government has been pushing back against fabrications and fables. Why? There’s nothing funny about providing false hope in a country that has been so devastated by the pandemic — and as the deadly Delta variant has spread around the globe. About 1 in 45 Indian residents have been infected with the virus since the outbreak began, the New York Times reports, and 400,000 Indians have died. Meanwhile, less than 5 percent of the Indian population has been fully vaccinated. This is why the American India Foundation (AIF) is extending a lifeline to India. With funds raised by concerned Americans with deep Indian roots, it has just launched an ambitious program to help get shots into the arms of 1 million of the most vulnerable Indian citizens — people with disabilities, street vendors and migrant workers, sex workers, impoverished women laborers, and tribal groups. These communities frequently suffer from a lack of awareness about the urgent need to get vaccinated, and often buy into the myths and negative attitudes about these lifesaving vaccines. Often without strong digital literacy, these neglected groups typically lack access to the internet, too. But mitigating misinformation is the first step. AIF is launching a $1.5 million awareness and behavioral-change campaign in India, in three native languages, to dispel rumors and provide accurate COVID-19 information. Ads will run on TV, radio, in newspapers and on the web, and billboards and posters will repeat the messaging in rural villages. An army of credible messengers will target local influencers including religious leaders, faith healers and hospital administrators to continue dispelling vaccination myths door-to-door at a micro level.
COVID-19 surge in Indonesia compounded by lack of resources - The surge in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia, due to the Delta strain of coronavirus, has been exacerbated by insufficient resources. Java, the country’s main island, ran short of oxygen supplies, resulting in the death of 33 patients at Dr Sardjito General Hospital in Yogyakarta on Saturday, according to Banu Hermawan, a hospital spokesperson. The country currently has 295,000 active cases, with a total of 2.2 million cases and 60,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. Indonesia’s population is 270 million. “The spread of this virus variant is very fast,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said during an online seminar on Sunday, where he suggested the virus had arrived through the country’s ports. Read more: The rise of COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea “Because many seaports in Indonesia carry goods and many also come from India, they enter from there.” Other experts have suggested the resurgence is due to travel at the end of Ramadan, where people headed to their home towns, along with lack of cohesive health policies and confusing messaging about restrictions and safety. Tougher restrictions and enforced curfews have now been introduced. “We are setting up (patrols) in 21 locations where typically there are crowds,” said Istiono, the head of national traffic police, on Friday. “Where there are street stalls and cafes, we will close those streets, maybe from around 6pm until 4am.” To date, Indonesia has administered 45.5 million doses of vaccine. Around 5% of Indonesians are fully vaccinated, which is lower than the 7% of Australians who are fully vaccinated from approximately 8 million doses. The country suspended use of AstraZeneca following concerns about side effects, so most of the vaccine administrations have been with Sinovac.
Indonesia to Import Oxygen Tanks as Health System Struggles --Indonesia plans to start importing oxygen tanks as the country battles a fresh wave of coronavirus infections that has overwhelmed its medical system. Local media have reported that hospitals in Java, the country’s most populated island, are facing a shortage of oxygen. More than 30 patients died in a hospital on Saturday in Yogyakarta after it briefly ran out of supply, CNN Indonesia reported on Sunday. The government is urging those with mild symptoms to be treated at home “because hospitals are full,” Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said in a parliamentary hearing Monday. Bed occupancy rates at hospitals across the nation have hit 74%, with some exceeding 100%, said Lia Gardenia Partakusuma, secretary general of the National Hospital Association. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy recorded another deadliest day on Monday as fatalities hit 558 in the past 24 hours and 29,745 tested positive for the virus. More than 2.3 million have been infected, the worst in Southeast Asia. The latest outbreak threatens economic recovery as the government warns growth may slow to around 4% in the second quarter amid tighter curbs on movements. Growth may improve in the third quarter if the virus spread can be contained by July, said Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati. The numbers are likely to stay high over the next 10 to 14 days, driven by the highly contagious delta strain of the virus, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, who leads the pandemic response in Java and Bali, told reporters Saturday. Mobility has to be reduced by 50% to be able to slow the spread of the delta variant, according to health ministry’s spokesman Jodi Mahardi. Jakarta still saw high traffic on Monday, the first work day since the curbs came into effect, Governor Anies Baswedan said in a briefing. Companies in essential and critical sectors will have to register their employees, and people are urged to report any non-essential companies that tell their employees to go to office, he said. Indonesia will take stern action against those who flout restrictions, including shutting businesses, and have asked the police to investigate those who hoard drugs and manipulate their prices for profit, Panjaitan said in a Monday briefing. The government is also tightening restrictions in 43 regencies outside of Java and Bali, imposing shorter operating hours and limited capacity for offices, restaurants and shopping malls, said Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto in a late Monday briefing.
Indonesia oxygen shortage: Dozens of covid patients die as hospital’s supply runs out - Washington Post --Dozens of patients died when a public hospital on the island of Java nearly ran out of oxygen over the weekend, underscoring dire oxygen shortages in parts of Indonesia as the island nation suffers from a major coronavirus outbreak. Sixty-three patients died between Saturday and early Sunday at the Dr. Sardjito General Hospital in Yogyakarta city, CNN reported, citing a statement released by the hospital. The hospital’s oxygen supply was replenished as of early Sunday morning. But the episode highlighted the strain Indonesia’s hospitals are experiencing amid a variant-driven surge of infections and a sluggish vaccination campaign. Indonesia’s geography — consisting of a string of islands between the Pacific and Indian oceans — has also complicated the distribution of critical medical supplies, including oxygen. “Due to an increase of three to four times in the amount [of oxygen] needed, the distribution has been hampered,” said Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, according to the Associated Press.The deadly shortage in Yogyakarta came after Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said last week that the government had guaranteed oxygen for covid-19 patients. He also told CNBC that Indonesia had “learned from our neighbors” about the threat of oxygen scarcity and that the country had capacity to ramp up oxygen production.However, oxygen “is not well spread,” he said, “because the factories are mostly located in west Java and east Java, not in central Java. That is where … we see the lack of oxygen, because of distribution issues rather than supply issues.”Scenes of overwhelmed hospitals and desperate struggles to procure oxygen in nearby India in the spring served as a warning to neighboring countries that are now experiencing their own severe outbreaks.The Sardjito hospital said in a statement that it had sought more oxygen for days before its supplies almost ran out, but that the number of virus patients over the weekend had overwhelmed the hospital, CNN reported.
Indonesia running out of oxygen as coronavirus infections surge - Indonesia is grappling with a shortage of oxygen amid a surge of coronavirus cases in the country. Between Saturday and early Sunday local time, 63 patients died at a hospital on one of the country’s islands, Java, after their oxygen supplies had nearly been used up, CNN reported. Though the hospital had tried acquire more resources, oxygen supplies were used up faster than expected after the hospital saw a wave of COVID-19 patients that outpaced its capacity. The hospital was able to receive fresh supplies by early Sunday morning. A hospital spokesperson could not confirm to CNN if all of the patients who died were COVID-19 patients. As a whole, the daily oxygen need in Indonesia is nearly outpacing by production. The AP reports that demand has reached 1,928 tons of oxygen per day, and government data says that available production capacity is 2,262 tons a day. Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s minister in charge of the country’s pandemic response, said it received a shipment on Friday from Singapore of 1,000 ventilators, oxygen cylinders and other supplies, The Associated Press reported. He said they also received a shipment from Australia of an additional 1,000 ventilators. Pandjaitan added that the country planned to buy 36,000 tons of oxygen, and 10,000 concentrators from Singapore, according to the wire service. “I asked for 100% of oxygen go to medical purposes first, meaning that all industrial allocations must be transferred to medical,” said Pandjaitan, according to AP. “We are racing against time, we have to work fast.” It’s a very different picture than that of two months ago, when Indonesia was supplies oxygen for India, where the delta variant was first identified. The need for oxygen comes after the country donated about 3,400 oxygen cylinders and concentrators to India at the height of the country's surge. However, plans to send another 2,000 oxygen concentrators to India in mid-June were cancelled as the number of cases surged in Indonesia, according to the AP. Since the start of the pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) reports the country has seen 2.4 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus and over 64,000 confirmed deaths from the disease. The AP notes that those numbers are expected to be higher because of poor contact tracing and low testing.
Israel faces new coronavirus outbreak due to the Delta variant - Israel, the world’s third-most vaccinated country by share of the population, is experiencing a new outbreak of COVID-19 due to the more contagious Delta variant. The Health Ministry reported 343 new cases on July 4, the most cases in three months. Since first being detected on April 16, the Delta variant now comprises 90 percent of coronavirus cases in Israel. The outbreak is particularly concerning given Israel’s vaccination program. According to Our World in Data, Israel has currently given at least one dose to 65 percent of its population, bested only by the United Kingdom’s 67 percent and Canada’s 69 percent. Until early June, Israel was the most vaccinated country by this metric. About 56 percent of Israelis are fully vaccinated, most with the vaccine produced by Pfizer. The Health Ministry expects new cases to increase to 500-600 per day this week, while a team at Hebrew University warn that daily cases could reach 1,000 in two weeks. Daily new cases peaked at an all time high on January 17 with a seven-day-average just over of 8,600 per day and fell to a low of less than 10 on June 9. With the resurgence of the virus, the government has reinstituted some measures, including an indoor mask mandate, and has resumed meetings of the so-called coronavirus cabinet. Not only is the Delta variant more contagious, but it also appears to partially evade immunity provided by the vaccines which had previously been regarded as the most effective, including the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine. According to the Ynet news site, Health Ministry data show that the Pfizer vaccine is now 64 percent effective in preventing infection, whereas before the rise of the Delta variant in Israel it was 94.3 percent effective. This is corroborated by a study from Hadassah University Medical Center and Hebrew University, which estimate the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness against the Delta COVID-19 variant at 60-80 percent. However, the vaccines do seem to largely protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death. Ynet reports that recent Health Ministry data show 93 percent effectiveness against severe disease, whereas previously it was 98.2 percent. Given the delay between infection and hospitalization, and between hospitalization and death, the real effectiveness against the Delta variant may be slightly lower. This is comparable to initial data from the UK and Singapore on severe illness.
Euro 2020 football cup linked to thousands of COVID-19 cases as delta variant sweeps Europe - The delayed 2020 UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Football Championship (Euro 2020) began a year late on June 11 and is now at the semi-final stage. While in previous Euro cups one nation has hosted the competition, Euro 2020 has seen 24 national teams play in 11 different cities across Europe, from Seville to Baku. Tournament matches have been attended by over 800,000 fans despite the resurgence of COVID-19. Many of those in attendance travelled hundreds or thousands of miles to watch their team play. Next week’s semi-final and final matches are due to be attended by over 60,000 fans each at London’s Wembley stadium, though Britain is deep into a third wave of coronavirus driven by the more deadly and more infectious delta variant. England’s Round of 16 victory against Germany at Wembley Stadium, attended by more than 40,000 fans, led to wild celebrations of thousands of closely-packed home fans shouting and singing arm-in-arm despite the “official” implementation of social distancing within stadiums. The government pushed forward with the large attendance at matches, and the media promoted celebrations violating social distancing measures as part of the ruling class’ effort to promote a “back to normal” attitude. Britain’s Conservative government also hopes to use the strong performance of the England team, which will play a semi-final against Denmark at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday. The intent is to raise nationalist fervour and distract from the government’s deadly herd immunity policy that has led to over 152,000 deaths where a death certificate mentions COVID-19 as one of the causes. On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood on a massive English flag draped across Downing Street to declare his support for the team before its quarter-final against Ukraine that evening. On Saturday, the UK had a seven-day average of 23,115 cases, up from 13,835 a week earlier. According to the British Medical Association, COVID-19 hospitalizations in Britain have risen 55 percent over this period. On June 30, the UK saw 331 new hospitalizations from COVID-19, the most since March 18. The spread of the delta variant in Britain is a warning for what is to come on the European continent, which has an even lower vaccination rate.
European states scrap social distancing as COVID-19 pandemic surges - The COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the Delta variant, is surging in Europe. New COVID-19 infections across Europe rose by 43 percent over the last week to 548,000, as European governments end social distancing measures. Over 80 percent of the cases were concentrated in Britain (190,294 cases), Russia (168,035) and Spain (89,036), where cases rose 148 percent. In several countries with smaller caseloads, however, infections are spreading even faster, pointing to the danger of a catastrophic rise of COVID-19 cases, despite ongoing vaccination campaigns. Weekly COVID-19 cases quadrupled in Luxembourg to 961, tripled in the Netherlands (to 11,480) and Greece (8,504), and doubled in Denmark (3,208). They rose around 50 percent in France (19,364) and Portugal (16,469). On July 1, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge had said: “Last week, the number of cases rose by 10 percent, driven by increased mixing, travel, gatherings and easing of social restrictions.” He also warned that the Delta variant will dominate in Europe by August, under conditions where 63 percent of Europe’s population still has not received its first vaccine dose. Half the elderly and 40 percent of health care workers are unvaccinated. On this basis, he warned that “there will be a new wave in the WHO European region.” Kluge’s projections and warnings of a new wave of the pandemic exploding across Europe are being realized. Over 1.1 million people have already died of COVID-19 in Europe, but European governments are pressing ahead with unabashed contempt for human life, adopting opening policies leading to a new surge of millions of cases. By eliminating social distancing rules that undermine business profits, they thus hope to intensify the funnelling of social wealth to the top of society, after the pandemic last year saw bank bailouts increase Europe’s billionaires’ collective wealth by €1 trillion. Britain is leading the trend that is unfolding across Europe. After France scrapped social distancing rules for businesses on July 1, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson aims to end mask requirements and social distancing measures by July 19. Epidemiologist Professor Neil Ferguson has warned that the UK could see 150,000 to 200,000 by the end of the summer, but Johnson bluntly demanded that the economy and corporate profits take priority over lives. “We’re seeing rising hospital admissions, and we must reconcile ourselves, sadly, to more deaths from COVID,” Johnson said, adding: “We have to balance the risks of the disease and of continuing with legal restrictions, with their impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.” An indication of the scope of the disaster that could result was a study last month from Public Health England. It showed that so far, 117 people have died of the Delta variant in Britain, including 50 who were doubly vaccinated, as vaccinations bring down the death rate to 0.13 percent. However, even if this far lower death rate were to maintain itself despite the vast increase in circulation of the virus, this would mean 200 to 250 deaths per day in Britain by the end of the summer if Ferguson’s projections were realized.
British health secretary says infections expected to double in next two weeks -The British health secretary said Tuesday that coronavirus infections in the country are expected to double in the next two weeks as the United Kingdom lifts remaining restrictions on gatherings of people. “As we ease and go into the summer, we expect them to rise significantly, and they could go as high as 100,000 case numbers,” Sajid Javid said on BBC radio.Despite the expected jump in numbers, Javid stressed the concern is about hospitalizations and deaths, which are at better levels than previously recorded.“What matters more than anything is hospitalization and death numbers, and that is where the link has been severely weakened,” Javid said.“Just to put a number on that — at the moment, we are seeing around 25,000 new cases a day. The last time was saw numbers like that, we sadly had deaths of around 500 a day. And now we are at about one-thirtieth of that,” he added.The increase in cases is stemming from the delta variant that has caused many countries to see a spike in cases, including in countries with strong vaccination programs.Despite the rise in cases, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday all coronavirus restrictions will be lifted July 19. This includes capacity limits and social distancing rules being lifted.
Africa marks its ‘worst pandemic week’ yet, with cases surging and vaccine scarce, the W.H.O. says. - Africa has just had its “worst pandemic week ever,” the World Health Organization said on Thursday. The continent is short of vaccines, and the virus is sickening its young people and overwhelming its already fragile health care systems.More than 251,000 new cases were reported in Africa in the week ending July 4, a 20 percent increase from the previous week, according to Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the W.H.O. regional director for Africa.For several weeks now, the continent has been experiencing a brutal wave of infections driven by the more contagious Delta variant, which is increasing hospitalization and fatalities, filling intensive-care beds, depleting oxygen supplies and pushing governments to institute new lockdown measures.Sixteen African countries are reporting a resurgence in infections, with Malawi and Senegal added to the list this week. New case counts are doubling every 18 days, Dr. Moeti said, and have been rising for seven straight weeks.“A few weeks ago, we projected this milestone would be reached shortly, and it brings me no joy to be right,” Dr. Moeti said at a news conference on Thursday. “For Africa, the worst is yet to come,” she warned, adding, “The end to this precipitous rise is still weeks away.”A third wave of the pandemic is ripping through countries mainly in southern and eastern Africa, and one country in North Africa — Tunisia — is experiencing its fourth wave. Namibia, a nation of just over 2.5 million people, has been recording more than 1,000 new cases a day, and several senior government officials have succumbed to the virus. A spike in cases in Zambia has pushed the government to restrict social gatherings and close schools. In Uganda, which was praised for its initial coronavirus response, hospitals have been stretched thin, with some patients racking up huge medical bills. Rwanda restricted movement in its capital late last month, and Kenya instituted partial lockdowns and extended curfew hours in over a dozen counties where the Delta variant was contributing to surges.Many African countries continue to face challenges in detecting and sequencing virus variants, Dr. Moeti said. Testing and tracing remain limited as well: In a continent of 1.3 billion people, just over 54 million Covid-19 tests have been conducted, according to Dr. John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa C.D.C.But the biggest challenge has been vaccination. With just over 53 million doses administered, only about 1 percent of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated.African officials have accused wealthy nations of hoarding vaccine doses while millions of Africans remain vulnerable. Most African countries are dependent on the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative, which has been severely hampered by the Indian government’s decision in April to hold back doses manufactured there for domestic use and restrict exports.
The world’s known Covid death toll passes four million. -The world’s known coronavirus death toll passed four million on Thursday, a loss roughly equivalent to the population of Los Angeles, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.It took nine months for the virus to claim one million lives, and the pace has quickened since then. The second million were lost in three and a half months, the third in three months, and the fourth in about two and a half months. The number of daily reported deaths has declined recently.Those are officially reported figures, which are widely believed to undercount pandemic-related deaths.“The numbers may not tell the complete story, and yet they’re still really staggering numbers globally,” said Jennifer B. Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.Ms. Nuzzo said the number of excess deaths reported around the world suggested that “lower-income countries have been much harder hit than their official numbers would suggest.”Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, called four million dead a tragic milestone on Wednesday, and said the toll was continuing to mount largely because of dangerous versions of the virus and inequities in the distribution of vaccines.“Compounded by fast-moving variants and shocking inequity in vaccination, far too many countries in every region of the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalizations,” Dr. Tedros said at a news conference.The official death toll numbers tell only part of the horrifying pandemic story. In many places, people have died without family to comfort them because of rules to prevent the spread of the virus. And many countries were completely overrun.The dead overwhelmed cremation grounds in India in May, whereat least 400,000 confirmed deaths have been reported and the actual number is likely higher. That was also the case in funeral homes in the United States, which surpassed 600,000 known deathslast month.
Pandemic surges in South Korea as government pushes to end social distancing The number of daily new COVID-19 cases is rising again in South Korea, reaching their highest levels in months, including 1,275 infections on July 7. The number of new cases in Seoul the previous day reached 583, the most in the city since the pandemic began. The numbers continue to climb as the more dangerous and contagious delta variant begins to take hold. However, central and local governments are pushing to remove even the limited measures in place to control the virus. Since the end of January, new cases of COVID-19 in South Korea have ranged between 300 and 700 per day, but plans remain to relax social distancing measures. On June 24, when the government announced it would proceed, despite an uptick in cases, the seven-day national average for new infections stood at 489. As of July 6, the number had shot up to 768. In total, more than 2,000 people have died from the virus. The central government enacted a new 4-tier social distancing scheme on July 1, which ends most of the measures throughout the country, with the exception of the Seoul metropolitan area, where approximately 80 percent of the new infections have been discovered. This region, which includes the capital city, Gyeonggi Province, and Incheon, is densely populated and home to approximately half of South Korea’s 51 million residents. The “Level 1” restrictions in place for the rest of the country are basically non-existent. The new rules lift curfews on businesses, such as restaurants and bars, so long as they maintain the inadequate 1 meter of space between customers, and allow an unlimited number of people to gather. While provincial and city governments have stated they will maintain a cap of eight people on groups in public, they also plan to remove this restriction by July 14. Given the surge in cases in the Seoul area, the government postponed the relaxation of social distancing until July 7, and has extended restrictions again for another week. This means public gatherings of five or more people are banned and most businesses must close by 10pm.
War on Science Persists Within Biden EPA as Staffers Allege Chemical Reports Altered - Four scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency are alleging that the “war on science” is continuing under the Biden administration, with managers at the agency altering reports about the risks posed by chemicals and retaliating against employees who report the misconduct. The government watchdog Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) filed a formal complaint Friday on behalf of the scientists with the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General, calling for an investigation into reports that high-level employees routinely delete crucial information from chemical risk assessments or change the documents’ conclusions to give the impression that the chemicals in question are not toxic. The group also wrote to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Environment, calling on lawmakers to work with the inspector general to investigate the allegations. The report follows outrage about officials in the Trump administration covering up scientific facts by deleting the EPA’s climate change website, but PEER emphasized that the problem is persisting at the agency six months into President Joe Biden’s term. “These alterations of risk assessments are not just artifacts of the Trump administration; they are continuing on a weekly basis,” said Kyla Bennett, science policy director at PEER who formerly worked at the EPA. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the agency is responsible for evaluating the risks of existing chemicals as well as those slated to be manufactured in or imported to the United States. The four employees said in the complaint that they’ve observed “numerous instances” in which significant changes were made to their own assessments, including:
- The removal of language identifying possible adverse effects of chemicals, including developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, mutagenicity, and/or carcinogenicity;
- Changes to report conclusions to indicate that there are no signs of toxicity “despite significant data to the contrary”; and
- Risk assessments being reassigned to inexperienced employees “to secure their agreement to remove issues whose inclusion would be protective of human health.”
“The resulting Material Safety Data Sheets lack information vital to prevent harmful exposures, such as proper handling procedures, personal protection needed, accidental release measures, first aid, and firefighting measures,” said PEER.In one case, managers increased the dose considered safe for consumption for a certain chemical by nearly 10,000-fold, according to The Hill. “All of these altered assessments need to be pulled back and corrected in order to protect both workers handling chemicals and the American public,” said Bennett.
New UC Berkeley Study Suggests Cell Phone Use Increases Risk of Cancer - - New UC Berkeley research draws a strong link between cell phone radiation and tumors, particularly in the brain. Researchers took a comprehensive look at statistical findings from 46 different studies around the globe and found that the use of a cell phone for more than 1,000 hours, or about 17 minutes a day over a ten year period, increased the risk of tumors by 60 percent. Researchers also pointed to findings that showed cell phone use for 10 or more years doubled the risk of brain tumors. Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health with theUC Berkeley School of Public Health conducted the research in partnership with Korea’s National Cancer Center, and Seoul National University. Their analysis took a comprehensive look at statistical findings from case control studies from 16 countries including the U.S., Sweden, United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. "Cell phone use highlights a host of public health issues and it has received little attention in the scientific community, unfortunately," said Moskowitz. Cell phone use has increasingly become part of people’s daily lives, especially with the emergence of smartphones. Recent figures from the Pew Research Center showed that 97% of Americans now own a cell phone of some kind. This, as more and more people have become dependent on their mobile phones as an integral mode of communication. Figures from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics found 61.8% of adults have decided to go wireless-only. With the increased use of mobile devices, the research has been vast on their potential link to cancer. The findings have varied and at times been controversial. Many studies looking into the health risks of cell phone use have been funded or partially funded by the cellular phone industry, which critics argue can skew research results. "Moskowitz emphasized that these studies have been controversial as it is a highly sensitive political topic with significant economic ramifications for a powerful industry," Berkeley Public Health noted.
Fish are becoming addicted to methamphetamines seeping into rivers --Illicit drug use is a growing global health concern that causes a financial burden of hundreds of billions of dollars in the US alone. But hidden beneath the societal costs of this human epidemic is a potential ecological crisis. As methamphetamine levels rise in freshwater streams, fish are increasingly becoming addicted. “Where methamphetamine users are, there is also methamphetamine pollution,” says Pavel Horký at the Czech University of Life Sciences.Humans excrete methamphetamines into wastewater, but treatment plants aren’t designed to deal with such substances. Because of this, as treated wastewater flows into streams, so do methamphetamines and other drugs.In some streams in the Czech Republic, methamphetamine concentrations have been measured at hundreds of nanograms per litre, according to Horký and his colleagues, but the effect of these levels on aquatic animals has been unclear. To investigate, they set up an experiment to detect possible adverse side effects of this hidden ecological epidemic. They divided 120 hatchery reared brown trout (Salmo trutta) into two 350 litre tanks. The water in one tank contained methamphetamines matching concentrations measured in wild streams while the other was left uncontaminated as a control. After eight weeks, the researchers removed the methamphetamine from the experimental tank. During the following 10-day “withdrawal” period, Horký tested fish selected at random from both groups for signs of addiction and withdrawal. The control fish showed no preference for one side of the simulated stream or the other, but the methamphetamine-exposed fish repeatedly chose to stay in the drugged water. What’s more, the methamphetamine-exposed fish had elevated levels of methamphetamine in their brain tissue and were also less active than normal – which might reduce their chances of surviving and reproducing. “Drug reward cravings by fish could overshadow natural rewards like foraging or mating,” says Horký. “Such contamination could change the functioning of whole ecosystems.”
DNA sequencing from water and leech bloodmeals reveal viruses circulating in the wild. - In a new scientific investigation headed by the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), water from African and Mongolian waterholes as well as bloodmeals from Southeast Asian leeches were assessed for the ability to retrieve mammalian viruses without the need to find and catch the mammals. The scientists analyzed the samples using high throughput sequencing to identify known viruses as well as viruses new to science. Both approaches proved to be suitable tools for pandemic prevention research as they allow finding and monitoring reservoirs of wildlife viruses. For example, a novel coronavirus most likely associated with Southeast Asian deer species was identified. The results are published in the scientific journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Finding and monitoring reservoirs of wildlifeviruses such as SARS-CoV-2—for which the reservoir has yet to be discovered—is challenging. Many areas which wildlife inhabit are difficult to access and the species in question are hard to find or catch. In order to prevent future pandemics such as COVID-19, new and effective methods to discover and monitor viruses circulating in wildlife are urgently needed. Environmental DNA (eDNA) and invertebrate-derived DNA (iDNA) based approaches may enhance the available toolkit to overcome these challenges, when coupled with high throughput sequencing. The team of scientists assessed water from African and Mongolian waterholes and bloodmeals from Southeast Asian leeches for the ability to retrieve viruses from both sample types. The usual limitation of such samples is that they contain only tiny amounts of low-quality DNA, particularly pathogen DNA. The author therefore used a modern "hybridisation capture" approach to fish out sequences similar to those from currently known vertebrate viruses and then sequenced them using sophisticated high-throughput techniques. This approach was successful in that it allowed the identification of known and novel viruses in both water and leech samples. The DNA from water samples yielded several viruses common to zebras and wild ass, which were expected as these animals frequently visit the waterholes in large numbers. In the case of the viruses found in African water holes, the authors demonstrated in a related publication that the viruses are still infectious, suggesting that the water itself may be a source of viral transmission. From the Southeast Asian leeches, many known as well as novel viruses were identified. Of particular interest was a novel coronavirus previously unknown to science, which potentially represents an entirely new genus in the Coronaviridae family and seems to be associated with deer species.
Could editing the genomes of bats prevent future coronavirus pandemics? Two scientists think it’s worth a try - Amid the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, two researchers are proposing a drastic way to stop future pandemics: using a technology called a gene drive to rewrite the DNA of bats to prevent them from becoming infected with coronaviruses. The scientists aim to block spillover events, in which viruses jump from infected bats to humans — one suspected source of the coronavirus that causes Covid. Spillover events are thought to have sparked other coronavirus outbreaks as well, including SARS-1 in the early 2000s and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). This appears to be the first time that scientists have proposed using the still-nascent gene drive technology to stop outbreaks by rendering bats immune to coronaviruses, though other teams are investigating its use to stop mosquitoes and mice from spreading malaria and Lyme disease. The scientists behind the proposal realize they face enormous technical, societal, and political obstacles, but want to spark a fresh conversation about additional ways to control diseases that are emerging with growing frequency. “With a very high probability, we are going to see this over and over again,” argues entrepreneur and computational geneticist Yaniv Erlich of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel, who is one of two authors of the proposal, titled “Preventing COVID-59.”
Va. Dept. of Wildlife Resources receives over 1,400 reports of sick, dying birds (WWBT) - Wildlife officials are still trying to figure out what is causing hundreds of birds to be sick or dying in Virginia and other states. Between May 23 and June 30, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources said it has taken over 1,400 reports of sick or dying birds. Of the reported cases, about 450 were described as having eye issues and/or neurological signs. Wildlife experts urge people to take down feeders as birds fall ill The counties where the cases have been reported so far include Alexandria, Arlington, Clarke, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fauquier, Frederick, Loudoun, Manassas, Prince William, Shenandoah, Warren and Winchester. On a larger scale, cases of sick or dying birds first started being reported in late May in Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. DWR said additional reports have also come in from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. “While the majority of affected birds are reported to be fledgling common grackles, blue jays, European starlings, and American robins, other species of songbirds have been reported as well,” DWR said. Multiple laboratories are working to determine what is causing the illness and death. Within the birds tested, the following infectious agents have not been found: Salmonella and Chlamydia (bacterial pathogens); avian influenza virus, West Nile virus and other flaviviruses, Newcastle disease virus and other paramyxoviruses, herpesviruses and poxviruses; and Trichomonas parasites. Additional microbiology, virology, parasitology and toxicology diagnostic testing are ongoing. Right now, no human health, domestic livestock or poultry issued have been reported.
NE Indiana seeing rise in sick, dying songbirds from mysterious illness (WANE) – More reports of sick and dying songbirds are appearing around northeast Indiana. According to Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources, more than 280 cases have been reported across 53 counties statewide since late May. In northeast Indiana, the affected counties are Allen, Grant, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Marion and Whitley. During a press conference last Friday, state ornithologist Allisyn Gillet specifically called out a rise in cases in Allen and Kosciusko Counties. Affected birds include blue jays, American robin, common grackle, starling, northern cardinal and brown-headed cowbird. Infected songbirds exhibit neurological symptoms, along with eye swelling and crusty discharge around the eyes. State officials are still trying to determine the exact nature of the disease but have ruled out avian influenza and West Nile virus. As a precaution, the state is asking the public to take down bird feeders to limit the spread of this illness. “The whole reason for this is because we want birds to be able to socially distance naturally,” Gillet said. “They don’t have that know-how that that’s not okay for them when there’s a disease going around.” The total number of reported cases and birds affected by an unknown illness in northeast Indiana. This disease was first detected in Monroe Co. Meanwhile, Fort Wayne’s Wild Birds Unlimited shop has published recommendations for those with bird feeders. These tips include:
Songbirds are mysteriously dying across the eastern U.S. Scientists are scrambling to find out why | Science - Jennifer Toussaint, chief of animal control in Arlington, Virginia, can’t forget the four baby blue jays. Each was plump, indicating “their parents had done a great job caring for them,” Toussaint says. But the birds were lethargic, unable to keep their balance, and blinded by crusty, oozing patches that had grown over their eyes. Toussaint and her staff soon reached a gloomy diagnosis: the jays were the latest victims of a mysterious deadly disease that had emerged in their area just a few weeks earlier and had already killed countless wild birds. Since May, when the illness was first recognized in and around Washington, D.C., researchers have documented hundreds of cases in at least a dozen species of birds in nine eastern and midwestern states. State, federal, and academic scientists are hunting for clues to a cause in bird carcasses and the environment. Last week, they reported some modest progress: Studies have ruled out a number of agents known to cause mass mortality in birds, including Salmonella bacteria, several families of viruses, and Trichomonas parasites. “Learning what isn’t the cause can be just as helpful as learning what it is,” Toussaint says. . Despite the uncertainty, researchers are beginning to get a clearer picture of the outbreak, thanks in part to thousands of people who have responded to calls from government agencies and scientists to report sick or dead birds. Not all species, for example, appear to be at high risk. “It’s been quite species specific,” says veterinarian Megan Kirchgessner of the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. So far, most cases involve just four species—common grackles, blue jays, American robins, and European starlings—according to a 2 July statement from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center. Young birds appear to be especially susceptible. Those demographics could change as more data come in, especially from rural areas that so far have produced few observations, says Allisyn-Marie Gillet, Indiana’s state ornithologist. At this point, the outbreak doesn’t appear to pose a serious threat to bird populations, researchers say. Still, they are watching to see whether its geographic scope expands; reports of sick birds now stretch west to Indiana and Kentucky and north to Pennsylvania.
Nearly One Third of Wisconsin's Gray Wolves Killed in Legal Hunt, New Study Finds --A new study found that as many as a third of Wisconsin's gray wolves died from human hunting and the loss of federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. During Wisconsin's first public wolf hunt in February, hunters killed 218 wolves, according to new research by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The hunt was not supposed to be legal until November 2021, but a pro-hunting group sued and won, allowing the hunt to take place in February. Wildlife officials were forced to end the legal hunt after only three days, according to HuffPost.Gray wolves were dropped from the endangered list by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 48 states, just this January before Donald Trump left the White House. Ex-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said that, at the time, the wolves "exceeded all conservation goals for recovery," according to HuffPost.Since the gray wolf's removal from the Endangered Species Act, conservation goals are generally at the discretion of individual states, although they must submit five-year monitoring plans to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to HuffPost.Adrain Treves, the lead author of the study and an environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin, said that the study's findings should raise concerns for future hunting seasons in the state, according to HuffPost.In the Spring of 2020, there were at least 1,034 wolves in Wisconsin. The deaths brought the total number of wolves between 695 and 751, according to The Associated Press.Between April 2020 and April 2021, 313 to 323 gray wolves were killed by humans — a majority of them killed during the February public hunt. The targeted amount of wolves to kill for population control was 119.More than half of the non-hunting deaths are from "cryptic poaching," according to Treves and his co-authors. These deaths include illegal killing where the poachers leave behind no evidence. Other deaths may be from "automobile strikes and government-approved lethal controls for wolves harassing livestock," according toThe Associated Press. "Although the [Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources] is aiming for a stable population, we estimate the population actually dropped significantly," Treves said in a statement, according to HuffPost.
Turtle and Dolphin Deaths ‘Abnormally High’ After Ship With Toxic Chemicals Sinks off Sri Lanka-- Up to 100 turtles and 20 dolphins have washed up dead on Sri Lanka's beaches in the past month, as experts fear a link to the leak of toxic chemicals from a sunken freight ship. "So far, around 176 dead turtles have got washed onto different beaches around Sri Lanka," said Thushan Kapurusinghe, coordinator of the Turtle Conservation Project of Sri Lanka (TCP).Marine turtles washing up dead on the Indian Ocean island are common around this time of year, which is when the peak of the monsoon turns the seas rough and leads to the turtles being fatally injured. But this June, the waves have brought in an "abnormally high" number of turtle and even dolphin carcasses, Kapurusinghe told Mongabay. But this period has also been marked by what environmental activists and experts warn is the biggest maritime disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka's history. In late May, the Singapore-flagged cargo ship MV X-Press Pearl caught fire off Colombo, on Sri Lanka's western coast, and sank in early June. It was carrying a cargo ofnitric acid and plastic pellets, among other items, and was loaded with 378 metric tons of bunker fuel. Modeling by researchers has shown that ocean currents would carry these pollutants south, right through the path of the turtles and toward their nesting sites, Ekanayake told Mongabay. "The timing of the accident couldn't have been worse than this as the number of turtles in our waters would be high during this time as April-May records the highest number of nesting occurrences, going by past research," Ekanayaka said. Satellite tracking data show that most migratory turtles nesting in Sri Lanka move along the west coast closer to shore up to the Gulf of Mannar in the north before moving out to their feeding grounds. This makes them more vulnerable to any pollution from the ship accident, Ekanayake told Mongabay.
Berta Cáceres assassination: ex-head of dam company found guilty -A US-trained former Honduran army intelligence officer who was the president of an internationally financed hydroelectric company has been found guilty over the assassination of the indigenous environmentalist Berta Cáceres. Cáceres, winner of the Goldman prize for environmental defenders, was shot dead two days before her 45th birthday by hired hitmen on 2 March 2016 after years of threats linked to her opposition of the 22-megawatt Agua Zarca dam. On Monday, Roberto David Castillo – the former head of the dam company Desarrollos Energéticos, or Desa – was found guilty of being co-collaborator in ordering the murder.The high court in Tegucigalpa ruled that Cáceres was murdered for leading the campaign to stop construction of the dam, which led to delays and financial losses for the dam company.The environmentally destructive energy project on the Gualcarque river, considered sacred by the Lenca people, was sanctioned even though it had not complied with national and international environmental and community requirements. After a trial that lasted 49 days, the high court in Tegucigalpa ruled that Castillo used paid informants as well as his military contacts and skills to monitor Cáceres over years, information which was fed back to the company executives. He coordinated, planned and obtained the money to pay for the assassination of the internationally acclaimed leader, which was carried out by seven men convicted in December 2018.
Amazônia: A Look at What We Stand to Lose - To better understand the importance of the Amazon, renowned Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife and partner, Léila Wanick Salgado, spent six years traveling through the Brazilian rainforest, visiting dozens of Indigenous tribes. He documented their daily life, their family bonds, how they gather food and eat, their ceremonial ware and their rituals. Above all, he strove to showcase how, as we jeopardize the future of the rainforest, we also endanger the people that live there — "an irreplaceable treasure of humanity." "A Salgado photograph is instantly recognizable. Black-and-white. Biblical in scope. Human. Severe," Smithsonian Magazine wrote. "... It's his attention to the background that matters most. Salgado is a systems thinker, keenly aware of the larger forces that create the moments he captures."In a similar vein, when showcasing Amazônia, Salgado began with the unparalleled beauty of this region. His images build on this to emphasize the irreplaceable nature of the rich biodiversity and Indigenous cultures whose futures are inextricably intertwined with those of the trees."For me, it is the last frontier, a mysterious universe of its own, where the immense power of nature can be felt as nowhere else on earth," he wrote in the book's foreword. "Here is a forest stretching to infinity that contains one-tenth of all living plant and animal species, the world's largest single natural laboratory."The rich natural resources within the rainforest are an undiscovered and untapped source of foods, medicines, cures and scientific and cultural knowledge. All of this will be lost if the forest is destroyed.Salgado also teaches his readers about the Amazon's unparalleled ability to sequester freshwater for the region. It is the only place on earth where humidity in the air does not depend on evaporation from seawater, the foreword says. This water vapor, which results from the hundreds of billions of trees in the rainforest, greatly impacts the regional water supply and the global climate, he said. As therainforest dries out due to the climate crisis, it will affect the water supply and biodiversity of the region and the people who live there.To showcase this critical and endangered ecosystem function, Salgado shot a series on the rains of Amazônia, the "aerial rivers" that bring water and life to the region.Finally, the Amazon has been called the lungs of the planet. Unfortunately, due to intense deforestation, gold mining, and fires, the rainforest has already lost its ability to act as a carbon sink. Instead, it is becoming an "enormous carbon bomb," Salgado warned — a dangerous source of carbon on an increasingly carbon-filled planet."With 20 percent of the Amazon's biomass already lost, any further disruption of its ecological equilibrium will have drastic repercussions far beyond Latin America's frontiers," Salgado wrote in the foreword. An unrelated study predicted the collapse of the Amazon by the year 2064.
