week ending Apr 27

Confounding US economic, inflation data cloud Fed's rate path (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's latest financial stability report was good news for anyone worried that a record run of interest rate hikes might overstress the banking system or trigger a recession with companies and households pushed into default through a broad credit crackdown. None of that is happening. Instead, the Fed is wrestling with an economy that has sloughed off tight monetary policy to such a degree that U.S. central bank officials are without a clear view of what to expect and divided over issues like productivity, the economy's underlying potential, and even whether the current policy interest rate is as restrictive as imagined when they called off further hikes. New gross domestic product figures released on Thursday highlighted the dilemma, with the economy growing just 1.6% over the first three months of the year, below expectations and a marked slowdown from the 3.4% registered in the fourth quarter of 2023. It was the first reading below the Fed's 1.8% estimate of the economy's potential since the second quarter of 2022. Yet inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, came in at 3.4% in the first quarter, well above the Fed's 2% target and a level that could further undermine the case for rate cuts that had been expected to begin early this year but now seem on hold until at least September and perhaps later. "The Fed is now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place. The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed's foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat. But the inflation figures suggest otherwise," Across the economy a wave of tight credit seems to have come and gone - bank lending is growing, corporate credit spreads are narrow, and household balance sheets are largely healthy. A recently updated Fed index of overall financial conditions showed there was virtually no impact on economic growth right now from the central bank's monetary policy or the broader credit conditions it is intended to influence. Contrary to Fed officials assessment that policy is restrictive, current credit conditions in the economy are "consistent with above-trend growth. That tells me that the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy in the U.S. has been much less effective" than elsewhere, Fed officials themselves are unsettled on whether they still need the economy to slow for inflation to fall, or whether the "immaculate" influence of productivity and other factors will do the job, an important issue since one view leans towards tighter policy and the other towards easing. The release of key inflation data on Friday is expected to show the Fed's preferred measure of price pressures remained well above the central bank's 2% target, a possible sign that progress has stalled. It is a situation that may have left the Fed professing data-dependence but running largely on intuition in deciding whether the U.S. has found a new equilibrium of higher growth and lower unemployment, or needs more pressure from the central bank to be sure inflation eases. With doubt about the role of wages in driving inflation, whether more demand needs to be squeezed from the economy, and controversy over the level of interest rates that might do the job, "there is no clear inflation framework and no clear set of parameters to assess the stance of policy," said Ed Al-Hussainy, a senior analyst with the global rates and currency team at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. "The 'policy-is-restrictive' judgment has to come from somewhere ... They've really struggled to articulate it." The intellectual shocks have been deep in recent years, from a surprise boost in immigration that bolstered U.S. labor supply to the partial unwinding of globalization and a reallocation of consumer spending towards services. Unlike past tight policy eras the housing market won't buckle and has been driving inflation of late. There is rekindled concern about the influence of massive federal deficits on financial markets, and open questions about productivity and the "neutral" rate of interest used to guide whether policy is tight or not. The puzzle: Whether economic potential is higher than thought, with ongoing strong growth possible without high inflation, or whether growth in recent years has been buoyed by a series of "temporary" jolts - from tax cuts during the Trump administration, for example, or federal transfers and infrastructure spending under President Joe Biden - that could mean faster price increases and higher rates of interest.

Fed’s Wait-and-See on Rate Cuts Further Supported by Extra-Hot “Core Services” PCE Inflation & Hot “Core” PCE Inflation By Wolf Richter -- The core PCE price index, which excludes the volatile components of food and energy and is the inflation index the Fed is focused on, jumped by 3.9% annualized in March from February, nearly double the Fed’s target of 2%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis today (blue in the chart). The three-month annualized core PCE price index, which irons out some of the month-to-month volatility and which Powell cites all the time, accelerated to 2.9%, the highest since September (red), and moving decidedly away from the Fed’s 2% inflation target. This was driven by the usual suspect, a sharp acceleration in core services to 5.5% (three-month annualized) that we’ll get to in a moment: Core Services PCE price index, which excludes energy services, has been hot and is getting hotter. This is where inflation is entrenched, and where the majority of consumer spending takes place. And Fed speakers from Powell on down have pointed at this issue endlessly. Core services inflation had calmed down somewhat by mid-2023, but then refused to calm down further, getting stuck in the 3.5% range annualized for five months. And in January, it began spiking in a very disconcerting manner. The core services PCE price index jumped by 4.9% annualized In March, from February (blue). The three-month reading jumped by 5.5% annualized, the worst since February 2023. Housing PCE price index jumped by 5.4% annualized in March from February. The three-month reading jumped by 5.7% and has been in this range for eight months in a row. The housing index is broad-based and includes factors for rent in tenant-occupied dwellings; imputed rent for owner-occupied housing, group housing, and rental value of farm dwellings. Other core services are super-volatile month to month, so here are the PCE price indices on a six-month annualized basis. Five of the seven categories accelerated in March on a six-month basis; only two decelerated:

• Healthcare: +3.5% (acceleration)
• Transportation services: +5.4% (acceleration). Motor vehicle maintenance and repair, car rentals, parking fees, tolls, airline fares, etc.
• Financial services & insurance: +6.0%(acceleration).
• Non-energy utilities: +5.3% (acceleration).
• Other core services: +3.8% (acceleration). Broadband, cellphone, other communications; delivery; household maintenance and repair; moving and storage; education and training; legal, accounting, and tax services; dues; funeral and burial services; personal care and clothing services; social services such as homes for the elderly and rehab services, etc.
• Recreation services: +4.1% (deceleration). Cable, satellite TV & radio, streaming, concerts, sports, movies, gambling, vet services, package tours, maintenance and repair of recreational vehicles, etc.
• Food services & accommodation: +3.1%(deceleration). Restaurants, hotels, motels, vacation rentals, cafeterias, cafes, delis, etc.

To fight inflation, we should look for ways beyond the Fed’s policies - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the Fed Board have had people guessing since December about when they will cut interest rates. Cuts appear further off now because Powell is afraid that inflation may be heating up. This worry increased when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on April 10 confirmed what the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (PCE) had shown on March 29, that inflation may be stuck at a level the Fed thinks is too high. The PCE is the Fed’s preferred inflation index. What it suggests in 350 rows of data is important. It is that Powell and the Board are not paying enough attention to detailed information about the sources of inflation in that index. Average PCE prices were 2.5 percent higher in February 2024than in February 2023, which is higher than the Fed’s 2.0 percent target. What should be getting Powell and the Board’s attention is the PCE’s data showing which goods and services are driving the average up. The surge in prices caused by COVID-related supply chain and energy issues in 2022 and early 2023 is over. Inflation in goods that make up 33 percent of the index is way down. It is services like health care, housing and insurance that are pushing the average up. U.S. health care costs have risen faster than the averages for decades and rose about 52 percent more than the average from February 2023 to February 2024. The result is that per capita expenditures for health care in the U.S. were $12,555 in 2022, compared to $6,651 in an average of other developed countries. Why do health care prices outstrip the average year after year? It is largely because they are set by thousands of local hospitals that don’t compete on price, and don’t make their suppliers do so. Middlemen, suppliers and hospitals make opaque deals for the purchase of pharmaceuticals, devises like stents, medical machinery, disposables and services that inflate prices. The complex arrangements around insurance plans are similarly inflationary.Housing prices, rents and utility costs also are rising faster than average inflation. Local regulatory bodies and zoning rules inflate prices and existing owners make it hard to develop less costly options like in-fill houses and apartments. Rents and home prices also are pushed up by rising interest rates engineered by the Fed. Housing and health care each are 17 percent of the PCE so their impact on average inflation is significant. It is important to recognize that the drivers of inflation have changed over the years. Autos, steel and machine tools were the culprits during the post-World War II period. There also were legal price-fixing arrangements in important sectors carried over from the Great Depression. Most economists and political leaders then believed that corporations and interest groups with the power to set prices were primary causes of inflation.

Security, trading, supervision among open issues at Fed, audit finds - In 2016, the Federal Reserve Board's internal watchdog said the organization lacks a sufficient approach for protecting sensitive information from internal threats. The Fed has yet to address this and 64 other issues, an audit from the agency's Office of the Inspector General found. Released Monday, the report highlights the corrective action recommendations made to the board of governors that have not been fully addressed. It also identified 18 open recommendations made to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is funded by the Fed and shares the same inspector general.The OIG report noted that many of the issues identified can take a long time to address. As such, it only discloses information about recommendations that are at least six months old. The agencies are in the process of addressing all but one of the open issues — a 2023 recommendation that the CFPB develop a testing regime for its information security contingency plans. The CFPB has acknowledged the shortcoming and plans to address it, according to the report.Representatives from the Fed and CFPB declined to comment on the OIG findings. A spokesperson for the CFPB confirmed the agency is working to implement all the outstanding recommendations.The 2016 recommendation to the Fed about internal security threats is the oldest outstanding issue. It was one of nine remedies called for by an audit of the Fed's information security program in November of that year. The report directed the Fed's chief operating officer to look across its security protocols and determine which measures might be appropriate for information that is sensitive but classified.The board has said it has begun taking steps to implement the recommendation. The report notes that separate recommendations are still open from similar information security audits conducted in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Similarly, all 11 open recommendations for the CFPB were also related to information and data security.

Trump to set interest rates himself under secret presidential plan - Donald Trump’s aides have drawn up secret plans to oust the chairman of the Federal Reserve and allow the president to set interest rates, according to reports. Allies are said to have drawn up a range of proposals for the way monetary policy could be run in a second Trump administration, including rolling back the independence of the central bank, which has been critical to the functioning of the economy and financial system in recent decades. Supporters of the Republican candidate have compiled a 10-page document with a new vision for the running of the central bank and monetary policy, according to the Wall Street Journal. It includes the authority to eject Jerome Powell from his position as chairman of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. Mr Trump appointed Mr Powell to the position in his first term as president, having declined to give the incumbent, Janet Yellen, a second term at the Federal Reserve. Ms Yellen is now Treasury secretary for Joe Biden, the president. The document also suggests Mr Trump could be consulted on interest rate decisions by the Federal Reserve chair, who would then negotiate the final decision on borrowing costs with other policymakers on his behalf. Less sweeping changes to the central bank could include exposing its regulations to more regular reviews by the White House, the WSJ reported. As president, Mr Trump regularly called for lower interest rates to boost the economy and expressed dissatisfaction with Mr Powell’s decisions. In 2019, he said Fed officials had “no guts, no sense, no vision”. Moves to limit the independence of the Fed would likely prove controversial. The independence of central banks has become a central pillar of the modern financial system. Michael Pearce at Oxford Economics said: “Any serious attempt to undermine the Fed would have a high risk of having the opposite effect. There are many examples from history where political pressure for lower rates has had the opposite effect and pushed the Fed to lean towards tighter policy than otherwise.”

BEA: Real GDP increased at 1.6% Annualized Rate in Q1 --From the BEA: Gross Domestic Product, First Quarter 2024 (Advance Estimate) Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024, according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2023, real GDP increased 3.4 percent.The increase in real GDP primarily reflected increases in consumer spending, residential fixed investment, nonresidential fixed investment, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in private inventory investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased. The increase in consumer spending reflected an increase in services that was partly offset by a decrease in goods. Within services, the increase primarily reflected increases in health care as well as financial services and insurance. Within goods, the decrease primarily reflected decreases in motor vehicles and parts as well as gasoline and other energy goods. Within residential fixed investment, the increase was led by brokers’ commissions and other ownership transfer costs as well as new single-family housing construction. The increase in nonresidential fixed investment mainly reflected an increase in intellectual property products. The increase in state and local government spending reflected an increase in compensation of state and local government employees. The decrease in inventory investment primarily reflected decreases in wholesale trade and manufacturing. Within imports, the increase reflected increases in both goods and services.Compared to the fourth quarter, the deceleration in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected decelerations in consumer spending, exports, and state and local government spending and a downturn in federal government spending. These movements were partly offset by an acceleration in residential fixed investment. Imports accelerated. PCE increased at a 2.5% annual rate, and residential investment increased at a 13.9% rate. The advance Q1 GDP report, with 1.6% annualized increase, was well below expectations.

“Progressives” and Democratic Socialist of America members vote to fund imperialist war against Russia, China-- In a highly revealing vote Saturday in Washington, not a single Democratic member of the House of Representatives registered opposition to a $60.8 billion Ukrainian weapons package, the largest of three global war bills demanded by President Joe Biden. The House, in bipartisan fashion, also passed a military bill appropriating $24 billion to Israel and “humanitarian” causes in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere, while a separate $8.1 billion weapons package focusing on preparing for war against China also received bipartisan support. A fourth bill, which combined economic sanctions on Iran and Russia with the banning of the social media app TikTok unless its China-based parent company Bytedance LLC. divests within a year, also passed with bipartisan support. While the passage of all the bills by wide margins was significant, the fact that all of the 210 Democrats present for Saturday’s vote supported H.R. 8035, the “Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024,” deserves special attention. The bill will provide billions of dollars worth of artillery shells, advanced long-range missiles and other military equipment to the far-right government in Kiev. Following the passage of the legislation in the House, Democrats in the gallery erupted into cheers of “Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!” while waving blue and yellow Ukraine flags. The billions spent on the US/NATO war against Russia have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of mostly working class Ukrainians and Russians, while enriching the coffers of military contractors and war profiteers the world over. Since February 2022, Congress has appropriated $113 billion in support of the war against Russia, according to the Institute for Study of War, a US imperialist think tank based in Washington. Over the same time period, European Union member states have pledged slightly more to Ukraine, $148.5 billion. Russia’s military budget for 2023 was roughly $84 billion, nearly $20 billion more than it spent in 2021, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Senate passes $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan (AP) — The Senate has passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars. The bill passed the Senate on an overwhelming 79-18 vote late Tuesday after the House hadapproved the package Saturday. Biden, who worked with congressional leaders to win support, said in a statement immediately after passage that he will sign it Wednesday and start the process of sending weapons to Ukraine, which has been struggling to hold its front lines against Russia.“Tonight, a bipartisan majority in the Senate joined the House to answer history’s call at this critical inflection point,” Biden said.The legislation would also send $26 billion in wartime assistance to Israel and humanitarian relief to citizens of Gaza, and $8 billion to counter Chinese threats in Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific. U.S. officials said about $1 billion of the aid could be on its way shortly, with the bulk following in coming weeks.In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that if Congress hadn’t passed the aid, “America would have paid a price economically, politically, militarily.”“Very few things we have done have risen to this level of historic importance,” he said.On the Senate floor, Schumer said the Senate was sending a message to U.S. allies: “We will stand with you.” Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made passage of the legislation a top priority, agreeing to tie the Ukraine and Israel aid to help ensure passage and arguing there could be dire consequences for the United States and many of its global allies if Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression is left unchecked. They worked with House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to overcome seemingly intractable Republican opposition to the Ukraine aid, in particular — eventually winning large majorities in both chambers.McConnell said in a separate interview before the vote that it “is one of the biggest days in the time that I’ve been here.” “At least on this episode, I think we turned the tables on the isolationists,” McConnell said.

US Senate quickly advances $95 billion global war package On Tuesday, the US Senate quickly advanced a $95 billion supplemental military package aimed at continuing the US-backed wars in Gaza and Ukraine and preparing for a future war with China. In an 80-19 vote Tuesday afternoon, the Senate invoked cloture, which ends debate on a bill and blocks any filibustering. After the cloture vote, the Senate moved quickly to pass the bill in a 79-18 vote. It is expected that President Joe Biden will sign the bill on Wednesday. House Resolution 815 (H.R. 815) is virtually identical to the National Security Supplemental advanced by the White House last October. For over six months, Biden has demanded the passage of the legislation, the bulk of which, $60.8 billion, is earmarked for continuing the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. This past weekend, every single Democrat present, including “progressives” such as Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Missouri Rep. Cori Bush and Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, voted in favor of the Ukrainian weapons package. H.R. 815 includes $26.4 billion for the Zionist regime in Israel. Of this figure, nearly $9 billion is earmarked for bombs, artillery and other lethal weapons not produced in Israel, with another $4 billion for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-missile systems. Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other Democrats voted against the Israel portion of the bill, but this opposition was purely for show. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Bernie Sanders and other “progressives” campaigned and smiled alongside “Genocide Joe.” The bill also provides $8 billion towards building up the military capacity of the US and its allies in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Not a single Democrat voted against the Taiwan weapons package. Rep. Tlaib voted “present.” The war bill had been stalled in the House of Representatives for months over objections from far-right Republicans that it did not include draconian anti-immigrant provisions. Underscoring that there is no issue more important to the Democratic Party than the expansion of global war, Biden and the Democrats earlier this year sought to secure Republican support by acquiescing to Republican demands for stepped-up attacks on migrants, adding over $20 billion to the proposed bill to build more detention facilities and hire more border agents. After the Senate passed the supplemental military bill, now costing over $120 billion and including new executive authority allowing the president to shut down ports of entry, Biden held a press conference at the Border Patrol station in Brownsville, Texas, in which he pleaded with the likely Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to “join me” in attacking immigrants and waging global war. Trump rejected Biden’s offer, but he did not come out against Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s efforts to move forward on separate bills that provided all the additional military funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan requested by Biden, minus the tacked on border provisions. After receiving assurances from Democrats that they would bail Johnson out should far-right Republicans move to depose him over the military funding bill, Johnson split the supplemental into three separate bills focused on Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, respectively. Johnson also introduced a fourth bill that targets Russia and Iran for economic sanctions. The bill also requires the China-based company ByteDance LLC. to divest from TikTok within 270 days or be banned from the United States. The “21st Century Peace Through Strength Act” is written so broadly that other technology applications not owned by US companies could also be targeted. Following the bills’ passage in the House over the weekend, the Senate quickly took up the legislation. In back-to-back warmongering speeches from the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat-New York) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) called on senators to support the war bills.

Senate passes Ukraine, Israel aid bill after months-long debate - The Senate overwhelmingly passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill on Tuesday, delivering billions of dollars in weapons and support to key U.S. allies Ukraine and Israel despite some opposition from both parties’ bases. The legislation, which passed by a 79-18 vote, had seemed all but dead for several months due to opposition in the GOP-led House. President Biden said in a statement he would sign the bill into law as soon as it crosses his desk on Wednesday, and send aid to Ukraine this week. The funds help him deliver on his promise to the nation’s NATO allies to continue to aid Ukraine as it enters its third year fending off Russia’s invasion. Passage of the legislation marks the first significant new tranche of aid passed by the U.S. Congress to the beleaguered nation in more than a year, as some Republicans aligned more with former president Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy waged a fierce battle against it. They ultimately lost out when Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) decided to put the $61 billion in Ukraine aid on the floor last Saturday, citing his belief that Russia posed a serious threat. Advertisement “Today the Senate sends a unified message to the entire world,” Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor on Tuesday. “America will always defend democracy in its hour of need.” Nine Republican senators flipped their votes to support the legislation on Tuesday after voting against an earlier version of the aid in February. The legislation also sends $26 billion in funds for Israel and humanitarian aid for Gaza and other places, at a time when some congressional Democrats are calling for further aid to Israel to come with conditions. Just three senators who caucus with Democrats opposed the aid package as progressives continue to decry the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza. University protests are growing and becoming more volatile, and the State Department released a report saying the human rights situation has significantly deteriorated in the region because of the conflict. Advertisement “Israel does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt). said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. Sanders, along with Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and Peter Welch (Vt.), voted against the bill. Sanders and other Democrats, including Schumer, have criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza that’s left more than 34,000 Palestinians dead and much of the region’s housing and civilian infrastructure destroyed. Famine is spreading, humanitarian aid officials and USAID Administrator Samantha Power said this month. The Senate measure also would force TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company to sell off the social media site or face a ban, as well as allocating $8 billion for Taiwan, other Indo-Pacific allies and countering China. A portion of the $61 billion in Ukraine funds are given via a loan to Ukraine that the U.S. president may forgive beginning in 2026.

US Planning 'Larger Than Normal' Weapons Package for Ukraine That Will Include Armored Vehicles - US officials told POLITICO that the Biden administration is preparing a “larger than normal” weapons package for Ukraine that will include armored vehicles and arms to support Ukraine’s artillery and air defense capabilities.The package is expected to include Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Humvees, M113 armored personnel carriers, and missiles. The Pentagon wants the military equipment to be ready to go once President Biden signs a bill into law authorizing $61 billion in spending for the proxy war. The House passed the new Ukraine aid over the weekend, along with other military aid for Israel and Taiwan.The three military aid bills will be rolled into a $95 billion spending package that the Senate is expected to vote on Tuesday. Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday and said he would sign the bill into law once it reaches his desk. “President Biden shared that his administration will quickly provide significant new security assistance packages to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield and air defense needs as soon as the Senate passes the national security supplemental and he signs it into law,” the White House said in a readout of the call. Officials said the first arms package using the $61 billion will be “significantly larger” than the most recent US weapons package for Ukraine, which was worth $300 million. The US has previously provided Ukraine with arms packages worth over $1 billion.Zelensky said on Monday night that the new bill stipulates Ukraine will receive Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which have a range of about 190 miles. The US has secretly armed Ukraine with an older cluster bomb variant of ATACMs that can hit targets up to 100 miles away but hasn’t sent the newer version. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said on Sunday that the US could ship ATACMs as soon as next week. The provision of ATACMs will mark a significant escalation since the missiles have a longer range than anything the US has provided Ukraine up to this point. The new US aid for Ukraine will ensure that the war continues, but it’snot expected to make much of a difference as Kyiv is facing serious manpower shortages. Russia has also been making steady gains for months now and has stepped up missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure in response to drone attacks on its territory.

Biden signs bipartisan bill for world war -- US President Joe Biden signed legislation Wednesday morning that provides $95 billion more for the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, for the Israeli military, now in the seventh month of a genocidal slaughter in Gaza, and for preparing Taiwan as a US military base against China. The bill was approved by huge bipartisan majorities in the House of Representatives Saturday and by a vote of 78-19 in the Senate Tuesday night. By linking together in a single piece of legislation the war spending for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, the bill signifies that the Biden administration and the US ruling elite as a whole do not view these conflicts as separate and distinct. They are, rather, connected theaters in a global war. American imperialism is fighting on a vast front which stretches from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, then through the Middle East and Central Asia, all the way to China and the Pacific. In televised remarks after the bill’s signing, Biden spoke mainly of the war in Ukraine, which he presented as a response to an unprovoked invasion. He gave an absurd reprisal of the “domino theory,” the ideological basis of the Vietnam War. “If Putin triumphs in Ukraine,” Biden declared, “the next move of Russian forces could very well be a direct attack on a NATO ally,” triggering Article Five of the NATO convention and all-out war. In fact, the war against Russia in Ukraine was deliberately instigated by imperialism, through the expansion of NATO through all of Eastern Europe, the absorption of former Soviet republics in the Baltic states, and, now, the threatened inclusion of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The imperialist powers have treated the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder as they have systematically escalated the war, to the point where the regime has lowered the draft age and begun rounding up men on the streets to send them into the slaughter. In the same statement, Biden announced that massive shipments of military equipment, prepared in advance, would be on their way to Ukraine. He said: In the next few hours—literally, the few hours—we’re going to begin sending in equipment to Ukraine for air defense; munitions for artillery, for rocket systems; and armored vehicles. Press reports indicated that $1 billion in arms and ammunition was being flown to Ukraine from bases in Europe and the United States. At the same time, the New York Times reported the deployment of US-made long-range ATACMS missiles, a major escalation that will allow Ukraine to strike Russian targets throughout Crimea, the majority-Russian peninsula extending south of Ukraine into the Black Sea.

US Strategy for Great Power Competition: More Graft and Hope for Wonder Weapons - The problems with the so-called “arsenal of democracy” are well known. It can’t produce enough shells to keep up with its client states’ wars. Elsewhere, there are design issues, delays, massive cost overruns, worker and supply shortages, and the final product is usually inferior to other countries.In short, US oligarchs’ greed has hollowed out the US industrial base, making it more difficult to enforce their rentier capitalism around the world. Despite that fact, there does not seem to be a plan to do anything about the loss of Western industrial capacity even while the US-led bloc thrashes about and creates more conflicts. In a recent piece on this topic I somewhat sarcastically asked if the plan was for AI to figure it out. It turns out, that is the plan – as much as it can be labeled as such. A new report from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University titled “How Big Tech and Silicon Valley are Transforming the Military-Industrial Complex” details how the racket is evolving. At its heart, the plan is to make a lot of people obscenely wealthy and hope that a wonder weapon or two emerges from the bottomless money pit. The problem there is that such practices are exposed in actual conflict – as we can see in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and maybe we’ll get another big reminder with Iran if the neocons have their way. And there’s always China on the horizon. This report from Brown acts as a brief update to Harris’ opus, and the situation is only getting worse. The 26-page account reinforces that Silicon Valley’s role in the military-industrial complex is to serve as a giant self-licking ice cream cone to make a bunch of grifters fabulously wealthy while producing zero benefits for American society. Not only that, but if they hit it big on an item that can effectively surveil or kill, they will, as always, be used to aid the capitalist class in its plunder – in the US and abroad. So, what does the report say? More and more money from the government, venture capital, and private equity firms is pouring into big tech companies and startups for surveillance, weaponized AI, drone technologies, and other tech tools of war. Fortunately, there is little sign it is effective unless the goal is to enrich a bunch of well-connected insiders as the products are described as “ineffective.” On the downside, they’re also “unpredictable and unsafe when deployed in real world conditions.” The report notes that US military and intelligence agencies awarded at least $28 billion to Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet between 2018 and 2022, but the actual value is likely to be significantly higher, since so many of contracts with tech companies are classified. Military and Intelligence also continue to increase their funding of startups:

US Considering Sending Military Advisers to Ukraine - The US is considering increasing its small military presence in Ukraine by sending up to 60 additional military advisers, POLITICO reported on Saturday, the same day the House approved $61 billion in spending for the proxy war.Four unnamed US officials told POLITICO that the additional troops would “support logistics and oversight efforts for the weapons the US is sending Ukraine.” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the potential deployment would augment US personnel based at the US Embassy in Kyiv. “Throughout this conflict, the DOD has reviewed and adjusted our presence in-country as security conditions have evolved. Currently, we are considering sending several additional advisers to augment the Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC) at the Embassy,” Ryder said.Ryder said the advisers would serve in a non-combat role, but the deployment would still mark an escalation of US involvement in the war and reflect the US’s long-term plans for the conflict. Besides the ODC and defense attaché, the US also has a small number of special operations forces in Ukraine. The Discord leaks revealed last year that as of March 2023, 14 US special operations troops were in Ukraine.

Ocasio-Cortez slams fellow Democrat’s criticism of Sanders over Israel-Hamas war - Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday took a swipe at Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) for questioning Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) stance on antisemitism, calling the Florida Democrat’s remarks “shameful.”“Sen. Sanders’ family was killed in the Holocaust. He dedicates his every moment to realizing tikkun olam. His commitment to protecting innocents in Gaza stems FROM his Jewish values,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote Wednesday in a post on the social platform X. “He and many other Jewish leaders deserve better than to be treated this way. This is shameful. Ocasio-Cortez was responding to Moskowitz’s comments about Sanders, who released a statement Tuesday on his efforts to halt U.S. military aid to Israel’s wartime campaign.“I am very disappointed, but not surprised, that my amendment to end offensive military aid to Netanyahu’s war machine – which has killed and wounded over 100,000 Palestinians, two thirds of whom are women and children – will not be considered,” Sanders wrote.Sanders, the son of Jewish immigrants who emigrated from Poland in the 1920s to escape rising antisemitism, attempted to add an amendment to a massive foreign aid package taken up by the Senate on Tuesday that included $26 billion for Israel and global humanitarian aid, including for Gaza.The bill passed in the upper chamber in a 79-18 vote Tuesday and was signed by President Biden on Wednesday. Sanders, along with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), voted against the bill.Moskowitz, who is also Jewish, reposted Sanders’s statement and wrote, “Bernie, now do AntiSemitism. Why so quiet?”Moskowitz clapped back at Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism, pointing to his family’s deaths in the Holocaust. “My family was also killed in the Holocaust. In Germany and in Poland. My grandmother was in the kinder-transport,” he said. “They also instilled values in me. It’s why I voted for aid to Israel and for aid to Gaza. We see each other at work, we are both better than doing this here.”Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has been one of the most vocal criticsof continued U.S. aid to Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, given the climbing civilian death toll in Gaza.More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Russia will ramp up strikes on Western arms in Ukraine, Kremlin warns – Moscow will intensify attacks on Western weapons stored in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu warned Tuesday.The Kremlin's reaction comes days after the Unites States finally approved a massive new package of military aid to help Ukraine as it fends off Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion.French and German defense companies have also started setting up local shops in Ukraine for arms maintenance — a first step toward manufacturing weapons in the country. "We will increase the intensity of attacks on logistics centers and storage bases for Western weapons," said defense chief Shoigu, according to Russian state-owned media outlet RIA Novosti.Following Saturday’s approval of a $60 billion U.S aid package by the House of Representatives after months of stalling, the Biden administration is preparinga larger-than-normal dispatch of military aid to Ukraine which will include armored vehicles, in addition to urgently needed artillery and air defenses.The Russian ministry of defense claimed it has destroyed more than 22,000 Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicles, 3,500 HIMARS rockets and 600 missiles since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

US Secretly Armed Ukraine With Long-Range ATACMS Last Month - The US confirmed on Wednesday that it had secretly sent Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) last month as part of a $300 million arms package.The long-range ATACMS can be fired from the HIMARS rocket systems and can hit targets up to 190 miles away, a range that marks a significant escalation in US support for Ukraine. Last year, the US secretly shipped an older cluster bomb variant of the ATACMS that has a range of about 100 miles.A Biden administration official said Ukraine has already used the longer-range ATACMS twice, including in an attack on a Russian base in Crimea. US-supported attacks on Crimea or the Russian mainland always risk a major escalation from Moscow.National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said a “significant number” of the ATACMS have been sent to Ukraine but wouldn’t specify how many. He said more were on the way as part of a $1 billion arms package that President Biden approved on Wednesday, although the Pentagon didn’t list ATACMS when it announced the weapons shipment.The $95 billion foreign military aid bill President Biden signed into law on Wednesday included a provision that said Ukraine would be sent long-range ATACMS. In response to that news, the Kremlin reaffirmed its long-stated position that it will take more territory in Ukraine to counteract the long-range NATO missiles.

Congress Passes New Iran Oil Sanctions But Biden Unlikely To Enforce Them --Over the weekend, as part of the $95 billion package providing funding for aiding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan which passed by a vote of 360-58 on Saturday, the US House also passed new sanctions on Iran’s oil sector set to become part of a foreign-aid package, putting the measure on track to pass the Senate within days.The legislation, as Bloomberg reports, would broaden sanctions against Iran to include foreign ports, vessels, and refineries that knowingly process or ship Iranian crude in violation of existing US sanctions. It would also would expand so-called secondary sanctions to cover all transactions between Chinese financial institutions and sanctioned Iranian banks used to purchase petroleum and oil-derived products.About 80% of Iran’s roughly 1.5 million barrels of daily oil exports are shipped to independent refineries in China known as “teapots,” according to a summary of similar legislation. Yet while the sanctions could impact Iranian petroleum exports - and add as much as $8.40 to the price of a barrel of crude - they also include presidential waiver authorities, according to ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm."President Joe Biden might opt to invoke these authorities, vitiating the sanctions’ price impact; a second Trump Administration might not," ClearView wrote in a note to clients.Amrita Sen, founder and research director of Energy Aspects, agreed and told Bloomberg Television in an interview that Biden's Administration is unlikely to “strongly enforce” the restrictions in an election year.“I think all sanctions are sanctions on paper, with anything that remotely causes oil prices to go up, I don't believe they will enforce it strongly,” the research analyst told Bloomberg. “What I really want to highlight is this is a US election year, so let’s not kid ourselves,” the analyst noted.

Why Biden is Unlikely to Enforce the New Iran Oil Sanctions Over the weekend, as part of the $95 billion package providing funding for aiding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan which passed by a vote of 360-58 on Saturday, the US House also passed new sanctions on Iran’s oil sector set to become part of a foreign-aid package, putting the measure on track to pass the Senate within days.The legislation, as Bloomberg reports, would broaden sanctions against Iran to include foreign ports, vessels, and refineries that knowingly process or ship Iranian crude in violation of existing US sanctions. It would also would expand so-called secondary sanctions to cover all transactions between Chinese financial institutions and sanctioned Iranian banks used to purchase petroleum and oil-derived products.About 80% of Iran’s roughly 1.5 million barrels of daily oil exports are shipped to independent refineries in China known as “teapots,” according to a summary of similar legislation.Yet while the sanctions could impact Iranian petroleum exports - and add as much as $8.40 to the price of a barrel of crude - they also include presidential waiver authorities, according to ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm. "President Joe Biden might opt to invoke these authorities, vitiating the sanctions’ price impact; a second Trump Administration might not," ClearView wrote in a note to clients. Amrita Sen, founder and research director of Energy Aspects, agreed and told Bloomberg Television in an interview that Biden's Administration is unlikely to “strongly enforce” the restrictions in an election year. “I think all sanctions are sanctions on paper, with anything that remotely causes oil prices to go up, I don't believe they will enforce it strongly,” the research analyst told Bloomberg. “What I really want to highlight is this is a US election year, so let’s not kid ourselves,” the analyst noted. Moreover, China is buying most of Iran's crude oil exports, and the majority of buyers in the world’s top crude oil importer are the independent refiners, the so-called ‘teapots’ in the Shandong province, which are not connected with the U.S. financial system in any way. Therefore, the U.S. doesn’t have any means to enforce sanctions on China’s independent refiners for buying Iranian crude oil, Sen told Bloomberg.The teapots will continue to import Iran’s crude, while any new restrictions could take up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil off the market, she added. Crude oil exports from Iran hit the highest level in six years during the first quarter of the year, data from Goldman recently showed. The daily average over the period stood at 1.56 million barrels, almost all of which was sent to China, earning the Islamic Republic some $35 billion.

Johnson: Republicans ‘don’t have a functioning majority’ in the House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) joined Jesse Watters Wednesday to discuss the massive foreign aid package that recently passed both chambers, and the difficulties Republicans have faced getting immigration-related reforms passed with a Democratic Senate and President Biden in office.“Listen, we’re dealing with the smallest majority in U.S. history. We have a one-vote margin,” Johnson said on “Jesse Watters Primetime” on Wednesday. “Some people are upset that we didn’t have the border on the foreign aid bill. We fought all the way to the very end to do that. We’ve been fighting for the border every single day.”Watters pushed back on the Speaker, saying Republican representatives are frustrated because while they hold a majority in the House, they aren’t getting what they want, which is increased border security measures. “Well, that’s not true. We don’t have a functioning majority,” Johnson countered. “When you can only lose one vote, if one person has a different idea, we don’t.”Johnson said Republicans don’t want to work together but wouldn’t specifically name Rep.Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has threatened to remove Johnson from his leadership position. “We’re trying to keep the Republicans working together and we’ve gotten better policy, better process and we’re getting things done, but it’s very difficult when very individualistic, individual minded Republicans don’t want to move together as a block,” Johnson said.Depending on who’s asked, the Republican caucus has very different answers about who is to blame for their dwindling majority. The pointed fingers highlight the deep divisions that hurt the House GOP, where conservatives are criticizing moderates and moderates are criticizing conservatives. Johnson likened the situation to a game of football. He said some people want him to make a hail Mary pass “on every play,” which is not a “game-winning strategy.” “Right now, when you have this margin, is three yards and a cloud of dust, right? We get the next first down, we put points on the board, and we get to November, and we take back and grow the majority.”

Pentagon Unveils $6 Billion Arms Package for Ukraine - The US military has announced a $6 billion weapons transfer to Ukraine, including additional ammunition for the Patriot air defense platform, artillery rounds, drones, and other gear. The aid marks Washington’s largest arms package to Kiev since the conflict with Russia erupted in 2022.The Pentagon outlined the latest military transfer on Friday, hailing the massive arms deal as a “historic” achievement. The weapons will be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), meaning they will be purchased from arms-makers using newly authorized aid funds rather than drawn from existing US stocks.“This is the largest security assistance package that we’ve committed to date. It will include critical interceptors for Ukraine’s Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems, more counter drone systems and support equipment, significant amounts of artillery ammunition, and air-to-ground munitions and maintenance and sustainment support,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters after the announcement.The $6 billion will also pay for much-needed 155mm and 152mm artillery shells, Switchblade and Puma drones, as well as additional munitions for the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).Asked when the weapons might arrive, Austin had no specifics, only saying the Pentagon would move “as fast as industry can produce.” Compared to transfers sourced directly from military stockpiles, shipments under the USAI can take longer given the need to manufacture new equipment.The move comes on the heels of a separate $1 billion aid packageannounced on Wednesday, which included anti-tank weapons, infantry fighting vehicles, small arms, and air defense missiles, among other equipment. Both were made possible after Congress passed a $95 billion foreign military aid bill last week, setting aside some $61 billion for Kiev and paving the way for a flurry of future transfers.

US Bases in Iraq and Syria Come Under Rocket and Drone Attack - US troops in Iraq and Syria came under two separate rocket and drone attacks in less than 24 hours, Reuters reported Monday, citing US and Iraqi officials.The officials said the attacks were the first since a nearly three-month pause started in February. The Iraqi government and Iran had pressured Iraqi Shia militias to stop targeting US bases after three US Army Reserve soldiers were killed at Tower 22 in Jordan.A drone attack targeted the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq, and five rockets were fired at a base in Rumalyn, a remote area of northeast Syria. No casualties were reported in either attack.A Pentagon official later told Stars and Stripes that a fighter jet from the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria launched an airstrike against a rocket launcher but did not specify where.The attacks came after an explosion hit a base south of Baghdad that killed one member of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of Iraqi militias that’s part of Iraq’s security forces. The cause of the blast is unknown and is being investigated. Reuters initially reported that after the rocket attacks, a Telegram channel affiliated with Kataib Hezbollah, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shia militias, announced that attacks on US forces resumed because there was no progress toward a US withdrawal. However, Kataib Hezbollah denied issuing the statement, calling it “fabricated news.”

Blinken says no ‘double standard’ for Israel ahead of expected sanctions on military unit The State Department investigation into allegations of Israeli human rights abuses and the role of American weapons in potential violations is being carried out to the same standard as that for any other country, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday. Blinken was speaking during the release of the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, but he addressed the department preparing to announce in the coming days restrictions on military assistance for specific units of the Israeli military over credible reports of human rights abuses. “Do we have a double standard? The answer is no,” Blinken said in response to a question from Reuters. He said an announcement is expected “in the days ahead” on State Department findings on whether to restrict assistance to the Netzah Yehuda military unit over alleged human rights abuses. The unit, which is made up largely of ultra-Orthodox Israelis and primarily operates in the West Bank, is reported to have the highest conviction rate for abuses against Palestinian civilians. U.S. restrictions on military assistance over human rights abuses are required under the Leahy Law, named for former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), author of the 1997 legislation that requires the U.S. to cut off assistance to any foreign military or law enforcement units if it’s determined there is credible evidence of human rights violations. “With regard to the Leahy Law report that I think you’re referring to at the outset, this is a good example of a process that is very deliberate and seeks to get the facts, to get all the information that has to be done carefully,” Blinken said Monday in response to Reuters questioning at the State Department. “I think you’ll see in the days ahead that we will have more to say, so please stay tuned on that.” The potential announcement of U.S. sanctions has drawn pushback from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and head of the Israeli opposition, Benny Gantz, who spoke with Blinken on Sunday. “Minister Gantz expressed to the secretary that the prospective decision to impose sanctions on the ‘Netzah Yehuda’ battalion is a mistake,” said Tom Sagiv, spokesperson for Gantz, in a statement. Gantz said sanctioning the Israeli military unit would harm Israel’s international legitimacy during a time of war and has “no justification as the Israeli judicial system is strong and independent.” Blinken, in his remarks to the press, noted Israel “has demonstrated the capacity to look at itself,” conduct investigations into wrongdoing and dole out punishment. “It’s my understanding, they have many open investigations based on reports that have come forward with allegations about abuses of human rights or abuse of international humanitarian law, laws of war, etc.,” he said.

US Won't Sanction Israeli Military Units That Committed 'Gross Human Rights Violations' - Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a letter to House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson explaining that three Israeli military units found to have committed “gross human rights violations” will not be prevented from obtaining US weapons. Last week, Axios reported that the State Department had elected to blacklist a single Israeli military battalion that was responsible for killing an elderly Palestinian-American man.ABC News says it obtained the letter from Blinken to Johnson that concluded three Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and two civilian units had engaged in behavior that violated the Leahy Laws. The laws, named after former Senator Patrick Leahy, prevent US military aid from going to military brigades that commit human rights abuses.Blinken claimed that Tel Aviv had taken steps towards accountability and clarified the finding that five Israeli units committed “gross human rights violations” would have no impact on US aid to Israel.“The Israeli government has presented new information regarding the status of the unit and we will engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit,” Blinken wrote. “But this will have no impact on our support for Israel’s ability to defend itself against Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, or other threats.”The letter says four of the five units have taken measures to remedy the abuses, but none of the battalions will be sanctioned. All the human rights violations occurred before October 7.

Biden Wanted To Sanction An Israeli Battalion But He Didn't Because Israel Said No --by Caitlin Johnstone -The Biden administration has reportedly canned its plans to issue sanctions on an extremist IDF unit for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, following backlash from Israel and its high-powered supporters within the US government.Axios reports:The State Department has put on hold its intention to impose sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank and is reviewing the issue in light of information Israel provided in recent days, U.S. sources familiar with the issue said.Why it matters: The review is part of a consultation process outlined in an agreement between the U.S. and Israel. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also been under extensive pressure from the Israeli government, members of Congress and some senior Biden administration officials to reconsider the possible sanctions.The big picture: The Biden administration had intended to withhold U.S. military aid and training from the Netzah Yehuda battalion — an unprecedented move in the history of relations between the countries.As Dr Assal Rad has highlighted on Twitter, this decision follows a sequence of events in which ProPublica revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was ignoring his own State Department’s recommendation to sanction Israeli military units that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses like rape and torture, after which Blinken announced that he was preparing to issue sanctions after all. This announcement was met with outrage from Israel and its apologists, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu penning a furious screed calling the planned sanctions “the height of absurdity and a moral low”. Those planned sanctions are now canceled.Or to put it more simply, the Biden administration had planned to sanction an IDF battalion, but it didn’t because Israel said no.

US Secretary of State Blinken in China with a bagful of demands and threats - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has landed in China for a three-day visit armed with a slew of demands and threats as part of the Biden administration’s aggressive confrontation and military build-up against Beijing. Chief among those demands is that China halt the export of so-called dual-use items to Russia, which the US claims are helping Moscow prosecute the war against the US-NATO backed regime in Ukraine. Having goaded Russia into invading Ukraine, the US and its European allies are desperate to reverse the deteriorating position of the Ukrainian military amid its loss of territory to Russian forces. While funnelling ever-more quantities of sophisticated arms to Ukraine, Washington is now demanding that China assist in crippling Russia’s industrial capacity and thus the Russian military. “When it comes to Russia’s defence industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,” Blinken told reporters last week after a G7 meeting in Italy. “If China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” he said. The US is not only demanding that China halt the sale of so-called dual-use items, including computer chips and machine tools. It is also threatening to cut Chinese banks facilitating such trade from the global financial system based on the US dollar. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned during her visit to China earlier this month: “Any banks that facilitate significant transactions that channel military or dual-use goods to Russia’s defence industrial base expose themselves to the risk of US sanctions.” Washington’s demand is completely hypocritical. The Biden administration acknowledges China has not sold weapons to Moscow, yet it is pushing through Congress a huge $95 billion-package of military funding of which $61 billion is to go to Ukraine and the US-NATO war against Russia. Now the US is insisting that the sale of dual-use items—a broad, undefined category to which almost anything could be added—be stopped. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ): “China’s right to conduct normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia and other countries in the world on the basis of equality and mutual benefit should not be interfered with or disrupted. The United States should immediately stop imposing unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies and individuals.” Blinken’s remarks about the Ukraine war were also aimed at driving a wedge between China and Europe and pressuring the European powers to impose tougher sanctions on Beijing. The WSJ noted: “Washington’s European allies have shown even more reticence to apply punitive measures against a major trade partner and financier, sanctioning only a fraction of the scores of [Chinese] firms put on US rosters… Germany and some other key European allies had been satisfied with that no-arms policy as enough.” A former senior US national security official told the newspaper: “Now there’s an effort to adjust that in part because of the scale of Chinese support. The hope is that we get the Europeans to read China the riot act.” The funding package that passed the US House of Representatives last Saturday was aimed not only at shoring up the Ukrainian military. It will also provide $26 billion to Israel for its genocidal war in Gaza and escalating conflict with Iran, which the US has accused of providing arms to Russia. Significantly, from Beijing’s standpoint, the legislation includes $8 billion in military funding for Taiwan. Biden has pledged to sign the bill into law as soon as it hits his table.

Blinken Concludes China Visit by Threatening Economic War - Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his three-day trip to China by instructing Beijing to end exports that help Russia’s industrial sector or face US sanctions and tariffs. In China, Blinken met with People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.During his prepared remarks, Blinken explained that the US would weaken China’s economy if Beijing did not limit exports to Russia. Now, even as we seek to deepen cooperation where our interests align, the United States is very clear-eyed about the challenges posed by the PRC,” he said. The PRC is providing components that are powering Russia’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. China is the top supplier… dual-use items that Moscow is using to ramp up its defense industrial base.”“I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will. I also expressed our concern about the PRC’s unfair trade practices and the potential consequences of industrial overcapacity for global and US markets,” he said, suggesting the US would work to limit Chinese exports of electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels. Responding to questions, Blinken said he believed that sanctions could be effective because the US is a large buyer of Chinese products, and Washington was prepared to add more sanctions on Beijing. “We’re looking at the actions that we’re fully prepared to take if we don’t see a change… we’ve already imposed sanctions on more than 100 Chinese entities, export controls, and we’re fully prepared to take additional measures,” Blinken said.Blinken’s visit to China is the latest in a series of high-level meetings between US and Chinese officials since Biden met with President Xi in San Francisco last year. America’s top diplomat claimed there has been “important progress” in improving ties recently.However, Washington continues to take steps that Beijing views as provocative and a violation of its sovereignty. After a meeting betweentop defense officials, the US conducted a rare military flight over the Taiwan Strait, a region Beijing views as its territory.Additionally, part of the $95 billion foreign military aid bill includedfinancial assistance for Taiwan to purchase weapons from the US. “I would like to stress that getting closer militarily between the United States and the Taiwan region will not make the latter safer or save ‘Taiwan independence’ from doom. It will only heighten tensions and the risk of conflict and confrontation in the Taiwan Strait, and will eventually backfire,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in response to the passage of the military aid bill.The bill also included a provision that forces the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the popular video-sharing platform TikTok or face a ban in the US. Blinken said he did not discuss TikTok with Chinese officials.

Protect Critical Infrastructure from Communist China's Surveillance and Sabotage -- Good afternoon, Chair Johnson and Veterans and Public Safety Committee, and thank you very much for allowing me to testify today. My name is Adam Savit, and I am the director of the China Policy Initiative at America First Policy Institute (AFPI). At AFPI, we believe that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses a comprehensive threat to U.S. national security. The path to American success lies in our own economic prosperity, secure supply chains, energy independence, and military deterrence to neutralize this threat while avoiding war. As a guiding principle, America First policy begins with reciprocity—the CCP and anyone tied to it should have no access to any institution or opportunity in America beyond that to which we have access in China. Chief among these is access to property.These same values inspired state legislators to introduce a wave of bills in 2023 state sessions to prevent the CCP and other adversaries from acquiring agricultural land. Understandably so.The CCP agricultural footprint in the United States is significant. The Department of Agriculture reports that Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. agricultural land surged from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020—a stunning 5,300 percent increase.The two most troubling cases involved the farming sector. In 2019, Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin invested an estimated $110 million in Texas farmland near Laughlin Air Force Base, along some of its training flight paths. He planned to build a wind turbine farm on a 15,000-acre parcel that would also give him access to the Texas electricity grid. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) signed off on the proposal in December 2020, but a combination of state and local action deterred the development of the wind farm.In 2022, CCP food manufacturer FuFeng Group bought land near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota—a facility CFIUS failed to include in existing federal regulations as a designated military installation and a transaction over which the CFIUS claimed it had no jurisdiction. Media exposure and local pressure defeated the proposed development, but CFIUS’ unwillingness or inability to act exposed a major gap in land security.The important connection between these two incidents was not necessarily that both involved the agricultural sector but the proximity of the land to sensitive national security sites and critical infrastructure. And so, as in many cases when federal safeguards fail in their duty to protect American citizens, it fell to the states, our 50 creative laboratories of democracy, to find a solution.