‘Historic Moment’: ‘Ecocide’ Definition Unveiled by International Lawyers --A team of international lawyers has unveiled a definition of “ecocide” that, if adopted, would treat environmental destruction on a par with crimes against humanity.After six months of deliberation, a panel of experts yesterday published the core text of a legal document that would criminalise “ecocide” if taken on by the International Criminal Court (ICC).“This is an historic moment,” said Jojo Mehta, chair of the Stop Ecocide Foundation which commissioned the team of lawyers. “This expert panel came together in direct response to a growing political appetite for real answers to the climate and ecological crisis.”In the draft law, the panel of 12 lawyers defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.If ratified by signatory states, ecocide would become the fifth international crime investigated and prosecuted by the ICC, alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.During a webinar marking the release of the document, panel co-chair Philippe Sands QC said the proposed definition would “cause us to think about our place in the world differently and it causes us to imagine the possibility that the law could be used to protect the global environment at a time of real challenge”. “None of our international laws protect the environment as an end in itself and that’s what the crime of ecocide does,” Sands added.Mehta described the draft law as a “necessary guardrail that could help steer our civilisation back into a safe operating space”. “Without some kind of enforceable legal parameter addressing the root causes of these crises, it’s hard to see how the Paris targets and the UNSDGs [United Nations Sustainable Development Goals] can possibly be reached,” she said.The panel said that the idea of “unlawful or wanton” acts would allow judges and prosecutors to balance consideration of these elements. This idea of balance could be vital to the law’s success if it is to be agreed to by the states that subscribe to the ICC, according to co-chair Sands, who said it avoids “setting the bar too low and frightening states who we need to adopt the definition, or setting the bar so high that it becomes effectively useless in practice”.
Cleaner air has contributed one-fifth of U.S. maize and soybean yield gains since 1999 - A key factor in America’s prodigious agricultural output turns out to be something farmers can do little to control: clean air. A new Stanford-led study estimates pollution reductions between 1999 and 2019 contributed to about 20 percent of the increase in corn and soybean yield gains during that period – an amount worth about $5 billion per year.The analysis, published this week inEnvironmental Research Letters, reveals that four key air pollutants are particularly damaging to crops, and accounted for an average loss of about 5 percent of corn and soybean production over the study period. The findings could help inform technology and policy changes to benefit American agriculture, and underscore the value of reducing air pollution in other parts of the world.“Air pollution impacts have been hard to measure in the past, because two farmers even just 10 miles apart can be facing very different air quality. By using satellites, we were able to measure very fine scale patterns and unpack the role of different pollutants,” said study lead author David Lobell, the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. The research highlights the considerable power of satellites to illuminate pollution impacts at a scale not possible otherwise. That power could be of even greater value in countries with less access to air monitors and yield data. Scientists have long known that air pollution is toxic to plant life in high doses, but not how much farmers’ yields are actually hurt at current levels. The impact of pollution on agriculture overall, as well as the effects of individual pollutants, has also remained unknown.Focusing on a nine-state region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin) that produces roughly two-thirds of national maize and soybean output, Lobell and study co-author Jennifer Burney, an associate professor of environmental science at the University of California, San Diego, set out to measure the impact on crop yields of ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.Ozone is the result of heat and sunlight-driven chemical reactions between nitrogen and hydrocarbons, such as those found in car exhaust. Particulate matter refers to large particles of dust, dirt, soot or smoke. Nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide are gases released into the atmosphere primarily through the burning of fossil fuels at power plants and other industrial facilities.
Grasshopper Plague Is Latest Sign of Climate Crisis in U.S. West - The hot, dry weather baking the U.S. West is causing another problem for the beleaguered region: an overabundance of grasshoppers.The crop-devouring insects are native to the region, and normally their population is too small to cause alarm,The Guardian explained. But warmer, drier winters beginning in 2020 created the ideal conditions for more of them to survive to adulthood. Now, their population is swelling, and ranchers fear that they will gobble up the vegetation their cattle rely on for food, according to CNN. "Climate change is a concern to all of us, and when we see extreme events such as a very bad drought, we see natural phenomenon increase such as grasshopper outbreaks," former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Sharon Selvaggio told CNN. "It's very concerning."There are currently 13 states experiencing a grasshopper outbreak, according to a hazard map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In parts of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska there are as many as 15 grasshoppers per square yard of land.Grasshoppers are a problem for ranchers and farmers because of how much they eat, The Guardian explained. They compete with cattle for forage, strip the leaves off of fruit trees and settle in the dry areas around crops, eventually eating their way to the grain. Oregon Department of Agriculture entomologist and agricultural scientist Helmuth Rogg told The Guardian that can lead to losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars."The biggest biomass consumer in the country are not cattle, are not bison. They are grasshoppers," Rogg said. "They eat and eat from the day they get born until the day they die. That's all they do."While the grasshoppers emerge during drought, they also compound its effects on agriculture. "Ranchers are already short of forage because of the drought," Lassen County Director of the University of California Cooperative Extension David Lile told LAist. "They can't afford to lose more."
Climate change has pushed a million people in Madagascar to the edge of starvation, UN says - Climate change is the driving force of a developing food crisis in southern Madagascar, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.The African island has been plagued with back-to-back droughts -- its worst in four decades -- which have pushed 1.14 million people "right to the very edge of starvation," said WFP executive director David Beasley in a news release Wednesday. "I met women and children who were holding on for dear life, they'd walked for hours to get to our food distribution points. These were the ones who were healthy enough to make it," Beasley said."Families are suffering and people are already dying from severe hunger. This is not because of war or conflict, this is because of climate change. This is an area of the world that has contributed nothing to climate change, but now, they're the ones paying the highest price."An estimated 14,000 people are already in catastrophic conditions, according to the WFP, a number that is predicted to double to 28,000 by October. Thousands in southern Madagascar have left their homes in search of food, while those who remain are resorting to extreme measures such as foraging for wild food to survive, the WFP said."This is enough to bring even the most hardened humanitarian to tears. Families have been living on raw red cactus fruits, wild leaves and locusts for months now. We can't turn our backs on the people living here while the drought threatens thousands of innocent lives," said Beasley."Now is the time to stand up, act and keep supporting the Malagasy government to hold back the tide of climate change and save lives.''The WFP needs $78.6 million dollars to provide lifesaving food in the next lean season and prevent a greater tragedy, it said.Beasley's warning came a day after the WFP said 41 million people in 43 countries were now teetering on the edge of starvation, with 584,000 already experiencing famine-like conditions across Madagascar, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Yemen. This number has increased from 27 million in 2019.."Global maize prices have soared almost 90% year-on-year, while wheat prices are up almost 30% over the same period. In many countries, currency depreciation is adding to these pressures and driving prices even higher. This in turn is stoking food insecurity in countries such as Lebanon, Nigeria, Sudan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe," said the WFP statement.
Mexico water supply buckles on worsening drought, crops at risk - A long-term drought that has hit two-thirds of Mexico is likely to worsen in coming weeks with forecasts of high temperatures and warnings of crop damage and water supply shortages on the horizon, including in the populous capital of Mexico City.Experts are sounding the alarm that parched crops could under-produce after temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104F) on June 30 in some parts of northern Mexico, including key farming areas. “In some states, irrigation is practically disappearing due to lack of precipitation,” said Rafael Sanchez Bravo, a water expert at Chapingo Autonomous University, noting low reservoirs and reduced water transfers to farms. Mexico’s drought parallels that of the western United States and Canada, where crop yields are threatened and water rationing has been imposed amid extreme heat, a consequence of worldwide climate change. Nearly 500 people died in western Canada in the past week as record-breaking temperatures produced life-threatening conditions for the elderly and vulnerable groups. In the US, the heat buckled highways, hobbled public transit and triggered rolling electricity outages. While rains were 3 percent below average across Mexico as a whole last year, the strain on water reserves was exacerbated by increased domestic demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, a US government report showed last month. Hopes to replenish Mexico’s parched reservoirs now hinge on the traditional rainy season, known formally as the North American Monsoon, which is currently under way. “The next three months will be really crucial in how this drought turns out,” Much of Mexico gets between 50 percent and 80 percent of its annual rainfall between July and September.
Teviston, California without running water for several weeks, with no end in sight - In early June, the water pump in the only functioning well in the rural town of Teviston, California broke down, leaving the community of nearly 1,000 residents without running water for the last several weeks. The lack of running water is particularly problematic as the temperature in California’s Central Valley routinely exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit for much of June and will likely continue in the same condition for the rest of the summer. Teviston is an unincorporated community located in Tulare County. The community’s initial residents were black migrants from the Cotton Belt and Dust Bowl states in the 1930s. Today, the population is primarily composed of Latino farmworkers.Frank Galaviz, one of the Teviston Community Service District’s directors, told ABC 30 it is believed “that the well went down so low that sand started agitating down below, got into the pump and made it malfunction.” Teviston has now suffered from three well failures, including June’s broken pump. The last failure was in November of 2017, when the community’s well collapsed. As with many rural communities in California’s Central Valley, there was no working back-up well in Teviston back in 2017 and this is still the case nearly four years later. Due to the well’s failure, the Teviston Community Service District is working with several organizations to help supply residents with water. Cases of bottled water and five-gallon jugs are being provided to residents while tanker trucks are hauling water from neighboring Porterville, which is just over twenty miles away, to fill Teviston’s two water storage tanks. Teviston residents are relying on these limited supplies of bottled water for basic necessities, including hydration, cooking, bathing, and even flushing toilets. According to Galaviz, residents are resorting to visiting family or friends in neighboring towns to be able to shower or wash clothes. Galaviz added that with the water that is being supplied, “it’s just barely enough, and in some cases, not enough. Some families are larger than others.”
Water - California has 40-million people; water for maybe 30-million. These days, most years, California has less and less water. All the states listed above depend to some extent on snowpack for their water (30% of California’s water traditionally comes from the snowpack in the Sierras). About 4.4-million acre-feet of the some state’s total 90-million acre-feet consumption comes from the Colorado River which is fed from the Rocky Mountain snowpack.). During ‘normal’ years, 30% of California’s water came from ground water (meaning that some 35% of its water came from run off). The current drought in California is a result of lack of surface run-off due the lack of rain during the winter rainy season, and the diminishment of the Sierra and Rocky Mountain (Colorado) snowpacks.Snowpacks are a major source of water for most of the drought-stricken states listed above. Climate Change is reducing snowpacks across the Rockies, the Sierras, the Olympic, and the Cascades ranges (and, all around the world). Climate change is also accountable for the diminished rainfall during the rainy season, and higher temperatures.During drought years, up to 60% of California’s water comes from ground water. California’s ground water is pumped up from aquifers; aquifers being underground layers of water bearing/saturated rock, gravel, sand, silt, … . Some aquifers are regularly replenished by runoff from rain and snow melting. In others, the water therein may have been locked away for a billion years. For centuries, humans have used aquifers as a source of fresh, potable water, and for irrigation. In many areas around the world, the more easily accessible aquifers have been severely depleted by this usage. The rate of depletion has been accelerated in those areas experiencing reduced rainfall due to Climate Change, in those areas experiencing population growth, and in those areas of increased withdrawal for agriculture (70% of all extracted aquifer water is used for agriculture).Beyond depletion from over extraction, today, many aquifers are threatened by salt water intrusion due to rising sea levels caused by Climate Change (think upon the Surf City condo collapse and its extensions a moment). Aquifers are a most important source of fresh water. Fresh water is one of our most essential resources. Far more essential than fossil fuels.Aquifers, reservoirs and lakes, and snowpacks are the most significant means of storing water. In the main, aquifers hold long stored water from runoff from rain fall and melting snow. Climate Change models show severe impacts on the both. The models predict that some areas of the earth will get too much rain, some too little, and that the traditional seasonal patterns of rain and snow fall will be severely disrupted. Seasonal patterns that farmers have always depended on to plant and harvest have been changing in many areas of the world. Often, even the very choice of which crops to grow was premised on these patterns.The increased temperatures and dry grasslands across the west have led to a doubling of the frequency and the size wildfires and forest fires. The fire season that once began in October now begins in June; never ends in some areas. Resultant these fires, large parts of states, of the west, have been repeatedly blanketed in the smoke. Smoke so thick that skies were turned orange for days; air so filled with smoke that staying indoors with doors and windows closed, and the wearing face masks when outdoors was required.
Historic heat wave melts out 30% of Mt. Rainier area snowpack in 4 days - - What La Nina gave, historic heat wave took much of it away… As the winter season neared an end, mountain snowpacks were still running a decent amount above average. Then temperatures soared into the 80s, 90s -- even triple digits -- in the higher elevations of the Cascades and the snow didn't stand a chance. Snow depth gauges at Paradise Ranger Station around 5,400 feet up Mt. Rainier measured 106 inches of snow on the ground on June 6, according to the Northwest Avalanche Center. A month later on July 5, there were a scant 8 inches up there.Summer melting of the snowpack is indeed an annual occurrence but the National Weather Service in Seattle says 30% of that meltoff came in the four days between June 26 and June 30. Paradise reached the upper 80s on June 28 and then hit 91 degrees on June 29.Freezing levels then were higher than any mountain in the region, reaching as high as 18,200 feet. All that heat meant a lot of snowmelt and a lot of mountain runoff into our local waterways. Still, even with the big loss of snowpack, La Nina was strong enough to keep Mt. Rainier's snow up there to pretty close to a typical year. The mean meltout date at Paradise is July 11, according to University of Washington research meteorologist Mark Albright, though that date has drifted back to July 13 if you factor in the past 40 years. Last year, Paradise didn't melt out until July 21, Albright said. Paradise has melted out as early as May 24 in 1941 and as late as August 25 in 1974 – a date that was challenged 10 years ago as Paradise melted out on Aug. 24 in 2011.
EXTREME WEATHER: Drought spreads to 93% of West. That's never happened -- Wednesday, July 7, 2021 -- The western United States is experiencing its worst drought this century, threatening to kill crops, spark wildfires and harm public health as hot and dry conditions are expected to continue this month.
Brad Udall: Second-worst Powell inflows in more than half a century -- Brad Udall on twitter yesterday ran through a striking series of graphs of the current state of the Colorado River. With his permission, I’m posting them here along with a slightly polished version of his accompanying commentary. Some key points that grabbed my attention:
- Second-lowest Powell inflow in a period of record we use dating to 1964.
- Risk of Powell dropping next year to levels that could jeopardize power production
- Risk of Mead dropping low enough in the next 18 months to trigger much deeper “Tier 2” reductions to Lower Basin water users in 2023.
Bureau of Reclamation’s ‘unregulated inflows’ into Lake Powell show that 2021 will be the 2nd worst year after only 2002 going back to 1964. 2021 will be the RED bar most likely. This is a really grim year for runoff.2021 inflow will be only ~3 maf, compared to the 1981-2010 average of 10.3 maf or the 2000-2021 average of 8.3 maf (20% less than 1981-2010 average).(maf = million acrefeet)Considering that Powell will release or lose to evaporation ~ 8.5 maf, the lake will lose ~ 5 maf this year or ~55 feet of elevation.April 2021 snowpack above Powell peaked at ~85% of normal but will generate about 25% of normal river flow. This comes on top of April 2020 snowpack of 100% of normal that generated about 50% of normal flow.Declining runoff efficiency has been noted in multiple peer-reviewed studies. For a recent overview of recent climate change studies on the Colorado River see this written with Jonathan Overpeck:Multiple studies since 2016 have now found human fingerprints on the nearly 20% loss in flow since 2000 and attribute up to half of that loss to the approximately 1.2°C or more warming that has occurred during the last century.Jeff Lukas points out that the twitter thread implied that the low runoff efficiency this year as measured by runoff as a percent of snowpack is all due directly to warming. I did not mean to imply that. The low runoff percent numbers are much more a function of (1) very low spring precipitation in both 2020 and 2021 and to a lesser extent (2) low soil moisture from the previous year. It may be that there is a human-caused connection to the low spring precipitation although there’s no real evidence of this yet. Low soil moisture in the springs of 2020 and 2021 is definitely connected to dry and very warm late summer and early fall from the previous years. Teasing this apart to obtain the actual driver(s) is not simple. That said, no one should doubt that climate change is reducing the flows of the Colorado. Multiple peer-reviewed papers have now supported this finding.More from Jeff on this here. Here’s what’s going to happen to the nation’s 2 largest reservoirs because of this measly inflow:
Dire drought warning: California says ‘nearly all’ salmon could die in Sacramento River - The drought is making the Sacramento River so hot that “nearly all” of an endangered salmon species’ juveniles could be cooked to death this fall, California officials warned this week.In a brief update on the perilous state of the river issued this week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made a dire prediction about the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and its struggles against consistently hot weather in the Sacramento Valley.“This persistent heat dome over the West Coast will likely result in earlier loss of ability to provide cool water and subsequently it is possible that nearly all in-river juveniles will not survive this season,” the department said.Given that the salmon generally have a three-year life cycle, a near-total wipeout of one year’s run of juveniles “greatly increases the risk of extinction for the species,” said Doug Obegi, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The winter-run salmon endured two years of severe mortality during the last drought as well. There are steps government agencies can take to protect fish. Beginning in April, the Department of Fish and Wildlife hauled millions of juvenile fall-run, hatchery-raised Chinook salmon to Bay Area waters as a pre-emptive move to keep them away from overly-warm river waters. Chuck Bonham, director of Fish and Wildlife, told reporters recently that his agency expects to conduct similar rescue missions as the summer heats up. “We’re going to be serving as Noah’s ark,” Bonham said.Nonetheless, this week’s warning shows how much the drought has worsened in recent months. In May, the National Marine Fisheries Service said 88% of the young Chinook salmon could perish in the Sacramento River this year. Now Fish and Wildlife said the fatality rate could approach 100%. “Those in the salmon industry aren’t terribly surprised but we are saddened,” said John McManus, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, which represents the commercial salmon fishing industry. The salmon generally can’t survive when the water temperature exceeds 56 degrees. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates Shasta Lake, is obligated to preserve cool water in the reservoir through spring and summer so that water that gets released later in the year won’t cook the fish. Environmentalists, however, say the bureau have already released so much water from the lake for farmers that the pool of cool water has gotten depleted.Reclamation has slashed water allocations to zero for most farmers in the Central Valley this year, but it has released water from Shasta to select groups that have special water rights, including rice growers on the west side of the Sacramento Valley.In any event, Fish and Wildlife says Shasta is heating up — which will lead to perilously warm water in the river later this year.“Continued hot weather above 100 degrees for periods in late May, early June and past two weeks continuously will lead to depletion of cold water pool in Shasta Lake sooner than modeled earlier in the season,” the agency said in this week’s briefing.
BC Heat Wave Caused Over 1 Billion Tidal Creatures to Cook to Death, Scientist Says - It's "a frightening warning sign," said one observer."Heartbreaking," another commented.Those were some of the responses to new reporting by the CBC on how last week's extreme heatwave that gripped British Columbia may have led to the deaths of more than one billion intertidal animals like mussels and starfish that inhabit the Salish Sea coastline.Christopher Harley, a marine ecologist at the University of British Columbia, told the outlet about how he had noticed a foul odor from dead intertidal animals on rocks at Vancouver's popular Kitsilano Beach as the cityexperienced record heat. Harley then set off with a team of researchers to gather data on nearby coastlines.What the researchers noticed, CBC reported, were "endless rows of mussels with dead meat attached inside the shell, along with other dead creatures like sea stars and barnacles."They tracked temperatures too, recording 50°C (122°F) on rocky shoreline habitats, well above the high 30s (around 100°F) mussels can endure for short spurts. Harley likened a mussel on the rock enduring the scorching temperatures to "a toddler left in a car on a hot day"—stuck "at the mercy of the nvironment" until the tide returns. "And on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, during the heat wave, it just got so hot that the mussels, there was nothing they could do."The heat wave was deadly for humans too.Lisa Lapointe, British Columbia's chief coroner, announced Friday that from June 25 to July 1, the province's death toll was 719—three times higher than normal—and said heat was likely "a significant contributing factor to the increased number of deaths." The heat wave was also blamed for dozens of deaths in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington.The recent heat wave's deadly impact on shellfish was noted in the U.S. Pacific Northwest as well.The Daily Mail reported last week on comments from the family-run Hama Hama Oyster company in Washington. "The epic heatwave is something no one has seen and then we had a low tide that was as far as it has been in 15 years and it happened mid-day," the company said.The clams "look like they had just been cooked, like they were ready to eat," the company told the outlet.
Oregon governor: Heat wave death toll 'absolutely unacceptable' Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) on Sunday denounced as "absolutely unacceptable" the scores of deaths in her state as a result of the recent record-setting heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. During an appearance on CBS’s "Face The Nation," Brown told host Ed O’Keefe that her administration's biggest concern "is that this is a harbinger of things to come." “We have been working to prepare for climate change in this state for a number of years,” she said. “What was unprecedented, of course, was the three days of record-breaking heat, and it was horrific to see over 90 Oregonians lose their lives." She added, “We literally have had four emergency declarations in this state at the federal level since April of 2020. Over Labor Day last year, we had horrific wildfires. They were historic. We lost over a million acres, over 4,000 homes and nine lives."
U.S. Cities Are Suffocating in the Heat. Now They Want Retribution - Baltimore is suing major oil and gas companies for spurring the climate crisis and the rising temperatures that have an outsized impact on low-income, urban areasFor years, an elderly man stood as a regular fixture around his East Baltimore neighborhood for the way he would wander the streets in the summer, trying to stay outside his sweltering home until nightfall.This man, who suffers from dementia, lived in a row house that shared side walls with its neighboring homes. With windows only in the front and back, there was little air flow, which trapped the heat inside. It's not unusual for the upper floors in such homes to be several degrees hotter than the temperature outdoors.During a nearly two-week heat wave that swept through the city in July 2019, Cynthia Brooks, executive director of the Bea Gaddy Family Center, a local non-profit that provides food and other services for the poor and homeless, noticed she hadn't seen the man for a while. Finally, on one of the "code red" days – when the forecasted heat index is expected to be at 105F (40.56C) or higher – he stumbled out of his house, looking disoriented. No one knows how long he had been sitting inside, alone, without a fan or air conditioning. This man had no one to call – no family was around, and alerting emergency responders could have led to a hefty medical bill. This man represents the population in Baltimore most likely to face the personal impacts of the climate crisis. Around the country, global heating is increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of summer heat waves. The recent triple-digit temperatures across the Pacific north-west, where air conditioning in homes isn't common, highlight the real-world hardships caused by extreme heat exposure and how the elderly and homeless suffer disproportionately from physical discomfort and worse health outcomes.
Death Valley could make another run at world record high temp - High heat in Death Valley pushed the mercury up to 128 degrees Fahrenheit about three weeks ago, far above what's normal there for this time of year. And another round of above-average heat was building in the region, which could send temperatures just as high over the weekend. Sunday's high in Death Valley is forecast to reach 130 degrees, which would be within four degrees of the record of 134 F set there in 1913. The 134-degree mark happens to be the world record for the highest temperature ever measured on Earth. AccuWeather forecasts show that the RealFeel could reach 132 degrees Sunday in Death Valley. Death Valley, along with parts of Nye County and the Mojave Desert, is set to be under an excessive heat warning from 8 a.m. Wednesday through 8 p.m. PDT Monday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). On Wednesday, the first day of that warning, the temperature soared to 126 degrees in Death Valley. Last month, during the heat wave the gripped the Southwest, AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell was on the ground in Death Valley at the height of the heat, and he spoke with people from around the country who happened to have been visiting during the hot spell. "This is exceptionally hot. It’s scary how hot it is," Linda Utz of Titusville, Florida, marveled. "We planned this trip last October and made reservations," she explained to Wadell. "While we knew it would be warm because it was summer, we never expected this type of heat."And as far as it goes for people who spend almost all of their time in Death Valley, "This is an extremely hot place for us to live and work, as well as it is for people to visit," Abby Wines, Death Valley National Park spokesperson, said. "There is something to be said for climatizing, so a person who acclimatizes to a high altitude, their body can adjust somewhat to dealing with extreme heat." The stretch of weather extending through the end of the week could bring “dangerously hot conditions,” according to the NWS. The western Mojave Desert and Owens Valley could see temperatures as high as 110 degrees. The region could see record-rivaling or record-breaking temperatures.
North America Just Experienced Its Hottest June on Record - Last month was the hottest-ever June in North America in recorded history, researchers said Wednesday, validating a hunch held by millions of people who just endured lethal temperatures that sparked dozens of wildfires and killed more than 500 individuals and over one billion intertidal animals.While "the heat dome above western Canada and the northwest United States generated headlines around the world as daily temperature records were shattered across British Columbia, Washington, and Portland," new satellite data "reveals this was part of a broader trend that built up over several weeks and a far wider area, which is underpinned by human-driven climate disruption," The Guardian reported.According to the European Union-supported Copernicus Climate Change Service, "June temperatures in North America were 1.2°C higher than the average from 1991 to 2020, which is more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels," the newspaper noted, adding that "this is the 12th consecutive year of above-average June temperatures in the region, and the greatest increase recorded until now." After first affecting the U.S. Southwest, last month's extreme heatwave conditions — which climate scientists have long predicted and warned will increase in frequency and intensity in the absence of effective climate action — eventually moved over the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada, where their devastating impacts were felt most severely.Residents of the B.C. village of Lytton — where Canada's all-time high temperature of 121°F was recorded last week — were forced to evacuate when a wildfire tore through the area and quickly engulfed the small town, destroying homes and buildings and killing two people. Last month's brutally hot temperatures were not confined to North America. As The Guardian noted, "The world as a whole was also warmer than average for this time of year." Although "this would not normally be expected in the same year as a La Niña phenomenon, which is generally associated with a cooling effect," meteorologists at the Copernicus agency stressed that unusually extreme weather trends are exacerbated by "the broader pattern of warming" driven by carbon pollution. According to The New York Times: Europe suffered through its second-warmest June ever, with only June 2019 being warmer. Temperatures were above average in Northwestern and Southern Africa, across parts of the Middle East, and in China and much of Southeast Asia. High temperatures in Arctic Siberia contributed to an early start to wildfire season there. Globally, last month was the fourth hottest June ever. Only 2016, 2019, and 2020 were hotter. While last month's dangerously high temperatures provoked calls for policymakers to drastically reduce the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in order to avert the most catastrophic effects of the climate emergency, right-wing lawmakers have continued to insist — despite a scientific consensus about the anthropogenic causes of global warming and ample real-world evidence of its consequences — that "climate change is... bullshit," as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was seen saying last month during an event hosted by a GOP-aligned advocacy group. In addition, at the same time that hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest and B.C. were succumbing to heat-related illnesses, ExxonMobil lobbyists were caught admitting that the fossil fuel corporation is still actively opposing efforts to tackle the climate emergency.
California fires: The Beckwourth Complex becomes the state's largest wildfire --Parched forest fuels and high winds caused the Beckwourth Complex fire to explode in size on Friday, with the Plumas National Forest blaze overtaking the Lava Fire as California’s largest in 2021.The complex, a fusion of the Sugar and Dotta fires on the eastern edge of the forest about 60 miles north of Truckee, had burned 38,056 acres by Friday evening and was just 9% contained.The Lava Fire, a lightning-sparked blaze in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, held mostly steady at 25,159 acres and 70% containment as of Friday evening.In Plumas National Forest, lightning also sparked both the Dotta Fire on June 30 and the Sugar Fire on July 2. The Complex was burning timber, brush, pine and chapparal. On Friday, nearly 1,000 fire crews were battling the blaze, which was expected to continue burning until the end of July.The Lassen County Sheriff’s Office issued a mandatory evacuation order for residents on the north and south sides of Highway 395 near the Plumas/Lassen county line. For more information about evacuation orders, click here. Meanwhile the Lava Fire, burning near Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County, grew only slightly from 25,003 acres on Thursday. It is expected to be fully contained on Monday.
Oregon wildfire threatens 3K homes, forces evacuations - — A fast-growing wildfire on national forestland in south-central Oregon has prompted mandatory evacuations as it threatened about 3,000 homes, authorities said. Pushed by strong winds, the Bootleg fire in Klamath County grew from about 26 square miles Thursday to 61 square miles Friday in the Fremont-Winema National Forest and on private land. There was no containment, according to the update posted on Facebook by the incident management team.Klamath County Emergency Management issued an immediate evacuation order Friday for people in certain areas north of Beatty and near Sprague River.Fire officials said less than a quarter of the 3,000 homes under threat are under the mandatory evacuation orders. Most of those residents have been told to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, KOIN-TV reported. Additional resources, including two teams from California, were being sent to help fight the blaze. The Fremont-Winema National Forest was partially closed Friday, and smoke was causing visibility issues for motorists in the town of Chiloquin and surrounding areas. Evacuation orders remain in place from a smaller fire about 40 miles east of Roseburg that was slowly growing, officials said. Forest service campgrounds were also under mandatory evacuations, including Apple Creek, Horseshoe Bend and Eagle Rock. That fire had burned about 9 square miles as of Friday with no containment.
California wildfire grows explosively, prompts evacuations - A California wildfire underwent explosive growth Friday as the area north of Lake Tahoe braced for triple-digit temperatures this weekend amid a summer heat wave. The Beckwourth Complex Fire on federal land near the town of Beckwourth prompted evacuations, a closure of part of the Plumas National Forest and presented serious danger for area campgrounds, National Forest Service officials said. As the fire moved east toward Nevada, officials were considering closing Highway 395, a popular route with tourists heading to Reno, said forest service spokeswoman Phyllis Ashmead. A nearby rail line was also being threatened, spokeswoman Lisa Cox added later. Multiple other roadways, including state route 284, were closed because of the fire. "Yesterday it took a big run," she said, "and today it's grown even more." Containment was limited to 9 percent Friday, and 38,056 acres had burned. A singular complex fire was declared July 4 after the Dotta Fire, which started June 30, and the Sugar Fire, which began July 2, combined. Both were sparked by lightning strikes, federal officials said. The complex fire nearly doubled by Friday, adding 10,000 acres to its footprint, forest officials reported. Then it added another 14,871 acres by evening, they said. The weather outlook was bleak. The National Weather Service reported lightning strikes on the east flank of the blaze. "Cloud-to-ground lightning and erratic outflow winds greater than 30 mph are possible near the complex," the weather service said in a special weather statement Friday. It was 94 degrees Friday in Beckwourth, about 55 miles north of Lake Tahoe. An excessive heat was warning was scheduled to take effect Saturday at noon through Monday night. The warning signifies "dangerously hot conditions" and temperatures at near 100 degrees, the weather service said. The U.S. Forest Service predicted in an incident report that by Saturday "fire activity will increase." "The weather will become hotter and dryer with a forecasted heat wave this weekend," it said. The Beckwourth Complex Fire appeared to be the most serious of several brush fires burning in California Friday. "Climate change is considered a key driver" of the state's recent wildfire woes, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said earlier this year. On Thursday Gov. Gavin Newsom called on residents Thursday to cut back water consumption by 15 percent amid a statewide drought and far-reaching heat wave.
Surging California wildfire prompts Nevada evacuations (AP) — A Northern California wildfire exploding through bone-dry timber prompted Nevada authorities to evacuate a border-area community as flames leapt on ridgetops of nearby mountains. The Beckwourth Complex — a merging of two lightning-caused fires — headed into Saturday showing no sign of slowing its rush northeast from the Sierra Nevada forest region after doubling in size only a few days earlier. The fire was one of several threatening homes across Western states that are expected to see triple-digit heat through the weekend as a high-pressure zone blankets the region. On Friday, Death Valley National Park in California recorded a staggering high of 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius). If verified, it would be the hottest high recorded there since July 1913, when the same Furnace Creek desert area hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.6 degrees Celsius), considered the highest reliably measured temperature on Earth. California's northern mountain areas already have seen several large fires that have destroyed more than a dozen homes. On Friday, ridgetop winds up to 20 mph (32.2 kph) combined with ferocious heat as the fire raged through bone-dry pine, fir and chaparral. As the fire's northeastern flank raged near the border, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office asked people to evacuate some areas in the rural communities of Ranch Haven and Flanagan Flats, north of Reno. “Evacuate now,” a Sheriff’s Office tweet said. Hot rising air formed a gigantic, smoky pyrocumulus cloud that reached thousands of feet high and created its own lightning, fire information officer Lisa Cox said Friday evening. Spot fires caused by embers leapt up to a mile (1.6 kilometers) ahead of the northeastern flank — too far for firefighters to safely battle, and winds funneled the fire up draws and canyons full of dry fuel, where “it can actually pick up speed,” Cox said. The blaze, which was only 11% contained, officially had blackened more than 38 square miles (98 square kilometers) but that figure was expected to increase dramatically when fire officials were able to make better observations. Meanwhile, other fires were burning in Oregon, Arizona and Idaho. In Oregon, pushed by strong winds, a wildfire in Klamath County grew from nearly 26 square miles (67 square kilometers) Thursday to nearly 61 square miles (158 square kilometers) on Friday in the Fremont-Winema National Forest and on private land. An evacuation order was issued for people in certain areas north of Beatty and near Sprague River. That fire was threatening transmission lines that send electricity to California, which along with expected heat-related demand prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday to issue an emergency proclamation suspending some rules to allow for more power capacity. In north-central Arizona, increased humidity slowed a big wildfire that posed a threat to the rural community of Crown King. The 24.5-square-mile (63.5-square-kilometer) lightning-caused fire in Yavapai County was 29% contained. Recent rains allowed five national forests and state land managers to lift public-access closures. In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little declared a wildfire emergency Friday and mobilized the state’s National Guard to help fight fires sparked after lightning storms swept across the drought-stricken region. Fire crews in north-central Idaho were facing extreme conditions and gusts as they fought two wildfires covering a combined 19.5 square miles (50.5 square kilometers). The blazes threatened homes and forced evacuations in the tiny, remote community of Dixie about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Grangeville.
Wildfires rage in Russia, Spain and the US amid high temperatures - Forest fires have broken out in Russia's Chelyabinsk region near Kazakhstan and in north-eastern Siberia. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said it has deployed aircraft and a helicopter to fight the fires, as well as 240 personnel to Chelyabinsk where two large villages have been evacuated. Wildfires are also ravaging northeastern Siberia where temperatures have been abnormally high. Russia’s coldest inhabited region, Yakutia, is now in the third year of unusually intense fires and around 300 are now burning. In fact, peat fires had continued to burn throughout last winter in Yakutia, even when the temperature plummeted to minus 50 degrees Centigrade. In May Alexander Kozlov, Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources, said that, due to global warming, the permafrost is disappearing in northern Russia to such an extent that in a couple of decades it may be possible to farm the land. Meanwhile in the southern Spanish province of Malaga fire crews have been battling a fire since the early hours of Friday near the small town of Jubrique. It quickly spread to 300 hectares burning through pine, chestnut and cork trees, according to local reports. Some 13 families were forced to evacuate. Windy conditions made efforts to extinguish the blaze difficult with dozens of firefighters trying to control the blaze. And in northern California which is enduring scorching temperatures, lightning strikes have sparked fires. Hundreds of firefighters aided by aircraft are fighting the Beckwourth Complex near the border with the state of Nevada. But so far less than 10 percent of it is contained. Campgrounds and homes around Frenchman Lake were under evacuation orders on Friday and a nearly 520-square-kilometre area of the forest was closed because of the danger, fire information officer Pandora Valle said. After a day and night of explosive growth, the fire covered more than 98 square kilometres at midmorning Friday. The flames were burning through pine, fir and chaparral turned bone-dry by low humidity and high temperatures, while ridgetop winds and afternoon gusts of up to 45 kph were “really pushing” the flames at times, Valle said. The fire was one of several burning in the north, where several other large blazes destroyed dozens of homes in recent days. The number of wildfires and amount of land burned in parched California so far this year greatly exceed totals for the same period in the disastrous wildfire year of 2020. Meanwhile, forecasters warned that much of California will see dangerously hot weekend weather, with highs in triple digits in the Central Valley, mountains, deserts and other inland areas. Heat warnings did not include major coastal populations. The National Weather Service said Death Valley could reach a staggering 54 Celsius.
Cyprus' worst wildfire on record under control - (videos) A wildfire that started in Cyprus on Saturday afternoon (LT), July 3, 2021, rapidly grew over the weekend and turned into the island's worst wildfire since 1960 when the Republic of Cyprus was established. At least 4 people have been killed and dozens of homes destroyed."It is the worst forest fire in the history of Cyprus," Forestries Department Director Charalambos Alexandrou said.The main fire was brought under control Sunday morning, and the rest of it on Monday, July 5.Four bodies were found near the village of Odos in Larnaca district's 'most catastrophic fire since the founding of the Republic of Cyprus' in terms of material damage."All the indications support the fact that these are the four missing persons we have been searching for since yesterday," Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said.All four casualties were Egyptian farm laborers aged in their 20s and 30s. They were killed by the fire as they tried to escape on foot after their car plunged into a ravine, AFP reports. Authorities sent more than 600 people to fight the blaze, along with a dozen aircraft and 70 fire trucks, and a reconnaissance drone.The fire scorched 55 km2 (21 mi2) of the Troodos Mountains, destroyed at least 50 homes, damaged power lines, and forced the evacuation of 10 villages.The police said they are questioning a 67-year-old farmer on suspicion of starting the blaze. He was reportedly seen by an eyewitness leaving the village of Arakapas in his car at the same time the fire started there.
Warmest June on record reported in New Zealand - New Zealand reported its warmest June on record, with temperatures two degrees higher than the 30-year average during what is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, The Associated Press reports. Gregor Macara, climate scientist for New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said a range of factors contributed to the higher temperatures, including more winds coming from the north and warmer ocean temperatures.The average temperature in June was 10.6 degrees Celsius, or 51 degrees Fahrenheit, which is two degrees higher than the 30-year average for the month of June. Records on temperatures in New Zealand were first recorded in 1909, the AP notes.Macara said that while weather is subject to change from month to month, "the underlying trend is of increasing temperatures and overall warming."According to the climate scientist, milder winters and earlier springs can be expected if the current trends continue.Though the weather has been hard on the ski industry, farmers in New Zealand have welcomed the warmer conditions, the AP reports.The warmer weather and rain has reportedly provided more grass for sheep and cattle, a boon for farmers who have dealt with drought conditions for the past two years.
Antarctica hit record-high temperature in 2020, scientists confirm - Antarctica logged a new high temperature record of 64.94 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 Celsius) in 2020, scientists with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed this week. The temperature, which was reported on Feb. 6, 2020, and verified by the United Nations (U.N.) agency on Thursday, was recorded at the Argentine Esperanza Research Station. The U.N. agency said the previous all-time high for Antarctica was 63.5 degrees, which was recorded on March 24, 2015, at the same research station. WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas noted that the new record was “consistent with the climate change we are observing.” “The Antarctic Peninsula (the northwest tip near to South America) is among the fastest warming regions of the planet, almost 3°C over the last 50 years. This new temperature record is therefore consistent with the climate change we are observing,” Taalas said in a statement. “WMO is working in partnership with the Antarctic Treaty System to help conserve this pristine continent.” According to The Washington Post, the Argentine Esperanza Research Station is used to study climate science, meteorology and oceanography, among other fields. While scientists confirmed the temperature record, the WMO also said this week that a report of a higher temperature of 69.35 degrees that was recorded at a Brazilian automated permafrost monitoring station on Feb. 9, 2020, was inaccurate.
Tropical Storm Elsa kills 3 in the Caribbean; expected to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Tuesday » Tropical Storm Elsa continued to be disorganized on Sunday, but is predicted to be near hurricane strength when it makes landfall in central Cuba on Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 a.m. EDT Sunday advisory. Elsa had slowed down significantly since Saturday, and was headed west-northwest at 12 mph, with top winds of 60 mph and a central pressure of 1009 mb – a very high reading for a storm this strong. Heavy rains from the storm were affecting Cuba, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands; the outer rainbands of Elsa will spread into the Florida Keys on Monday and move northwards into central Florida by Monday evening. Tropical storm warnings were up for the Florida Keys on Sunday. On Saturday afternoon, Elsa sped along the south coast of Hispaniola, bringing heavy rains and high surf to the coasts of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Two people were killed by collapsing walls in the Dominican Republic, weather.com reported, and one other person was killed on St. Lucia after the storm brought high winds and flooding rains to the Lesser Antilles islands on Friday. Satellite imagery on Sunday afternoon revealed that Elsa was positioned in the narrow channel between Jamaica and Cuba, and was struggling to grow more organized. The low-level circulation center was no longer exposed to view, and the heavy thunderstorms were growing quite intense, with cold cloud tops, indicating that they extended high into the atmosphere. However, the heaviest thunderstorms were located away from the center, and data from the Hurricane Hunters found that Elsa was poorly aligned vertically. This lack of alignment was inhibiting intensification, as was interaction with the islands of Jamaica and Cuba. As it progresses west-northwest through Monday, Elsa will have favorable conditions for development, though interaction with the high terrain of Jamaica and Cuba may interfere. Elsa is expected to maintain a relatively slow forward speed of 10-15 mph through Monday, which should help the storm become better aligned vertically. Sea surface temperatures will be a very warm 30 degrees Celsius (86°F), the atmosphere will be moist, and wind shear will be moderate, at 10-20 knots. However, the 12Z Sunday run of the SHIPS model gave only a 9% chance that Elsa would rapidly intensify by 35 mph in the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. EDT Monday; the National Hurricane Center predicted a 10 mph increase in Elsa’s winds by Monday morning, putting it at 70 mph – just below hurricane strength.
Tropical Storm Elsa makes landfall in Cuba and forecasted to take aim at Florida next - Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall along Cuba's southern coast Monday afternoon as forecasters said it could then turn toward Florida. Concern about possible high winds from the approaching storm was the reason officials in Surfside, Florida, ordered the demolition of the remaining part of the condominium building that partially collapsed. It was brought down late Sunday night. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida because of the storm, making federal aid possible. Governor Ron DeSantis had already declared a state of emergency in 15 counties, including in Miami-Dade, where Surfside is. Nearly 9 million people in Florida were under tropical storm watches and warnings Monday after forecasters extended the tropical storm watch north along the state's western coast and the storm warning west along the Panhandle. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Elsa was "expected to move across central and western Cuba" later Monday and "pass near the lower Florida Keys early Tuesday." The NHC said the storm is then expected to move "near or over" parts of Florida's west coast on Tuesday and Wednesday. Five to 10 inches of rain were expected across portions of Cuba on Monday with up to 15 inches in some spots, the hurricane center said, adding that, "This will result in significant flash flooding and mudslides." As of 5 p.m. ET on Monday, Elsa's center was some 45 miles southeast of Havana, scampering northwest at 14 mph. Elsa had maximum sustained winds near 50 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, a drop from 65 mph earlier in the day. Forecasters expected the storm to move across the island over a period of several hours, then into the Florida Straits on Monday evening and past the Florida Keys early Tuesday. By Sunday, Cuban officials had evacuated 180,000 people as a precaution against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people. Most of those evacuated stayed at relatives' homes, others went to government shelters, and hundreds living in mountainous areas took refuge in caves prepared for emergencies. The hurricane center said the storm was likely to gradually weaken while passing over central Cuba but "slight re-strengthening is forecast after Elsa moves over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico." Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record and also broke the record as the tropic's fastest-moving hurricane, clocking in at 31 mph Saturday morning, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Hurricane Warning Issued For Florida's West Coast as Tropical Storm Elsa Heads For Landfall Wednesday - Tropical Storm Elsa is gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico and will scrape Florida's west coast, including parts of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro, possibly as a hurricane through early Wednesday with storm surge, high winds, flooding rain and isolated tornadoes. Elsa is centered just over 150 miles south-southwest of Tampa, Florida, and is tracking north at 10 mph. Early Tuesday afternoon, the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters found flight-level winds in Elsa were stronger and its surface pressure lower as Elsa attempted to fight off both dry air and wind shear typically hostile for intensification. This prompted the NHC to issue hurricane warnings for areas near the west coast of Florida from Tampa Bay northward to Steinhatchee. This warning, meaning hurricane conditions are expected, includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Cedar Key. Tropical storm warnings extend from parts of the Florida Keys to inland parts of north Florida and near the coast in southeast Georgia. This includes Marco Island, Naples, Sanibel Island and St. Simons Island. Tropical storm conditions (winds 39+ mph) will continue to spread northward across these areas through Wednesday. A tropical storm watch extends north from Altamaha Sound, Georgia, to South Santee River, South Carolina. Tropical storm conditions could spread into the Georgia and South Carolina watch areas Wednesday night into Thursday. Bands of heavy rain and gusty winds continue to spread up the Florida Peninsula. These rain bands could also produce isolated tornadoes at times. Wind gusts to 70 mph have been clocked amid the heavy rain in Key West and flooding has been reported in the Lower Keys. A tornado watch has been issued for parts of the Florida Peninsula until 11 p.m. ET. Elsa will continue to track north, then northeast the next few days. Wind shear and dry air will slow Elsa's intensification, however, Elsa is forecast to reach Category 1 hurricane status at some point as it scrapes northward near Florida's west coast before making landfall near Florida's Big Bend region early Wednesday. The Tampa - St. Petersburg area will see its worst impacts from the storm Tuesday night into early Wednesday. This could be the first hurricane to track near the metro area since Irma made a Category 1 pass east of Tampa in September 2017. Other parts of the Southeast, including southeast Georgia, the coastal Carolinas and southeast Virginia, will see some impacts from Elsa late Wednesday into Thursday night. Elsa or its remnant could then brush parts of southeast New England on Friday.
Tropical Storm Elsa brings heavy winds and life-threatening storm surge as it nears landfall along Florida's west coast – CNN - Tropical Storm Elsa is battering western Florida with heavy rain and strong gusts as it approaches landfall Wednesday morning at its northern Gulf Coast, threatening coastal flooding, wind damage and power outages there and elsewhere in the US Southeast. Elsa's center, with sustained winds of 65 mph, was about 35 miles west of Cedar Key on Florida's northwest coast as of about 8 a.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center said.It was moving north toward the Big Bend region, where it is expected to make landfall Wednesday morning on a path that likely will take it to Georgia, the Carolinas and eventually the mid-Atlantic coast.Besides heavy rain and flooding, Elsa threatens strong winds that could topple trees and power lines in Florida, Georgia and the lowlands of South Carolina -- much of which is already saturated.Winds of at least 40 mph are possible in those states as the storm moves inland into Thursday, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said Wednesday morning. "We've had a lot of rainfall this past month. If you get winds at 40 mph or 50 mph, some of these trees are going to be falling down," Myers said."There's a lot more damage still to be done."Because gusts of hurricane strength still are possible, a hurricane warning is in place Wednesday morning for Florida's west coast from Chassahowitzka (some 60 miles north of Tampa) north to southern Taylor County in Florida's Big Bend region. About 10,000 utility customers in Florida were without power Wednesday morning ahead of Elsa's landfall, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us. With Elsa having passed the Tampa-St. Petersburg area overnight, some minor street flooding was seen around Clearwater, a CNN crew there said. Some localized flooding still could develop in these areas and even further south -- such as Fort Myers -- if the storm's feeder bands continue hitting them during the day, CNN meteorologists said. The system weakened to a tropical storm early Wednesday after becoming a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday. More than 13 million people are under a tropical storm warning across parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.Elsa will have dropped 3 to 9 inches of rain in parts of western and northern Florida by storm's end, the National Hurricane Center said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded his state of emergency declaration Tuesday to include 33 counties as local, state and utility resources continue to prepare for the incoming storm.
1 dead as Tropical Storm Elsa moves over Florida, into Georgia - A falling tree killed a person in Florida as Tropical Storm Elsa moved through Wednesday, and 11 people were injured in Georgia when a suspected tornado touched down at a submarine base, officials said.Almost all of the injuries at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay were classified as condition "green," meaning not life-threatening, base spokesman Scott Bassett said. A woman was listed as condition "yellow" as a precaution because she is pregnant, he said.The suspected tornado, which is thought to be related to the tropical storm, touched down around 5:50 p.m., Bassett said. No submarines were damaged, but there was damage to recreational vehicles in the base RV park and reports of damage to buildings, the base said in a statement.A survey team from the National Weather Service will conduct a survey to determine whether a tornado struck the base. Everyone who was at the RV park has been accounted for, the base said.Earlier, a tree fell in Jacksonville, Florida, and struck two cars, killing one person, a spokesperson for the Jacksonville fire department said. The incident is considered weather-related.By 8 p.m. Wednesday, Elsa was over southern Georgia, bringing heavy rain and maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. Its center was about 75 miles west of Brunswick.The storm regained hurricane strength Tuesday but weakened to a tropical storm with 65 mph winds by the time it made landfall in Taylor County in Florida's Big Bend region Wednesday morning, the center said. The howling wind "sounded like a train" in Cedar Key early Wednesday, Jonathan Riches told NBC affiliate WFLA of Tampa. "The hotel I was staying in, the shingles were coming off the roof itself." In Port Charlotte, north of Fort Myers, almost 11 inches of rain had been recorded by noon, the National Weather Service said. In addition to more rain in parts of Georgia and South Carolina, Elsa could produce tornadoes, according to the hurricane center forecast.
Up next for Elsa: The I-95 corridor - Tropical storm warnings were in effect all along the Eastern Seaboard on Thursday morning, from South Carolina up through New Jersey and into New England, as Elsa continued its northward trek. As of early Thursday, Elsa was barely hanging on to tropical storm status, with sustained winds of 40 mph, and had picked up some speed as it moved northeastward at 18 mph. AccuWeather meteorologists expect the storm to deliver impacts of varying intensity to parts of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. late this week. Elsa was blamed for at least one fatality in Florida well after making landfall as a 65-mph tropical storm in Taylor County, along the upper west coast of the peninsula. The storm brought wind gusts as high as 78 mph to parts of southwestern Florida on Tuesday. AccuWeather meteorologists predict that Elsa will slowly lose wind intensity while it crosses the Southeast, eventually traveling along the mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts from Thursday night into Friday. An area of high pressure over the Atlantic Ocean and a storm system moving into the Northeast will help to steer Elsa on a narrow path close to the coast.As Elsa tracks northward along the coast, it should remain far enough inland that the chances of intensification back to a tropical storm remains low. However, if Elsa were to move off the southern New England coast, its intensification back to a tropical storm would be more likely. If this were to happen, it would occur during the day Friday. While Elsa can bring a period of heavy rain along its track from the mid-Atlantic into New England, the fast forward movement of the storm should help to limit excessive rainfall and the threat for widespread flooding. “In the mid-Atlantic and in southern New England, for many areas along and south and east of Interstate 95, Elsa will bring a three- to six-hour period of heavy rain, some of it wind-swept, that can lead to urban and poor drainage area flooding, as well as travel delays,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said."Rainfall totals of 1-2 inches can occur over portions of eastern New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Adam Sadvary. Higher totals reaching into the 2- to 4-inch range are foreseen along portions of the mid-Atlantic coast and in coastal areas of northern New England. An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 6 inches is likely to be limited to the Carolinas and the southeastern portions of Virginia and Maryland. Elsa will also track close enough and have enough strength to bring wind gusts of 40-60 mph from southeastern Virginia into the Delarva Peninsula, coastal New Jersey, Long Island, New York, and a portion of southeastern New England from late Thursday into Friday. According to Sadvary, an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 70 mph is forecast for this area. This would be the most likely across Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, as well as some of the capes and barrier islands along the mid-Atlantic coast. A storm surge of 1-3 feet is forecast in southeastern New England and the eastern portion of Long Island on Friday. "In addition, rough surf and rip currents are expected from the mid-Atlantic to New England shores as Elsa progresses into the northern Atlantic," Sadvary added. Philadelphia, New York City and Boston are a few cities that could see a period of heavy rain as Elsa tracks nearby. However, if Elsa's track shifts farther west, some of the heavier rain and gusty winds farther inland than these cities.
50 Million Americans Under Flash Flood Watch As Elsa Moves Up East Coast - At least 50 million Americans are under flash flood watch Friday morning as Tropical Storm Elsa traverses the East Coast, unleashing torrential rains and tropical force winds. According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), as of 0500 ET, Elsa was about 5 miles east of Atlantic City, New Jersey.As Elsa moves near Long Island and southern and coastal New England today, heavy rainfall could lead to considerable flash and urban flooding.Tropical storm conditions should continue along portions of the mid-Atlantic coast early this morning. Tropical storm conditions are expected in portions of the southern New England states and New York by late this morning and afternoon. Gusty winds are expected over portions of Atlantic Canada tonight and Saturday. -NHCEarlier this week, Elsa made landfall on Florida's west coast and pounded the Southeast. Heading north at 31 mph with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, the storm is battering Delaware and New Jersey, and New York's coastlines. NHC doesn't expect the storm to strengthen but weaken into a "post-tropical cyclone" as it approaches Nova Scotia and then out to sea late Friday. Flash flood watches are posted for at least 50 million people from the mid-Atlantic and northeastern regions. Much of the Northeast could receive 2 to 4 inches of rain today. Some areas in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts could receive up to 6 inches. NHC said torrential rain could produce "considerable flash and urban flooding." On Thursday evening, roads and subways across NYC looked "straight out of a disaster movie Thursday," CBS2's Ali Bauman reported.
Residents protest backed-up sewers and uncollected trash in wake of metro Detroit flooding - On Friday, about 100 residents of Dearborn, a metro Detroit suburb, gathered outside the 19th District Court building to protest the response of the city administration to recent flooding. At least one resident, an 87-year-old man, Hussein Reda, was killed when he slipped and fell in his flooded basement. Neighbors found his body during a welfare check. The protest was apparently organized through WhatsApp and Facebook by a small group of residents who are fed up with the city’s repeated mishandling of floods. Last week, large parts of the metro Detroit area were flooded out as a result of a several days of rain. A similar disaster hit homeowners in 2014. Last week’s flood is now the second disaster in the space of seven years described by authorities as the result of a “thousand-year” rainfall. Once again, an unusually prolonged bout of rain has overwhelmed the region’s crumbling infrastructure. One of the organizers at Friday’s rally told the crowd that he had never participated in a protest, let alone organized one, before that day’s event. The organizers are calling for an independent investigation into the flooding and for a fair distribution of city services. One of the main complaints is that the east side of Dearborn has received much less assistance than the west side. The organizers called on attendees to vote in the next election for new officials and to attend an upcoming City Council meeting. They printed signs for attendees reading “Accountability” and “We want answers.”
1 million people affected by floods, 63 000 evacuated in Jiangxi Province, China - Several days of heavy rain and flooding in southeast China's province of Jiangxi have left nearly 1.08 million people affected and forced more than 60 000 to evacuate.According to Xinhua, floods in the province began on June 28.In 5 days to July 2, when the rains finally stopped, 55 county-levels with a total of nearly 1.08 people were affected, 156 homes were destroyed and 219 damaged.Authorities relocated 63 000 people and reported damage on at least 70 300 ha (173 715 acres) of crops.Direct economic loss is estimated at about 161 million U.S. dollars.Le'an River was above the danger mark in 3 locations in the province on July 3 while the Xinjiang river stood slightly above the danger mark in Yingtan.Jiangxi has a typical northern subtropical monsoon climate. Its rainy season starts in April, with May and June the wettest, and ends in July.Widespread flooding continues in the country's north -- Heilongjiang Province and Inner Mongolia Region.
More than 500 homes destroyed, 38 people killed and 24 missing in floods and landslides across Nepal – (videos) Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have left 38 people dead, 24 missing, 51 injured and 5 100 evacuated across Nepal in 20 days to July 3, 2021, the Nepalese Home Ministry said.A total of 790 houses have been inundated and 519 destroyed. In addition, at least 90 cowsheds and 19 bridges were also destroyed.The authorities mobilized Nepal Army personnel, Nepal Police, and Armed Police Forces to carry out rescue operations.Floods and landslides are common during Nepal's monsoon season which usually starts on or around June 10 and lasts through September 23. Monsoon brings almost 80% of the country's average annual rain of 1 600 mm (63 inches). While some places like Mustang can receive below 300 mm (11.8 inches), more than 3 300 mm (130 inches) can fall in places like Pokhara.
At least 51 people dead as monsoon rains trigger floods and landslides in Nepal --At least 51 people have died in Nepal while 29 others have been reported missing since the beginning of the monsoon season in June 2021, according to the Health Ministry. From June 1 to July 8, heavy rains have triggered a total of 135 landslides that accounted for much of the fatalities, while flash floods claimed the lives of many others, including children. Ram Krishna Shilpakar, a wood architect of Bhaktapur who was among those affected by flooding, told ANI, "It's been about a decade that I am running my business here. On an annual basis, I have been incurring losses of about 30 to 40 thousand." "Machines stop working after submerged in water, other materials and essentials used for produces gets soaked and damaged. We cannot come and work in such situations which ultimately would increase loss. Also, flood water dumps wastages inside, forcing us to shift to other places." Krishna Kumar Ranjitkar, also a flood victim, added, "Every single year, that too for over dozen times, we have been facing inundation in the area. We have to go through this situation time and again." Since the start of the monsoon season in Nepal on June 1, as many as 51 people have died, of which 26 were men, 15 women, and 10 children. Five of the fatalities were from Sindhupalchok, the worst-hit district along with Manag; four from Doti; and three each from Rolpa, Dang, Palpa, Darchula, and Gorkha. Most of the fatalities were caused by landslides. Between June 1 and July 8, a total of 135 landslides have occurred in the country, leaving 27 people dead and seven others missing, while 41 sustained injuries. The latest fatalities occurred on July 8 as two people were killed in a mudslide at Dadhiban of Rishing Rural Municipality in Gandaki Province. On the same day, two persons died in separate landslide incidents at Tinau Rural Municipality."Poor road building is increasingly identified as being a major factor in the high incidence of landslides in Nepal,"
Four dead, dozens missing in Japanese mudslide - At least four people are dead and 80 unaccounted for two days after a mudslide ripped through a town in Japan's Shizuoka prefecture, The Associated Press reports. One hundred forty-seven people were believed to be missing immediately after the mudslide occurred, but that number dropped after officials confirmed that some had been safely evacuated or simply not been home at the time. Officials are planning on releasing the names of the remaining 80 who are missing, hoping that many others were also away at the time, as many of the affected properties are second homes or vacation rentals. The mudslide occurred in the seaside town of Atami after several days of heavy rain. Like many seaside Japanese towns, Atami is built on a steep hillside. The town has a population of about 36,800 and is roughly 60 miles southwest of Tokyo. Apart from the four who died, 25 people were rescued, three of whom were injured. Three coast guard ships and six military drones backed up hundreds of troops, firefighters and others working through the wreckage, the AP reports. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said rescue workers are doing their best “to rescue those who may be buried under the mud and waiting for help as soon as possible.” M
Watch: Earthquake Swarms Trigger Rockslides In Central California - An earthquake rocked Central California, followed by dozens of aftershocks Thursday afternoon. Much of the shaking was recorded in Coleville (Mono County). At 1549 local time, a magnitude 5.9 hit Coleville, approximately 150 miles east of Sacramento, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Shortly after, a swarm of more than two dozen quakes ranging from magnitude 1.0 to 4.6 hit Coleville and surrounding areas. During the shaking, people across Mono County took out their smartphones and filmed wild scenes of rockslides. Twitter user "Brett Durrant" was traveling on "I395 near Coleville" when he noticed the earthquake started to "wiggle" the road. He uploaded stunning footage of massive rockslides. It's been reported USGS has upgraded the earthquake to a magnitude of 6.0. The agency is expected to hold a press conference following clusters of quakes.
Mud Volcano Produces Explosion Near Azerbaijan in Caspian Sea - A towering wall of fire brightened the night sky over the Caspian Sea on Sunday due in part to a unique geologic formation.Just after sunset on July 4, a large explosion and fireball could be seen offshore of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The cause of this explosion was a phenomenon many may not have ever heard of outside of the countries situated along the Caspian Sea.The Sunday blast occurred on a tiny island offshore of Azerbaijan known as Dashli Island.An impressive fireball could be seen after the eruption of what is called a mud volcano."There are about 1,100 mud volcanoes that have been identified around the world, and nearly 400 of them can be found in and around Azerbaijan," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tyler Roys said. An explosion off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea on July 4, 2021, was later determined to be the result of a mud volcano. Gavriil Grigorov/TASS."Eruptions of mud volcanoes are driven by a deep mud reservoir that is connected to the surface," Roys explained.When these mud volcanoes erupt, more than just mud, boulders and rocks can be lofted above the surface. Mud volcanoes can also tap into and launch oil or natural gases into the air."The majority, about 86 percent, of the gas released from an explosion is methane," Roys said.In the right concentration, methane gas is highly flammable and can react explosively. Hence, the tell-tale fireball that marks many mud volcano eruptions.
Unprecedented high volcanic SO2 degassing at Taal volcano, Philippines - The highest levels of volcanic sulfur dioxide or SO2 gas emission were recorded today, July 4, 2021, at an average of 22 628 tonnes/day -- representing the highest ever recorded over Taal, PHIVOLCS reports. The previous record was set on June 28, 2021, with 14 326 tonnes/day.Since 00:00 UTC on Sunday, July 4 (12:00 LT), a total of 26 strong and very shallow low-frequency volcanic earthquakes associated with magmatic degassing have been recorded beneath the eastern sector of Volcano Island. Some of these earthquakes were reportedly accompanied by rumbling and weakly felt by fish cage caretakers off the northeastern shorelines of Volcano Island.These observation parameters may indicate that an eruption similar to the July 1, 2021 event may occur anytime soon."In view of the above, DOST-PHIVOLCS is reminding the public that Alert Level 3 prevails over Taal Volcano and that current SO2 parameters indicate ongoing magmatic extrusion at the Main Crater that may further drive succeeding explosions," the agency said. According to the Batangas governor, some 15 000 residents have evacuated their homes after the July 1 eruption. The public is reminded that the entire Taal Volcano Island is a Permanent Danger Zone (PDZ), and entry into the island as well as high-risk barangays of Agoncillo and Laurel must be prohibited.All activities on Taal Lake should not be allowed at this time, PHIVOLCS added. Because of unprecedented high SO2 degassing from Taal Main Crater, local government units are additionally advised to conduct health checks on communities affected by vog to assess the severity of SO2 impacts on their constituents and to consider temporary evacuation of severely exposed residents to safer areas.Civil aviation authorities advise pilots to avoid flying over Taal Volcano Island as airborne ash and ballistic fragments from sudden explosions and pyroclastic density currents such as base surges may pose hazards to aircraft. Its major eruption in January 2020 ejected volcanic ash up to 16.7 km (55 000 feet) above sea level, according to data provided by the Tokyo VAAC. The volcano produced powerful pyroclastic and lava flows, destroying scores of homes, killing livestock, and forcing more than 135 000 people to evacuate.Taal has produced some of the Philippines' most powerful eruptions. Large pyroclastic flows and surges from historical eruptions have caused many fatalities.
Vog from Fagradalsfjall completely obscures view to the volcano, Iceland -Volcanic smog (vog) is a visible haze comprised of gas and an aerosol of tiny particles and acidic droplets created when sulfur dioxide (SO2) and other gases emitted from a volcano chemically interact with sunlight and atmospheric oxygen, moisture, and dust.Called Blámóða in Icelandic, or blue smog... blámóða killed thousands of Icelanders 1783-1785 when a volcano erupted.The video was captured on July 2.
Explosive eruption at Sangay volcano, volcanic ash up to 11 km (36 000 feet) a.s.l., Ecuador - A strong explosive eruption took place at Sangay volcano, Ecuador at 23:15 UTC on July 9, 2021. Volcanic ash dispersed by 06:40 UTC on July 10.According to the Washington VAAC, volcanic ash to 11 km (36 000 feet) above sea level was extending 45 km (28 miles) NE of the summit at 00:10 UTC on July 10. At the same time, volcanic ash to 7 km (20 000 feet) a.s.l. was extending 37 km (23 miles) WSW of the summit.IGEPN reported their SAGA seismic station recorded a high-frequency signal possibly associated with lahars (mud and debris flow) on two occasions on July 9, and warned that continuous rainfall might trigger new flows.This phenomenon has been recurrent in the current eruptive period since the rains in the volcano re-mobilize the accumulated material on the flanks, the institute said.The proximity to rivers and their tributaries is not recommended.
Very bright fireball explodes over Taiwan - (videos) A very bright fireball exploded over Taiwan shortly after 16:02 UTC on July 6, 2021 (00:02 LT, July 7). The event lasted around 40 seconds before the object disintegrated.The fireball was recorded by Lulin Observatory, located at the summit of Lulin Mountain in Nantou County, and numerous residents.The object flashed four times, with each ignition causing the fireball to grow bigger and brighter.
China Bans Building of Tallest Skyscrapers Following Safety Concerns -- China is prohibiting construction of the tallest skyscrapers to ensure safety following mounting concerns over the quality of some projects. The outright ban covers buildings that are taller than 500 meters (1,640 feet), the National Development and Reform Commission said in a notice Tuesday. Local authorities will also need to strictly limit building of towers that are more than 250 meters tall. The top economic planner cited quality problems and safety hazards in some developments stemming from loose oversight. A 72-story tower in Shenzhen was closed in May for checks following reports of unexplained wobbling, feeding concern about the stability of one of the technology hub’s tallest buildings.Construction of buildings exceeding 100 meters should strictly match the scale of the city where they will be located, along with its fire rescue capability, the commission said. “It’s primarily for safety,” said Qiao Shitong, an associate law professor at the University of Hong Kong who studies property and urban law. Extremely tall buildings “are more like signature projects for mayors and not necessarily efficient.” Authorities imposed an “in-principle” ban on new towers over 500 meters last year. There are only 10 buildings in the world exceeding that height, and five of them are in mainland China, including the 632-meter Shanghai Tower, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The SEG Plaza’s shaking in May prompted the local government to investigate and led to a warning from the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou urging Americans to avoid the area. Videos circulated showing people fleeing. The building remains closed.
House Democrats unite to send firm climate signal to Biden - Nearly 60 percent of the House Democratic caucus is urging President Joe Biden to ensure massive climate change and other environmental investments make it into whatever final form of infrastructure legislation emerges this year. More than 120 members, led by Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and spanning the ideological spectrum from Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to centrist Problem Solvers Caucus co-chair Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), are reiterating their support for measures like a clean energy standard, significant electric vehicle investments and 10-year clean energy tax credits as part of the eventual agreement. It’s a signal that Democrats across the ideological spectrum want strong climate change action as part of any legislative action this year. “We are eager to help advance through Congress a strong American Jobs Plan that employs our communities and matches the scale of the challenge climate science tells us we face,” the Democrats wrote in a letter obtained first by POLITICO. “Ultimately, we urge you and our colleagues to act with the goal of ensuring the final legislative package gets across the finish line in the coming months while maintaining our key jobs and climate goals.” The details: The lawmakers also voiced support for provisions removing all lead drinking water lines, clean manufacturing incentives, ensuring 40 percent of benefits are directed to communities that have borne the brunt of pollution and investing in natural solutions, like restoration of public lands, to help address climate change. Among the signatories are a number of prominent committee chairs including Natural Resources Chair Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Transportation Chair Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Budget Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), Climate Crisis Chair Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). The context: In an interview, Levin pronounced himself agnostic about which specific legislative vehicle was used to pass the investments but said the letter indicated strong consensus within the conference that they must make it across the finish line this year. “What this letter does is speak loud and clear: These are the objectives that we seek,” he said. “It demonstrates that we understand as the House Democratic caucus that we have to take the types of bold action necessary to actually deal with the climate crisis in a manner that is commensurate with the science.” It comes as House progressives underscored this week they would not vote for an infrastructure package without sufficient provisions to address climate change. Democratic leadership can only afford to lose four votes on any particular bill to ensure passage.
John Kerry to visit Moscow officials to discuss 'global climate ambition' - U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will visit Moscow to speak to officials next week about “global climate ambition.” The trip will take place from July 12-15, the State Department said in a short announcement. It comes as the two nations are at odds over a multitude of issues. Russia participated in a White House climate summit in April. President Biden said at the time that he was “heartened” that Russian President Vladimir Putin called for collaborating with other countries to advance carbon dioxide removal. “The United States looks forward to working with Russia and other countries on that endeavor,” Biden said at the time. “It has great promise.” China and the U.S. lead the world in terms of emissions of coal and petroleum fumes, according to The Associated Press. Russia is ranked number four due to its dependence on coal burning. The meeting between Kerry and officials in Moscow comes amid other tensions between the two nations, notably several high-profile ransomware attacks linked to Russian actors. Biden and Putin held a summit in mid-June, after which Biden indicated that he “did what he came to do.” The leaders said at the time that after the meeting, the countries “demonstrated that, even in periods of tension, they are able to make progress on our shared goals of ensuring predictability in the strategic sphere, reducing the risk of armed conflicts and the threat of nuclear war."
More than 75 companies ask Congress to pass clean electricity standard - More than 75 major U.S. companies including Apple, Google, Lyft and Salesforce signed a letter circulated Wednesday urging Congress to adopt a federal clean electricity standard. In the letter, signers urged the federal government adopt a standard that achieves 80 percent carbon neutrality by the end of the decade, with a goal of completely emission-free power by 2035. Signers of the letter, organized by sustainability advocacy group Ceres and the Environmental Defense Fund, also include automakers General Motors and Tesla. The letter notes that the electrical power sector alone generates a full third of nationwide carbon dioxide emissions created by burning fossil fuels. It is also the source of about 50 percent of natural gas use nationwide, which is itself a major driver of methane upstream leaks. Scientists have estimated human-produced methane accounts for at least 25 percent of current warming. “In addition to reducing emissions from the power sector, a clean electric power grid is also essential to unlock opportunities to reduce emissions in other sectors. Electrification of the transportation, buildings, and industrial sectors is a critical pathway for the U.S. to achieve a net zero-emissions future. Together, clean electricity and electrification could cut carbon pollution economy-wide by up to 75%,” the letter states. “By acting now to enact a federal clean electricity standard, Congress and the President can spur a robust economic recovery, create millions of good-paying jobs, and build the infrastructure necessary for a strong, more equitable, and more inclusive American economy for the next century,” it adds.
How the gas industry is trying to keep crappy heaters on the market - The American Gas Association, or AGA, the gas industry’s most powerful trade group, says it supports energy efficiency, and frequently advertises how much its member utilities spend on energy efficiency programs.* But in federal rulemakings, the AGA is fighting the prospect of getting more efficient natural gas heating equipment on the market. Recent comments that the industry group submitted to the Department of Energy argue against new efficiency standards for gas-powered boilers.Increasing the adoption of appliances, cars, and industrial machinery that use less energy is a key strategy for cutting emissions over the next decade, according to the International Energy Agency’s recent roadmap to net-zero. Efficient appliances save customers money and can potentially save lives by reducing strain on the power grid during fatal heat waves and cold fronts. And since the odds of passing strong climate legislation through Congress are not looking good, the Department of Energy’s mandate to set efficiency standards is one of the few climate tools at President Joe Biden’s disposal.The federal government is required to review efficiency standardsfor certain appliances and equipment every six years and decide whether to raise the minimum bar manufacturers have to hit to put a product on the market. In March, the Department of Energy took the first step in that process for boilers, which burn natural gas to generate steam or hot water for heating, by issuing a publicrequest for information on raising the standard.Boilers have been around for more than 100 years, but modern boiler efficiency varies considerably. Comments submitted by the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, a coalition of groups that works to win stronger standards, show there are dozens of models that are at least 10 percent more efficient than the existing standard. And since these appliances last for decades, every inefficient boiler sold locks in more emissions. “If someone’s going to install a gas appliance, you want it to be as efficient as possible,” said Andrew deLaski, executive director of the coalition, “because it’s going to be around for a long time.” But in a joint comment submitted to the Department of Energy with the American Public Gas Association, which represents publicly owned utilities, and a Missouri-based gas utility called Spire, the AGA argued that new federal efficiency standards “do not appear to be economically justified,” and could even be illegal. “There appears to be a big difference between these organizations’ public declarations of support for energy efficiency and their less-publicized lobbying against more ambitious energy standards,” said Alex Cranston, an analyst with the corporate watchdog InfluenceMap.
Amazon, UPS say hydrogen is further down the road than electric --Amazon expects hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles to be lighter, fuel faster and have longer range than battery-electric vehicles, Middle Mile Fleet Leader Tiffany Nida said during a webinar hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Coalition. "But the technology and the proof points against that are further out," she said. "Hydrogen is ... very much part of the future," Thomas F. Jensen, senior vice president for transportation policy at UPS, said during the webinar. "But that future is yet to be defined, frankly." Nida and Jensen said their respective employers do foresee hydrogen trucks as part of their fleet mixture. UPS views them as an option for OTR operations in the long term. For Amazon, "the details of that probably [are] further in the future," Nida said. With hydrogen seen as being far down the road, much of the near-term talk around sustainability has centered on BEVs. Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric delivery vehicles and purchased hundreds of compressed natural gas vehicles for its last-mile fleet, to help meet one of its sustainability goals of 50% of all shipments with net-zero carbon by 2030. "We'd also love to make larger-scale purchases of electric heavy-duty trucks, but the technology and market for these heavy-duty vehicles is lagging behind," Nida said. The webinar accompanied a report by the Bipartisan Policy Coalition, along with the Electrification Coalition and Securing America's Future Energy, which gave suggestions on how policy could help speed the adoption of electric trucks. The three main recommendations were to:
- Create a 30% manufacturers' credit for sales of EVs Class 4 and higher.
- Eliminate the $100,000 cap on the property tax credit that covers 30% of the cost for purchasing and installing charging stations.
- Provide "a small portion" of federal infrastructure funding to incentivize states to install heavy-duty charging.
CenterPoint's yearslong push yields RNG, hydrogen cost recovery in Minnesota | S&P Global Market Intelligence - Minnesota's special legislative session yielded a long-sought prize for CenterPoint Energy Inc.: a pathway for public utilities to recover the cost of displacing standard natural gas supplies with low- and zero-carbon alternatives in the state's distribution system. The passage of the Natural Gas Innovation Act marked the realization of a CenterPoint effort to establish a regulatory framework for flowing renewable natural gas, or RNG, and green hydrogen to Minnesota gas customers. These fuels offer gas utilities a pathway to further decarbonize their operations. RNG is processed from methane waste sources like farms and landfills, while green hydrogen is produced in electrolyzers powered by renewable electricity. CenterPoint, which serves 890,000 gas customers in Minnesota, first proposed the Natural Gas Innovation Act in February 2020, after the state rejected the company's proposed pilot project to flow RNG to Minnesota gas customers. The law was not signed into law during the 2020 and 2021 regular sessions of the Minnesota Legislature, but lawmakers incorporated it into an omnibus package during a June special legislative session. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, signed the bill into law June 26. "This new law will help promote new Minnesota-produced, low-carbon or zero-carbon gas resources that can diversify the state's energy supply, improve waste management and support new economic development," Brad Tutunjian, CenterPoint's vice president for the Minnesota region, said in a July 6 press release. The law could also impact WEC Energy Group Inc., which serves 243,000 Gopher State gas customers through Minnesota Energy Resources Corp., and Xcel Energy Inc., whose Northern States Power Co. subsidiary distributes gas to about a half million customers, chiefly in Minnesota. MDU Resources Group Inc. subsidiary Great Plains Natural Gas Co. and Greater Minnesota Gas Inc. also distribute gas in Minnesota.
Coalition of Indigenous tribes in Quebec is suing to stop Hydro-Quebec powerline construction A coalition of First Nation tribes in Quebec is filing suit against the provincial government to stop construction of a controversial powerline that would bring electricity from government-owned dams through Maine into the New England grid. Mainers are familiar with the fight over the Central Maine Power, the initiated plan to build 145 miles of new and upgraded transmission line on this side of the border. On the Quebec side, a coalition of Indigenous tribes is suing to stop construction of about 64 miles of new transmission line needed there to connect the Hydro-Quebec system to Maine’s, near Jackman. “We’re saying ‘enough is enough and you need to respect the rights of our peoples,'” said Lucien Wabanonik, a spokesperson for the coalition of five tribes, and a member of the Anishnabeg Nation. The other tribes in the coalition are the Lac Simon, Kitcisakik, Wemotaci (Atilamekw Nation) and Pessamit (Innu Nation), representing about 7,000 people, Wabanonik said. He said that while the Canadian transmission line would not directly cross tribal lands, more than a third of the dam system providing electricity for the project are on lands the tribes never ceded to the province. Wabanonik said that to serve the contracts, Hydro-Quebec is increasing production capacity at its reservoirs, likely further stressing ecosystems the tribes depend on for sustenance. “And this is something that they’re investing for a few years now. But there was no consultation, no accommodation, nor compensation to our people because of the impacts,” Wabanonik said.