US Agrees To Withdraw From Niger - The Biden administration has agreed to a request from Niger’s military-led government to withdraw US troops from the West African nation. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Lamine Zeine that the US planned to leave during a meeting on Friday. “We’ve agreed to begin conversations within days about how to develop a [withdrawal] plan,” Campbell said, according to The Washington Post.“They’ve agreed that we do it in an orderly and responsible way. And we will need to probably dispatch folks to Niamey to sit down and hash it out. And that of course will be a Defense Department project,” Campbell added.The decision came about one month after Niger’s government ended military cooperation with the US and said the US presence was no longer legally justified.The US tried to figure out a way to stay in Niger as it has a major drone base in the country, known as Air Base 201, that cost over $100 million to build and serves as a hub for US operations across the region. At one point, the US even claimed that it hadn’t been given an order to leave.But there was no sign that Niger was open to any sort of deal with the US. The news of the planned US withdrawal comes after a senior Air Force leader blew the whistle on the situation in a letter to Congress, saying US officials were suppressing intelligence and that the refusal to leave Niger was putting troops in danger.

US Military Official Says No Final Decision on Niger Withdrawal -A top US military official told The Associated Press that the US has still made no final decision on withdrawing from Niger despite the State Department saying it had agreed to the Nigerien government’s request to leave.The official said the US also hasn’t decided to leave Chad, where the government is threatening to scrap the deal that justifies the US presence in the country.“We are all trying to establish ourselves as the partner of choice,” said Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady, the US’s second-highest ranking military officer.“It’s up to us to establish why we think our partnership with them is important. We certainly want to be there. We want to help them, we want to empower them, we want to do things by, with and through (them),” Grady added. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last Friday that the US had agreed to Niger’s request for a withdrawal and that the US would begin discussions with Nigerien officials on how to carry it out. But Grady claimed there were discussions ongoing on a potential new military agreement, although Niger has not shown any sign that it wants US forces to stay.

US To 'Temporarily' Withdraw Special Forces Troops From Chad - The US will withdraw 75 US Army Special Forces personnel from Chad in the coming days, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing US officials. The Pentagon later said the move was “temporary” as the US is looking to sign a new deal to continue its military presence in the country.The news comes after Chad’s government sent a letter to the US threatening to scrap the agreement that justifies the US military presence in the country. US officials said they are hoping to resume talks on military cooperation after Chad’s elections on May 6. The Green Berets are based at a military base in Chad’s capital, Ndjamena. The US officials said that a handful of US troops who work at the embassy or in other advisory roles will stay in Chad.The withdrawal comes after the US said that it agreed to a request from the government in neighboring Niger to pull troops out. However, a top US military official said on Wednesday that the UShasn’t made a final decision to leave Niger or Chad. The US has about 1,100 military personnel in Niger and a major drone base that serves as a hub for operations in the Sahel region, a presence it does not want to give up. Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. Christopher Grady claimed that the US military was looking to negotiate a new deal with Niger, but the Nigerien government has given no indication it’s interested.

Biden signs expanded warrantless surveillance law hours after Senate reauthorization of Section 702 -- On Saturday, President Biden signed into law a two-year extension of warrantless electronic spying on everyone by intelligence agencies, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The reauthorization bill, called Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, both extends and expands the surveillance powers used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) that violate the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland [Photo by Fort George G. Meade Public Affairs Office / CC BY 4.0] Biden signed the legislation following its passage by the US Senate early Saturday morning in a bipartisan 64 to 34 vote. The Senate approval took place shortly after the recent temporary extension of Section 702 authorization had expired at midnight on Friday. The US House passed the bill a week earlier in a similar bipartisan majority vote of 273 to 147. The White House released a statement by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan after the Senate vote saying Biden would sign the bill “swiftly.” Sullivan repeated the claims made throughout the reauthorization process—and supported enthusiastically by substantial majorities in both houses of Congress—that basic democratic rights need to be violated to “protect against a wide range of dangerous threats to Americans,” and “to detect grave national security threats.” Sullivan also fraudulently claimed the warrantless surveillance legislation contained, “safeguards for privacy and civil liberties through the most robust set of reforms ever included in legislation to reauthorize Section 702.” Attorney General Merrick Garland also issued a statement on behalf of the US Justice Department that said the spying authority is “indispensable to the Justice Department’s work to protect the American people from terrorist, nation-state, cyber, and other threats.” Garland referenced the “global threat environment” as justification for the illegal surveillance by US intelligence. Garland also claimed falsely that the new law ensures “the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” and the intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will “continue to uphold our commitment to protect the rights of all Americans.” Section 702 of the FISA law is based on the false premise that the warrantless surveillance authorized by it can be only directed at the electronic communications of “foreigners” and cannot be used to collect the internet activity, text messages, email and phone calls of US citizens. The provisions of the law require internet service providers and telecommunications companies such as Google and Verizon to cooperate with intelligence agencies and provide, on a moments notice, unimpeded access to the transmission of data and electronic communications across their networks and the platforms of the targeted individuals. However, fully aware that the communications of Americans are being gathered and searched along with everyone else in the world, the US political establishment is continuing to hide behind a lie to support blatant violations of fundamental rights.

Trump seeks to blame Biden for potential TikTok ban - Former President Trump is casting blame on President Biden for legislation that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S., after the bill cleared the House last weekend as part of a larger foreign aid package. “Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday. Trump’s opposition to a potential TikTok ban represents a significant shift from the position he held while he was in office. The former president issued an executive order in 2020 seeking to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. assets, though the order was later blocked in court. The TikTok bill, which now heads to the Senate alongside legislation for long-sought aid to Ukraine and Israel, would require ByteDance to sell the app within roughly a year or face a U.S. ban. While Biden has signaled support for the measure, Trump has come out against the potential TikTok ban, claiming it would benefit Facebook. “[Biden] is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party,” Trump said Monday.

Biden campaign to stay on TikTok after president signs bill that could ban app --The Biden campaign plans to continue using TikTok to reach voters and spread its message even after the president signed legislation that could lead to a ban on the popular app several months down the road.A Biden campaign official told The Hill that TikTok “is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters” as part of a strategy to reach Americans through a fragmented media environment.“When the stakes are this high in the election, we are going to use every tool we have to reach young voters where they are,” the campaign official said.The campaign is using “enhanced security measures” on the app, the official said.President Biden signed legislation Wednesday that could ban TikTok in the U.S. TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, will have up to a year to sell the app or face a ban from U.S. app stores and networks.“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. Supporters of the legislation signed into law say TikTok poses national security concerns because of its ownership by a Chinese company, which they say exposes the sensitive data of American users to the Chinese government. TikTok has pushed back against those accusations.

Quashing University Protests And Banning TikTok To Make The Kids Love Israel - by Caitlin Johnstone<-- It’s just a tough situation, with victims on both sides. On one side you’ve got people being slaughtered in droves by genocidal massacres and siege warfare, while on the other you’ve got people whose feelings get hurt when these atrocities are opposed. Hard to say which is worse. I have dedicated every day of my life to the project of spreading awareness of the depravity and deceitfulness of the western empire, but I will never write anything more effective toward this end than what the empire is doing itself on university campuses right now. I mean, you kind of have to wonder what they’re thinking. “Yeah, that’s it. Violently quash pro-Palestine protests at universities, ban TikTok to ensure the suppression of pro-Palestine content, and saturate the boomer media with obvious propaganda. That’ll make the kids love Israel.” Meanwhile the US empire is still playing games with each and every one of our lives by continually taking insane risks in its world-threatening brinkmanship with a nuclear superpower. It turns out last month the Biden administrationsecretly sent Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), which Ukraine has reportedly already used to attack a Russian base in Crimea. In 2022 when Ukraine first started urging the United States to send it the ATACMS— which has nearly four times the range of the HIMARS weapons the US has been supplying — Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova immediately responded with a warning that their use on Russian territory would make the US a direct participant in the conflict, and Russia would respond accordingly. Crimea is considered Russian territory by the Russian Federation.In an article published in Antiwar last year titled “ATACMS: Be Very Afraid of This Acronym,” West Suburban Peace Coalition president Walt Zlotow wrote that this missile system “has potential to draw the US and NATO into all out war with Russia”:ATACMS are long range US missiles that can strike up to 190 miles. Top US officials, likely including President Biden, are seriously considering giving ATACMS to Ukraine in their battle to take back all Russian gains in Ukraine, including Crimea. They can reach both Crimea and the Russian mainland.If so used by Ukraine to attack Russia, it may be a missile too far that could ignite Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Further escalation into nuclear confrontation between Russia and the US/NATO alliance seeking Russia’s defeat becomes more likely. Biden proclaimed it “a good day for world peace” when he signed the World War 3 bill which will pour weapons of death and destruction into Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. This is the inverted reality the US-centralized empire premises its narratives about itself upon. They’ve got the mainstream public espousing a completely backwards and upside-down worldview, which is why we live in a completely backwards and upside-down civilization.

President Biden Smears Pro-Palestinian Protesters as 'Antisemitic' - On Monday, President Biden smeared protesters at college campusesaround the country opposed to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitic.”“I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”Biden’s comments came as the media is focused on Columbia University in New York City, where students have set up a camp named the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Some of the students involved in the protest were arrested last week and suspended by the university, prompting a walkout by faculty members to show support for the students.New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also smeared protesters as “antisemitic,” saying, “I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”The demand of the protesters is for Columbia University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians and the occupation of the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported that the protest is being organized by the student-led coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace. According to the CUAD’s website, the coalition includes 116 organizations.The situation at Columbia has led some members of Congress to call for the National Guard to break up the protests, including Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).Critics of the protests have accused the demonstrators of harassing Jewish students, which has been a common claim about recent college protests in general. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents,made the point on X that Jews are usually “overrepresented” among pro-Palestinian protesters at colleges. “Sometimes they’re the largest identity group. Maybe folks calling for cracking down on protesters in the name of Jewish safety should consider their safety too,” he said.

Hawley, Cotton call on Biden to deploy National Guard over Gaza protests at colleges - GOP Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) called on President Biden on Monday to deploy the National Guard to colleges, particularly Columbia University in New York City, where pro-Palestinian protesters have staged sit-ins and other disruptive activities to focus public attention on the war.“Eisenhower sent the 101st to Little Rock. It’s time for Biden to call out the National Guard at our universities to protect Jewish Americans,” Hawley posted on the social platform X. He was referring to former President Eisenhower’s decision to call in the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Ark., in 1957 to ensure the safety of nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School.Then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus (D) had ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround the school to prevent the nine students from integrating the school in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, which struck down “separate but equal” segregation as unconstitutional.Cotton called on the Biden administration to “break up” the pro-Palestinian groups on Columbia’s campus if New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) fails to take control of the situation by deploying the New York National Guard.“The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight. If Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs,” Cotton posted on X.

Fetterman, Scott, Banks join calls for Columbia president to step down - Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is facing mounting calls for her resignation amid heightened unrest on her campus over the war in Gaza.More than 100 pro-Palestinian protesters have been arrested after refusing to leave an encampment resurrected on campus last week while Shafik gave her testimony before the House education panel. Following Shafik’s more than three-hour questioning, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) released a statement on Sunday saying “Columbia University … needs new leadership. President Shafik must immediately resign.Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers joined Stefanik on Monday, including all of the New York House Republicans.Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Mark Alford (R-Mo.) and Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) are also demanding her resignation. When Shafik announced on Monday that all Columbia classes would be remote, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis(R-N.Y.) responded on X that Shafik’s move to virtual learning was proof that she is “unable to stop the antisemitic activity on her campus & keep her students safe.”In the Senate, Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) have called on Shafik to step down. Fetterman likened the situation on campus for Jewish students to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.“Add some tiki torches and it’s Charlottesville for these Jewish students,” Fetterman wrote on X. “To @Columbia President Minouche Shafik: do your job or resign so Columbia can find someone who will.”Following the protests, New York law enforcement was called to campus and several students were suspended.“These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas,” Shafik said in a statement early Monday. “We need a reset.”

Netanyahu condemns ‘antisemitic mobs’ on US college campuses --Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday denounced the pro-Palestinian protests roiling college campuses across the U.S., arguing they are “antisemitic mobs” targeting Jewish students and faculties.“So what’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s,” Netanyahu said during a Tuesday video address.Protests calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war have broken out at several college campuses across the U.S. in recent days, prompting arrests, suspensions of a number of students and heavy police presence. Most of the protests have been reported to be peaceful, but concerns have been raised over the safety of students and proliferation of antisemitic rhetoric. While the U.S. saw an uptick in antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, some protest groups have rejected the characterizations of their recent demonstrations as antisemitic.“We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us,” protest leaders wrote in a statement Sunday. “Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob.” “We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students,” they continued. “Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country.”The protest groups have pointed to the sizable number of protesters who are Jewish, with a large group on Monday holding a Passover Seder from the Columbia University protest camp.Netanyahu on Tuesday claimed the world is seeing an “exponential rise” in antisemitism in America and throughout Western societies and called on school administrators to take greater action.“It’s unconscionable, it has to be stopped, it has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally,” he said. “But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful.”“We’ve seen in history that antisemitic attacks were always preceded by vilification and slander lies that were cast against the Jewish people that are unbelievable, yet people believed,” he added later. “And what is important now if for all of us, all of us who are interested and cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and to say enough is enough.”

Biden launches police-state crackdown at US universities -- The developments over the past week mark a political turning point. The Biden administration, in alliance with the fascist-led Republican Party, has moved to criminalize political opposition to the Gaza genocide, currently centered on campuses, through a massive police state mobilization. Demonstrations continue to spread on college campuses throughout the United States in response to the escalating Gaza genocide, which is being funded, armed and politically enabled by the Biden administration. Asked by a reporter on Monday, “What’s your message to the protesters?”, President Joe Biden replied, “I condemn the antisemitic protests.” The charge of “antisemitism” is Biden’s “Big Lie.” It has no basis in reality. His remark Monday followed a statement Sunday in which he denounced the “reprehensible and dangerous” antisemitism, which has “absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.” By sheer repetition, the Biden administration, along with the entire political establishment and the media, hope to bludgeon people into accepting that protests over the Gaza genocide are animated by antisemitism. This slander is made all the more absurd by the fact that many participants in the demonstrations, and a large number of those arrested, are Jewish, and organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have played a leading role in the protests. On Tuesday evening, police arrested over 300 members of JVP who were participating in a Passover Seder near the house of Senator Chuck Schumer in Brooklyn. The Jewish holiday commemorates the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Protesters wore shirts proclaiming, “Not in our name,” and “Jews say cease fire now.” Across the country, police stormed college campuses, carrying out hundreds of arrests. At New York University, cops clad in riot gear arrested over 100 students and faculty on Monday night, beating protesters and using pepper spray. At Yale University, 47 students were arrested Monday. At Cal Poly Humboldt, riot police stormed into a university building and arrested students. Nine students were arrested Tuesday at the University of Minnesota. On Tuesday night, student leaders at Columbia said university administrators had threatened to call in the National Guard to suppress the protest, raising the prospect of a repeat of the Kent State massacre of May 4, 1970. In that incident, four Ohio college students were killed by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War. Biden is carrying out his crackdown in alliance with, and at the instigation of, America’s leading fascists and antisemites, such as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley. On Tuesday, Hawley and Cotton were joined by other leading Senate Republicans, including Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley, in demanding that Biden go even further. The senators’ letter welcomes Biden’s statement condemning “antisemitism,” but calls on the administration to carry out criminal prosecutions and deportations of participants in the demonstrations.

White House shuts down GOP calls to bring in National Guard for college protests -- The White House punted on Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) demand for President Biden to call in the National Guard to college campuses amid mass protests over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday. Johnson visited Columbia University on Wednesday, the first of major pro-Palestine proteststhat have spread to dozens of college campuses around the country, and said that Biden should call in the National Guard to quell the peaceful demonstrations. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the issue is not up to the president.“That is something for the governors to decide,” she told reporters, noting that Biden has previously criticized the protests as antisemitic. Johnson went a step further Wednesday, calling the protests “dangerous.”“If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard,” he said.Student and faculty protests have urged the Biden administration to back a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and to stop supplying military aid to Israel, and they have advocated for their universities to divest from Israeli interests. Hundreds of students and faculty have been arrested nationwide as some universities call on local and state police to violently disperse demonstrations.Six months since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, a majority of Democrats say they believe the U.S. should limit military aid to Israel, according to polls, citing concerns about mass civilian casualties in Gaza and accusations of war crimes.

Johnson, GOP lawmakers heckled at combative Columbia event - Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Republican lawmakers were repeatedly and loudly heckled during a combative press conference at Columbia University on Wednesday as they gathered to condemn antisemitism and the pro-Palestine demonstrations taking place on campus. Johnson — joined by GOP Reps. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Anthony D’Esposito (N.Y.) and Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.) — traveled to the Manhattan campus, where pro-Palestine protesters are refusing to leave their encampment until the school agrees to divest from Israel and companies associated with its war effort against Hamas. The GOP lawmakers were met with shouts of “boo” right when they walked to the podium for their press conference and were frequently drowned out by protesters as they denounced the treatment of Jewish students on campus and addressed student demonstrators directly. “The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies,” Johnson said. “They place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States here on this campus. A growing number of students have chanted in support of terrorists. They have chased down Jewish students. They have mocked them and reviled them. They have shouted racial epithets. They have screamed at those who bear the Star of David.” As Johnson spoke, chants of “we can’t hear you” broke out in the crowd. “Enjoy your free speech,” Johnson responded. At another point, D’Esposito told students that “If you are a protester on this campus, and you are proud that you’ve been endorsed by Hamas, you are part of the problem.” Lawler said “the fastest way for a cease-fire to occur is for Hamas to surrender and to release the hostages. And if you can’t call for that, you are a pathetic embarrassment to this institution and to students everywhere.” Both remarks were met with shouts from the crowd.

New York governor tells Speaker Johnson to stay out of Columbia tumult -New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is criticizing Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) visit to Columbia University, arguing he’s only exacerbating divisions by showing up to speak with Jewish students. “I think politicizing this and bringing the entourage to put a spotlight on this is only adding to the division,” Hochul told reporters, per Politico. “A Speaker worth the title should really be trying to heal people and not divide them, so I don’t think it adds to anything.”Hochul said Johnson would be better off taking up the bipartisan border security bill that, she said, would help deal with the ongoing situation involving migrants in the state of New York. “It seems to me there’s a lot more responsibilities and crises to be dealt with in Washington,” Hochul said. “I’d encourage the Speaker to go back and perhaps take up the migrant bill, the bill to deal with closing the borders, so we can deal with the real crisis that New York has.”Republicans have been blasting the presidents of several elite East Coast schools for months over their handling of protests and the protection of Jewish students.New York’s House delegation this week called for the resignation of Columbia’s president. Protests on the school’s campus have led Columbia to cancel in-person classes through the rest of the school term. “Speaker Johnson is going to speak to students at Columbia University because Governor Hochul and other officials in New York have completely failed in their duty to protect Jewish students and combat the rise of antisemitism in their party,” a spokesperson from the speaker’s office said in a statement. “We wish it weren’t necessary.”

Omar’s daughter says she was sprayed with ‘chemical weapons’ during protest The daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said she and others were sprayed with “chemical weapons” while protesting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza at Columbia University.Isra Hirsi, 21, told MSNBC on Monday she believes there is “some hypocrisy” in the way the university is punishing the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, when compared to the treatment of counterprotesters. “This is 100 percent targeted,” Hirsi said. “Every single protest that we have, there’s a group of counterprotesters that bring all of their items, their flags and things like that. And they’re not seen as having unsanctioned protests, or really received the kind of disciplinary warnings that many of our fellow organizers receive just for being seen at these protests.” “And so there is definitely some hypocrisy here, especially you can kind of see it with the students that were … sprayed … with the chemical weapons,” she added. Hirsi was one of more than 100 students arrested last week for participating in the cease-fire protests at Columbia. She was also suspended from Barnard College, cutting off her access to food and housing. Columbia informed their students they would be suspended as well for their involvement. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Hirsi said she has been “basically evicted” after the suspension and is concerned about her food access as she relies on her dining plan for meals. The demonstrations have roiled Columbia University’s campus, stretching into the seventh day on Tuesday. Hundreds of students are occupying the center of campus, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel. Columbia officials last week authorized the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest students involved with the protesters, further inflaming tensions. While most of the protests were reported to be peaceful, concerns were raised over the safety of students and proliferation of antisemitic rhetoric. Some protest groups have rejected the characterizations of their demonstrations as antisemitic, pointing to the significant portion of demonstrators who are Jewish. Concerns were further driven by a reported call from one campus rabbi for Jewish students to return home “as soon as possible,” ahead of the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday night.Asked if she believes the protest encampment made other students uncomfortable, Hirsi said, “I think that the encampment was honestly one of the beautiful forms of solidarity.” “We would be singing songs, we had meals together, people prayed together,” she continued. “They held Shabbat yesterday, and it’s really just been a very community-centered space.”

Ilhan Omar weighs in on Columbia protests where daughter was arrested -- Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday applauded the solidarity among the Columbia University students protesting for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, while noting the attention needs to be kept on the “genocide in Gaza,” as authorities arrest dozens of students, including her daughter, for their involvement.“On Thursday, Columbia arrested and suspended its students who were peacefully protesting and have now ignited a nationwide Gaza Solidarity movement,” Omar wrote Monday on the social platform X. “This is more than the students hoped for and I am glad to see this type of solidarity. But to be clear, this about the genocide in Gaza and the attention has to remain on that.”Monday marked the sixth day of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University, wheremore than 100 student protesters, including Omar’s daughter — Isra Hirsi — were arrested and charged with trespassing. The protests are calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel and involve swaths of students occupying the center of campus.Columbia leadership further escalated tensions last week after authorizing the New York Police Department to arrest students. They also informed student protesters they would be suspended for their involvement.The arrests appear to have done little to quell the protests, with demonstrations expanding in recent days in response to the opposition. Similar protests have also taken place at other college campuses across the country.Hirsi, 21, was also among three students suspended from Barnard College, cutting off her access to food and housing. Barnard College is connected to Columbia but has some independence.Hirsi, in an interview with Teen Vogue over the weekend, recalled finding out about her suspension.“At that moment, we made an announcement to the camp — because there were an overwhelming amount of Barnard students at camp — and let them know that we had been basically evicted and not allowed into our space, but also officially suspended,” she said.She told the magazine she was held in zip ties for seven hours before authorities charged her with trespassing and released her. She said her suspension effectively bars her from entering campus, and she has concerns about housing and food access.

In This Dystopia, Opposing A Genocide Is Considered Worse Than Committing One - by Caitlin Johnstone -- All the frenzied shrieking about pro-Palestine protests at universities these last few days makes it clear that our civilization is so twisted and insane that it sees protesting a genocide as far worse than committing one. Which is about as backwards as any society could possibly be. It’s as wrong as you can possibly get anything in this world. It’s actually hard to imagine how anyone could get anything more wrong. If you’ve accepted daily massacres of innocent civilians as the baseline normal and appropriate thing, and regard any opposition to this as a freakish and evil abomination, then you’re as screwed up and confused about reality as any other stark raving lunatic in town. Maybe worse.To view nonstop mass military slaughter as moral and opposition thereto as immoral is to live in a mental moral universe that has been flipped on its head. It’s to inhabit a reality tunnel that has become completely divorced from reality. But that’s the kind of mainstream worldview that the political-media class in this society are working to indoctrinate us into day in and day out throughout our entire lives. I just saw a tweet from the commentator Briahna Joy Gray saying that in order to find any mention in The New York Times of the hundreds of Palestinians in mass graves that are being discovered in Gaza, she had to scroll past no fewer than four stories about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses — including two op-eds which criticized the protesters. What kind of warped, fucked up dystopia is this where that’s the kind of mainstream news outlet people are getting their information and ideas from? Our entire civilization is saturated with reality-distorting propaganda like this, and it’s making people insane. It’s got our moral compasses flipped 180 degrees from our true north, and our inner sensemaker tuning in to frequencies of nothing but garbled static. That’s how crazy they need us to be to keep us supporting a globe-spanning empire that literally cannot exist without nonstop violence and tyranny. They need us thinking up is down and black is white. They need us not just unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, but actually believing that wrong is right and right is wrong. So they pound our collective consciousness day in and day out with extremely aggressive psyops in the form of mass media propaganda to ensure that our insides are scrambled around enough to consent to the amount of depravity necessary for our rulers to continue dominating this planet. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal, as Aaron Bushnell said moments before lighting himself on fire in protest of the genocide in Gaza. A society where mass graves get less media attention than university protesters. A society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children. A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good.

Empire Managers Say Russia, China And Iran Are Tricking Students Into Opposing Genocide by Caitlin Johnstone --Empire managers and propagandists are losing their minds about student protests against the genocide in Gaza on university campuses, so naturally we’re seeing a mad push to frame this as the result of interference by Russia, China, Iran and Hamas. These demented conspiracies of foreign influence come even as Israel’s prime minister openly calls for the US government to quash the university protests by any means necessary.In a speech supporting the ban of TikTok this past Tuesday, Senator Pete Ricketts said the protests are an example of “the Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to skew public opinion on foreign events.” “Look what’s happening in our college campuses right now around this country,” Ricketts said. “Pro-Hamas activists are taking over public spaces and making it impossible for campuses to operate.”“Why is this happening?” Ricketts continued. “Well, let’s look at where young people are getting their news. Nearly a third of adults 18 to 29, these young people in the US are regularly getting their news exclusively from TikTok. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas hashtags are generating 50 times the views on TikTok right now despite the fact that polling shows Americans overwhelmingly support Israel over Hamas. These videos have more reach than the top 10 news websites combined. This is not coincidence. The Chinese Communist Party is doing this on purpose. They are pushing this racist agenda with the intention of undermining our democratic values. And if you look at what’s happening at Columbia University and other campuses across the country right now, they’re winning.”

Malala Yousafzai confirms support for Palestine after backlash over musical with Hillary Clinton --Activist Malala Yousafzai confirmed her support for Palestine in a post online after receiving backlash over a report she collaborated with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a musical. “I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes, and I applaud efforts by those determined to hold them to account,” Yousafzai posted on social media platform X. “Publicly and privately, I will keep calling on world leaders to push for a ceasefire and to ensure the delivery of urgency humanitarian aid.” Yousafzai, a 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been criticized by some for partnering with Clinton on a new musical, “Snuffs,” which has begun playing in New York, Arab News reported. In an op-ed published last November, Clinton argued against a full cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, saying it would allow Hamas to refuel and prolong the conflict. Clinton has backed humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow for aid to be sent to civilians in Gaza. She said she would eventually agree to a cease-fire, but it must happen at the right time. She criticized current Israeli leadership and said international interim leaders should support efforts to help Israel “resume control in Gaza.” Users have posted online calling Yousafzai a sellout, among other things. The outlet reported that she has been met with suspicion in her home country of Pakistan, where critics have said she pushes Western feminist and liberal ideas on the conservative countries. “I stand against any form of violence against innocent civilians, including the taking of prisoners and hostages. And I stand in solidarity with the people in Gaza whose voices and demands must be heard,” she said.

Huckabee Sanders slams Biden education secretary ahead of Arkansas visit - Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) ripped into the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program and other educational policies ahead of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s trip to Little Rock on Tuesday. In a letter to Cardona sent Monday, Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Olivia wrote, “You will be in Little Rock tomorrow to tout President Biden’s unconstitutional student loan forgiveness program and try and explain your department’s disastrous rollout of updates to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).” “We welcome you to our state, but we fear that this visit will only serve to highlight some of your administration’s worst mistakes,” the letter continued. Cardona is slated to visit Arkansas on Tuesday afternoon for a roundtable on student debt forgiveness. He is expected to also visit a FAFSA clinic for high school seniors and families at Little Rock Central High School. “This trip is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to fixing the broken student loan system,” the Education Department wrote in a statement. President Biden has made student loan forgiveness a central focus for his administration, and he has canceled an estimated $153 billion in student loans during his presidency. Arkansas residents have had over $541.1 million in loans forgiven under the Biden administration, an Education Department spokesperson told The Hill Sanders called the Biden administration’s forgiveness “for certain student loans” “unfair, unwise, and unlawful.” “Not only does it force Arkansans who chose not to attend college to pay for others’ education, not only does it offer forgiveness for past loans with no plan to address the future growth of college tuition expenses, but it has also been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Sanders wrote.

Former CFPB Director Richard Cordray resigns from Education Department -Richard Cordray, the top Biden administration official in charge of college financial aid, has resigned from the Education Department. Cordray, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, faced calls from House Republicans to resign after the failed rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form caused grief for students struggling to enroll. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona released a statement Friday that said Cordray will continue in the job until June working on "key priorities." He said Cordray "accomplished more transformational changes to the student aid system than any of his predecessors.""It's no exaggeration to say that Rich helped change millions of lives for the better," Cardona said in the statement. Cordray, a former attorney general of Ohio, left the CFPB in 2017 to run unsuccessfully for Ohio governor. CNN reported that Cordray notified employees on Friday that he was resigning as chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid. He has held the post since May 2021.

FTC votes to ban noncompete agreements - The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 on Tuesday to ban noncompete agreements that prevent tens of millions of employees from working for competitors or starting a competing business after they leave a job. From fast food workers to CEOs, the FTC estimates 18 percent of the U.S. workforce is covered by noncompete agreements — about 30 million people. The final rule would ban new noncompete agreements for all workers and require companies to let current and past employees know they won’t enforce them. Companies will also have to throw out existing noncompete agreements for most employees, although in a change from the original proposal, the agreements may remain in effect for senior executives. What to know about the FTC ban on noncompete agreements “It is so profoundly unfree and unfair for people to be stuck in jobs they want to leave, not because they lacked better alternatives, but because noncompetes preclude another firm from fairly competing for their labor, requiring workers instead to leave their industries or their homes to make ends,” FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter (D) said in prepared remarks. The new rule is slated to go into effect in 120 days after it’s published in the Federal Register. But its future is uncertain, as pro-business groups opposing the rule are expected to take legal action to block its implementation. Business groups say noncompete agreements are critical for protecting proprietary information and intellectual property, although the rule would not ban other methods for protecting that information, including nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. They also question the agency’s authority to issue the blanket, retroactive ban.

Nursing homes must hit minimum staffing levels under new federal rule - Nursing homes will be required to have minimum levels of front-line caregivers for the first time or face financial penalties under a new requirement the Biden administration announced Monday. The final policy, unveiled by Vice President Harris, comes despite intense lobbying from the nursing home industry and opposition from bipartisan lawmakers, who argue a federal standard is unfeasible because of a nationwide staffing shortage made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. The rule is aimed at addressing nursing homes that are chronically understaffed, which can lead to substandard or unsafe care, the White House said in a fact sheet. The rules establish a floor, the administration said, but a majority of the country’s roughly 15,000 nursing homes will likely need to add staff to meet the new standards. In his 2022 State of the Union address, President Biden announced a slate of nursing home reforms and vowed staffing minimums would be among them. Advocates have been calling for such a requirement for more than two decades, arguing that residents are safer and have better care with more staff. The final policy goes slightly further than what the administration proposed last September. All nursing homes that receive federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid will need to provide a total of at least 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident per day, including three hours from registered nurses and nursing aides. Facilities may use any combination of nurse staff (RN, licensed practical nurse, licensed vocational nurse or nurse aides) to account for the additional time. That means a facility with 100 residents would need two or three registered nurses and 10 or 11 nurse aides as well as two additional nurse staff per shift to meet the new standards, the administration said. The hourly requirement falls short of what a key federal study from 2001 found; at a minimum, it said facilities should provide 4.1 hours of direct care per resident per day to ensure they’re safe from falls and other harms. But most U.S. nursing homes don’t meet that standard, and advocates have said residents are generally sicker and need more care now than 20 years ago.

Sanders launches investigation into ‘unacceptable’ diabetes, weight loss drug prices - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, on Wednesday launched an investigation into the “outrageously high prices” of Novo Nordisk’s respective diabetes and weight loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. On Wednesday, Sanders penned a letter to Novo Nordisk’s chief executive officer, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, notifying him of the investigation and laying out his concerns with various price discrepancies between the drugs and pointing out concerns about the drugs’ pricing. “The scientists at Novo Nordisk deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have the potential to be a game changer for millions of Americans struggling with type 2 diabetes and obesity,” Sanders said. “As important as these drugs are,” Sanders continued, “they will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them.” Ozempic and Wegovy have the same active ingredient – semaglutide – but they have different doses and strengths. Ozempic is FDA-approved for type 2 diabetes while Wegovy is approved for weight loss. In his letter, Sanders questioned why the two medications would be priced differently from each other and priced differently from other countries. Ozempic costs $969 a month for type 2 diabetes in the United States, but it costs $155 in Canada and $59 in Germany, Sanders said. Wegovy costs $1,349 a month for weight loss in the U.S., compared to $140 in Germany and $92 in the United Kingdom. Sanders cited a recent report from Yale University that he said found the drugs could be profitably manufactured for less than $5 a month. “The result of these astronomically high prices is that Ozempic and Wegovy are out of reach for millions of Americans who need them,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, Novo Nordisk’s pricing has turned drugs that could improve people’s lives into luxury goods, all while Novo Nordisk made over $12 billion in profits last year — up 76 percent from 2021. That is unacceptable.” Sanders warned the high prices could bankrupt key programs like Medicare and Medicaid, “if the prices for these products are not substantially reduced,” adding, “The United States Congress and the federal government cannot allow that to happen.”

Fauci to testify before Congress for the first time since stepping down -Anthony Fauci, former chief medical adviser to President Biden, will testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on June 3, making it the first time he will appear before a congressional panel since leaving government work at the end of 2022.Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) announced the hearing Wednesday. Fauci hadcommitted to testify late last year along with agreeing to two days of interviews, which took place in January.The closed-door interviews focused on gain-of-function research, alleged federal records violations, conflicts of interest and confusions around pandemic guidance. Fauci was joined by two attorneys during the entire course of the interviews.“During Dr. Fauci’s closed-door interview in January, he testified to serious systemic failures in our public health system that deserve further investigation, including his testimony that the ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing guidance — which was used to shut down small businesses and schools across America — ‘sort of just appeared,'” Wenstrup said in a statement.“As the face of America’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, these statements raise serious questions that warrant public scrutiny.”Ranking Member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) said he appreciated “Dr. Fauci’s willingness to testify voluntarily in June, which will allow the American public to evaluate for themselves the results of the Majority’s extreme fishing expedition,” when reached for comment by The Hill.“Dr. Fauci is a dedicated public servant who stepped up for our nation during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But for fourteen months, the Republican Majority has dedicated time and taxpayer dollars to a politically motivated probe to vilify him,” said Ruiz, calling on the majority in the subcommittee to release the transcripts from the January meeting.“Nearly half a million pages of documents and more than a dozen transcribed interviews with current and former federal public health officials and researchers — including 14 hours of testimony from Dr. Fauci himself — have failed to uncover any evidence that he sought to cover up the pandemic’s origins or suppress the lab leak theory.”

No Evidence FBI Used Counterterrorism Tactics on Catholics: Government Watchdog Report --An independent governmental watchdog investigation concluded that there was no evidence to support that the FBI was targeting Catholics based on a leaked memo. The Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a congressional report on Thursday outlining its findings in a 120-day investigation into a 2023 FBI memo that implied a link between Catholicism and violent extremism.The Richmond, Virginia’s FBI field office disseminated the memo the OIG called the Richmond Domain Perspective (DP) which purportedly connected “Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists” (RMVEs) to “Radical Traditionalists Catholic” (RTC) ideology, the report stated.“FBI Richmond assesses the increasingly observed interest of RMVEs in RTC ideology almost certainly presents new opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development,” the memo stated.The Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government published a 2023 reportstating that any information about the memo—which was later retracted—was deleted.The Subcommittee’s report argued that the memo shows a political bias toward Catholics through its use of “counterterrorism tools” to target them as “potential domestic terrorists.”“The Committee and Select Subcommittee discovered that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to develop its assessment and the FBI even proposed developing sources among the Catholic clergy and church leadership,” the Subcommittee’s report stated. “Not only did the FBI propose to develop sources, but it already interviewed a priest and choir director affiliated with a Catholic church in Richmond, Virginia for the memorandum.”

Supreme Court takes up Biden administration’s ‘ghost gun’ appeal - After previously intervening in the dispute twice on an emergency basis, the justices in a brief order Monday agreed to take up the case on the merits. Their decision comes two years after President Biden announced a crackdown on the devices, referring to firearms that are sold as do-it-yourself kits and are generally hard to trace. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the regulation unlawful, siding with two firearm owners, two gun rights advocacy organizations and five entities that manufacture or distribute guns that challenged the crackdown. The Justice Department then urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, warning that letting that lower ruling stand would have deadly consequences. “Under the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation, anyone could buy a kit online and assemble a fully functional gun in minutes — no background check, records, or serial number required,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in court papers on behalf of the government. “The result would be a flood of untraceable ghost guns into our Nation’s communities, endangering the public and thwarting law-enforcement efforts to solve violent crimes.” The Supreme Court has twice intervened in favor of the Biden administration on the court’s emergency docket: Justices voted 5-4 the first time, while there were no public dissents on the second occasion. But neither of those decisions were a final ruling on the merits of the administration’s regulation.

Female Supreme Court justices push back most strongly on Idaho abortion ban -A divided Supreme Court seemed skeptical that Idaho’s strict abortion ban conflicts with a federal emergency care law, but there appeared to be a split by gender as well as ideology during the nearly two hours of argument. The four female justices, including conservative Amy Coney Barrett, pushed back the hardest against Idaho’s assertion that its law, which prohibits doctors from performing an abortion except when a woman’s life is in danger, supersedes the federal emergency care statute known as EMTALA, or the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Doctors face up to five years in prison for violating Idaho’s law. The case centers on EMTALA, which requires federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients no matter their ability to pay. The justices are weighing an appeal brought by Idaho officials who are contesting a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration. The Biden administration sued Idaho over its abortion ban just weeks after the Dobbs ruling in 2022. The Biden administration argues that even in states where abortion is banned, EMTALA says hospitals must be allowed to terminate pregnancies in rare emergencies where a patient’s life or health is at serious risk. Idaho argued the administration is trying to use the law to create a national abortion mandate for hospitals. They said federal law doesn’t dictate the kind of care people receive, only that they are stabilized. The case marked the second time in as many months the Supreme Court has heard an abortion argument after ostensibly returning the issue to the states, and the case represents the latest legal challenge that could reshape access to abortion across the country. The liberal justices asked detailed questions about what would constitute a medical emergency, zeroing in on complications that would rob a woman of her reproductive organs or put her at risk of sepsis. Justice Elena Kagan told Idaho’s attorney Joshua Turner that federal law says “you don’t have to wait until the person is on the verge of death.” “If the woman is going to lose her reproductive organs, that’s enough to trigger this duty on the part of the hospital to stabilize the patient. And the way to stabilize patients in these circumstances, all doctors agree,” Kagan said. Justice Sonia Sotomayor gave several examples of real-life situations in which women have faced medical but not necessarily life-threatening emergencies where doctors had to decide whether to authorize an abortion. What you are saying is that there is no federal law on the book that prohibits any state from saying, even if a woman will die, you can’t perform an abortion?” Sotomayor asked Turner. Barrett had sharp questions for Turner over just how much discretion doctors really have to make decisions in medical emergencies that may not be life-threatening. The three liberal justices need at least two conservatives to side with them in order for the Biden administration to win the case. Most of the conservative justices seemed skeptical of the Biden administration’s argument, and they framed their objections as federal government overreach into state autonomy. Justice Neil Gorsuch, for instance, asked if the federal government could use health care funding programs to turn state regulation of medicine into a federal function.

Hillary Clinton sounds alarm after Supreme Court hearing on emergency abortion care Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday warned access to abortion care could be further imperiled after oral arguments in a Supreme Court case over an Idaho law restricting abortion. The court appeared skeptical about whether a federal law ensuring access to lifesaving care included access to abortion care, when necessary, though the justices were split by both ideology and gender. “The MAGA Supreme Court majority appears ready to rule that the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ doesn’t extend to women with pregnancy complications or who otherwise need abortions,” Clinton wrote on the social platform X. “This is horrifying, and it is because of Donald Trump.” Democrats have focused on abortion rights as a political rallying cry for the 2024 race. Abortion ballot measures are planned for multiple swing states, and a recent controversy over abortion access in Arizona has brought that state more into play. In a second post, Clinton shared an image that stated Arizona’s time zone was “1864,” in reference to a state Supreme Court ruling that implemented a 160-year-old abortion restriction law. State lawmakers agreed to overturn the 1864 law on Wednesday after three attempts. “We won’t allow our daughters and granddaughters to grow up with fewer rights than we had,” Clinton said. The Supreme Court case centers on an Idaho law that outlaws offering abortion care under all circumstances except when a woman’s life is in danger. The Biden administration sued the state over the law, claiming it goes against the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). Doctors face up to five years in prison for violating Idaho’s law. EMTALA requires federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients, no matter their ability to pay. The court is expected to decide the Idaho case by June.

Supreme Court appears skeptical of rulings that found public sleeping ban violated Constitution - The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sounded highly skeptical on Monday about lower court rulings that held an Oregon city’s ordinance prohibiting sleeping in public violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The outcome of the case involving the ban enacted in the southern Oregon city of Grants Pass is being closely watched by municipalities struggling with large homeless populations, particularly those in California and the eight other states covered by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked the ordinance in Oregon and has prohibited the removal of homeless encampments in several cities. During nearly two-and-a-half hours of arguments, all six Republican-appointed justices expressed concern about the federal courts superintending difficult trade-offs about where homeless people should be permitted to stay, how many shelter beds should be considered enough and what to do when people refuse shelter due to restrictions on pets, drug or alcohol use, or because of mental health challenges. “Municipalities have competing priorities. I mean, what if there [are] lead pipes in the water? Do you build the homeless shelter, or you take care of the lead pipes? What if there isn’t enough fire protection? Which one do you prioritize?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked. “Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?” The court’s liberals questioned the ordinance’s focus on sleeping, suggesting that it really amounted to a criminal ban on being without a home. “We’re talking about sleeping. That is universal. That is a basic function,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said. “What we have happening in operation is that people who are able to afford doing this thing that’s a basic human need privately are okay, they’re not punished for it. But people who don’t have any other option or opportunity except for to do it in public are the ones who are being targeted by this statute.” “Sleeping is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing,” Justice Elena Kagan said to Theane Evangelis, an attorney for Grants Pass. “I mean, you could say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public.” But several of the court’s conservatives noted that line of argument seemed to suggest that cities and towns were obliged to find ways for people to satisfy every bodily need. “How about if there are no public bathroom facilities?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked. “Do people have an Eighth Amendment right to defecate and urinate?” “No one is suggesting — we’re not suggesting that public urination, defecation laws cannot be enforced because there are very substantial public health reasons for that,” said Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, speaking for the Biden Administration. Many of the arguments Monday turned on the meaning and relevance of a 1962 Supreme Court case, Robinson v. California, that found a state law making it illegal simply to be a drug addict violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Gorsuch sounded open to overturning that decision, or at least shifting it to focus on individuals’ due process rights, rather than the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishments. “You’re not really attacking the punishments here,” Gorsuch told Kelsi Corkran, the lawyer for the homeless plaintiffs.

Supreme Court to consider whether Trump is immune from prosecution - The Supreme Court will weigh the limits of presidential immunity Thursday in an unprecedented and historic case with significant implications for former President Trump, his legal fights and the 2024 race for the White House. Trump is pushing an argument that has already been rejected by two lower courts: that even as a former executive, he remains immune from prosecution for official actions he took while holding office. Prosecutors see the novel argument as one that would put presidents beyond the reach of the criminal justice system even after they leave office. On the bench are three conservatives Trump nominated to the court — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — but the court’s verdict could cut against claims from the presumptive GOP nominee that he should not be prosecuted. It will be the first time justices take to the bench to consider an appeal arising from one of Trump’s four criminal indictments, and their decision could dictate whether those not at trial ever reach a jury. Critics of Trump say a decision in favor of the president’s arguments would change the fabric of power in the country, giving far too much power to presidents in and out of office. “It’s so fundamental to the presidency, where a president is truly trying to corrupt the system and perpetuate himself in office,” said John Dean, the former White House counsel to then-President Nixon and a frequent critic of Trump. “If Trump can get away with doing what he did, we don’t have a democracy,” Dean warned.

Justice Thomas raised crucial question about legitimacy of special counsel's prosecution of Trump - Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised a question Thursday that goes to the heart of Special Counsel Jack Smith's charges against former President Donald Trump. The high court was considering Trump's argument that he is immune from prosecution for actions he took while president, but another issue is whether Smith and the Office of Special Counsel have the authority to bring charges at all. "Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?" Thomas asked Trump attorney John Sauer on Thursday during a nearly three-hour session at the Supreme Court. Sauer replied that Trump's attorneys had not raised that concern "directly" in the current Supreme Court case — in which justices are considering Trump's arguments that presidential immunity precludes the prosecution of charges that the former president illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election. Sauer told Thomas that, "we totally agree with the analysis provided by Attorney General Meese [III] and Attorney General Mukasey." "It points to a very important issue here because one of [the special counsel's] arguments is, of course, that we should have this presumption of regularity. That runs into the reality that we have here an extraordinary prosecutorial power being exercised by someone who was never nominated by the president or confirmed by the Senate at any time. So we agree with that position. We hadn't raised it yet in this case when this case went up on appeal," Sauer said. In a 42-page amicus brief presented to the high court in March, Meese and Mukasey questioned whether "Jack Smith has lawful authority to undertake the 'criminal prosecution'" of Trump. Mukasey and Meese — both former U.S. attorneys general — said Smith and the Office of Special Counsel itself have no authority to prosecute, in part because he was never confirmed by the Senate to any position. Federal prosecutions, "can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices," Meese and Mukasey argued. "But neither Smith nor the position of special counsel under which he purportedly acts meets those criteria. He wields tremendous power, effectively answerable to no one, by design. And that is a serious problem for the rule of law — whatever one may think of former President Trump or the conduct on January 6, 2021, that Smith challenges in the underlying case."

Judge says Manhattan DA can cross-examine Trump about Carroll, fraud decisions -— A New York judge said Monday that Manhattan prosecutors can bring up several civil lawsuits involving former President Trump if he chooses to testify in his ongoing criminal trial. After hearing arguments Friday, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors can cross-examine Trump about six of the 13 prior court determinations they requested to raise in their efforts to impugn the former president’s credibility in front of jurors. Merchan ruled that prosecutors are permitted to question Trump about two rulings — one by a judge, the other by a jury — finding that Trump defamed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll by denying her claims of sexual assault. The judge said prosecutors can also raise the decision in Trump’s civil fraud trial finding that he fraudulently manipulated property values as well as rulings finding that Trump violated the gag order in that case. Trump can also face questioning about a 2018 ruling in a lawsuit against his foundation. But Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) cannot bring up sanctions imposed against Trump in a lawsuit he filed against Hillary Clinton in Florida, the judge ruled, as well as several other “bad acts” prosecutors desired to cross-examine Trump about. Merchan’s ruling is designed to give Trump’s legal team an informed view as it mulls whether the former president should take the stand in his defense. Trump has repeatedly said he will testify, but it would mark a rare step for a criminal defendant. He is not required to take the stand, and jurors are not permitted to hold it against the former president if he does not mount a defense. At Friday’s arguments, Trump attorney Emil Bove contended that raising Carroll’s case, in particular, would be too “salacious” and urged the judge against allowing prosecutors to mention it. It “pushes the salaciousness onto another level. This is a case about documents,” Bove said. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo countered that the defamation verdict included a finding that Trump’s denials of Carroll’s sexual assault claims were “false and published with actual malice,” saying it is relevant as they attempt to damage Trump’s credibility on the stand. In mentioning Trump’s civil fraud case — where the judge found he conspired to alter his net worth for tax and insurance benefits — prosecutors similarly say they intend to note that the judge in that case determined Trump “repeatedly and persistently” falsified business records, issued false financial statements and conspired to commit insurance fraud.

5 takeaways from opening arguments in the Trump trial - Former President Trump’s first criminal trial began in earnest Monday, with opening statements from prosecutors and the defense team, as well as the calling of the first witness. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The alleged offenses center on a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 election campaign. The money was intended to stop Daniels from publicizing an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade previously. Trump denies any such encounter and denies any legal wrongdoing. The proceedings, in Lower Manhattan, are the first criminal trial of a former president. If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though such a sentence for a first-time offender would be rare. Here are the main takeaways from Monday.