New Maine law prohibits offshore wind farms in state waters - Gov. Janet Mills has signed into law a bill prohibiting offshore wind farms in state waters, in a compromise aimed at siting such projects farther from Maine’s heavily used inshore waters. Mills is a vocal supporter of wind energy who has made addressing climate change a top priority of her administration. But segments of Maine’s fishing industry – particularly lobstermen – have been battling to ban any wind development off the coast of Maine over concerns about potential loss of access to valuable fishing grounds and other conflicts. The bill proposed by Mills and signed into law this week would prohibit state and local governments from licensing or permitting the siting, construction or operation of wind turbines in the state territorial waters that extend three miles from shore. A demonstration project under development off Monhegan Island and future “pilot-scale, limited duration” research projects would be exempt from the prohibition. The bill, L.D. 1619, also would create an Offshore Wind Research Consortium with an advisory board that includes representatives of the lobster industry, other commercial fishermen and the recreational charter fishing industry as well as energy experts. The board will advise the state on local and regional impacts from offshore wind power projects as gleaned from a state-backed “research array” of up to 12 turbines to be located in federal waters.
How PG&E is fighting its massive wildfire problem with microgrids, power shutoffs and cutting down trees - California's largest utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric, has a massive wildfire problem. Five of the ten most destructive fires in California since 2015 have been linked to PG&E equipment, including the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 85 people. Since then, PG&E has been reducing the risk of equipment sparks by shutting off the power in high fire-risk areas during dry, windy weather. It calls these Public Safety Power Shut-Offs, or PSPS events, and in 2019 they left almost a million customers in the dark for seven days. "We essentially lost that full week of service. We lost all of our food supply, we were not able to operate," said Brennen Jensen, who owns the 100-year-old Hotel Charlotte in Groveland, California. Keeping the power on for 16 million Californians is a big job, as is maintaining the integrity of more than 100,000 miles of power lines while keeping it clear of vegetation that could turn a spark into a deadly wildfire. All this while answering to California regulators and, as an investor-owned utility, shareholders. "The management of the company mostly tried in the years leading up to Napa, Sonoma, and Paradise to please shareholders by controlling costs," PG&E's $5 billion 2021 Fire Mitigation Plan also includes 300 new weather stations to monitor for severe conditions; LiDAR, drones and hundreds of cameras to provide 90% visual coverage of high fire-threat areas; hardening the system by doing things like moving 23 miles of line near Paradise underground; and more aggressive clearing of trees around power lines. It's also testing new technology. For instance, PG&E has partnered with Grass Valley-based startup BoxPower to build solar-powered microgrids, housed in shipping containers, to provide safe power for customers in remote areas. The first one serves as the full-time power source for five customers in the mountains of Briceburg, California. Until the remote grid turned on in April, they had been living solely off generator power after a 5,000-acre fire destroyed their high voltage line in 2019. PG&E is aiming to have 20 standalone remote grids operational by 2022, with plans for several hundred more. Watch the video to hear from more community members and to see the five-customer microgrid and other fire mitigation efforts PG&E says are proof it's committed to doing better at keeping their power on and keeping them safe.
U.S. announces millions in funding for projects focused on wave energy - The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that as much as $27 million in federal funding will be provided for research and development projects focused on wave energy.In the latest attempt to encourage innovation within a sector that has a very small footprint compared to other types of renewable energy, the DOE said Tuesday the funding would aim to "advance wave energy technologies toward commercial viability." Selected projects will undertake their research at the PacWave South facility,which is located off the coast of Oregon.Construction of PacWave South — which has received grants from the DOE and the State of Oregon, among others — began last month and it's hoped the site will be operational in 2023.Breaking things down, the funding will be divided into three separate pots: As much as $15 million will be set aside for the testing of wave energy convertor tech; up to $7 million will go to wave energy research and development; and a maximum of $5 million will be assigned to the advancement of wave energy converter designs for PacWave. Full applications for the funding are due in October, the DOE said. In a statement issued alongside the DOE's announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said: "With wave energy, we have the opportunity to add more renewable power to the grid and deploy more sustainable energy to hard to reach communities."
Louisiana Passed Legislation To Allow For Chemical Recycling, AKA "Advanced Recycling" - Louisiana has unanimously passed a bipartisan bill, Senate Bill 97, that will allow for advanced recycling. This term, “advanced recycling,” is a bit deceptive. Its more common term, “chemical recycling,” sounds ideal — recycling plastics instead of making more, right? Not necessarily. Chemical recycling is any process by which a polymer is chemically reduced to its original monomer form. This enables it to be processed or re-polymerized and remade into new plastic materials. Another form of this is pyrolysis, which is known as “plastics to fuel.” Non-recycled plastics from garbage are turned into synthetic crude oil that can be refined into diesel fuel, gasoline, heating oil, or even waxes. That water bottle you’ve thrown away could be turned into fuel. This isn’t a 100% bad thing, but it’s not purely good either. It’s a step down from traditional fossil fuels.SB 97 wasn’t a favorite of environmental advocates since this process is still unproven and will result in greater pollution in communities where these chemical recycling facilities are located. The Louisiana Illuminator noted back in June that many petrochemical companies were in favor of the legislation. Shell, ExxonMobil, the lobbying group Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas, the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) all supported the legislation.ACC Vice President of Plastics, Joshua Baca, thanked Senator Eddie Lambert and Representative Jean-Paul Coussan for their sponsorship of the bill. ACC also announced that the new law will help fuel demand for recycling programs and centers while reducing plastic waste in Louisiana’s waterways. It will also create new jobs and encourage more investment in chemical recycling facilities.“Advanced recycling technologies enable recyclers to reuse hard-to-recycle materials that otherwise would go to waste, reducing the demand for new resources,” the ACC stated. “When used in partnership with mechanical recycling, Louisiana will be better positioned to increase its recycling rate and contribute to the US national recycling goal of 50% by 2030.”An issue that echoes the concerns of the environmental groups that didn’t support the bill was brought up by the Louisiana Illuminator in that same article. A report published by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives back in 2020 found that chemical recycling technology hasn’t advanced enough to support its claim of being a real solution to the plastics problem.
Is global plastic pollution nearing an irreversible tipping point? --Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study by researchers from Sweden, Norway and Germany published on July 2nd in Science. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the environment are "the rational policy response".Plastic is found everywhere on the planet: from deserts and mountaintops to deep oceans and Arctic snow. As of 2016, estimates of global emissions of plastic to the world's lakes, rivers and oceans ranged from 9 to 23 million metric tons per year, with a similar amount emitted onto land yearly. These estimates are expected to almost double by 2025 if business-as-usual scenarios apply."Plastic is deeply engrained in our society, and it leaks out into the environment everywhere, even in countries with good waste-handling infrastructure," says Matthew MacLeod, Professor at Stockholm University and lead author of the study. He says that emissions are trending upward even though awareness about plastic pollution among scientists and the public has increased significantly in recent years. Remote environments are particularly under threat as co-author Annika Jahnke, researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and Professor at the RWTH Aachen University explains:"In remote environments, plastic debris cannot be removed by cleanups, and weathering of large plastic items will inevitably result in the generation of large numbers of micro- and nanoplastic particles as well as leaching of chemicals that were intentionally added to the plastic and other chemicals that break off the plastic polymer backbone. So, plastic in the environment is a constantly moving target of increasing complexity and mobility. Where it accumulates and what effects it may cause are challenging or maybe even impossible to predict."
Western U.S. grid plan could remake renewables -- Friday, July 2, 2021 -- Stronger grid collaboration may finally be within reach for the western U.S., offering to reshape how wind and solar power is shuttled from state to state in the era of decarbonization. But installing a regional transmission organization, or RTO, across Western states isn't a sure thing, despite signs of momentum from Oregon to Washington, D.C. The Southwest Power Pool, a grid operator based in Arkansas, is exploring a Western expansion of its RTO as some Western states with carbon-cutting plans and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Glick float variations of the idea. A state-led market study that's backed by Department of Energy funding also is examining the potential for about $2 billion of annual benefits from a Western grid organization by 2030. "The West deserves and needs an RTO," said Vijay Satyal, manager of regional energy markets at Western Resource Advocates. Positives of such a system include creating competition and cost efficiency, and it could be easier to procure and dispatch renewables, according to Satyal. For example, wind could be sent from Wyoming to California, while solar could go from California and Arizona to Oregon and Washington, he said. However, many questions remain when it comes to a possible western RTO — of geography and governance, of costs and benefits, of renewables and reliability. Who would run it? Who would join? How might wind and solar fare? What about consumers? An organized Western market has long been under discussion by U.S. grid planners and advocates, and experts say this is a critical time to find out what's possible. The Biden administration has endorsed the goal of a decarbonized national power sector by 2035, as well as proposed an infrastructure package that could bolster U.S. transmission. Recurring grid issues across the country, including recent extreme temperatures in the West, also have put reliability and resiliency on the minds of consumers and politicians. Eyes are on SPP after it announced last year it was considering RTO expansion to the west of its central U.S. base. At the same time, experts point to the California Independent System Operator as a vehicle that could evolve into a more regional grid organization. Both SPP and the California ISO already have limited offerings known as energy imbalance markets that are testing grid coordination among some Western power providers.
Abbott calls on PUC to improve Texas electric grid reliability, restore public trust — Gov. Greg Abbott directed members of the Public Utility Commission of Texas on Tuesday to take additional, stronger steps to improve the state’s electricity reliability and regain public trust.Abbott’s letter to the PUC comes amid speculation the governor will not include additional grid reform measures in his call for a special session to be released prior to Thursday’s opening. Some members of the Legislature, including the Democratic Caucus and Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have called on Abbott to add more grid-related topics to the call since the end of the regular session. “Bottom line is that everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas,” Abbott said days after the session ended May 31, during the signing of legislation to overhaul the grid and recast ERCOT leadership.In Tuesday’s letter, Abbott directed the PUC, which has oversight over the state’s grid operator, to improve reliability through a series of orders to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.“Through clear communication, transparency, and implementation of these critical changes, the PUC and ERCOT can regain the public’s trust, restore ERCOT’s status as a leader in innovation and reliability, and ensure Texans have the reliable electric power they expect and deserve,” Abbott wrote. “The objective of these directives is to ensure that all Texans have access to reliable, safe, and affordable power, and that this task is achieved in the quickest possible way.”The four directives Abbott recommended largely centered on prioritizing thermal power plants, which include natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants:
- Provide incentives within the ERCOT market to encourage the addition of new natural gas, coal and nuclear power plants to the grid.
- Allocate costs and fees for renewable generation resources based on their intermittency.
- Instruct ERCOT to establish a maintenance schedule for natural gas, coal, nuclear and other non-renewable electricity generators.
- Order ERCOT to accelerate the development of transmission projects that increase connectivity between existing or new dispatchable generation plants, which can supply energy at a moment’s notice and aren’t subject to weather or conditions (like breeze or the sun shining), and other areas of need.
Michael Jewell, an attorney and policy adviser for Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation, said he was disappointed by the governor’s letter because it revived an anti-renewable allegation conservatives made during the legislative session. Most anti-renewable legislation, which proponents claimed would level an uneven playing field between thermals and renewables, was dropped throughout the session.
Texas Governor Backs Fossil Fuel, Nuclear Power Incentives - Texas Governor Greg Abbott is pushing regulators to strengthen incentives for fossil fuel and nuclear power generators in an effort to avoid a repeat of deadly blackouts seen this winter. Abbott ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas to redesign parts of the power market to maintain and build more dispatchable supplies that are fueled by coal, natural gas and nuclear, according to a letter Tuesday. Generators that can’t guarantee their availability, like wind and solar, should bear the costs of failures, he said. Without those costs, it creates “an uneven playing field between non-renewable and renewable energy generators,” Abbott said in the letter. Texas is scrambling to revamp its power markets as the grid becomes increasingly strained by climate change. In February, an Arctic freeze crippled the state for nearly a week and left more than 100 dead amid the catastrophic blackouts that left millions in the dark. This summer, the region faces the threat of more power failures as scorching heat drives up the use of air conditioners. But while other grid operators, like in California, are emphasizing batteries and other ways to back up renewable power sources, Abbott’s order appears to double down on maintaining the grid of the past that relies on larger fossil fuel and nuclear plants. The PUC is already mulling some of the changes Abbott ordered, such as how to ensure adequate resources and spur the development of transmission lines. The difference is that the governor appears to be focused on picking winners rather than letting the market dictate those changes in the generation mix, though the language in his order does leave room for interpretation
In Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest Neighborhood, Black Residents Feel Like They Are Living in a ‘Sacrifice Zone’ - When Justine Knox, 57, bought her single-story home in Corpus Christi’s historic Hillcrest neighborhood in 1993, she wanted to stay and raise her family in the community where she grew up and met her husband. Twenty-eight years later, Knox’s house sits next to vacant lots where well-kept houses from the 1920s once stood, abuzz with family life. Her neighbors moved out under a voluntary resettlement plan with the Port of Corpus Christi, which razed the acquired properties in recent years to make way for the new Harbor Bridge. “They’ve torn down all of the houses of my former friends that I grew up with, and their parents’ homes,” said Knox, a senior administrative assistant for the Corpus Christi Independent School District. “The first strike against the neighborhood was the refineries moving in next to the residential area,” she said, “and the plan to construct a new harbor bridge drove the last nail in the coffin.” Hillcrest and the adjoining Washington-Coles neighborhood—once-thriving Black communities—are struggling to survive, just as Congress is haggling over the Biden administration’s $20 billion proposal to reconnect communities displaced by highways. The effort coincides with a growing momentum across American cities, seeking to remove what environmental justice advocates call “racist” highways. According to the non-profit Congress for the New Urbanism, which monitors highway removals nationwide, 28 cities have proposed 33 projects to take down highways that displaced mostly-Black neighborhoods from the 1950s onwards. Rather than solving transportation problems by building new highways, the new approach advocates making downtown areas more livable and walkable, and accessible through connecting streets and bike lanes. Biden has committed to addressing environmental racism as part of his political agenda. Mustafa Santiago Ali, who served as an associate administrator in the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice office in the Obama administration, said Biden’s “all-of-government” approach to eliminating “sacrifice zones” is critical to protect people’s health and welfare in communities of color.“The question is, are the lives of these communities seen as valuable?” said Ali, who is now vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalization for theNational Wildlife Federation. “Because if they were valuable, then we would make sure that we’re doing everything possible to protect those lives.”
Critics urge Missouri to rethink wastewater proposal at Ameren’s largest coal plant - Environmental lawyers and activists are urging state regulators to block a proposed permit governing how St. Louis electric utility Ameren can discharge wastewater from the state’s largest coal plant into the Missouri River. The proposed wastewater permit before the Department of Natural Resources loosens prior requirements, critics say, and would allow the plant to release unlawfully hot water and to do so for longer periods of time — a change that could threaten aquatic life, including endangered species such as the pallid sturgeon. The proposal also fails to take appropriate action to regulate groundwater and river contamination from the site’s coal ash ponds, the critics say, which have leaked pollutants for decades.“It’s the biggest power plant in the state and one of the biggest in the country. It should be regulated as such,” said Peter Goode, an environmental engineer and law lecturer at Washington University’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, which tracks pollution issues tied to Ameren. “DNR is not really holding Ameren accountable.”The dispute continues a long saga of environmental concerns at the coal plant, the Labadie Energy Center in Franklin County — and adds to overarching complaints about how state regulators treat Ameren’s top power plant. The water pollution permit has a checkered history. The permit issued to the plant in 2015 attracted a range of similar concerns, and prompted a legal challenge from the Sierra Club. Five years after filing the case, and more than two years after a hearing on the matter, the organization is still awaiting a decision from the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission. Labadie is also among the largest coal-fired power plants in the country without air-pollution controls called “scrubbers” — a technology that removes sulfur dioxide from emissions, would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to install and, if required, could force the facility’s closure by rendering it uneconomical.
New report highlights daunting scope of mine reclamation funding problem facing WV, other Appalachian states -Appalachia has a multibillion-dollar coal mine reclamation problem. A report released Wednesday highlights just how daunting it is. It will cost from $7.5 billion to $9.8 billion to reclaim 633,000 acres of just coal mines that have been closed or idled since 1977 across seven Appalachian states, according to the report from environmental nonprofit Appalachian Voices. That’s twice as much as the $3.8 billion in total bonds available to those states, according to the report. The report’s author, Appalachian Voices senior program manager Erin Savage, said in a teleconference Wednesday that Appalachian state environmental regulators need to do far more to address the shortfall poised to grow as more coal companies declare bankruptcy, ditch their reclamation obligations and leave state bonding systems on the hook. “I’ll be honest, I have not seen the state agencies take this issue as seriously as I hoped they would,” Savage said. “This is something that we’ve been talking to at least some of them about for several years now.” West Virginia has an estimated 205,000 acres of land under active permits that are either unreclaimed (36,000) or partially reclaimed (169,000), according to the report. That’s more than the six other states in the study: Kentucky (54,000 unreclaimed, 139,000 partially reclaimed); Pennsylvania (69,000 unreclaimed, 49,000 partially reclaimed); Virginia (18,000 unreclaimed, 35,000 partially reclaimed); Alabama (17,000 unreclaimed, 16,000 partially reclaimed); Ohio (6,000 unreclaimed, 13,000 partially reclaimed); and Tennessee (7,000 unreclaimed, 5,000 partially reclaimed). That does not include mine lands abandoned before Congress’s 1977 passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which established the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement that works with states to oversee mine cleanup.
Study: Black Lung Patients Face Higher Rates of Depression, PTSD -Many men who suffer from black lung disease also face depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder, according to a study out of the University of Virginia. The study was published earlier this year in JAMA Network Open.Researchers found that many patients reported symptoms of mental illness on their health assessments. Of those that entered one Virginia clinic since 2018, a third showed signs of depression and anxiety, a quarter experienced symptoms of PTSD, and one out of ten patients have considered suicide.Patients with more severe black lung disease experienced these mental stressors at higher rates. The study looked at patients at a black lung clinic in Jonesville, Virginia. The town sits near the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. Almost all patients were white men in their sixties and early seventies.Dr. Drew Harris works at the clinic and authored the study, one of the first to examine the overall issue of mental illness among miners. He can’t say exactly why coal miners may experience more mental distress, but he understands the job comes with many traumatic occupational hazards.For example, Harris said many of his patients have witnessed walls of mines collapsing.“Even with the best of safety precautions and roof bolting, there are times when rocks will fall on top of people,” Harris said.
San Juan Generating Station taken offline after cooling tower collapse | The NM Political Report - Unit one of the San Juan Generating Station was taken off line last week after a cooling tower collapsed, sources familiar with the incident told NM Political Report. The cooling tower is necessary to operate the unit and, unless it is repaired, the unit will not be able to produce power for Public Service Company of New Mexico and Tucson Electric Power. The two utilities share ownership of the unit and each receives 170 megawatts of power. No one was injured during the June 30 collapse, which came almost exactly one year before the state’s largest utility plans to end operations of the power plant. The plant was idle on the morning of July 6 and neither unit one nor unit four were producing power. The other two units were shuttered at the end 2017. New Energy Economy, a consumer advocacy group, filed a set of interrogations on July 5 related to the collapse in the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission’s docket regarding PNM’s potential merger with Avangrid. The filing asked for confirmation that the cooling tower collapsed at approximately 4 a.m. June 30 and how that has impacted operations. New Energy Economy further requested information about how PNM is getting electricity to replace the 170 megawatts it typically receives from unit one of the power plant. New Energy Economy also requested information about which regulatory bodies, if any, were informed of the collapse.
Oyster Creek union leaders say layoffs will hurt nuclear site safety -A union whose members have worked at the now defunct Oyster Creek nuclear plant for decades say their impending layoffs will make for less safe conditions for remaining workers.Members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1289 are slated to be laid off Aug. 1 from the plant, which is being decommissioned, according to union representatives. As many as 92 employees will be let go from the plant, according to a company spokesman and a W.A.R.N. notice sent to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. John Rayment and Jeffrey Munyan, IBEW union members and longtime plant workers who specialize in radiation protection, said the layoffs will result in less safe working conditions for the remaining staff."I’ve been there for 35 years. I know how that plant works," said Munyan. "There’s still a huge amount of radioactive material there."A spokesman for Holtec International, the Camden-based nuclear power equipment company that is decommissioning Oyster Creek, said other skilled, union laborers will be assisting the remaining decommissioning staff.Joseph Delmar, the Holtec spokesman, disputed the union's claim there would be a drop off in safety. But Munyan said the remaining employees were far less experienced in working with potentially radioactive material.
Watchdog subpoenas FirstEnergy info on payment to regulator (AP) — Ohio’s consumer utility watchdog is demanding that FirstEnergy Corp. share more information about $4.3 million that was paid to an attorney to end his consulting contract shortly before he became the state’s top utility regulator. Akron-based FirstEnergy disclosed that payment in the wake of allegations about a $60 million bribery scheme involving a subsidiary. Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston issued subpoenas through the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio late last week for more information about the payment. FirstEnergy Service Company and the FirstEnergy Foundation also received subpoenas. In addition to the consulting contract, Weston and his agency are seeking information about the company’s charitable giving and documents related to an internal investigation by FirstEnergy’s Board of Directors that resulted in the dismissal of its CEO and other top executives.The subpoenas say FirstEnergy must provide the documents by July 19. “Utilities have undue influence in Ohio,” Weston said Friday in a statement. “The public has a right to know how their state government, including the PUCO, is regulating these powerful utilities such as FirstEnergy.” FirstEnergy spokesperson Jennifer Young declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations of the company. FirstEnergy officials have said it’s cooperating in investigations of what authorities allege was a $60 million bribery scheme to win legislative approval in 2019 for a $1 billion bailout for two unprofitable nuclear power plants then operated by a wholly-owned FirstEnergy subsidiary. In the wake of those allegations, FirstEnergy disclosed in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings that company executives paid attorney Sam Randazzo $4.3 million in January 2019 to end a purported consulting contract. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Randazzo chair of the utilities commission weeks later. The commission is responsible for setting rates paid by electric and natural gas customers in Ohio, giving Randazzo, a longtime utility attorney and lobbyist, an outsized role at the agency. Randazzo resigned in November 2020 after FBI agents searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy disclosed in an SEC filing that month that former executives had violated the company’s policies and code of conduct when they paid Randazzo millions to end a consulting contract in place since 2013.
New Ohio law bans cities from enacting prohibitions on natural gas - A move to ban natural gas hookups in new buildings in New York City and San Francisco has Ohio lawmakers rushing to head off similar efforts here. House Bill 201, signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine Thursday, prohibits municipalities from banning customers from using natural gas or propane. The change passed even though no Ohio city currently has such a ban and current law allows customers to choose their energy source. Still, proponents of the change say cutting natural gas out of the mix would dramatically increase the price of energy for Ohioans."This would be an incredible problem for people across the Buckeye State if we don't get out in front of this," said Sen. Rob McColley, R-Napoleon.Natural gas is a fossil fuel that is formed beneath the earth's surface that when burned emits carbon dioxide emissions.For proponents of natural gas bans in California and elsewhere, the restrictions are about curbing climate change. But Rep. Jason Stephens, R-Kitts Hill, pitched his bill to ban those bans as a way to ensure customer choice. “Here in Ohio, we want to promote a fair market for all Ohioans, consumers, to have energy options that work best for them – this legislation helps make that a reality,” said Stephens. Opponents say the change eliminates local control and gives natural gas an advantage not offered to renewable energy resources. Meanwhile, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 52, which would add another hurdle for wind and solar projects in the state.
City learns of injection well leak while investigating dump site - Coshocton Tribune The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is overseeing remediation and repairs following a recent leak from a pipe at the SOS D-2 injection well off Southgate Parkway in Cambridge."On June 24, the operator of the SOS D-2 injection well in Cambridge reported a small release from the pipeline that transfers fluid from a storage tank to the injection well," said Adam Schroeder, a public information officer for ODNR's Division of Oil & Gas Resources Management.The release was contained by the operator, identified on the ODNR website as Silcor Oilfield Services Inc. of Brookfield."Division staff is overseeing remediation of the affected area and repair of the line," added Schroeder after being contacted by The Daily Jeffersonian on Thursday.Cambridge officials were not advised of the leak until Wednesday after city water department employees discovered what they believed to be an illegal dump site behind a business near the location of the injection well."You would like to think that you would be contacted by the emergency agencies such as the (Ohio) Environmental Protection Agency or the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, but they are pretty independent groups," said Mayor Tom Orr Friday."It is a little disheartening."Orr said city officials checked the reservoir and water systems, and found no evidence of contamination."Everything within the city has checked okay, but we are watching it," said Orr. "We have rallied up since we learned what happened."The mayor did say a few fish were found dead near the site of the leak."All eyes are on it now," Orr said. The leak was reportedly the result of a weak spot in a weld in the line.
Oil and Gas Permit Interest Resumes in Columbiana County - – EAP Ohio LLC, a division of Encino Acquisition Partners, Houston, has submitted permit applications to drill four new horizontal wells in Washington Township in Columbiana County, according to data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. According to ODNR, the company plans to drill four new horizontal wells at its Sevek-18 pad. The permit applications are pending before the agency. Meanwhile, Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Co. was awarded a permit to drill deeper and build out a horizontal leg at its 10H well at the Tarka pad in Fairfield Township in Columbiana County, according to ODNR. Since January, ODNR has awarded 14 permits to the two oil and gas companies, which target the natural-gas rich Utica-Point Pleasant shale formation. So far this year, EAP has been awarded two permits to drill wells in Washington Township, while Hilcorp has been awarded 12 permits for new horizontal wells in Fairfield Township, according to ODNR. Natural gas production across the Utica-Point Pleasant and the Marcellus shale formation in Appalachia is expected to be lower in June compared to May, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest drilling productivity report. According to EIA, natural gas production across Appalachia is projected to decline in June by 52 million cubic feet per day. Oil production, however, is expected to increase by 1,000 barrels per day, EIA reported.
Shell generates electricity to the grid from its Beaver County plant for first time - Another milestone has been reached in the construction of the nearly $10 billion petrochemical plant that Shell Pennsylvania Chemicals is building in Beaver County.Shell said Thursday afternoon that the plant’s 250-megawatt natural gas cogeneration facility created electricity from each of its three units recently and brought power to the PJM Interconnection regional electrical grid for the first time.The company has been building the Potter Township plant, which will create plastic for commercial and industrial use from Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane, since 2016. But the work recently has been more about connecting the various pieces that go into the plant itself, with a commissioning set for next year. Shell said that the plant was about 80% complete.The natural gas and steam cogeneration plant will power the site, but it’s large enough that it will also generate power that will flow to the regional grid. About 80 megawatts will be going to the grid daily, enough to power about 52,000 homes. Next up is the commissioning of the plant’s ethane cracker and polyethylene production unit.
Two Years After a Huge Refinery Fire in Philadelphia, a New Day Has Come for its Long-Suffering Neighbors - Dorthia Pebbles inhaled harmful pollutants and smelled noxious odors from the Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery for years when she would leave her rowhome on Hoffman Street to walk to the corner store. After losing family members to cancer, she and her neighbors who lived across the street from the massive South Philadelphia refinery, once the largest on the East Coast, couldn’t help but conclude that its emissions were giving them asthma and threatening their health in even more serious ways. But no one from the refinery or the city ever gave them any information, or seemed to care. Then one night in June 2019, the refinery exploded, creating a whole new set of hazards and issues for the neighbors to wrestle with. “The most recent explosion woke us up out of our sleep,” said Pebbles. “But hearing that it will not be a refinery anymore is good. A lot of people ended up with cancer from the neighborhood.” Two years after the explosion, Pebbles and other nearby residents said in interviews that relations with the site’s new owner, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, which bought the 1,300-acre property in bankruptcy court last year, have improved and led to talks involving cleanup of the site and jobs. Philly Thrive, a non-profit that organized neighborhood opposition to the refinery well before the explosion, is part of a coalition of community groups negotiating a community benefits agreement with Hilco built upon transparency and community reinvestment. And Kenyatta Johnson, a local City Council member, has devised an economic opportunity plan with Hilco that requires 50 percent minority participation at all levels of the redevelopment, involving everyone from workers to executives.Alexa Ross, Philly Thrive’s campaign coordinator, said the group’s recent activities around the refinery site have involved “mobilizing and educating residents about the contamination of the refinery land because there is a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding about the specifics of the toxins left over from the refinery’s pollution.” With a massive cleanup effort underway to remove asbestos lining from pipes and remediate soil fouled by petroleum spills, underground beneze pools and contaminated groundwater, the site could become a test case for the Biden administration’s goal of ensuring that 40 percent of government spending on infrastructure and clean energy go to benefit so-called environmental justice communities.
PA's UGI Still Trying to Buy WV's Mountaineer Gas Company - Back in January MDN told you that UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, wants to buy Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million (see PA’s UGI Corp. Deal to Buy WV’s Mountaineer Gas Company). UGI serves 700,000 customers across PA (and one county in Maryland). Mountaineer serves 215,000 customers across WV. Both companies are big buyers of Marcellus/Utica shale gas. The deal was supposed to be done and dusted no later than June of this year. But here we are in July and the deal is still not done. The holdup appears to be West Virginia regulators, who will hold a public comment hearing on July 20 for the proposed sale. This sale has a tie-in with the recent PennEast Pipeline Supreme Court decision (see PennEast Pipe Decision Makes Pipeline Under Potomac River Likely). Mountaineer built a new pipeline system that delivers Marcellus/Utica natural gas to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and provides gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. The Mountaineer system planned to connect to a tiny 3.4-mile pipeline under the Potomac River that connects to M-U gas supplies flowing through the Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline. The State of Maryland has blocked the pipeline under the Potomac (which must cross state-owned land on one bank of the river) using the same legal argument the Supreme Court just rejected in the case of PennEast v. New Jersey. PennEast’s victory in the case means it is now much more likely the Potomac pipeline (which would be Columbia’s 13th pipeline under the river) will happen. Gas company executives are asking West Virginia utility regulators to approve the sale of a West Virginia natural gas company to a Pennsylvania gas supply corporation.The Public Service Commission of West Virginia will hold a public comment hearing on July 20 on the proposed sale of Mountaineer Gas to UGI Corporation.Mountaineer Gas serves roughly 215,000 customers and operates natural gas operations in 50 West Virginia counties, including Morgan County and neighboring Berkeley County.The company in recent years built a 23-mile natural gas distribution line from north-eastern Morgan County along U.S. 522 to connect to existing natural gas lines in Berkeley County near Martinsburg.There are plans to connect the Morgan County end of that Mountaineer Gas line to a natural gas transmission supply from Pennsylvania.Plans for construction of that connector line from Fulton County, Pa. to Morgan County include a section that would bore under the Potomac River near Hancock, Md. Those plans have state and federal regulatory approval, but are blocked by a right-of-way issue with the State of Maryland under the Western Maryland Rail Trail.
EQT Shifting More Focus to West Virginia, With No Plans to Drill in Ohio This Year - EQT Corp. is planning more drilling and completion activity this year in West Virginia, where it will focus on lowering well costs in a state that’s home to a large chunk of its assets. “I think when you step back and look at the assets that we have, about 40% of our leasehold is in West Virginia,” said CEO Toby Rice during a call on Thursday to discuss year-end financial results. “So, it makes sense for us to start shifting some of our development to that area.” Rice said longer laterals will help drive down well costs in West Virginia, where horizontals are planned to average 15,100 feet this year compared to 11,630 feet in Pennsylvania, which is where the bulk of the nation’s largest natural gas producer’s operations are located. The company assumes that the cost of Marcellus Shale wells in West Virginia will average $775 per lateral foot in 2021, compared to a cost of $675 per lateral foot for Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania. Rice also said the company would build a 45-mile mixed-use water system in West Virginia that’s expected to drive additional operational efficiencies and cut more costs there. Overall, EQT plans to turn 17 Marcellus wells to sales in West Virginia this year and 76 in Pennsylvania. While it also plans to turn five Utica wells to sales in Ohio, the company has no plans to drill wells there as it’s been working in recent years to divest core assets in the Buckeye State. EQT said it would spend between $1.10-1.20 billion this year to keep year/year production flat at 1.620-1.700 Bcfe to pro-forma 2020 levels. The company reported 2020 capital expenditures of $1.079 billion. Fourth quarter production came in at 401 Bcfe, compared to year-ago volumes of 373 Bcfe. The year/year gain was mainly driven by the company’s $735 million acquisition of Chevron Corp.’s Appalachian assets in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, which accounted for 12 Bcfe of 4Q2020 sales volumes. Full-year production came in at 1.498 Tcfe, down from 1.508 Tcfe in 2019 due to production curtailments and asset divestitures. The company also reported $325 million of positive free cash flow (FCF) and expects to generate up to $600 million of FCF this year. EQT reported fourth quarter net income of $64 million (23 cents/share) compared to a net loss of nearly $1.2 billion ( minus $4.61) in the year-ago period, when it reported higher impairments. The company reported a full-year net loss of $967 million (minus $3.71), compared to a net loss of more than $1.2 billion (minus $4.79) in 2019. Average realized prices fell to $2.37 in 2020 compared to $2.69 in 2019.
Evolution Well Services Extends Scope of Operations to West Virginia -- Evolution Well Services (EWS) announces its continued commercialization within the Marcellus and Utica Shale basins into the mountain state of West Virginia. "Evolution is excited to bring our industry-leading electric frac operations to West Virginia, and we also look forward to partnering with the local communities that enable our success each day", says Mike Bateman, Vice President of Operations. With the first completed well in 2016, EWS continues adding to its industry-leading 30,000+ fully electric frac stages. With innovation as the foundation for Evolution's operations, the company looks to continue revolutionizing how the hydraulic fracturing industry operates. Through its natural gas fueled mobile turbine and 100% electric frac technology, Evolution is creating a more sustainable environmental footprint for E&P's across the country. Coupled with Evolution's roughly 50% smaller physical footprint, the technology is an ideal solution for the challenging terrain in West Virgina. According to Steven Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, "Evolution is committed to leveraging our innovative technology to lower the industry's greenhouse gas intensity in a cost-effective, safe, and reliable manner." Evolution Well Services is the largest and most experienced provider of electric hydraulic fracturing services. With a decade of innovation, their patented technology continues to revolutionize the hydraulic fracturing industry with increased reliability and lower carbon operations.
Air Board pushes decision on Lambert compressor station permit to September following complaints - The State Air Pollution Control Board has deferred consideration of a permit for a controversial compressor station in Pittsylvania County to September following complaints about the scheduling of a midday, midweek meeting in Richmond to consider the issue.“This provides the board with additional time to ensure a thorough review and full consideration of the information submitted into the public record on this permit application,” said Department of Environmental Quality Director David Paylor in an agency release. The proposed compressor station would be part of an offshoot of the Mountain Valley Pipeline known as the Southgate extension. That pipeline is expected to run about 75 miles from Pittsylvania south into North Carolina. North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality has twice denied a necessary water permit for the project, citing numerous erosion and sediment issues with the main line of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and doubts about its completion. The required air permit for the Pittsylvania compressor station has been hotly contested, with the air board receiving hundreds of comments on the proposal. But despite discussion among the board in April about scheduling consideration of the permit in the evening or on a weekend to increase public accessibility, the deliberations were scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon in Richmond. DEQ also said that with the lifting of the COVID-19 emergency, the meeting would be in-person only, and the agency did not have the resources to run a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting. Several groups protested the decision. In one letter, the Pittsylvania County branch of the NAACP urged the air board to either add a virtual component to the meeting or hold it closer to the proposed site of the compressor station. “Our members and others from Southern Virginia are facing a 300-mile, 6-hour round trip, and a 1- or 2-night stay in order to attend the meeting. Given the current set-up, we can only speak — and listen — if we make the trip,” the group wrote. DEQ said Friday that Mountain Valley Pipeline had agreed to an extension of the timeline for a decision on the permit, which is outlined in statute. “This doesn’t address the need for hybrid options, but as serious concerns were raised by the public during the comment period, including that environmental justice issues were not properly addressed and community engagement was lacking, additional time for the board to review comments from the public is very welcome,” said Appalachian Voices field coordinator Jessica Sims.
EPA wants more from Equitrans on big pipeline project - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a May letter that plans for a Pittsburgh company’s big pipeline construction may not be enough to comply with the Clean Water Act and that it shouldn’t grant a key permit until changes are made. The EPA’s comments in a May 27 interagency letter, which until now hadn’t been made public, is the latest challenge to the building of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline that will take Marcellus and Utica Shale natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia. It will connect with another pipeline in southwestern Pennsylvania and is a $6 billion project of Pittsburgh-based MVP and Equitrans Midstream Corp. (NYSE: ETRN). The pipeline is over budget and at least three years behind schedule due to litigation and challenges made by opponents of the pipeline. “The direct, secondary and cumulative impacts from the discharges associated with this project to these watersheds may result in significant degradation of the waters of the United States and reduce the ability for remaining aquatic resources to maintain hydrological, geochemical and biological functions,” wrote EPA Wetlands Branch Chief Jeffrey D. Lapp to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps is weighing a permit for water crossings that remain on the route. While work is continuing elsewhere on the route, the crossings of water and the Jefferson National Forest are key to finishing the pipeline. Lapp recommended that the pipeline permits not be approved until Equitrans modified its application, including employing different water crossing methods as well as having a restoration plan to restore the temporary impacts of pipeline construction. It said that some of the waterbodies may have long-term impacts to some of the creatures living there, including endangered species like the Roanoke logperch and the Candy darter. The letter notes 200 parts of the Upper Roanoke River watershed and 100 in the New River drainage areas where impacts can occur. The letter was obtained by Appalachian Mountain Advocates in a Freedom of Information Act request this week and was confirmed by the Army Corps. “They have received a comment letter from the USEPA and they are currently evaluating it,” said an Army Corps spokesman. “The letter has been provided to MVP for their response.” Neither EPA nor Equitrans responded to a request for comment. In May, Equitrans extended the time line for operation from the end of 2021 to summer 2022, citing regulatory challenges. David Sligh, conservation director of Wild Virginia, said the EPA wanted to see a review of what the construction would do to the watersheds. “It is now time for the Corps and the state regulators in both Virginia and West Virginia to step up and do their jobs,” Sligh said. “We are confident that proper analyses by these agencies will prove that MVP cannot go forward with this ill-conceived plan in a way that protects our waters and our communities.”
EPA recommends that Army Corps of Engineers not grant Mountain Valley Pipeline stream crossing permit - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recommended that the Army Corps of Engineers not grant Mountain Valley Pipeline a critical permit to cross several hundred streams in Virginia and West Virginia. “EPA has identified a number of substantial concerns with the project as currently proposed, including whether all feasible avoidance and minimization measures have been undertaken, deficient characterization of the aquatic resources to be impacted, insufficient assessment of secondary and cumulative impacts and potential for significant degradation, and the proposed mitigation,” EPA Wetlands Branch Chief Jeffrey Lapp wrote in a May 27 letter. The letter was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by environmental law firm Appalachian Mountain Advocates. Roy Seneca, a regional spokesperson for the agency, said in an email Thursday that “EPA’s recommendation in the letter still stands.” Among areas of concern highlighted by the EPA are the Upper Roanoke watershed, which will experience 200 of the project’s proposed 719 stream impacts, and the Middle New watershed, which will see nearly 100 impacts. Numerous Southwest Virginia counties and cities, including Montgomery, Floyd and Roanoke, fall within these watersheds. “While many of the discharges of fill associated with the proposed construction activity may be considered temporary, the impacts from those discharges may have lasting effects, particularly due to the sensitivity of the aquatic resources and the repetitive nature of impacts to some of the tributaries,” EPA wrote. Natalie Cox, a spokesperson for Mountain Valley Pipeline, said in an email that the company has “continued to work closely with all federal and state agencies to address MVP’s permit applications.” “These efforts remain ongoing, and we are committed to meeting or exceeding all applicable compliance requirements related to environmental protection,” she wrote. Mountain Valley has struggled throughout its development to obtain and keep required environmental permits, causing its price tag to balloon to nearly $6.2 billion and its projected completion date to be repeatedly pushed back. This May the company said it expected to complete the project by summer 2022, due to extensions sought by Virginia and West Virginia regulators to review the stream-crossing permits. On June 28, the Army Corps of Engineers gave Virginia regulators until Dec. 31 to review the project’s state water quality certification.
Outdoor enthusiasts concerned about C&O Canal prospects following court ruling on pipeline — A recent federal court ruling could impact residents’ recreational use of the scenic C&O Canal. The U.S. Supreme court voted 5 to 4 last week, giving the okay for the 116-mile Penn-East natural gas pipeline’s construction. This pipeline will extend from southern Pennsylvania through western Maryland and into West Virginia. Environmental critics say the court decision will harm canoeing along the canal and the rail trail for bicycle enthusiasts on the Maryland side of the Potomac. “The rail trail and the canal is the lifeblood of Hancock at the moment. We just don’t want anything to mess that up. Hancock seems to be growing and we want to keep it that way,” said Jimmy Barnhart, owner of C&O Bicycles in Hancock. The Sierra Club says it will challenge a right-of-way permit for the pipeline, which must be issued by the National Park Service.
Biden Administration Backs South Portland's Authority To Block Oil Pipeline -The administration of President Joe Biden has submitted a legal filing that supports South Portland's local authority to prohibit the loading of crude oil onto tankers in its harbor.The city created a Clear Skies Ordinance in 2014 to block oil companies from building a tar sands export terminal.The Portland Pipe Line Corporation has challenged the ordinance, saying it's preempted by federal law. But in a filing submitted to the US First Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, the federal government disagreed with that argument. The National Wildlife Federation, which has joined efforts to shut down a pipeline in Michigan, is praising the Biden Administration's position in South Portland's case. A staff attorney says it affirms that "states have the right to protect public health and natural resources by determining where an oil pipeline can be located."
Company exploring new gas pipeline in five central and eastern Va. counties - A company that appears to be affiliated with efforts to build a large natural gas plant in Charles City County is exploring the possibility of constructing a gas pipeline through five central and eastern Virginia counties, according to letters sent to residents. In the letters, Chickahominy Pipeline, LLC, requests landowners’ permission to enter their property to conduct surveys and other appraisals to determine the feasibility of building a 24-inch gas pipeline along an unspecified route through Charles City, Hanover, Henrico, Louisa and New Kent counties. “At this time, we will only be walking to determine the proposed route select (sic), the most visible route that will limit the impact to the property,” reads a letter to Hanover County property owners dated July 2. The pipeline company registered with the State Corporation Commission this January and lists the same address and registered agent as Chickahominy Power, LLC, a subsidiary of developer Balico, LLC, which is planning the proposed 1.6-gigawatt gas plant in Charles City County. Balico did not respond to an email about pipeline plans. What path the project might follow is not clear. Pipelines owned by Transco and Columbia Gas cross through Louisa County, and both Columbia and Virginia Natural Gas operate lines throughout the southeastern portion of the state. Chickahominy Power’s 2018 application to the State Corporation Commission for permission to construct and operate the facility noted that a 16-inch gas pipeline owned by Virginia Natural Gas crossed the proposed plant site. “Acquisition of natural gas production and arrangements for delivery to the facility will be provided by an independent fuel manager,” the application read. “The fuel gas supply system for the facility will receive pipeline quality natural gas from the gas supplier’s pipeline interface location, situated on site. … There are no incremental interstate natural gas pipelines currently related to the facility.”
Settlement reached in massive Colonial Pipeline gasoline spill in Huntersville – — Colonial Pipeline and federal regulators have reached a settlement in the massive gasoline spill in Huntersville, and it means Colonial will not go to court -- at least for now. Two teenagers riding an ATV on the Oehler Nature Preserve along Huntersville-Concord Road last August found the largest gas leak in North Carolina history. At last estimate, 1.2 million gallons of gasoline spilled from the Colonial Pipeline, but Colonial didn’t know about it until the teen’s report. According to a settlement between the company and the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the pipeline’s leak detection system never caught it -- and it wasn’t the first time, according to the settlement. The system also missed other spills in Virginia, Georgia and Alabama. While there’s no financial punishment for the leak in this settlement, Colonial agreed to evaluate and then improve that detection system as crews continue to clean-up the site.
Coast Guard: 'Large' oil leak during Georgia ship demolition (AP) — A large amount of oil has escaped a barrier after it was released while crews were dismantling an overturned cargo ship along the Georgia coast, the Coast Guard said Thursday. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Himes said it was hard to estimate how much oil leaked, but it has affected marsh grass along the shoreline. Crews noticed the leak around 8 a.m. while cutting away a fifth section of the Golden Ray, which capsized in September 2019 with about 4,200 automobiles in its cargo decks. Roughly half the ship remains partially submerged off St. Simons Island, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Savannah. Himes said changing currents can push oil past the barrier surrounding the ship. “This is an unfortunate consequence of removing a wreck in this kind of environment,” Himes said. Demolition crews began working in November to remove the ship by cutting it into eight giant chunks and placing them on barges. Officials had hoped to have the work finished by last January, but numerous problems have caused delays. Most of the fuel onboard the ship was siphoned from its tanks long before demolition began, but Himes said officials knew there was the potential for additional leaks. Crews in June also cleaned up oil from the ship that escaped the environmental protection barrier. This leak appears worse, said Fletcher Sams, with the environmental group, Altamaha Riverkeeper. “We are seeing sheen everywhere,” he said. “It’s a lot of fuel.”
Swimmers Warned About Oil After Georgia Ship Spill —Health officials warned swimmers and fishers to be on the lookout for oil sheens off two Georgia islands after oil spilled from an overturned cargo ship while crews were dismantling it. The Coastal Health District issued the alert Thursday for the waters off Jekyll and St. Simons islands hours after a large amount of oil from the nearby Golden Ray escaped a barrier around the ship. The oil leaked while crews were cutting away a fifth section of the ship, which capsized in September 2019 with about 4,200 automobiles in its cargo decks. Roughly half the ship remains partially submerged off St. Simons Island, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Savannah. Crews used absorbent boom and oil skimmers to capture spilled fuel. Officials have said it’s hard to estimate how much fuel spilled. The health district said swimmers and fishers should avoid areas with visible oil sheens, and swimmers should get out of the water if they see one. It recommended washing with soap and water in case of contact with oil or a tar ball. Demolition crews began working in November to remove the Golden Ray by cutting it into eight giant chunks and placing them on barges. Officials had hoped to have the work finished by last January, but numerous problems have caused delays. Most of the fuel onboard the ship was siphoned from its tanks long before demolition began, but officials have said they knew there was the potential for additional leaks. Crews in June also cleaned up oil from the ship that escaped the environmental protection barrier.
‘A victory for us’: Southwest Memphis residents elated as developers drop Byhalia Pipeline project - MLK50: Justice Through Journalism -- At first, it was just a few Black residents – most elderly – in one of Memphis’ poorer neighborhoods, up against a behemoth pipeline company. Then some younger activists showed up. They organized rallies, wrangled support from elected officials, filed and fought lawsuits. National media and celebrities took notice. And then late Friday afternoon came the news: Developers of the Byhalia Connection Pipeline – what proponents insisted would create hundreds of jobs and what opponents called the embodiment of environmental racism and a threat to the water supply – would no longer pursue the project.The explanation given was “lower US oil production resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic,” but at least one environmental activist gave the credit to pipeline opponents, including the grassroots Memphis Community Against the Pipeline organization“Byhalia Pipeline canceled!” tweeted former Vice President Al Gore. “Congrats to @MemphisCAP_org& the community of SW Memphis who made their voices heard to stop this reckless, racist ripoff! No more oil in our soil!” At a hastily called gathering Friday evening at Alonzo Weaver Park in Southwest Memphis — where MCAP held most of its rallies — MCAP founder Justin J. Pearson stood with his hands stretched to the sky, thanking God.“This is where what we view as power, met people-power, in a community they thought was powerless,” Pearson said. “It’s time to make sure we’ll never have to fight this fight again. And when we pass those laws, it will be an even bigger celebration.”
Plains All American abandons Byhalia pipeline. How Memphis reacted. --The company planning to build the Byhalia Connection pipeline on Friday announced that it is abandoning the project, bringing a sudden end to one of the biggest environmental controversies in recent Memphis history. The project, which would have put a crude oil pipeline through mostly Black South Memphis neighborhoods, sparked a complex legal and public relations battle that was fought in multiple venues, from the Memphis City Council to the court of national public opinion. Local opponents and celebrities such as Al Gore, Danny Glover and Jane Fonda voiced opposition — the former vice president visited Memphis and called the project "a reckless, racist rip-off.” Opponents also raised concerns about oil spills and threats to the area's drinking water, which is drawn from wells deep underground from the Memphis Sand aquifer. The companies Plains All American Pipeline and Valero Energy Corp. had formed a joint venture , Byhalia Connection LLC, to build the pipeline. The pipeline was to have started at the Valero refinery in South Memphis on West Mallory Avenue, traveled south across the Mississippi state line, and swung to the east before terminating in Marshall County, Mississippi. It was to connect two existing crude oil pipelines. Company representatives had argued for months that the pipeline could operate safely. But the opposition was organized, and in May, the company had told City Council representatives that it was putting the project on pause. Sarah Houston is an executive with the environmental group Protect Our Aquifer. She said her first reaction to Friday's news was that it was incredible. "We don't know if they'll come back or not, but right now it feels like a Fourth of July birthday present." Kathy Robinson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline, said she was shocked that the fight did not last as long as expected. "I anticipated this to last as long as the Keystone XL Pipeline, if I'm honest," Robinson said. A fight over construction of the 1,200-mile Keystone XL Pipeline had lasted for years and ended in June. "But I'm happy when I reflect on my family history and future. There will be one less industry in southwest Memphis today. There will not be a new entity poisoning us more, not today." Justin Pearson, another environmental activist and a key leader in the pipeline fight, spoke about the decision on Facebook Live. "We've shown them that we aren't the path of least resistance. We are the path of resilience." The statement released by the company didn't mention the opposition.
U.S. natgas slips off 30-month peak on milder weather outlook (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures retreated from a 30-month high on Tuesday as forecasts pointed to milder weather and lower demand over the next two weeks than previously expected. Front-month gas futures NGc1 for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 6.3 cents to settle 1.7% lower at $3.637 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at 3:18 p.m. EDT. The session high of $3.822 was its highest since late 2018. "Forecasts show a broader area of normal-to-below normal temperatures, especially in the gas consuming areas, weighing on the market," But "the hottest weather is ahead of us across the country with the southeast not far above normal temperatures, so we could see higher natural gas prices later in the summer," he added. The front-month also remained in overbought territory with a relative strength index (RSI) over 70 for a eighth day in a row, further adding pressure to prices. Data provider Refinitiv said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states fell to an average of 90.4 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in July due mostly to pipeline problems in West Virginia. That compares with an average of 92.2 bcfd in June and an all-time high of 95.4 bcfd in November 2019. Refinitiv projected average gas demand, including exports, would slip from 93.3 bcfd in the prior week to 89.3 bcfd this week as milder weather cuts air conditioning use, before rising to 93 bcfd in the following week. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants averaged 11 bcfd so far in July, up from 10.1 bcfd in June but still below the record 11.5 bcfd in April. With European and Asian gas both trading over $12 per mmBtu, analysts said LNG exports from the United States would remain high. The Title Transfer Facility (TTF) in the Netherlands, the European gas benchmark, was near its highest since October 2008. U.S. pipeline exports to Mexico averaged 6.3 bcfd so far in July, down from a record 6.7 bcfd in June.
Paltry Storage Build Fuels Rebound for August Natural Gas Futures; Spot Prices Sail Higher -- Natural gas futures bounced back on Thursday, bolstered by an anemic increase in inventories that pointed to a tight supply/demand balance and ignited concerns about adequate storage levels. The August Nymex contract spiked 9.2 cents day/day and settled at $3.688/MMBtu. September jumped 9.3 cents to $3.667. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. advanced 10.5 cents to $3.525, led higher by strong demand in the West. Prior to Thursday, the prompt month had declined each of the two previous sessions along with a retreat in global commodities. The August contract held in negative territory early Thursday as well, but it soared after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 16 Bcf injection into storage for the week ended July 2. The EIA print came in below the low end of estimates reported in major polls. A Bloomberg survey produced a range of predictions from 19 Bcf to 47 Bcf, with a median of 27 Bcf. Results of a Reuters survey spanned 22 Bcf to 64 Bcf, with a median build of 29 Bcf. NGI’s model predicted a 28 Bcf increase. [Interested in NGI’s Weekly NatGas Storage figure? Sign up to receive our machine learning estimate of the EIA storage injection/withdrawal figure every Wednesday. Click to learn more about this free resource.] “Make no mistake about it, this number is quite strong, reflective of the tightest supply/demand balances we have seen yet this warm season,” Bespoke Weather Services said. “…We need more material gains in production in order to get back on a trajectory that promotes sufficient storage levels as we head toward and then into the upcoming winter season.” A year earlier, EIA recorded a 57 Bcf injection and the five-year average is 63 Bcf. Record heat scorched the Pacific Northwest during the covered week. Lofty temperatures peppered the East Coast and swaths of the nation’s midsection, too. Additionally, after summer maintenance projects wrapped up, liquefied natural gas (LNG) levels bounced back. LNG feed gas demand topped 11 Bcf on several days last week, approaching record levels after hovering below 10 Bcf through most of June. Production levels also declined in the Northeast and South Central regions last week.
East Coast gas storage risk fuels rally in Northeast winter forwards markets --A widening gas storage deficit in the Eastern US is raising alarm in the Northeast downstream market area, where winter 2021-22 forwards prices are up sharply since the start of injection season. Not registered? Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now On July 8, prior-week storage data released by the US Energy Information Administration showed the smallest build to East Coast inventories since the transitional storage period in late April. In the week ending July 2, the East Coast gas industry injected just 8 Bcf to inventory, widening the region's storage deficit to the five-year average by 15 Bcf, or 36%. At 521 Bcf, East Region storage is now 57 Bcf below the five-year average and 133 Bcf below its corresponding year-ago level, EIA data shows. As the East Coast storage deficit continues to grow, forwards markets have already begun bracing for higher winter gas prices at key downstream locations along the Upper Atlantic Seaboard. At Boston-area hub Algonquin city-gates, the January 2022 forward gas contract settled as high as $12.85/MMBtu earlier this month -- up from the mid-$7s/MMBtu as recently as April. At Transco Zone 6 New York, the January contract has settled as high as $7.65/MMBtu recently, rising from the low-$6s/MMBtu in early April, S&P Global Platts' M2MS forwards data shows. Trailing inventory levels and rising winter gas prices in the Eastern US come as the region's supply balance faces pressure this summer amid strong power burn demand and relatively flat production. From June 1 to date, Northeast gas-fired power burn has averaged a record 9.4 Bcf/d, outpacing last summer's prior-record average over that period by about 100 MMcf/d. The new highs for power burn demand come despite significantly stronger gas prices this year, compared with 2020. Last month, population-weighted temperatures in the Northeast climbed into the 80s Fahrenheit on two separate occasions, making for the hottest June monthly average temperature in over a decade. Short-term forecasts show 80-degree temperatures returning to the Northeast in H2 July, bringing with them the possibility for another record demand month, S&P Global Plats Analytics data shows. According to a recent monthly forecast from the National Weather Service, the Northeast -- and New England especially -- face an elevated 40% to 50% risk for above-average temperatures in July.
Energy Transfer's Gulf Run pipeline to export fracked gas from Louisiana set to begin construction -- In June, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) narrowly approved the construction of a new 42” diameter gas pipeline that will connect shale wells in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Ohio to a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Gulf Coast, carrying over a billion cubic feet of fracked gas to be transported overseas every day. The FERC decision was split, with two of the five commissioners dissenting, writing that the Commission had failed to adequately examine the climate-changing pollution linked to the fossil fuel pipeline. That dissent in Gulf Run takes on new relevance as the term of FERC Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, appointed by Donald Trump in 2017, ended on Wednesday. President Joe Biden is expected to soon announce a nominee as Chatterjee’s replacement — a decision rumored to be between Willie Phillips, who, according to Politico Morning Energy, previously worked for Jeff Sessions and interned in George W. Bush’s Office of General Counsel, and Maria Duaime Robinson, a former official with Advanced Energy Economy, which advocates for solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear energy. The Gulf Run pipeline, one small piece of the shale industry’s strategy to revive itself despite the growing climate crisis, offers a view of the crossroads faced by the Biden administration. The project highlights federal regulators’ continued business-as-usual approach to fossil fuel infrastructure projects with decades-long expected lifespans and regulators’ failures to curb greenhouse gas emissions.On the other hand, shifts within FERC could provide federal regulators with the opportunity to begin encouraging an energy transition, with energy experts at the International Energy Agency calling for an end to all new fossil fuel investments, citing the urgency of the climate crisis — a plan made all the more feasible by the rise of low-cost renewable energy options. Once built, the 134-mile Gulf Run pipeline will carry 1.1 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas each day to the Golden Pass LNG terminal, a project by ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleumaiming to export up to 2.5 bcf per day by 2026. That’s enough gas each day to supply roughly 12.5 million U.S. homes. But the Gulf Run pipeline is able to transport even more than that, with a total capacity of up to 1.7 bcf per day. The pipeline’s backers plan to have it up and running by 2022 (though Golden Pass won’t begin exporting LNG until 2025).Energy Transfer — the builder of the Dakota Access, Mariner East, and Bayou Bridge pipelines — announced in February that it was acquiring Enable Midstream, the company behind Gulf Run. Gulf Run’s relatively modest price tag — estimated at $540 million by its builders or over $1.1 billion by FERC — belies the volume of gas it can carry, which is greater than the canceled Atlantic Coast pipeline, which clocked in at 1.5 bcf per day and wound up embroiled in legal challenges that reached the Supreme Court.Gulf Run’s relatively low construction cost, compared to other pipelines capable of carrying a similar amount of gas, is in part because the project, according to Enable’s CEO Ron Sailor, “makes significant use of existing assets” — only part of the pipeline will be newly built, with the rest consisting of repurposed existing pipes and compressor stations that will be modified to allow gas to flow in two directions. The company also noted that it acquired pipe for the new construction at “favorable pricing relative to market.”
The U.S. Gas Industry Is Headed for Hard Times - New Republic -One way or another, U.S. liquefied natural gas is on course for a reckoning. One batch of bad news for the industry came in May, when the International Energy Agency reported that in a scenario for meeting current climate targets, “many of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction facilities currently under construction or at the planning stage” are “not needed.” This week, a new report from the agency found that even the slowdown in gas demand projected to begin next year “may still be too high to match a net-zero emissions path.”Yet in May, American LNG exports climbed to record highs. LNG production here is currently on track to reach its highest-ever levels this year amid economic recoveries at home and abroad, according to the independent energy consultancy Rystad Energy. Shell noted earlier this year that it expects LNG demand to nearly double by 2040, with Asia accounting for 75 percent of demand growth. But times could be changing. Last week, the Department of Energy announced it would review a proposed LNG export facility in Alaska’s North Slope, being built by state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. The DOE’s supplemental environmental impact statement will analyze both the project’s local environmental harms and the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of the LNG it would export, most of which is destined for Asia. The review is being carried out as a result of two executive orders issued by the Biden administration in January, directing federal agencies to review and strengthen regulations to combat the climate crisis. Prompted by a request from the Sierra Club, this action from the department could set an important precedent for the U.S. reviewing the climate impacts of its fossil fuel exports, whose burning tends not to be reflected in domestic greenhouse gas accounting. U.S. gas is in a tricky economic situation as it is. As exports have surged, the short-run marginal costs for exporting to one of its key target markets—Asia—have risen by 65 percent since this time last year, amid rising transportation and oil prices. Given how costly American LNG is relative to LNG from other providers like Qatar, it could struggle in Asia, in particular, over the next several years, regardless of what new climate rules stick. Other projects have already been canceled. In March, Annova LNG announced that it was abandoning its proposed export facility in South Texas’s Brownsville Ship Channel, citing “changes in the Global LNG market.” “Without pressure from the administration on emerging markets to guarantee purchases of U.S. gas, exporters might have to navigate the competitive market environment at their own risk,” Sam Reynolds and Melissa Brown of International Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, or IEEFA, wrote in a recent report. While the DOE review of the Alaska LNG megaproject may signal a change, state support for fossil fuels is continuing on other fronts. Founded in 2018, the U.S. government’s multi-agency Asia Enhancing Development Through Energy, or EDGE, aims to “grow sustainable and secure energy markets throughout the Indo-Pacific,” and “[expand] the downstream regional market for natural gas and LNG imports.” The program is actively supporting gas development in the Philippines, where the Gas Policy Development Project—a collaboration between that country’s Department of Energy and the University of the Philippines Statistical Center Research Foundation—is reportedly still receiving State Department funds.
US Natural Gas Rig Count Up Two as GOM Activity Rises - The U.S. natural gas rig count rose two units to finish at 101 during the week ended Friday, a week that also saw a notable uptick in drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), according to updated data from oilfield services provider Baker Hughes Co. (BKR). Weekly US Oil & Gas Drilling Summary Drilling gains in the United States for the week were split evenly between natural gas-directed rigs and oil-directed units, which also increased by two. The combined U.S. rig count finished at 479 as of Friday compared with 258 at this time last year, according to the BKR numbers, which are based in part on data from Enverus. The GOM saw a three-rig increase for the week to reach 17 rigs overall, improving on its count of 12 from a year earlier. Two rigs were added on land in the United States, while one rig departed from inland waters. Horizontal units increased by four; one directional unit was added, while one vertical rig departed for the week. The Canadian rig count, meanwhile, climbed one unit week/week to reach 137, up from 26 in the year-ago period. Changes there included the addition of one oil-directed rig and one gas-directed, partially offset by a decline of one miscellaneous unit. Broken down by major play, there were no significant net changes week/week. The Utica Shale saw a one-rig increase, bringing its total to 10, versus 8 a year ago, according to BKR. Broken down by state, Texas saw a net increase of two rigs for the period, while Louisiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Wyoming each added one rig to their respective totals. Colorado and Pennsylvania each posted net decline of one rig for the week.
Fracking Dumps Millions of Gallons of Toxic Chemicals Into Gulf of Mexico - A fracking boom in the Gulf of Mexico poses a major risk to human health and wildlife, a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has found. The report, published Wednesday, calculated that oil and gas companies had dumped at least 66.3 million gallons of fracking fluids into the vulnerable waters of the Gulf between 2010 and 2020 with government approval. "Offshore fracking threatens Gulf communities and wildlife far more than our government has acknowledged. To protect life and our climate, we should ban these extreme extraction techniques," CBD oceans program director Miyoko Sakashita said in a press release. "A decade into the offshore fracking boom, officials still haven't properly studied its public health impacts. The failure to curb this major source of pollution is astounding and unacceptable." CBD compiled its figures based on scientific studies and federal reports obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. The figures reveal both the extent of industrial pollution and the fact that the federal government has allowed it. There has been a fracking boom in the Gulf of Mexico in the past decade, and the waters off Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas account for around 98 percent of all the offshore oil and gas produced in the U.S. Since 2010, the federal government has approved at least 3,039 incidences of fracking and at least 760 incidences of acidizing in the area.When fracking occurs, water and chemicals are blasted into the seafloor to release oil and gas. Acidizing, on the other hand, involves using hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acid to carve channels in the rock for the fossil fuels to flow out."The federal government allows oil companies to dump produced wastewater, including fracking and acidizing chemicals, into the Gulf without limit," the report authors wrote.There is evidence that the chemicals involved in fracking can harm human and animal health. They have been shown to kill marine life in laboratory settings at concentrations equal to the ones measured near fracking platforms. Chemicals involved in fracking can also cause reproductive harm, cancer and death.Further, fracking contributes to the climate crisis and threatens the economy of the Gulf. Tourism and fishing, which are both put at risk by offshore fracking, create more than 10 times the jobs that the fossil fuel industry provides. Fracking isn't the only way that fossil fuels harm the Gulf and its ecosystems, of course. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill continues to harm human and animal health ten years after the fact, as National Geographic reported in 2020. And an Oceana report also published that year warned that another such disaster could easily occur in the same waters. "Offshore drilling is still as dirty and dangerous as it was 10 years ago," Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said at the time. "If anything, another disaster is more likely today as the oil industry drills deeper and farther offshore."
Giant fire erupts in Gulf after pipeline leak -Fire officials spent more than five hours Friday putting out a fire that erupted in the Gulf of Mexico that officials with Mexico's state-owned oil company said was due to a pipeline leak.Videos of the blaze west of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula went viral on social media, with users calling the massive circular blaze erupting from within the water an “eye of fire.” The flames could be seen a short distance away from an oil platform atPetróleos Mexicanos's (Pemex) Ku Maloob Zaap oil field, which Reuters reported is the company’s most important oil center.In some footage from the incident, several boats could be seen surrounding the blaze attempting to douse the flames. Reuters reported that company workers used nitrogen to control the fire. Pemex said in a press release that the fire began around 5:15 a.m. local time following a gas leak in its 12-inch submarine pipeline off the platform located just up the southern rim of the Gulf.The company said emergency officials responded to the incident “immediately,” activating security protocols and receiving help from fire fighting vessels from nearby Santa Cruz Island, Campeche Bay and Bourbon Alienor.Pemex added that it was able to close the valves of the pipeline, with the fire extinguished by about 10:45 a.m. The Mexican oil company, which said it was investigating what exactly caused the fire, said there were no injuries reported, and it was able to continue production at the facility.A Pemex incident report that was shared with Reuters stated that "The turbomachinery of Ku Maloob Zaap's active production facilities were affected by an electrical storm and heavy rains," though it was not immediately clear if this led to the oil leak.
Burst pipeline causes bubbling, steaming "eye of fire" to emerge in the Gulf of Mexico - CBS News -It seems like something that could only appear in a movie, but on Friday, it was reality: The ocean was on fire. A gas leak west of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula broke out of an underwater pipeline, causing bright flames to appear to boil up to the Gulf of Mexico's surface and create what many described as an "eye of fire."Gas started leaking from the pipeline in the Campeche Sound at roughly 5:15 a.m. on Friday, according to a statement from the company that owns the pipeline, Petróleos Mexicanos, otherwise known as Pemex.Pemex, a state-owned petroleum company, said in its statement that the incident was dealt with immediately after security protocols were activated, and firefighting vessels were sent to deal with the incident.Normal operating conditions resumed around 10:45 a.m. on Friday, Pemex said, after interconnection valves were closed and the fire was extinguished. The company reported no injuries or evacuees, and said that it will investigate what happened.Angel Carrizales, executive director of Mexico's security, energy and environment agency, wrote on Twitter that the pipeline did not generate a spill.Journalist Manuel Lopez San Martin posted the now-viral videos on Twitter, which show four ships appearing to spray water at the massive circle of flames. The fire, according to Martin, was just 400 meters from an oil platform. Pemex has a history of major industrial accidents. According to its website, the company operates 81 drilling rigs, including 11 that are offshore. In April, one of Pemex's wells in Sota la Marina in Tamaulipas, Mexica, developed a leak, according to a statement on the company's website. The company said it would build a dam to prevent the flow of water and clay and that the leak did not pose any risk because the area was unpopulated. In February, a fire broke out at the Tula-Salamanca pipeline in San Juan del Rio, but later controlled and extinguished the blaze, the company said in a statement. In January 2019, a Pemex-owned fuel pipeline in Tlauhuelilpan, Hidalgo exploded, killing dozens of people who were gathered around an illegal pipe drain to get fuel. Following the incident, Pemex said the pipeline had been breached 10 times over three months. It was estimated that 10,000 barrels of gasoline were going through the pipeline with 20 kilograms of pressure when it ruptured.
Intense lightening storm ignited gas pipeline leak in Gulf of Mexico - Mexico's state-owned oil company said Monday that a bizarre chain of events, including a lightening storm and a simultaneous gas pipeline leak, set off a strange subaquatic fireball seen last week in the Gulf of Mexico. Petroleos Mexicanos said an intense storm of rain and lightening on July 2 forced the company to shut off pumping stations serving the offshore rig near where the fire occurred. Simultaneously, the leak in an underwater pipeline allowed natural gas to build up on the ocean floor and once it rose to the surface, it was probably ignited by a lightening bolt, the company said. Pemex sent fire control boats to pump more water over the flames and no one was injured in the incident in the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap field. It said no crude oil was spilled. Pemex said it was repairing the pumps and investigating the cause of the gas leak. The accident unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and drew a hail of criticism from environmentalists. Greenpeace Mexico said the fire, which took five hours to extinguish, "demonstrates the serious risks that Mexico's fossil fuel model poses for the environment and people's safety." President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador has bet heavily on drilling more wells and buying or building oil refineries. He touts oil as "the best business in the world." Climate activist Greta Thunberg reposted a video clip of the fireball on her Twitter account. "Meanwhile, the people in power call themselves climate leaders' as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants granting new oil licenses exploring future oil drilling sites," Thunberg wrote. "This is the world they are leaving for us.”
Patterson-UTI to Expand USA Drilling Fleet 11% - Onshore U.S. drilling specialist Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. revealed Tuesday that it will add 16 super-spec drilling rigs to its 150-rig domestic fleet. Patterson-UTI will add the land rigs via its pending $295 million acquisition of Pioneer Energy Services Corp., which it announced Tuesday. “As a leading provider of contract drilling services in the United States, we are proud to announce this transaction,” Patterson-UTI CEO Andy Hendricks remarked in a written statement emailed to Rigzone. “Pioneer’s high-quality fleet of 17 drilling rigs in the United States, of which 16 are super-spec, will be a valuable addition to our business. Additionally, many of these rigs are capable of substituting cleaner-burning natural gas for diesel, a technology that is becoming increasingly important to operators for reduced emissions.” According to Patterson-UTI, the acquisition deal will retire all of Pioneer’s debt. Moreover, it stated the agreement calls for issuing up to 26,275,000 shares of Patterson-UTI common stock plus a $30 million cash payment. In addition to growing Patterson-UTI’s U.S. super-spec rig fleet to 166 units, nearly one-half of which will be able to run on alternative power sources, the transaction will expand the firm’s geographic footprint internationally with the addition of eight pad-capable rigs in Colombia, Patterson-UTI noted. Hendricks pointed out that Pioneer has worked in Colombia for 14 years with an experienced operations team and well-established infrastructure.Pioneer Energy Services’ holdings also include a 123-service-rig well service business in the Gulf Coast region that Patterson-UTI expects to divest following the transaction.
State Oil Conservation Division can issue fines for spills | The NM Political Report - Soon the state’s Oil Conservation Division will have the ability to issue civil fines when oil and natural gas industry spills occur. The Oil Conservation Commission approved a final order to amend the state’s release rule during a meeting on Thursday. This unanimous vote came approximately one month after it was discussed and approved during a two-day hearing. The rule change will be printed in the New Mexico Register in August prior to taking effect. The change comes as a result of a petition filed in March by WildEarth Guardians and the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Division, which oversees the OCD, seeking amendments to the release rule. Currently, spills are permissible and the OCD is only able to penalize the operators if they fail to report a spill. Those spills include oil, gas, produced water, oil field waste and other contaminants. The rule change will give the OCD increased authority to take enforcement actions, such as levying civil penalties, against operators when spills occur and will prohibit both major and minor spills. “The vote today will give EMNRD’s Oil Conservation Division another tool to uphold our statutory authority to protect human health and the environment,” EMNRD Cabinet Secretary Sarah Cottrell Propst said in a press release. “Multiple stakeholders came together to finalize this common-sense change that will benefit New Mexicans, another example of this administration’s commitment to collaboration and problem-solving.”
New Mexico oil oversight agency, with restored authority, plugs orphaned wells, issues fines -The agency that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry is issuing citations and plugging abandoned wells at a faster rate since regaining enforcement power in 2020. The Oil Conservation Division reported filing 23 complaints against operators — imposing $263,000 in penalties — while plugging 49 orphaned wells, the most in one year since at least 2016. The fines are the first the agency has meted out in more than a decade. The agency credits the increased oversight with state lawmakers restoring its authority to issue administrative penalties, a power the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2009 ruled the agency did not have under the Oil and Gas Act’s previous language. “In the past two years the OCD has reinforced its commitment to compliance that has only accelerated in the past fiscal year,” Adrienne Sandoval, the agency’s director, said in a statement. “Our continued work to modernize the division and work efficiently is paying off.” Before, the agency worked with noncompliant operators to get them in line, including through agreed-upon orders that set schedules for reaching compliance, Wendy Mason, the agency’s acting spokeswoman, wrote in an email. If that effort failed, the agency could hold a hearing to seek administrative sanctions, such as requiring a well to be plugged or canceling authorization to transport oil, Mason wrote.
New Mexico Oilfield Jobs Not Projected to Rebound - New Mexico’s oil and gas industry has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in key categories, delivering record amounts of petroleum to markets, money to state coffers and helping add record amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. But what haven’t rebounded are the state’s oilfield jobs, which are expected to remain 25% or more below pre-pandemic levels for at least the next five years. According to recent projections from the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at the University of New Mexico, oil and gas jobs in New Mexico will return to only 74% of their pre-pandemic levels in the near future. For years, state officials and industry boosters have pointed to oilfield revenues and oilfield jobs as the two main reasons for supporting an industry that also fuels the state’s climate emergency. Now, one of those key reasons is likely dissipating. “Basically, the production of oil is becoming more efficient,” says BBER acting director Michael O’Donnell. The state is hitting “maximum levels of production” he says, “and yet employment is low.” The BBER employment calculations rely upon a close reading of past employment, industry news and interviews with industry leaders, O’Donnell says. And there’s no question that the industry is pumping oil and gas from the ground at record rates, with fewer people. Democratic state Sen. Carrie Hamblen is worried about what happens to workers displaced by the shifting industry. “We have to put an infrastructure in place where the folks who are working in those jobs can get job training and make either equal to or more than what they’re making today so that they can support their families.”
New Mexico groups join call for end to federal oil and gas 'subsidies' -New Mexico environmental groups joined a national call to end federal oil and gas subsidies, arguing President Joe Biden promised to do so when running for office last year but the federal government since failed to act. A coalition led by the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, and including New Mexico groups the Center for Civic Policy, Climate Advocates Voces Unidas (CAVU), New Energy Economy and New Mexico Climate Justice penned a letter to leaders in Congress calling for cuts to federal support of the fossil fuel industry and eliminating all tax subsidies. Biden did include a call to remove the subsidies in his Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal, proposing about $121 billion in cuts over the next decade, per the letter. “It is past time to remove the burden of dirty energy support from the public and instead turn the efforts of the government to supporting clean energy and the jobs it generates,” the letter read. “Action now will help us protect the climate, promote a more equitable, clean energy economy for America, and strengthen international leadership.” The groups pointed to impacts of pollution from fossil fuel production like climate change, contending the problems worsened in recent years and should result in removing $15 billion in “federal giveaways” to the industry. They demanded the government support emerging renewable energy sectors, and pointed to reforms needed for tax credits, research funding, well clean up and public land leasing. “These subsidies have persisted despite numerous calls for their elimination, including the international commitments of our government and strong recent calls from President Joe Biden, as expressed repeatedly over the last two years and most recently in his FY2022 budget proposal,” read the letter.
Water protectors protesting at Willow River warn Line 3 'is a catastrophic threat' - - The Indigenous-led fight against Line 3 continued Tuesday as water protectors descended on the area of Willow River where Canadian energy giant Enbridge is working to install a “climate-wrecking” tar sands pipeline to replace one that was built in the 1960s.Water protectors attached themselves to drilling equipment and built blockades on access roads in an effort to halt construction in Minnesota on Tuesday, according to a statement from organizers.Pipeline opponents also joined Indigenous leaders Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, and Tania Aubid to stand in the river in prayer.“We the people are here in the river because the rivers belong to the fish, they belong to the animals, and they belong to the people—and they don’t belong to Enbridge,” LaDuke said in a video from the river shared on social media.Speaking from the river, which is part of the Mississippi watershed, Aubid said: “Minnesota, you will be held accountable along with the federal and Canadian governments for the genocide of Mother Earth.”“We cannot allow them to take these rivers,” Taysha Martineau, a water protector of the Fond du Lac Tribe who has helped build Camp Migizi, said about Tuesday’s direct action. “Enbridge was given a cease-and-desist notice in order to protect the ceremonial lodge,” Martineau explained. “The state of Minnesota has refused to abide by that order and so action was taken. Abide by the order or we will continue to use people power to shut it down.”An unnamed water protector locked down in Minnesota declared that “Line 3 is a catastrophic threat to the land, the water, the people, wild rice, and the climate.”“This pipeline violates the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe and is not being built with Indigenous consent,” the water protector noted, before taking aim at the company behind it:Enbridge has a long history of spills, many of which occur in the first 10 years of a pipeline operating. They do not care about the land, the people, or their workers. They only care about the money, so we are putting pressure on their pocketbooks by slowing the progress of Line 3 until we stop it altogether. Polluted water, land, and rapid climate change are threats to us all, and Line 3 will cause unpredictable levels of damage if it becomes active. “Actions like this one are a fight for all of our survival,” the activist added, “and should be seen as nothing less.”