• Prosecution presses the case that Trump was conspiring to sway the election The offenses of which Trump is accused would normally be misdemeanors — except when prosecutors can make the case that they were committed in the service of another crime. This has always been a sticking point in the New York case because — even though he has been indicted in three other, unrelated cases — Trump has not been charged with any other crime pertaining to the payment to Daniels. Monday’s proceedings made it clearer than ever that prosecutors are arguing Trump was conspiring to influence the 2016 election, however. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo called Trump’s actions “election fraud, pure and simple.” Colangelo added that Trump and his cohorts were part of “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.”
• The Trump defense: No big deal. Trump’s team sought to rebut the prosecution with an argument that is, at its core, pretty simple: What’s the big deal? “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election — it’s called democracy,” said Todd Blanche, the former president’s lead attorney. The defense also sought to mock the idea that someone as parsimonious as Trump would try to conceal a payment of $130,000 to Daniels, made through his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, by paying $420,000 in installments to Cohen. The Trump team’s argument is that the payments, far from intended to mask a sinister conspiracy, were legitimate legal fees. Cohen is expected to take the stand against Trump, but the former president’s legal team sought to paint the friend-turned-enemy as a scoundrel motivated by animus toward the former president. Cohen previously pleaded guilty to offenses related to tax fraud and election finance law, as well as lying to Congress. This enabled Trump’s team to dismiss him as a “criminal” whose evidence should be disregarded.
• Trump faces potential peril if he takes the stand. One of the huge questions looming over the trial is whether Trump will take the stand in his own defense. Judge Juan Merchan, whom Trump has repeatedly targeted in speeches and on social media, made a ruling Monday that heightens the risks for the former president. Merchan had to decide what topics prosecutors could raise with Trump if he does indeed testify. The judge gave the prosecution considerable leeway. He decided they could ask about the massive civil fraud case in which Trump and his business were penalized to the tune of $454 million. The judge also greenlighted questions about the two defamation cases brought against Trump by the writer E. Jean Carroll. Carroll says Trump raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. In May 2023, a jury in a civil trial found Trump liable for sexual abuse of Carroll. An apparent Trump violation of a gag order in another, separate civil case can also be discussed.
• The trial is proceeding at pace. Early predictions that Trump’s trial could last six weeks or longer could be dashed if Merchan keeps things moving along swiftly. Opening arguments were only possible on Monday because, last week, jury selection was completed faster than many observers had expected. That process could easily have taken two weeks. Instead, the 12 jurors and six alternates were finalized in just one week.
• A frustrated Trump fires back. Reporters in the courtroom say Trump has appeared frustrated at times, listening to hostile arguments and unable to respond in his usual hypercombative way. At day’s end, however, he did try to make his case to the media. Describing himself as the “leading candidate” for the presidency, he insisted that the powers that be were trying to “take me off the trail for checks being paid to a lawyer.”

Trump accuses Michael Cohen of ‘lying’ despite gag order - Former President Trump on Monday claimed Michael Cohen is “lying,” following a day in court for his hush money trial, once again testing the gag order imposed in the case. “When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial. He got caught lying. Pure lying. And when are they going to look at that,” Trump said Monday at the Manhattan courthouse. His remarks followed a day of opening statements in his hush money trial in New York, where the former president is accused of illegally covering up a hush money payment Cohen made to conceal an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election.Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with reimbursements to Cohen after he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 to stay quiet about the alleged affair.Cohen, who is likely to be a witness in the case, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges and was sentenced to three years in prison.The charges were related to the payments made to Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement. Cohen claimed he did so at the direction of a “candidate for federal office.”Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money case, imposed a gag order on Trump last month that bars the former president from publicly attacking witnesses, jurors or others during the trial.In the order, Merchan said Trump is ordered to refrain from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in this investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”The gag order was expanded earlier this month to also limit Trump’s attacks on the family members of Merchan or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who helped lead the hush money investigation.It is not immediately clear if Trump’s remarks violate Merchan’s gag order. A hearing on the gag order will be held Tuesday, when Merchan is expected to rule on if the former president’s recent social media posts violate the order.Prosecutors asked Merchan last week to fine the former president $3,000 for violation of the gag order in three recent Truth Social posts.Merchan did not immediately rule on the prosecutors’ request filed April 15, but scheduled a hearing on the matter for Tuesday.The posts in question took aim at Cohen and Daniels, though Trump’s legal team has argued the posts do not violate the order. Attorney Todd Blanche argued last week Trump was “responding to salacious, repeated, vehement attacks by these witnesses.”

Romney: ‘You don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you’ Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) says no one is buying the story that former President Trump didn’t have a sexual relationship with porn actress Stormy Daniels, quipping to CNN, “You don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels a week and a half before the 2016 election to stay quiet about her alleged relationship with Trump. Daniels later described to Anderson Cooper and “60 Minutes” having sex with Trump in a hotel suite after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006. Trump later denied having an affair with Daniels, and his legal team threatened to sue her for violating a nondisclosure agreement. But Romney, a vocal Trump critic who was the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and announced last year that he would not seek reelection to the Senate, told CNN on Tuesday that he believes Daniels’s story. “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju outside the Capitol. “And so far as I know, you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” The affair and the hush money payment to Daniels is the centerpiece of the case that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) has brought against Trump, charging him with violating New York’s law against falsifying business records. Jurors heard testimony Tuesday from David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer who said he promised Trump while he was running for president that he would buy potentially harmful stories about the candidate in order to stop them from becoming public.

Pecker testimony reveals backroom deals that helped Trump win 2016 - — The sordid details of shady backroom dealings spilled out in open court Tuesday when ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker confessed his magazine used “checkbook journalism” to pay off sources with unsavory stories about Donald Trump. The longtime executive admitted to a judge and a jury that his job was to “catch and kill” bad press centered on Trump, including allegations of affairs and children born out of wedlock. As the Manhattan district attorney’s lead witness, Pecker’s testimony bolstered the theory at the heart of the state’s case — that Trump and his allies attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 election by burying bad news about Trump while elevating wild claims that were embarrassing to his political opponents. That alleged conspiracy underpins the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Trump faces in connection with one of the hush money deals. He’s pleaded not guilty to the charges. And there’s more to come. Pecker is again expected to take the stand Thursday when the trial will next be held. Pecker’s testimony Tuesday started with the story of his relationship with Trump, dating back to the late 1980s when they were first introduced at Mar-a-Lago, which he pinpointed as when their “great, mutually beneficial relationship” began. Early on, before Pecker acquired the National Enquirer, he pitched the then-New York business mogul on a magazine called “Trump Style,” an idea Trump apparently liked that was made a reality. From there, Trump would tip Pecker off about news from his show, “The Apprentice,” which Pecker’s magazine readers would “religiously” follow. Their relationship evolved after Trump announced his first presidential bid in 2015. Pecker began to see Trump “more frequently,” and they began to speak by phone every few weeks. The tabloid publisher’s communication with Trump’s then-personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, also sharply increased, growing from “once a month or twice a quarter” to “at minimum every week.” “And if there was an issue, it could be daily,” Pecker said. A pivotal moment came in August 2015, two months after Trump announced his candidacy, when Cohen called Pecker to tell him that “the boss” — a term he used for Trump — wanted to meet. Pecker met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower, where they asked him how he could “help the campaign,” he said. Pecker offered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about the candidate’s 2016 presidential opponents. He also agreed to serve as the campaign’s “eyes and ears.” The deal was of “mutual benefit,” he said. The agreement wasn’t formalized in writing — “It was just an agreement among friends,” Pecker said — but it soon took effect. He told his subordinates at American Media Inc., where he was CEO and which published the National Enquirer, to keep the deal a secret. “[I was] going to try to help the campaign, and to do that, I wanna keep this as quiet as possible,” Pecker said. In the lead up to the campaign, the National Enquirer ran a slew of unseemly and baseless stories about Trump’s opponents. Their headlines spanned a purported picture of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) father with President Kennedy’s assassin, to a supposed “love child” of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Many of the stories were directly planted by Cohen, who would send shady stories about Trump’s political adversaries depending on the strength of their debate performances. His tips would form the basis of the Enquirer’s articles, Pecker said. The tabloid publisher also kept anti-Trump stories from coming to light. Pecker testified that because Trump was running for public office and “well-known as the most eligible bachelor,” he expected that women from Trump’s past might try to sell their stories to magazines. But the first story he ever killed for Trump actually came from a Trump employee. After a tipster informed the Enquirer that Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin was claiming Trump fathered an illegitimate child with another building employee, Pecker said he “immediately” called Cohen, who said he would look into it. Even after determining Sajudin’s story was false, the Enquirer still chose to purchase rights to his story for $30,000 to ensure other media outlets weren’t tipped off — a rate far higher than offered for the average story, Pecker said.

The Trump trial turns tabloid – John F. Kennedy’s “secret son” and a sponge left in a patient’s brain have become evidence, of a sort, in the first criminal trial of an American president.Those were some of the subjects in an array of sensationalist headlines the National Enquirer published in 2016. And on Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors displayed them to the jury in splashy, all-caps font as they sought to show how the tabloid tried to help Donald Trump win the election that year.Their witness was David Pecker, the tabloid’s mustachioed former publisher, testifying for the second straight day. For three hours, he explained how he agreed to use the pages of the notorious tabloid, sold at supermarket checkout lanes across America, to promote positive stories about Trump and drag his opponents in the 2016 Republican primary. Crucially, Pecker also agreed to buy and bury stories that could harm Trump in his campaign.That “catch and kill” scheme is the foundation of the prosecution’s case, because their 34 felony charges against Trump may hinge on their ability to persuade jurors that Trump ordered the payment of hush money to illegally influence the 2016 election. “I would be your eyes and ears,” Pecker testified, recounting what he told Trump in a crucial 2015 Trump Tower meeting that was also attended by Trump’s fixer at the time, Michael Cohen.“Anything that I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,” Pecker said he told Trump.Prosecutors have described that agreement as the genesis of a “conspiracy” to deprive voters of important information.But the details, as Pecker recounted them under direct examination, are tawdry. He discussed Cohen’s escalating agitation after Playboy model Karen McDougal claimed to Pecker’s deputy that she had a yearlong affair with Trump. Pecker detailed the efforts of American Media Inc., the former parent company of the National Enquirer, to pay $30,000 to bury a rumor that Trump had fathered a love child with a housekeeper at his Trump Tower penthouse. Had the love-child rumor been true, it would have been the most lucrative story for the tabloid “since the death of Elvis Presley,” Pecker added. But, of course, he wouldn’t have published it until after the election.Pecker did publish some other wild tales in his bid to help Trump. One headline that prosecutors showed to jurors blared: “John F. Kennedy’s Secret Son Endorses Donald Trump.” Another knocked one of Trump’s opponents in the primary: “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!”Prosecutors haven’t even asked Pecker yet about the “catch and kill” deal at the heart of the case: the hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. They’re sure to turn to that subject on Thursday, when Pecker returns to the stand (after the trial takes its customary midweek break on Wednesday).Meanwhile, the presiding judge, Justice Juan Merchan, is still mulling a different source of sensationalist soundbites: Trump’s own statements about the case, which at times seem as though they were ripped straight from supermarket tabloids, too.Prosecutors say the former president has violated Merchan’s gag order 11 times this month by publicly criticizing potential witnesses and jurors. “Two sleaze bags,” Trump wrote in one Truth Social post, referring to Cohen and Daniels. “Has disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen been prosecuted for LYING?” he wrote in another. “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,” Trump claimed in a third. It’s been eight days since prosecutors first brought Trump’s alleged violations to Merchan’s attention (although the total of alleged violations keeps growing). On Tuesday morning, outside the presence of the jury, the judge held a 90-minute hearing on whether to hold Trump in contempt — an outcome that could carry small fines or, much less likely, jail time.

Trump calls for multiple judges to be removed ahead of gag order decision - Former President Trump called for multiple judges to be removed Wednesday, ahead of the gag order decision in his hush money case. Trump went after Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the New York hush money case, which was the former president’s first indictment. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection reimbursing his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. “We have a Rigged Judge, who is working for the Democrat Party and refuses to terminate this ‘case,’ which should have never been brought by Soft on Crime Alvin Bragg,” Trump said in a Truth Social post published early Wednesday morning. “Judge Merchan should immediately removed, and the Appellate Courts have to take over.” Trump also ripped into New York Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over a civil fraud caseagainst the former president, and Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Trump’s defamation trial, in which he was ordered to pay $83.3 million to columnist E. Jean Carroll, in the post. “That also applies to Corrupt Judge Engoron, who knew I did nothing wrong, and still fraudulently fined me $500 Million Dollars while having no knowledge of Valuation, Finance, or in any way what he was doing,” Trump said. “Same with Judge Kaplan, who allowed a woman, who I have never met (celebrity photo line does not count!), and know nothing about, to get a lawless judgment of $90 Million Dollars,” he continued. “New York Justice is in shambles, and only the Appellate Courts can save it. A Republican doesn’t stand a chance – This is not Justice…” Prosecutors working in the Manhattan district attorney’s office have argued the former president has violated Merchan’s gag order 10 times. The order prevents him from attacking prosecutors, court staff, witnesses and the judge’s family. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche has argued his client was responding to political attacks.

Echoing Their Client, Trump’s Lawyers Pursue an Absolutist Defense - The New York Times - Donald J. Trump is a thrice-married man accused of covering up a sex scandal with a porn star after the world heard him brag about grabbing women by their genitals. But when Mr. Trump’s lawyers introduced him to a jury at his Manhattan criminal trial this week, they dwelt on a different dimension: “He’s a husband. He’s a father. And he’s a person, just like you and just like me.” That half-hour opening statement encapsulated the former president’s influence over his lawyers and their strategy. It reflected specific input from Mr. Trump, people with knowledge of the matter said, and it echoed his absolutist approach to his first criminal trial. And while defendants often offer feedback to their lawyers, this particular hands-on client could hamstring them. Others might concede personal failings so their lawyers can focus solely on holes in the prosecution’s evidence — on television, it’s often a version of “My client might not be a nice guy, but he’s no criminal.” But that time-honored tactic is not available to a defendant who is also the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a man who despises weakness and is allergic to anything but praise from the people around him. So Mr. Trump’s legal strategy mirrors his political talking points as his lawyers portray the case as an unjust assault on the former president’s character. Since he was indicted in Manhattan, Mr. Trump has questioned the very notion that anything untoward occurred, deploying a mantra: “no crime.” His lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, followed that blueprint in his opening statement, asking jurors, “What on earth is a crime?” and sprinkling in other Trump-esque phrases, including that the former president had “built a very large, successful company.” People in Mr. Trump’s legal orbit have privately observed that the effort to humanize him might be a tough sell to a jury in New York, his hometown, where his presidency was wildly unpopular and his sexual dalliances were gossip-page staples. But as the trial grinds on in the weeks ahead, legal experts said, the defense team will need to walk a fine line to appease both of its audiences: 12 jurors and a singular defendant. “Trying the case to your client’s vanity, rather than to the jury, is a losing game,” said J. Bruce Maffeo, a former federal prosecutor. Despite their client’s whims and wishes, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have deployed some conventional tactics to poke holes in the prosecution’s core accusation — that he falsified records to conceal a hush-money payment to the porn star, Stormy Daniels. And the lawyers, known as skilled litigators, some former prosecutors themselves, appear to have scored points. Mr. Blanche, the lawyer who delivered the opening statement, urged the jury to “use common sense,” arguing that Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying the sort of back-office paperwork that a president would never bother touching. He also noted that the prosecution’s star witness is a felon and an “admitted liar.” And Mr. Blanche’s colleague, Emil Bove, grilled the prosecution’s first witness on Friday, pointing out a potential inconsistency in his story. Such traditional techniques can be effective without undercutting Mr. Trump’s self-image. Roland G. Riopelle, another former prosecutor, who spent three decades as a defense lawyer, noted that “part of being a lawyer and being in a service business is pleasing the client — and I’m sure this client is difficult to please.” Mr. Trump is known to be mercurial and prone to outbursts. In private, he has dressed down lawyers in several of his cases, even questioning their entire strategy just minutes before they were set to appear in court, people who have seen him in action say. And inside the courtroom at two recent civil trials, he badgered lawyers, directing them to object at inopportune moments, muttering grievances into their ears and twice storming away from the defense table. Once, Mr. Trump exhorted his lawyer, Alina Habba, to “get up” as he banged her arm with the back of his hand. Those cases ended in defeat. Judges have said outright that the former president’s courtroom conduct — and refusal to accept any responsibility — only hurt him. The judge in a civil fraud case brought against Mr. Trump and his company wrote that the “complete lack of contrition” from the defendants “borders on pathological.” Inside the criminal courthouse, Mr. Trump has been better behaved, and more subdued, save for one episode during jury selection that drew a rebuke from the judge. Mr. Blanche also appears to be resisting some of his client’s interjections; when Mr. Trump poked Mr. Blanche on the shoulder at the defense table, he shook his head and brushed off the former president. The pestering is unsurprising from a man who values control and is unaccustomed to sitting still. And Mr. Trump, whose litigious streak has thrust him in and out of courtrooms for decades, knows more about legal proceedings than the average defendant. But he is hardly a master of procedure, and this case presents a unique test to an armchair litigator: After years of filing and fighting lawsuits, it is his first criminal trial. With three other criminal cases against him mired in delay, it might be the only one he faces before Election Day, underscoring the stakes of the proceeding.

At Trump trial, Pecker says he killed story of affair even though it cost him (Reuters) - Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified on Friday at Donald Trump's criminal trial that he suppressed a story about an alleged affair to help Trump's 2016 presidential bid, even though it would have boosted sales of his tabloid. Testifying for a third day, Pecker, 72, agreed with a prosecutor who asked whether it would have been "National Enquirer gold" to publish the story of former Playboy model Karen McDougal's claim that she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. But Pecker said he opted not to run the story after paying McDougal for it, because it would have hurt the Republican Trump's chances of winning the election over Democrat Hillary Clinton. "You killed the story because it helped the candidate, Donald Trump?" prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked him. Pecker said yes. The exchange bolstered previous testimony in which Pecker said he worked with Trump's campaign to suppress allegations of adultery at a time when the then-presidential candidate was facing multiple accusations of sexual misbehavior. Pecker was the first witness in the case, which accuses Trump, 77, of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump has pleaded not guilty. Pecker testified his tabloid paid for the rights to two such stories he never published, a tabloid practice referred to as "catch and kill." Pecker also alerted Trump that Daniels was looking to sell her story of a sexual encounter with Trump. The defense argues the hush money payment was made to spare Trump's family embarrassment, not to protect his presidential campaign. Trump, a businessman whose first public office was the White House, denies an encounter took place. After Pecker's testimony, prosecutors called two more witnesses to boost their case. Rhona Graff, who worked as Trump's business assistant from 1987 to 2021, testified she once saw Daniels at Trump Tower before he ran for president. She said she heard Trump say he was interested in casting her on "The Apprentice," the reality TV show he hosted. She said the email addresses of Daniels and McDougal were stored in the computer systems of Trump's company. Trump shook her hand when she left the witness stand. Banker Gary Farro testified that Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, set up accounts with him shortly before the election for two shell companies, including one that was used to pay Daniels.

Trump trial second week concludes with testimony from former secretary and banker - Prosecutors called two new witnesses Friday afternoon in former President Donald Trump's New York criminal hush money trial. The first was Trump's longtime personal secretary Rhona Graff. Considered by many to be the most influential gatekeeper of the former president during his years at the Trump Organization, Graff said Friday that she no longer works for Trump but that her attorneys were being paid by the Trump Organization. Graff confirmed that Trump had saved contact information for two women at the heart of the hush money case, former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels, an adult film star. After Graff, prosecutors called a banker, Gary Farro, who was a senior managing director at First Republic Bank in 2016, when the hush money payment that is key to the charge against Trump was made. Farro described how former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen worked with him to get $130,000 into a First Republic bank account, money that Cohen later paid to Daniels through her attorney to buy her silence. Graff and Farro's testimonies came after defense attorneys spent the morning cross-examining former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. The cross came after three days during which Pecker gave damning testimony for the prosecution. Among the questions from Trump attorney Emil Bove to Pecker were whether it was standard practice for the National Enquirer, the tabloid magazine Pecker once published, to have relationships with outside sources like Trump and his then-attorney Michael Cohen. Pecker said it was. Pecker also seemed to confirm that the National Enquirer for years would often just recirculate old critical news stories, including hit pieces on former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, who ran for president in 2016 against Trump. Pecker later got pushed on his relationship with Cohen, in an apparent effort by Bove to suggest that the two were closer than previously known. Bove said Cohen wanted Pecker in 2016 to try to get him a job at a company called iPayments, and that he was also looking for help to get a position working with businessman Mark Cuban. Pecker confirmed that Cohen asked him to send paparazzi to a meeting between the Trump lawyer and Cuban. He did not say whether he actually sent the photographers. The hush-money agreement between Pecker's publishing company, American Media, and McDougal also came into focus during the Friday testimony. Bove tried to portray the financial agreement as largely focused on boosting McDougal's media career. Prosecutors and Pecker have described it all week as an attempt to bury McDougal's story about her alleged affair with Trump because the story could have hurt Trump's presidential campaign. Pecker admitted that American Media ran dozens of stories under McDougal's byline, and he told her that the value of the services portion of her agreement was worth "hundreds of thousands of dollars." Pecker's testimony was also the latest instance that shows how close the media executive was to Trump throughout the campaign and the early days of his presidency. Pecker touched on a meeting in August 2015 at Trump Tower in New York featuring Trump and Cohen. The testimony later shifted gears to another meeting on Jan. 6, 2017, that Pecker attended at Trump Tower, where he saw Reince Priebus and Mike Pompeo sitting with Trump. Priebus and Pompeo would later become White House chief of staff and secretary of state, respectively, in the Trump administration. Entering the courtroom Friday morning, Trump said he thought things went "very well" in the trial on Thursday. He also complained about how cold it is in the courtroom and what he claims are conflicts of interest by the judge. He called the proceedings "a rigged trial." Trump has repeatedly made those same allegations on social media. Pecker testified earlier this week about the "catch and kill" scheme he devised along with Trump and Cohen to buy the rights to negative tabloid stories about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and not publish them, essentially killing them. Pecker described how his publishing company paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman for a story he did not believe was true, and another $150,000 to McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair, which Pecker said he did believe was true. Pecker also explained how, after buying the first two stories and not being reimbursed by Trump for them, he was not willing to pay another $130,000 to buy the silence of Daniels, who alleged she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade before he ran for president. Pecker sat just feet away from Trump as he spoke, and the two men occasionally looked at each other. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to cover up reimbursement payments that he eventually made to Cohen after his lawyer and personal fixer paid the $130,000 to buy Daniels' silence. Pecker also testified that he suspected the company's payments for the doorman's silence and McDougal's story might constitute campaign finance violations, because they were essentially undeclared contributions to assist Trump's campaign for president. He consulted a campaign finance lawyer on the matter, but the publishing company AMI, the National Enquirer's parent company, later received an inquiry from the Federal Election Commission about the payments. The company ultimately admitted to a campaign finance violation and paid a fine in 2021 of more than $180,000 in a conciliation agreement with the FEC to settle the matter.

3 big takeaways from Day 8 of Trump's hush money trial - The first week of arguments in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial concluded Friday after jurors heard testimony from witnesses including Trump's longtime assistant, Ronna Graff, who shared details of her 34 years at the Trump Organization and said she had a "vague recollection" of spotting Stormy Daniels in Trump Tower. Earlier in the day, tabloid executive David Pecker concluded his four days on the witness stand, where he delved into his "catch-and-kill" arrangement with the former president. The final witness of the week was Gary Farro, a managing director who worked at the bank used by Michael Cohen to arrange payment to Stormy Daniels -- the transaction at the crux of the district attorney's case. Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker spent the better part of three days on the witness stand, expounding on the inner workings of his industry and detailing his "catch-and-kill" arrangement with Donald Trump and Michael Cohen. On Friday, defense counsel sought to normalize the actions Pecker took on Trump's behalf, calling them "standard operating procedure" and attempting to show that Pecker was more interested in selling magazines than protecting Trump.Prosecutors rebuffed those claims, eliciting testimony from Pecker to show that he misled his own attorneys about how he and Cohen conspired to "disguise" his company's contract with Karen McDougal, whose story of an alleged affair with Trump was caught and killed. "The actual purpose was to acquire the lifetime rights to the story so it wouldn't be published," Pecker testified. Emil Bove, an attorney for Trump, attempted to poke holes in Pecker's testimony, questioning the consistency of his remarks from the witness stand. But Pecker pushed back, saying, "I know what the truth is. I know exactly what was said." For 34 years, Rhona Graff had a front row seat to Donald Trump's ascendance from New York real estate mogul to television star to president of the United States. Her office in Trump Tower was situated "right next door" to his, and she maintained his contacts and calendar. In that role, she saw everything -- including, one day, Stormy Daniels. "I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area on the 26th floor" of Trump Tower, Graff testified. Graff testified how she was responsible for updating the company contact list -- which included entries for McDougal and Daniels. On cross-examination, defense attorney Susan Nicheles elicited responses from Graff suggesting that Daniels may have been in Trump Tower because she was being considered for a role on Trump's "Apprentice" TV show. Graff said she was testifying under subpoena and did not want to be on the stand. She also said the Trump Organization was paying for her attorneys.

Trump Lawyer Rages At "Waste Of Taxpayers' Dollars" As Judge Approves Trump's $175 Million Bond In New York Civil Case -Former President Donald Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James reached an agreement on April 22 regarding his $175 million bond in his New York civil case, imposing additional restrictions while resolving concerns about the funds’ security.The attorney general argued that Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC) lacked a “certificate of qualification,” and that President Trump still had access to the Charles Schwab account pledged to the insurer as collateral. Judge Arthur Engoron accepted the April 22 agreement, which gave KSIC exclusive control over the account. The state made the offer after Chris Kise, President Trump’s attorney, provided oral argument. The attorney general established five bond conditions this morning that allow former President Trump to use a non-New York company as a traditional license surety to cover the $175 million he was ordered to pay. KSIC is unauthorized by the New York Department of Financial Services, which bond experts see as a victory for Mr. Trump. “[The company] is probably charging Trump less and they accepted a pledge rather than actually receiving $175 million in cash,” said Bruce Lederman, a commercial and real estate litigator who has dealt in bonds for more than 40 years.All of Mr. Trump’s attorneys agreed to the settlement stipulations, which are expected to be memorialized by the end of the week.The five bond conditions include retaining the collateral in a Schwab account and restricting KSIC from trading or withdrawing any of the funds for anything other than payment of the bond.“The state was not looking to be vindictive,” Mr. Lederman told The Epoch Times.“They are looking simply to be guaranteed that they are getting paid if they win the appeal and they were sufficiently satisfied that if these five conditions were met, they would get paid.”Another settlement condition is that KSIC must provide the state with monthly statements and the pledge agreement cannot be amended without court approval

Trump brushed off warnings he’d be charged in documents case: Unsealed filings - Former President Trump brushed off warnings he could be charged for keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, promising to pardon one of his now co-defendants if charges were filed, according to new court documents. The details, laid out in unsealed documents as part of a broader legal battle in the Mar-a-Lago case, lay bare the candid advice from an unnamed witness as well as other details about the federal investigation. The witness, identified only as Person 16 in the documents, told Trump he should cooperate with federal investigators looking for classified documents, saying doing so could prevent him from being indicted. “Whatever you have, give everything back. Let them come here and get everything,” the witness said they told Trump. “Don’t give them a noble reason to indict you, because they will.” But Trump seemed unfazed, according to the witness, who said the ex-president gave a “weird ‘you’re the man’ type of response” to the warnings. The witness refused to have their conversation with the FBI recorded out of fear of reprisal. The summary of the interview describes them as someone with a security clearance and daily access to the Oval Office. The interview counters a defense from Trump that there was a standard order to declassify anything the former president had, with the witness saying they heard that for the first time only after Trump was facing charges. The witness said they urged Trump multiple times to return the records being sought then by the National Archives, telling Trump something to the effect of it “was not worth all that aggravation.” The witness also said they had urged Trump’s children to give him the same warning, noting that the former president “sometimes needed to be messaged the same thing from multiple people close to him.” “There are issues with the boxes. They belong to the government, talk to your dad and about giving them back” the witness said he had told Trump’s children. The witness also addressed conversations with Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, who has since been charged with aiding the former president in moving boxes as well as for lying to investigators. The witness said Nauta was told by those close to Trump that the documents case was politically motivated and “much ado about nothing” and that even if he faced charges for lying to the bureau, Trump would pardon him in 2024.

What happens if Trump gets convicted ahead of November? -The first-ever criminal trial of a current or former U.S. president is underway in Manhattan, renewing questions over what a potential conviction would mean for former President Trump as he campaigns for the White House.A conviction in the New York case, where Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, wouldn’t bar him from the presidential race, but it still could roil his 2024 bid and open up the possibility that this year’s GOP nominee is a convicted felon. “If he happens to be convicted on 34 counts, that takes its toll even on someone like Donald Trump, who seems to be that Teflon candidate,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and a mediator for the District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.Jury selection for the historic trial — the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to reach a jury — happened this week in Manhattan, where the court narrowed down hundreds of New Yorkers to 12 jurors and six alternates who will consider the former president’s fate.The case relates to the 2016 election, when Trump won his first term in office. Trump’s then-fixer, Michael Cohen, made a $130,000 payment during the 2016 cycle to porn actor Stormy Daniels, aimed at silencing her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump roughly a decade earlier. Trump, who denies the affair, reimbursed Cohen, and his company logged those as legal expenses. The Manhattan district attorney argues that was unlawful.Legally, the former president — who has clinched the delegates he needs for the Republican nomination — would still be able to run for federal office even if the jury decides to convict him in the hush money case, experts say. And politically, as Trump continues to cast his legal woes as politically motivated, the trial and ultimate verdict isn’t likely to change the minds of 2024 voters already firmly in his camp. Trump argues he’s done nothing wrong in this and his other cases.“He’s the only person in America who could probably be charged in four different cases and have his popularity among his base go up, because the base is already convinced that he’s affected, that he’s being targeted,” Saltzburg said.Still, a conviction would brand him a felon — and that could turn off some key voters, including independents and some law-and-order Republicans.“If he emerges from the trial a convicted felon … I don’t think that that’s going to play well with the independent voters, even though they may not be a huge population,” Saltzburg said. “People will hesitate, I think, before they vote for a convicted felon.”

Giuliani, Meadows charged in Arizona ‘fake elector’ indictment -An Arizona grand jury handed up felony charges against Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and other prominent Trump allies for allegedly attempting to prevent the lawful transfer of power from then-President Trump to Joe Biden. Seven Trump aides were charged alongside 11 pro-Trump Arizona Republicans who signed documents purporting to be the state’s valid electors in 2020. The former president himself is not charged but is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. Prosecutors accuse the 18 defendants of devising a scheme to raise false claims of election fraud to pressure Arizona election officials to overturn Biden’s narrow victory in the state. The indictment, which was dated Tuesday but became public on Wednesday, describes lawsuits filed, alleged messages to county and state officials and the signing of the “fake elector” documents in December 2020. Each of the 11 pro-Trump electors faces nine charges, including conspiracy, fraud and forgery counts. “In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment reads. “Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” it continued, referring to Trump. “This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.” Only the 11 alternate electors are identified by name, but descriptions contained within the charging documents make clear the other defendants include Giuliani, the former New York City mayor turned Trump attorney; Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff; Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump adviser; John Eastman, an attorney involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election; Christina Bobb, another Trump attorney who now works for the Republican National Committee; and Mike Roman, the director of Election Day operations for Trump’s 2020 campaign. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’s (D) office said their names will be made public after they have been served.

Lara Trump says RNC will have people ‘who can physically handle’ ballots on Election Day Republican National Committee (RNC) co-Chair Lara Trump said the national committee will have both poll watchers and people “who can physically handle ballots” on Election Day. “We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers — people standing in polling locations — but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former President Trump, told Eric Bolling in a Newsmax appearance Tuesday. The RNC and former President Trump’s campaign last week announced an “election integrity program” of more than 100,000 volunteers and attorneys “deployed across every battleground state.” “Whenever a ballot is being cast or counted, Republican poll watchers will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity,” the RNC said in a release. Poll watchers, who typically observe the ballot-counting process and report any issues to authorities or officials, can’t touch ballots or machinery. “So, there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations and the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away. So, that was lifted, and that gives us a great ability as we head into what I assume everyone understands is the most important election of our lifetime,” Lara Trump said.Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee for 2024, has long touted false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent and rigged against him. Lara Trump, who wasendorsed for the top RNC role by the former president, has said 2020 is “in the past” — but stressed earlier this month that the RNC is “leaving nothing to chance” this fall.“This election cycle, Republicans will beat Democrats at their own game by leveraging every legal tactic at our disposal based on the rules of each state,” RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “That includes ballot harvesting in states like California and Nevada and nominating Republican poll workers in states like Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”

Challenging the Duopoly: Jill Stein on Why She’s Running for US President as Green Party Candidate (video) As many Americans report here every day, the prospect of voting for President this fall is about as appetizing as warmed-over dog vomit. Nevertheless, who controls the houses of Congress is very important, so please plan to steel yourselves to cast a ballot.Stein is having even more of an uphill battle than she otherwise might due to a near-blackout on discussion of the Green Party’s anti-war, anti-AIPAC, anti-Democratic Party campaign. She is also blocked on X because she uses the word “genocide.”In the interview below, she argues why her odds are better than they appear. One thing that might make voting more appealing is lodging a proper protest vote for President. Jill Stein can serve as a way of registering support for traditional (as in true) left wing views. It’s also a way to combat censorship of anti-war, anti-Zionist positions. Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai support her strongly, and urge you to give her serious consideration.

Summer Lee of the 'Squad' beats back primary challenge - Democratic Rep. Summer Lee, the first member of the progressive “Squad” to face a primary challenger this cycle, successfully fended off her opponent in her Pittsburgh-based district on Tuesday. Although it was not the only factor in the race, the Israel-Hamas warundoubtedly hovered over the contest. Lee has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in its war with Hamas and was among the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire. She was seen as potentially vulnerable to a primary challenge when pro-Israel groups began to threaten heavy outside spending. But that spending never materialized against Lee — and she defeated Bhavini Patel, a local council member, in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District. After putting in millions of dollars opposing Lee in the midterms and vowing to drop $100 million targeting candidates the group views as anti-Israel this cycle, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee stayed out of the contest this time around. Such spending would have benefited Patel — whom Lee vastly outraised and outspent — although it would have only fueled the criticisms from Lee’s campaign that Republican donors were meddling in the race. (Some of AIPAC’s most prominent donors are Republicans, though notable Democrats also give to the group.)

RFK Jr.: ‘I’m gonna put the entire US budget on blockchain’ - Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wants to put the “U.S. budget on blockchain,” a ledger of transactions typically associated with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. “I’m going to put the entire U.S. budget on blockchain so that any American — every American can look at every budget item in the entire budget anytime they want 24 hours a day,” Kennedy said Sunday during a rally in Michigan. The public accounting of spending would theoretically allow more transparency and accountability into how the government spends taxpayer dollars, although getting every government transaction onto the blockchain would be a Herculean task. Federal spending is also controlled through legislation, which is available to the public, and federal departments are often audited by government watchdogs such as the Government Accountability Office and their own inspectors general. “We’re gonna have 300 million eyeballs on our budget, and if somebody is spending $16,000 for a toilet seat, everybody’s gonna know about it,” Kennedy said, appearing to reference a long history of scandals stemming from reports that the Pentagon paid $640 per toilet seat in the 1980s and $10,000 each for replacement toilet seat covers in 2018.Kennedy has embraced digital assets, accepting campaign donations in bitcoin and touting plans to back the U.S. dollar with bitcoin if he’s elected to the White House in November. But Kennedy has also publicly opposed plans for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which the Federal Reserve is currently “exploring,” as have many Republicans including former President Trump.While Republicans have rallied against the creation of CBDC, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank will not create one without Congress ordering it through legislation. The Independent firebrand has described himself as the only pro-cryptocurrency candidate running for president as he wages a longshot bid in a contest dominated by the rematch between Trump and President Biden.

Sen. Warren calls for increased safeguards in stablecoin legislation --Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is calling for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other members of Congress to incorporate anti-money-laundering and combating the financing of terrorism provisions into all future stablecoin legislation to assist the fight against illicit actors.The provisions, which draw from proposed rules first introduced last November in a letter sent by the Treasury to Congress following Hamas' attack on Israel, would support the creation of new sanctions similar to the agency's Correspondent Account or Payable-Through Account authorities in the traditional financial system to additionally target cryptocurrency exchanges and fintechs that transact with terrorist groups.Other modifications seek to clearly define the authority of the Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act over international entities with touchpoints in the U.S., while outlining a cryptocurrency category of financial institution under the BSA that would include crypto exchanges and virtual asset service providers."At some point, cryptocurrency proponents are going to have to make a hard choice about what is more important: expanding and democratizing the market by many, many scales by making it more secure and reliable, or keeping crypto as a murky underworld suitable only for tech nerds and extreme libertarians," said Evan Kohlmann, founder of New York-based crypto fraud intelligence firm Cloudburst Technologies and American terrorism consultant.Warren highlighted figures showing that Iran generated more than $186 million in fee revenuebetween 2015 and 2021 from validating cryptocurrency transactions, which involves reviewing the movement of assets across blockchain networks to confirm their legitimacy before the shifts are then recorded on chain. Validators can earn fees for this work.This, as well as Hamas' growing dependence on digital assets to fund its activities, were Warren's prime examples for why increased safeguards surrounding digital assets are essential for national security."Stablecoin legislation, which will grow the crypto market and opportunities for terrorist fundraising, must include the full suite of AML tools that Treasury requested in its November 2023 letter to Congress as necessary to effectively combat that threat," Warren said in her letter.

Bitcoin Halving: What Does it Mean? - Join us as seasoned crypto investor Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital and, dives deep into the future of Bitcoin, the halving and the crypto world with host Andrew Brill. In this episode, Scaramucci explains the Bitcoin halving phenomenon, predicts future market movements, and shares insider insights on building wealth through crypto investments. Whether you’re a crypto novice or a seasoned investor, this episode is packed with essential information to help you navigate the complex world of cryptocurrencies. Don't miss out on expert advice that could shape your financial future!

Bitcoin's Fees Spike To All-Time High After 4th Halving Block - Winds of change are in the air. Can you feel it? Bitcoin just underwent its 4th halving event last Friday, and buzz has eclipsed the ecosystem as transaction fees simultaneously shot up to record-high levels. The typical reward for a bitcoin block pre-halving is shown on top, around 7 BTC in total between the block subsidy and transaction fees. The total reward for halving block 840,000 was 40.7 BTC, more than $2.6 million at today's market price: Here's the thing: the fee spike has little to nothing to do with the halving itself. It has to do with a new token protocol that launched on top of Bitcoin at block height 840,000, called Runes. It uses Bitcoin's OP_RETURN data, which allows users to attach up to 80 bytes of extra data to a Bitcoin transaction output. Anybody can mint a rune by specifying a name, ID, symbol, quantity, and other data. Users can then sign with their private key and broadcast the transaction to the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin's block reward has two pieces:

• Block Subsidy — the newly minted bitcoin in each block. It is now set at 3.125 BTC/block, and is programmatically halved every 210,000 blocks.
• Fees — the transaction fees paid to miners for block space.

A massive influx of users minting Runes in block 840,000 and blocks over the subsequent 24 hours drove fees as a % of the total block reward to a record-high level of 74%. The activation of Runes also drove the longest unbroken period of blocks with transaction fees higher than their block subsidy. Mean transaction fees have since come down, from $250 to sub-$40, below their late-2017 averages. They have normalized back to 35% of the total block reward, in line with its historical trend for the last year. This is the first time that a major fee spike had nothing to do with people cashing out at a market top or bottom. We had a fee spike in late 2017 and early 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, once we passed previous all-time highs in 2024, and the Runes protocol launch. Note the size of the spike in fees as a % of the block subsidy across all of these events, and you'll see just how badly Runes clogged blocks: Transaction fees collected by bitcoin miners tripled the previous all-time high the day after the halving, on April 20th, coming in at over $78,000,000. Needless to say, bitcoin will not have a security budget problem once transaction fees overtake newly minted BTC in every block, and eventually after there is no new bitcoin left to be minted after ~2140. Contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to miners over a two-day period is excellent, the issue is just a function of why. Is miner profitability being improved thanks to the network's chief function, or is it being improved because of spam? Think about it this way: a local bakery can have its best revenue day ever if the circus comes to town, buys 20,000 croissants, and lights them all on fire. The bakery is more profitable than ever, but it isn't profitable while serving its chief function. People who want to use the bakery for its chief function, making food for people to buy and eat, are now out of luck because the bakery is at capacity.

U.S. Treasury's Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA) Holds The Key to Reviving Bitcoin (BTC) Bull Run - The past few weeks have been quite boring for crypto traders as bitcoin (BTC), the leading cryptocurrency by market value, has been primarily range-bound between $60,000 and $70,000. The broader uptrend, however, could soon resume as analysts expect next week’s quarterly refinancing announcement (QRA) from the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to offer relief to riskier assets. The announcement, detailing the three-month borrowing needs of the U.S. government, has become pivotal in the post-coronavirus world of record debt, elevated inflation and interest rates. The announcement also discloses the size and duration of the bond issuance, as well as the balance to be held in the Treasury General Account (TGA). The debt issuance plan impacts markets through the yield channel. Higher bond issuance or supply pushes down bond prices and lifts yields, the so-called risk-free rate, disincentivizing risk-taking in financial markets. Reduced issuance has the opposite effect. In its previous announcement dated January 29, the Treasury predicted net borrowing of $202 billion in net marketable debt in the second quarter with a TGA cash balance of $750 billion. That’s down significantly from the first quarter’s net borrowing of $760 billion. Financing needs are typically lower in the second quarter as tax payments fill government coffers. According to Saxo Bank, the upcoming QRA is likely to offer relief, with quarterly gross issuance set to decline from its peak of $7.2 trillion for the first time in two years. “Factoring in upcoming bills and coupon redemptions, and the latest Treasury financing estimates, the total gross issuance of U.S. Marketable Treasury securities is projected to decline for the first time since the second quarter of 2022,” Althea Spinozzi, head of fixed income strategy, said in a QRA preview. “Therefore, the big focus for markets shifts towards announcement concerning the Treasury General Account (TGA) level," Spinozzi added.

All About Rs 6,600 Crore Bitcoin Scam Linked To Probe Against Raj Kundra Raj Kundra, businessman and actor Shilpa Shetty's husband, has landed on the radar of the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to a Ponzi scheme. The probe agency has seized properties worth₹ 97.79 crore, which also includes a Mumbai flat registered in the name of Shilpa Shetty. Raj Kundra, though, is not the prime accused in the case. The case pertains to the masterminds launching an investment scheme called 'Gain Bitcoin' in 2017. They approached investors with a false promise of a 10 per cent a month return, but in the form of bitcoins. In a short span, they managed to raise ₹ 6,600 crore. The main accused, Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj, told investors that they would use the mount to mine bitcoins which would give instant and huge rewards. The first couple of months they paid profits to their initial investors from the money that came in from the recent ones. But they stopped when they could not get enough new investors on board. They bought bitcoins with the remaining money and hid them in obscure online wallets. The Enforcement Directorate launched the probe after multiple FIRs were filed by Maharashtra and Delhi Police. The probe revealed that Raj Kundra received 285 Bitcoins from the mastermind and promoter of the Gain Bitcoin Ponzi Scam, Amit Bhardwaj, for setting up a Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine, ED said. "Since the deal didn't materialise, Raj Kundra is still in possession and enjoyment of 285 Bitcoins which are presently valued at more than ₹ 150 crore," an ED official told news agency IANS. Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty have denied any involvement in the case and said that they are confident of being cleared after the probe. "On the face of it, there is no prima facie case made out against my clients Mr Raj Kundra and Mrs Shilpa Shetty Kundra. We have complete faith in the Honourable Judiciary," the couple's lawyer Prashant Patil said.

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon Calls Bitcoin a 'Fraud' and 'Ponzi Scheme' -- Bitcoin is a scam and fails as a currency, Jamie Dimon said. "If you mean crypto like bitcoin, I've always said it's a fraud," the JPMorgan CEO told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. "If they think they're a currency, there's no hope for it. It's a Ponzi scheme," he added. However, the billionaire banker did say tokens that serve a purpose may not be worthless. "If it's a crypto coin that can do something like a smart contract, that has value," he said. "There will be smart contracts, and blockchain works — to the extent crypto is accessing certain blockchain things, yeah, that might have some value." Dimon has trashed bitcoin repeatedly in recent years. He's compared it to smoking a cigarette, said it's "dangerous" to own, urged people not to buy it, and called on governments to ban it. The Wall Street heavyweight has also decried the most popular crypto as a "waste of time," a "hyped-up fraud," and a "pet rock." Moreover, he's bemoaned the anonymity it provides and the lack of regulation around its use, saying it enables crimes such as fraud, tax avoidance, money laundering, sex and drug trafficking, and terrorism financing. Dimon may be vehemently opposed to bitcoin, but that hasn't stopped it from hitting record highs — albeit with plenty of volatility on the way. The token's price soared from $10,000 in September 2020 to more than $65,000 in November 2021, then crashed to about $16,000 over the next year. However, it rebounded above $70,000 last month and now trades around the $63,000 mark, giving it a market value of $1.2 trillion.

Holding 10,000 Dogecoin Could Make You A Millionaire, Predicts Crypto Analyst - Since 2021, Dogecoin (DOGE) has consistently been one of the largest cryptocurrencies in the market. The token has attracted tens of billions in investment and is up more than 27,000% since its launch. While the price has fallen considerably since highs, the token has held its own and performed well in 2024. Some do not see the growth stopping anytime soon. According to some analysts, DOGE could reach — and even surpass — the $100 mark. The analysis, posted on TradingView, is titled "Dogecoin is just getting started" and shows complex charting patterns that could lead to a $100 DOGE. Specifically, the chart uses the Bitcoin halvings as a marker for the beginning of a repeating trend in which DOGE runs up in price after the halving, reaches new highs around 12 to 18 months after and then falls exponentially before gapping up at the start of the next halving to create new highs. Based on this pattern and applying it to the current cycle and price level, the analysis shows that the target price is $27 for the next all-time high (ATH). The pattern then shows that DOGE could reach $27 by October, before falling as low as $2.60 in 2025. The next halving is expected to occur in the first half of 2028. This could mark another period of price increases in which DOGE could reach new highs of over $100.

Crypto trader convicted in $110M Mango Markets fraud trial: Bloomberg - Crypto trader Avraham Eisenberg was convicted on Thursday in relation to trades he made in October 2022 to extract more than $100 million from Mango Markets, according to a report from Bloomberg. 28-year-old Eisenberg was charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and commodities manipulation. The jury found him guilty of all three counts. After closing arguments from the government and defense, the jury deliberated Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday before returning with their verdict. The trial lasted one week and took place just a few floors below where FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced last month. Eisenberg was arrested in Puerto Rico in December 2022. Prosecutors say he illegally made off with $110 million after manipulating Mango Market futures contracts and pumping the price of swaps by 1,000%. He then borrowed against the contracts and boarded a flight from Puerto Rico to Israel. The government says he was fleeing because he committed a crime, but Eisenberg’s defense team claims he was running after receiving numerous threats following his trades. “The more he pumped, the more he could steal,” government attorneys said Wednesday during their closing arguments. “It is clear as day the defendant knew” he was committing crimes, the prosecution added. The defense’s case focused on the structure of decentralized exchange Mango Markets, which, Eisenberg’s team says, allowed for the trades to take place. Eisenberg employed a “successful, legal trading strategy,” defense attorney Brian Klein told the jury Wednesday. His client was never asked to prove his identity, maintain collateral on the platform or complete a credit check, Klein said. In the government’s rebuttal, assistant US attorney Thomas Burnett said that the defense was trying to distract from the government’s claims. “The data and documents show he was borrowing. You should believe your own eyes,” he told the court.