Iowa climate activist sentenced to eight years in federal prison for Dakota Access pipeline sabotage - One of two central Iowa women responsible for millions of dollars in damage to the Dakota Access pipeline was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to eight years in prison. Climate activists Jessica Reznicek, 39, and Ruby Montoya, 31, were indicted on nine federal charges each in September 2019, including charges for damaging an energy facility, use of fire in the commission of a felony, and malicious use of fire. Reznicek and Montoya both pleaded guilty to a single count of damaging an energy facility. The remaining charges were dismissed. In July 2017 the women claimed credit for a series of acts of sabotage, including burning pipeline construction equipment at a Buena Vista County worksite in November 2016 and using oxyacetylene cutting torches or gasoline-soaked rags to damage other pipeline sites around the state between March and May 2017. At the time of their admission, they were affiliated with the Des Moines Catholic Workers' social justice movement. In court Wednesday, Reznicek said she committed the acts against the pipeline because she was concerned it would spill and further contaminate drinking water in Iowa."The toxins we enter into our waterways here in Iowa enter into the Mississippi (River) which enters into the Gulf (of Mexico)," Reznicek said during sentencing Wednesday. "Going to this extreme was out of character for me." Montoya will be sentenced July 30. The Des Moines Catholic Worker community was founded in 1976 in response to the Gospel call for compassionate action like that characterized by the Sermon on the Mount. Catholic Workers are not all Catholics and they are not controlled by the bishop of the Des Moines Roman Catholic Diocese. The Catholic Workers also have no financial ties to the diocese.
As clock ticks for proposed oil refinery near North Dakota national park, opponents doubt project's future — Even with a second extension granted by North Dakota environmental regulators, time may be running thin for a proposed and financially troubled oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and opponents of the project are skeptical it can draw the needed investment to go forward with construction. Three years since Houston-based Meridian Energy Group acquired a requisite air quality permit from the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, the company still hasn't started construction at the site of its Davis Refinery three miles from North Dakota's only national park. The company previously received an 18-month extension on the permit after the project stalled during litigation with environmental groups. That deadline expired on June 12, but state regulators granted the project an additional 90 days to commence construction or risk losing the permit. And though Meridian Energy has been dogged by both environmental and financial litigation in the last few years, the company's top executive insists the Davis Refinery is moving full steam ahead. "We are in a very, very strong position in terms of financing this project," said CEO William Prentice, who added that he's confident construction will be underway "well before" the new mid-September deadline. Environmental groups have continued to vigorously oppose the refinery, but some also said the company's track record of delays, financial lawsuits and unpaid bills leave them doubtful that the project can draw the big investments it needs to start building.
Dakota Access not the only pipeline in legal jeopardy -Dakota Access is not the only Bakken pipeline whose fate is in question. Marathon’s Tesoro High Plains crude oil system in Montana and North Dakota is also embroiled in a legal quagmire, putting its fate in doubt. The underground crude oil system is important because it collectively carries about one-third of the Bakken’s crude oil to market. Marathon had shut the line partially down after an order from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, amid claims that the pipeline has been trespassing on Native American land for seven years. Marathon was also fined $187 million in damages in connection with that decision, which the Trump administration Larter reduced to $4 million. The Biden administration, however, reviewed the decisions and vacated all of them, amid due process concerns. They sent the matter back to the regional director, with instructions to provide a full and fair opportunity for all parties to be heard — basically, square one. Marathon, meanwhile, filed suit against the government, accusing it of violating the Administrative Procedure Act for vacating the orders without any of the required notice, as well as violating Fifth Amendment due process rights. In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for North Dakota, Marathon says it has already fully paid back-rent and past-use payments, as dictated by the BIA. The total tab was $4 million, including $2.2 million for back rent and unauthorized use and $1.7 million in interest. The pipeline system in question was built in the 1950s and its right of way was issued by the BIA in 1953. The right of way was renewed and reissued every 20 years thereafter, up to June 2013. Attempts to negotiate a new right of way for the line fell apart amid disputes about the true market-value of the leases. The line was previously owned by Tesoro, which changed its name to Andeavor, the latter of which was purchased by Marathon purchased in 2018. Andeavor had sought to renew the leases for the line prior to its sale, but after negotiations fell apart the individual landowners, who control 66 of the 90 acres in question, filed suit.
North Dakota Sues Federal Government Over Canceled Oil and Gas Leasing - (Reuters) - North Dakota is suing the U.S. government on claims the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management illegally canceled oil and gas lease auctions in the state. The complaint, filed late Wednesday with the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota Western Division, said March and June auctions nixed by the federal agencies cost the state $80 million in lost revenues. “I have taken this action to protect North Dakota's economy, the jobs of our hard-working citizens, and North Dakota's rights to control its own natural resources,” North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said in a statement. North Dakota is the second-biggest crude oil producing U.S. state, with the bulk of its tax revenues produced by oil and gas activity. The amount of lost revenue caused by canceled leases could grow to into billions of dollars in the coming months, the state argued. The Bureau of Land Management and Department of the Interior were not immediately available for comment. The lawsuit follows a ruling by a federal judge in Louisiana last month blocking the Biden administration's pause on oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters. The order granted a preliminary injunction to Louisiana and 12 other states that sued Democratic President Joe Biden and the Interior Department over the leasing freeze, a key element of the White House's effort to address climate change.
Shale Rushes to Lock In Oil Rally --- As soon as OPEC+ negotiations fell apart on Monday, stoking fears of a supply squeeze and sending oil prices soaring, U.S. shale executives began hitting the phones. They weren’t ordering their crews to drill for more oil. They weren’t game-planning a miraculous comeback in American crude production. They were securing hedges -- locking in prices for the oil they plan to produce next year and protecting themselves against a potential market slump, people familiar with the trades said, asking not to be named because the information isn’t public. The hedges are just about the only thing that’s certain about shale’s response to the OPEC+ crisis thus far. The cartel’s failure to reach a deal in several meetings since last week has raised the question of whether America’s oil drillers will stage a comeback and take advantage of the moment to steal market share. Some, on the other hand, fear the group’s rift could trigger a price war that would flood the market with crude. It most certainly represents the biggest test yet of shale’s newfound resolve to act with discipline and focus on investor returns as opposed to obsessing over growth. Whether the industry will manage to stay its course or put hundreds of sidelined drill rigs back to work is a matter of great debate. Shirin Lakhani, a senior oil analyst at Rapidan Energy Group, said publicly traded shale producers are “still more focused on capital discipline, increasing shareholder returns, and maintaining positive free cash flow.” Meanwhile, energy analyst Paul Sankey described the industry as “spending alcoholics standing in a fully stocked bar right now.” The head of Patterson-UTI Energy Inc., the second-largest owner of drilling rigs in the shale patch, said in an interview Tuesday that he believes shale drillers are capable of doing both -- raising output in response to high oil prices and keeping their promise of spending discipline to investors. What’s clear for the time being is that U.S. producers have yet to show any meaningful signs of returning to growth in the shale patches from Texas to North Dakota. And it could very well be that the industry waits out the OPEC+ storm, sees how it all plays out and gauges investor sentiment before deciding on its next move.But investors’ mindset could actually be what shifts, he said: “With oil trading at $73 a barrel, they’re going to be saying, ‘Why don’t you drill a little bit more? Let’s produce a little bit more.’” Until that happens, they’re hedging: Open interest on New York oil futures, which indicates the total number of contracts held by the market at the end of a trading day, has risen strongly in the past week, mostly in tandem with gains in U.S. oil prices. Some of it stems from shale drillers taking out new positions as a means to hedge or protect their spending budgets in case prices weaken in the months to come.
A quest for Alaska oil sparks a fight over tribal sovereignty — Up to 2 million birds arrive each year to nest in the shallow ponds and spruce forests of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, some of North America’s most productive waterfowl breeding grounds. Along with salmon, moose and other wildlife, they provide food for the human residents of the region, where a half-gallon of milk can cost $7.99. “It’s not only our subsistence,” said Rochelle Adams, a member of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Government of Fort Yukon, who is from the villages of Fort Yukon and Beaver. “It’s our connection to the lands and waters. It’s a part of our identity, because our people have lived here since our creation.” This summer, drilling rigs will join the wildlife in the Yukon Flats, as Hilcorp Alaska, a private company with a reputation for regulatory violations, explores for oil and gas. Hilcorp is operating under a 2019 agreement with Doyon Ltd., an Alaska Native regional corporation, which owns 1.6 million acres of mineral rights bordering the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The companies’ plans have raised concerns among local tribes and exposed the complicated dynamics between for-profit Alaska Native corporations and sovereign tribal governments. Soon after Doyon announced its deal with Hilcorp, the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Government passed a resolution opposing oil and gas development in the Yukon Flats, citing worries about environmental degradation, threats to traditional ways of life and infringements on tribal sovereignty. Last fall, the board of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which represents 42 tribal governments in Alaska’s Interior, alsoopposed the project. “What we get to consume here is the most unadulterated food on the planet,” said Dacho Alexander, a Gwichyaa Zhee Tribal Government council member and former chief. “Our water is clean. Our environment is clean. There’s just simply no dollar amount that you could put on those places.” To Alexander, Doyon’s push to explore for fossil fuels illustrates a “major disconnect” between Alaska Native regional corporations and tribal governments. Unlike federally recognized tribes, which are sovereign nations, Alaska Native corporations are for-profit companies owned by Alaska Native shareholders, who receive annual dividends of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. They were created under the 1971 federal Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to give tribal members economic autonomy, primarily through ownership of natural resources. Today, Doyon is the largest private landowner in Alaska, with more than 20,000 shareholders.
Canada's gas storage injection activity remains low as spreads promote exports --Despite an ever-growing natural gas storage deficit, price spreads continue to compel Canadian producers and marketers to export volumes to the US rather than inject into regional storage fields, increasing the likelihood of a very tight market when demand escalates this winter. This summer's injection pace has been considerably slower than what is needed to fill Canadian storage fields back to historic norms. Injections have averaged 800 MMcf/d summer-to-date which is less than half of last summer's average, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. The weaker injections are in line with what was averaged during the constraint-driven summers of 2017, 2018 and 2019. The low injection rate has continued all season despite summer starting with a storage inventory well below historical norms. It has likely been driven by poor economics to inject. The cash-to-winter spread has averaged 12 cents/MMBtu this summer, well below last summer's 50 cents/MMBtu average spread. However, record heat and an outage in the US Northeast recently drove these economics into more extreme territory. Prices across most of North America have strengthened over the past month causing cash-to-winter strip spreads to narrow. This has resulted in an already bleak injection environment in Western Canada. It has the potential to tighten AECO further this winter. Henry Hub prices were up 85 cents on July 7 from their May average. AECO hub shot up with it as production faltered amid a blistering heat wave and strong demand. The cash-to-winter strip inverted during this time, with the July 1 AECO cash price reaching 41 cents higher than the winter strip price as West Canada reported net withdrawals from storage at this time. Prices have normalized the past few days as record heat subsides and an outage in the US Northeast that cut production by several Bcf/d has ended. But even with prices normalizing, the futures market shows injections could be even weaker the rest of this summer than the market was already expecting, according to Platts Analytics. The average AECO balance-of-summer 2021 futures spread to the winter strip is now trending at its tightest level of the summer. These recent shifts in the forward curves could lead to even weaker injections than Platts Analytics was anticipating this summer. Canada could enter this winter even further below historic norms than what was previously expected, should futures play out at their current prices.
Company behind Keystone XL seeks $15B in damages from US - The company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL pipeline hopes to obtain more than $15 billion from the U.S. government, alleging damages from President Biden’s revocation of its permit for the project. TC Energy announced in a Friday press release that it had filed a notice of intent with the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser to “initiate a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claim under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.” The company, which announced last month that it was officially scrapping the pipeline project after Biden revoked a key permit on his first day in the Oval Office, said that it is seeking compensation for losses "suffered as a result of the U.S. Government’s breach of its NAFTA obligations." The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment. The permit, which was approved by former President Trump in the first months of his presidency, had authorized the construction of a 1,200-mile pipeline that would have carried oil from Canada to the U.S. The project was widely condemned by environmental and indigenous groups, which argued that it would have had detrimental environmental consequences, including further fueling climate change. Biden said his announcement pulling the order that the pipeline "disserves" the U.S. national interest, adding that "leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administration's economic and climate imperatives." Lawsuit accuses Hawaii dolphin tour company of violating coronavirus... After Biden revoked the permit in January, TC Energy said the move would force it to “immediately” lay off 1,000 workers. It was not clear if any of those jobs were held by Americans. "I believe this will send a concerning signal to infrastructure developers that resonates far beyond our project and will stifle innovation for a practical transition towards sustainable energy," Keystone XL President Richard Prior said.
B.C. Supreme Court drops bombshell on B.C. natural gas industry -The B.C. Supreme Court has found the B.C. government infringed the Blueberry River First Nation’s treaty rights by allowing decades of industrial development in their traditional territory.The ruling will likely have significant impacts for industries in that region, notably the natural gas industry, as the court says the province may no longer authorize activities that would continue to add to the cumulative impacts that breach Treaty 8.Blueberry River First Nation (BRFN) territory is in the Fort St. John area, which is in the heartland of B.C.’s natural gas industry.“The province is no longer permitted to authorize industrial development in a way and scale that continues to infringe our rights without our input or taking into account the cumulative effects on our treaty rights,” the First Nation said in a released statement Wednesday, after the ruling came down June 29.The BRFN is one of the few First Nations in B.C. that signed an historical treaty – in this case, Treaty 8.The treaty guaranteed signatories access to their traditional ways of life – hunting, fishing and trapping. But decades of development – forestry, road-building, hydro-electric dams, transmission lines and natural gas extraction – gradually reduced the First Nations’ access to these traditional resources and practices.The cumulative impacts of all that activity constituted a breach of treaty rights, the First Nation argued, and BC Supreme Court Justice Emily Burke has upheld that claim.
Oil Sands Carbon Cuts Come with $60B Bill --- It will cost about C$75 billion ($60 billion) to zero out greenhouse gases from oil sands operations by 2050, with a good deal of the costs borne by taxpayers and many loose ends yet to be tied up, according to two of the industry’s top CEOs. To achieve the goal announced last month, about half of the emission cuts would need to come from capturing carbon at oil sands sites and sequestering it deep underground, which may require as much as two-thirds government capital like in Norway, Mark Little, chief executive office of Suncor Energy Inc., said in an interview. It’s still unclear how and when most of the projects will be implemented, or which agreements will be needed, but it’s clear the industry doesn’t want to do it alone. “We haven’t been able to find any jurisdiction in the world where carbon capture has been implemented, where the national government or the state governments are not very significant partners in that investment,” Alexander Pourbaix, CEO of Cenovus Energy Inc., said in the same interview “I don’t think any of us would ever be in a position to go at this on our own. It’s just too significant an undertaking.” The initiative follows mounting pressure from large, climate-minded investors, many of which have ditched their oil sands holdings. Sitting atop the world’s third-largest crude reserves, the Canadian industry uses carbon-intensive extraction methods that have made it a target of environmentalists. Also at stake are jobs and tax revenues from an industry that represents about 10% of the Canadian economy. “We have one Achilles heel: It’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Little said. “We can bury our heads in the sand and become a victim, or we can actually deal with it.”
Mexico, state-owned oil company slammed after gas leak causes subaquatic fireball in Gulf - Environmentalists criticized Mexico's state-owned oil company Saturday after a gas leak at an underwater pipeline unleashed a subaquatic fireball that appeared to boil the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Greenpeace Mexico said the accident Friday appeared to have been caused by the failure of an underwater valve and that it illustrates the dangers of Mexico's policy of promoting fossil fuels. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has bet heavily on drilling more wells and buying or building oil refineries. He touts oil as "the best business in the world." Greenpeace wrote in a statement that the fire, which took five hours to extinguish, "demonstrates the serious risks that Mexico's fossil fuel model poses for the environment and people's safety." Climate activist Greta Thunberg reposted a video clip of the massive fireball on her Twitter account. "Meanwhile the people in power call themselves 'climate leaders' as they open up new oilfields, pipelines and coal power plants - granting new oil licenses exploring future oil drilling sites," Thunberg wrote. "This is the world they are leaving for us." Mexico's state-owned oil company said Friday that an undersea gas pipeline ruptured near a drilling platform in the Gulf. Petroleos Mexicanos dispatched fire control boats to pump more water over the flames. Pemex, as the company is known, said nobody was injured in the incident in the offshore Ku-Maloob-Zaap field. The leak near dawn Friday occurred about 137 metres from a drilling platform. The company said it had brought the gas leak under control about five hours later. It was unclear how much environmental damage the gas leak and oceanic fireball had caused.
Mexican oil giant says no environmental damage from raging Gulf fire - Just days after video of a massive ocean surface blaze near a Pemex oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico went viral, Mexico’s national oil company has declared that environmental damage was avoided due to quick action by its workers. The July 2 blaze, caught on video apparently from a nearby helicopter, showed bright orange flames jumping out of the water as the fire raged a short distance from the oil platform. Pemex has previously said it took more than five hours to fully extinguish the fire.“There was no oil spill and the immediate action taken to control the surface fire avoided environmental damage,” the company said in a statement on Monday. The statement added that the blaze was sparked by an electric storm that ignited a leak of gas from a busted underwater pipeline. The fire ignited a storm of criticism over the weekend, including social media posts from climate activist Greta Thunberg and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, among many others. The fire took place at the top producing offshore oil field operated by Pemex, which has a long track record of major industrial accidents at its facilities. Gusatvo Alanis, a board member with Mexico’s environmental law center CEMDA, told Reuters he thinks it is much too soon to conclude that the fire caused no environmental damage.
Pemex Comments on Fire - Petróleos Mexicanos has revealed that immediate actions to control a fire that occurred at the Ku asset avoided environmental damage. No oil spill occurred at the site, according to a translated statement on the company’s website, which outlined that the fire was completely extinguished after around five hours. In the statement, Pemex outlined that an electrical storm with heavy rain occurred in the platform area of the Ku asset on July 2, which it said caused pneumatic pump gas turbocompression equipment to go out of operation. At the same time, a leak was detected in the pneumatic pumping pipeline that feeds the wells of the Ku-C platform, according to Pemex, which noted that the gas outside the pipe migrated from the seabed to the surface and, due to the electric shocks and heavy rains, a fire broke out on the sea surface. The fire was extinguished by closing the submarine valve and injecting Nitrogen into the gas pipeline, Pemex noted. The company said it has started with a definitive repair program for the affected pneumatic pumping line and revealed that it is carrying out analysis to identify the root cause of the gas leak in the pipeline. Bloomberg reported the fire on July 2. The article referenced a video posted on social media, which showed three ships trying to put out a fire in the sea, but noted that a Pemex representative didn’t respond to a request for comment or confirm the footage. Pemex describes itself as the largest and most important company in Mexico. It is a sustainable, socially responsible company, with strict standards of safety, health at work, and environmental protection, its website states. The company, which traces its roots back to the 1930s, is involved in the entire production chain, from exploration, production, industrial transformation, logistics, and marketing, its site shows.
Romanian Black Sea refinery blast kills one, injures five - A blast and fire on Friday at Romania's biggest crude oil refinery killed one person and injured five others, authorities and the company which runs the Petromidia plant on the Black Sea said. Video footage from a nearby beach in the coastal resort of Mamaia showed black smoke rising from the area next to the refinery and some tourists reported hearing a loud bang. Rompetrol Rafinare, part of KMG International Group, said the explosion was inside the diesel hydrotreating unit, and that processes had been halted safely. At 1615 GMT it said the fire had been completely put out, the incident "was neutralized successfully" and Rompetrol would continue to provide fuels for its stations in Romania and the Black Sea region. "Five of our colleagues are in medical care at Constanta County Hospital, and we are sorry to inform you that a person has been identified as deceased," its statement added. The company declined to comment on the likely financial damage but said an assessment of the impact on technological processes will be performed to provide a clear picture and predictability in terms of restarting the refinery facilities. Petromidia is based on the shores of the Black Sea in Navodari, 20 km (12.5 miles) north of the country's biggest port, Constanta. It said it processed a total of 1.26 million tonnes of raw materials in the first quarter of this year, a similar level to a year before, and had been running at 84% capacity. Read more at https://www.todayonline.com/world/romanian-black-sea-refinery-blast-kills-one-injures-five
Blast rocks Caspian Sea area near Azerbaijani gas field (AP) — A strong explosion shook the Caspian Sea area where Azerbaijan has extensive offshore oil and gas fields. A column of fire rose from the area, but the state oil company said none of its platforms were damaged. The state oil company SOCAR said the blaze late Sunday may have come from a mud volcano. The Caspian Sea has a high concentration of such volcanoes, which spew both mud and flammable gas. SOCAR spokesman Ibrahim Ahmadov told the Interfax-Azerbaijan news agency on Monday that the company staff found a mud volcano ablaze on the uninhabited island of Dashly, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) off the coast of Azerbaijan between the towns of Alat and Neftchala. Azerbaijan’s Emergency Ministry said that the volcano continued to burn on Monday morning, but the fire “doesn’t pose a threat either to the sea oil and gas infrastructure and other objects, or to people’s lives.”
Australia dragged before UN over historic oil spill - Australia has been forced to appear in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council after 13 Indonesian regencies lodged serious allegations of human rights violations against the Commonwealth government. The UN proceedings are a separate case to a A$300 million civil lawsuit (class action) won last year against field operator PTTEP in Australia's Federal Court. These complaints were lodged to the UN's special rapporteurs on human rights. These officials then make a claim against a country before the UN Human Rights Council. In August 2009 a well at the Montara oil field then operated by Thailand's PTTEP blew out causing crude, condensate, gas, and mud to spew into the Timor Sea, offshore northern Western Australia. This continued for three months as four attempts to plug the well were unsuccessful, with 1500 barrels of oil equivalent per day pumped into the surrounding waters. A fire caused by the blowout also damaged the platform, eventually causing collapse. The complaints to the UN allege that Australia violated "the human rights of the affected communities and indigenous peoples in East Nusa Tenggara" by firstly allowing the oil spill to occur and then failing to mitigate the environmental and economic damage caused. In documents obtained by Energy News, the communities said their right to a healthy environment, life, health, bodily integrity, water, and food were infringed upon by Australia's lack of preparedness and subsequent action following the spill. "The handling of the spill allegedly disregarded and continues to disregard the human rights of those affected," the United Nations special rapporteurs, led by officer-in-charge Special Procedures Branch Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Karim Ghezraoui, told the UN Human Rights Council.
Cargo ship spills oil after collision with dredger off Manila - A cargo vessel collided with a dredger in the waters of the South Harbor Anchorage area in Manila, the Philippines, in the early morning hours of 8 July 2021. The ships in question are the Philippine-flagged vessel MV Palawan Pearl and Cyprus-flagged utility vessel BKM 104, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. The incident caused the 345 GT Palawan Pearl, which carried 3,000 litres of diesel in its oil storage tank, to tilt and take on water. The ship also has a drum of diesel oil, 60 litres of engine oil, and 60 litres of bilge oil. The ill-fated vessel is located outside the breakwater of Baseco Beach, approximately 100 meters from Baseco Beach shoreline. The Philippine Coast Guard deployed patrol boat BRP Panglao and other assets to conduct close monitoring and provide necessary assistance to the cargo vessel. “At this time, the cargo vessel MV Palawan Pearl remains half submerged where the spread of ‘oil sheen’ is observed around it,” the PCG said, adding that containment boom was placed around the distressed ship. Based on the PCG’s initial assessment, Palawan Pearl traveled from Commander’s Wharf to Baseco Compound to El Nido, Palawan. Meanwhile, the BKM 104 was sailing in Manila Bay Anchorage area to Bulacan when the incident happened. The 375 GT BKM 104 is a foreign utility vessel contracted to perform dredging and other land development activity required for the construction of New Manila Airport. According to the skipper of Palawan Pearl, while sailing at a speed of 7 knots at three kilometers from the Pasig River, they noticed BKM 104 approximately 100 metres away from their port side (left) and traveling at the speed of 10 knots. Palawan Pearl allegedly tried to avoid BKM 104, but the latter crashed twice into the left side of the cargo vessel and almost sank it.
Nigeria records 4,919 oil spills in 6 years — Minister - Dr Mohammad Abubakar, Minister of Environment, on Monday, disclosed that Nigeria recorded 4,919 oil spills between 2015 to March 2021 and lost 4.5 trillion barrels of oil to theft in four years. Abubakar disclosed this at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja, organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture, on protecting oil and gas infrastructure. “According to the National Oil Spill Detection Agency (NOSDRA) data, the total number of oil spills recorded from 2015 to March 2021 is 4,919, the number of oil spills cost by collation is 308. “The operational maintenance is 106, while sabotage is 3,628 and yet to be determined 70, giving the total number of oil spills on the environment to 235,206 barrels of oil. This is very colossal to the environment. “Nigeria also lost approximately 4.75 trillion on oil activities in the four years between 2015 and 2018, as estimated by the Nigeria Natural Resources Charter. “Several statistics have emphasised Nigeria as the most notorious country in the world for oil spills, loosing roughly 400,000 barrels per day.
Eni Announces Significant Oil Find -Eni has announced a significant oil discovery on the Eban exploration prospect in CTP Block 4, offshore Ghana. Eban - 1X, which is the second well drilled in CTP Block 4, following the Akoma discovery, proved a single light oil column of approximately 262 feet in a thick sandstone reservoir interval of Cenomanian age, with hydrocarbons encountered down to 12,956 feet, Eni revealed. Production testing data at the well is said to show deliverability potential estimated at 5,000 barrels of oil per day, which is similar to the wells already in production at the nearby Sankofa Field, Eni highlighted. Due to its proximity to existing infrastructures, the new discovery can be fast tracked to production with a subsea tie-in to the John Agyekum Kufuor FPSO, Eni revealed. Preliminary estimates now place the potential of the Eban - Akoma complex between 500 and 700 million barrels of oil equivalent in place, according to Eni, which said the estimated hydrocarbon in place between the Sankofa field and the Eban - Akoma complex is now in excess of 1.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Further oil in place upside could also be confirmed with an additional appraisal well, Eni pointed out. CTP Block 4 is operated by Eni, which holds a 42.469 percent stake, on behalf of partners Vitol, which holds a 33.975 percent interest, GNPC, which holds a ten percent share, Woodfields, which holds a 9.556 percent interest, and GNPC Explorco, which holds the remaining four percent stake. Eni has been present in Ghana since 2009 and currently has a gross production of about 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the country.
BP says all other global energy crises pale in comparison to the year of Covid. These stats show why— Oil and gas giant BP on Thursday published its benchmark Statistical Review of World Energy, describing 2020 "as a year like no other" due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global energy.Over the past seven decades, BP said it had borne witness to some of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the global energy system, including the Suez Canal crisis in 1956, the oil embargo of 1973, the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the Fukushima disaster in 2011."All moments of great turmoil in global energy," Spencer Dale, chief economist at BP, said in the report. "But all pale in comparison to the events of last year."To date, more than 185 million Covid-19 cases have been reported worldwide, with over 4 million deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual tally of Covid-19 infections and fatalities is believed to be far higher — and continues to rise.The pandemic also led to massive economic loss, with global GDP estimatedto have slipped by around 3.3% last year. That represents the largest peacetime recession since the Great Depression.For global energy, the Covid pandemic has had a dramatic impact. Here are some of the highlights from the report:BP said the coronavirus crisis last year resulted in primary energy and carbon emissions falling at their fastest rates since World War II. The relentless expansion of renewable energy, however, was found to be "relatively unscathed," with solar power recording its fastest ever increase.To be sure, the oil and gas company said world energy demand was estimated to have contracted by 4.5% and global carbon emissions from energy use by 6.3%."These falls are huge by historical standards — the largest falls in both energy demand and carbon emissions since World War II. Indeed, the fall of over 2 Gt of CO2 means that carbon emissions last year were back to levels last seen in 2011," Dale said."It's also striking that the carbon intensity of the energy mix — the average carbon emitted per unit of energy used — fell by 1.8%, also one of the largest ever falls in post-war history," he added.
Oil prices hover above $75 as OPEC+ struggles to reach a deal. Here's why it matters -- Energy prices are hovering above the $75 level after OPEC and its allies could not reach a key deal on their oil output policy last week, amid rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Crude prices are seeing some volatility after an initial spike, but retreated slightly on Monday. Brent futures slipped 0.11% to $76.09 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures dipped 0.13% to $75.06 per barrel. The energy alliance, often referred to as OPEC+, will meet again on Monday after failing to reach a deal twice last week. Without a deal, oil prices could surge and threaten to derail a frail economic recovery. If talks fall through, there could also be a price war — though analysts do not think the latter scenario is likely. The United Arab Emirates blocked a deal to increase oil output and extend the expiry of the group's broader production supply agreement to the end of next year, according to Reuters. The UAE said the extension should be conditional on revising the so-called baseline, which determines how much a country is allowed to pump. Both Brent and U.S crude shot up more than 2% to above $75 per barrel on Thursday, reaching highs not seen since 2018. The deal first fell through on Thursday, and a second meeting on Friday failed to see any breakthrough as well. Oil prices have surged more than 45% in the first six months of 2021, with demand rising as global economies reopened. The UAE — a long-time ally of OPEC's leader Saudi Arabia — objected to the deal twice last week, according to Reuters. The deal includes an agreement to increase oil output gradually, while at the same time, extending the duration of broader cuts that the group agreed to in 2021. Last year, to cope with lower demand as the Covid crisis hit and people travel less, OPEC+ agreed to curb output by almost 10 million barrels per day from May 2020 to the end of April 2022. At last week's meeting, OPEC kingpin and non-OPEC leader Russia also proposed extending the duration of cuts until the end of 2022, according to Reuters. Top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia had reached a preliminary agreement, which would in principle increase supply by 400,000 barrels per day from August to December 2021 in order to meet rising demand, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.
UAE 'unconditionally' supports OPEC+ supply increase, but says no to a bad deal -The United Arab Emirates has pushed back on OPEC+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia, claiming its "sovereign right" to negotiate fairer terms for an oil production increase. "For us, it wasn't a good deal," UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNBC's Hadley Gamble, referring to OPEC+ production cuts which were based on a "level of production that goes back to 2018." "We knew that the UAE position in that agreement was the worst in terms of comparing our current capacity with the level of production" he said Sunday. "But an agreement is an agreement." Asked if the UAE would be willing to walk away, the minister said "we cannot extend the agreement or make a new agreement under the same conditions. We have the sovereign right to negotiate that." The comments come after the United Arab Emirates blocked some aspects of an OPEC+ proposal to increase output on Friday, seeking better terms for itself. "Let's increase the production, and talk about the extension and the agreement and the conditions associated with it at a later meeting," he said, adding that the UAE unconditionally supports a supply increase. "We are meeting on Monday, and I think we are all in agreement that we need to do something regarding the increase in production," Al Mazrouei said. "The issue is putting a condition on that increase, which is the extension of the agreement," he added. The high-stakes standoff comes as oil prices surge above $75 dollars a barrel for the first time in two years. Failure to reach a deal on Monday could risk the market recovery, and even unravel the fragile OPEC+ alliance if the deadlock is left unresolved. "We have plenty of time to meet and discuss the terms of the extension with justification that can involve independent bodies to review it" he said. "I'm still hopeful that by Monday we will segregate the two decisions," he added. The UAE threatened to leave OPEC late last year, and an exit would almost certainly trigger a repeat of the OPEC+ price war that pushed oil prices to -$40 in April last year. "It's not wise nor a target for anyone to raise prices to a level that the world economy cannot handle," he said. "We think we need to do it and we need to do it for August" Al Mazrouei added. At the core of the current proposal is a plan to increase production by 2 million barrels per day (mb/d) between August and December in 400,000 barrels per day monthly installments. OPEC+ also plans to extend its production cut agreement from April 2022 to December 2022. "Now we think that linking the extension of the agreement for a reference that goes back to 2018, and for a period that starts from 2022, is just not realistic, because this is four years" Al Mazrouei said. "That is totally unfair." The UAE has spent billions investing in its oil production capacity, seeking to ramp up output. With Iran also set to return to the oil market in the coming months, the UAE sees good scope to review the terms.
OPEC+ crisis talks reportedly postponed as Saudi Arabia and the UAE remain at loggerheads over oil output — A meeting between oil producer group OPEC and its partners, which was aiming to broker a deal on crude output after the groupunexpectedly failed to reach an agreement last week, has reportedly been postponed. The energy alliance, often referred to as OPEC+, on Friday voted on a proposal to increase oil production by roughly 2 million barrels per day between August and the end of the year in 400,000 barrels per day monthly installments. It also proposed to extend the remaining output cuts to the end of 2022. The United Arab Emirates rejected these plans, however, blocking an agreement for the second consecutive day to leave oil markets in limbo over the weekend. OPEC+ was set to reconvene for crisis talks via videoconference at 2 p.m. London time Monday. However, after a two-hour delay, Reuters, citing two sources, said that the meeting had been postponed with no new date set. Bloomberg also reported that it meant OPEC+ would continue with production quotas at current levels. "For us, it wasn't a good deal," UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNBC's Hadley Gamble on Sunday. He added that while the UAE was willing to support a short-term increase in oil supply, it wants better terms through 2022. Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman called for "compromise and rationality" in order to reach a deal on Monday, Reuters reported. OPEC+, which is dominated by Middle East crude producers, agreed to implement massive crude production cuts in 2020 in an effort to support oil prices when the coronavirus pandemic coincided with a historic fuel demand shock. Led by Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the UAE, OPEC+ has since initiated monthly meetings in a bid to navigate production policy. It has resulted in a rare public stand-off between the UAE and its long-time regional ally Saudi Arabia, OPEC's de facto leader. The dispute comes as energy market participants anxiously await policy direction that is likely to shape crude markets into next year. "UAE remains steadfast in its refusal to give ground, insisting that using the October 2018 production benchmark is fundamentally unfair. Hence, the prospect of a no-deal outcome — as well as a UAE OPEC exit — has risen materially even if it has not yet fully entered into firm base-case territory," "Of course, in practice, the monthly meeting structure means that decisions can be reversed quickly and that no condition is permanent. On the flip side, if the talks end in utter discord, there is a risk of a return to an every-man-for-himself production scenario that could cause a reversal of this year's oil price rally."
Biden Team Spoke to Saudis, UAE About OPEC Talks, Oil Prices - Biden administration officials are “encouraged” by ongoing OPEC talks and have spoken with officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in hopes of reaching an agreement to stem the rise in crude prices, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.“We’re not a party to these talks but over the weekend and into this week, we’ve had a number of high-level conversations with officials in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other relevant partners,” Psaki said Tuesday during a briefing at the White House. She declined to specify which U.S. officials were involved but signaled that she didn’t expect President Joe Biden to personally make calls.The U.S. hopes talks will lead to an agreement that “will promote access to affordable and reliable energy,” she said. The impact of talks on gas prices in the U.S. is of interest to the administration, she said. Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, who’s visiting Washington, met with top Defense Department officials on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, without providing details on the talks. Khalid will take part in meetings at the State Department on Wednesday.“The president wants Americans to have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump. And so that’s why our team is constantly monitoring gas prices and directly communicating with OPEC parties to get to a deal and allow proposed production increases to move forward,” Psaki said.Crude prices have soared and fluctuated as Saudi Arabia and the UAE spar over a production increase. A stall in talks raises the prospect that either nation could dump their quotas and raise supply. Existing OPEC+ production limits remain in place.
Why Biden may want to take a page from Trump's OPEC playbook – CNN - Americans despise high gasoline prices. And fairly or not, they tend to pin the blame on whomever is in the White House. That's why Monday's failure by OPEC and its allies to reach a deal that would add badly needed oil barrels to the market is a major problem for President Joe Biden. Oil and gasoline prices are already at seven-year highs. They'll go even higher until OPEC+ gets its act together. "We will see a nasty spike in crude oil and pump prices if they don't increase production," said Robert McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy. No president wants an oil-price spike. But the timing is particularly problematic because it could amplify inflation fears and hit Americans in the wallet just as consumer spending drives the economic recovery from Covid. US crude prices hit $76.98 a barrel Tuesday, a level unseen since November 2014, before retreating to around $73.50. Gasoline prices, which move with a lag to crude, ticked up to a national average of $3.13 a gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA. That's up from just $2.18 a year ago when the pandemic was still roaring. 'Playing catch-up' Alarm bells are undoubtedly ringing in the Biden White House. A spokesperson told CNN on Monday that the administration is "closely monitoring" the OPEC+ negotiations and officials are urging a "compromise solution" that will clear the way for the group to boost output. Until now, the Biden administration has taken a hands-off approach with OPEC, in stark contrast with former President Trump, who famously was obsessed with tracking financial markets and repeatedly blasted OPEC for failing to pump enough oil. Some analysts claim the Biden Team appeared to be caught flat-footed by the drama OPEC. "They are playing catch-up," said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. "The early warning system for the Biden administration was not commensurate with that of the Trump administration. They may not have realized how potentially consequential that OPEC meeting was."
OPEC+ Deal Fails, Leaving Oil Market Tighter as Prices Surge OPEC+ abandoned its meeting without a deal, tipping the cartel into crisis and leaving the oil market facing tight supplies and rising prices. Several days of tense talks failed to resolve a bitter dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, delegates said, asking not to be named because the information wasn’t public. The group didn’t agree on a date for its next meeting, according to a statement from OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo. The most immediate effect of the breakdown is that, unless an agreement can be salvaged, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies won’t increase production for August. That will deprive the global economy of vital extra supplies as demand recovers rapidly from the coronavirus pandemic. However, the situation is fluid and the group could reactivate talks at any moment. With prices up about 50% this year and climbing toward $80 a barrel, the producers’ group may feel extra pressure from consuming countries concerned about rising inflation. “Oil prices will pop if no deal means current production levels continue,” said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “But that’s also not tenable because a price spike actually undermines the interests of the UAE, Russia and Saudi Arabia.” The failure of OPEC+ to reach a deal pushed crude higher. Brent crude jumped 1.3% to $77.12 a barrel as of 5:42 p.m. in London, the highest since 2018. The outcome is a significant failure for the producers’ group. Relations have soured between two core OPEC members to such an extent that no compromise was possible. It damages the group’s self-image as a responsible steward of the oil market, raising the specter of the destructive internal price war that caused unprecedented price swings last year. OPEC+ has already been reviving some of the crude supplies it halted last year in the initial stages of the pandemic. The 23-nation coalition decided to add about 2 million barrels a day to the market from May to July, and the question before ministers on Monday was whether to keep going in the coming months. The cartel’s own data show that once-bloated oil inventories are back down to average levels as the recovery in fuel consumption continues. Demand in the second half will be 5 million barrels a day higher than in the first six months of the year, Barkindo said last week.
Breakdown of oil output talks threatens OPEC+ unity, may trigger weaker oil prices, says strategist - The collapse of talks between OPEC and its allies highlights the risks of the group's unity breaking down and renews concerns about a possible oversupply of oil, a commodity strategist told CNBC. The energy alliance, referred to as OPEC+, was set to resume talks Monday, but discussions have been called off indefinitely. That comes after the group twice failed to reach a key deal on their oil output policy last week. The group had sought to increase supply by 400,000 barrels per day from August to December 2021 and proposed extending the duration of cuts until the end of 2022. Last year, to cope with lower demand as Covid hit, OPEC+ agreed to curb output by almost 10 million barrels per day from May 2020 to the end of April 2022. The United Arab Emirates had indicated that, while it was supportive of the proposal to increase supply, it objected to the terms of the extension, which it said should be conditional on increasing its so-called baseline, which determines how much oil a country is allowed to pump. "I certainly think there are some risks that the market may be really sort of discounting at the moment and that is a breakdown of that unity," Daniel Hynes, senior commodity strategist at ANZ, told CNBC on Tuesday. "That has been I think by far the biggest advantage of this alliance over the past 18 months … the picture that it presents to the market around a coordinated and very compliant agreement which hasn't really seen any producers expand outside of that," he added. But now the risks are rising from that conflict surrounding the baseline number, which production cuts or increases are measured against. The UAE now wants that baseline to be increased so it can produce more. It has argued that it was not alone, as Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Nigeria also requested and got new baselines approved since the deal started last year, Reuters reported, citing an OPEC+ source. Hynes said that the UAE now wanting that "side agreement" to increase their output is representing "a risk now to that unity, to that front." "I think that brings risks to oversupply in particular over the medium term," he said. Hynes doesn't rule out weaker prices ahead, but said he doesn't think there will be a price war. "I think that would obviously be at risk if we started to see producers really push their own agenda and in a sense, go outside of that supply agreement," he told CNBC. "But you know it's all about perception and I think if the market does perceive that they won't adhere to those current quotas, then clearly, they're going to assume the worst and that would see weak oil prices ultimately," he added.
The end of OPEC? How Saudi Arabia and UAE infighting threatens the future of the oil alliance — Oil producer group OPEC has been plunged into crisis, with bitter infighting between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates raising questions about the future of the energy alliance. OPEC and non-OPEC partners, a group of some of the world's most powerful oil producers, abruptly abandoned plans to reconvene on Monday after last week's meetings unexpectedly failed to broker a deal on oil production policy. The group did not set a new date to resume talks. It means no agreement has been reached on a possible increase in crude production beyond the end of July, leaving oil markets in a state of limbo just as global fuel demand recovers from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. "OPEC+ has been thrown its most serious crisis since last year's ill-fated price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia," Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said in a research note. "Back-channel talks reportedly are continuing, but questions about UAE's commitment to remaining in OPEC will likely grow in the coming days." The UAE-Saudi dispute appeared to be about more than oil policy, Croft said, with Abu Dhabi "seemingly intent on stepping outside Saudi Arabia's shadow and charting its own course in global affairs." OPEC+, which is dominated by Middle East crude producers, agreed to implement massive crude production cuts in 2020 in an effort to support oil prices when the coronavirus pandemic coincided with a historic fuel demand shock. Led by Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the UAE, OPEC+ has met monthly to decide on production policy. The disarray comes after OPEC+ on Friday voted on a proposal to increase oil production by roughly 2 million barrels per day between August and the end of the year in 400,000 barrels per day monthly installments. It also proposed to extend the remaining output cuts to the end of 2022. The plans were rejected by the UAE, however, which wants a higher baseline to its quota to allow for more domestic production. "No agreement was reached and as we stand now the OPEC+ alliance, if it is still the right word to describe the group, will produce at the July level for the rest of the year," . "The [non-] outcome of the meeting re-writes the supply-demand landscape for the near and potentially for the distant future," he added. The rare public stand-off between the UAE and Saudi Arabia saw energy ministers from both countries engaging in a media blitz over the weekend to outline their respective positions. "For us, it wasn't a good deal," UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNBC's Hadley Gamble on Sunday. He added that while the country was willing to support a short-term increase in oil supply, it wants better terms through 2022.
Refiners to Pay More for Saudi Crude -- Saudi Arabia raised oil prices for buyers from Asia to the U.S. for August after OPEC+ talks broke down just as the market was clamoring for more supply. The Saudis, along with Russia, sought over the past week to rally other members around a plan to unwind production cuts incrementally and to extend their accord through to the end of next year. The proposal collapsed when the United Arab Emirates balked at keeping in place what it says is an unfair production baseline for its quota for longer. In its main market of Asia, Saudi Aramco increased the official selling price, or OSP, for Arab Light crude by 80 cents a barrel to $2.70 above the regional benchmark. That’s the biggest month-on-month increase since January, and suggests the oil giant won’t raise supply next month even as it sees the market tightening. “With domestic demand peaking around August, there will be less crude available for exports unless they draw down from the inventories,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodities analyst at UBS Group AG. “As the market was looking for a slightly smaller OSP increase for Asia, Asian refineries can’t expect additional volumes from Saudi Arabia.” The kingdom sends more than 60% of its crude exports to Asia, with China, Japan, South Korea and India being the biggest buyers. Last month, it shipped 5.7 million barrels a day globally, according to preliminary data compiled by Bloomberg. Buyers in the U.S. will see smaller increases next month, with prices rising between 20 cents and 40 cents a barrel. Aramco is also raising rates for Northwest Europe by 80 cents a barrel and for the Mediterranean region by 60-80 cents. Oil futures and physical markets have strengthened with widespread virus vaccinations supporting demand. The breakdown in OPEC+ talks means current production limits will remain in place for August, likely leading to a deeper supply deficit. Crude could rise to as high as $90 a barrel without higher output, Fereidun Fesharaki, chairman of industry consultant FGE, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. He said a compromise between the feuding OPEC nations was likely. Aramco had been expected to increase the price of Arab Light by 50 cents a barrel to $2.40 more than the benchmark, according to a survey of nine traders and refiners in Asia prior to the meeting’s collapse. The company also hiked pricing for most of its other grades for sale to Asia by 80 cents, with Arab Super Light crude rising by $1 a barrel. The increase brings pricing for Arab Light to the highest since March 2020, when it sold for a premium of $2.90 a barrel. That was the last month before a brief price war caused crude to plunge as producers including Saudi Arabia discounted barrels and flooded the market just as the coronavirus was slashing demand.
US oil prices at six-year high after OPEC fails to reach deal - US oil prices jumped to six-year highs Tuesday after OPEC failed to reach a deal on oil production — raising concerns that output could fail to keep up with surging demand. Futures for West Texas Intermediate, the main US oil benchmark, advanced 1.3 percent, or about $1, to $76.16 per barrel. At one point, WTI crude reached $76.98, the highest price since November 2014. Brent crude, the global energy benchmark, traded roughly flat at about $77.04 per barrel, the highest price since late 2018. The surging prices came after talks that began last week between OPEC and its oil-producing allies, known as OPEC+, fell apart. The group’s meeting sought to establish production policy for August and the remainder of the year. But a Saudi Arabia-backed plan to raise output and let the price stabilize failed to win agreement, with the United Arab Emirates, a key OPEC member, refusing to sign off. Discussions were set to resume on Monday but got called off in a sign of simmering tensions and stalling talks. Analysts, including Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING Groep, say that a production hike is necessary as demand for oil continues to rise to pre-pandemic levels. Without a new production plan, prices are likely to continue to rise, at least in the short term. Americans are already feeling the crunch at the pump, with national average gas prices over $3 per gallon at a seven-year high. Companies involved in the energy industry saw shares rise Tuesday morning in premarket trading. Occidental Petroleum stock rose about 1.6 percent in the premarket and shares of oil-field-services firm Schlumberger rose about 1.3 percent. The US has pushed OPEC to reach a deal that would see output rise and tame the price. “Administration officials have been engaged with relevant capitals to urge a compromise solution that will allow proposed production increases to move forward,” a White House spokesperson said Monday. A maze of crude oil pipes and valves is pictured during a tour by the Department of Energy at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Freeport, Texas.
OPEC discord could unleash a new level of volatility in oil market - Disagreement within OPEC could trigger a more a volatile period for oil, with prices jumping on lack of new supply or sinking suddenly if member countries decide to release crude independently. Oil prices initially surged to a six-year high on news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, ended their meeting Monday with no action and no new meeting date. A proposed plan by OPEC, Russia and other allies to bring 400,000 barrels a day back to the market was disrupted by the United Arab Emirates' objection to other aspects of the deal. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for August traded as high as $76.98 Tuesday before falling back to settle down 2.4% at $74.53 per barrel. Many analysts had expected oil to rise on the discord among members of OPEC, and say prices could still climb despite the sell-off. "It's going to get worse before it gets better. I still think $85 to $90 per barrel should be the upper end," said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital. "You'll see more oil produced. They're not going to go crazy, but they're not going to live within the current structures. Russia will lead the charge." "It could become a free for all," he said. Some analysts had already expected oil spikes into the $100 per barrel range over the course of the next year. The feuding between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates opens a new fissure in OPEC, which now means oil could also tank if members decide to open the spigots. "Realistically, I don't think anybody wants to go this way. I suspect cooler heads or rational thinking will prevail," said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities. Melek said there are some wild cards for OPEC that could affect prices. A major one is whether the U.S. and Iran strike a deal on Iran's nuclear programming, allowing it to return more than 1 million barrels a day back to the market. Another risk is whether the variants of the Covid virus could affect the economy's recovery and crimp demand for travel. OPEC and its partners were able to agree to return 400,000 barrels a day to the market starting in August. But the UAE sought to also have its production baseline increased from 3.1 million barrels a day to 3.8 million barrels, and that was the sticking point with Saudi Arabia. After three days of meetings, there was also a deadlock over whether the deal would include an extension of the the plan to the end of 2022, which was opposed by the UAE. Without an agreement, 5.8 million barrels a day, cut from production last year, will remain off the market even as demand rises. "I think OPEC event risk is back. We had pretty smooth sailing this year, and now this was not priced at all," said Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. "Once people start focusing on 5.8 million barrels off the market, I think they might get nervous. How they come back will be important." The market will be affected much differently based on whether the oil trickles back or the producing countries flood the market with supply.
Oil prices could 'very easily' top $100 a barrel, says ex-U.S. energy secretary Oil prices could "very easily" hit $100 a barrel in the aftermath of the failed OPEC+ talks, former U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told CNBC on Tuesday. "You could very easily see oil hitting $100 a barrel — potentially even higher," he told CNBC's Hadley Gamble. On the flip side, it's "equally possible" that prices could collapse too. "If there isn't any agreement on production, and countries tend to go off and do their own thing, or do their own production, you could have a collapse of oil prices," said Brouillette, who was U.S. energy secretary from 2019 to 2021. OPEC and its allies, referred to collectively as OPEC+, twice failed to reach a deal on oil output last week. On Monday, another attempt to resume talks broke down, and discussions were put off indefinitely. The energy alliance, which includes Russia, had sought to increase supply by 400,000 barrels per day from August to December 2021 and proposed extending the duration of cuts until the end of 2022. Last year, to cope with lower demand due to the pandemic, OPEC+ agreed to curb output by almost 10 million barrels per day from May 2020 to the end of April 2022. The United Arab Emirates had indicated that, while it was supportive of the proposal to increase supply, it objected to the terms of the extension. Prices soared to three-year highs following the collapse of those talks on Monday. On Tuesday during Asia trading, they surged even higher. U.S. crude pushed past $76 per barrel and international benchmark Brent was higher than $77 per barrel. Oil prices topping $100 would destroy demand, warned oil expert Dan Yergin, who said that it would not be in the interest of countries. "I think countries recognize that $100 barrel oil would not be in (their) interest," Yergin, the vice chairman of IHS Markit, told CNBC's Street Signs Asia on Tuesday. "You would see governments pour more incentives into electric cars, and see the impact on demand." 'Striking' that UAE and Saudi are on divergent paths OPEC+ is led by Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the UAE. But the breakdown of those talks, and UAE's objection to the terms, reflect a rare public disagreement between the allies. The discord between Saudi Arabia and the UAE has been "striking," Brouillette and Yergin both said. "I find it striking that the UAE has stepped away from Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally within OPEC and OPEC+," Brouillette said.
Oil touches six-year high after OPEC fails to get deal, then turns negative --Oil jumped to its highest level in six years after talks between OPEC and its oil-producing allies were postponed indefinitely, with the group failing to reach an agreement on production policy for August and beyond. On Tuesday, U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded as high as $76.98, a price not seen since November 2014. But those gains quickly faded, and the contract for August delivery drifted lower during the session and ultimately settled down 2.38%, or $1.79, at $73.37 per barrel. Brent crude hit its highest level since late 2018 before also reversing gains, and finished the session $2.63, or 3.4%, lower at $74.53 per barrel. Discussions began last week between OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, as the energy alliance sought to establish output policy for the remainder of the year. The group on Friday voted on a proposal that would have returned 400,000 barrels per day to the market each month from August through December, resulting in an additional 2 million barrels per day by the end of the year. Members also proposed extending the output cuts through the end of 2022. The United Arab Emirates rejected these proposals, however, and talks stretched from Thursday to Friday as the group tried to reach a consensus. Initially, discussions were set to resume on Monday but were ultimately called off. "The date of the next meeting will be decided in due course," OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said in a statement. OPEC+ took historic measures in April 2020 and removed nearly 10 million barrels per day of production in an effort to support prices as demand for petroleum-products plummeted. Since then, the group has been slowly returning barrels to the market, while meeting on a near monthly basis to discuss output policy. "For us, it wasn't a good deal," UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNBC on Sunday. He added that the country would support a short-term increase in supply, but wants better terms if the policy is to be extended through 2022. Oil's blistering rally this year — WTI has gained 57% during 2021 — meant that ahead of last week's meeting many Wall Street analysts expected the group to boost production in an effort to curb the spike in prices. "With no increase in production, the forthcoming growth in demand should see global energy markets tighten up at an even faster pace than anticipated," analysts at TD Securities wrote in a note to clients. "This impasse will lead to a temporary and significantly larger-than-anticipated deficit, which should fuel even higher prices for the time being. The summer breakout in oil prices is set to gather steam at a fast clip," the firm added.
Opec meeting: Oil drops sharply after OPEC cancels meeting - Oil prices tumbled on Tuesday in a volatile session after OPEC producers canceled a meeting when major players were unable to come to an agreement to increase supply. Brent crude settled down $2.63 a barrel, or 3.4%, to $74.53, after hitting a session peak of $77.84, its highest since October 2018. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled down $1.79, or 2.4%, to $73.37 after touching $76.98, highest since November 2014. On Monday, ministers from OPEC+, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia and other producers, abandoned talks after negotiations failed to close divisions between Saudi Arabia, the largest OPEC producer, and United Arab Emirates. Initially, oil rallied on news of the breakdown in talks, but prices retreated as traders focused on the possibility that the strife will cause some national producers to open the taps and start exporting more barrels. "The market is concerned that the UAE will step in and unilaterally add barrels and other people in OPEC will follow suit," said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho. The United Arab Emirates said it would go along with output increases but rejected a separate proposal to extend curbs to the end of 2022 from an existing April deadline. Some OPEC+ sources said they still believed the group would resume discussions this month and agree to pump more from August, though others said current curbs might remain in place. The White House said Tuesday it was closely monitoring talks by OPEC+ and was "encouraged" after conversations with officials in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. No date for further talks has been announced. Analysts expect U.S. producers to start adding supply due to higher prices after months of subdued activity. U.S. production is currently around 11 million bpd, so output has room to increase before nearing the U.S. record of nearly 13 million bpd reached in 2019. Goldman Sachs said the collapse of the talks had introduced uncertainty into OPEC's production path. The bank said it still saw Brent reaching $80 per barrel early next year. On Monday, Iraqi Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul Jabbar said his country did not want to see oil prices soaring above current levels and that he hoped that within 10 days a date would be set for a new OPEC+ meeting.
Oil prices stay volatile amid ongoing OPEC+ clash over output - Oil prices remained volatile in New York as traders assessed the ongoing impasse among OPEC+ nations over plans to boost output. West Texas Intermediate futures have been whipsawed as a dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stymies OPEC+ plans to revive halted supplies. The grade hit a six-year high early Tuesday before easing back. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said U.S. officials have been speaking to both sides, and OPEC+ delegates say consultations continue to seek a compromise. “Uncertainty seems to prevail after the surprising outcome of the petro-nations’ latest meeting and its inability to agree on the future of their supply deal,” Refiners have reaffirmed their appetite for barrels, with at least five Asian oil processors planning to seek their full contractual volumes from Saudi Arabia, even as the kingdom jacked up prices for August. Companies have been unable to source cheaper alternatives. Oil has soared in 2021 as the rollout of coronavirus vaccines permits major economies to reopen, spurring a revival in global consumption. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have returned some of the production they took offline at the height of the pandemic, but they’re struggling to agree on a way forward. Without a new deal, they’re set to keep supply steady in August, further tightening the market. Saudi Aramco increased the official selling price for Arab Light by 80 cents a barrel to $2.70 above the regional benchmark for Asia. That’s the biggest month-on-month gain since January, and suggests the oil giant won’t boost supply next month. WTI for August delivery traded up 0.6% at $73.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 1:42 p.m. London time.It fell 2.4% on Tuesday as a stronger dollar spurred a sell-off across commodities. Brent for September settlement also rose 0.6% to trade at $74.97 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Oil falls in volatile trade as investors seek Opec clarity - Oil prices fell more than US$1 a barrel on Wednesday in another seesaw trading session, as investors feared what this week's collapse in Opec+ talks meant for worldwide production. Crude markets have been volatile over the last two days following the breakdown of discussions between major oil producers Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE). Brent crude settled at US$73.43 a barrel, falling US$1.10 or 1.5 per cent. US West Texas Intermediate settled at US$72.20 a barrel, shedding US$1.17 or 1.6 per cent. Both benchmarks rallied more than US$1 a barrel earlier in the session, similar to Tuesday's action. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, including Russia, known as Opec+, have restrained supply for more than a year since demand crashed during the coronavirus pandemic. The group is maintaining nearly six million barrels per day of output cuts and was expected to add to supply, but three days of meetings failed to close divisions between the Saudis and the Emiratis. For now, the existing agreement that keeps supply restrained remains in force. But the breakdown also could lead producers, eager to capitalise on the rebound in demand, to start supplying more oil previously predicted. "Some people are fearing a production war, but I think most people think that's unlikely," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. "It is possible the UAE could leave Opec and just do it's own thing, and if that happens, then it would be a question of competition for market share." Russia is now leading efforts to close divisions between the Saudis and UAE to help strike a deal to raise oil output in coming months, three Opec+ sources said. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman dampened concerns of a price war in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. Prices could find some support from falling US crude oil inventories
The Real Reason OPEC Talks Broke Down - Major cracks appear to be forming in the OPEC+ alliance. After several years of unprecedented cooperation between OPEC members and non-OPEC producers, the growing regional economic and power conflict between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi is threatening the arrangement.While much of the analysis of the recent OPEC+ disagreement has focused on why the UAE refused to commit to the new export plan, there are other factors that have been largely overlooked. A closer look at the ongoing investments by the UAE in its upstream and downstream industry is one such example. Abu Dhabi’s national oil company ADNOC has put in place a production capacity increase that calls for a total reassessment of the underlying OPEC production baselines, which were agreed in 2018. At present Abu Dhabi is allowed to produce around 3.2 million bpd, based on the 2018 baseline, but has a capacity now of more than 3.8-4 million bpd. Looking at ongoing new projects and planned investments, production of more than 4 million bpd is possible in the coming years.The aggressive investment strategy of ADNOC means that the UAE is plenty of incentives to increase production. An extended and controlled OPEC+ export quota system would not only impact the UAE’s revenue streams but could even turn some of its multi-billion dollar investments into stranded assets in the long term.Recently, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed has been pushing an independent geopolitical and economic strategy for the UAE. After years of cooperating with Saudi Arabia on everything from OPEC policy to regional geopolitical crises, the two powers are now beginning to diverge. Former cooperation on issues such as the Yemen war and the Qatar blockade has weakened drastically.At the same time, Mohammed bin Salman has been aggressively pushing Saudi Arabia’s regional power. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, the Kingdom’s economic diversification plan, has driven the crown prince to take aim on other GCC countries as he attempts to force international investors and companies to set up shop in Saudi Arabia rather than Dubai or Doha. This transformation in the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE certainly played a part in the recent OPEC+ conflict.Riyadh is also targeting the logistics industry, an industry that the UAE has long dominated, establishing itself as a regional hub for logistics and connecting EU-Asian commodity and trade flows. In the last couple of months, Saudi Arabia has become increasingly aggressive in this space. While there has no been a direct conflict in this area, it is generally assumed that there is not enough space in the region for two supra-regional maritime logistic hubs. MBZ and Dubai are clearly unimpressed with Saudi Arabia’s attempts to muscle in on the industry.Another area of discord between the two nations is the UAE’s increased cooperation with Israel. UAE-Israel cooperation in logistics, technology, defense, and agriculture, is a possible threat to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 projects. By bringing Israeli tech and know-how to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the UAE projects will compete with the Saudi Giga-Projects, such as NEOM, for international investment. In response to these moves by the UEA, Riyadh has blocked technology and products exports by the UAE that are linked to Israel.
The OPEC+ spat is likely to be resolved 'sooner rather than later,' energy analyst says - OPEC and its allies left the oil market hanging on Monday when they indefinitely postponed talks to resolve a disagreement over production curbs. Crude prices first surged to six-year highs, then retreated, and uncertainty continues to hang over future OPEC+ policy. But at least one energy analyst expects a breakthrough to come soon. "I think it's highly likely [that] it's going to resolve itself," said Stephen Schork, a principal advisor at energy analysis company The Schork Group. OPEC is the strongest it has been in years, and they would not want to "upset the applecart," he told "Street Signs Asia" on Thursday. The energy alliance met last week to discuss output policy, but the UAE unexpectedly blocked proposals to increase supply and extend the remaining production cuts to the end of 2022, instead of April 2022 as previously agreed. Suhail Al Mazrouei, UAE's energy minister, told CNBC on Sunday that it "wasn't a good deal" because the output cuts were measured against a baseline of 2018 production levels. The country has increased its production capacity, but cannot pump more oil while the OPEC agreement remains in place. It wants this baseline to be revised. Russia is reportedly attempting to negotiate a resolution. Neil Beveridge, a senior oil analyst at Bernstein, said OPEC policy has been focused on controlling supply to manage prices. But the UAE sees that peak oil demand is "staring OPEC in the face" and is considering chasing market share instead of high energy prices, he told "Capital Connection" on Thursday, and that's why it wants to be given a higher quota. Observers say two scenarios are possible if OPEC doesn't reach a new deal. The first is that of a price collapse. Beveridge noted that OPEC is sitting on nearly 6 million barrels of spare capacity now. If countries decide to increase supply and go for market share, the downside could be "significant," he said. "We can see oil prices certainly drop back below $50 again … pretty quickly, if that [happens]," he said.
WTI Rebounds Above $72 After Gasoline Demand Hits Record High - Oil prices are down for the 3rd straight day as 'Delta'-variant (demand) fears combine with OPEC+ cartel collapse fears as the Saudis and UAE continue their game of chicken (and see prices fall in the face of their hopes). “Obviously, the standoff between the UAE and OPEC continues, and we don’t know whether that’s going to be bullish or bearish,” After API's report, expectations remain for a seventh straight weekly draw in crude stocks, so all eyes will be on any cracks in the recovery narrative in the official inventory/production/demand data. API:
- Crude -7.983mm (-3.9mm exp)
- Cushing +152k
- Gasoline -2.736mm
- Distillates +1.086mm
DOE
- Crude -6.867mm (-3.9mm exp)
- Cushing -614k
- Gasoline -6.075mm
- Distillates +1.616mm
Official data confirmed API with a 7th straight week of crude inventory drawdowns, but gasoline stocks tumbled far more than expected... As of right now, the moving average for gasoline demand topped 10 million b/d - a new record high... US crude production has remained notably disciplined as prices and rig counts have risen, but this last week saw it begin to accelerate (up 200k b/d last week to 11.3mm b/d) -the highest since May 2020...
Oil rises after big draw in inventories - Oil prices rose on Thursday, rebounding from early losses after the US government data showed a much bigger drop than expected in crude and gasoline inventories. Still, Brent prices remained $5 a barrel below Monday’s close, as traders were worried global crude supplies might swell following the collapse of negotiations between the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+. Brent crude oil futures rose 29 cents to $73.72 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate futures rose 26 cents to $72.46 a barrel. Early in the session, both contracts fell to their lowest in about three weeks. US crude inventories fell by 6.9 million barrels last week to 445.5 million barrels, Energy Information Administration data showed. Analysts had expected a four million-barrel drop. Gasoline stocks fell by 6.1 million barrels in the week to 235.5 million barrels, the EIA said. Analysts had forecast a 2.2 million-barrel drop.
Oil Prices Snap Losing Streak | Rigzone -- Oil rose after a U.S. government report showed rapidly declining inventories and record-high fuel demand in the midst of the peak summer driving season. Futures advanced 1% in New York on Thursday. Domestic crude and gasoline supplies tumbled last week and a gauge of fuel demand jumped to 10 million barrels a day during the week leading up to the July 4th holiday, according to the Energy Information Administration. “Clearly in the U.S., we’re seeing a strong recovery in demand,” said Quinn Kiley, a portfolio manager at Tortoise, a firm that markets roughly $8 billion in energy-related assets. “It’s a bullish setup.” Oil prices rose 11% last month before volatile trading this week in the wake of the OPEC+ impasse. Global supplies have tightened amid strong recoveries in economies such as the U.S. and China, leading to calls for the alliance to increase supply in the coming months. In the U.S., crude supplies fell by nearly 7 million barrels last week and gasoline inventories tumbled by the most since March, according to the EIA report. The country’s crude production has remained “lackluster” despite improved prices, which suggests the crude curve will stay in backwardation, said a new research report by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “The market did what it should do,” said Andrew Lebow, senior partner at Commodity Research Group. “It rallied to bullish news.” At the same time, OPEC+ members are also stalled over the question of how to increase supply in August and subsequent months. United Arab Emirates has blocked the agreement in a bid to raise its production quota. The ongoing stalemate has limited crude’s rally for now, said Kiley. “That’s still the overarching concern in broader markets,” he said. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery rose 74 cents to settle at $72.94 a barrel in New York. Brent for September settlement added 69 cents to end the session at $74.12 a barrel. Meanwhile, the spread of the delta variant is also leading to concerns. The World Health Organization urged caution on the pace of reopenings worldwide, with many regions seeing infections spreading. Countries such as Japan, Indonesia and Thailand have renewed restrictions on mobility to curb the spread.
Oil prices rise over $1 as U.S. inventories decline -Oil prices rose for a second day on Friday as data showed a draw in U.S. inventories but were heading for a weekly loss amid uncertainty over global supplies after an OPEC+ impasse. Brent crude oil futures settled 1.93%, or $1.43, higher at $75.55 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures settled 2.22%, or $1.62, higher at $74.56 per barrel. Prices on both sides of the Atlantic were on track for around a 1% weekly drop, dragged down by the collapse of output talks between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, together known as OPEC+. U.S. crude and gasoline stocks fell and gasoline demand reached its highest since 2019, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday, signalling increasing strength in the economy. "A bullish EIA stock report helped the oil market rebound into the black," said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM. "Clearly, U.S. oil markets are tight. However ... the only way to prevent further losses is for the threat of an OPEC+ price war to be contained," he added. Gains in oil prices were capped by worries that members of the OPEC+ group could be tempted to abandon output limits that they have followed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with talks breaking down because of an impasse between major producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The two Gulf OPEC allies are at odds over a proposed deal that would have brought more oil to the market. Russia was trying to mediate in an effort to strike a deal to raise output, OPEC+ sources said on Wednesday. The United States had high level conversations with officials in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the White House said on Tuesday. "Price wars are almost always quite short-lived – no one wins in the long term," consultancy Rystad Energy said in a note. "It is in the interest of the (OPEC+) group to provide some leniency to the UAE and other supply hawks to produce a bit more within the framework of the deal." The global spread of the Delta coronavirus variant and worries it could stall a worldwide economic recovery also weighed on oil prices.
Oil Prices Post Gains in Friday Trading | Rigzone -- Oil fell this week for the first time since May after days of volatile trading in the wake of OPEC+’s stalemate over a production increase in the near term. Futures in New York declined 0.8% this week, although the U.S. crude benchmark closed higher on Friday amid a broader market rebound. Prices whipsawed this week amid ambiguity over the future of the OPEC+ alliance and swings in the U.S. dollar. A stronger dollar makes commodities priced in the currency less attractive to investors. “Nobody really knows how the supply growth is going to project from here,” said Peter McNally, global head of industrials, materials and energy at Third Bridge. “The world needs more oil and was expecting more oil, so while there’s this uncertainty around supply, demand keeps growing.” Oil accelerated to a six-year high earlier this week after OPEC+ failed to ratify a production increase, spurring concerns of a supply shortfall. Fuel consumption is rising in countries such as the U.S., India and China during the summer driving season. Americans have hit the road with gusto, leading to rapidly draining inventories and U.S. refineries running close to full-bore to keep up with demand. “We’re now in the middle of what appears to be an extremely robust summer and the U.S. seeing very large stock draws, fundamentally, that we anticipate will continue to support the market,” said Michael Tran, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. At the same time, the OPEC+ alliance and U.S. shale producers have practiced discipline toward returning supply that was shelved during the pandemic. The global oil market will remain in “deep deficit” of more than 3 million barrels per day through the third quarter of the year, according to Citigroup analysts. OPEC+ countries will need to add more oil to the market at a higher level “sooner or later,” said the report. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery added $1.62 to settle at $74.56 a barrel in New York, the biggest gain in a week. Brent for September settlement rose $1.43 to end the session at $75.55 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. Before talks broke down earlier this week, Saudi Arabia proposed that the coalition gradually revive 5.8 million barrels of daily capacity in monthly installments of 400,000 barrels through to the end of next year. But the United Arab Emirates blocked an agreement, saying it will only support an extension of the pact if there are revisions to its own quota, which the country contends is outdated. If no agreement is reached, the existing one states that output will remain steady next month. The unresolved deadlock also threatens to unravel the alliance altogether and spark a fresh price war.
Fiery explosion erupts on ship at major global port in Dubai (AP) — A fiery explosion erupted on a container ship anchored in Dubai at one of the world’s largest ports late Wednesday, authorities said, sending tremors across the commercial hub of the United Arab Emirates. There were no immediate reports of casualties, and it was unclear what triggered the blast. The blaze sent up giant orange flames from a vessel at the Jebel Ali Port, the busiest in the Middle East. Jebel Ali sits on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula and is also the busiest port of call for American warships outside the U.S. The combustion unleashed a shock wave through the city of Dubai, causing walls and windows to shake in neighborhoods as far as 25 kilometers (15 miles) away from the port. Residents filmed from their high-rises as a fiery ball illuminated the night sky. The blast was powerful enough to be seen from space by satellite. Some 2 1/2 hours after the blast, Dubai’s civil defense teams said they had brought the fire under control and started the “cooling process.” Authorities posted footage on social media of firefighters dousing giant shipping containers. The glow of the blaze remained visible in the background as civil defense crews worked to contain the fire. The extent of damage to the sprawling port and surrounding cargo was not immediately clear. Footage shared on social media of the aftermath showed charred containers, ashes and littered debris. The sheer force and visibility of the explosion suggested the presence of a combustible substance. Dubai authorities told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV that the crew had evacuated in time and that the fire appeared to have started in one of the containers holding flammable material, without elaborating. Seeking to downplay the explosion, Mona al-Marri, director general of the Dubai Media Office, told Al-Arabiya the incident “could happen anywhere in the world” and that authorities were investigating the cause. The Jebel Ali Port at the northern end of Dubai is the largest man-made deep-water harbor in the world and serves cargo from the Indian subcontinent, Africa and Asia. The port is not only a critical global cargo hub, but a lifeline for Dubai and surrounding emirates, serving as the point of entry for essential imports. Dubai authorities did not identify the stricken ship beyond saying it was a small vessel with a capacity of 130 containers. Ship tracker MarineTraffic showed a fleet of small support vessels surrounding a docked container ship called the Ocean Trader flagged in Comoros. Footage from the scene rebroadcast by the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency showed firefighters hosing down a vessel bearing paint and logo that corresponds to the Ocean Trader, operated by the Dubai-based Inzu Ship Charter. Operated by the Dubai-based DP World, Jebel Ali Port boasts a handling capacity of over 22 million containers and sprawling terminals that can berth some of the world’s largest ships. Port officials said they were “taking all necessary measures to ensure that the normal movement of vessels continues without any disruption."
Why Does Israel Confuse Peace with Surrender? -Israel confuses peace with surrender. Its operational military doctrine, concerned with the army’s methods of combat, emphasises the imperative to bring hostilities as early as possible into enemy territory and, if necessary, to strike preemptively.Israel’s strategic doctrine, which comprises the broad policies used to secure national objectives, seeks to preserve the state, within increasingly expansive borders, which also means the continued colonisation of Palestinian land. Both are about staying on the offensive.Israel has used disproportionate force against civilians for decades. This is explained by the fact that it has been relatively successful in minimising the human and financial cost of war for itself. Yet history is full of tragedies caused by overestimating the power of offensive doctrines.In its recent military campaign in Gaza, Israel’s ground and air forces reportedly conducted a total 1,500 strikes in 11 days, injuring 1,900 Palestinians and killing at least 254.This must be understood in the context of Israel’s strategy, which from the outset has included deliberate attacks on civilians, their economies, institutions, and infrastructure.In May 2009, Amnesty International released its country report for Israel and the occupied territories, which found that during a previous campaign, that year’s Operation Cast Lead, “Israeli forces repeatedly breached the laws of war, including by carrying out direct attacks on civilians and civilian buildings and attacks targeting Palestinian militants that caused a disproportionate toll among civilians.”Statements by Israeli officials reveal that the disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians was a deliberate policy. In October 2008, Gabi Siboni, Director of the Military and Strategic Affairs Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), published a policy paper entitled “Disproportionate Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War.” It stated: With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes. Israel again will not be able to limit its response to actions whose severity is seemingly proportionate to an isolated incident. Rather, it will have to respond disproportionately in order to make it abundantly clear that the State of Israel will accept no attempt to disrupt the calm currently prevailing along its borders. For Israeli leaders, the periodic use of force is essential to communicate Israel’s capacity and resolve. As part of the Israeli security paradigm, when the state feels that deterrence against a particular actor is evaporating, it launches “deterrence operations” where concern for collateral damage to civilians tends to disappear.
June Deadliest Month in Afghanistan in Two Decades - Afghan authorities claim that the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces (ANDSF) have killed over 6,000 Taliban fighters in approximately one month, and the Taliban has said that the group has also inflicted major casualties on government forces. During this period the government also evacuated 120 districts following offensives by the Taliban. In the latest development, the Taliban has captured the center of Tagab district in the northern province of Kapisa. Numbers gathered by TOLOnews show that 638 military personnel and civilians were also killed in Taliban attacks during this period and 1,060 others were wounded. “The main reason for the collapse of the districts is poor leadership at the leadership level of the security and defense forces,” said MP Khan Agha Rezayee. Based on the figures, although the number of targeted attacks and explosions decreased during this period, the level of casualties among the security personnel and civilians continued to rise. The majority of casualties were reported in Baghlan, Faryab, Badakhshan, Ghazni, Takhar, Balkh, Ghor, Herat, Farah, Kunduz, Badghis and Sar-e-Pul provinces. “The lines (personnel) of the war changed, people were serving in the provinces as security commanders who weren’t familiar with the war because the government had sent the war commanders home,” said MP Ibdallullah Mohammadi. “There was no preparation to confront such a big war, we weren’t prepared for guerrilla warfare,” said MP Arif Rahmani. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) said that the Afghan security forces have increased airstrikes on Taliban positions in Nangarhar, Herat, Balkh, Jawzjan, Helmand, Takhar, Badakhshan, Kunduz, Baghlan and Kapisa provinces in a move to recapture the districts lost to the Taliban. “258 Taliban fighters were killed and 100 more were wounded in the operations conducted by the security and defense forces in the past 24 hours,” said Fawad Aman, deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.
Taliban overtake districts in northern Afghanistan - Several of Afghanistan’s northern districts were taken by the Taliban overnight Saturday as U.S. forces continued withdraw from the region. Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security said Sunday that more than 300 Afghan military personnel had crossed into Tajikistan while fleeing Taliban fighters advancing in Afghanistan's northeast Badakhshan province, according to The Associated Press. Mohib-ul Rahman, a Badakhshan council member, told the AP that the Taliban’s recent gains in the area have largely resulted from low morale among outnumbered Afghan troops. “Unfortunately, the majority of the districts were left to the Taliban without any fight,” he added, saying that eight out of 10 districts in the last three days fell to Taliban control without much resistance. According to the AP, the Taliban have now taken control of about a third of the 421 total districts and district centers in the country. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said Sunday that the Taliban gains were temporary, though the AP noted that no plans were released on how local forces were going to make an attempt to take back the districts. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to the AP that no fighting occurred in the recent territorial gains. The advances are just the latest made by Taliban fighters, who have been taking control of districts since the Biden administration began removing troops in April as part of the president’s goal to remove all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that sparked America’s longest war. While many praised President Biden’s decision to take U.S. soldiers out of the country, he also received bipartisan criticism from lawmakers who expressed fears that the Taliban would quickly seize on the diminished American presence in the region. The Pentagon declined to comment when contacted by The Hill on this weekend’s territorial gains. U.S. officials on Friday announced that American troops had vacated the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, formerly the U.S. and NATO’s biggest military facility.
Tajikistan mobilizes 20,000 reservists to bolster border with Afghanistan - Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon has mobilized 20,000 military reservists to help bolster the border with Afghanistan, Reuters reported on Monday. This comes as more than 1,000 members of the Afghan security force members have fled to the country due to advances by the Taliban. The organization has taken over six districts in the northern province of Badakhshan, which borders Tajikistan and China, which led to 1,037 Afghan service members moving across the border in Tajikistan, its border guard service told Reuters. Rahmon has called multiple world leaders including Russian President Vladamir Putin and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to discuss the situation, according to Reuters. According to a statement by Russia, Putin told Rahmon he will support Tajikistan if needed to stabilize its border. "Special attention was paid to the escalation of the situation in Afghanistan's northern areas adjacent to Tajikistan," Rahmon’s office said in a statement, according to the news agency. Rahmon also called Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for assistance and held a council meeting, his office told Reuters. A senior Afghan official told the news agency that hundreds of troops have been crossing the border, saying that the Taliban has cut off most of the border. The news comes as U.S. troops vacated the Bagram Airfield last week, as part of the country's withdrawal from the country after 20 years. The Taliban said on Monday that they are accelerating peace talks with the Afghan government since the U.S. withdrawal.