Southern District of New York | Founders And CEO Of Cryptocurrency Mixing Service Arrested And Charged With Money Laundering And Unlicensed Money Transmitting Offenses | United States Department of Justice -Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill Are Charged with Operating Samourai Wallet, an Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business That Executed Over $2 Billion in Unlawful Transactions and Laundered Over $100 Million in Criminal ProceedsDamian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Thomas Fattorusso, the Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (“IRS-CI”); and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the unsealing of an Indictment charging KEONNE RODRIGUEZ, the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of Samourai Wallet (“Samourai”), and WILLIAM LONERGAN HILL, the Chief Technology Officer and also a co-founder of Samourai, with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. These charges arise from the defendants’ development, marketing, and operation of a cryptocurrency mixer that executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions and facilitated more than $100 million in money laundering transactions from illegal dark web markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market; a web-server intrusion; a spearphishing scheme; and schemes to defraud multiple decentralized finance protocols. RODRIGUEZ was arrested this morning and is expected to be presented today or tomorrow before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Western District of Pennsylvania. HILL was arrested this morning in Portugal based on the U.S. criminal charges. The United States will seek HILL’s extradition to stand trial in the United States. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman.In coordination with law enforcement authorities in Iceland, Samourai’s web servers and domain (https://samourai.io/) were seized. Additionally, a seizure warrant for Samourai’s mobile application was served on the Google Play Store. As a result, the application will no longer be available to be downloaded from the Google Play Store in the United States.

Warren Flags Crypto Ties to Child Sexual Abuse in Letter to U.S. DOJ, Homeland Security --Leading crypto critic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland what tools the federal government needs to crack down on the use of digital assets to perpetrate child sexual exploitation, according to a letter she sent to the top U.S. law-enforcement official.Warren and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) flagged cryptocurrencies as a significant tool supporting child sexual abuse materials in a letter the senators sent this week to Garland and Alejandro Mayorkas, the chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.Cryptocurrency has become "the payment of choice for perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation," the lawmakers noted, citing a February FinCEN Trend Analysis from transactions in 2020 and 2021 and a Chainalysis report from this past January. "Existing anti-money laundering rules and law enforcement methods face challenges in effectively detecting and preventing these crimes – and we seek to ensure that Congress and the administration are doing their part to address these challenges."The letter asked the agencies to detail the "additional tools and resources" they need to deal with the problem.The use of digital tokens to fund the abuse of children rose to prominence years ago, such as in the 2019 bust of the Welcome to Video pornography site run by a South Korean national and, a year later, when authorities pursued a Dutch national who ran a rape and child porn site on the darkweb and made $1.6 million in bitcoin (BTC).Crypto became a favorite form of payment due to perceptions that it offered anonymity for the transactions, though analytic tools and law-enforcement strategies have since cast some doubt on that. Much of the data on crypto use cited by the lawmakers is several years old. Still, the Chainalysis review earlier this year noted it as "a growing problem."

AI-generated child pornography threatens to overwhelm reporting system: Research - Child pornography generated by artificial intelligence (AI) could overwhelm an already inundated reporting system for online child sexual abuse material, a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory found. The CyberTipline, which is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), processes and shares reports of child sexual abuse material with relevant law enforcement for further investigation. Open-source generative AI models that can be retrained to produce the material “threaten to flood the CyberTipline and downstream law enforcement with millions of new images,” according to the report. “One million unique images reported due to the AI generation of [child sexual abuse material] would be unmanageable with NCMEC’s current technology and procedures,” the report said. “With the capability for individuals to use AI models to create [child sexual abuse material], there is concern that reports of such content—potentially indistinguishable from real photos of children—may divert law enforcement’s attention away from actual children in need of rescue,” it added. Several constraints already exist on the reporting system. Only about 5 percent to 8 percent of reports to the CyberTipline result in arrests in the U.S., according to Monday’s report. Online platforms, which are required by law to report child sexual abuse material to the CyberTipline, often fail to complete key sections in their reports. The NCMEC also struggles to implement technological improvements and maintain staff, who are often poached by industry trust and safety teams. The nonprofit, which was established by Congress in the 1980s, has also run into legal constraints since it has been deemed a governmental entity by the courts in recent years, the report noted. Fourth Amendment restrictions on warrantless searches now limit the NCMEC’s ability to view files that the platforms have not previously viewed, preventing it from vetting files and causing law enforcement to waste time investigating non-actionable reports.

Cryptocurrency scams on the rise . — It was a fight Angela Sloan didn’t expect. Sloan, a York County resident fell victim to a cryptocurrency scam after she invested in a digital platform. A few months ago Sloan found out she was the victim of a scam, all while she was battling cancer. "Here I was in the fight of my life and I was in the fight of my life security," Sloan said. "The fact I wasn’t asked for any personal information ... I let my guard down." What started as Facebook conversations about cryptocurrency eventually led Sloan to invest hundreds into the digital platform. What Sloan didn’t know was the platform she was trading on was fake. "What moved from the trading platform back into my account were counterfeit coins," Sloan recalls. "I didn’t even know there was such a thing as counterfeit coins." The value of the investment Sloan lost is now estimated to be nearly $2 million. Scams like the one Sloan fell victim to are getting more difficult to navigate as technology develops. A United Nations report says the growth of cryptocurrency exchanges, and even online gambling platforms, are becoming vessels for high crimes like money laundering.According to Forbes, even federal agencies are being duped by complex crypto scams.

Officers warn of cryptocurrency scam that has caused Coloradans to lose thousands — Denver police are sharing a scam pattern seen in Colorado involving cryptocurrency ATMs. According to the agency, scammers will call a victim and tell them they have an outstanding warrant and must pay a certain amount to clear their warrant. However, instead of asking for a wire transfer or for the victim to purchase and deliver gift cards or pre-paid debit cards — both methods Colorado law enforcement has seen scammers use to pry money out of victim’s wallets — these scammers ask for payment through a cryptocurrency ATM. Cryptocurrency ATMs are commonly found in supermarkets, liquor stores or smoke shops and are ways for cryptocurrency customers to connect to their digital wallets and process buy or sell transactions. Often, these transactions are in exchange for cash or funded through a debit card. According to the Denver Police Department, a recent example in Denver involved a victim who received a call from someone who presented themself as a Denver police officer. The scammer told the victim she needed to pay thousands of dollars to make bail, or she would be put in jail for up to 72 hours. To pay this, the scammer directed her to a nearby laundromat where she used the cryptocurrency option on the self-service banking kiosk to send the purported “bail” money. In this case, the victim sent the stated amount but was told she needed to send more, and that the first deposit was inaccurate. The scammer told the victim they would return her first deposit via a cashier’s check. According to the agency, she lost almost $14,000 to the scam.

Woman accused of $6B scam, China loophole for Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs: Asia Express ==A Chinese national is alleged to have scammed over 130,000 mainland China investors out of 43 billion Chinese yuan ($5.94 billion) and used Bitcoin to launder the proceeds.Yadi Zhang was apprehended by United Kingdom authorities and, during her appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on April 20, indicated through a translator that she intended to plead not guilty to two charges of criminal possession of cryptocurrency. She was remanded in custody.“There should be no rush to judgment in this case. Ms Zhang asserts that she is wholly innocent,” her lawyer, Roger Sahota of Berkeley Square Solicitors, told the Financial Times.Previously, her assistant, Wen Jian, a 42-year-old fast food worker in East London, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering. In 2018, London police seized over 61,000 Bitcoin, now worth $4.0 billion, after raiding the home where two women were living. Operating through the company “Blue Sky Grid,” Zhang allegedly orchestrated one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in mainland China, with over 130,000 victims. Local news reported at the time: “Blue Sky Grid was established in Tianjin in 2014. With slogans such as environmental protection development, smart elderly care and Bitcoin mining, the company uses zero-risk and high-interest rebates as bait, conducts product promotion meetings, develops brokers and courses and training, signs investment agreements with the public, and absorbs social funds.”When investors had earned “sufficient interest” and wanted to withdraw, however, things didn’t go well. In 2017, faced with an uptick in redemption requests, Zhang reportedly fled China, first purchasing a Myanmese passport in the name of “Nan Yin” and using the forged document to obtain a genuine St. Kitts and Nevis passport through the country’s citizenship-by-investment program. Zhang then used the Nevisian passport to flee to the U.K.

Crypto Ponzi Scam: Influencer Jay Mazini sentenced to 7 years in prison for swindling $8 million from Muslims The former Instagram influencer known as “ Jay Mazini " whoswindled millions of dollars from online followers and a network of Muslims during the pandemic was sentenced to seven years in prison on Wednesday, prosecutors said.Jebara Igbara, 28, of New Jersey, had pleaded guilty to fraud charges, admitting that he created a Ponzi scheme that involved cryptocurrency frauds netting around $8 million. Prosecutors say the money funded a decadent lifestyle that included luxury cars and a lot of gambling.Exploiting the economic chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, Igbara leveraged connections in the Muslim community to gather investments for his firm Hallal Capital LLC, saying it would earn returns on stocks, and the reselling of electronics and personal protective equipment.“Shamefully, he targeted his own religious community, taking advantage of their trust in him so he could spend and gamble their hard-earned money," said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement.As he networked with high-value investors locally, Igbara amplified his online persona, reaching around 1 million Instagram followers, prosecutors said.He built a following in part by filming cash giveaways, often handing stacks of money to fast food workers or everyday people checking out at Walmart. In at least one video, he handed out cash alongside rapper 50 Cent.Viewers got the impression he was so successful he could just give money away. And his online popularity earned him even more trust from fraud victims, prosecutors said.By 2020, he attracted the ire of online sleuths who openly accused him of fraud, and cheered when he was arrested in 2021 on kidnapping charges. He later admitted in another case to kidnapping a potential witness to his frauds.But many of his victims did turn to the FBI, according to court documents.At least four people told FBI agents they sent over $100,000 in Bitcoin, on a promise of a cash wire transfer, according to court documents. One victim reported being scammed out of 50 Bitcoin, with Igbara first faking $2.56 million in a wire transfer, and later explaining away why the transfers hadn’t arrived.Igbara addressed the people he ripped off ahead of his sentencing on Wednesday in a Brooklyn federal court.“He apologized profusely to his victims," lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman said following the sentencing Wednesday in Brooklyn.Igbara’s seven-year sentence for fraud will run concurrently with five-year prison sentencing for the kidnapping and includes time served since 2021, his lawyer said.As part of his sentence, Igbara is ordered to pay $10 million to his victims.

UnitedHealth says ‘substantial proportion’ of Americans’ information hit by cyberattack, confirms ransom payment - The cyberattack on Change Healthcare in February targeted the data of “a substantial proportion of people in America,” UnitedHealth Group (UHG) said this week, with the company confirming it paid a ransom in an effort to protect patient information.“Based on initial targeted data sampling to date, the company has found files containing protected health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII), which could cover a substantial proportion of people in America,” UHG said in an update on Monday regarding the attack on its subsidiary.“To date, the company has not seen evidence of exfiltration of materials such as doctors’ charts or full medical histories among the data.”Due to the scope of attack, UHG said it will likely take “several months” to identify and notify customers who were impacted. The company has launched a website where customers can get information and has set up call centers to offer “offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protections for two years” to affected individuals.It further shared that 22 screenshots allegedly from files taken from Change were posted for about a week on the dark web by a “malicious threat actor.” These files contained both protected health information and personally identifiable information.“We know this attack has caused concern and been disruptive for consumers and providers and we are committed to doing everything possible to help and provide support to anyone who may need it,” UHG CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement.Witty is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on May 1.A UHG spokesperson also confirmed to The Hill that a ransom payment had been made, saying, “A ransom was paid as part of the company’s commitment to do all it could to protect patient data from disclosure.”Change is one of the top insurance processing companies in the U.S. UHG’s ownership of Change, which the Justice Department tried to block, has reignited concerns over vertical integration and the risks involved in single companies commanding large swaths of the healthcare industry. The DOJ reportedly launched an antitrust investigation into UHG earlier this year.Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan commented on the Change cyberattack while speaking with reporters on Tuesday. “It’s fair to say we have seen ways in which consolidation and concentration of data can create more vulnerabilities, right. Because if there’s a hack, there’s more that could get exposed. And so we see some of those interconnections,” said Khan.

Two SEC lawyers resign after agency censured for abuse of power in crypto case Two Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers resigned after a federal judge sanctioned and sharply rebuked the Wall Street regulator for "gross abuse" of power in a crypto case. Michael Welsh and Joseph Watkins stepped down this month after an SEC official told them that they would be terminated if they stayed, according to people familiar with the matter. The pair were lead attorneys on a case against Digital Licensing, a crypto platform known as DEBT Box. The regulator's lawsuit against DEBT Box was marred by false statements and misrepresentations, as well as a lack of evidence, according to Robert Shelby, the federal district court judge in Salt Lake City who is hearing the case. Shelby took the extreme step of sanctioning the agency for abuse of power in March, and the SEC's head of enforcement has apologized for the missteps. Neither Welsh nor Watkins, who were based out of the regulator's Salt Lake City office, responded to phone calls requesting comment. The SEC declined to comment, as did a representative of the union representing agency staff. In July, the SEC accused DEBT Box and its executives of defrauding investors of at least $49 million. At the regulator's request, Shelby froze the company's assets and put the firm into receivership. But the asset freeze was reversed after Shelby found that the SEC may have made "materially false and misleading representations." The judge would go on to sanction the SEC for "gross abuse of the power entrusted to it by Congress" and ordered the agency to pay some of DEBT Box's attorney's fees.

“Gross Abuse Of Power" - Two SEC Lawyers Resign After Judge's Rebuke In Anti-Crypto Case -- In mid-March, a federal judge in Utah took the extremely unusual step of sanctioning the SEC, saying that the regulator abused its authority in a case against crypto platform Digital Licensing Inc., known as DEBT Box.The SEC’s conduct “constitutes a gross abuse of the power entrusted to it by Congress and substantially undermined the integrity of these proceedings and the judicial process,” Robert Shelby, a federal district court judge in Salt Lake City, said in an 80-page legal filing on Monday.He also ordered the agency to pay DEBT Box’s attorney’s fees and other costs related to the restraining order that the regulator had sought against the crypto platform.The SEC sued DEBT Box in July 2023, accusing the crypto platform of defrauding investors of at least $49 million. The same month, Shelby froze the company’s assets and put the company into receivership at the SEC’s request.However, the freeze was later reversed after the court found that the SEC may have made “materially false and misleading representations” in the process.A month later, and Bloomberg reports, according to people familiar with the matter, that two SEC lawyers - Michael Welsh and Joseph Watkins - stepped down this month after an SEC official told them that they would be terminated if they stayed.The pair were lead attorneys on a case against DEBT Box.The judge had faulted arguments from Welsh, the SEC’s lead trial attorney on the matter, and evidence provided by Watkins and his team.Watkins was the agency’s lead investigative attorney on the case.In one instance, Welsh told the judge that Draper, Utah-based DEBT Box was closing bank accounts and transferring assets overseas.The court found that this wasn’t happening.An SEC investigator later said that a miscommunication led to the error, and Welsh apologized to the court.SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal apologized to the court for his department’s conduct.He said that he had appointed new attorneys to the case and mandated training for the agency’s enforcement staff.Last week, attorneys for DEBT Box and other parties filed motions requesting that the SEC pay more than $1.5 million in fees and other costs incurred in the case.

SEC sued over Ethereum, crypto firm asks court to state token is not a security A bitter legal fight between the crypto industry and the Securities and Exchange Commission grew more intense on Thursday as Consensys, a major backer of the Ethereum blockchain, filed a lawsuit against the agency in Texas federal court. The complaint seeks to head off an impending SEC lawsuit against the company over features of its popular MetaMask wallet, but also asks the court to resolve one of the biggest legal uncertainties hanging over the crypto industry by stating that Ethereum’s digital token, Ether, is not a security.In its 34-page legal filing, Consensys uses dramatic language to argue that the SEC’s efforts to exert jurisdiction over Ethereum is both illegal and a threat to blockchain technology more broadly.“The SEC’s unlawful seizure of authority over ETH would spell disaster for the Ethereum network, and for Consensys. Every holder of ETH, including Consensys, would fear violating the securities laws if he or she were to transfer ETH on the network,” the complaint states. “This would bring use of the Ethereum blockchain in the United States to a halt, crippling one of the internet’s greatest innovations.”The new lawsuit comes as SEC Chairman Gary Gensler pursues an aggressive enforcement campaign against leading companies in the crypto sector, including Coinbase and Uniswap. In recent weeks, this campaign has involved a wave of subpoenas asking firms and developers for documents related to their dealings with the nonprofit Ethereum Foundation, which supports the blockchain’s development.Gensler’s tactics have angered many in the crypto industry who have complained the SEC has failed to provide clear rules or to create a regulatory model that accounts for the distinct features of blockchain technology. Gensler has disputed this, claiming existing securities laws are clear and sufficient, and that the crypto industry refuses to comply with them.The controversy over Ethereum has been especially heated since the SEC has signaled repeatedly in the past that the blockchain’s tokens, like Bitcoin, are not securities and therefore outside its jurisdiction. This includes a landmark 2018 speech where a senior official stated that Ethereum had become “sufficiently decentralized” as well as the agency’s decision last year to allow Ethereum futures trading—an implicit acknowledgement that Ether is a commodity. Meanwhile, video has surfaced of Gensler himself, in his role as a private citizen, telling hedge funds in 2018 that Ethereum is not a security.These precedents, however, have failed to dissuade Gensler, who appears to be using a recent feature of Ethereum, known as staking, as grounds for the recent legal campaign.

US SEC expected to deny spot ether ETFs next month, industry sources say (Reuters) - U.S. issuers and other firms expect the Securities and Exchange Commission to deny their applications to launch exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the price of ether after discouraging meetings with the agency in recent weeks, four people said. VanEck, ARK Investment Management and seven other issuers have filed with the SEC to list ETFs that would track the spot price of the world's second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin. The SEC must decide on VanEck's and ARK's filings, which are first in line, by May 23 and May 24 respectively. Recent meetings between issuers and the SEC have been one-sided and agency staff have not discussed substantive details about the proposed products, said four people who participated. That is in contrast to the intensive and detailed discussions between issuers and the agency in the weeks before its landmark approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in January, said the people who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The agency, which is led by crypto skeptic Gary Gensler, rejected spot bitcoin ETFs for more than a decade over market manipulation worries but was forced to approve them after Grayscale Investments won a court challenge. Issuers argued in the meetings that those ETFs and ether futures-based ETFs the SEC approved in October set a precedent for the spot ether products, and have tried to address potential regulatory concerns, the people said. SEC staff listened but did not spell out specific concerns or generally ask questions, suggesting the agency will deny the filings, they added. That would be a setback for the crypto industry which had hoped spot bitcoin ETFs would pave the way for other similar products and push cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. "It seems more likely that approval will be delayed until later in 2024, or longer," said Todd Rosenbluth, head of ETF analysis at data firm VettaFi, who is tracking the issue closely. "The regulatory picture still seems cloudy." Some issuers said they still plan to file additional disclosure paperwork with the SEC to keep the conversation going. A SEC spokesperson said it does not comment on individual filings. VanEck CEO Jan van Eck told CNBC this month the firm's application would "probably be rejected."

After 6-year hiatus, Stripe to start taking crypto payments, starting with USDC stablecoin | TechCrunch -Stripe, the fintech giant, continues to inch its way back into the cryptocurrency market. On Thursday the company announced that it would let customers accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with just one currency in particular, USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon. This will be the first time that Stripe has taken crypto payments since 2018, when it dropped support for Bitcoin due to it being too unstable. Stripe in 2022 tried its first reentry into the crypto market when it announced payouts (but not payments) in USDC, with Twitter as its marquee customer for the service. Thursday’s news has no customer names attached to it. Stripe co-founder and president John Collison is due to announce the news at the company’s Connect developer conference taking place this week in San Francisco. “Transaction settlements are no longer comparable with Christopher Nolan films for length,” he said earlier Thursday. “And transaction costs are no longer comparable with Christopher Nolan films for budget. Stripe is bringing back crypto payments — this time with stablecoins, which are a way better experience.” On Wednesday the company unveiled a long list of other launches, the most significant update being that Stripe, for the very first time, would let customers integrate competing payment providers with Stripe’s other financial services tooling. Thursday’s nod to expanding crypto support is also part of that bigger strategy to open up its walled garden. A brief timeline of Stripe’s dance with crypto underscores the tricky line that Stripe has walked over the years when it comes to cryptocurrency. True to its disruptive roots as a fintech, the company has wanted to be in the middle of the conversation around how blockchain-based technologies will affect financial services. But it runs the risk of subverting its bigger business and positioning as a stable and sensible financial powerhouse if it dabbles too deeply or for too long in periods of instability. The company processed $1 trillion in transactions last year, and it’s still growing; it is currently worth $65 billion on paper.

Custodia to appeal ruling in Fed lawsuit -Custodia Bank will appeal the district court decision handed down last month in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve.The Cheyenne-based digital asset bank submitted a notice to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday that it would challenge the decision reached by Judge Scott Skavdahl of the U.S. District Court in Wyoming on March 29.Custodia unsuccessfully sued the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, claiming that the entities wrongfully denied it an account with the central bank.Skavdahl ruled that, contrary to Custodia's argument, the reserve bank had discretion to deny the bank a so-called master account, which would have provided the state-chartered special purpose depository access to the federal payments system. He also dismissed a complaint that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors violated the Administrative Procedure Act through its involvement in the decision making process

Republic First fails; Fulton Bank acquires assets, branches Republic First Bank was shuttered by its state regulator and taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday, ending the Philadelphia-based bank's yearslong struggle to maintain adequate capital amid a bitter proxy war with investor groups.Fulton Bank in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will assume substantially all of Republic First's $6 billion of assets and $4 billion of deposits, according to a statement from the FDIC.Republic First's 32 branches, which are spread across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, will open for business on Monday morning — or Saturday morning for locations that normally operate on the weekend — as Fulton Bank branches, the agency announced. Republic First's parent company, Republic First Bancshares, has been dealing with internal strife since late 2021, when a group of activist investors sought to force a sale of the bank, citing concerns about decisions made by then-CEO Vernon Hill. Problems for the bank compounded just six weeks later when a second investor group called for Hill's ouster. The embattled executive eventually succumbed to the pressure — following the death of a key ally — and lost his chairmanship of the bank's board in May 2022. Hill ultimately resigned from his post as CEO two months later.The bank attempted to raise $125 million in additional capital from investors last year — an effort that launched on the same day that Silicon Valley Bank failed — but the deal fell apartonly months later.A subsequent capital infusion came together last fall amid reports that the FDIC was seeking a buyer for the troubled bank. But that capital raise also ultimately fell apart. Before it failed, the bank's regulatory capital was barely positive, and its equity was more than wiped out when counting its $425 million in "unrealized" losses from its bond investments, according to regulatory data.

A Utah bank is gone after 16 years of losses. Why did it survive so long? - One of the country's smallest banks has been bleeding money since 2008. It's finally been put out of its misery.The achingly slow demise of Liberty Bank in Salt Lake City is not technically a bank failure, a bankruptcy-like process where the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seizes an insolvent bank and sells off its assets.But experts say the bank was headed in that direction long before regulators forced its sale — and some question why the regulators let it live so long. Regulators just approved the bank's takeover by Cache Valley Banking Company, a Utah lender that's bought failed banks in the past. Liberty Bank will remain operational under its new holding company's umbrella."It's amazing that it stayed open as long as it had," said Bert Ely, a bank consultant who predicted the collapse of hundreds of savings & loan institutions, also known as thrifts, in the 1980s and 1990s.Liberty Bank started as a thrift in 1956, and unlike many peers it survived the S&L crisis. Its luck turned in 2008, when the family-run bank's real estate loans flopped, prompting losses that it never fully overcame. A series of regulatory crackdowns failed to turn the bank around. Past takeover attempts fell through. A pivot to offering loans for "tiny homes" didn't bear fruit. And recently, regulators flagged an "illegal credit practice" when reviewing the bank's track record with consumers.Few will notice Liberty's near-failure. It has just one branch and had 11 employees at the end of 2023. It has only $12.5 million of assets, making it one of the smallest of the country's roughly 4,600 banks. Silicon Valley Bank, whose collapse last year sparked a short-lived crisis, was more than 16,000 times bigger with $209 billion of assets.

The Fed Tallies Up a Big Threat to Financial Stability in the U.S.: “Runnables” at $21.3 Trillion – Pam and Russ Martens - Last Friday, the Federal Reserve released its semi-annual Financial Stability Report. In the prior five years, the spring edition of the Fed’s Financial Stability Report was released in May. This year, for reasons we can only guess at (nervously), the Fed released the spring edition early, in April.Given that last spring the second, third and fourth largest bank failures in U.S. history occurred, handing over $30 billion in losses to the federal Deposit Insurance Fund, and one of those banks (Silicon Valley Bank) experienced the fastest run on its deposits in U.S. history, one particular item in the new report that caught our attention was this:“Overall, estimated runnable money-like financial liabilities grew 8.8 percent to $21.3 trillion (75 percent of nominal GDP) over the past year, as a decline in uninsured deposits was more than offset by an increase in assets under management at MMFs [Money Market Mutual Funds]. As a share of GDP, runnable liabilities remained above their historical median.”To our way of thinking, “runnable” is not a good word to be associated with banking. Americans look to banks for safety and soundness and big, secure vaults. The idea that things can be “running” out of banks like farm animals stampeding through a hole in the fence is not a comforting image. Add $21.3 trillion to that image in a country that is turning bank bailouts into an art form and you realize quickly that the Fed’s Financial Stability Report is little more than an exercise in CYA. It is, after all, the Fed that keeps bailing out these megabanks on Wall Street while ignoring the screaming need to reform them.The graph the Fed posted below its statement on “runnables” is even more hair-raising. (See below.) It breaks down the components of the $21.3 trillion in runnables. In simple terms, “runnables” are liabilities that the financial institution must pay on demand by the customer.

FDIC says it can resolve GSIBs. For the market, seeing is believing | American Banker — Bank industry experts continue to doubt regulators' ability to resolve a failed global systemically important bank despite attempts by a major federal bank regulator to reassure markets of the agency's ability to do so. It's never been done, and experts say the federal government's unwillingness to resolve even a midsize bank in March 2023 without resorting to a bailout makes the odds of winding down one of the GSIB behemoths seem increasingly remote."I don't think most investors or bankers are convinced that any given resolution strategy will be used, let alone work," said Ian Katz, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners. "There aren't just questions but outright doubts. People aren't going to believe any given plan will work until they see it work."Roughly a year after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank — which led to significant market turmoil and ultimately a government backstop — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released a reportdetailing the FDIC's game plan to resolve the even larger and more complex GSIBs. FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said in accompanying remarks the agency had a plan to shutter a large global systemically important bank utilizing an untouched authority laid out in Dodd-Frank, while acknowledging that such a move would be unprecedented.Arthur Wilmarth, a law professor at George Washington University, noted regulators' decision to forgo such a process with SVB has reinforced industry skepticism about the federal government's willingness to let even midsize banks, let alone large, systemically important banks fail."Silicon Valley Bank provided the FDIC, the Fed and the Treasury Department with a perfect opportunity to show that the Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act provides an effective way to resolve the failure of a large bank holding company," said Wilmarth. "By deciding not to establish an [Orderly Liquidation Authority] receivership for SVB, federal regulators have created significant doubts whether Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act will ever be used to resolve a systemically important bank holding company — especially one that is much larger than SVB."The fact that SVB's failure caused regulators to invoke a systemic risk exception demonstrated to many observers that even banks that are not designated as systemically important could pose systemic risks were they to fail. Silicon Valley Bank — which had just over an estimated $200 billion of assets when it failed — was not nearly as large as some of the GSIBs, many of which hold trillions of dollars of assets. When it looked like SVB would fail, federal regulators — including the FDIC, Federal Reserve and Treasury jointly decided to invoke a systemic risk exception to protect SVB's uninsured depositors and stave off what they saw as the potential for contagion that could have toppled other large banks. Wilmarth notes this decision depleted the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund — rather than the Orderly Liquidation Fund — which the FDIC has a statutory requirement to recoup through a special fee on banks. That ultimately leaves taxpayers — who backstop the FDIC's DIF — on the hook.

BankThink: Bank regulation has not kept pace with global financial crime | American Banker -- Financial crime is a multitrillion-dollar international epidemic underpinning a global humanitarian crisis; a plague exploiting our most vulnerable citizens and an imminent threat to the safety of our communities. From the tens of millions of human trafficking victims that were exploited for nearly $350 billion in illicit profits last year to elderly consumers who were the victims in $80 billion worth of fraud losses — financial crime has a deep human impact. The scale of this crisis is driving an urgent need for the industry to align on actions that focus on protecting the financial system and society from the devastating impacts of scams, elder abuse, human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorist financing and other crimes.It's time to address today's overly complex — and ultimately costly — compliance landscape, and focus on effective, outcomes-based crime fighting.For decades, banks have been at the forefront of uncovering fraud and money laundering, and responsible for safeguarding the financial system from bad actors by providing reports of actionable intelligence to law enforcement. Yet, in parallel, regulatory obligations have continued to increase, growing more complicated and burdensome for banks' compliance programs.Today, banks face continuously changing regulations and expectations that are intended to protect the financial system from criminal activity, but instead have led to an overly complex regulatory regime that focuses on banks' adherence to compliance requirements, instead of their efforts to effectively combat financial crime.Meanwhile, the criminals that banks are trying to thwart are not bound by borders, privacy or regulation, allowing these bad actors to rapidly evolve their tactics to evade detection. By exploiting technology, such as artificial intelligence and real-time payment rails, criminals are executing fraud schemes on a massive scale with devastating impacts on businesses and consumers. Organized illicit networks are taking advantage of the silos across the financial system to move billions of dollars in criminal proceeds from fraud, human trafficking and drug trafficking, and to obfuscate the flow of funds for terrorist activity.

FDIC board debates, then withdraws asset manager control proposals — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board Thursday reviewed two dueling proposals from two of its board members that would revise how the agency oversees asset managers' control over banks.The pair of proposals — from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Chopra and FDIC board member Jonathan McKernan, respectively — share a common concern about the influence of asset managers over the banking sector, but take unique approaches to mitigating that concern.FDIC board member McKernan — who has been raising the issue of asset manager stakes in banks since at least the beginning of the year — described his proposal as an enhanced monitoring measure. Under his proposal, the FDIC board would instruct staff to annually evaluate whether major index fund managers — two or three of the largest, according to him — have control over a bank supervised by the FDIC. He noted it would also ensure these managers have followed any commitments or conditions related to regulatory assurances they've used to avoid being classified as controlling the bank. "I would describe this as cautious incrementalism, maybe even to the extreme," he said. "This plan doesn't require a change in law, just requires that we enforce existing law, [nor does it] consider, assess or affect any of the actively managed funds."In remarks unveiling his proposal, Director Chopra outlined a more sweeping proposal reflecting both McKernan's concerns but also dealing with a notable incident where companies linked to a recently convicted Sam Bankman-Fried leveraged control over Farmington State Bank to enable fraud while evading regulators. He detailed how in September 2020, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco approved a Maryland shell corporation's acquisition of the institution's parent company Farmington Bancorp, effectively giving the shell company control over the firm. Later, he noted Farmington State Bank joined the Federal Reserve System in June 2021, and the following year, Alameda Research purportedly acquired a "9.9%" stake in Farmington's bank holding company for $11.5 million, significantly inflating the bank's valuation despite its modest assets and equity. The Bankman-Fried affiliates were able to effectively control the rural state-chartered bank for speculative crypto asset activities while evading FDIC oversight.Under the Change in Bank Control Act, transactions at the holding company level are typically reviewed by both the Federal Reserve and the primary banking supervisor. However, Chopra pointed out that the FDIC had instituted rules exempting its review of such transactions at the holding company level years ago, deferring instead to the Federal Reserve's judgment. The CFPB director noted that Farmington also avoided engaging with the FDIC at all due to "charter shopping." By joining as a member bank of the Federal Reserve System, the firm avoided oversight by the FDIC.To address these kinds of issues, Chopra unveiled a draft notice of proposed rulemaking that would reinstate the agency's role in reviewing — along with the Federal Reserve Board — acquisitions of voting securities of a holding company with an FDIC supervised subsidiary under the Change in Bank Control Act."While the Federal Reserve Board took an enforcement action last year against Farmington to wind it down," Chopra said, "it is impossible to ignore the steps taken to evade FDIC oversight and we need to really have the courage to learn from this and act accordingly."

'Through the looking glass': Jamie Dimon sounds off on regulatory burden -- JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon on Tuesday lambasted the bank regulatory environment while praising the American economy during an appearance at the Economic Club of New York. The longtime leader of the country's biggest bank said that he wished for better relations between business leaders and regulators, but he also took aim at the proposed Basel III endgame rules, hindrances to mergers and bureaucratic burdens. And he remained coy about whether he has interest in a future government post. "I would love to have a more productive relationship with regulators, but I think it takes conversation," Dimon said. "I think we're kind of through the looking glass at this point." Dimon said that there are legitimate issues to fix in the banking system, but that not enough forethought is put into what regulators are trying to accomplish with various rules. He pointed to the migration of mortgages to nonbank lenders as an example, arguing that the trend has greatly diminished mortgages for low-income households. He also said that enhanced regulatory scrutiny has been making it harder for smaller banks. He contrasted their scarce resources with the $2 billion that JPMorgan spends annually on trading technology alone. Some of Dimon's qualms relate to what he sees as a dissonance between society's problems — such as the need for better education, upskilling the workforce and expanding access to homeownership — and the regulations being rolled out. "I would like to see more collaboration between government and business regulators," Dimon said. "I think we're missing a lot of opportunities to help educate kids and get jobs and lift up parts of society. If you look at the government in America, less and less do you have practitioners at the table. That's true for regulators, it's true for cabinet members, it's true for people inside the government."

Politicians should stop playing culture war politics with public funds | American Banker --This month the State of Texas government terminated an $8.5 billion investment managed by BlackRock, the world's largest asset management firm, over the company's continued use ofenvironmental, social and governance (ESG) standards. The investment came from the Texas Permanent School Fund, or PSF, which finances the state's public school systems. Accusing BlackRock's investment strategies of discriminating against Texan oil and gas companies, as well as violating their fiduciary duty, the State of Texas continues its yearslong battle with America's major financial institutions over ESG. The decision received an outpouring of support from Republican lawmakers and conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation and Club for Growth. Anti-ESG Texas politicians criticize BlackRock for politicizing investment strategies and neglecting its fiduciary duty. But, truthfully, they are the ones who prioritize performative virtue signaling and culture wars over the fiscal stability of Texas schools. By ignoring BlackRock's superior performance and the basic principles of free-market capitalism, the Texas government enables empty claims about ESG standards and extends political polarization into the private sector. Texas State Board of Education Chairman Aaron Kinsey ended the investment due to a 2021 state law targeting ESG-aligned business. The law prohibits state agencies from working with companies listed as refusing to manage investments for fossil fuel companies. However, as of 2022, BlackRock had reportedly invested $170 billion into American energy companies, including oil pipelines and power plants and strictly considers climate change impacts from a financial outlook. By all measures, BlackRock's ESG standards align with their fiduciary duty. The ongoing political backlash against various companies' ESG policies repeatedly fails to produce evidence of lowered financial returns. Rather, ESG-aligned asset managers like BlackRock continue beating expectations with their comprehensive risk mitigation strategy for evolving energy and environmental issues. Blackrock consistently outperforms expectations for the Texas PSF, surpassing decade-long benchmarks. The $8.5 billion divestment represents a large share of the $53 billion fund and faces intense scrutiny for jeopardizing critical school resources. Economic studies indicate the ESG boycott law will cost Texans hundreds of millions of dollars otherwise used to pay for teacher salaries or school resources. Kinsey's decision is the largest ESG-based divestment since Republican-led states began ending financial ties to BlackRock and other institutions with similar policies.

Republicans weigh rolling back anti-ESG law they passed - Lawmakers in Oklahoma are having second thoughts about anti-ESG legislation that limits which Wall Street banks local governments can do business with. A Republican-introduced bill that would narrow the scope of a state law that blacklisted financial firms for their restrictions on lending to oil, gas and coal companies, is making its way through Oklahoma's legislature. The proposal comes as concerns mount that the 2022 law is driving up municipalities' borrowing costs in the state. Three major municipal-bond underwriters — Bank of America, Wells Fargo. and JPMorgan Chase — are on a state list of companies considered to "boycott" the fossil fuels industry. A new study published Monday from the Oklahoma Rural Association — a group representing smaller communities — found that the state is incurring "avoidable" costs as a result of the law. According to Oklahoma's Energy Discrimination Elimination Act, state agencies and political subdivisions can't contract with a company unless it provides a written verification that it doesn't boycott energy companies. In the 17 months since the law went into effect it's cost the state and its governments $185 million in additional expenses, the study estimated. "This increase in borrowing costs imposes an unnecessary financial burden on Oklahoma municipalities, potentially forcing them to cut spending on important public services or infrastructure projects, or raise taxes," according to the report's author, Travis Roach, an economics professor at the University of Central Oklahoma. The estimate is conservative, he noted. The GOP stronghold is one of a handful of U.S. states, including Texas, that enacted legislation targeting environmental, social and governance corporate policies in recent years, driving upheaval in local muni markets. Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan are among the six companies considered energy boycotters by Oklahoma's Republican State Treasurer Todd Russ. Since the law went into effect, the firms have seen their public finance business in the state dry up.

If Supreme Court sides with CFPB, 'flurry' of litigation moves forward The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June on whether the funding structure for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional. If the court sides with payday lenders that sued the CFPB claiming its funding is unconstitutional, there would be massive fallout for other agencies, including the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. But many legal experts think the high court is more likely to rule in favor of the CFPB based onoral arguments heard in October when only one justice — Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor — questioned what remedy there should be if the agency's funding through the Federal Reserve System is found to be unconstitutional. Because the justices failed to devote much time to a remedy — and instead were highly skeptical that Congress improperly funded the bureau — many financial services industry lawyers are now gaming out what will happen to several rules and lawsuits that have been on hold pending the outcome of the case, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association of America."I expect the CFPB to win," said Alan Kaplinsky, senior counsel at Ballard Spahr, who expects the ruling has taken so long to decide due to split decisions by the justices. "There will be multiple opinions and dissenting opinions and probably concurring opinions, and it takes time to get all that done." Several lawyers who filed amicus briefs on behalf of CFSA, the lead trade group for payday lenders that sued the CFPB in 2018, do not think the payday lenders will win, Kaplinsky said. The general view has been that Solicitor General Elizabeth Prologar, representing the CFPB, presented a stronger case than her counterpart, Noel J. Francisco, a former solicitor general representing the payday groups, who struggled during oral arguments to convince a majority of the justices that Congress had inappropriately delegated its authority to the CFPB.

Despite exemption, small banks still feel effect of CFPB overdraft rule -Despite a carveout for smaller depositories, many community banks would still likely feel the sting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposed cap on overdraft fees.A recent survey by the financial services network provider IntraFi found that many banks would expect to make some kind of change in response to the rule change, should it come to pass, even if they were not required to."Forty-four percent are planning on making a change to compete with larger banks," said Paul Weinstein, a senior policy advisor at IntraFi. "So, it's going to have an impact."Proposed in January, the CFPB's rule would limit the amount banks can charge customers if they overdraw from their accounts to $14. The proposal is aimed at "large banks" and provides an exemption to banks and credit unions with fewer than $10 billion of assets.Yet, 58% executives who responded to IntraFi's most recent quarterly Bank Executive Business Outlook Survey — the vast majority of whom work for community banks — said they would have to do something in response to the change, just keep pace with the firms that are subject to it.The most common strategy was to lower fees to keep prices on par with their larger competitors, at 44%. Another 35% said they would alter their overdraft policy in some other way, while 27% said they would raise the cost associated with other services and 1% said the change would cause them to seek out a partnership or merger. Participants were allowed to select multiple options.

Synchrony hikes interest rates on credit cards to offset late-fee rule The credit card company Synchrony Financial is hiking interest rates it charges to its customers, part of a series of steps to mitigate the financial impact of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that would shrink its late-fee revenue. The outcome of the CFFB's effort to slash credit card late fees is extremely uncertain. The industry may win its court fight to get the regulation temporarily blocked ahead of its May 14 implementation date. In the longer run, lenders could ultimately succeed in permanently nullifying the rule. But with only three weeks left before the implementation date, Synchrony can't count on those outcomes. CEO Brian Doubles said Wednesday that the company is "executing our plan" after starting to roll out changes to its credit cards in December 2023. Synchrony, which offers credit cards in partnership with retailers and other brands, has been raising annual percentage rates and adding other fees to limit the rule's impact on the company's bottom line.

Mastercard CEO slams proposals to alter swipe fees -Congress and the Federal Reserve are considering several updates to their rules for card fees, drawing the ire of Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach. During Mastercard's earnings call on Thursday, Miebach weighed in on the Credit Card Competition Act, the potential lowering of the cap on swipe fees and an extension of existing debit network routing rules to include online payments. Miebach expressed his opposition to the regulations, calling the CCCA, for example, "a misguided proposal and misguided legislation." For the quarter ending September 30, Mastercard reported net revenue of $6.5 billion, up 11% from the prior year's $5.85 billion. Earnings per share were $3.39, up 24% from about $2.73 the prior year. Analysts from Zacks Investment Research projected EPS of $3.21 per share, and Mastercard's revenue report was in line with analysts projections. Mastercard also reported its value-added services increased by 17%, driven by the growth of the card network's fraud prevention, consulting and marketing services. The government's proposals mostly deal with how payment fees are levied, changing rules in a manner that theoretically would erode the major card networks' ability to set prices. The Credit Card Competition Act is sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who recently called for a vote by the end of the year. The CCCA would require credit card issuing banks with assets over $100 billion to offer two options to route transactions, with at least one of those options being a network that is not Visa or Mastercard — making the network routing rules for credit cards the same as they are for debit cards. The bill's supporters say it would generate competition that will lower card fees. In an American Banker op-ed, Doug Kantor, general counsel of the National Association of Convenience Stores, said: "The answer [to high fees] is to pass legislation that fixes the broken credit card market by requiring big banks and giant card networks to compete the same way small businesses do every day."

BankThink: The Fed's manipulation of debit card interchange fees must stop | American Banker --It has been over a decade since the Durbin Amendment was enacted as a part of the Dodd-Frank Act, but the Federal Reserve is continuing to manipulate Americans' debit cards. The central bank is proposing to adjust debit card interchange fees biennially without future input from stakeholders.In its current form, the proposal would lower the cap for interchange fees paid to a debit card holder's bank or credit union. The Fed is also arbitrarily proposing to evaluate and "update" the debit interchange fee cap every other year. This fundamentally flawed government-mandated price control is distortionary and will increase costs on other banking products for consumers. It gives the Fed nearly total control of the debit card market. It also augurs continual Fed control over credit cards if the Credit Card Competition Act is enacted. The Fed is dictating how banks and credit unions can earn revenue to fund their operations. The proposal arbitrarily and impractically excludes consideration of costs such as rewards programs, "card production and delivery costs, marketing costs and research and development costs." In 2022, the Government Accountability Office highlighted several studies that found the enactment of the Durbin Amendment and its implementation via Regulation II increased the cost of checking accounts. There was a significant reduction in the number of free checking accounts after Reg. II was implemented. In fact, the GAO pointed out that "before the implementation of Regulation II, about half of non-interest checking accounts offered by covered banks were free, compared with less than one-third after implementation."The Fed presumes that debit card transaction volumes will increase if interchange fees decline. The rule surmises that debit card transactions increased after the Durbin Amendment was enacted. It is true that over time consumers' use of debit cards has surged. According to the Fed's own data, in 2021, "[t]he number of non-prepaid debit card payments increased most of all card types." However, the rule fails to make observations about the pandemic, the growth of e-commerce and other factors that pertain to the growing popularity of debit cards. The proposed rule claims that merchants that see a reduction in interchange fees, "may pass on some or all these savings to consumers in the form of lower prices, foregone future price increases, or improved products or services." This has not been observed in practice. According to one academic study, "[o]utput prices tend to respond faster to input increases than to decreases" in the producer and consumer goods market. The title of the study says it all: "Prices Rise Faster Than They Fall."

Strangers, family defrauding seniors at an alarming rate: Fincen -- A bureau of the Department of the Treasury has released an analysis calling attention to a scourge of financial exploitation against elderly people after it received more than 155,000 suspicious activity reports on the matter over a one-year period.The analysis from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, follows up on a June 2022 advisory on what it calls elder financial exploitation, which is the illegal or improper use of the funds, property or assets of someone 60 years of age or older. In the year following that advisory, financial services companies (mainly banks, according to Fincen) reported $27 billion had been tied up in actual or attempted transfers relating to elder financial exploitation. Elder financial exploitation encompasses both elder scams, which is the transfer of money to a stranger or imposter for a promised, undelivered benefit; and elder theft, which is theft by an otherwise trusted person. According to Fincen's analysis, roughly 80% of exploitation reports involved scams, and the remaining 20% were theft cases. Andrea Gacki, the director of Fincen, thanked financial institutions for their help documenting the crimes as part of their compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act, and said that the institutions play a "critical role" in helping to identify and prevent suspected elder financial exploitation. "We are grateful for their vigilance and for the BSA information they have filed — and continue to file — in response to Fincen's 2022 advisory," Gacki said. Each year, 10% of people aged 65 or older experience some form of elder abuse — physical, psychological, financial, sexual or neglect and abandonment — according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Pertaining specifically to finances, elderly people can suffer exploitation by family, close friends, neighbors, trusted professionals or strangers. The Department of Justice provides a list of warning signs that indicate an elder may be suffering financial exploitation. Leading this list are sudden changes in bank accounts or banking practices, including an unexplained withdrawal of large sums of money by a person accompanying the elder. Other warning signs include abrupt changes in a will or other financial documents, unexplained sudden transfer of assets to a family member or someone outside the family and, critically, reports by elders of financial exploitation. According to Fincen's Friday report, the most frequent type of elder financial exploitation was account takeover, which as the name suggests refers to an unauthorized party gaining control over someone's account. Often perpetrators rely on unsophisticated means to steal funds, minimizing direct contact with financial institution employees. These methods include using previously compromised identity information (including passwords), guessing passwords or mass spam emails that elicit replies containing sensitive information.

Mortgage fraud attempts surge by more than one-third | --The number of fraud attempts on mortgage companies leaped by more than one-third between 2022 and 2023, with old methods becoming new again when it came to how the crimes were committed.Although companies are more vigilant of growing risk and focused on prevention, perpetrators are finding new ways to commit their crimes, leading to the higher number of threats, a new report from Lexisnexis Risk Solutions found. "New forms of fraud elevate the risk of loss for both financial institutions and their customers," said Kimberly Sutherland, vice president, fraud and identity strategy at Lexisnexis Risk Solutions, in a press release. "Our study shows that organizations are facing challenges in combating fraud from international transactions and scams, despite efforts to educate consumers."

BankThink: Turning Fannie Mae into a title insurer won't solve housing challenges | American Banker -- Title insurance, which protects homeowners' property rights to their homes, has become anunlikely scapegoat in the Biden administration's efforts to lower housing costs for American families.. Addressing housing affordability is important. Housing costs are certainly high, mostly due to lack of supply, inflation and interest rates. Regrettably, the administration is pursuing a plan that will place consumers, lenders and taxpayers at greater financial risk — instead of focusing on removing these true barriers to homeownership. Purchasing a home is the biggest financial investment of many Americans' lives, a culmination of a dream and an opportunity to put down roots and build wealth for generations to come. Title insurance protects that investment — from the upfront work that title professionals do to ensure clear property ownership to the protection they provide on any future claims to challenge that ownership. Title insurance has a significantly lower claims rate than other lines of insurance. That's a good thing. It's an important facet of the title insurance industry that the Biden administration fails to understand. The success of title companies protecting lenders and homeowners is not measured only in claims paid, but preventing claims in the first place. In other words, fewer claims mean title professionals have done their job at the onset of a home purchase to resolve title issues, reduce risk and provide coverage. Simply put, purchasing a home with a faulty title can wipe out both the homebuyer's and the lender's interest in the property. A 70% claims rate — standard for other insurance lines — on property rights would be catastrophic to our economy. There's nothing that can be done to prevent storm damage to a home. A check can help pay for repairs. A claim against a property could mean someone loses their home.

Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rate Decreased, Multi-family Decreased in March - Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rate Decreased, Multi-family Decreased in March. Brief excerpt: Single-family serious delinquencies decreased in March, and multi-family serious delinquencies decreased again after the huge surge in January. …Freddie Mac reports that the multi-family delinquencies rate declined to 0.34% in March, down from 0.35% in February, and down from 0.44% in January.This graph shows the Freddie multi-family serious delinquency rate since 2012. Rates were still high in 2012 following the housing bust and financial crisis. The multi-family rate increased following the pandemic and has increased recently as rent growth has slowed, vacancy rates have increased, and borrowing rates have increased sharply.The rate surged higher in January but declined in February and March - but is still at a high level. This will be something to watch as more apartments come on the market.There is much more in the article.