Bagram Airfield looted as US forces leave Afghan base ---American forces left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield over the weekend without notifying the new commander from the Kabul government — giving looters precious time to swipe anything that was not bolted down, shocking photos show. The US announced Friday that it had vacated Bagram as part of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August. It is Afghanistan’s largest airfield and was the hub of America’s 20-year campaign to remove the Taliban from government, track down Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda cohorts, and keep the country’s fragile elected government in place amid a Taliban resurgence. However, they apparently forgot to tell the Afghans, cutting the electricity within 20 minutes of their departure and plunging the base into darkness. That acted as a “go” signal for teams of looters who smashed through the north gate and ransacked barracks and storage tents before security forces who had been patrolling the perimeter managed to evict them. “We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by 7 o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” said new base commander Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani. “In one night, they [the Americans] lost all the good will of 20 years by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area,” one Afghan soldier, who identified himself only as Naematullah, told the Associated Press.“At first we thought maybe they were Taliban,” another soldier, a 10-year veteran named Abdul Raouf, said of the looters. Raouf went on to claim American forces called from the international airport in Kabul — an hour’s drive south of Bagram — to inform their Afghan counterparts that they had left the base.
Taliban celebrate seizure of US weapons from Afghan troops -Taliban fighters can be seen in recently released videos celebrating the seizure of US Humvees, tanks and assault weapons from Afghan security forces as the Biden administration begins its troop withdrawal before the Sept. 11 deadline.The Taliban have been capturing key districts in the northern part of the war-torn country — including Kandahar and Badakhshan — with little or no resistance from Afghan national forces since the US announced the timetable for the departure in April.They are extending their control of Afghanistan from their southern strongholds by filling the void left by the departing US forces. More than a thousand Afghan soldiers fled across the border to Tajikistan after clashing with the Taliban in Badakhshan and surrendered their weapons. The Taliban are touting the capture of the US weapons as a propaganda ploy in videos released on social media, heralding their return to power after being defeated by American troops in 2001 for harboring al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden and allowing the terror group to plan its 9/11 attack. The speed of the US pullout is marked by the hasty abandonment of Bagram Airfield — the hub of US military operations during the 20-year war — over the weekend without giving the Afghan government a heads up, a sudden departure that allowed looters to overrun the facility and help themselves to the numerous items left behind by the Americans. A Taliban commander told Sky News that his fighters had taken a cache of weapons from Afghan security personnel that included 70 sniper rifles, 900 guns, 30 Humvees, 20 pickup trucks and 15 armored vehicles.The report also said the Taliban had a shipping container full of satellite phones, grenades and mortars, with many having labels saying: “Property of the USA Government.” Army Gen. Austin Scott Miller, who is overseeing the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, said the Taliban’s advances should be a cause for worry. “We should be concerned. The loss of terrain and the rapidity of that loss of terrain has — has to be concerning, one, because it’s a — war is physical, but it’s also got a psychological or moral component to it. And hope actually matters. And morale actually matters,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ “This Week” that aired Sunday.“And so, as you watch the Taliban moving across the country, what you don’t want to have happen is that the people lose hope and they believe they now have a foregone conclusion presented to them,” he said.Miller said he fears that Afghanistan will fall into civil war once US troops are gone, noting that the Taliban are rapidly taking ground in the north.“You look at the security situation, it’s not good. The Afghans recognize it’s not good. The Taliban are on the move. We’re starting to create conditions here that won’t look good for Afghanistan in the future if there’s a push for a military takeover,” he said.
Taliban spokesman says peace talks will be 'accelerated in the coming days' - The Taliban on Monday said it is accelerating peace talks with the Afghan government, with written peace plans possibly coming as soon as next month."The peace talks and process will be accelerated in the coming days ... and they are expected to enter an important stage, naturally it will be about peace plans," Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesperson, told Reuters."Possibly it will take a month to reach that stage when both sides will share their written peace plan," Mujahid added. "Although we [Taliban] have the upper hand on the battlefield, we are very serious about talks and dialogue."Najia Anwari, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's Ministry for Peace Affairs, said it was "difficult to anticipate that the Taliban will provide us with their written document of a peace plan in a month, but let's be positive." "We hope they present [it] so as to understand what they want," Anwari said. The latest signals from the Taliban come as it continues to seize control of territories in light of U.S. and NATO forces withdrawing from Afghanistan. More than a thousand members of Afghanistan's security forces have fled across the border to neighboring Tajikistan. In June, the Taliban said it was committed to peace talks, with its co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar saying the organization was still pursuing a "genuine Islamic system." "A genuine Islamic system is the best means for solution of all issues of the Afghans," Baradar said. "Our very participation in the negotiations and its support on our part indicates openly that we believe in resolving issues through [mutual] understanding."
China ramping up Afghanistan involvement amid US withdrawal -China appears to be preparing to ramp up its involvement in Afghanistan as US troops complete their final withdrawal — with Beijing eyeing the war-torn nation for investment and influence opportunities.Beijing has been vocal, especially in recent weeks, in slamming the United States for pushing forward with its troop withdrawal, citing the deteriorating situation on the ground. Still, it had not made any public commitments regarding a response.Kabul authorities, the Daily Beast reported Sunday, have become much more deeply engaged with Chinese leaders as the two work toward a deal to invest in Afghanistan’s infrastructure through China’s international “Belt and Road Initiative.”The trillion-dollar program has funded multiple projects — generally focusing on hard infrastructure like airports, roads and seaports — throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.It has been used by the Chinese Communist Party to grow its influence by providing infrastructure loans to poorer countries in return for control over local resources.Citing a source close of the Afghan government, the outlet reported that the deal would extend the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of the Beijing-led initiative. “There is a discussion on a Peshawar-Kabul motorway between the authorities in Kabul and Beijing,” the source said, “Linking Kabul with Peshawar by road means Afghanistan’s formal joining of CPEC.”The US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan remains in motion, a process on which President Biden placed a Sept. 11 deadline.Biden announced that deadline in April, offering US troops an additional four months from former President Donald Trump’s order to withdraw all troops from the nation by May 1.
In a provocative move, India deploys 50,000 more troops to its disputed border with China - India has deployed 50,000 more troops to its disputed Himalayan border with China, action it claims is in response to a Chinese military buildup. Last year the rival nuclear-armed powers came the closest to all-out war since they fought a month-long border war in 1962. This included a bloody pitched battle on a mountain ridge in the Galwan Valley on the night of June 15, 2020, in which 20 Indian and 4 Chinese soldiers died, and an Indian military operation in late August that saw thousands of Indian troops seize a series of mountain ridges near Pangong Tso lake, which forms part of the current de facto border between India and China. Indian officials subsequently admitted that this highly provocative action, reportedly facilitated by US satellite intelligence, could easily have resulted in a violent clash with Chinese troops spiralling into war. With its most recent troop deployments, India now has at least 200,000 and, according to some reports, as many as 250,000 troops arrayed along its northern border. According to a report published by Bloomberg last week, the additional troops have been deployed to at least five bases along the full breadth of India’s more than 3,000-kilometre (2,000 mile) border with China. 20,000 of them have been deployed to Leh in Indian-held Ladakh. Along with the adjacent Chinese-held Aksai Chin, eastern Ladakh has been the focal point of the current flare-up in the Sino-Indian border dispute. India is also in the midst of a crash infrastructure building campaign in its border regions, developing new fortifications, airstrips, and road and rail links to swiftly move troops and supplies. Late last summer, when it took possession of the first of the 35 Rafale fighter jets it has purchased from France, the Indian Air Force made a point of immediately deploying them over Indian-held Ladakh. India has also established a new 18 fighter-jet squadron aimed against China based in Ambala in the north Indian state of Haryana and intends to soon establish a similar squadron at its Hasimara air base in West Bengal to police the eastern section of its border with China. Citing people “familiar with the matter,” the Bloomberg report said the Indian military has positioned itself to assume a much more aggressive stance. “Whereas previously,” the report explained, “India’s military presence was aimed at blocking Chinese moves, the redeployment will allow Indian commanders more options to attack and seize territory in China if necessary, in a strategy known as ‘offensive defense.’” The report added that Indian forces are now more mobile. This is due to recently acquired US-made helicopters, which can ferry soldiers and artillery including the British-made M777 howitzer from Himalayan “valley to valley.”
While Fed Mulls Tapering, China Prepares To Cut Rates As Economy Stalls -- With the Fed debating whether to keep talking about tapering or finally do something about it - even if that something means injecting another trillion of liquidity into the economy by the end of 2022 while nipping and tucking $10 billion per month here and there - China is starting to move in the other direction. With China's economy rapidly cooling, as the latest sharp drop the Caixin Services PMI demonstrated, after badly missing consensus expectations and poised on the edge of contraction... ... a move which was predicted here months ago when we discussed the collapse in China's all important credit impulse... ... it is not just traders that are speculating that China's next move may be a rate cut - Beijing itself is starting to make loud noises. Pouring gasoline into the debate whether Chinese and U.S. monetary policy will diverge further, overnight a former central bank official said that China should guide market interest rates lower to support economic growth and ease funding pressure on local governments. Reasonable rate cuts also would help create space for the PBOC to tighten policy if needed in the future, in order to cope with an expected weakening in the yuan, Sheng Songcheng, former head of statistics at the PBOC, said in a column published late on Tuesday on Sina Finance, a financial news outlet according to Reuters. "It’s necessary to keep liquidity reasonable and sufficient, and guide the rational and moderate decrease of market interest rates," Sheng said, adding that economic growth is likely to slow to 5-6% in the second half of the year, from an expected pace of around 8% in April-June.
China Cuts Reserve Ratio By 0.5% Unleashing 1 Trillion Yuan In Liquidity To Boost Economy - Just two days after we said that "China Prepares To Cut Rates As Economy Stalls", this morning China did just that when the PBOC announced it is cutting the Required Reserve Ratio by 0.5% for most banks, a move that will unleash about 1 trillion yuan ($154BN) of long-term liquidity into the economy and will be effective July 15.The announcement reduces the amount of cash most banks must hold in reserve in order to boost lending to the economy as growth has sharply waned, and is expected to prop up China's slowing economy, which as noted earlier this week saw its Caixin Service PMI drop to the lowest level since the covid crisis, badly missing expectations.The last time the bank cut the main ratios was during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, when it was trying to boost the economy after the Covid-19 outbreak which started in a Wuhan lab shut down the economy.The RRR cut was signaled earlier this week, when as we reported on Wednesday, China's State Council hinted the central bank would make more liquidity available to banks so they could lend to smaller firms hurt by rising costs. But the rushed timing and magnitude of the move, coming a week before second-quarter growth data, suggests mounting concerns about the economy’s outlook, economists said.“The PBOC came in broader and sooner than expected, highlighting the policy urgency to support the China economy,” said Mizuho FX strategist Ken Cheung. “Such firm easing measures could further fuel concern over China’s growth outlook in the second half as well as the upcoming second-quarter GDP figures in the coming week.” The rate cut comes at a time when Beijing is again posturing with its noble but futile intentions to delever the economy: China has been wary of overstimulating the economy, and the central bank said in a statement that the cut doesn’t mean there’s been a change to the “prudent monetary policy.”
Hong Kong Parking Space Sells For $1.53 Million - In Hong Kong, every inch of land is as expensive as gold. Parking spaces can sell for as much as you would pay for a luxury home. Recently, a Mount Nicholson parking space sold for $1.53 million—the same cost of a 2-bedroom flat in Taikoo Shing (a private residential development in Hong Kong). In May, Hong Kong’s Mount Nicholson luxury properties began selling car parking spaces at strata residences (condo and townhouse developments), by offering to the highest bidder at a minimum price of about $1.13 million. Each household can be allocated an average of one to two parking spaces, with a maximum of three spaces. Records show that a total of 22 transactions have been registered so far, with buyers including celebrities and tycoons from China and Hong Kong.According to the latest records in the Hong Kong Land Registry, three parking spaces sold for $1.53 million each, totaling $4.59 million, a new record for sales of parking spaces in Hong Kong.The buyer Poon Ho-Tak, the executive director of Texwinca Holdings (a famous casual wear brand in Asia), purchased two units during Phase II of Mount Nicholson’s development in 2016 for more than $96 million, at $10,900 per square foot.Macau gambling king Stanley Ho’s fourth wife Leong On-kei had bought four units at Mount Nicholson in 2016 for $166 million, as a gift to her two daughters, Ho Chiu Yeng and Ho Chiu Yan. This time, she bought for them six adjoining parking spaces for $1.27 million each.Mr. and Mrs. Leung Shiu Hung also purchased a number of parking spaces in the project totaling $5.06 million, with an average price of $1.27 million per transaction.
White flags fly in Malaysia as hunger spreads during lockdown - Signs of economic distress have begun appearing in neighborhoods across Kuala Lumpur and other Malaysian cities: white flags outside people’s houses, indicating that they need food or other assistance. The flags — sometimes little more than T-shirts or strips of cloth — are a cry for help from mostly low-income families who are financially affected by the another long coronavirus lockdown. The campaign, shared on social media as #benderaputih (“white flag”), is a way for families to appeal for food, work or other essentials as many businesses remain closed and joblessness rises. Thousands of people have stepped in, including artists and celebrities. A rapper who goes by Altimet pledged to his nearly 400,000 followers on Instagram last week that, every Friday, he would donate food and supplies to houses marked with a white flag. Renyi Chin, a restaurant owner in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, said he had donated $1,000 worth of food and supplies to families in the past week.“This is our fourth lockdown, and many have lost their jobs and means for food,” Mr. Chin said. Many of those afflicted by the latest restrictions are single mothers, older Malaysians and daily wage workers, he added. As coronavirus cases continue to rise in Malaysia, with average daily infections up 19 percent in the last two weeks, according toNew York Times data, the government on Saturday announced a tightening of restrictions in several regions, including Kuala Lumpur and most of Selangor state. The country had 6,539 daily cases last week, and just 8 percent of its population is fully vaccinated, according to Times data. Malaysia’s repeated lockdowns have lowered demand for labor, with the number of registered jobs dropping by 130,000 in just the first quarter of the year, according to government data from theDepartment of Statistics Malaysia. Suicides have risen during the first five months of this year, and the health ministry said that the pandemic is partly to blame. Many in Malaysia say the government has failed to manage the economic impact of the pandemic. Outside some houses, black flags have appeared in a separate campaign calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
World Food Prices Drop In June For First Time In Year, Remain Near Decade High - World food prices fell in June for the first in 12 months, offering some relief for consumers and easing inflationary pressures. According to a new Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report, the FAO Food Price Index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat, and sugar, dropped 2.5% in June, coming off a decade high, but still 33.9% higher than its level in the same month last year. The decline in the index was the first in 12 months.
Delta Could Disrupt Emerging World's Post-COVID Recovery, Goldman Warns - Now that the Delta variant has revived fears about renewed COVID outbreaks from the US to Europe to Asia, a team of analysts at Goldman Sachs has published its analysis of the risks posed by the mutated strain. The conclusion: since full vaccination remains effective at preventing infections, countries with low vaccination rates are the most vulnerable to another outbreak of the Delta variant. As Goldman pointed out in an earlier note, the Delta variant represents a growing share of new COVID cases. Accordingly, the Goldman team sees the risk of high hospitalizations and fatalities, followed by economy-damaging lockdowns, as rising most rapidly in Russia, South Africa, and Indonesia. However, a more important takeaway involves the difficulty of achieving "COVID zero", something no country - not even China - has managed to achieve. If nothing else, the rise of the Delta variant likely increases the risk that COVID will become endemic like the flu. Of course, most countries have already come to terms with the fact that "COVID zero" probably isn't a realistic public health goal. But in Australia, Israel and China, it could complicate authorities efforts to move past the crisis (though Goldman expects a gradual H2 recovery in consumption as infections "stabilize" in Australia and continue to decline in China). The most likely scenario implies a slightly slower global reopening, with the risk highest in countries with low vaccination rates. Still, "our global GDP growth forecasts of 6.6% in 2021 and 4.8% in 2022 therefore remain optimistic in absolute terms, although they are now closer to the consensus than at any point since April 2020."
Spectators will be barred from the Olympics as Japan declares a new state of emergency for Tokyo. - Olympic organizers said on Thursday that they would bar spectators from most events at the Games scheduled to open in two weeks, a decision that followed the declaration of a new state of emergency in Tokyo in response to a sudden spike in coronavirus cases.Officials have long insisted that they can hold the Tokyo Games safely amid a pandemic. Last month, they announced that they would allow domestic spectators at the events despite public fears that the Games could become a petri dish for new variants of the virus.Now, the virus has again wreaked havoc on the planning of Olympic organizers, who gathered in an emergency meeting on Thursday night to decide how to respond to the latest challenge of a pandemic that had already delayed the Games by a year.The announcement came only hours before the Olympic torch was set to begin the last — and long-delayed — leg of its trip through Japan. Officials decided this week that there would be almost no actual running during its two-week perambulation through Tokyo and its suburbs, replacing the marathon with a series of ceremonies that would be closed to the public.Addressing reporters on Thursday night, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga acknowledged the challenge the country faced as the more contagious Delta variant had begun to spread. He warned about the danger of the virus spreading beyond Tokyo as people traveled home for the summer holidays.But at the same time, Mr. Suga pledged to deliver an Olympic Games that would go down in history not as another victim of the pandemic, but as an example of fortitude in the face of adversity. Viewers will be tuning in from around the world, he said, and “I want to transmit to them a message from Tokyo about overcoming hardship with effort and wisdom.”
Sydney Extends Delta-Inspired COVID Lockdown For Another 2 Weeks - Public health authorities in Australia have continued to confirm small numbers of new COVID cases despite Sydney's latest economy-crushing lockdown. And with the Delta "scariant" helping to keep COVID paranoia at a fever pitch, authorities have decided to extend what was supposed to be a two-week lockdown for another two weeks. Authorities cited the "vulnerability" of Australia's mostly unvaccinated population as the reason why such draconian measures must be extended, despite pleas from restauranteurs and other small business owners pleading with the government to consider other strategies.Parents are also griping since the extension also means school-age children won't return to school next week. "The situation we're in now is largely because we haven’t been able to get the vaccine that we need," New South Wales state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said. Only 9% of Australian adults are fully vaccinated. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the decision to extend the lockdown through July 16 was made on the advice of the government's advisors. Of 27 new infections attributed to the delta variant reported in latest 24-hour period on Wednesday, only 13 had managed to isolate while infectious, officials said, raising the risk of further spread. The delta variant is considered more contagious than the original coronavirus or other variants.
Housing and accommodation crisis in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state - Australia is facing an unprecedented social housing crisis as millions of families are being pushed into poverty, due to declining wages and soaring rental and housing costs. The crisis is fuelled by the decades of public housing privatisation by state and federal government, Liberal-National and Labor alike. New South Wales (NSW), Australia’s most populous state, is a microcosm of the disaster. The University of NSW estimates that the shortfall in social housing in the state may be as high as 135,000 units. This figure was outlined in a recent Equity Economics report entitled “Maximising the Returns,” as part of a push by several peak non-government bodies representing the community housing sector. They are seeking to convince the Liberal-National Coalition state government to build 5,000 new social housing units per year for the next 30 years, beginning with the June 2021–22 budget. This number would allow Australia to “meet and maintain” the social housing stock, that is the percentage of government houses in the state, at the OECD average of 7.1 percent of total housing. The report notes that decades of underinvestment has caused a precipitous drop in the social housing stock in Australia from 7.1 percent in 1991 to 4.2 percent by 2018. The same period has seen a massive growth in housing stress, which the report states is “due to rising house prices and rents, higher mortgages and a decline in home ownership.” In NSW alone 530,000 households, accounting for 1.4 million people, live in housing stress and are in need of affordable housing options. There are now some 50,000 households on the state’s social housing waiting list, with families forced to wait up to 10 years in some areas. Last month’s state budget, however, did not fund 5,000 new social housing units but a measly 400. This is less than one-twelfth of the amount called for, and almost half the 780 funded in the previous budget. The term “social housing,” moreover, is deliberately misleading. It refers to both government-owned and managed public housing and privately outsourced community housing. Lumping them together serves to conceal the significant transfer of public housing to the private sector, which has increased dramatically over the past decade. According to a January 2021 Productivity Commission report, 17.8 percent of “social housing” across the country was privately run in 2011, climbing to 28.6 percent in 2020. In NSW, the process of privatisation has been even sharper, rising from 19.7 percent in 2011 to 35.4 percent in 2020. The origin of these policies can be found in the Hawke-Keating federal Labor governments, which in 1983 implemented a market-driven model with cash subsidies being given to those on welfare payments if they were unable to find public housing. This directed low-income people away from public and into private housing. Funds for new public housing were also slashed and saw real capital funding fall by 25 percent between 1990–91 and 2000–01. This led to the “ cannibalising” of public housing via joint venture partnerships with the private sector.
A Worrying Trend Emerges in South America, As Right-Wing Populists Take A Leaf Out of Trump and Netanyahu’s Playbook Exactly one month has passed since 17.4 million Peruvians cast their ballot in the country’s run-off presidential elections. But the country still has no president. The losing candidate, Keiko Fujimori, a former congresswoman and daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, has refused to concede, claiming that her opponent Pedro Castillo’s party, Peru Libre, committed voter fraud. And now it transpires that Peru’s version of Rasputin is back: a recent investigation revealed that Vladimir Montesinos, a former long-standing head of Peru’s intelligence service who is in jail for crimes against humanity, has been pulling strings from behind the scenes (and behind bars) to try to get Fujimori proclaimed victor.But it doesn’t appear to be working — at least not if the intended goal is to win the election for Fujimori. Her team’s legal challenges have so far led nowhere. A call by former high-ranking military officers for a military coup has also failed. Peru’s National Elections Jury (JNE) has dismissed all of Fujimori’s campaign’s appeals against the electoral outcome. International observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union (EU), among others, have ruled out any irregularities. And the United States and European Union have publicly praised the electoral process. But the endless succession of appeals serve another purpose: they buy Fujimori time. And time is something she desperately needs rights now. If she doesn’t win this election, she will probably end up back behind bars, like her father and “Tio” Montesinos. Perhaps even more importantly, the ongoing legal challenges help to cement and normalise the idea among a large section of Peru’s population, particularly in the capital, Lima, that Castillo won the election through fraudulent means, despite all the evidence to the contrary. One recent poll showed that 31% of Peruvians thought the claims were credible.Peru may not be the only Latin American country to see accusations of electoral fraud paralyse the political system in the coming years. In Brazil the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro stated last week that he will refuse to leave power if he loses next year’s presidential election to “fraud”. In a press conference on July 2, he declared:“I am giving advance warning to the judges of the Supreme Court. I will give the presidential sash to whoever beats me at the polls fairly, but not with fraud.” Like Trump, Bolsonaro is a deeply polarising figure in a deeply polarised country. Like Trump, Keiko and Netanyahu, he has every reason to want to cling to power. He faces multiple criminal investigations, including into the systematic destruction of the Amazon under his watch and his government’s deadly mismanagement of the pandemic. The latter inquiry has already unearthed evidence of serious irregularities. Bolsonaro himself has been accused by a whistleblower in the health ministry of doing nothing when warned three months ago that senior officials were taking bribes to purchase overpriced doses of an Indian-made vaccine, Covaxin.
Canada loosening pandemic travel restrictions - Canada began to lift some coronavirus travel restrictions with the U.S on Monday, allowing some Canadians to forego quarantine requirements. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that plans to reopen the Canadian border completely are to be announced in the coming weeks, The Associated Press reported.With the loosened restrictions, Canadian residents who have been fully vaccinated will be able to skip a 14-day quarantine period, and those who take air travel will no longer have to spend three days in a government-approved hotel when reentering the country, according to the AP. Nonessential trips between the U.S. and Canada, including tourism, are expected to remain restricted until at least July 21. “We’re very hopeful that we’re going to see new steps on reopening announced in the coming weeks,” Trudeau said at a news conference. “We’re going to make sure that we’re not seeing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases because nobody wants to go back to further restrictions, after having done so much and sacrificed so much to get to this point.” He also said that lifting some of the coronavirus restrictions on travel marks a "big step″ toward reopening the border, but that he is hesitant for the country to move too quickly, the AP reported. "Nobody wants us to move too fast and have to reimpose restrictions as case numbers rise like we’re seeing elsewhere in the world,″ he said. "We need to do this right.”
Watch: NATO Press Conference Interrupted As Jets Scrambled Over Inbound Russian Fighter 'Alert' - Dramatic video shows the moment a press conference at a NATO airbase in Lithuania was cut short over an emergency alert due to reportedly inbound Russian jets. Lithuania's president Gitanas Nauseda and Spain's prime minister Pedro Sánchez had been speaking at a high level briefing when the very NATO jets that served as their backdrop had to be scrambled in order to monitor the Russian jets' movements in the area.The Associated Press described of the unusual interruption: "Nauseda and Sánchez were speaking with two Eurofighter Typhoons behind them at the base in the town of Siauliai when security officials suddenly interrupted the leaders as crews scrambled to get on the fighter jets, live footage from the press conference showed."After the two leaders were rushed off with a pilot seen in the background jumping into the NATO fighter, staff quickly moved the flags and lecterns out of one plane's path as it prepared to taxi for take-off.The Lithuanian president was later quoted by a national broadcaster as saying, "Our press conference was interrupted by a real call....You see, everything works great. I can confirm that the fighter jets took off in less than 15 minutes" of receiving the alarm. "Thanks to Pedro (Sánchez), we have really seen how our air policing mission works."This suggests the possibility that the whole thing could have been a well-timed PR stunt, hyping the capabilities of one of NATO's newest Baltic members (Lithuania along with Estonia and Latvia joined NATO in 2004) in a self-congratulatory moment.Regardless, the whole thing was very unusual. Sánchez later said during the resumed press conference once the fighters departed the air base: "We have seen a real case of what usually happens that precisely justifies the presence of Spanish troops with the seven Eurofighters in Lithuania."
A Dutch journalist exposed the mob and defied death threats. Now he’s been shot in the head. -It was evening in Amsterdam when Peter R. de Vries stepped out of the television studio and into the busy downtown streets. Decades of investigating cold-case killings and mob hits had earned the silver-haired 64-year-old accolades and a reputation as one of the most famous journalists in the Netherlands.His career in crime reporting had also earned him death threats, but friends said he laughed off the danger, claiming recently that the last time he was scared was as a schoolboy.Shortly after leaving the TV studio on Tuesday, de Vries was shot.Videos on social media showed him lying on the street in Amsterdam’s canal district with blood coming from his head.“He was seriously wounded and is fighting for his life,” Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema told reporters. “He is a national hero to us all. A rare, courageous journalist who tirelessly sought justice.” Authorities initially detained three men but later released one, saying he was no longer a suspect. A 35-year-old Polish national and a 21-year-old from Rotterdam remain in custody, police said.
Luxembourg prime minister hospitalized following positive COVID-19 test - Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel was hospitalized with COVID-19 on Sunday, more than a week after testing positive for coronavirus. The Associated Press reported that Bettel was coughing and had headaches and a fever, but was not experiencing any life-threatening conditions. The prime minister revealed that he tested positive for the virus days after taking part in the two-day European Union Summit in Brussels with 26 other leaders, the AP noted. He had already received his first COVID-19 vaccine dose when he tested positive, and was set to get his second AstraZeneca shot on July 1, according to the news service. Summit organizers, however, reportedly said they were confident that COVID-19 precautions were followed, and no other leaders who attended the summit have tested positive for the virus since the meeting. A Luxembourg government official told the AP that “the problem is that the symptoms have not fully disappeared over the past week.” Bettel has reportedly been working remotely and interacting with others through video conference as much as possible since he began isolating last week. He was reportedly transported to the hospital for 24 hours of testing and medical analysis on Sunday. He remained in the hospital on Monday afternoon, but could be released later in the day. A spokeswoman for the European Commission said Bettel was doing relatively well. “We understand — and we certainly hope — that it’s not serious, and it’s for checks,” European Commission spokeswoman Dana Spinant said, according to the AP.
Spain reinstates nightlife restrictions in regions seeing coronavirus surges - Regions in Spain are reinstating their nightlife restrictions due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, The Associated Press reported on Monday. Fernando Simón, who coordinates Spain’s response to health emergencies, told the newswire officials are worried about infected young people spreading the virus to vulnerable groups of senior citizens. “We are in a complicated situation regarding transmission and we hope that this doesn’t turn into a grave situation at hospitals,” Simon said. COVID-19 infections are spreading among Spanish teenagers due to them going to parties and trips at the end of the school year celebrations, according to the AP. Simon also said the delta variant of the virus isn’t to blame for the new rise in cases, referring to it as “ not yet the main driver.” More than 1,000 infections came from students who recently traveled to the country’s Mallorca island and 700 others have tested positive after a visit to a beach in June, according to the AP. A group of Spanish businesses owners said in a statement that their industry is being used as a “scapegoat” for the country’s urge in cases, the AP reported. Forty percent of Spain’s 47 million population have been fully vaccinated, but only 0.7 percent of people younger than 20 are vaccinated. England's COVID-19 restrictions lifting in two weeks, Johnson says Lawsuit accuses Hawaii dolphin tour company of violating coronavirus... The country has focused on vaccinating older residents, which leaves the younger generation as the remaining unvaccinated group, the AP noted. “We have to thank the youth for the extra, longer effort that we have demanded from them, as they are only starting to get vaccinated now,” Simon told the AP. The country recently imposed an overnight curfew due to surging COVID-19 cases last October.
Germany lifts pandemic ban on travelers from UK, Portugal -Germany is lifting its coronavirus pandemic ban and loosening restrictions on travelers from the United Kingdom, Portugal and multiple other countries. The new rules announced on Monday allow vaccinated individuals from designated countries — which also include Russia, India and Nepal — to travel to Germany without having to quarantine, Politico reported. Unvaccinated individuals will have to quarantine, but the quarantine no longer has to last two weeks if a person obtains a negative COVID-19 test after entering the country. Individuals from other countries who were not residents of Germany were not allowed to travel there under the previous ban. Germany is lifting the ban despite a spike in cases in some areas around the world, including the U.K., from the delta variant.Multiple European nations have begun to lift some travel restrictions as vaccination rates increase.The Biden administration is also facing pressure to ease its travel restrictions on international travelers as vaccination rates continue to go up.
England expected to lift mask restrictions --A requirement to wear masks in England amid the coronavirus pandemic is expected to become optional, British Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said Sunday. “It does look as if, thanks to the success of the vaccine program, that we now have the scope to roll back those restrictions and return to a normality as far as possible,” Jenrick told the BBC. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales handle their own coronavirus rules. Jenrick said the public should be aware that cases may continue rising amid the spread of highly contagious variants, but reasoned that “we do now have to move into a different period, where we learn to live with the virus, we take precautions and we as individuals take personal responsibility.” The BBC reported that final COVID-19 restrictions in England will likely be lifted on July 19. Though Jenrick could not definitively confirm masking requirements would disappear, he said “the prime minister is going to make an announcement in the coming days, but it does look as if the data is in the right place.” “We trust the British public to exercise good judgment, people will come to different conclusions, as you say,” he said. “We all need to ensure that we are double vaccinated, and that will be absolutely critical if we want to maintain this momentum, there are still people in those categories one to nine, who haven't come forward to be vaccinated.” A Scottish government spokesperson said while some restrictions would be lifted in Scotland on Aug. 9, there’s still an expectation for people to wear masks in shops and on public transportation, the BBC reported. Wales is reportedly set to review its restrictions on July 15. According to the U.K. government, 86 percent of eligible Britons have gotten their first dose of the vaccine and nearly 64 percent have gotten both doses.
Johnson announces all restrictions against COVID-19 will end July 19 in the UK “I want to stress from the outset that this pandemic is far from over. As we predicted in the roadmap, we are seeing cases rise. There could be 50,000 cases per day. We are seeing rising hospital admissions and we must reconcile ourselves with more deaths.” With these words Monday evening, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the lifting of all restrictions against COVID-19 in England and declared himself a political criminal. The next morning, newly installed Health Secretary Sajid Javid revealed the full implications of the government’s plans. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the UK was in “unchartered territory” and that daily new cases “could reach as high as 100,000” by August. Javid refused to answer what this is expected to mean for hospitalisations. The new health secretary was recommended to Johnson for the position as a more forceful advocate of ending all restrictions. From July 19, masks will no longer be required in shops, hospitality venues or on public transport as the legal requirement to wear them is withdrawn. No restrictions on social contact will be left in place, as the 1m-plus social distancing rule will also end. All businesses will be allowed to open. Any COVID rules inside hospitality venues will cease and capacity limits will be scrapped. Mass events, such as music festivals, will be authorised and house parties will no longer be illegal. In care homes, where tens of thousands perished as a result of the social murder policy of the government, the limit to five named visitors will be dropped. From August 16, double-vaccinated adults and all under-18s will no longer have to self-isolate if they have been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19. Last month, Johnson delayed a final ending of restrictions, due to be carried out on June 14, after a surge in infections propelled by the reopening of much of the economy on May 17. This allowed cases, which had fallen by then to under 2,000 a day, to spread like wildfire as the more transmissible Delta variant became dominant. The situation is much worse now than then. One in 260 people in England currently has coronavirus, according to the Office for National Statistics. Well over 20,000 new infections are being reported daily with cases leaping by 74 percent week on week. Today, 28,773 coronavirus cases were recorded, the highest daily total since the end of January, taking the total in the last seven days to 186,422—an average per day of 26,631. Despite nearly two-thirds of UK adults having had the required two vaccine doses, 142 deaths have been reported in the last week and there are 2,092 COVID patients in hospital.
The UK Is Running a Dangerous Covid Experiment That Represents a Threat to the Rest of the World -This is near latest data on new Covid cases, comparing the UK and Europe, and using data from the FT:The UK is aberrational: remember the EU is five times the size of the UK in population terms.Throw in the USA, Australia and India for further comparison and the UK experience is even more peculiar: Nothing about the UK experience of the delta variant of Cvid can be considered normal.I accept that it is also true that hospitalisation rates are lower than at the beginning of this year, and so too are death rates (thankfully). But there is no evidence that this does not mean that there is substantial harm from this illness, still. People are seriously ill with it, and significant numbers suffer long Covid effects.Despite this very obvious fact the UK is choosing to be the outlier in its response to Covid now. We are going to abandon all public health precautions, even though the growth in case rates suggests that there may be 70,000 cases a day by July 19. In effect, the UK is choosing to be the Delta variant incubator for the world. And, given that it is still the case that only 50% of the UK population is vaccinated (and many who are now likely need a booster, which is so far unavailable) the likelihood that we are also becoming a new variant incubator is very high indeed. The obvious question to ask is why is this? The arrival of Sajid Javid is the obvious explanation. Like Rishi Sunak, he comes from the far right of Tory politics. Like Sunak he thinks the economy comes first. Like Sunak he does not understand economic externalities. Like Sunak he thinks that the cost of Covid can be shifted from the government to the public balance sheet by simply ending all interventions, including those on public health and for those who suffer the economic consequences of being sick. Like Sunak he believes that this will let the government balance its books. Like Sunak he thinks this the government’s priority. And like Sunak, the reason for this belief is naive ideology and not evidence. As far as I can see two interests gain. One is the ideologue: finally, Ayn Rand will have her day. That is what Javid, most especially, wants. We must suffer the consequences of life without state support. That is Javid’s plan. Life in the raw is to be unleashed on us. He believes it for our own good that we must suffer. And pharmaceutical companies gain. They are already guaranteed billions and maybe trillions in profit from Covid as a result of vaccine manufacture. The US and EU have refused to open up vaccines for all, for free: market interests have already come first. And now it seems that the aim is to make sure that new variants can develop. This will perpetuate demand for vaccines as any possibility of controlling and effectively containing Covid is abandoned. This then will create a demand for updated vaccines when an elimination strategy would remove this source of profit for the pharmaceutical companies. So, we are to suffer the raw harshness of market-based logic so that some in that market, with rights reinforced by the state, can profit unduly. I find it very hard to offer any other explanation for what is about to happen in the UK. What I hope is that the rest of the world realises this. I hope they call it out. I sincerely hope that they isolate us, as would be the only rational reaction, starting with a block on UK attendance at the Olympics, I would suggest. And then they might have a hope of being protected from our insanity. But it would only be a small hope. We are literally threatening the well-being of the world right now. And that is unforgivable.
Surge in homelessness underway with ending of the evictions ban for renters - Following the lifting of the ban on bailiff-led evictions by the UK Conservative government on May 31, a surge in the numbers of homeless is a certainty. Prime Minister Boris Johnson brought in the ban on evictions at the beginning of the pandemic, seeking to placate the growing anger of workers facing the threat of losing their homes as a result of being laid off or on reduced pay after being furloughed. Homelessness has been on the increase year on year in England for years. Just before the pandemic, the numbers of homeless households increased again, with the annual report by homeless charity Crisis noting that it had shot up from 207,600 in 2018 to over 219,000 at the end of 2019. The lifting of the eviction ban, delayed several times, was central to the government’s determination to have no further lockdowns and reopen the economy in two weeks’ time on July 19—regardless of the resurgence of the pandemic through the Delta variant. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation released a survey the same day as the lifting of the ban, which showed around 400,000 renting households (representing five percent of renters) had already been served an eviction notice, or been told they may be evicted, The survey revealed that in addition around 450,000 households were currently in rent arrears, of which 18 percent had arrears of more than four months. Landlords have to give only four weeks’ notice of eviction to tenants more than four months in arrears of rent. Around one million renters (11 percent of the total), half being families with children were worried about being evicted in the coming three months, the survey found. Workers face other pressures which will intensify an already precarious situation. The government furlough, job retention scheme which provided 80 percent of the wages (up to a maximum of £2,500) of workers laid off during the pandemic is due to finish September 30. From July 1, the state will pay just 70 percent of wages up to £2,187.50, with employers being asked to pay the rest, adding to workers insecurity, with employers no doubt considering further layoffs as a result. In addition, the £20 a week upgrading of the Universal Credit welfare payment paid in the course of the pandemic will also end in September. Despite the ban on evictions during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, staggering numbers of people were still made homeless. An Observer newspaper analysis published June 13 found that around 130,000 households became homeless over that period. The newspaper analysed government data, from around 70 percent of local authorities, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It showed 132,362 households were owed “relief duty”, meaning they were assessed as already homeless. A further 106,000 were assessed as being owed “prevention duty” meaning while not legally homeless they were at risk of being so. Housing charity Shelter chief executive, Polly Neate, said of the figure, “The ban didn’t stop tens of thousands from facing homelessness. During the pandemic, the most common triggers for homelessness were no longer being able to stay with friends or family, losing a private tenancy, and domestic abuse.” A spokesperson from the Acorn tenants’ union told the newspaper, “The government’s commitment to tackling the crisis of homelessness has repeatedly been shown to exist only in word and not in action…
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