MBA Survey: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Holds Steady at 0.22% in March --From the MBA: Share of Mortgage Loans in Forbearance Remains at 0.22% in MarchThe Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) monthly Loan Monitoring Survey revealed that the total number of loans now in forbearance remained unchanged at 0.22% as of March 31, 2024. According to MBA’s estimate, 110,000 homeowners are in forbearance plans. Mortgage servicers have provided forbearance to approximately 8.1 million borrowers since March 2020. In March 2024, the share of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans in forbearance remained at 0.12%. Ginnie Mae loans in forbearance stayed at 0.40%, and the forbearance share for portfolio loans and private-label securities (PLS) increased 2 basis points to 0.31%. “For the past three months, the number of loans in forbearance has held steady,” . “The current labor market is showing resilience, minimizing the need for mortgage forbearance. However, life events and temporary hardships still happen, regardless of employment conditions, which may explain why we have reached a floor in the forbearance rate.” At the end of February, there were about 110,000 homeowners in forbearance plans.

MBA: Mortgage Applications Decreased in Weekly Survey From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey. Mortgage applications decreased 2.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 19, 2024. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2 percent compared with the previous week. The Refinance Index decreased 6 percent from the previous week and was 3 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 0.2 percent compared with the previous week and was 15 percent lower than the same week one year ago. “Mortgage rates continued to move higher last week, reaching their highest levels since late 2023 and putting a damper on applications activity. The 30-year fixed rate increased for the third consecutive week to 7.24 percent, the highest since November 2023,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist. “Purchase applications declined, as home buyers delayed their purchase decisions due to strained affordability and low supply. The ARM share of applications increased to 7.6 percent, consistent with the upward trend in rates, as buyers look to reduce their potential monthly payments.” ... The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or less) increased to 7.24 percent from 7.13 percent, with points increasing to 0.66 from 0.65 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans. The first graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index. According to the MBA, purchase activity is down 15% year-over-year unadjusted. Purchase application activity is up slightly from the lows in late October 2023, and below the lowest levels during the housing bust. The second graph shows the refinance index since 1990. With higher mortgage rates, the refinance index declined sharply in 2022, and has mostly flat lined since then.

PCE Measure of Shelter Slows Slightly to 5.8% YoY in March - Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in shelter from the CPI report and housing from the PCE report this morning, both through March 2024. CPI Shelter was up 5.6% year-over-year in March, down from 5.8% in February, and down from the cycle peak of 8.2% in March 2023. Housing (PCE) was up 5.8% YoY in March, down slightly from 5.8% in January, and down from the cycle peak of 8.3% in April 2023.Since asking rents are mostly flat year-over-year, these measures will continue to slow over the next year.The second graph shows PCE prices, Core PCE prices and Core ex-housing over the last 6 months (annualized): Key measures are slightly above the Fed's target on a 6-month basis.PCE Price Index: 2.5% (6 month annualized)Core PCE Prices: 3.0%Core minus Housing: 2.4%

Housing April 22nd Weekly Update: Inventory up 3.0% Week-over-week, Up 30.9% Year-over-year --Altos reports that active single-family inventory was up 3.0% week-over-week. Inventory bottomed in mid-February this year, as opposed to mid-April in 2023, and inventory is now up 8.5% from the February bottom.This inventory graph is courtesy of Altos Research. As of April 19th, inventory was at 543 thousand (7-day average), compared to 526 thousand the prior week. Inventory is still far below pre-pandemic levels. The second graph shows the seasonal pattern for active single-family inventory since 2015.The red line is for 2024. The black line is for 2019. Note that inventory is up almost double from the record low for the same week in 2022, but still well below normal levels.Inventory was up 30.9% compared to the same week in 2023 (last week it was up 29.6%), and down 37.2% compared to the same week in 2019 (last week it was down 38.2%). Back in June 2023, inventory was down almost 54% compared to 2019, so the gap to more normal inventory levels is slowly closing.Mike Simonsen discusses this data regularly on Youtube.

NAR: Pending Home Sales Increase 3.4% in March; Up 0.1% Year-over-year -From the NAR: Pending Home Sales Ascended 3.4% in March Pending home sales in March climbed 3.4%, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The Northeast, South and West posted monthly gains in transactions while the Midwest recorded a loss. Year-over-year, the Northeast and South registered decreases but the Midwest and West improved. The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI)* – a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings – increased to 78.2 in March. Year over year, pending transactions were up 0.1%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001....The Northeast PHSI increased 2.7% from last month to 65.1, a decline of 0.3% from March 2023. The Midwest index fell 4.3% to 78.1 in March, up 1.3% from one year ago.The South PHSI improved 7.0% to 95.8 in March, dropping 1.5% from the prior year. The West index rose 6.8% in March to 61.0, up 3.6% from March 2023.This was well above expectations. Note: Contract signings usually lead sales by about 45 to 60 days, so this would usually be for closed sales in April and May.

New Home Sales Increase to 693,000 Annual Rate in March -- The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 693 thousand. The previous three months were revised down combined. Sales of new single‐family houses in March 2024 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 693,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is 8.8 percent above the revised February rate of 637,000 and is 8.3 percent above the March 2023 estimate of 640,000. The first graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate. New home sales were close to pre-pandemic levels. The second graph shows New Home Months of Supply. The months of supply decreased in March to 8.3 months from 8.8 months in February. The all-time record high was 12.2 months of supply in January 2009. The all-time record low was 3.3 months in August 2020. This is well above the top of the normal range (about 4 to 6 months of supply is normal). "The seasonally‐adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of March was 477,000. This represents a supply of 8.3 months at the current sales rate." Sales were above expectations of 670 thousand SAAR, however, sales for the three previous months were revised down, combined. I'll have more later today.

New Home Sales Increase to 693,000 Annual Rate in March; Median New Home Price is Down 13% from the Peak Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: New Home Sales Increase to 693,000 Annual Rate in March Brief excerpt: The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 693 thousand. The previous three months were revised down combined. ... The next graph shows new home sales for 2023 and 2024 by month (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate). Sales in March 2024 were up 8.3% from March 2023. ... Note that the median and average price are down due to the mix of homes sold, not because of large price declines. Homebuilders are building less expensive homes to keep up volumes.

AIA: "Architecture firm billings retreat further in March"; Multi-family Billings Decline for 20th Consecutive Month -- Note: This index is a leading indicator primarily for new Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment. From the AIA: ABI March 2024: Architecture firm billings retreat further in March: Business conditions at architecture firms softened in March, as the AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score declined to 43.6 for the month. This marked the 14th consecutive month of declining billings at firms as inflation, supply chain issues, and other economic challenges continue to affect business. While inquiries into new projects have continued to grow during that period, it has been at a slower pace than in 2021 and 2022. More notably, the value of new signed design contracts was flat in March, which has generally been the trend for the last year and a half. This shows that clients are interested in starting new projects but remain hesitant to sign a contract and officially commit to those projects. However, most firms report that they still have strong project backlogs of 6.6 months, on average, so even with the ongoing soft patch, they still have work in the pipeline. Architecture firm billings also continued to decline at firms in all regions of the country, and at firms of all specializations in March, just like in February. Regionally, business conditions were softest at firms located in the Midwest and South. By specialization, billings declined faster at firms with a commercial/industrial specialization and remained weak at firms with a multifamily residential specialization.
• Northeast (46.0); Midwest (45.2); South (45.3); West (47.6)
• Sector index breakdown: commercial/industrial (42.9); institutional (49.9); multifamily residential (44.2)
This graph shows the Architecture Billings Index since 1996. The index was at 43.6 in March, down from 49.5 in February. Anything below 50 indicates a decrease in demand for architects' services.Note: This includes commercial and industrial facilities like hotels and office buildings, multi-family residential, as well as schools, hospitals and other institutions. This index usually leads CRE investment by 9 to 12 months, so this index suggests a slowdown in CRE investment in 2024. Note that multi-family billing turned down in August 2022 and has been negative for twenty consecutive months (with revisions). This suggests we will see a further weakness in multi-family starts.

How It’ll Take Years to Clean Up the Office CRE Mess, with Losses Spread Far and Wide - By Wolf Richter --Two Years Ago, in March 2022, Blackstone indicated that it would no longer make the interest payments on the fixed-rate interest-only $308 million mortgage on a Manhattan office tower it had bought in 2014 for $605 million. The 26-story tower at 1740 Broadway was built in 1950 as the iconic headquarter of Mutual Life Insurance Co., which vacated the building in 2006. The building was then renovated and leased.In 2015, Blackstone had obtained the $308 million mortgage from Deutsche Bank, which then securitized the mortgage into a single-asset commercial mortgage-backed security (BWAY 2015-1740) and then sold these CMBS to investors.So after the $308 million in cash it had obtained from the mortgage in 2015, Blackstone had $297 million left in the tower.By March 2022, the two largest tenants – L Brands, with 77% of the rentable space, and law firm Davis & Gilbert, with 15.8% – had moved out, and Blackstone had written off its investment. It stopped making payments on the loan, essentially returning the tower to the lenders (the special servicer of the CMBS). So this was part one of the saga, andwe discussed it at the time. Now there’s part two. So now, two years later, after a number of complications, including a change in special servicer, the CMBS, backed by the $308 million mortgage, was purchased for “just under $200 million” by private equity firm Yellowstone Real Estate, according to the Commercial Observer, citing sources familiar with the trade. Yellowstone Real Estate was previously owned by, uhm, Blackstone, the Commercial Observer said.The buyer of the mortgage gets the building, and so Yellowstone essentially acquired the tower for “just under $200 million,” that Blackstone had purchased for $605 million in 2014. So the price has collapsed by 67%.Investors in the CMBS got what would be left of the “just under $200 million,” minus fees, on the $308 million investment, so a loss of at least 35%, with lower-rated tranches of the CMBS getting wiped out, and with the top-rated tranches taking a smaller capital loss.Yellowstone is now considering a residential conversion of the 70-plus-year-old iconic building, according to the sources cited by the Commercial Observer. And that will be part three of the saga.So far, it took two years from Blackstone’s announcement that it would no longer service the loan to the loan getting sold, which is making way for a new beginning with a much lower cost base.If plans for a residential conversion materialize, it will trigger a long complex process from planning and permitting through construction and completion of the project, after which Manhattan will have another fancy residential building. And that would be a good thing. But in addition to the two years that the tower already sat nearly vacant and in default purgatory, before it finally changed hands, it will take several more years before it returns to life

Las Vegas March 2024: Visitor Traffic Up 0.4% YoY; Convention Traffic Down 37% -- From the Las Vegas Visitor Authority: March 2024 Las Vegas Visitor Statistics Benefitting from a mix of headliners and events from NASCAR to Madonna to several college basketball tournaments, Las Vegas visitation neared 3.7M in March 2024, up +0.4% YoY and nearly matching Mar 2019. With a tough comparison to record‐breaking convention attendance last March when the destination hosted the triennial CONEXPO‐CON/AGG tradeshow (142,000), convention attendance this March saw a ‐37.2% YoY decrease.Overall hotel occupancy reached 85.3% for the month (‐3.0 pts YoY). After breaking the record for both ADR and RevPAR last March, ADR and RevPAR saw a decrease of ‐16.4% and ‐19.2% respectively. The first graph shows visitor traffic for 2019 (Black), 2020 (dark blue), 2021 (light blue), 2022 (light orange), 2023 (dark orange) and 2024 (red).Visitor traffic was up 0.4% compared to last March. Visitor traffic was down 0.7% compared to the same month in 2019. The second graph shows convention traffic.Convention traffic was down 37.2% compared to March 2023, and down 12.3% compared to March 2019. Note: There was almost no convention traffic from April 2020 through May 2021.

Personal Income increased 0.5% in March; Spending increased 0.8% - The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for March: Personal income increased $122.0 billion (0.5 percent at a monthly rate) in March, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI), personal income less personal current taxes, increased $104.0 billion (0.5 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $160.9 billion (0.8 percent). The PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.3 percent. Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in March and real PCE increased 0.5 percent; goods increased 1.1 percent and services increased 0.2 percent. The March PCE price index increased 2.7 percent year-over-year (YoY), up from 2.5 percent YoY in February, and down from the recent peak of 7.0 percent in June 2022. The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 2.8 percent YoY, unchanged from 2.8 percent in February, and down from the recent peak of 5.4 percent in February 2022. The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through March 2024 (2017 dollars).. The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE. Personal income was at expectations, and PCE was well above expectations. Inflation was slightly above expectations.

TSA: Airline Travel about 5% Above 2019 Levels --The TSA is providing daily travel numbers. This data is as of April 21st. This data shows the 7-day average of daily total traveler throughput from the TSA (Blue). The red line is the percent of 2019 for the seven-day average. Air travel - as a percent of 2019 - is tracking at about 105% of pre-pandemic levels.

DOT: Vehicle Miles Driven Increased 1.4% year-over-year in February 2024 SA ---The Department of Transportation (DOT) reported:

• Travel on all roads and streets changed by +2.0% (+4.8 billion vehicle miles) for February 2024 as compared with February 2023. Travel for the month is estimated to be 240.2 billion vehicle miles.
• The seasonally adjusted vehicle miles traveled for February 2024 is 274.8 billion miles, a +1.4% ( +3.9 billion vehicle miles) change over February 2023. It also represents a 0.6% change (1.7 billion vehicle miles) compared with January 2024.
• Cumulative Travel for 2024 changed by +0.6% (+2.7 billion vehicle miles). The cumulative estimate for the year is 487.4 billion vehicle miles of travel. This graph shows the monthly total vehicle miles driven, seasonally adjusted.
Miles driven declined sharply in March 2020, and really collapsed in April 2020. Miles driven are now at pre-pandemic levels.

Groundbreaking ceremony held for high-speed train from Las Vegas to Los Angeles - Federal, transportation and union leaders gathered in Las Vegas Monday to drive spikes into a symbolic rail, marking the beginning of construction for a $12 billion high-speed rail line that will link Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area.“People have been dreaming of high-speed rail in America for decades,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Monday ahead of the groundbreaking ceremony. “It’s really happening this time.”Brightline West, the only private passenger rail company operating high-speed service in the country, is expected to build a 218-mile intercity passenger rail system between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., where it would connect with Los Angeles’s existing regional rail system.Buttigieg on Monday touted the Biden administration’s support for the project, noting it will bring thousands of union jobs and help local economies, The Associated Press reported.The project is estimated to cost about $12 billion — $3 billion of which the Biden administrationgreenlighted last year.The trip is expected to take slightly longer than two hours, with trains traveling as fast as 180 mph. This will be nearly twice as fast as driving.Advocates for the project hope the rail line will lessen transportation costs and reduce traffic and emissions. An estimated 16 million people drive from Las Vegas toward Southern California on Interstate 15 every year through the Mojave Desert.Brightline estimated the project could slash 3 million car trips every year. The company is hoping construction will be done in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Fired Google employees hold emergency press conference after 20 more workers are terminated -A group of the nine Google employees, who were fired and arrested on April 16 for protesting the company’s cloud services contract with the Israeli government, held an emergency press conference on Monday afternoon to review what happened during their sit-in and to reiterate their demands. The participating workers, some of whom spoke anonymously to avoid further retaliation on their rights, shared their views of the sit-in experience, the response of the company and the police and the nature of Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion cloud services and artificial intelligence contract between Google and the Israeli government and military. The livestreamed event began at 2:00 p.m. and was moderated by Zelda (they/them), a Google software engineer and one of four employees who were fired and arrested for participating in the sit-in at the company’s New York City offices. The World Socialist Web Site previously interviewed Zelda on Friday. In the press conference, Zelda revealed that the number of Google employees who have been fired in connection with the sit-in now exceeds 50. In addition to the 28 workers who were terminated last week, the company used the weekend to fire another 20 workers, some of whom had expressed support or had their picture taken with the protesters. Zelda explained the demands of the protest were “to drop Project Nimbus,” “to address the mental health and safety crisis of workers due to how their labor is being used without their consent” and “to end the culture of abuse, harassment and discrimination of Palestinian, Arab and Muslim workers.” Zelda added, “Google engaged in further indiscriminate retaliation against 20+ workers, including many non-participating bystanders. It is clear that Google is afraid, and they are trying to send a message that protesting for our labor conditions will not be tolerated within the company. This is illegal fear-mongering, and it will not stop us from continuing to organize and fight for the company to drop Project Nimbus.” The moderator also solidarized with the students, faculty and alumni on college campuses who are speaking out against the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine. Zelda said, “We condemn the repression faced by all who are unwavering in their commitment to end all complicity and profit from the genocide. It is not lost on us that the workplace and college campus are facing increased aggression from the police state for refusing to stay silent.” In all, there were 12 Google workers who spoke during the press conference. The workers described an environment of harassment and intimidation against those who have sought to speak out against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and expose the lies spread by Google management about the nature and purpose of the Project Nimbus contract. Hasan, who is also one of the nine workers who was fired and arrested, described the peaceful character of the 10-hour sit-in in New York City. He said, “I decided to participate in the sit-in because I could no longer ignore Google’s role in the AI-powered genocide in Palestine. I was comfortable with the risks because realistically whatever doors this sit-in closes are not doors I want opened. Google pays us enough to not think too much about what they are doing, but it wasn’t worth it, and I wanted to support my coworkers who have been harassed for standing up against this project.” Hasan explained that once the workers were notified that they had been put on administrative leave by Google management, they were blocked from using the restrooms in the building, and the police showed up shortly after that. Cheyne, a Google employee who was fired for the sit-in in Sunnyvale, California, spoke about the reasons for his participation. “Google workers have been advocating against Nimbus for years. We have tried escalating through the proper channels. I myself consulted my managers and followed their advice. I organized a group of more than 10 people in cloud to request a meeting with a senior executive to discuss our concerns. We never received a response, not even a canned, ‘Thank you for sharing your concerns.’ “Throughout my entire time organizing with this campaign I have consistently seen people afraid—afraid to speak out, afraid to lose their jobs, their health care, their citizenship. Protests are what people turn to when other means have failed. I knew what I was risking doing the sit-in. I made the choice to participate because Google refused to hear us and because I am fortunate enough to weather the risks that others couldn’t, which is why I am enraged that Google chose to retaliate against so many of our colleagues who did not participate in the sit-in—people who left immediately when asked; people who merely attended a peaceful rally; no meetings, no calls with HR, just instant retaliation. Our protest was peaceful, we sat in an office for nine hours.”

Airport security line cutters are target of first-in-the-nation California bill - — In this deep blue state where Republicans rarely back Democratic colleagues in the Capitol, one issue is overcoming the partisan divide: line skipping at airports. A pair of Orange County state senators from opposing parties — who frequently fly between their districts and Sacramento — are both boosting a first-in-the-nation proposal critics say would ban the expedited security screening company CLEAR from state airports. “The least you can expect when you have to go through the security line at the airport is that you don’t suffer the indignity of somebody pushing you out of the way to let the rich person pass you,” Josh Newman, the Democratic lawmaker who authored the bill, told POLITICO. His Republican colleague, Janet Nguyen, expressed similar sentiments about the bill. “I do understand the frustration stated in Senator Newman’s bill,” Nguyen, who sits on the transportation committee, said in an email to POLITICO. “It becomes a haves vs. have nots where those who can afford it jump in front of the rest of us. They even cut in front of TSA Pre-boarding pass travelers who have been screened by the TSA.” After publication, Nguyen’s staff reached out to say she hasn’t taken a formal position on the bill. Newman’s bill would require third-party vendors like CLEAR to get their own dedicated security lane or lose the ability to operate in California airports. Currently, CLEAR customers pay $189 a year to verify their identities at airport kiosks before being escorted past queued passengers to the front of TSA lines. Although there’s some bipartisan agreement on the bill, it still faces a tough path to passage because industry groups have lined up against the measure that’s set to come before the Senate transportation committee Tuesday. It’s the latest example of California’s business interests trying to quash what they see as government overreach in the state that’s banned everything from gas-powered vehicles to purple Peeps. But the lawmakers have a powerful labor ally in this fight — flight attendants and TSA agents who denounce CLEAR as a pay-to-play system. Six major airlines — Delta, United, Southwest, Alaska, JetBlue and Hawaiian — are fighting the bill, citing revenue loss from CLEAR that could result in an increase in airfare. CLEAR verified more than five million frequent fliers at those six airlines in California last year, “which means our most loyal customers find value in using CLEAR,” according to their letter. Delta, United and Alaska have partnerships with CLEAR. CLEAR, founded in 2010, provides identity verification services for expedited security screenings at more than 50 airports, as well as other venues like stadiums. It currently operates in nine California airports, charging travelers to cut the line at security once their identity is confirmed at a CLEAR pod. It is different from TSA PreCheck, which expedites the actual security checkpoint process. Newman stressed that he’s not trying to ban CLEAR and claims has no issue with concierge airport services. But he believes the CLEAR system is neither efficient nor secure. This isn’t the first time lawmakers have questioned CLEAR’s procedures. The company faced scrutiny last year from members of Congress after employees escorted passengers through TSA security checkpoints who were not enrolled in CLEAR and did not display identification, including a case where someone got through using a boarding pass they found in the trash.

PEN America cancels World Voices Festival, literary awards ceremony due to protests over its conduct on Gaza - On Friday, PEN America, the largest writers advocacy organization in the US, canceled its main annual event, the World Voices Festival, scheduled for next month in New York City and Los Angeles, because of scores of withdrawals by scheduled participants over PEN’s support for Israel and its murderous actions in Gaza.The boycott began last month when several prominent authors, including Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar and Lorrie Moore, withdrew from the festival. They issued a statement that read in part:We have concluded that attending this year’s festival would only serve to contribute to the illusion that PEN America is truly devoted to ‘the defence of free speech at the center of humanity’s struggle against repression’ … PEN America has declined to join other leading human rights organizations and United Nations officials in the demands for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire [in Gaza].PEN America, in its cowardly, dishonest statement calling off the festival, smeared the writers who boycotted its events, as well as other opponents of genocide.“We have … heard from dozens of writers who have had to endure harsh attacks on social media and heavy demands to distance themselves from PEN America. Many expressed genuine fear to us.” This is the universal response of university administrators and others: opponents of genocide are dangerous and threatening.PEN America complained that it has been unable to dupe writers and others into believing that the organization’s silence on the Gaza genocide, its refusal to condemn Israel’s targeted murder of journalists and assaults on writers, was something other than an endorsement.“We now face a campaign that casts our struggle to reflect complexity, uphold our identity as a big tent organization, and show fealty to our principles as a moral abdication,” lamented pro-Zionist CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel.While hundreds of Palestinians are being slaughtered every day in Gaza, how unfair to accuse a cultural organization that claims to defend free speech of moral abdication for its shameful acquiescence!Again, PEN here echoes the unconvincing and trite line of the authorities, from Biden to various Democratic and Republican governors and mayors, who are beating, pepper-spraying and tasing anti-genocide campus protesters and insisting that not only are the latter antisemitic (despite the fact that many are Jewish), but that they are disturbing public order. Last year, PEN brought disgrace on its own festival by supporting the demands of several Ukrainian nationalist writers, who insisted they would only participate if there were no Russian authors presenting in the festival at all. Earlier this week, PEN also cancelled its literary awards ceremony in New York after 28 of the 61 nominees refused to be considered for awards. Altogether, over 70 writers have publicly shunned the organization, an unprecedented number. In a statement, PEN America noted that nine of the ten nominees for the Jean Stein Book Award, given to an author for “a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact, which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence,” had withdrawn from consideration.

Study notes small decline in preschool developmental milestones during pandemic Today in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center published a study demonstrating small declines in developmental milestones in children 5 years old and younger during the pandemic in the United States.The authors of the study said the findings were reassuring for the short term but may mean behavioral and development pediatric care will be strained in the coming years."We found, overall, that while there are some changes, the sky is not falling, and that is a really important and reassuring finding," said Sarah Johnson, MD, PhD, the corresponding author of the study, in a press release from Johns Hopkins Medicine. Researchers used results from the Comprehensive Health and Decision Information System (CHADIS) and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 (ASQ-3), which assesses communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal-social skills. ASQ-3 scores from a total of 50,205 children were included in the final study.To capture the effects of the pandemic, researchers compared ASQ-3 results from 2018, 2020, and what they called an intrapandemic phase from 2020 through 2022. Caregivers completed developmental screening at US pediatric primary care practices participating in CHADIS.Pre- and post-pandemic, there were no significant changes in fine or gross motor skill domains. But the remaining three categories, communication, problem-solving, and personal-social skills, all saw a dip of single percentage points after 2020, suggesting that the pandemic’s interruptions to childcare, work, and school left a mark on young children.In total, mean score decreases were observed from 2018 to 2020-2022 in communication (−0.029; 95% confidence interval [CI], −0.041 to −0.017), problem-solving (−0.018; 95% CI, −0.030 to −0.006), and personal-social (−0.016; 95% CI, −0.028 to −0.004) areas.Even in young infants aged 0 to 12 months, 2% to 3% declines in these three areas were observed, but caregiver concerns about children’s behavior didn't rise in 2022 compared to 2018. Caregivers did, however, report worrying more about a child’s well-being during the pandemic years (rate ratio, 1.088; 95% CI, 1.036 to 1.143).

8th grader charged after investigators find ‘kill list’: Kent police (WJW) – An 8th grader from Kent City Schools was arrested on Thursday after investigators say they found the student’s “kill list.”The investigation began around 10 p.m. Wednesday night, when it was reported to the Kent Police Department that an 8th grade student was rumored to have a “kill list” with students’ names on it, investigators say.Officers then spoke with the student and his parents at their home. According to Kent police, the student denied having a list, saying that he had been joking and had no intentions of hurting anyone.Officers didn’t find any weapons, but the student was kept out of school Thursday as a precaution.The suspected “kill list” was later found through the investigation and police obtained a warrant for the student’s arrest, according to investigators.The student, 14, was taken into custody around 3 p.m. Thursday. He’s charged with making false alarms.“Kent PD takes any threat to our schools very seriously, and the safety of our students, staff and community will always be our highest priority,” the police department said in a press release.” The case remains under investigation by Kent police and Kent City Schools at this time.

Shaker Heights seniors pushing to remove Marcia Fudge as high school commencement speaker(WJW) – Some graduating seniors at Shaker Heights High School have started a petition to have the scheduled commencement speaker removed because of their connection to a murdered teacher in the district. Currently, former Congresswoman and retired Secretary of HUD Marcia Fudge is slated to deliver the address on June 5.Upon learning the news, senior Catherine Monroe said, “I was devastated and extremely disappointed.” Monroe respects Fudge’s accomplishments but says it’s difficult to separate that from the tragic murder of one of her favorite teachers, Ms. Alisha Fraser. “At first it was like, oh, she’s a great representative and done great things, but then I did more research and I was speechless,” said Monroe. In 2015, then-Rep. Marcia Fudge (D) wrote a letter to Cuyahoga County prosecutors on behalf of former Judge Lance Mason, asking for leniency and calling him a “good man” after he had pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges from 2014 that included punching and choking Fraser in front of their children. Then, after the couple divorced and Mason was given a second chance, he returned and murdered Fraser in 2018 at her home in Shaker Heights. “It definitely hit me hard because of how much of an impact she had on me. A great teacher, an amazing teacher,” said Monroe.Fraser taught 6th grade at Woodbury Elementary and was by all accounts beloved by all of her students, including Monroe.“She would go out of her way to help, like if they didn’t have something like a snack she’d run down to the cafeteria to get something,” Monroe said. After the murder, then-Rep. Fudge released a statement saying in part: “My heart breaks for Aisha Fraser. I pray for Aisha’s family, especially her children. My Support of Lance Mason was based on the person I knew for almost 30-years. The person who committed these crimes is not the Lance Mason familiar to me. They were horrific crimes, and I condemn them.”But even that statement hasn’t been sitting well with some Shaker Heights families.“She condemned his actions but never apologized for writing the letter which is a problem for us and very upsetting,” said Michael Monroe, Catherine’s father who also knew and respected Fraser.

Anger mounts as Ann Arbor Public School board prepares cuts -- At meetings across the district this past week, Ann Arbor Public School (AAPS) teachers, staff, students and community members spoke angrily against plans to lay off educators and other critical staff to address a $25 million budget shortfall. The fiscal crisis is primarily the product of the expiration of the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER), compounded by a drop in enrollment and a purported “accounting error.” Last week, the AAPS Board of Education issued pink slips to members of the Association of School and Community Service Administrators (ASCA) and voted at an April 11 meeting to carry out layoffs across the district. The overflow meeting was marked with opposition; over 150 people submitted public comments in protest. Typical of the meeting were the comments of one para-educator, who spoke through tears, “It’s unbelievable what they’re doing. Why are students and teachers collateral damage caused by a mistake they didn’t make?” The Board was clearly taken aback by the passionate defense of jobs and education. It began to verbally walk back from its demand for immediate layoffs among student-facing staff which it previously said were inevitable. Nonetheless, it submitted its “corrective budget plan” to the State of Michigan on April 15, pledging to achieve a 5 percent “fund balance.” The Board also hurriedly announced plans to sell an undisclosed building for “several millions.” Additionally, financial consultant Marious Demetrious said an unstated number of positions in the central office would be eliminated. He claimed this would save $4.5 million, while a possible $1 million could be netted from moving existing employees into state categorical or federal grants. An AAPS eleventh grade student told the WSWS, “I see a threat to all the amazing programs that schools have, and just not being able to allocate teachers to those programs. It really disadvantages a lot of students. I think it’s important to show that this issue really affects everybody, not just a certain district.” A librarian in the district was further angered by the ploy of asking for educators’ “input” on cuts. “They’re having these meetings to make it look like they want input from teachers and the community. But I don’t know that I trust how much that really matters to them. Their track record shows that we can’t trust them, so why would we trust them now?

Judge rejects part of Hilliard lawsuit alleging student coerced to ‘identify as opposite sex’ — A federal judge has rejected part of a lawsuit against Hilliard City Schools by parents seeking removal of LGBTQ+ badges and alleging the district could be “hiding [a] child’s gender dysphoria.” Nine Hilliard plaintiffs’ claim that the district would deceive a parent whose child is transgender if said parent is not a “safe person” because they are anti-LGBTQ+ was dismissed on Friday for “lack of standing,” the decision in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Ohio states. The parents failed to “plausibly allege” that they were or will be marked as “unsafe” by the district, or that they partake in activities that might earn them the “unsafe” label. “Plaintiffs offer no allegations that their children have told or will tell the school that they are, or may be, LGBTQ+,” wrote Judge Michael Watson. “Because [parents] have not plausibly alleged that their children have reported or will report such issues to school officials, they have likewise not plausibly alleged that they will suffer any injury as a result of what the district might do in response.” Friday’s decision follows the parents’ second amended complaint submitted on April 1, also alleging a student suffering from “severe emotional trauma” was pressured by teachers to adopt “a new name and identity as the opposite sex.” The parents say school officials “treated the child as the opposite sex” without parental consent after “diagnosing” the student with gender dysphoria. Watson ruled that this claim, which said the district deceived the student’s parents while the child’s “condition spiraled out of control” and led to a suicide attempt, can proceed through litigation. The parents argued, “The district’s acts were reckless because district officials are not qualified — and are specifically denied entitlement to — make diagnoses and treatment decisions for somebody else’s child.”

Tennessee lawmakers pass bill to allow teachers to be armed - — Protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed. The 68-28 vote in favor of the bill sent it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee for consideration. If he signs it into law, it would be the biggest expansion of gun access in the state since last year’s deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville. Members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared. Four House Republicans and all Democrats opposed the bill, which the state Senate previously passed. The measure would bar disclosing which employees are carrying guns beyond school administrators and police, including to students’ parents and even other teachers. A principal, school district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to let staff carry guns. The proposal presents a starkly different response to The Covenant School shooting than Lee proposed last year. Republican legislators quickly cast aside his push to keep guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. A veto by Lee appears unlikely, since it would be a first for him and lawmakers would only need a simple majority of each chamber’s members to override it. “What you’re doing is you’re creating a deterrent,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. “Across our state, we have had challenges as it relates to shootings.” Republicans rejected a series of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed, and the school district assuming civil liability for any injury, damage or death due to staff carrying guns. “My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said. “It is morally insane.”

Bill that could lead to prosecution of librarians advances in Alabama House --Lawmakers in Alabama passed legislation that could lead to the prosecution of librarians under the state’s obscenity law for providing minors with “harmful” materials. The bill, approved 72-28 by the Alabama House of Representatives, will now move to the state Senate. It removes existing exemptions for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law and is part of a larger nationwide effort to ban books. The bill will also expand the definition of sexual conduct prohibited at public K-12 schools or public libraries to include any “sexual or gender oriented conduct” that may expose minors to people who are dressed in “sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumers, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”If signed into law, any librarian who violates the law could face a misdemeanor.Anyone who believes public schools or libraries are violating the law can provide written notice of the violation to the organization’s leaders and the district attorney in the county.Opponents of the bill say that it will allow anyone who disagrees with a librarian’s choice of content to threaten criminal prosecution on a whim, The Associated Press reported.State Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said during debate that the process “will be manipulated and used to arrest librarians that you don’t like, and not because they did anything criminal,” the AP noted.State Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat from Birmingham, said he thinks the bill is easily going to be abused and is a violation of the First Amendment. Republican state Rep. David Faulker said “it’s only a misdemeanor” and librarians would only face punishment if they didn’t do anything about the content after knowing about it.

A day after mass arrests, Columbia students continue protest against Gaza genocide - Protests continued at Columbia University for a third straight day Friday following the mass arrest of 108 students in a failed attempt to silence opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Hundreds of students continued to rally on campus around the South Lawn, where a protest encampment was destroyed by New York Police Department (NYPD) riot cops the previous day. Protests also continued outside the university gates, which have been sealed off to all those not directly affiliated with the university. Not satisfied with the results of the mass arrest, Columbia continued its brutal crackdown. Students participating in the peaceful “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” have not only been arrested and charged with trespassing, but Columbia has also moved forward with suspending them from the university, banning them from campus, evicting them from campus housing and confiscating belongings left at the encampment. The police raid of the campus was set off after a McCarthyite congressional hearing Tuesday in which Columbia President Nemat Shafik eagerly demonstrated her willingness to censor and intimidate students and faculty opposing the genocide. Under the bogus guise of opposing antisemitism, the Democrats, together with fascistic Republicans, have sought to make an example of university presidents deemed insufficiently aggressive in snuffing out opposition to Washington’s war aims. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay were the first casualties after previous hearings in December. With the genocidal assault on Gaza now involving direct confrontation with Iran, merging with the escalating war against Russia in Ukraine and threats against China, the ruling class is further intensifying its assault on democratic rights. Campuses around the country are moving forward with banning protests, firing pro-Palestinian faculty and expelling students who continue to oppose the US-backed assault on Gaza. However, resistance to these police state measures is also spreading. On Friday, hundreds of Yale students began an occupation of Beinecke Plaza to demand the university divest all ties to Israeli weapon manufacturing. Students at Boston University participated in a walkout Friday in solidarity with Columbia students who were arrested. At Miami University (Ohio) and the University of North Carolina, students erected their own Gaza solidarity encampments.

Omar’s daughter says she was sprayed with ‘chemical weapons’ during protest The daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said she and others were sprayed with “chemical weapons” while protesting the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza at Columbia University.Isra Hirsi, 21, told MSNBC on Monday she believes there is “some hypocrisy” in the way the university is punishing the pro-Palestinian demonstrators, when compared to the treatment of counterprotesters. “This is 100 percent targeted,” Hirsi said. “Every single protest that we have, there’s a group of counterprotesters that bring all of their items, their flags and things like that. And they’re not seen as having unsanctioned protests, or really received the kind of disciplinary warnings that many of our fellow organizers receive just for being seen at these protests.” “And so there is definitely some hypocrisy here, especially you can kind of see it with the students that were … sprayed … with the chemical weapons,” she added. Hirsi was one of more than 100 students arrested last week for participating in the cease-fire protests at Columbia. She was also suspended from Barnard College, cutting off her access to food and housing. Columbia informed their students they would be suspended as well for their involvement. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Hirsi said she has been “basically evicted” after the suspension and is concerned about her food access as she relies on her dining plan for meals. The demonstrations have roiled Columbia University’s campus, stretching into the seventh day on Tuesday. Hundreds of students are occupying the center of campus, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel. Columbia officials last week authorized the New York Police Department (NYPD) to arrest students involved with the protesters, further inflaming tensions. While most of the protests were reported to be peaceful, concerns were raised over the safety of students and proliferation of antisemitic rhetoric. Some protest groups have rejected the characterizations of their demonstrations as antisemitic, pointing to the significant portion of demonstrators who are Jewish. Concerns were further driven by a reported call from one campus rabbi for Jewish students to return home “as soon as possible,” ahead of the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday night.Asked if she believes the protest encampment made other students uncomfortable, Hirsi said, “I think that the encampment was honestly one of the beautiful forms of solidarity.” “We would be singing songs, we had meals together, people prayed together,” she continued. “They held Shabbat yesterday, and it’s really just been a very community-centered space.”

Columbia University students defy crackdown, continue protest as solidarity actions spread to other campuses - Students and faculty at Columbia University are continuing to defy police state repression of pro-Palestinian protests, with students occupying the South Lawn for a fifth straight day on Sunday. Rather than silencing opposition to genocide, Columbia’s brutal attacks on democratic rights, orchestrated and backed by the Biden administration and both big business parties, have reenergized protests at campuses around the country. Support is also growing within the working class in New York City and around the country for students and workers arrested, expelled or fired for peacefully demonstrating against the US/Israeli war of extermination in Gaza. Amid a mass mobilization of New York City riot cops and surveillance teams, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, attacked pro-Palestinian protesters on Sunday, issuing a statement that ominously warned: We will not be a city of lawlessness, and those professional agitators seeking to seize the ongoing conflict in the Middle East to sow chaos and division will not succeed. President Joe Biden added his voice to the increasingly strident, bipartisan attack on the right to protest against war and mass murder, based on the lie that the campuses have become centers of antisemitism. Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s chief arms supplier and accomplice, issued a statement on Sunday saying: Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous — and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country. In their statements, Democratic officials falsely implied that pro-Palestinian demonstrators were instigating violence. Meanwhile, the Democrats joined with Republican fascists in the House of Representatives to pass a series of bipartisan bills providing $95 billion to continue funding the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, increase the supply of weapons for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and step up preparations for war against China. The statements of Biden and Adams make clear that the attack on students at Columbia is not simply a matter of overreach by a university administration, but part of a coordinated political attack aimed at criminalizing and suppressing opposition to the policies of US imperialism.

Columbia says classes will be hybrid until semester ends amid protests - Columbia University’s main campus will shift to hybrid learning for the reminder of the semester amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests, the school announced Monday. “Safety is our highest priority as we strive to support our students’ learning and all the required academic operations,” school Provost Angela V. Olinto and Chief Operating Officer Cas Holloway said in a statement.All classes, except arts- or practice-based programs, will remain hybrid — technology permitting — until the end of the spring semester.Faculty holding classes for which hybrid learning is not an option were asked to hold classes remotely or “provide other accommodations liberally to students who have requested support for virtual learning this week.”Columbia already moved Monday’s classes online following days of protests on the school’s campus. Demonstrators are calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, along with a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel, and they set up an encampment last week at the center of campus in protest.Columbia administrators, led by university President Minouche Shafik, authorized New York police last week to arrest students involved with the protests, prompting further tensions on campus. More than 100 students were arrested, including the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).While most of the protests were reported to be peaceful, concerns were raised over the safety of students and proliferation of antisemitic rhetoric. Some protest groups have rejected the characterizations of their demonstrations as antisemitic, pointing to the significant portion of demonstrators who are Jewish.Concerns were further driven by a reported call from one campus rabbi for Jewish students to return home “as soon as possible,” citing safety concerns ahead of the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.The campus Hillel director issued a statement asking the school and city to do more to protect Jewish students, but did not call for students to return home.Tensions have roiled other college campuses, including New York University, where the NYPD moved into a crowd of protestors and took multiple people into custody on Monday night.Earlier on Monday, police arrested dozens of protestors at Yale University after an encampment swelled to several hundred people calling for the school to divest from military weapons manufacturers.

Columbia faculty joins student protests despite bipartisan criticism | The Hill – Dozens of Columbia University and Barnard College faculty stood in solidarity with students protesting the Israel-Hamas war on Monday as a number of politicians criticized the demonstrations and inaction from university leadership.Hundreds of students have occupied Columbia’s campus for days, protesting the Biden administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, backing a cease-fire in the conflict and urging Congress to stop sending military aid to Israel. More than 100 protesters were arrested Friday on university leaders’ orders, but demonstrations have only expanded since, now branching out to other college campuses across the country.Video from the demonstration Monday shows a large crowd of faculty, some dressed in full academic regalia, mingling and chanting with students as part of the protest, which has now drawn into its sixth day.University president Minouche Shafik is facing calls to resign from 10 House Republicans from New York. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has also called for Shafik to take action or step down.In a Monday press conference at Columbia, a group of Jewish Democrats also denounced the protests and Columbia’s administration, labeling the demonstration as antisemitic.“We are all standing here today as Jewish members of Congress to make one thing clear, Jewish students are welcome here at Columbia. And while the leadership of Columbia may be failing you, we will not,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) said.“And Columbia University, if they don’t follow through, will pay the price,” he added.The criticism comes as concerns rise over the safety of the Jewish student body at Columbia, with some accusing protesters of harassment. Columbia moved classes online starting Monday, hours before the Jewish holiday of Passover begins.The Biden administration denounced the protests Sunday, calling them “blatantly antisemitic”and encouraging “calls for violence.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) made similar comments. A significant portion of the protesting students are Jewish, and protest groups have fought back against characterizations of their demonstrations as antisemitic. There have been no reports of violence from the protests.“We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us,” protest leaders wrote in a statement Sunday. “Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob.” “We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students,” they continued. “Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country.”

Johnson, GOP lawmakers heckled at combative Columbia event - Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Republican lawmakers were repeatedly and loudly heckled during a combative press conference at Columbia University on Wednesday as they gathered to condemn antisemitism and the pro-Palestine demonstrations taking place on campus. Johnson — joined by GOP Reps. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), Mike Lawler (N.Y.), Anthony D’Esposito (N.Y.) and Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.) — traveled to the Manhattan campus, where pro-Palestine protesters are refusing to leave their encampment until the school agrees to divest from Israel and companies associated with its war effort against Hamas. The GOP lawmakers were met with shouts of “boo” right when they walked to the podium for their press conference and were frequently drowned out by protesters as they denounced the treatment of Jewish students on campus and addressed student demonstrators directly. “The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies,” Johnson said. “They place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States here on this campus. A growing number of students have chanted in support of terrorists. They have chased down Jewish students. They have mocked them and reviled them. They have shouted racial epithets. They have screamed at those who bear the Star of David.” As Johnson spoke, chants of “we can’t hear you” broke out in the crowd. “Enjoy your free speech,” Johnson responded. At another point, D’Esposito told students that “If you are a protester on this campus, and you are proud that you’ve been endorsed by Hamas, you are part of the problem.” Lawler said “the fastest way for a cease-fire to occur is for Hamas to surrender and to release the hostages. And if you can’t call for that, you are a pathetic embarrassment to this institution and to students everywhere.” Both remarks were met with shouts from the crowd.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft says he’s ‘not comfortable’ donating to Columbia amid protests --New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft signaled Monday he will no longer donate to Columbia University as pro-Palestinian protests continue at his alma mater for the sixth day.In a statement issued through his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, Kraft said he is “deeply saddened at the virulent hate” at Columbia and other schools across the nation.“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” Kraft wrote. “It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately and will work to earn back the respect and trust of many of us who have lost faith in the institution.” Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have lasted six days at Columbia University, where more than 100 student protesters have been arrested and charged with trespassing. The protesters are calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, along with a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel.Columbia leadership authorized the New York Police Department to arrest students involved in the protests and informed students they would also be suspended from school.The arrests appear to have done little to quell the protests, with demonstrations expanding in recent days in the wake of opposition. Similar protests also broke out at other college campuses in recent days. Concerns were raised over the safety of Jewish students at Columbia, prompting the university to move classes online starting Monday. The announcement came hours before the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.An uptick in antisemitism has been reported in recent months following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, though a significant portion of the protesting students are Jewish. Several protest groups have pushed back against characterizations of their demonstrations as antisemitic. Kraft, who was raised in Brookline, Mass., in an observant Orthodox Jewish family, said he hopes The Kraft Center at Columbia can serve as “source of security and safety” for all Jewish students and faculty on campus.

Netanyahu condemns ‘antisemitic mobs’ on US college campuses --Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday denounced the pro-Palestinian protests roiling college campuses across the U.S., arguing they are “antisemitic mobs” targeting Jewish students and faculties.“So what’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s,” Netanyahu said during a Tuesday video address.Protests calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war have broken out at several college campuses across the U.S. in recent days, prompting arrests, suspensions of a number of students and heavy police presence. Most of the protests have been reported to be peaceful, but concerns have been raised over the safety of students and proliferation of antisemitic rhetoric. While the U.S. saw an uptick in antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, some protest groups have rejected the characterizations of their recent demonstrations as antisemitic.“We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us,” protest leaders wrote in a statement Sunday. “Our members have been misidentified by a politically motivated mob.” “We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students,” they continued. “Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues who represent the full diversity of our country.”The protest groups have pointed to the sizable number of protesters who are Jewish, with a large group on Monday holding a Passover Seder from the Columbia University protest camp.Netanyahu on Tuesday claimed the world is seeing an “exponential rise” in antisemitism in America and throughout Western societies and called on school administrators to take greater action.“It’s unconscionable, it has to be stopped, it has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally,” he said. “But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful.”“We’ve seen in history that antisemitic attacks were always preceded by vilification and slander lies that were cast against the Jewish people that are unbelievable, yet people believed,” he added later. “And what is important now if for all of us, all of us who are interested and cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and to say enough is enough.”

Biden launches police-state crackdown at US universities -- The developments over the past week mark a political turning point. The Biden administration, in alliance with the fascist-led Republican Party, has moved to criminalize political opposition to the Gaza genocide, currently centered on campuses, through a massive police state mobilization. Demonstrations continue to spread on college campuses throughout the United States in response to the escalating Gaza genocide, which is being funded, armed and politically enabled by the Biden administration. Asked by a reporter on Monday, “What’s your message to the protesters?”, President Joe Biden replied, “I condemn the antisemitic protests.” The charge of “antisemitism” is Biden’s “Big Lie.” It has no basis in reality. His remark Monday followed a statement Sunday in which he denounced the “reprehensible and dangerous” antisemitism, which has “absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.” By sheer repetition, the Biden administration, along with the entire political establishment and the media, hope to bludgeon people into accepting that protests over the Gaza genocide are animated by antisemitism. This slander is made all the more absurd by the fact that many participants in the demonstrations, and a large number of those arrested, are Jewish, and organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have played a leading role in the protests. On Tuesday evening, police arrested over 300 members of JVP who were participating in a Passover Seder near the house of Senator Chuck Schumer in Brooklyn. The Jewish holiday commemorates the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. Protesters wore shirts proclaiming, “Not in our name,” and “Jews say cease fire now.” Across the country, police stormed college campuses, carrying out hundreds of arrests. At New York University, cops clad in riot gear arrested over 100 students and faculty on Monday night, beating protesters and using pepper spray. At Yale University, 47 students were arrested Monday. At Cal Poly Humboldt, riot police stormed into a university building and arrested students. Nine students were arrested Tuesday at the University of Minnesota. On Tuesday night, student leaders at Columbia said university administrators had threatened to call in the National Guard to suppress the protest, raising the prospect of a repeat of the Kent State massacre of May 4, 1970. In that incident, four Ohio college students were killed by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War. Biden is carrying out his crackdown in alliance with, and at the instigation of, America’s leading fascists and antisemites, such as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley. On Tuesday, Hawley and Cotton were joined by other leading Senate Republicans, including Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley, in demanding that Biden go even further. The senators’ letter welcomes Biden’s statement condemning “antisemitism,” but calls on the administration to carry out criminal prosecutions and deportations of participants in the demonstrations.

Harvard latest school to see pro-Palestinian encampments -Harvard University is the latest U.S. college to have pro-Palestinian encampments go up on its grounds following multiple other institutions that have seen students arrested this week over demonstrations protesting Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.On Wednesday, protesters at Harvard began putting up tents after The Harvard Crimson reported the university shut down access to the yard for anyone not affiliated with the school. “Structures, including tents and tables, are not permitted in the Yard without prior permission. Blocking pedestrian pathways or access to building entrances is prohibited,” according to a sign the school put on the entrance to the yard. “Students violating these policies are subject to disciplinary action.” “Free, free Palestine” and other chants could be heard from the demonstrators while they set up the encampment. The Hill has reached out to Harvard for comment. Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University have all had pro-Palestinian encampments at their schools for the past several days. Princeton University students are also looking at their own encampment, releasing documents saying they don’t believe the school would suspend them. Columbia has made classes hybrid due to the unrest and safety issues on campus. The school extended negotiations with students in an effort to have the encampment torn down without police intervention. The protests have been condemned as antisemitic by lawmakers from both parties, with some also issuing calls for the resignation of university leaders such as Columbia President Minouche Shafik. Former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned in January amid accusations of plagiarism and controversy over her handling of antisemitism on campus.

Princeton students plan pro-Palestinian encampment: Report | Students at Princeton University are preparing to set up a pro-Palestinian encampment, mimicking other schools across the country, according to records obtained by the National Review.In one document obtained by the conservative-leaning outlet, the students label their protest the “Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and list their demands to stop the event, including the university calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and condemning Israel’s actions, the school giving financial transparency on its investments and divesting its endowments from companies associated with Israel.Princeton would also have to associate itself with Palestinian institutions and disassociate with Israeli ones, such as sponsoring birthright Israel trips.“We’re not going anywhere until these demands are met — hundreds of students, alumni, workers, and professors are and will continue to exercise their right to peacefully protest. Our values call on us to speak up for justice for Palestinians, and to confront the unethical investments of Princeton University’s endowment. We will not be silenced, we will be heard. We will not rest until divest!” the document reads.The National Review obtained other documents the protesters disseminated including a list of professors friendly to their cause, how to recruit others to join the encampment and different roles people will have in the encampment, such as running to get supplies and how much risk is associated with each of the roles.In one of the documents, the students highlight they do not believe extreme measures such as expulsion will be taken against students “We think expulsion is highly unlikely; only students who have been expelled in the movement at Vanderbilt were expelled for touched (‘assaulted’) a police officer. Explusion is highly unlikely; at Princeton it requires committee and we know that at least 2 faculty members who are part of the committtee are in the Faculty for Justice in Palestine,” the document reads.

Colleges grasp for solutions to pro-Palestinian student protests -- Colleges are trying everything from negotiation to mass arrests to deal with the crop of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have sprung up on their grounds, but experts say they have to take a good look at campus culture if they really want to deal with the situation in the long term. Elite schools starting with Columbia University have fallen into chaos as opponents of Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas and its treatment of the Palestinian people in general set up encampments on campuses across the nation over the last week. On Wednesday, the University of Texas at Austin became the latest to get law enforcement involved when a class walkout and campus demonstration saw multiple people detained. Education advocates say schools need to be open to conversation with their students but firm on their rules. “Campus protests are a sacred tradition in the United States for free expression and for students to get involved civically, so it’s really important for administrators to respect that when they are proceeding,” said Roni Brunn, a leading member of the Harvard Jewish Alumni Association. “At the same time, universities do have codes of conduct, and the process needs to happen within the parameters of the codes of conduct.” Columbia originally told protesters they had until midnight Tuesday to disperse before the school would have to take extraordinary measures to remove them, a warning that came after more than 100 were arrested last week. After the demonstrators agreed to conditions such as taking down some of their tents, ensuring only those affiliated with the school were protesting and avoiding the use of discriminatory language, Columbia extended the deadline for getting rid of the encampment by 48 hours. “In light of this constructive dialogue, the University will continue conversations for the next 48 hours,” the school said. Officials and outside observers said they believe much of the unrest — including reports of antisemitic behavior and language — is coming from people who are not associated with the school. “This last week, some of the worst rhetoric is not from students. It’s from nonstudents who were outside the gate,” said Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which is heading up the Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement campaign. “We can’t have outside agitators come in and be disruptive,” New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) said Tuesday, adding, “We need to address this while it’s a spark. Let’s not wait until it’s a blaze.” The protests began at Columbia last Wednesday, the same day university President Minouche Shafik and other school officials went before the House Education and the Workforce Committee for a hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. The protesters have created what they call “Gaza Solidarity Encampments,” leading to the arrests of dozens of individuals who authorities say did not have permission to be in the area. This week, Columbia decided to make classes hybrid for the reset of the semester due to the unrest, drawing bipartisan condemnation and calls for Shafik’s resignation. GOP lawmakers have demanded the Biden administration “restore order” to college campuses, with some suggesting bringing in the military. While Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter says the school did threaten to bring in the National Guard, a university spokesperson said “deploying the National Guard was never on the table.”

Abbott says pro-Palestine protesters at UT Austin ‘belong in jail’ - Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said the pro-Palestine protesters on the University of Texas at Austin campus “belong in jail” and that arrests were being made.“Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses. These protesters belong in jail,” Abbott posted on the social platform X.Texas state police detained at least four protesters Wednesday on the UT Austin campus after hundreds of students walked out of classes and began a sit-in to support civilians in Gaza.The university had prepared for the protests that began midday, with the office of student affairs sending out a statement that warned students there would be consequences for participating in the protest.Abbott said students who join the “hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled.” It was not immediately clear if there had been antisemitic chants at the University of Texas demonstrations.The UT Austin protests mirror protests on numerous other college campuses. Tensions have risen in New York City, where more than 100 students have been arrested at Columbia University for setting up encampments on school property and protesting.Campus protests around the country have often included Jewish students, some of whom have pushed back on suggestions of antisemitism. Videos taken near Columbia University in New York show Jewish students being told to go back to Poland and include pro-Hamas chants. But some of those instances also have been blamed on nonstudent demonstrators. Students are angry about their First Amendment right to peacefully protest being taken away by university officials. In 2019, Abbott signed a bill that would protect free speech on college campuses in Texas.“Shouldn’t have to do it. First Amendment guarantees it,” he said in a video after he signed the bill. “Now, it’s law in Texas.”

USC vetoed a Muslim student’s graduation speech for her pro-Palestinian views. Why? | Mohammed Zain Shafi Khan -- When Asna Tabassum, a hijab-wearing Muslim, was announced as the valedictorian for the University of Southern California class of 2024, my initial reaction was the thought of my south Asian mother saying, “What are you doing? Why aren’t you valedictorian?” But what followed was pride. Then the university announced last week that it would no longer allow Tabassum to speak at commencement. After pro-Israel groups mischaracterized Tabassum’s pro-Palestinian views as “antisemitic”, the USC administration claimed that security concerns made her speech untenable. “I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred,” Tabassum, a friend of mine, wrote in a statement. “I am surprised that my own university – my home for four years – has abandoned me.” USC has not just abandoned an accomplished student, but also nearly 1,000 Muslims on campus. I happen to be one of them. Right now, the reality of being a Muslim student is intertwined with the university’s decision to rescind Tabassum’s well-earned honour. We were teased by our institution, taunted even, as they refuse to publicly stand by their choice. As a Muslim, the lack of support scares me. My hijab-wearing friends have been called terrorists and spat at; my Palestinian peer has had their car broken into and their Qur’an torn and I am judged for wearing a keffiyeh to class or having a sticker on my laptop that reads “Free Palestine”. When Arab and Muslim students are directly affected, the university’s silence makes its position clear. When the office of the president can release a statement condemning Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, but not one condemning Israel for killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, it makes the university’s position clear. And when the university refuses to publicly support its choice for valedictorian, again the school’s position is clear.

Huckabee Sanders slams Biden education secretary ahead of Arkansas visit - Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) ripped into the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program and other educational policies ahead of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s trip to Little Rock on Tuesday. In a letter to Cardona sent Monday, Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Education Jacob Olivia wrote, “You will be in Little Rock tomorrow to tout President Biden’s unconstitutional student loan forgiveness program and try and explain your department’s disastrous rollout of updates to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).” “We welcome you to our state, but we fear that this visit will only serve to highlight some of your administration’s worst mistakes,” the letter continued. Cardona is slated to visit Arkansas on Tuesday afternoon for a roundtable on student debt forgiveness. He is expected to also visit a FAFSA clinic for high school seniors and families at Little Rock Central High School. “This trip is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to fixing the broken student loan system,” the Education Department wrote in a statement. President Biden has made student loan forgiveness a central focus for his administration, and he has canceled an estimated $153 billion in student loans during his presidency. Arkansas residents have had over $541.1 million in loans forgiven under the Biden administration, an Education Department spokesperson told The Hill Sanders called the Biden administration’s forgiveness “for certain student loans” “unfair, unwise, and unlawful.” “Not only does it force Arkansans who chose not to attend college to pay for others’ education, not only does it offer forgiveness for past loans with no plan to address the future growth of college tuition expenses, but it has also been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court,” Sanders wrote.

AI Chatbots Refuse to Produce ‘Controversial’ Output − Why That’s a Free Speech Problem - Yves here. It should come as now surprise that our self-styled betters are using tech wherever they can to block or minimize ideas and discussions they find threatening to there interests. Many readers no doubt recall how Google autofills in the 2016 presidential election would suggest favorable phrases for Hillary Clinton (even when the user was typing out information related to unfavorable ones, like her physically collapsing) and the reverse for Trump. We and many many another independent sites have provided evidence of how Google has changed its algos so that our stories appear well down in search results, if at all. Keep in mind the EU Competition Minister, Margrethe Vestager, reported that only 1% of users of search clicked on entry #10 or lower. Originally published at The Conversation Google recently made headlines globally because its chatbot Gemini generated images of people of color instead of white people in historical settings that featured white people. Adobe Firefly’s image creation tool saw similar issues. This led some commentators to complain that AI had gone “woke.” Others suggested these issues resulted from faulty efforts to fight AI bias and better serve a global audience. The discussions over AI’s political leanings and efforts to fight bias are important. Still, the conversation on AI ignores another crucial issue: What is the AI industry’s approach to free speech, and does it embrace international free speech standards? We are policy researchers who study free speech, as well as executive director and a research fellow at The Future of Free Speech, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based at Vanderbilt University. In a recent report, we found that generative AI has important shortcomings regarding freedom of expression and access to information.Generative AI is a type of AI that creates content, like text or images, based on the data it has been trained with. In particular, we found that the use policies of major chatbots do not meet United Nations standards. In practice, this means that AI chatbots often censor output when dealing with issues the companies deem controversial. Without a solid culture of free speech, the companies producing generative AI tools are likely to continue to face backlash in these increasingly polarized times. Our report analyzed the use policies of six major AI chatbots, including Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Companies issue policies to set the rules for how people can use their models. With international human rights law as a benchmark, we found that companies’ misinformation and hate speech policies are too vague and expansive. It is worth noting that international human rights law is less protective of free speech than the U.S. First Amendment. Our analysis found that companies’ hate speech policies contain extremely broad prohibitions. For example, Google bans the generation of “content that promotes or encourages hatred.” Though hate speech is detestable and can cause harm, policies that are as broadly and vaguely defined as Google’s can backfire.To show how vague and broad use policies can affect users, we tested a range of prompts on controversial topics. We asked chatbots questions like whether transgender women should or should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports tournaments or about the role of European colonialism in the current climate and inequality crises. We did not ask the chatbots to produce hate speech denigrating any side or group. Similar to what some users have reported, the chatbots refused to generate content for 40% of the 140 prompts we used. For example, all chatbots refused to generate posts opposing the participation of transgender women in women’s tournaments. However, most of them did produce posts supporting their participation. Defining what constitutes accurate information also has political implications. Governments of several countries used rules adopted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to repress criticism of the government. More recently, India confronted Google after Gemini noted that some experts consider the policies of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to be fascist.

U.S. Births decreased in 2023 --From the National Center for Health Statistics: Births: Provisional Data for 2023. The NCHS reports: The provisional number of births for the United States in 2023 was 3,591,328, down 2% from 2022. The general fertility rate was 54.4 births per 1,000 females ages 15–44, down 3% from 2022. The total fertility rate was 1,616.5 births per 1,000 women in 2023, a decline of 2% from 2022. Birth rates declined for females in age groups 15–19 through 35–39 and were unchanged for females ages 10–14 and for women ages 40–44 and 45–49 in 2023. The birth rate for teenagers ages 15–19 declined by 3% in 2023 to 13.2 births per 1,000 females; the rate for younger teenagers (ages 15–17) was unchanged, and the rate for older teenagers (ages 18–19) declined 3%. Here is a long-term graph of annual U.S. births through 2023.CDC report. Births peaked in 2007 and have generally declined since then.Note the amazing decline in teenage births.There is much more in the report.

Planned Parenthood Abortions Among 'Top Four Leading Causes Of Death' In America Abortions conducted by Planned Parenthood are a leading cause of death in the United States, with the organization recommending the procedure to pregnant clients 97 percent of the time, according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, released its 2022–2023 annual report revealing the organization conducted 392,715 abortions during the period. “This puts abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in the top four leading causes of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group.According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 695,000 Americans died from heart disease in 2021, with 605,000 dying from cancer, 416,000 from COVID-19, and nearly 225,000 from accidents.“Once again, pregnant women who walk into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion 97 percent of the time, rather than helped to keep their child or make an adoption plan. Meanwhile, they saw 80,000 fewer patients, provided 60,000 fewer pap tests and breast exams, and even gave out less contraception, she said.Ms. Dannenfelser blamed Democrats in Washington and several other states for backing Planned Parenthood abortions by sending them almost $700 million in taxpayer funds. This amount made up a third of the organization’s revenue, with Planned Parenthood ending the fiscal year with $2.5 billion in net assets, she noted.Around 60 percent of women who have had an abortion “would rather have kept their babies if they just had more emotional or financial support,” Ms. Dannenfelser stated. “Democrats’ response? They demonize and strip funding from pregnancy resource centers that serve women and their children.”

Teen vaccination cut COVID-19 cases by 37% in California, new data show -JAMA Network Open has published a new study showing that, from April 1, 2020, to February 27, 2023, in California, an estimated 146,210 COVID-19 cases were averted by vaccination in teens aged 12 to 15 years, representing a 37% reduction. Researchers also estimated that 230,134 cases were averted in kids aged 5 to 11 years, a 24% reduction. The study looked at COVID-19 infections in post-vaccination evaluation periods consisting of 141 days (June 10 to October 29, 2021) for adolescents aged 12 to 15 years, 199 days (November 29, 2021 to June 17, 2022) for children aged 5 to 11 years, and 225 days (July 17, 2022, to February 27, 2023) for those aged 6 to 59 months, according to study authors.From April 2020 to February 2023, California recorded 3,913,063 pediatric COVID-19 cases and 12,740 hospitalizations. During those times, statewide vaccine coverage reached 53.5% among adolescents aged 12 to 15 years, 34.8% among children aged 5 to 11 years, and 7.9% among those aged 6 to 59 months.The biggest reduction attributed to vaccination occurred with older kids, and there was no evidence of reductions in COVID-19 cases statewide among children aged 6 to 59 months (estimated averted cases, −259; 95% prediction interval, −1,938 to 1,019). Though there was no evidence in case reduction in the youngest kids, vaccination prevented an estimated 168 hospitalizations among children aged 6 to 59 months during the 225-day evaluation period.

Risk of uveitis recurrence higher in year after COVID vaccination -The incidence of uveitis in the year after COVID-19 was 17% among nearly 474,000 Korean adults with a history of the inflammatory eye condition, according to a report in JAMA Ophthalmology.Researchers at the Hanyang University College of Medicine in Seoul mined the Korean National Health Insurance Service and Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency databases for information on 473,934 patients diagnosed as having uveitis from January 2015 to February 2021. The patients had previously had uveitis and had received at least one dose of an mRNA (Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna) or adenovirus vector–based (AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson) COVID-19 vaccine. The average patient age was 58.9 years, 51.3% were women, and none tested positive for COVID-19 during the study period. Uveitis is a potentially serious inflammation of the eye's middle layer of tissue that can cause symptoms such as pain, redness, and blurry vision.The incidence of uveitis was 8.6% at 3 months, 12.5% at 6 months, and 16.8% at 1 year. The odds of uveitis were increased among recipients of all four vaccines, including Pfizer (hazard ratio [HR], 1.68), Moderna (HR, 1.51), AstraZeneca (HR, 1.60), and Johnson & Johnson (HR, 2.07). The risk was highest in the first 30 days after vaccination and peaked between the first and second doses (HR, 1.64)."Although uveitis following vaccination is rare, our findings support an increased risk after COVID-19 vaccination, particularly in the early postvaccination period," the study authors wrote. "These results emphasize the importance of vigilance and monitoring for uveitis in the context of vaccinations, including COVID-19 vaccinations, particularly in individuals with a history of uveitis."

Survey: Already-isolated older adults fared better than socially connected peers early in COVID pandemic - Older adults who were already isolated before the COVID-19 pandemic experienced less of a shock to their well-being than their more socially connected peers, concludes a UK analysispublished yesterday in PNAS. University College London researchers surveyed 4,636 isolated and nonisolated adults aged 50 or older from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing about quality of life, loneliness, health behaviors, financial concerns, and internet use in June and July 2020 (early pandemic) and November and December 2020 (later pandemic) compared with 2018 and 2019. The average participant age was 66.8 years, and all were living in private households. Isolated adults were more likely than nonisolated participants to be men, live alone, have a limiting chronic medical condition, have less educational attainment, work, and be of lower socioeconomic status. Social isolation was defined in terms of social life (partnership status, contact with family and friends, and participation in organizations)."Social isolation has been recognized as a public health problem, given its associations with increased risks of mortality, and an array of physical and mental health conditions," the study authors noted. "This problem was of particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and social distancing restrictions were imposed worldwide." Before the pandemic, isolated participants reported lower life satisfaction, quality of life, and physical and mental health than their more socially connected counterparts. From before to during the pandemic, isolated participants (29% of the total) reported smaller decreases in life satisfaction and quality of life and a lesser rise in loneliness than their more connected counterparts. The isolated group showed greater drops in smoking and physical activity and were more likely to continue worrying about their future finances. Isolated adults didn't change their use of the internet, while their nonisolated peers reported increased use. Both groups reported no change in general health and sleep quality, increased depression and anxiety, and decreased expectations of future financial problems. Isolated participants "may have even been better placed to cope and adapt, potentially via existing routines and arrangements that supported their isolated lives (e.g., delivery of groceries and medication)," the authors wrote.

Impaired sense of smell still common 1 year after COVID-19 | Sense of smell—but not taste—was still impaired in some COVID patients at 1 year, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open.The US-based cross-sectional study compared 340 people with and 434 without prior COVID-19, recruited from February 2020 to August 2023 from the social media website Reddit.Researchers instructed participants to take the 53-item Waterless Empirical Taste Test (WETT) and 40-item University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) to assess taste and smell function. Loss of taste and smell was one of the first symptoms most commonly ascribed to COVID-19 infections, but few studies have looked at the loss after 1 year, or in infections caused by newer variants. Furthermore, only a handful of studies have been based on smell and taste tests.Participants in the study had a mean time between testing and COVID-19 diagnosis of 395 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 363 to 425 days). The total WETT scores did not differ significantly between participants with and without a COVID-19 history, with both groups falling within normal ranges."Reports that taste loss continues long after the initial infection probably are due in large part to the confusion between taste- and olfaction-dependent food flavor," the authors explained. "Smell loss remained in nearly one-third of individuals with exposure, likely explaining taste complaints of many individuals with [long COVID]."

Long-COVID patients more likely to report psychiatric symptoms, cost barriers to therapy A study in JAMA Network Open finds that while US adults with long COVID have a higher rate of psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety and are just as likely to receive treatment, many cite cost as a reason for not seeking care.A team led by University of British Columbia researchers parsed data on 25,122 US adults with and without long COVID (or post-COVID condition [PCC]) from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative interview-based survey, from October 2023 to February 2024.The researchers used the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 to gauge depression symptoms and the General Anxiety Disorder-7 instrument to assess anxiety. Participants were considered treated if they received counseling or psychiatric medications for their symptoms. The median participant age was 46 years, half were women, and 3.4% were experiencing long COVID."The experiences of individuals who were unable to access care due to costs, stigma, or other reasons are important to consider when developing PCC-focused mental health supports," the researchers wrote. "Adults with mental illness frequently experience barriers to care and may be underserved—a problem that was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic." Relative to participants without long COVID, those who had the condition were about twice as likely to experience depression (weighted prevalence [wPr], 16.8% vs 7.1%; adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.96), anxiety (wPr, 16.7% vs 6.3%; aOR, 2.21), sleep difficulties (wPr, 41.5% vs 22.7%; aOR 1.95), cognitive problems (wPr, 35.0% vs 19.5%; aOR, 2.04), and disabling fatigue (wPr, 4.0% vs 1.6%; aOR, 1.85). Having current long COVID was tied to female sex, White race, having multiple chronic conditions, and not having received a COVID-19 vaccine.Of adults with depression or anxiety, those with long COVID (wPr, 28.2% vs 34.9%; aOR, 1.02) were similarly likely as those without the condition to not receive treatment in the previous year (wPr, 37.2% vs 23.3%; AOR, 2.05). But participants currently experiencing long COVID were twice as likely to report cost as a barrier to getting counseling (aOR, 2.12)."People with PCC may have more difficulty paying for counseling or therapy due to lost employment wages and greater costs of managing complications from COVID-19, or they may experience challenges obtaining health plan authorization for these supports," the researchers wrote. The authors said that the US Department of Health and Human Services is helping healthcare systems create care pathways specific to long COVID. "These pathways can integrate mental health services by, for example, incorporating routine mental health screening in follow-up for individuals recovering from COVID-19 and including mental health professionals in multidisciplinary PCC clinics," they wrote. "In contexts in which mental health services are sparse, telehealth and group-based programs could be leveraged." But these programs should recognize that long-COVID patients with or without psychiatric conditions may hesitate to seek care. "These individuals have described experiencing stigma and medical gaslighting from clinicians, sometimes being told that their physical symptoms are psychosomatic," they wrote. "Standardized screening strategies for psychiatric symptoms in PCC clinics may help normalize mental health assessments for this population."

State COVID policies didn't translate into fewer cases, deaths, study suggests A research letter published today in JAMA Network Opensuggests that US states and territories that had more policies aimed at reducing COVID-19 rates in nursing homes (NHs) and home healthcare agencies (HHAs) didn't necessarily have a lower burden of the disease.The Columbia University–led research team used NH- and/or HHA-specific policies from state and territory government websites to identify 38 COVID-19 policies implemented from March 2020 to July 2022. They then linked the policy data with community-level and NH-specific COVID-19 cases and deaths to create a dataset and dashboard to help researchers and public health officials assess policy effectiveness. "The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected older persons, many of whom were served by home health care agencies (HHAs) and nursing homes (NHs)," the researchers wrote. "The extent to which state- and territory-level COVID-19 policies reinforced or expanded federal policies is unknown."In total, 1,400 policies were identified in 50 states and 5 territories. Most (60.4%) included all health care settings, followed by NH-specific (34.7%), NH- and HHA-specific (3.1%), and HHA-specific (1.8%) policies. The policies were aimed at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission (52.6%), expanding NH and/or HHA capacity (23.2%), easing administrative requirements (13.1%), reporting COVID-19 data (5.6%), and admitting and releasing patients (3.9%). Having more state- and territory COVID-19 policies wasn't consistently tied to lower community- or NH-level disease burden, which the authors said suggests that policy effectiveness may depend on implementation and compliance."For example, on May 24, 2020, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska had no COVID-19 deaths or policies, in contrast with North Carolina's moderate burden and several policies," the researchers wrote. "By January 12, 2021, New York had a severe COVID-19 burden and the greatest number of policies, while Pennsylvania, Montana, and Florida had a similar COVID-19 burden but fewer policies."Less attention was paid to HHAs than NHs, even though both settings served high-risk older people. "This suggests a gap in public health planning, raising questions about resource allocation and prioritization among health care settings during pandemics," they wrote.The researchers' dataset and dashboard provide a way to visualize efforts to mitigate public health crises, they said.

COVID may have eroded doctors' belief that they are obligated to treat infectious patients -- A systematic review posted in Clinical Infectious Diseases reveals that, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many physicians felt less ethically obligated to provide care to infectious-disease patients if they fear contracting the disease.A Duke University–led team reviewed 155 published studies exploring treatment obligation and refusal, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, and pandemics up to October 25, 2022."During pandemics, healthcare providers struggle with balancing obligations to self, family, and patients," the study authors wrote. "While HIV/AIDS seemed to settle this issue, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rekindled debates regarding treatment refusal."The included studies examined ethical treatment obligations for patients with HIV/AIDS (72.2%), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS; 10.2%), COVID-19 (10.2%), Ebola (7.0%), and flu (7.0%). Most articles (81.9%) argued for an obligation to treat these patients, while most papers (60.0%) that endorsed withholding treatment were on COVID-19, and HIV had the fewest papers advocating for treatment refusal (13.3%).The most common reasons given for an obligation to treat were professionalism (55.5%), the social contract (45.3%), and the law (20.3%). The most common reason for advocating for withholding COVID-19 treatment was labor rights and worker protection (40%); labor rights were cited in only 17% to 19% for other infections. For HIV care, labor rights was the least cited reason for treatment refusal (6.2%). A total of 26.7% of articles published during COVID-19 cited the risk of infection to physicians and their families, compared with 8.3% for flu and 6.3% for SARS."All the papers throughout history have shown that physicians broadly believed they should treat infectious disease patients," lead author Braylee Grisel said in a Duke press release. "We figured our study would show the same thing, so we were really surprised when we found that COVID-19 was so different than all these other outbreaks."

US study shows post-COVID rebound in inappropriate antibiotic prescribing -An analysis of outpatient antibiotic prescribing in the United States from 2017 through 2021 shows that rates of inappropriate prescribing returned to baseline levels following a brief dip at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, US researchers reported this week in Clinical Infectious Diseases.The interrupted time series analysis included more than 37.5 million enrollees in national commercial and Medicare Advantage claims database and looked at prescriptions for antibiotics dispensed to children and adults each month from 2017 through 2020. They used a previously developed antibiotic appropriateness scheme to determine whether diagnostic codes on the medical claims "always," "sometimes," or "never" justified antibiotic use.Among the 60.6 million antibiotics dispensed during the study period, 15.6% were appropriate, 29.4% were potentially appropriate, 25% were inappropriate, and 30% were not associated with a recent diagnostic code. The proportion of enrollees with one or more inappropriate prescriptions was 1.7% in December 2019. In April 2020, it dipped to 0.9%. But by December 2021, the proportion of enrollees with one or more inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions was back to 1.7.%. Notably, from March 2020 through December 2021, one of the two most common diagnoses among people who received inappropriate antibiotics was "contact with and suspected exposure to COVID-19."

Global, US data show high antibiotic use, rise in resistant infections during COVID - Two new studies highlight the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on antibiotic use and resistance.In one study, data gathered by researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO) confirms what previous research has shown—globally high rates of antibiotic use in COVID-19 patients despite low rates of suspected bacterial infections. In the other, a team led by researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that rates of hospital-acquired, multidrug-resistant infections at US hospitals remain well above pre-pandemic levels.Both studies are being presented at the upcoming European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global Congress in Barcelona, Spain.The WHO data, collected through the WHO Global Clinical Platform, shows that, among 592,898 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in 65 countries from January 2020 through March 2023, antibiotic use ranged from 83% in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region to 32.8% in the Western Pacific Region. Overall, three of four COVID-19 patients received antibiotics, despite the fact that antibiotics provide no benefit for the viral illness.The highest rate of antibiotic use was seen among patients with severe or critical COVID-19, 81% of whom received antibiotics. But even in patients with mild or moderate COVID, antibiotics were commonly used, with rates as high 79% in the African Region. Empiric treatment was common, ranging from 55% in patients with mild/moderate COVID-19 to 69% in severe critical cases. While antibiotic prescribing rates for COVID-19 declined over time in Europe and the Americas from the beginning of the pandemic through 2022, they increased in Africa.Although frequent use of antibiotics in the early months of the pandemic—when hospitals were overwhelmed and few treatment options were available—has been well documented, the continued use of antibiotics for COVID well into the pandemic is concerning. The WHO says they're concerned that this extensive overuse of antibiotics is contributing to the "silent spread" of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).In another concerning finding, the data also show that antibiotics with an increased risk of promoting resistance—known as "Watch" antibiotics under the WHO's AWaRE (Access, Watch, and Reserve) classification system—were frequently prescribed for COVID-19 patients in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (93.8%), the Region of the Americas (90.8%), and the African Region (91.1%).But, as has been found in previous studies, there is little reason to prescribe antibiotics for patients with COVID-19. Suspected bacterial co-infections—which might justify use of antibiotics in some cases—were reported in only a fraction (8%) of COVID-19 patients. Higher rates of bacterial co-infections were reported in the Region of the Americas (14.1%) and the Eastern Mediterranean Region (8.8%).Unsurprisingly, antibiotics did not improve clinical outcomes for COVID-19 patients. In fact, an analysis of patients without suspected or confirmed bacterial infections found that patients with mild/moderate COVID-19 who received empiric antibiotic therapy had an 80% increased mortality risk (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.80; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.36 to 2.38) compared with those didn't receive antibiotics.

US respiratory virus levels continue to decline as officials track shift in SARS-CoV-2 proportions --Respiratory virus activity continued to decline last week, and though COVID-19 indicators continue to decline, estimates of new variant proportions show some notable shifts in SARS-CoV-2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its weekly updates today. In its weekly snapshot for flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the CDC said no states are reporting high activity. Only one—North Dakota—is reporting moderate activity.Flu activity continues to decline, with levels below baselines in all but 1 of 10 regions. Region 1, which includes six northeastern states, is at its regional baseline, the CDC said in its weekly FluView update. Test positivity declined, and all three seasonal flu viruses continue to circulate, with influenza A making up 62.7% of positive samples at public health laboratories. Hospitalizations declined, and overall deaths held steady. The CDC received reports of 6 more pediatric flu deaths, raising the season's total to 148. The deaths occurred from November 2023 to early this month. Three were due to influenza A, and three were linked to influenza B.In its latest COVID data updates, the CDC reported further declines in its severity markers (hospitalizations and deaths), as well as its early indicators (test positivity and emergency department visits). Wastewater SARS-CoV-2 detections, another early indicator, remained at the minimal level and are at their lowest level since July 2023.In its variant proportion update today, the CDC reported an ongoing decline in JN.1 variant detections and a steady rise in its spinoffs that have two added spike mutations, nicknamed the FLiRT (F for L at position 456 and R for T at position 346). The most notable rise was for KP.2, which edged above JN.1 and is now at 24.9%. Also, the proportion of another FLiRT subtype, called KP.1.1, rose from 3.1% to 7.5% over the past 2 weeks. So far it's not clear if the FLiRT subtypes will trigger another rise in COVID activity.

WHO’s New Technical Report on “Pathogens That Transmit Through The Air” (with a Note on the Pandemic Treaty) by Lambert Strether -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has released “Global technical consultation report on proposed terminology for pathogens that transmit through the air” (“Report”). My perspective will be institutional rather than linguistic (in that adoption of certain forms of wording, as anybody who has ever worked on a Committee knows, represents an institutional victory for one faction, and a corresponding loss for another, nostrums about “consensus” notwithstanding). While many #CovidIsAirBorne advocates (including this humble blogger) are not completely happy with some of the language, I believe that the Report represents a comprehensive technical defeat for the “droplet dogmatists” (although an incomplete institutional defeat, which sadly must take place “one funeral at a time,” though hopefully with dispatch). This may have implications for WHO’s effectiveness in the still-unreleased “Pandemic Treaty,” as we shall see). The Report is only 33 pages long, and apparatus like Abbreviations, References, and Annexes bulks large within it. I will focus on two parts of the report: Chapter 4, “Outcomes,” which goes through the terminology of “through the air transmission,” where I will do a close reading, and Annex 5, which includes “Areas of overall general agreement” and “Areas of non-consensus and concern regarding consequences,” where I will draw out some potential implications. (As readers know, the #CovidIsAirborne network on the Twitter is incredibly diligent, skilled, and co-operative. Rather than make this post a ginormous heap of tweets from these accounts, I will list them in alpha order: @1goodtern, @DFisman, @jljcolorado (thread), @LazarusLong13, @nousaerons, and @trishgreenhalgh. If you are not following these accounts, do consider it. To them belongs the victory! And so to excerpts from the Report, which I have helpfully annotated in the usual fashion.

Chapter 4, page 7:

• [1] So “transmission through the air” (try saying that fast) is the supertype, and “airborne transmission” and “direct depostion” are subtypes. “Droplets” are gone (though not the dogmatists, who presumably will, at some point, be ready for their close-up[1].)

Page 8: Table 1

• [1] Here the supertype/subtype relation described above is represented in tabular form.
• [2] In other words, “moving like smoke” to “any distance.”
• [3] Like droplets once were, “ballistic” (I would imagine “semi” is there because if the loogie is small enough, air currents will affect it). Importantly, we have a column for distance, but no column for size.
• [4] Inhalation, by its nature, encompasses the vast majority of cases.
• [5] Direct deposition, by its nature, encompasses a small minority of cases (at least for Covid). Note that Evonne Currant went through all (!) the references supporting direct depostion, and doesn’t think much of them. (The tweets aren’t threaded, so the link is to the first one. Scroll up.)
• [6] The illustration shows, although the text does not, that airborne transmission implies the existence of superspreaders, while direct deposition does not.

Page 9:

• [1] I think this is useful. The only similar term I can think of is virion, but that refers to the infective form of a virus outside the host cell, not encapsulated in saliva and whatever, moving “through the air.”
• [2] There was an enormous literature attempting to distinguish droplets from aerosols by size. Now all that cruft is cleared away.
• [3] “Puff cloud,” hoo boy. I’m sure the committee struggled with that one, but “plume” (for example) isn’t quite right, because an industrial smokestack doesn’t generally expel smoke. “Puff cloud” is getting roundly mocked:

Hospitalizations for RSV rose in 2021, 2022 for preschoolers A study published late last week in JAMA Network Open finds that, among US preschoolers, the rate of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalizations and intensive care unit (ICU) cases rose in 2021 and 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with 2015 to 2019, with the greatest increase in those 2 to 5 years old.The retrospective cohort study included 924,061 children younger than 5 years diagnosed with RSV and bronchiolitis at 50 children’s hospitals in 10 geographic regions across the United States. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, RSV had a seasonal peak in North America, but in the winters of 2020 and 2021, there was a dip in cases as COVID mitigation efforts also reduced and altered transmission patterns of RSV. In 2021 and 2022, the virus appeared to peak early in several states and to cause more severe illness. The average age of participants was 8 months, 58.0% were male, and 37.7% were diagnosed with RSV, with 54.0% of those diagnosed with the virus needing hospitalization. Hospitalization rates rose for all age-groups in 2021 and 2022 compared to the prepandemic period, with children aged 2 to 5 years 4.86 (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.75 to 4.98) times more likely to be hospitalized in 2022 than in 2015 to 2019. Infants aged 0 to 5 months were 1.77 (95% CI, 1.74 to 1.80) times as likely to be hospitalized.RSV was also tied to more ICU use in the study, with a higher portion (19.7%) of kids with RSV admitted to ICUs than those with non-RSV bronchiolitis (8.6%).The increased incidence of RSV among older children "has implications for newly available prevention strategies (eg, monoclonal antibodies), for which older children are not currently eligible," the authors concluded.

West Virginia reports first measles case in 15 years - The West Virginia Department of Health yesterday announced the state's first measles case since 2009, which involves a patient from Monongalia County who was unvaccinated and had recently traveled internationally.Officials said an investigation and contact tracing are under way. The case is part of a global and national rise in measles activity this year. In its latest update, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it has received reports of 125 cases this year from 18 jurisdictions, up sharply from 2023.The UK Health Security Agency (HSA) said todaythat measles cases in England are at their highest level in a decade, and it urged people to ensure that they and their loved ones are up to date with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) immunization. In the latest surveillance update, Vanessa Saliba, an HSA consultant epidemiologist, said numbers are rising across the country, especially in London in recent weeks. "We know some communities in London have very low MMR vaccination rates," she said. "Measles is extremely infectious and it only takes one case to get into these communities for this disease to spread rapidly, especially in schools and nurseries."

Germany norovirus: Eight hundred fall sick at Stuttgart spring festival Germany norovirus: Eight hundred fall sick at Stuttgart spring festival A norovirus outbreak at a festival in south-west Germany has affected more than 800 people. They caught the vomiting bug in a marquee at the Stuttgart spring festival last weekend. It is not clear how the virus was first contracted, but the scale of infection has increased during the week. Stuttgart officials believe it was not linked to food or drink served in the festival tent as samples taken have all tested negative. The city's health department also tested marquee staff, as well as dishes and water used for washing them up. Instead they are assuming the virus was passed from person to person, possibly through the air, although it is not clear whether the original source was a visitor or an employee. Visitors quickly complained of vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea. By Friday afternoon, Stuttgart health officials said the number of people infected had reached 815. The spring festival, on the banks of the Neckar river, opened last Saturday and runs for 23 days into next month, with a variety of rides, stalls, snack bars and marquees offering refreshments and entertainment. Last year it attracted 1.4 million visitors. The outbreak has been sourced to the Göckelesmaier marquee, whose operator Karl Maier told German media that "someone apparently brought norovirus in on Saturday evening" - suggesting it could have been an infected group. Stuttgart health officials say there is no evidence of hygiene rules being broken. The Göckelesmaier marquee was thoroughly disinfected after last weekend and has since reopened. City spokesman Sven Matis told public broadcaster SWR that there were increasing indications that the virus spread in the central serving area before making its way through the entire marquee. It is thought most people fell ill after visiting the tent, and some of those infected were working at the time. Officials said it was possible that some visitors may have passed the virus on through secondary infection.

Study finds higher death risk in Black women with multidrug-resistant bloodstream infections A nationwide analysis of US patients hospitalized with bloodstream infections (BSIs) caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) found that Black women had an increased risk of death compared with White women and Black men.The analysis, which will be presented later this month at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) Global Congress in Barcelona, Spain, analyzed data on patients enrolled in the second Consortium on Resistance Against Carbapenems in Klebsiella and Other Enterobacterales (CRACKLE-2) study who had a BSI caused by CRE and were listed as Black or White. The investigators used multivariable logistic regression models that adjusted for age, BSI source, liver disease, and hospital-onset to determine whether race and sex were associated with 30-day mortality.Of the 362 patients included, 117 (32%) were Black and 60 (17%) were Black women. Black patients were more likely than White patients to be admitted to the hospital from long-term care facilities (32% vs 20%), to have peripheral vascular (17% vs 6%) or cerebrovascular disease (26% vs 12%), and to be hemodialysis-dependent (17% vs 8%), while White patients had higher rates of liver disease (17% vs 7%) and malignancy (39% vs 16%).Although the multivariable models found that race and sex individually were not associated with 30-day mortality, the interaction of race and sex was an independent predictor of 30-day mortality. Black women had a more than double the risk of 30-day mortality than both White women (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.01 to 4.58) and Black men (aOR, 2.59; 95% CI, 1.02 to 6.56). "Studies are rare that describe these disparities, and our analyses found that it is being both female and Black that is associated with an increased risk of dying," author Felicia Ruffin said in an ECSMID press release.While the study didn't address the reason for the disparities Ruffin suggested it might be linked to the difference in the distribution of comorbid conditions between Black and White patients. She called for further research into the root causes of the disparities.

Human-to-human transmission with a novel Mpox virus identified in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo -- This week an international group of researchers from Africa, Europe and North America, the Mpox Research Consortium, published in preprint form a study describing an epidemiologic investigation into a recent epidemic of new Mpox (previously known as Monkeypox) infections with the clade I lineage, a more dangerous form of the disease. The Mpox virus is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus from the poxviridae family that includes smallpox and cowpox. There are two known clades of the Mpox virus known to be endemic in Africa. The more common infections used to occur with clade I, previously known as the Congo Basin clade. It is characterized by severe clinical symptoms and a mortality rate of up to 10 percent. Only 5 percent of all Mpox infections in humans used to be with clade II, previously known as the West African clade. These infections, which came to worldwide notice in last year’s global monkeypox outbreak, portend a milder course and a much lower fatality rate. The new clade I virus was detected in the mining town of Kamituga, estimated population 242,000, located in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The outbreak that erupted in October 2023 was the first time that Mpox cases were detected in the Kamituga Health Zone. This report comes amid a rising tide of Mpox infections across the DRC. From the beginning of 2023 until March 29, 2024, there have been a total of 18,922 suspected Mpox cases and 1,007 fatalities. In the first three months of 2024, there were a total of 4,488 cases with 279 deaths, for a somewhat higher case fatality ratio of 6.7 percent, indicating rising lethality. Twenty-three of DRC’s 26 provinces have reported cases. However, the cases described in the investigation are qualitatively new, in that the evidence supports, for the first time, human-to-human transmission with the clade I lineage of the Mpox virus. The study notes there had been 241 suspected cases recorded by South Kivu’s provincial surveillance between September 29, 2023, and February 29, 2024. Ninety-one percent were hospitalized. Samples from 119 individuals were obtained for genomic analysis. Among these 108 (91 percent) were confirmed positive for Mpox infection. Professional sex workers accounted for 30 percent of all confirmed and suspected cases. All confirmed cases had the characteristic rash. Most had fevers and approximately 40 percent had swollen lymph nodes. One hundred and fourteen presented with genital lesions. Two patients died accounting for 1.4 percent of confirmed cases.

Quick takes: Psittacosis in Argentina, more counterfeit Botox reactions, US measles cases rise | CIDRAP

• The cause of severe pneumonia cases reported in Argentina has been linked to a rise is psittacosis, a respiratory disease from a bacteria known to infect birds, the country's health ministry said an April 20statement. The infections were mainly reported in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The ministry said no non-subtypable influenza A viruses were found, no were any unusual respiratory viruses. Cases of mycoplasma pneumonia and chlamydia pneumonia were found, but not in greater-than-expected numbers. In early March, the World Health Organization (WHO) posted an alert about an unexpected rise in psittacosis cases in five European countries.
• Three more people have been hurt by reactions linked to counterfeit or mishandled Botox injections, raising the number to 22 in 11 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an April 19 update. Two more states reported cases: California and Texas. Two more people were hospitalized, bringing that number to 11. Six people have been treated with botulism antitoxin. Of seven people tested for botulism, tests were negative for six and are pending for one.
• Four more measles cases have been reported to the CDC, raising the national total to 125 from 18 jurisdictions, the CDC said in its latest weekly update. The number of outbreaks remained at seven, and 69% of the cases this year have been linked to outbreaks. Children younger than 5 years make up 46% of cases, with older children at 22% and adults at 32%. Of the illnesses reported, 54% of patients were hospitalized for isolation purposes or to manage disease complications.

Study shows undernourishment increases risk of TB - Undernourished household members are at triple the risk of developing tuberculosis (TB) disease after exposure, but not necessarily increased risk of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB, according to a study today in Clinical Infectious Diseases.The study, based on body mass index (BMI), was conducted among household contacts (HHCs) of people with TB diagnosed within 2 months of the study date. The study took place in India, which had roughly 25% of the world's TB cases in 2022 and a high prevalence of undernutrition.Of the 857 HHCs enrolled, 239 (27.9%) had a BMI of 18.5 kilograms per meter of height squared or less, which is considered underweight. The median age was 29 years, and 59% of contacts were female. The average follow-up time was 24 months.There were 18 new TB cases during follow-up, the authors said, and 10 cases were among contacts with a BMI of 18.5 or less. Four participants in the study developed early TB disease, all of whom were severely malnourished, with a BMI of less than 16, and 4 cases were excluded because they occurred within 1 week of enrollment and within 2 weeks of the index patients' diagnosis.The researchers estimated a hazard ratio of 3.16 (95% confidence interval, 1.25 to 8.02) for TB disease in undernourished household contacts."The insight that undernourished individuals are at increased risk of progression, not infection is crucial for developing and refining transmission models of TB and for targeting interventions to mitigate the impact of undernutrition on the TB pandemic," concluded the authors.

Babies of dengue-infected pregnant women shown to be at high risk for poor health in first years of life --The children of women infected with dengue virus during pregnancy are much more likely to be born at a very or extremely low birth weight, which can negatively affect their health for at least the first 3 years of life, suggests a study published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.Researchers from the University of Surrey and the University of Birmingham analyzed a large dataset on dengue-infected pregnant women and birth outcomes in southeastern Brazil.Dengue fever is the most common mosquito-borne illness in the world. "There has been a dramatic rise in cases over recent years, with cases in the Americas reaching more than three million cases in 2023," the study authors wrote. "Since January 2024, Brazil has reported more than 3.5 million cases, marking the largest dengue outbreak on record." The newborns of women who had even mild dengue fever during pregnancy had a 67% and 133% greater risk of being classified as very and extremely low birth weight, respectively. From birth to 3 years, the children were at a 27% higher risk of hospitalization, with a 76% increase in risk at 2 years."These birth outcomes can even have longer-term impacts; for example, previous research has shown that low birth weight can negatively affect socio-economic outcomes and health in adulthood," coauthor Livia Menezes, PhD, of the University of Birmingham, said in a university news release.

Nationwide health alert issued for ground beef over potential E. coli risk – A nationwide health alert has been issued for Greater Omaha ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a particular strain of Escherichia coli that is known to cause severe intestinal infection in humans.The impacted raw ground beef items were produced and packaged on March 28, 2024, with a “Use/Freeze by” date of April 22, 2024, and “EST.960A” inside the USDA mark of inspection.According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the ground beef was shipped to restaurants and retail locations throughout the country.The FSIS has issued a health alert for the following products: [see list] The labels for these products can be found on the FSIS website.Because the affected products are no longer for sale, the FSIS said a recall was not requested. Instead, the agency has issued a health alert in case consumers have any of the ground beef in their freezer.If you have any of the beef products listed above, the FSIS advises against consuming them. Instead, they should be thrown away or returned to wherever you purchased them.There have been no confirmed reports of illness connected to this health alert, but if you are feeling unwell after consuming the ground beef, you should contact a health care provider.E. coli, a potentially deadly bacterium, can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps. Symptoms typically set in within three to four days after consuming an affected food, and can last about a week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Severe cases of E. coli are most common in children younger than 5 years old and in older adults, but any person experiencing these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately.In some serious cases, a patient may develop kidney failure, the CDC notes.

USDA declares Salmonella an adulterant in raw breaded chicken products -The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that it has finalized a policy to declare Salmonella an adulterant in raw breaded chicken products, which have been linked to 14 foodborne illness outbreaks that have sickened at least 200 people since 1998.In its statement, the USDA saidSalmonella would be considered an adulterant in the products if it exceeds a certain microbiologic threshold.The step is part of a plan the agency proposed in 2022 to reduce Salmonella contamination in raw poultry products. FSIS added that it will address contamination in other raw poultry products later this year.USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the final determination marks the first time Salmonella has been declared an adulterant in a class of raw poultry products. "This policy change is important because it will allow us to stop the sale of these products when we find levels of Salmonella contamination that could make people sick," he said.FSIS said it would carry out testing procedures on the raw incoming chicken component prior to stuffing and breading to ensure that producers are controlling Salmonella in the products. It said the rule will go into effect 12 months after it is published in the Federal Register.Though the raw breaded chicken products make up less than 0.15% of the domestic chicken market, they account for about 5% of all chicken-related foodborne illness outbreaks. The products are problematic for consumers because they appear pre-browned and cooked. They are often cooked from a frozen state, which increases the chance that the raw chicken component may not reach the internal temperature needed to kill the Salmonella.

Salmonella more common on larger commercial farms, study reveals In a new comparison of different size poultry farms, researchers at North Carolina State University found that rates of Salmonellaand multidrug resistance in fecal and environmental samples were higher on larger commercial farms compared to smaller backyard farms. The study is published in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease.The researchers focused on backyard broiler farms. Broiler chickens are those being raised for meat and not eggs."Broiler chickens are the top consumed meat in the U.S. and the world, but there's not much research on backyard farms, which are growing in popularity in the U.S.," said first study author Jessica Parzygnat, PhD, with the College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State, in a university press release.To conduct the study, Parzygnat and her colleagues tested 10 backyard and 10 commercial flocks at three time points across bird production. They sampled feces, soil, litter/compost, feeders, and waterers.All backyard flocks lived outside, and they ranged from 22 to 1,000 birds. Commercial birds were housed indoors, and those flocks consisted of tens of thousands of birds.Salmonella was detected in 52.3% of commercial farm samples, and in 19.1% of backyard farm samples. Kentucky (sequence type (ST) 152) was the most common serotype found in both backyard and commercial farms, the authors wrote. Multidrug-resistant isolates (those resistance to three or more antimicrobial classes) were found in both commercial and backyard flocks. Ciprofloxacin- and nalidixic acid-resistant and intermediate isolates were found in 33% of commercial samples but in just 1% of backyard samples.

Contaminated meat likely source of avian flu that killed bush dogs in UK zoo, preprint suggests -A study on the preprint server bioRxiv details the deaths of 10 of 15 bush dogs from H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus (HPAIV) at a UK zoo in November 2022, with consumption of contaminated meat the most likely source of infection.Researchers from the Animal and Plant Health Agency in England analyzed the clinical records and tissues of the 10 animals, 4 of which were found dead and 6 that were euthanized.The bush dogs died over 9 days, with some showing signs of neurologic illness. Bush dogs are a near-threatened species of wild dogs found in Central and South America. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed.Genomic analyses revealed the cause of death as clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 HPAIV, and histopathologic findings revealed severe acute systemic infection characterized by inflamed blood vessels and tissue death and inflammation in the liver, brain, lung, and adrenal glands. In the absence of evidence of other routes of exposure, the source of infection is thought to be frozen shot wild birds or game fed to the bush dogs, although the animals could have eaten sick wild birds that landed in their enclosure, the authors said.

Bird flu virus fragments detected in retail milk in US - Bird flu virus fragments have been detected in retail milk samples across the U.S., industry groups told lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to three people familiar with the matter. The FDA on Tuesday confirmed “some of the samples collected have indicated the presence” of bird flu “particles” under certain testing, but the agency maintained that “pasteurization is likely to inactivate the virus.” The FDA said it will make additional test results available in the coming days. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said. Results from multiple studies will be made available in the next few days to weeks.” Dairy trade groups quickly mobilized to reiterate FDA’s assessment that commercial milk is currently safe, following a report from The Washington Post on the viral detection. The National Milk Producers Federation said in a statement that “viral fragments detected after pasteurization are nothing more than evidence that the virus is dead; they have zero impact on human health.” . NMPF also noted that current regulation “prohibits milk from sick cows from entering the food supply chain.” Rick Bright, who led the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and raised alarm about the Trump administration’s early response to the Covid-19 pandemic, said he wants to see the results of the studies conducted. “That’s the data I’d like to know before I drink milk,” Bright said. As of Tuesday, bird flu has been detected in 33 dairy herds across eight states, according to the latest USDA data.

H5N1 bird flu particles found in pasteurized milk; FDA backs safety — Testing conducted by the Food and Drug Administration on pasteurized commercially purchased milk has found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the agency confirmed Tuesday. But the testing, done by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, cannot distinguish between live virus or fragments of viruses that could have been killed by the pasteurization process. The agency said it has been trying to see if it could grow virus from milk found to contain evidence of H5N1, which is the gold standard test to see if there is viable virus in a product. The lengthy statement the agency released does not explicitly say FDA laboratories were unable to find live virus in the milk samples, but it does state that its belief that commercial, pasteurized milk is safe to consume has not been altered by these findings. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the statement said. The document was long on assurances but short on details of what has been undertaken or found. It does not specify how many commercial samples were taken or in how many markets, nor does it indicate what percentage of the samples were PCR-positive for H5N1. The statement did not indicate if the testing suggested the amounts of viral genetic material in the milk were low or high.Furthermore, the statement did not reveal if the milk products were purchased in parts of the country where outbreaks have occurred, or in areas where cows haven’t been seen to have been infected.The FDA did say it is testing milk from infected animals, in the processing system, and from store shelves with the goal of producing a “large representative national sample” of the milk supply. Beyond assessing the safety of the supply, such a sample could enable the agency to construct a more robust picture of H5N1’s spread among dairy cows nationally. The agency emphasized that testing of commercially available milk is ongoing, and this includes efforts to discern any potential differences between different dairy products, such as cream and whole milk. The FDA, which has been dodging questions for some time about the work it is doing to assess the safety of the milk supply, said it did the commercial survey as part of its efforts to assess the federal-state milk safety system in the context of the current outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cows in at least eight states across the country. As of Monday, 33 outbreaks in herds have been confirmed.“Some of the samples collected have indicated the presence of [H5N1] using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) testing,” the FDA wrote in the statement. It reiterated that it believes the pasteurization process is “very likely” to inactivate H5N1. “Data from previous studies that serve as the underpinnings of the FDA’s current milk supply safety assessment show that pasteurization is very likely to effectively inactivate heat-sensitive viruses, like H5N1, in milk from cows and other species,” the FDA wrote, though the agency acknowledged that no studies have been published on the impact of pasteurization on H5N1 viruses in milk. Some academic centers have begun that work, however. John Lucey, director of the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told STAT in an email that preliminary testing of milk conducted at the university has indicated that pasteurization is effective in killing the virus. But he declined to share further details. The U.S. Department of Agriculture “is currently doing their own trials and I expect to hear from them shortly on their results on pasteurization which should be viewed as the official testing,” he wrote. The virus, which has been causing outbreaks around the world for more than a quarter century, had previously not been seen to infect cows.

USDA shares recent H5N1 avian flu sequences amid more dairy herd outbreaks -The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) last night announced that it has shared 239 recent genetic sequences of the H5N1 avian flu virus from poultry, wild birds, and dairy cows, which will help scientists look for new clues about the spread of the virus.In related developments over the past 3 days, APHIS reported four more H5N1 detections in dairy herds, along with more positive findings in wild birds and poultry. Also, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) posted a recent update on its actions to look for new human infections. As the outbreak nears the 1-month mark, it's still not known how the 2.3.4.4b H5N1 clade is now able to infect cows and exactly how it is spreading in dairy herds. With the virus still spreading across multiple world regions, veterinary experts are looking for answers to protect dairy cows and human health. Some scientists have voiced frustration with the slow pace of sharing genetic sequences and other investigation details. Until yesterday, only a few genetic sequences were available from the recent outbreaks, including those from a few cows and cats that were detailed in a recent preprint paper from a team at Iowa State University.In its statement, APHIS said it usually publishes sequences on GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, but for transparency and to speed research, it shared raw sequence data via the National Institutes of Health National Center for Biotechnology Information. It added that the sequences are from cattle, cats, chickens, skunk, racoon, grackle, blackbird, and goose and that it will continue to make the data available on a rolling basis. Louise Moncla, PhD, assistant professor of pathobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, today on X welcomed the posting of the raw genetic sequencing, but said analysis steps such as downloading and mapping will take time, and it will take a while before scientists can show how the viruses are related to each other. Meanwhile, in updates over the last few days, APHIS reported 4 more H5N1 detections in dairy herds, which raise the total to 32. The latest positive samples were from cows in Kansas, Michigan, and Texas.Also, APHIS reported two more H5N1 detections in poultry flocks, including an earlier announced outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Michigan's Newaygo County and a third hatchery in New Mexico's Roosevelt County. The agency also reported about 30 more H5N1 detections in wild birds, including waterfowl, shorebirds, crows, and raptors. Most were from the eastern part of the country.

Scientists find clues in early analysis of newly shared US H5N1 avian flu sequences - With the public release of 239 recent H5N1 avian flu genetic sequences from US dairy cows and other animals, researchers have already roughly visualized the virus, but they still lack the collection dates and geographic information that would paint a clearer picture.Meanwhile, the virus was confirmed in another dairy herd in Idaho, raising the number of H5N1 detections to 33, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said in its update yesterday. Michael Worobey, DPhil, head of the ecology and evolutionary biology department at the University of Arizona at Tucson, on Twitter (X) today detailed the work of an international group of virus evolution and genomic experts who quickly combed through the sequences to identify the DNA, RNA, and protein arrangements of the virus and how the different sequences might be related to each other. Analysis of the hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, and internal genes hints that the virus hasn't changed much from its introduction into cattle in late 2023 or 2024, he said. The virus could have jumped to cattle once, but the information from the sequences can't rule out multiple introductions, Worobey added. There's a strong possibility that the virus has been circulating undetected for months, even before a mysterious illness began affecting dairy cows in February, Worobey said. "This reveals massive gaps in our pathogen and surveillance system." Commenting on the group's work, Sam Scarpino, PhD, director of artificial intelligence and life sciences at Northeastern University, on X said the genome data strengthen the evidence for cow-to-cow transmission. "This means we need much wider testing of dairy and beef cattle (including testing of asymptomatic cows) to determine how widespread the infections are." Scarpino said so far, the early analysis shows no obvious changes that would increase the human-to-human transmission risk, but he added that it will take time to fully analyze all the genomes. And though the USDA was slow to post the data, he praised the international science community's speed in mobilizing to analyze what the department shared.

US orders testing for certain dairy cows after H5N1 avian flu remnants found in retail milk - A day after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that H5N1 avian flu fragments have been found in retail milk samples, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that lactating dairy cows must be tested before interstate transport. The movement of dairy cows, some of which aren't showing disease symptoms, from already affected states such as Texas has been a source of H5N1 spread to dairy herds in states such as Idaho and Michigan. Also, the identification of virus fragments in finished milk suggests that the virus may be more widespread in dairy cows than currently known. At a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) media briefing today, Michael Watson, PhD, administrator of the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said the new testing order—which will increase information available to the USDA—also requires labs to report the H5N1 test findings to federal officials. Positive cows must be held for 30 days before they are moved.Watson said he expects the testing will help shed light on the extent of virus circulation in asymptomatic cows and fill other information gaps. For now, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, which has 50 labs, has enough capacity and materials for testing and can conduct tens of thousands of tests per day, he added, noting that testing takes about 1 to 3 days. Scientists are developing a field test that producers can use on farms. Watson said so far there are no changes to the virus circulating in cows that would make it more transmissible to humans and that the risk to the public remains low. Watson shared a few new details about the situation in cows, including that one sample from a cow in Kansas showed a genetic shift that suggests adaptation. And though cows sickened by H5N1 have shown little to no mortality, lung samples from a culled dairy cow yielded H5N1."We continue to ask for producer cooperation to ensure the confidence of Americans and to keep Americans safe," he said.

1 in 5 US retail milk samples test positive for H5N1 avian flu fragments --A senior official from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said today that its nationwide survey of retail milk has found remnants of H5N1 avian flu viruses in one in five samples, with the highest concentrations in regions where outbreaks in dairy cattle have been reported.Donald Prater, DVM, acting director of the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), shared the new findings with state health officials who took part in a scientific symposium on H5N1 hosted by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). The results come in the wake of earlier findings this week from more limited FDA sampling, along with similar findings from a smaller set of samples tested by a lab that's part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR) Network.At today's ASTHO briefing, state health officials heard the latest investigation and research updates from federal health officials and had the opportunity to ask their own questions, everything from virus shedding in cow manure to pandemic preparedness.Prater reiterated that the FDA hasn't changed its assessment that the nation's milk supply remains safe. So far, early work on milk samples that were positive for H5N1 fragments haven't found any viable (potentially infectious) virus.He said, however, that the FDA still has a long list of data gaps to fill, including identifying the risk of infection to humans via oral consumption and validating that existing pasteurization methods can inactivate H5N1. Other data gaps include how long the virus survives in raw milk and the infectious dose of viruses. Though a major concern is retail milk, Prater also said the FDA needs to see if contamination is occurring in other products, such as cheese made from raw milk. Rosemary Sifford, DVM, deputy administrator for veterinary services and chief veterinarian with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said the agency has now shared 260 genetic sequences with public databases, up from 239 earlier this week. Of those, only 1 had a mutation linked to mammalian adaptation.She also said the B3.13 genome circulating in cattle was first seen in poultry in the middle of March in a Texas flock at a time when the virus was cropping up in some of the state's dairy farms. Sifford said investigators continue to look at how the virus is moving on farms and how it transmits among cattle.Scientists are looking for the virus in other species, including feral pigs, and regular influenza surveillance is monitoring the situation in commercial pigs. Sifford said efforts are under way to gauge how long infected cows shed the virus and if shedding patterns are any different in asymptomatic animals.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials shared more details from their epidemiologic investigations, including virus findings in other animals on affected dairy farms. Sonja Olsen, PhD, associate director for preparedness and response with the CDC's Influenza Division, said there were 6 H5N1 positive tests in cats from three states: 3 in Texas, 2 in New Mexico, and 1 in Ohio.Also, there were 5 H5N1 detections in wild birds on the farms.

20% Of Retail Milk Samples Positive For Bird Flu: FDA -One in five samples of milk from grocery store shelves tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced late April 25.In a brief 237-word update, the FDA said that initial results from a national commercial milk sampling study “show about 1 in 5 of the retail samples tested are quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-positive for HPAI viral fragments, with a greater proportion of positive results coming from milk in areas with infected herds.”The FDA has refused to disclose how many samples it tested and from which stores the samples came, and a Freedom of Information Act request for the information has not yet yielded results.Thirty-three cattle herds across eight states—Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas—have tested positive for avian influenza, commonly known as the bird flu, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Poultry in Minnesota and a person in Texas have also become infected with the same genotype of the H5N1 avian influenza strain found in cattle.Authorities have stressed that positive results from qPCR testing do not mean the pasteurized milk contains intact virus, because the testing can return positive based on fragments of residual virus.“Additional testing is required to determine whether intact pathogen is still present and if it remains infectious, which would help inform a determination of whether there is any risk of illness associated with consuming the product,” the FDA said.Testing includes injecting eggs with samples that tested positive and seeing whether any active virus replicates.In another round of testing, conducted by a team from Ohio State University, 58 of 150 milk samples gathered from grocery stores across six states tested positive for bird flu.“We’ve screened them for the presence of influenza genetic material, so the viral RNA. Those that have tested positive, we have been forwarded to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where they are conducting studies to see if there’s a viable virus in there. To date, none of them have been viable, but certainly they give the indication that there is viral genetic material in the region,” Dr. Andrew Bowman, an associate professor at Ohio State University, told the Bovine Veterinarian magazine.“The fact that you can go into a supermarket and 30 percent to 40 percent of those samples test positive, that suggests there’s more of the virus around than is currently being recognized,” Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude’s, told STAT News.\

H5N1 avian flu infects Colorado dairy cows as global experts weigh in on virus changes -The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) today reported the first H5N1 avian flu virus detection in Colorado's dairy cows, raising the number of affected states to nine.Also today, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) weighed in on recent H5N1 developments in the United States and abroad. They said evolving developments with the virus, including a novel reassortant detected in three Asian countries and a spillover from wild birds to dairy cows in the United States, requires real-time monitoring.The H5N1 detection in Colorado raises the number of herds known to be affected to 34. So far, there are no details on where the Colorado herd is located and how it may have been exposed to the virus.Recent detections of H5N1 remnants in retail milk suggest that the virus in dairy cows may be more widespread than suggested by current animal testing.The three global agencies raised concerns about genetic diversification of the H5N1 2.3.4.4b clade spreading in multiple world regions, as well as its ability to infect a broader range of species, with some species experiencing significant death rates, such as in sea mammals in South America.As the virus infects more species, including a goat and dairy cows in the United States, the virus has more opportunities to generate new genotypes, which could cause different clinical pictures. For example, the global experts said a novel H5N1 reassortant seen in poultry in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam over the past 2 years has now been detected in humans, one from Cambodia and the other from Vietnam. The virus contains surface proteins from an older H5N1 clade (2.3.2.1c) and internal genes from the more recent 2.3.4.4b H5N1 clade. The WHO, WOAH, and FAO said the overall risk to humans remains low, and for people who have exposure to infected animals or their environments, the risk is low to moderate.

Texas officials confirm first cases of CWD in Edwards County --The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) yesterday announced the first detection of two cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Edwards County, and further investigation revealed three more cases.Two 2-year-old does in a deer-breeding facility tested positive at the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, confirmed the finding. Subsequent testing of deer penned with the positive deer and other testing yielded three more cases.CWD has been identified in Texas captive and free-ranging while-tailed deer, mule deer, red deer, and elk since it was first found in the state in 2012.Found in deer and other cervids such as moose and elk, the infectious illness is caused by misfolded proteins known as prions. The disease poses an ongoing threat to cervids, given that CWD can spread from animal to animal and through environmental contamination. No human cases have been reported, but health officials urge against eating the meat of infected animals and to take precautions when field-dressing or butchering cervids.

Low-Frequency Noise Is Pervasive. Does That Matter? - The pleasant and unpalatable sounds that envelop daily life travel through the air in different frequencies perceived as pitch. In bustling cities, the high-pitched sounds of chirping birds, and emergency sirens mix with the low-pitched thrum of traffic and hum of fans in the still of night.Low-frequency, or low-pitched noise, like what Walker experienced, is among the most elusive: Traditional measurement tools don’t capture it well, and it’s mostly absent from official consideration outside occupational contexts. Unlike high-frequency sounds, low frequency waves can penetrate walls more easily and carry farther distances, which is why a neighbor might only hear the heavy bass from a party down the street.But even sounds that aren’t audible to everyone have inspired complaints of headaches, anxiety, heart palpitations, and sleep troubles. And some question whether such symptoms are physiological or psychological. One thing is clear: Low-frequency noise is less studied and less understood than other sounds. And exactly what effects it may — or may not — have on humans is far from settled.“We’re not at the point yet where we can make causal inferences about how it’s impacted our health,” said Walker, whose experience with her neighbors— which she said contributed to stress, increased blood pressure, and stomach problems — helped inspire her to research noise, now as an assistant professor of epidemiology and founder of the Community Noise Lab at Brown University. But, she added, scientists need to learn how to measure it and “look at its associations with individual and community health.”Most cities and towns have ordinances that regulate noise under nuisance standards focusing on time-of-day violations, such as the blasting music from a neighbor’s late-night party. In instances when noise is measured, a challenge lies with the most common standard used, which fails to fully capture the low-frequency noise that the World Health Organization has identified as an environmental problem.In fact, much of the noise that people encounter in their everyday world is concentrated in the lower pitched frequencies, said René Gifford, a professor of hearing and speech sciences at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. If lower frequency noise is negatively affecting a critical mass of people, said Walker, then it is worth deciphering its complexities. Meanwhile, “by definition, noise is called unwanted sound,” Walker said. “And so that unwanted definition in sound is very much subjective.” While low-frequency noise may bother some people, the same sound can lull others to sleep. Low-frequency noise is typically perceived as a low-throbbing or deep rumble. When a freight train moves, for example, it produces vibrations that travel through the ground, moving long distances until they are perceived as both a shaking sensation and low pitch. And then there is infrasound, which is usually set below the human hearing threshold. In those lower frequencies, the normal variations in human hearing mean that this type of noise can be perceived as vibrations. “The vibratory effects can still impact various physiologic systems within our body,” Gifford said. “It’s just that we’re not processing them through our hearing mechanism.” The deep rumbling sound of thunder from a distant lightning bolt, for example, can cause vibrations in the chest and throughout the body as the frequency changes from high to low while traveling. “That would be a combination of the feeling that you feel, and you also have the auditory stimulation,” she said. Infrasound generally doesn’t even audibly register. For example, some of the sound produced by natural events, such as earthquakes, avalanches, and tsunamis, along with human inventions such as distant aircraft and machinery, can be below the human hearing threshold. But some evidence suggests that those extremely low pitches can still be felt in the body. “Prior to an earthquake, there tends to be infrasound that some research has shown some people can actually feel it or start feeling a little strange, off balance, maybe even nauseated,” Gifford said. Various studies, some using animals as subjects, suggest a link between frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum and a negative impact on health. But many of those studies include a limited number of participants. And after many years, much of the research on how and to what extent harm can occur continues. “It’s just that the magnitude of the effects is quite varied across studies,”

Quebec band critical of Glencore censored as transnational firm continues to pump out toxic emissions - A Quebec band has been censored for using its songs to accuse the Horne Smelter of poisoning the residents of Rouyn-Noranda, a town in northern Quebec’s northwestern Abitibi-Témiscamingue region. Local metal band Guhn Twei was recently disinvited from the Alienfest festival scheduled for June in La Sarre, another Abitibi town about an hour’s drive from Rouyn-Noranda. A few days later, the festival was completely cancelled by its organizers, one of whom is an employee and shareholder of Métal Marquis, a local company whose main customer is the Horne Smelter. Owned by the multinational Glencore, the Horne Smelter has long been criticized by Rouyn-Noranda residents for its excessive discharge of toxic materials. These criticisms resounded province-wide in 2022, after new statistics revealed that the company was poisoning the population of Rouyn-Noranda with arsenic and other heavy metals, a fact that the political establishment was fully aware of but systematically covered up. Guhn Twei singer Simon Turcotte worked at Horne Smelter for a subcontractor until, at age 26, he was diagnosed with sarcoma, a malignant soft-tissue tumor that ultimately led to the amputation of his right leg. Turcotte told La Presse in an interview in January 2023 that he could not prove a direct link between his employment at Horne Smelter and his “extremely rare, super-aggressive cancer that a young man of 26 stumbles upon out of nowhere, when he’s in the best of health,” but that “we know the health risks associated with the Horne Smelter.” Further evidence of these health risks had come to light in June 2022, when the media revealed that Quebec’s then National Director of Public Health, Dr. Horatio Arruda, who was heavily involved in the Quebec government’s murderous COVID-19 policy, had blocked the publication of data in 2019 that compared the state of health in Rouyn-Noranda with the rest of the province. The concealed document identified emissions of arsenic and other heavy metals from the Horne Smelter as being responsible for the serious health problems that afflict the population of Rouyn-Noranda at much higher rates than in the rest of the province. Statistics showed an abnormally high number of low-weight births, a life expectancy significantly lower than the Quebec average, 50 percent more cases of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a lung cancer rate of 140.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants between 2013 and 2017 (compared to 107.7 for the province as a whole). Simon Turcotte’s music is committed and openly critical of Glencore. Guhn Twei’s first album, released in 2023, is entitled Glencorruption, and the songs, with evocative names like Tueurs d’enfants [Child Killers], Marée noire [Oil Spill], Parasites and Eau de fonte [Smelting Ice], are about the Horne Smelter. In the first song on the album, also entitled Glencorruption, Turcotte sings of the multinational’s leaders as “white collar bandits,” “parasitic capitalists,” “child killers” and “planet rapists.” The singer is also very active on social media, where he seeks to inform the population of Rouyn-Noranda of the health dangers of the smelter’s emissions. He has pointed in particular to the billions in profits made by the multinational, which refuses to make the necessary modifications to reduce emissions of arsenic and other toxic metals.

Drinking water in low-income communities is more likely to be contaminated by 'forever chemic -PFAS, or forever chemicals, are widespread and more likely to be found in public water systems serving low-income communities and communities of color in New Jersey, according to new research from Northeastern University."This really comes out of a long tradition of environmental justice research that talks about the overburdened nature for people of color and of low income," says Phil Brown, university distinguished professor of sociology and health sciences and the director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern.The findings were published inEnvironmental Health Perspectives. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of 14,000 persistent,toxic chemicals that are used in countless consumer and industrial products—everything from your waterproof hiking gear to the container for your fast-food burger. They are often called "forever chemicals" because they are extremely persistent and can build up in organisms—including humans—over time.New Jersey was the first state to regulate certain PFAS in drinking water, with statewide sampling beginning in 2019 on all public water systems. "This was great data because you could see the entire state, all the public drinking water systems, no matter what the size," Brown says.He notes that the Environmental Protection Agency has historically monitored PFAS in systems that serve 10,000 people or more. The EPA now looks at smaller systems as well, Brown adds.According to this data, from 2019–2021, PFAS were detected in 63% of New Jersey water systems, collectively serving 84% of the state's population. Researchers then linked the community water system boundaries to census block groups to analyze the socio demographics of the population served by drinking water where PFAS were detected.

Historic cicada invasion expected this spring across the Midwest and Southeast in rare event that last occurred in 1803 - (video) This spring, regions across the Midwest and Southeast are poised to experience an extraordinary natural event, with the simultaneous emergence of two periodical cicada broods. This rare phenomenon, last recorded in 1803, is anticipated to involve billions, possibly trillions, of cicadas. Scientists are forecasting the emergence of an extraordinarily large number of cicadas this spring, with estimates suggesting billions, potentially trillions, could appear. This event is notable not only for its scale but also for the rare synchronization of two different cicada broods, Brood XIII and Brood XIX, which last occurred when Thomas Jefferson was president in 1803. The expected cicada emergence will span large parts of the Midwest and Southeast, beginning in early May, as soil temperatures reach about 18 °C (64 °F). The emergence involves Brood XIII, on a 17-year cycle, predominantly in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana, and Brood XIX, which follows a 13-year cycle and has a broader geographic footprint that includes Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. This year’s cicada phenomenon is particularly unique due to the geographical proximity and cycle synchronization of these two broods. They are set to overlap in a narrow band across central Illinois, creating a dense and vibrant hotspot of cicada activity. Daniel Young, a professor of entomology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, highlights the rarity of such an event, noting that the specific pairing of these broods’ cycles happens once every 221 years. Cicadas are known for their loud mating songs, which can reach up to 100 decibels—similar to the sound of chainsaws in operation. Jim Louderman, a collections assistant at the Field Museum in Chicago, described the anticipated sound as nearly deafening, with the potential to dominate the auditory landscape. While cicadas, particularly the periodical types that emerge in vast numbers, are generally not directly harmful to humans or homes, their presence can create several indirect issues. In the realm of agriculture, cicadas pose a threat to young trees and shrubs. They do not eat the foliage but their egg-laying process, which involves making slits in the branches to deposit eggs, can damage and sometimes kill young twigs. This can be particularly problematic for orchards and nurseries, though the damage can be mitigated with protective netting or by delaying planting until the cicada wave has subsided. In urban areas, the primary inconvenience posed by cicadas is the noise and the cleanup required after they die. The accumulation of dead cicadas can be substantial, leading to potential smell issues and a clean-up nuisance in public spaces such as streets, parks, and sidewalks. While they do not cause structural damage to buildings, their sheer numbers can be unsettling and require municipalities to allocate resources for cleanup. Cicadas can present minor hazards to drivers. Their abundance might lead to visibility issues if large numbers splatter on windshields, and their bodies can make roads slippery where they are particularly dense. Additionally, some people might find the large swarms and the constant noise psychologically distressing or overwhelming, though they are completely harmless. This natural phenomenon provides a significant source of food for a variety of predators, including birds and small mammals, and contributes to the nutrient cycle of ecosystems. Additionally, the decomposition of cicadas enriches the soil, enhancing forest fertility and supporting a new generation of plant growth.

Herds of endangered hippos trapped in mud in drought-hit Botswana -Herds of endangered hippos stuck in the mud of dried-up ponds are in danger of dying in drought-struck Botswana, conservation authorities told AFP Friday. Southern Africa has been affected by severe drought, caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has threatened harvests and plunged millions into hunger. Several countries in the region have recently declared a state of national disaster. Near the vast wetlands of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, the dried-up Thamalakane River has forced herds of hippos to head for natural water reserves close to the tourist town of Maun. "The river system dries up and animals are in a compromised situation," said Lesego Moseki, spokesperson for Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) in Botswana's capital Gaborone. Botswana is home to one of the world's largest populations of hippos living in the wild, estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). "The riverine vegetation is poor and the hippo in Ngamiland (northwestern district) depends on the water flowing through the Okavango Delta systems," Moseki added. They were still looking into the how many hippos had died in the pools, he said. Hippos have thick but sensitive skin, meaning they need to bathe regularly to avoid sunburn and usually live in humid areas. Without water, they can become aggressive and approach villages. Local authorities are calling for hippos to be relocated to reserves to avoid conflict with humans.

Philippine settlement submerged by dam reappears due to drought -A centuries-old settlement submerged by the construction of a dam in the northern Philippines in the 1970s has reappeared as water levels drop due to a drought affecting swathes of the country. The ruins in the middle of Pantabangan Dam in Nueva Ecija province are a tourist draw, even as the region swelters in extreme heat. Parts of a church, municipal hall marker and tombstones began to resurface in March after several months of "almost no rain", said Marlon Paladin, a supervising engineer for the National Irrigation Administration. It is the sixth time the nearly 300-year-old settlement has resurfaced since the reservoir was created to provide irrigation water for local farmers and generate hydro-power. "This is the longest time (it was visible) based on my experience," Paladin told AFP. The reservoir's water level has fallen nearly 50 metres (164 feet) from its normal high level of 221 metres, figures from the state weather forecaster show. The months of March, April and May are typically the hottest and driest in the archipelago nation, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Niño weather phenomenon. About half of the country's provinces, including Nueva Ecija, are officially in drought.

Severe cold snap hits Europe after unseasonable warmth, high-risk for catastrophic morning frost - (animated weather map) Central Europe is facing a high risk of catastrophic morning frost over the next few days, as cold air threatens extensive damage to agriculture across the region. Meteorologists from Severe Weather Europe have issued warnings about potentially severe impacts on blooming fruit trees, vineyards, and crops following a swift transition from unusually warm conditions. Over the past two weeks, much of Europe experienced record-high temperatures for April, promoting early blooming in many plants. However, this was followed by an abrupt weather reversal, introducing a critical phase for agricultural areas, particularly as night temperatures plummeted. Slovenia has become a notable example of this sharp climatic shift. On April 16, following more than ten days of summer-like weather with highs exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), the country reported a drastic change. Temperatures fell to icy levels accompanied by wind, rain, and snow, causing not only agricultural concerns but also traffic disruptions and minor damage from weather conditions. The most significant temperature drop was recorded in Podčetrtek, a town in eastern Slovenia, where temperatures fell from 27.2°C (81.0 °F) on the afternoon of April 15 to just 1 °C (33.8 °F) by 15:00 LT the following day, marking a record decline of 26.2 °C (47.2 °F). This severe temperature fluctuation poses a direct threat to the region’s agriculture, particularly to the fruit trees and vineyards now vulnerable after early blooming. The cold snap’s timing is particularly detrimental as the sudden frost can destroy new growth on plants, which had advanced due to the preceding warm period. The potential losses for local farmers, who rely on these crops for their livelihood, could be significant if the frost persists or intensifies. The full extent of the impact will depend on the duration of the cold spell and the effectiveness of response strategies employed by affected agricultural communities. Weather models today suggest very cold temperatures are expected to persist across most of central Europe through April 25. They will warm up a bit after April 25, but generally cold temperatures will then include the entire Europe, from north to south and east to west through the end of the month and into May.

Europe’s historic temperature shift, from summer to winter in just one day - Europe has experienced one of the most rapid temperature flips on record in April 2024 — moving from numerous record-breaking summer-like temperatures at the beginning of the month to record-breaking late April records and frost. Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera said Europe has never seen a month like that extreme. Temperatures across Europe during the first two weeks of April were marked by numerous record-high temperatures, with summer-like temperatures bringing the feeling of upcoming summer and promoting early blooming in many plants. However, this was followed by an abrupt weather reversal in mid-April, bringing unusually cold temperatures, freezing rain, and snow. “Europe, the crib of meteorology, is experiencing its most extreme month ever seen,” said weather historian and climatologist Maximiliano Herrera. Slovenia has become a notable example of this sharp climatic shift. On April 16, following more than ten days of summer-like weather with highs exceeding 30 °C (86 °F), the country reported a drastic change. Temperatures fell to icy levels accompanied by wind, rain, and snow, causing not only agricultural concerns but also traffic disruptions and minor damage from weather conditions. As we reported on April 21, the most significant temperature drop was recorded in Podčetrtek, a town in eastern Slovenia, where temperatures fell from 27.2°C (81.0 °F) on the afternoon of April 15 to just 1 °C (33.8 °F) by 15:00 LT the following day, marking a record decline of 26.2 °C (47.2 °F). A similar rapid temperature shift was recorded across central Europe, severely affecting the region’s agriculture, particularly fruit trees and vineyards now vulnerable after early blooming. Winemakers in France and other affected regions fought frost with anti-frost candles, evoking a familiar scene that we’ve seen repeating over the past several years. This sequence marks yet another year where early-season warmth promoted plant blooming, only to be followed by a destructive frost. A poignant example occurred in 2017, when vineyards in Champagne, Bordeaux, and Burgundy were severely impacted by temperatures plunging to below -7 °C (19 °F). This abrupt cold snap destroyed the tender shoots that had already begun to develop. Julien Hubail, an expert at the Bugey Wine Union, recounted to The Guardian that the frost was the most devastating event that local winemakers could recall. Today, April 23, many areas across Europe, from Finland to Germany and Croatia, woke up to snow. In Helsinki, Finland, tram network has been shut down completely after freezing rain and snowfall iced up overhead power lines. Parts of southern Finland recorded more than 20 cm (7.8 inches) of new snow, with 28 cm (11 inches) in Espoo. The event has been described as unusual. Antti Vigelius, head of Metropolitan Area Transport Ltd’s maintenance unit, said in a press statement that the severity of the weather surprised them, adding that problems with tram services could continue for as long as the freezing rain continues. Germany’s tallest mountain, the Zugspitze, standing at 2 962 meters (9 718 feet), has accumulated 40 cm (16 inches) of snow over the past 24 hours and approximately 1 meter (3.3 feet) in the last five days. Despite the resort’s preparations for the summer season, snow conditions at the Zugspitze Ski Area are currently ideal. These conditions are more typical of winter months, not what would be expected at the end of April. Late April snow was also reported as far south as Croatia and east through Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania on April 23. Unusually cold weather has also crossed the Mediterranean and entered northern Africa where they are expected to remain and spread at least over the next 3 days.

Thailand heat index soars to ‘extremely dangerous’ levels, 30 deaths reported - Thailand is experiencing a deadly heatwave, with 30 reported fatalities from heatstroke, as of April 25, 2024. The country’s capital, Bangkok, saw the heat index exceed critical levels, reaching over 52 °C (125 °F) on Thursday, exacerbating the public health crisis. The Thai capital, Bangkok, where temperatures hit 40.1 °C (104.2 °F) on Wednesday, April 24, continues to experience similarly high temperatures. The city’s environment department has categorized the heat index, which factors in humidity and wind, as “extremely dangerous,” exceeding 52 °C (125 °F). The impact of the heat is widespread across South and Southeast Asia, with the Philippines suspending school classes and communities in Bangladesh praying for rain. In Udon Thani province, northeastern Thailand, local authorities have also issued warnings regarding the oppressive heat. This week, temperatures reached near-record levels, with a peak of 44.2 °C (111.6 °F) recorded in the northern province of Lampang, approaching the national record of 44.6 °C (112.3 °F) set last year. The extreme weather is being attributed to the El Niño pattern, which has exacerbated the usual heat experienced during April, typically the hottest month in the region. Direk Khampaen, from Thailand’s Department of Disease Control, emphasized the need for vulnerable populations, particularly the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, to stay indoors, hydrate regularly, and avoid heat exposure. The situation in neighboring Myanmar has also been severe, with temperatures climbing to 45.9 °C (114.6 °F) amid ongoing conflicts that have disrupted power supplies, further complicating efforts to stay cool. Forecast models for the region suggest that temperatures on April 26 and April 27 will be even higher.

Severe dust storm strikes eastern Libya, turning skies eerie red - videos - A severe dust storm swept over eastern Libya on April 23, 2024, turning the skies over Darnah an eerie red.A strong desert depression, accompanied by winds over 70 km/h (44 mph) produced a severe dust storm over eastern parts of the country, particularly over Darnah (Derna) on April 23, turning skies over the city into eerie red and significantly limiting visibility.Saharan dust clouds reached Greece and Turkey on the same day and continued moving toward Bulgaria and Romania and further NE.The videos below were captured from Athens, Greece.Libiya’s National Center of Meteorology expects the depression to move toward the Egyptian territory on Wednesday, April 24, with winds gradually shifting northwesterly.A drop in temperatures is expected on Wednesday over most of the eastern and southern regions and a proliferation of clouds over some regions of the northeast, while the weather will be relatively cold in the northern regions. Wind speed will decrease on Wednesday in most areas of the country with an improvement in weather conditions.

Destructive tornado outbreak strikes Nebraska and Iowa, EF2 - EF5 tornado threat continues into Sunday, U.S. - The WatchersA destructive tornado outbreak with at least 78 tornadoes impacted the U.S. Plains on Friday, April 26, 2024, leaving a trail of damage and more than a dozen injuries. The outbreak occurred as a part of a multi-day severe weather threat covering over 60 million Americans. The threat of EF2 – EF5 tornadoes will continue into Sunday, April 28. NWS SPC received at least 78 tornado reports — 37 from Iowa, 29 from Nebraska, 5 from Kansas, 4 from Missouri and 3 from Texas, making it the busiest tornado day in the United States in more than a year. In addition, SPC received 59 large hail reports and 31 strong wind reports. At 17:26 CST, a tornado caused damage in the China Springs area approximately 8 km (5 miles) south of Gholson, McLennan County, Texas, with reports of tornado pictures confirming the event. By 17:28, another tornado was estimated to be on the ground for about 4 to 5 minutes near Ravenna, 3.2 km (2 miles) north-northeast in Sherman County, Nebraska, which was video confirmed. At 17:38, Rockville, also in Sherman County, Nebraska, experienced a tornado with initial damage reports, pending further surveys. Shortly afterward, at 17:53, more tornado pictures and reports came from the area 6.4 km (4 miles) east of West, north of Tours to Penelope in McLennan County, Texas. In Nebraska, Howard County witnessed a tornado at 17:58, 1.6 km (1 mile) south of Farwell, reported by a fireman, moving north/northeast. This was followed by another confirmed tornado at 18:14, 3.2 km (2 miles) north-northwest of Elba, with multiple reports indicating its presence west and north of Elba. Navarro County, Texas, experienced a tornado at 18:37, 11.3 km (7 miles) south-southeast of Frost near FM 477 in the Brushie Prairie area. Lancaster County, Nebraska, had a flurry of tornado activity starting at 19:43 near the Kawasaki Plant, 8 km (5 miles) northwest of Lincoln, followed by more near Lincoln and Waverly, with one causing significant house damage at 19:53, 1.6 km (1 mile) northwest of Waverly. The tornado outbreak continued across Douglas, Boone, Butler, and Woodson Counties in Nebraska and Kansas, with tornadoes reported near populated areas and causing damage to houses and other structures. Notably, at 20:43, 4.8 km (3 miles) south of New Albany, Wilson County, Kansas, a tornado was video confirmed, and by 20:45, a large tornado was moving into western Elkhorn, Douglas County, Nebraska. Significant tornado activity was also reported in Iowa, with one report at 21:56 near Pacific Junction, Mills County, indicating a tornado on the ground.

Multi-vortex tornado strikes China’s Guangzhou megacity, leaving 5 fatalities, 141 buildings damaged - A destructive multi-vortex tornado, accompanied by heavy rain and large hail up to 12 cm (4.72 inches) in diameter, struck the Guangzhou megacity (population 18.6 million) at approximately 15:00 LT on April 27, 2024, leaving at least five people dead, 33 injured and 141 commercial building damaged. Guangzhou is located in south China’s Guangdong province and is one of the country’s three largest cities. The Guangzhou Meteorological Observatory confirmed an afternoon sighting of a tornado around 15:05 LT in the Zhongluotan town of Baiyun District, following initial reports by local citizens. “The Baiyun Zhongluotan region displayed distinct tornado characteristics in radar echo and wind field maps, raising alarms among weather officials,” forecasters at the observatory said. The state-run Xinhua news agency quoted officials as saying the tornado exhibited level-three intensity on a five-level scale and traveled a distance of 1 km (0.62 miles), focusing its destruction on the industrial areas. Eric Wang, a Shanghai-based extreme weather enthusiast, captured the severity of the situation, stating, “Large tornado moved into Guangzhou metropolitan hrs ago… intense power flashes can be seen everywhere.” “This is as bad as it can get…” he later added. “Total destruction near the industrial area that took a direct hit from the Guangzhou tornado this afternoon, houses collapsed, and power poles snapped…Today will be remembered forever.”

Why Ohio is on a record pace for tornadoes — Central Ohio experienced another round of strong storms last Wednesday, which came with heavy rain, large hail, damaging winds and several tornadoes. Five tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service in Ohio, raising the season total to 35 — far more than have been previously recorded in the first four months of the year. Active storm days produced nine tornadoes on Feb. 28 and March 14, 11 tornadoes on April 2, and one on March 5. The average number of tornadoes in Ohio during an entire year is 22. Last year produced a near-record number of tornadoes (57). Counties north of the Columbus area were under tornado warnings Wednesday between 4 and 5 p.m. At the time, Bucyrus police confirmed rotation on the ground that caused significant damage to powerlines and trees. Fifteen minutes after a tornado touched down at Bucyrus, a weak EF0 storm (70 mph) came down in eastern Champaign County north of U.S. 36, causing minor damage to roofs and outbuildings. As the growing line of strong storms plowed through the Columbus area at rush hour, northern Franklin and southern Delaware counties were under a severe thunderstorm warning until 6:15 p.m., along with portions of Madison and Union counties. A tornado warning was briefly issued for Licking County for rotation that developed in southeastern Delaware County. An EF1 tornado, with 90 mph winds, was later confirmed along Fancher Road that damaged several homes along a path of a little less than a mile. The storms also produced quarter-sized hail in northern and eastern parts of Franklin County, and between Circleville and Lancaster. Winds gusted to 65 mph at Marion and 59 mph, at Ohio State University Airport in northwest Columbus with the arrival of the strong cluster of storms.A Cleveland NWS storm survey reported that a tornado touched down on the southwest side of Bucyrus at 4:06 p.m., then strengthened as it moved quickly northeast, with estimated maximum winds reaching 110 mph. “Several large hardwood trees were uprooted, a garage was destroyed, a small trailer rolled, three chimneys were blown down, several large trees were uprooted, and a shed was destroyed near the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Wise Street,” according to the report.A house was pushed off its foundation and the post office had roof damage. In the downtown area, the roof of the Family Dollar store partially collapsed, and the wall of an abandoned plant caved in. Bucyrus Police Chief R. Thomas Walker said areas lost power and residents were forced to seek shelter due to high winds, powerful rain and flying debris. Emergency crews were dispatched to assist residents after multiple reports of downed power wires, fallen trees and property damage. No injuries were reported. The field survey revealed that the tornado traveled 3.48 miles, with a path width of 100 yards. Tornadoes were also confirmed in northeastern Ohio in Portage County at Windham (EF1) and Trumbull County at Champion Heights (EF0) during the early evening before the storm line weakened. This is the second year in a row that Ohio has witnessed significant tornado events in late February and early March, which is unprecedented. In 2023, tornadoes were recorded on Feb. 27 (5) and March 3 (4). The likely reason for this year’s historic early-season activity is linked to an unusually warm winter, mild ground temperatures, virtually no ice on the Great Lakes (record low extent in the satellite era), and abnormally warm water in the Gulf of Mexico. All of these ingredients supported unstable air and storm energy farther north aided by low-level southerly winds, coupled with a strong jet stream carrying El Niño-fueled Pacific storm systems eastward, which amplified the early-starting severe weather season in Ohio and Midwest.

Softball-sized hail causes extensive damage in Rock Hill, South Carolina - A powerful storm rolled over South Carolina on April 20, 2024, bringing strong winds, heavy rain, and golf to softball-sized hail. The storm system affected the larger areas of Lancaster and York counties but focused its most intense effects in northeast-central York County, causing significant structural damage and power outages. The storm, part of a larger system that stretched from Texas across the Southeast, was marked by high winds and unusually large hail, with reports of hailstones as big as 10 cm (3.94 inches) in diameter. Rock Hill bore the brunt of the storm, with hundreds of vehicles and buildings damaged by hail ranging from golf ball to softball size. The intensity of the storm was such that a gas station awning collapsed along SC Highway 72 just south of downtown Rock Hill. In addition to structural damages, more than 25 000 homes and businesses were left without electricity, primarily in York County, according to PowerOutage.us. “All of a sudden, it’s hailing, it’s freezing cold outside and I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me,” a resident told Queen City News. Meteorologist Brad Panovich explained that the atmospheric conditions were ideally aligned for the formation of monster hail within a downburst, describing it as a perfect setup. “The terminal velocity of golf ball size hail is around 96 km/h (60 mph), if it’s embedded in a downburst with 105 km (65 mph) winds. That means the hail is hitting cars, roofs, and homes at approximately 195 – 200 km/h (120-125 mph),” Panovich said in a Facebook post (below). “The sound of it hitting my car was insane! Could barely see but looked baseball/softball-sized on some,” Kimberly Dawn said in a reply to Panovich. Some local media outlets are reporting that a tornado touched down in Rock Hill, but these are unconfirmed reports and the National Weather Service (NWS) issued no tornado warning for the city (population 74 372). The surrounding areas also felt the storm’s impact. In Gaston County, North Carolina, several trees were downed, including one that fell onto a residence along Dallas Spencer Mountain Road. Neighboring Lancaster County saw items being hurled by the winds, with local media outlets reporting damage to residential areas and commercial establishments. Despite the severity of the storm and the widespread damage it caused, there were no injuries reported.

‘Once in a century’ flood warning issued for Guangdong as Bei River surges to record levels, China - The southern Chinese province of Guangdong faces severe flooding risks with the Bei River’s water levels predicted to peak at 37.3 m (122 feet) early on April 22, 2024. This event, deemed a ‘once-in-a-century’ occurrence, comes after the region experienced record-breaking rainfall, affecting millions of people. Residents of Guangdong province are bracing for potentially catastrophic flooding as the Bei River, a key tributary of the Pearl River, is expected to swell to 37.3 m (122 feet) by 01:00 LT on April 22, 2024 (17:00 UTC on April 21). This level is significantly above the flood warning threshold by approximately 5.8 m (19 feet). Over the weekend, water levels at 20 monitoring stations along the river had already surpassed safety limits. This escalation follows a series of intense rainstorms that began on April 19, setting new rainfall records for the month. The cities of Qingyuan, Shaoguan, Huizhou, and Guangzhou are among the worst affected. The National Meteorological Centre has reported that since the beginning of April, the affected regions have received between 200 mm (7.9 inches) and 350 mm (13.8 inches) of rainfall. Shaoguan alone has seen a total of 584.4 mm (23 inches) of rain, surpassing the previous record of 417 mm (16.4 inches) set last year. This deluge has led to the activation of numerous hail and thunderstorm warnings across the province, including orange alerts—the second-highest level of concern in China’s rainstorm warning system—for several areas. In the provincial capital Guangzhou (population 18 million), reservoirs have reached flood limits, city officials said on Sunday, adding that 2 609 hydrological stations had daily rainfall greater than 50 mm (1.97 inches), accounting for about 59% of all observation stations. At 08:00 LT today, 27 hydrological stations in Guangdong were on alert. The forecast suggests no respite in the coming days, with 150 – 300 mm (5.9 – 11.8 inches) of additional rainfall expected across central and northern Guangdong, northeastern Guangxi, and southern Jiangxi. Some locales might even exceed 400 mm (15.7 inches) of rain. In response, the provincial disaster prevention department is intensifying efforts to mitigate the impact, focusing on monitoring and early warnings, flood control dispatch, and emergency rescue operations. To date, more than 20 000 people have been evacuated from Qingyuan and Shaoguan, although no casualties have been reported yet. The incessant rain has caused significant disruptions, including waterlogging and landslides, leading to the suspension of train services and the closure of several highways over the weekend. Flight delays were also reported at Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou. This marks the second major flood event in Guangdong this month alone, following an early start to the flood season that saw over 800 people evacuated two weeks prior.

Record-breaking rainfall in Guangdong, China leaves 4 dead, 10 missing - Record-breaking rainfall affecting China’s Guangdong Province since Friday, April 19, 2024, pushed water levels in the Bei River, a tributary of the Pearl River, to exceed 50-year highs, causing widespread floods in which at least 4 people died and 10 others went missing. The floods caused extensive damage, including the destruction of 36 houses and severe damage to 48 others, incurring direct economic losses of nearly 140.6 million yuan. From 10:00 LT on Friday, April 19 to 11:00 LT on Sunday, April 21, the province recorded an average rainfall of 121.8 mm (4.8 inches), with cities like Guangzhou, Shaoguan, and Lechang registering record rainfall figures for the month of April. Shaoguan was particularly hard hit, receiving a staggering 584.4 mm (23 inches) of rain by April 21, eclipsing the previous record of 417 mm (16.4 inches) set in 2023. The National Meteorological Centre reported that the region received between 200 mm (7.9 inches) and 350 mm (13.8 inches) of rainfall since the beginning of April, with the situation culminating over the weekend. Helicopters and rubber boats were utilized extensively as the central-northern regions along the Bei River were among the hardest hit. Over 300 emergency personnel were deployed on Saturday, April 20 to rescue residents trapped by landslides in six villages within Jiangwan town. In Qingyuan, central Guangdong, floodwaters on Sunday morning, April 21 reached the first floors of buildings, inundating homes and commercial buildings. By 16:00 on the same day, over 60 000 people had been evacuated from the affected areas. Further impacts included the suspension of classes in Qingyuan schools and significant disruptions to rail services, affecting over 300 train journeys between Friday and Sunday. Rail operations resumed on Monday, April 22. Additionally, the Feilaixia reservoir in Qingyuan saw water levels and flow rates approaching 100-year records on Monday. According to the state-run news agency Xinhua, three people died during heavy downpours in Zhaoqing City while another died during a rescue mission in Shaoguan City. Ten are missing in the cities of Shaoguan and Qingyuan and over 110 000 residents have been moved from affected areas, as of April 22. Among the missing are 4 who were on a vessel that collided with a pier of the Jiujiang Bridge and later sank. A preliminary assessment of the bridge found no obvious damage to the main structure. However, there were scratches on the bridge’s pier, requiring further assessment of the bridge’s safety. Across the Guangdong Province, 36 houses collapsed while 48 were severely damaged, resulting in a direct economic loss of nearly 140.6 million yuan. Provincial authorities earlier warned that the Bei River water levels were expected to hit ‘once in a century’ levels, but as the event progressed they lowered their predictions. YouTube video Shaoguan, located in the north of the province, on Monday, April 22, downgraded the city’s flood emergency response warning to level three in a four-tier alert system in which level one is the most severe. In light of ongoing threats, Shenzhen authorities issued a Red alert on Tuesday, April 23, urging the public to take immediate precautions against potential flooding and related hazards like landslides, mudslides, and flash floods. The heavy rainfall was expected to persist for several more hours, maintaining a critical situation in the region. The storms marked the earlier-than-normal start to the province’s annual flooding season which usually begins in May and June. Guangdong is China’s major economic and technological hub, known for its robust manufacturing industries and rapid technological advancements. It is the most populous province in China and serves as a critical gateway to the global market due to its strategic coastal position adjacent to Hong Kong and Macau. The province has been at the forefront of China’s economic reforms and is home to the Pearl River Delta, one of the most dynamic economic regions in the world. This area, which includes cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dongguan, is particularly renowned for its high-tech industries. Shenzhen, for example, is often dubbed the “Silicon Valley of Hardware” and hosts the headquarters of numerous multinational technology companies, including Huawei, Tencent, and DJI Innovations.

Over 150 fatalities in Tanzania as heavy rains cause widespread floods and destruction - On April 25, 2024, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa reported to Tanzania’s parliament that torrential rains have resulted in the deaths of at least 155 people, with 236 others injured since January. The severe weather has also led to significant damage to infrastructure and affected over 200 000 people across the country. During a comprehensive report to Tanzania’s parliament, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa detailed the devastating impact of the ongoing torrential rains that have plagued the country since January 2024. The rains, which are significantly influenced by the El Nino phenomenon, have led to catastrophic floods and landslides across various regions, claiming the lives of at least 155 individuals and injuring 236. The adverse weather conditions have wreaked havoc on the country’s infrastructure, destroying roads, bridges, and railways, and leaving over 10 000 homes damaged to varying extents. Additionally, more than 51 000 households, encompassing around 200 000 people, have been adversely affected by these conditions. BBC Weather’s Chris Fawkes explained that one of the primary contributors to these extreme weather conditions is the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), often referred to as the “Indian Niño” due to its similarities with the Pacific El Niño. The IOD’s positive phase results in significantly warmer waters in the western Indian Ocean, leading to heavier rainfall in the region. The simultaneous occurrence of a positive IOD and an El Niño can intensify the rainfall, as witnessed last year, exacerbating the weather impact on East Africa. Historically, the combination of a strong positive IOD and an El Niño was linked to one of the deadliest weather events in 1997 and 1998, which resulted in over 6 000 deaths across five East African countries.

Flooded uranium mines in Russia’s Kurgan Region raise radioactive contamination fears - Severe flooding in Russia’s Kurgan region has inundated areas surrounding the Dobrovolnoye uranium deposit, leading to potential radioactive and chemical pollution in the Tobol River. This event was reported on April 21, 2024, by the investigative news outlet Agentstvo, citing local authorities and environmentalists. The Kurgan region in Russia has experienced its worst flooding in decades this month, with significant concern over the potential leakage of radioactive materials from submerged uranium mines into the Tobol River. The Dobrovolnoye uranium deposit, identified within the flood zones of Kurgan’s Zverinogolovsky district, was highlighted in a map released by local authorities on April 11. This area has seen extensive uranium mining activities, managed by a company under Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear energy agency. According to NS Energy Business, the mine is estimated to be holding approximately 7 077 tons of uranium at a grade value ranging from 0.01 percent to 0.05 percent uranium. Sergei Eremin, who leads the regional environmental group Foundation for Public Control Over the State of the Environment and the Well-Being of the Population, pointed out that a video recorded by a local resident suggests that an old well, which has been leaking uranium for 35 years, might already be submerged due to the flooding. The mine is located between the villages of Zverinogolovskoye and Trud i Znanie. Andrei Ozharovsky, a nuclear physicist, noted that some wells were improperly sealed, leading to ongoing leaks of uranium salts into the river while Alexei Shvarts, a former regional head with experience in uranium mining, voiced concerns to Agentstvo about the degradation of natural defenses against contamination. Additionally, environmentalists fear that radioactive substances have already been introduced into the river system, posing a direct threat to the health and safety of hundreds of thousands residing downstream. Despite the dilution effect of the Tobol’s waters, increased concentrations of uranium present a significant risk. Uranium, being both radioactive and chemically toxic, poses health risks at even low concentrations, particularly through drinking water leading to internal radiation exposure. Local ecological activists have long opposed uranium mining in the region, pointing out the dangers of spring floods from the Tobol River. These concerns were historically ignored, as evidenced by the continued operations and previous incidents of flooding in the 1980s and a significant event in 1994.

Unstable uranium tailings dams in Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan pose nuclear threat to millions - Recent studies have exposed a critical risk in Kyrgyzstan, where unstable dams holding approximately 700 000 cubic meters (918 000 cubic yards) of uranium mine tailings threaten to unleash a large-scale nuclear disaster on the Fergana Valley, potentially displacing millions and rendering the region uninhabitable. Recent environmental studies have raised alarming concerns about the stability of dams in Kyrgyzstan’s Mailuu-Suu region that are holding approximately 700 000 cubic meters (918 000 cubic yards) of uranium mine tailings. The dams, compromised following a 2017 landslide, are unstable and now pose a grave threat to the Fergana Valley, a fertile region central to the agricultural output of Central Asia. The dams are situated near the Mailuu-Suu River, a crucial waterway that irrigates farmland across Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. They are remnants of Soviet-era uranium mining and processing practices. During the mid-20th century, the Soviet Union established numerous uranium extraction sites across its vast territories, including several in Kyrgyzstan, to fuel its growing nuclear arsenal and energy needs. The Mailuu-Suu region, developed between the 1940s and 1960s, became one of the largest uranium ore dumps. However, the environmental and safety standards during this era were often overlooked, leading to the current precarious situation. Radioactive waste is stored in 23 tailings ponds and 13 mining debris heaps along the Mailuu-Suu River, which feeds into the Syr Darya River. Landslides, mudslides and floods have already damaged some of these tailings, and some are in high-risk areas where major landslides are expected. According to the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which are involved in efforts to reinforce these facilities, the current situation could lead to a catastrophic environmental disaster if further landslides or earthquakes were to occur. Such an event could displace millions of people in the three countries. The weakening of the dams’ foundations was exacerbated by water intrusion during the 2017 landslide, which also raised the river’s water level closer to the tailings. In response, the Bishkek government, in collaboration with G.E.O.S., has estimated that relocating the waste to a safer location away from the river would cost between 22 – 25 million Euros ($23 – 26 million).

Indian nuclear facilities found to have radioactive influence on Southern Tibetan Plateau - A study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters has shed light on the long-range transboundary transport of radioactive iodine-129 (¹²⁹I) from the Indian nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (NFRPs) to the Southern Tibetan Plateau (STP).This study, conducted by researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), provides a new understanding of the transport of airborne radioactive pollutants from low to high altitudes, and may have implications for environmental protection on the Tibetan Plateau.The Tibetan Plateau, known as the "Third Pole of the Earth" and the "Roof of the World," is a remote, isolated, and presumably pristine region. Previous studies of radioactive contamination have focused primarily on the northern TP, leaving little knowledge of the STP. Primarily originating from human nuclear activities, iodine-129, with its properties of high volatility and radiation risk of short-lived radioiodine, serves as a key radionuclide for nuclear environmental safety monitoring.In this study, the researchers have meticulously investigated the spatial variation of ¹²⁹I in the bioindicators, moss and lichen, from the STP.They found that ¹²⁹I in the STP was significantly higher than the pre-nuclear levels and those in Chinese inland cities, but two to four orders of magnitude lower than those in the vicinity of the Indian and European NFRPs.Analysis of the ¹²⁹I discharge history in conjunction with the wind field indicates that the Indian NFRPs are the primary sources of ¹²⁹I in the STP. The prevailing ISM plays a crucial role in the transport of ¹²⁹I from the lowland to the high-altitude STP. The transport process is further enhanced by the summertime overlying heat pump, but is weakened by topographic blocking, forest adsorption, and cold trapping.The spatial distribution of ¹²⁹I and ¹²⁷I in lichens distributed on Mt. Galongla shows that the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon serves as a key transport channel.

Europe is world's fastest-warming continent, scientists say -Europe is the fastest warming continent on Earth, the 2023 European State of the Climate report (ESOTC) published Monday revealed. "Since the 1980s, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, becoming the fastest-warming continent on Earth," said the joint report from the World Meteorological Organization and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the Earth observation unit of the European Union's space program. In 2023, Europe tied 2020 for its warmest year on record. The most above-average temperatures were in the European Arctic, and the continent's sea surface temperatures were the warmest on record. In June, a marine heat wave was classified as "extreme" and "beyond extreme" in some areas around the Atlantic west of Ireland and around the U.K. "This (record warmth) is due to several factors, including the proportion of European land in the Arctic, which is the fastest-warming region on Earth, and to changes in atmospheric circulation that favor more frequent summer heatwaves," the ESOTC continued. Europe includes Greenland, the South Caucuses and part of the Middle East in WMO data. The continent was 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.68 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) warmer than in the past 30 years. The global average temperature in 2023 was 1.45 degrees C (2.61 degrees F) above the pre-industrial average and 0.6 degrees C (1.08 degrees F) warmer than the recent average. The three warmest years on record have all occurred since 2020. The 10 warmest years have all occurred since 2017. Since the early 90s, Europe has been warming around 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) per decade, outpacing the global average of 0.2 degrees C (0.36 degrees F). More than 75% of the continent's most severe heat waves since 1950 have been since the turn of the century. Three of the deadliest have occurred in the last 5 years. That also contributed to the explosive wildfires across Europe, one in Greece was the largest ever on the continent. Warmer air temperatures, along with warmer sea temperatures, led to accelerated melting of sea ice. Less snow in the mountains and a warmer summer also resulted in glaciers shrinking. In just two years, glaciers in the Alps lost 10% of their volume. The year was punctuated by weather extremes between heat waves and floodingstorms. "The year, as you know, has globally been extremely unusual, especially when compared with the climate of the last few decades, centuries, or even millennia," said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S. "So some of the events of 2020 through 2023 took the scientific community by surprise because of their intensity, their speed, onset, extent and duration." "In Europe, there is an increasing trend in the frequency and temperature of warmer-than-average days and nights, and in the frequency and intensity of heat waves and extreme precipitation events," stated the ESOTC report. "In southern Europe in particular, agricultural and ecological drought events are also increasing. Such increases in the number and severity of some extremes are already having an impact on health and wellbeing." The World Health Organization is still working on final numbers for 2023, but in 2022, heat-related injuries claimed 62,000 lives, according to a study in the Lancet. "Heat-related mortality has increased by around 30% in the past 20 years," said the ESOTC. "Between 2000 and 2020, heat-related deaths are estimated to have increased in 94% of the European regions monitored."

Shallow M6.1 and M6.0 earthquakes hit Taiwan within 6 minutes - Two strong earthquakes registered by the USGS as M6.1 and M6.0 hit Taiwan within 6 minutes on April 22, 2024 — at 18:26 UTC and 18:32 UTC, respectively. The agency is reporting a depth of 10.7 km (6.6 miles) for the M6.1 quake and 10 km (6.2 miles) for the second quake. Preliminary data shows epicenters at a distance of about 20 km (12.4 miles).The epicenter of the M6.1 quake was located 28.4 km (17.6 miles) S of Hualien City (population 350 468), and 73.4 km (45.6 miles) ESE of Puli (population 86 406). 8 000 people are estimated to have felt very strong shaking, 208 000 strong, and 87 000 moderate.The epicenter of the M6.0 quake was located 13.9 km (8.7 miles) SSW of Hualien City and 58.9 km (36.6 miles) E of Puli. 5 000 people are estimated to have felt severe shaking, 144 000 very strong, 96 000 strong, and 35 000 moderate.There is no tsunami threat.The USGS issued a Green alert for shaking-related fatalities and a Yellow for economic losses. Some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localized. Past events with this alert level have required a local or regional level response.The quakes struck at 02:26 and 02:32 local time on April 23, during the middle of the night when most people were sleeping.According to media reports on April 23, several buildings have been damaged but no casualties have been recorded.This region has experienced hundreds of aftershocks following M7.4 on April 2, with many of them between M4 and M6. The strongest was M6.4 on April 3, followed by today’s M6.1 at 18:26 UTC, M6.0 at 18:32, and M5.8 at 14:11 UTC. At least 17 people were killed and over 1 100 were injured during M7.4 on April 2. It was the strongest quake to hit Taiwan since the 1999 Jiji earthquake.

CME impact sparks unexpected G3 - Strong geomagnetic storm, red aurora in Missouri, U.S. - videos - Solar wind conditions became enhanced beginning at 04:13 UTC on April 19, 2024, due to coronal mass ejection (CME) impact, resulting in unexpected G3 – Strong geomagnetic storming just before 20:00 UTC. Following the CME arrival, total field strength reached 18 nT and the Bz component was sustained southward after 04:10 UTC with a peak of -17 nT observed, according to the SWPC. Geomagnetic K-index of 4 threshold was reached at 07:50 UTC, followed by K-index of 5 (G1 – Minor geomagnetic storm) at 14:15 UTC. Geomagnetic K-index of 6 threshold (G2 – Moderate geomagnetic storm) was reached at 19:40 UTC, followed by K-index of 7 (G3 – Strong geomagnetic storm) threshold at 19:52 UTC. Under G3 – Strong geomagnetic storm conditions (impact is primarily poleward of 50 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude), power system voltage irregularities are possible, and false alarms may be triggered on some protection devices. Spacecraft systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites and orientation problems may occur. Intermittent satellite navigation (GPS) problems are likely, including loss-of-lock and increased range error. HF (high frequency) radio may be intermittent and aurora may be seen as low as Pennsylvania to Iowa to Oregon. While the strong storm was brief, it managed to produce impactful auroras, including red auroras as far south as Iowa and Missouri. Northern lights were also sighted across Europe, with reports coming in from Bled, Slovenia, and even Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, red aurora was also seen and captured from Tasmania. YouTube video Solar activity reached moderate levels in 24 hours to 00:30 UTC on April 20. Region 3647 produced two M-class flares, the largest of which was an M2.1 flare at 04:53 UTC on April 19. The second was M1.0 at 13:06 UTC. Other notable activity included a large prominence eruption on the SE limb, beginning at around 04:00 UTC on April 19. The associated CME is not Earth-directed. goes-16 suvi 304 0545 UTC on April 19 2024 Image credit: NOAA/GOES-16 SUVI. Acquired at 05:45 UTC on April 19, 2024 Solar activity is expected to remain at moderate levels through April 21, with M-class flares expected (75%) and a slight chance for X-class flares (20%), due to the flare potential of several active regions on the visible disk.

The U.S. Supreme Court Should Shut Down Energy Lawfare Chaos -One of the myriad lawfare strategies that have targeted US and European oil and gas producers in recent years is now receiving elevated attention from the media and courts. The strategy involves plaintiffs’ firms persuading individual states, counties, and cities to sue these companies alleging ill-defined climate impacts as a result of their greenhouse gas emissions.In one of the most high-profile cases, the Hawaii state supreme court in October ruled that the city and county of Honolulu could pursue such a claim under state tort law in the case Sunoco v. City of Honolulu. The court held that the city could pursue the claims regardless of the obvious fact that some or most of the emissions that may have caused the alleged impacts originated from all parts of the world.The defendants in the case filed a writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the city must respond by May 1. The petition by the defendants is entirely logical in its contention that it defies both logic and the U.S. Constitution that individual states should be permitted to use state laws to sue for alleged damages that fall under federal law.The reason is obvious: Allowing any state to pursue such claims would open the door to companies having to do business in compliance with 50 separate sets of environmental requirements that should fall under the provisions of federal statutes like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Opening the question up to enabling individual cities or counties to pursue similar claims under state laws would create such a high level of complexity and chaos that it could become essentially impossible to do business in the United States. The result could likely be the flight of billions of dollars in capital investment to other countries around the world.The Sunoco case has attracted a wealth of amicus briefs filed by legal experts and officials in support of the defendants, including 20 state attorneys general and other interested parties. One such brief, filed by Richard A. Epstein and John Yoo, legal scholars respectively at NYU Law School and UC Berkeley Law School, argues that the Hawaii court’s decision presents “a clear conflict over the preemptive effect of federal law.”

The Rise Of Big Oil’s Zombie Pipelines -- A carbon dioxide pipeline rupture in the small village of Satartia, Mississippi, sent nearly 50 people to the hospital with “zombie”-like conditions in 2020, and now another major leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, has once again exposed the risks carbon dioxide pipelines pose to communities in their path. Soon, pipelines like this could be coming to cities and towns throughout the country. Spurred by federal tax incentives from the Biden Administration, the fossil fuel industry is planning to build tens of thousands of miles of carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines across the United States for experimental carbon capture and storage — a process aimed at sequestering carbon emissions from power plants, sending it through pipelines, and injecting it underground. While regulators are working to craft updated safety rules for these pipelines, major fossil fuel companies and their trade groups — including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association — have launched a lobbying blitz to scale back regulations and target the regulators themselves so they can construct new pipelines as quickly as possible. Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant. Upon entering the atmosphere during a pipeline leak or rupture, it can travel long distances, shut down vehicles, and sicken, suffocate, or even kill people and wildlife. Only about 5,000 miles of carbon dioxide pipelines currently exist across the country, largely operating in states across the Midwest and Gulf Coast. Many communities, landowners, and environmental and public health groups have staunchly opposed and, in some cases, successfully prevented their build-out, such as eliminating the proposed 1,300-mile Navigator pipeline that would have crossed through five Midwestern states.But now, this pipeline network could be greatly expanded. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and financial industry estimates, it could take up to 96,000 miles of new carbon dioxide pipelines — enough to wrap around the earth four times — to transport just 15 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the federal agency tasked with pipeline safety, announced in 2022 that it would update rules for carbon dioxide pipelines. The agency, which is overseen by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and was implicated in the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, is itself up for reauthorization, meaning Congress will reconsider its lawmaking mandates and funding. Now the pipeline industry, represented by its main lobbying group, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association, is using both the rule-making and reauthorization processes to push its agenda forward. “There is no need for adding a host of punitive provisions on the pipeline industry,” reads written January testimony from Andrew Black, the lobbying group’s president and CEO, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has proposed a bill on the pipeline safety agency’s reauthorization. “The data just does not support those who wish to impose harsh new mandates or penalties on pipeline operators.” On March 6, the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association arranged a meeting with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is currently reviewing the draft carbon dioxide safety rules. Also present at the meeting were representatives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Marathon, TC Energy, Kinder Morgan, Phillips 66, and Valero, along with representatives from the Department of Transportation. In response to a request for comment, Liquid Energy Pipeline Association’s president and CEO Andy Black offered several reasons “why we think a measured approach to pipeline safety legislation is appropriate.” According to Black, federal data shows “the number of CO2 pipeline incidents is flat over the last 5 years,” and “Federal regulation imposes dozens of safety requirements on interstate CO2 pipelines on everything from design and construction to inspection, maintenance, and emergency response.” Robin Rorick, one of the American Petroleum Institute's vice presidents, said in an email, “The safe use and development of CO2 pipelines will be critical as our industry and the nation as a whole advances its emissions reduction efforts. API will continue to work with [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] and industry experts to safely accelerate the widescale, responsible deployment of CO2 pipelines while protecting the environment and communities where we live and work.” The urgency of this issue reemerged this month after a carbon dioxide leak from a pipeline in Sulphur, Louisiana, co-owned by ExxonMobil and Denbury, a carbon capture developer that owns the country's largest carbon dioxide pipeline network.Residents within a quarter mile of the leak received a phone notification to shelter in place. But others only received the news from a Facebook post by local officials, citing a “bust” in Exxon’s high-pressure carbon dioxide pipeline in Sulphur and warning residents to shut their doors and windows, turn off any ventilation, and wait.While the proper procedure is to evacuate, local fire chief Todd Parker said changing winds near the leak made that impossible. “For the homes that were affected, they had to drive through the release to be able to get out, so we couldn’t evacuate them,” Parker explained. He said it took more than two hours for pipeline operators to stop the leak, which was called in by a resident who reported seeing “white clouds” coming from the pipeline.In the meantime, Roishetta Ozane, a Sulphur resident and local environmental justice organizer, began fielding calls from panicked residents. “People were reaching out asking me about what CO2 is,” Ozane said. But as a mom of six children, she was also scared and confused. “We know that this is colorless and odorless, so I just kept my children inside and made sure they were OK,” said Ozane. “Pipelines leak, CO2 leaks, and you don’t know it’s happened until tragedy has struck.”She remembered the incident in Satartia, where another Denbury carbon dioxide pipeline rupture caused mass asphyxiation, turning people into dazed and unresponsive “zombies,” with some losing consciousness. As hundreds rushed to evacuate, vehicles became paralyzed, since cars need oxygen to burn fuel. Some residents still face serious health issues years later.

Standards set to eliminate emissions from new federal buildings by 2030 -The Biden administration has finalized standards for federal buildings that will eliminate onsite fossil fuel usage for new projects by the end of the decade, the Energy Department confirmed Wednesday. In the announcement, first shared with The Hill, the Energy Department said the rule will require 90 percent cuts to emissions from new construction between fiscal 2025 and 2029, with onsite emissions eliminated from all new projects and major renovations beginning in 2030. The administration projects that the cuts will save $8 million in taxpayer funds from equipment and infrastructure expenses, and they will eliminate 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions and 16,000 tons of methane emissions over the next three decades. An official with the Federal Energy Management Program told The Hill the final rule is part of the mandate given to the Energy Department by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. “DOE has issued three separate proposals over the years to implement this requirement, but as of tomorrow, we will have a final rule for it,” the official said, saying the final rule is “a regulation that applies to new construction and major renovations, and it fulfills Congress’s mandate to cut emissions, reduce fossil fuels.” The rule defines “major” renovations as those costing $3.8 million or more, the official said, meaning “smaller projects” will be excluded. The rule will also include an option to apply for limited, case-by-case exemptions for scenarios, such as supply chain issues or issues with a building’s physical structure that make the technological adaptations impractical. The Biden administration also introduced a federal standard in 2022 that required at least 30 percent of federal buildings to cut direct greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2030. As part of these efforts, the administration announced the installation of rooftop solar panels on the Pentagon in January as part of the first round of $250 million in awards to improve federal buildings’ energy efficiency.

White House unveils plan to accelerate power grid expansion - The Biden administration launched initiatives Thursday designed to boost the nation’s electric grid infrastructure, including a final rule to streamline permitting and approval of large transmission projects.The Department of Energy created a one-stop shop for federal permitting, helping transmission developers avoid the lengthy patchwork of regulatory approvals that has slowed major projects. The program makes the department the lead agency in permitting and finalizes a yearslong, multiadministration effort to coordinate the work of at least nine agencies with a hand in permitting power lines.The program sets deadlines meant to complete the authorization process inside of two years. The move also comes as Congress remains deadlocked over how far to go to streamline permitting and enable the delivery of vast amounts of wind and solar power across regions — a core requirement for meeting President Joe Biden’s goal of a nearly carbon pollution-free electricity system by 2035.Biden administration officials have also said that long-haul power lines and upgraded older ones are needed to strengthen a grid that faces increasingly violent storms and extreme temperatures.Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the announcements are part of a “holistic, multi-faceted approach to grid improvements and to grid expansion.” DOE announced a goal to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines in the next five years, including by deploying technologies like high-performance conductors and dynamic line ratings to make existing lines carry more power. The goal will be supported by funding through the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program.DOE also announced up to $331 million in funding from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law for a new transmission line that will carry more than 2,000 megawatts of clean energy from Idaho to Nevada. The 285-mile Southwest Intertie Project-North line from Great Basin Transmission, a subsidiary of LS Power, is part of a larger set of projects designed to carry wind, geothermal and solar energy north and south between Idaho and the Las Vegas area.

Climate rule barrage caps Biden's green agenda - The Biden administration will release four pollution rules Thursday that could largely remove coal from the U.S. power grid by the early 2030s.EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the coordinated release of standards for carbon dioxide, mercury, wastewater and legacy pollution would give utilities and regulators clarity about the pollution controls power plants will need in the long run.It’s a strategy, Regan noted, that he previewed two years ago at an industry conference in Houston.The four rules — which use Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act authorities — are legally separate. But they all involve compliance deadlines that kick in in the 2020s and 2030s — years when the power sector will face decisions about when to retire aging coal units and how to compensate for that lost generation.They are the last major pieces of EPA’s power sector strategy for President Joe Biden’s first term — a regulatory push centered on coal-fired power. Three of the rules are focused on coal plants — cracking down on toxic coal waste near aging and former power plants, curbing the release of toxic heavy metals from coal plants into waterways and setting mercury emission limits for plants that burn a particularly high-polluting form of coal known as lignite.EPA’s carbon standard is a pillar of Biden’s climate plan, setting limits on planet-warming pollution from future gas plants and existing coal-fired units. EPA has delayed standards for existing gas plants for a future rulemaking — and signaled that its focus in Biden’s potential second term will be on natural gas generation.The final rule, which Regan will debut at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., makes several changes from last year’s draft. But Regan said it would be “equally as stringent, if not more.”Under the final rule, coal plants that plan to operate long-term will get two additional years to install carbon capture and storage systems relative to the proposal’s deadline of 2030. New combined-cycle natural gas plants that run frequently will also need to use CCS by 2032 — three years sooner than EPA originally proposed. And fossil fuel plants that aren’t retrofitted with pollution controls must exit the grid by 2039 — rather than the proposed 2040.The final rule also eliminates “clean” hydrogen as a benchmark technology for setting the natural gas pollution standards. And it applies the toughest standards to more gas plants, redefining “baseload” plants as those that run 40 percent of the time (rather than the proposed rule’s 50 percent threshold).EPA said the rule would slash heat-trapping emissions by 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047 — the equivalent of taking 328 million gasoline-powered cars of the road.Regan said Thursday’s joint release would allow utilities and regulators to pursue a “consolidated planning process” that would ensure that the “power sector has the information needed to prepare for the future with confidence.”

Collapse of wind farm projects spoils New York's climate goals. Here’s why. - In the rush to save New York’s offshore industry from collapse last fall, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration bet big on three new wind farms — and even bigger on General Electric, a blue chip American company founded in Schenectady in 1892.A win would be just the kind the Biden administration is looking for: Pairing clean energy with union jobs and domestic manufacturing.But the bet was a losing one.For months, it’s been clear GE Vernova, a spinoff of GE, couldn’t deliver the crucial parts all three wind farms were forced to use. And, late last week, New York officials announced all three projects are dead in the water.Industry and environmental groups moved to downplay the fallout, but 2024 was supposed to be offshore wind’s year. Instead, it’s looking more like the disastrous 2023, where several projects in New York and New Jersey were canceled or had to be reworked because of inflation and supply chain issues.New York’s projects were key to President Joe Biden meeting his energy goals for the nation. The struggles of projects in the Northeast during his administration are a major setback for the industry and the woes could be much worse if former President Donald Trump, who is openly hostile to offshore wind, wins this fall.The larger impact is that the projects threaten to derail state and federal goals to move away from fossil fuels and meet ambitious climate goals by 2030.Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said this round of cancellations is different because it’s not an industry-wide problem but a single supplier changing its plans. She said there’s still time for the state to reset and achieve its 2030 goal of getting 70 percent of its electricity from renewable energy.“It’s better to have this reset at the beginning of the process than at the end of the process,” Tighe said.But with no open bids, lengthy federal permitting and other challenges, the goal may be out of reach for future offshore wind projects contracted by NYSERDA, the agency overseeing the process in New York.Hochul on Tuesday sought to recapture the momentum on offshore wind once again, releasing a solicitation for $200 million for supply chain projects and port infrastructure.The administration also announced a new bidding process for offshore wind contracts would be moved up to begin this summer. The process will still link $300 million in funds for major manufacturing investments but NYSERDA and developers will have more flexibility to shift funds if a single factory doesn’t materialize.The irony of GE’s troubles was that it was supposed to be a panacea for the offshore wind industry’s supply chain issues. The company proposed building two factories along the Hudson River in the Albany area to make blades and nacelles — the inner guts of the turbine that transform the energy from the spinning blades into electricity.But GE couldn’t deliver the larger turbine it had promised developers and New York officials, so the company wanted the three wind developers to buy more smaller turbines. That blew up the balance sheet for the wind projects because each extra turbine would require massive underwater foundations, more labor and availability of specialized ships, which are already scarce.“New York was clearly swinging for the fences here in trying to secure a really marquee manufacturing facility,” said Fred Zalcman, head of the New York Offshore Wind Association. “The bids were so tethered to the GE turbine play that when that aspect of the project fell apart, it really had some significant ripple effects.”

Ohio Bill Encourages New NatGas Pipelines to Spread Across State - Marcellus Drilling News - A new bill proposed by two Republican state lawmakers in Ohio would make it easier to site and build natural gas pipelines to areas of the state where pipelines currently don’t exist. If our reading of the bill language is correct, it is aimed at stimulating new jobs by running pipelines to industrial parks and businesses that currently are not serviced by natgas. The aim is to stimulate new jobs and opportunities in the Buckeye State. Smart.

Ohio proposes new $20 million natural gas law - (WCMH) — Republican lawmakers want to ensure that Ohio has the option to tap into the state’s natural gas resources. House Bill 349, sponsored by Reps. Don Jones (R-Freeport) and Tim Barhorst (R- Fort Loramie), would create an interest loan fund to the tune of $20 million.“To incentivize [natural gas companies] to get infrastructure pipelines in the ground,” Jones said. “There’s just not enough volume to our existing lines that we have.”Jones said they are eyeing the next budget cycle for that appropriation but are working with the Department of Development in the meantime.The loan would help natural gas companies that are looking to get the rights to natural gas pipeline easements on property located within a designated “EnergizeOhio” zone. Jones said opting into the program would be up to local governments.“If the pros outweigh the cons for that area, you’ll see local entities take advantage of it,” Jones said. “It is not a mandate, just an opportunity.”He said the bill is important to ensure economic development and a good quality of life can continue, especially in rural areas. And Jones said without expanding our energy production, Ohio faces possible brownouts and blackouts down the line.“We know electricity demands are getting greater. We’ve got Intel coming in, that’s going to take a lot of energy out of the grid,” Jones said. “Twelve years ago, we were generating more power than we were using, we were selling it to other states. Today, we are buying it from other states.”The bill would also reduce property taxes for natural gas companies.“We think, frankly, that’s insulting to the Ohioans who are seeing rising property taxes of their own,” Rutschilling said. “These companies have the ability already to build these pipelines to build these gasolines. They don’t need more bailouts; they don’t need more reductions in taxes while regular people are trudging to get by.”“It does give a tax break to these companies because building pipeline is not cheap and we’ve not expanded our infrastructure,” Jones said.To use natural gas, a technique called “fracking,” is used. The state recently enacted a bill to allow fracking in state parks. But, if this new bill is enacted, could you see fracking where you live?“Will [Ohioans] see a pipeline going through their property? Absolutely. Once the pipeline is in the ground and the infrastructure is established, there will be very little disruption,” Jones said. “Anything is bad if you want to find a fault with it. And fracking is something that has come a long way in how they do the process.”

Commissioners hear pitch for natural gas - Mitch Given with The Empowerment Alliance (TEA), an organization that supports natural gas expansion, told the county commissioners Wednesday that gas is what the county should be looking toward. “We just want to, number one, get out and remind people the good news of natural gas and the shale play in Ohio and how that’s changed things as far as energy in Ohio and our ability to grow,” he said. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “shale plays” refer to a “set of discovered, undiscovered or possible natural gas accumulations that exhibit similar geological characteristics.” These are available in the state, which makes Ohio a natural resource for extraction and production, he said, and it’s especially crucial given the need. “The problem that we get into is that many areas of Ohio still lack access to natural gas, any natural gas or adequate natural gas. I know that’s a problem here, right in Union County,” Given added. He said he talked with Eric Phillips, the county’s economic development director who also serves as board chair for the Ohio Gas Access Partnership (OGAP), about the issue and plans to speak at the chamber of commerce soon. OGAP has released information that illustrates the gas capacity limitations that it says will eventually impact Madison, Union, Pickaway and Franklin counties and that in Union County, “natural gas capacity may be fully utilized within five years at current growth rates.” Beyond that, not replacing the closing of coal plants with natural gas options further forces the state to scramble to satisfy energy demands, Given said. He added natural gas access could greatly help with that demand thanks to the U.S.’s reliable supply. According to information from TEA, the country has over 100 years of natural gas supply, with much of it coming from the eastern, southern and western mountain regions of the U.S. Ohio is the nation’s sixth largest producing state and the seventh largest in storage capacity, Given said. For Ohio gas lobbyists, the state needs to do two things to maximize the potential of natural gas and that is to expand the pipeline distribution network and increase natural gas-fired electric generation. While some gas lines exist in the county and state, what is available isn’t nearly enough, Given said. TEA identified the obstacles of high taxes on private pipeline companies and subsidies given to renewable energy policies as reasons why gas can’t expand. Solutions to those problems, Given said, would be as simple as lowering tax rates for private companies and building more natural gas-fired power plants. TEA is also working with OGAP to push House Bill 349 through the state legislature, which would make money available to counties to eventually get gas lines in place. “And that would basically create Energize Ohio Zones where there’s a revolving loan fund where counties can use that funding to purchase easements for gas lines,” Given said. “They will pay it back later so it doesn’t cause ratepayers any money.”

Did a gas lobbyist write an Ohio Senator's speech about a pipeline resolution? – When Republican state Sen. Michael Rulli took the podium to address his colleagues about a resolution declaring natural gas as “vital” to Ohio’s economy, his rhetoric matched nearly word-for-word what an oil and gas lobbyist sent him privately as a “sample script.” Rulli stood before the Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee and, absent some minor changes and reshuffling of some paragraphs, made statements identical to what was sent to him by Mitch Given, an industry lobbyist.“Senate Resolution 121 recognizes that natural gas and its production industry are vital to Ohio’s economic future,” Rulli told the committee on Sept. 20, 2023. “It urges continued investment in natural gas infrastructure to make affordable energy available to Ohio.” That’s not too far from a “sample script” sent by Given on May 22 that same year, shortly after Rulli’s resolution was introduced, later obtained by public records request.“Natural gas and the natural gas industry are vital components of the state’s economic future. With this resolution, I urge continued investment in natural gas infrastructure to make affordable energy available to every Ohioan,” Given wrote. A coincidence? Perhaps. But Rulli continued. “Ohio is a leader in clean energy technology, and the natural gas industry leads Ohio in electric production when it compares to all the others,” Rulli said. Here’s Given: “Ohio is a leader in clean energy technology, and the natural gas industry leads Ohio in clean electricity production when compared to other energy sources such as nuclear, wind, and solar,” he wrote. One last example. Rulli said: “Natural gas saves the average Ohio family $2,500 a year in energy costs, including $1,000 from its heating and appliances provided from natural gas.” Given wrote: “It saves the average Ohio family $2,500 annually in total energy costs, including over $1,000 for home heating and appliances,” he said. After running through the talking points that were the same as those Given provided, Rulli began speaking seemingly off-the-cuff, riffing on his support for renewable sources, although he emphasized they can’t yet produce the wattage that gas can today.

Ohio O&G Commission Votes to Shut Down 3 Athens Injection Wells - Marcellus Drilling News On Friday, the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission upheld a regulatory order from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) suspending operations of three wastewater injection wells located in Torch (Athens County), OH, owned by K&H Partners, a subsidiary of Tallgrass Energy. ODNR “temporarily” suspended the operations of four fracking waste injection wells (the three K&H wells and one other) in Athens County last September (see ODNR Temporarily Shuts Down 4 Injection Wells in Athens County). ODNR said the wells presented an “imminent danger” to health and the environment.

Encino Gets $300M from Canada Pension Plan to Fund Utica Oil Dev - Marcellus Drilling News - Encino Energy is one of the big success stories of drilling for oil in the Ohio Utica Shale. Roughly 5 ½ years ago, Encino Energy, in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), closed on buying Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica assets for $2 billion (seeEncino Takes Over from Chesapeake in Ohio Utica; Big Plans). A few months after the purchase, Encino management boasted they would run a better drilling program in Ohio than did Chesapeake (see Encino Says They’ll Do it Better in the Utica than Chesapeake Did). By all accounts, Encino has lived up to its big boast. The company’s financial partner, CPP Investments, is investing another $300 million into Encino’s Utica oil drilling operation.

Encino Secures $300M Investment for Oil Exploration in Utica – Youngstown Business Journal – Encino Acquisition Partners LLC has secured a $300 million equity investment commitment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to support the energy firm’s accelerated development of the oil play in Ohio’s Utica/Point Pleasant shale region, the company said. The parties anticipate that $150 million of the commitment will be funded by the end of April. Encino is the parent of EAP Ohio, which has offices in Carrollton. In 2018, EAP purchased most of the Utica/Point Pleasant shale assets of Chesapeake Energy Inc., an early prospector in eastern Ohio’s Utica shale. Encino describes the Utica – initially recognized as a major natural gas producer – as “one of the highest-return oil growth plays in North America,” and has recently found success with sustained oil production with horizontal wells in Columbiana County. Last year, Encino-owned horizontal wells operating in the county produced nearly 1 million barrels of oil. This production was mostly driven by a handful of wells in Knox and Hanover townships that Encino operates. According to the most recent data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Oil and Gas Division, Columbiana County wells in the Utica/Point Pleasant shale formation produced 970,936 barrels of oil in 2023. All were EAP wells. During the fourth quarter, EAP wells in the county produced 241,593 barrels, down from 352,354 barrels produced during the previous quarter, records show. The energy company has emerged as the largest oil producer in Ohio – its 78 wells across the state in 2023 produced 13.8 million barrels in 2023, or approximately half of total production. Last year witnessed a dramatic leap in overall oil production statewide, according to ODNR. In 2023, horizontal wells across Ohio produced 27.7 million barrels of oil, a 41% increase from the 19.6 million barrels produced in 2022 and a nearly 70% increase from the 16.4 million barrels produced in 2021.

Fitch Rates Encino's Proposed $500MM New Senior Unsecured Notes 'B'/'RR4'; Affirms IDR -- Fitch Ratings

Investors Not Convinced re EOG's Utica Shale Drilling Program | Marcellus Drilling News Here’s something we had not previously heard: Investors (at least some investors) have “mixed or negative sentiment towards EOG Resources, particularly concerning its activities in the Utica Shale.” Some investors, according to Investing.com, are unsure that EOG’s Utica operation will perform well for the company and may be a drag on the company. An analyst with KeyBanc takes the opposite view and believes EOG’s Utica program will help the company.

16 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Apr 15 – 21 | Marcellus Drilling News - Two weeks ago, during the week of April 8 -14, 17 new permits were issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica (see 17 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Apr 8 – 14). Last week, for the week of April 15 – 21, 16 new permits were issued. However, the composition of where the permits were issued changed significantly from the typical pattern. Only two of the permits were issued in Pennsylvania last week, both for EQT (one in Fayette County, the other in Greene County). Ohio received six new permits divided evenly, with three going to INR and the other three to EOG Resources. INR’s permits were all issued in Guernsey County and EOG’s in Harrison County. West Virginia, which typically receives the fewest new permits, took the lion’s share with eight new permits. Jaybee Oil & Gas received three permits in Tyler County. Southwestern Energy also received three permits but in Wetzel County. Tribune Resources received one new permit (Tyler County), and EQT received one permit (Marion County). Energy Companies | EOG Resources | EQT Corp | Fayette County | Greene County (PA) | Guernsey County | Harrison County | INR | Jay-Bee Oil & Gas | Marion County | Southwestern Energy | Tribune Resources | Tyler County | Wetzel County

Shell charged with covering up Pennsylvania pipeline spills - E&E News by POLITICO - Shell Pipeline Co. is facing criminal charges for allegedly covering up spills during construction of its Falcon ethane pipeline in Western Pennsylvania in 2019 and 2020.The state charges trace back to a whistleblower complaint by a pipeline inspector who said he was fired for voicing safety and environmental concerns about construction of the pipeline. The safety complaints of the inspector, Frank Chamberlin, were not part of the charges.In the 46-page criminal complaint, the state says Shell and project contractors falsified records to avoid construction shutdowns that would cost Shell as much as $40,000 a day if state environmental officials knew the truth. By contrast, the largest fine the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) could levy was $10,000 a day. That created what environmental regulators considered a “financial motive” to break the rules. “Pennsylvania’s environmental laws are in place to keep families and communities safe from harm caused by major construction projects, such as pipelines,” Democratic Attorney General Michelle Henry said in a statement. “This company chose to ignore those laws and kept quiet issues that should have been disclosed to prevent potential impacts.”

Shell Falcon Pipeline charged for violating Pennsylvania environmental law - CBS Pittsburgh - Shell is facing charges for allegedly failing to report drilling issues that caused industrial waste while constructing a pipeline in western Pennsylvania, the state attorney general's office announced on Friday. The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General's Environmental Crimes Section filed 13 misdemeanor charges against Shell Falcon Pipeline LP for violating the state's Clean Streams Law during the construction of a 45-mile pipeline in Washington, Allegheny and Beaver counties. The attorney general's office said its investigation revealed that Shell allegedly failed to tell the Department of Environmental Protection about several issues it encountered during some drills. Prosecutors say there were times when the drill lost drilling mud -- which often contains pollutants -- underground, and in some cases, the mud came to the surface in "unintended locations." The mud is industrial waste and results in pollution wherever it ultimately ends up, which is what the attorney general's office said happened in Shell's case. According to the charging documents, Shell contractors didn't report the failures to the DEP and the company didn't install real-time data logging devices on its drilling equipment, violating its permit. Shell's website says the Falcon Ethane Pipeline System is a 97-mile common carrier ethane pipeline across southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio that supplies the recently-built cracker plant in Monaca. Groups like the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community say this is just the latest of problems or hazards they've seen with this pipeline. "We have a right to clean air, fresh water and the preservation of the land -- not just for ourselves but for future generations," said Bob Schmetzer with the group. Shell was charged with seven counts of unlawful conduct under the Clean Streams Law, three counts of prohibition against discharge of industrial wastes and three counts of prohibition against other pollutions. Shell issued a statement saying it's reviewing the complaint and since the beginning of the project, it has cooperated with all agencies in affected communities to make sure the pipeline was constructed "in a safe and environmentally responsible manner." "SPLC will continue its cooperation with all relevant agencies. SPLC remains committed to protecting people and the environment, as well as being a responsible neighbor in the communities where we live and work," the statement said.

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

Mountain Valley Pipeline Submits In-Service Request as Project ‘Nearing Completion’ - Nearly seven years after receiving federal certification to build its 303-mile, 2 million Dth/d natural gas conduit, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) has requested FERC authorization to place the project into service. MVP in a written request filed by its legal counsel Monday asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its in-service request by May 23. Construction on the Appalachian takeaway pipeline resumed last summer after an act of Congress rescued the long-delayed project from myriad legal and regulatory setbacks. The pipeline is “now nearing completion and will be ready for service...

MVP Essentially Done, Builder Asks FERC for OK to Start Up May 23 - Marcellus Drilling News -- We never thought this day would arrive! We hoped. We prayed. But finally, it’s (almost) here. The 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is almost ready to begin operation. On Monday, Equitrans Midstream filed a letter (below) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting a May 23 startup date for the pipeline. MVP (Equitrans) says the pipeline will be in the ground, buried, and ready to begin on May 22 (called “mechanically complete”). Get the champagne on ice and ready…

MVP Will Boost WV Gas Producers – Coming Online in “7 to 8 Weeks”--West Virginia natural gas drillers are excited at the prospect of the soon-opening Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which will carry WV gas 303 miles from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. During a recent meeting of the West Virginia Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy and Manufacturing, the CFO of Pillar Energy said it’s only a month or two until MVP will be online and flowing. Hallelujah! We [the O&G industry] were finally able to get this one done.

EQT Plans MVP Expansion to Serve Data Center Boom in Southeast - EQT Corp. said it would continue cutting 1 Bcf/d of production as U.S. natural gas prices remain near four-year lows, but management anticipates strong power generation demand in the coming years that has it planning an expansion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). After a seven-year battle and a congressional mandate rescued the system from legal and regulatory setbacks, MVP asked federal regulators this week for approval to start service by May 23. EQT, which announced in March it would acquire pipeline owner Equitrans Midstream Corp, said baseload power demand in the Southeast is poised to grow significantly with the data center and artificial intelligence (AI) booms. “Due to the confluence of LNG facilities pulling gas South on Transco and power demand growth in the Southeast

Antis Ask DC Circuit to Cancel FERC Time Extension for MVP Southgate - Marcellus Drilling News -- In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see FERC Approves MVP Southgate Request for 3-Yr Extension to Build). A group of extreme left anti-fossil fuel organizations are now challenging that time extension in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit).

EQT Disses Haynesville in Jab at Chesapeake/Southwestern Merger -- Marcellus Drilling News -- EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producer in the U.S. (100% focused on the Marcellus/Utica), released its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. The company produced 5.87 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of natural gas in 1Q. Executives said they will continue the current curtailment (reduction) of 1 Bcf/d, in place since late February, until at least the end of May. A major focus of CEO Toby Rice’s comments is the coming demand for natgas from gas-fired power plants in the Southeastern U.S. Among the bigger pieces of news is that once EQT buys out and merges back in Equitrans (which it used to own), EQT plans to expand the Equitrans-owned Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) by another 0.5 Bcf/d.

Texas LNG Plans to Start Construction This Year After EQT Tolling Deal Expanded - EQT Corp. has expanded an agreement to ultimately give it 2 million metric tons/year (mmty) of natural gas liquefaction capacity at Glenfarne Energy Transition LLC’s proposed export plant in Brownsville, TX. EQT, the largest U.S. natural gas producer, has signed another heads of agreement with Glenfarne for 1.5 mmty of tolling capacity at Texas LNG for 20 years. It comes on top of another 15-year tolling agreement EQT signed in January for 0.5 mmty. “With this announcement with EQT and additional offtake sales to be announced soon, we will reach financial close and the start of construction in the fourth quarter this year,” said Glenfarne CEO Brendan Duval.

EQT Quadruples Deal to Send Gas to LNG Export Plant in S. Texas - Marcellus Drilling News -- Yesterday, a major announcement went largely under the radar. EQT Corporation, currently the largest natural gas producer in the U.S., announced it will quadruple a deal with Glenfarne Energy’s Texas LNG Brownsville export facility to liquefy (now) 2.0 million tons per annum (MTPA) for EQT. This works out to be roughly 264 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of EQT’s Marcellus/Utica molecules hitching a ride to South Texas.

U.S. natural gas consumption set annual and monthly records during 2023 - In 2023, 89.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas was consumed in the United States, the most on record. Since 2018, U.S. natural gas consumption has increased by an average of 4% annually. Monthly natural gas consumption set new records every month from March 2023 through November 2023. U.S. natural gas consumption has risen in the electric power sector as coal-fired electric-generating capacity has declined. Last year, the largest monthly increases in natural gas consumed by the electric power sector were in July and August, despite cooler-than-normal temperatures than during those months in 2022. Natural gas consumption in the electric power sector, which typically increases in July and August to meet air-conditioning demand, increased by 6% in July and August 2023 compared with those months in 2022, setting monthly records of 47.5 Bcf/d in July and 47.2 Bcf/d in August. U.S. coal production units are retiring as the nation’s coal fleet ages and coal-fired generators are replaced by generators using natural gas and renewables. Although natural gas-fired power generation increased by 6% in July and August of 2023 compared with a year earlier, overall electricity growth year-on-year was flat in July at 412 billion kilowatthours (kWh) and rose just 3% in August to 410 billion kWh. The most natural gas consumed in the United States in any month of 2023 occurred in January at 106.6 Bcf/d, but consumption was 8% less than in January 2022. Warmer-than-average temperatures reduced natural gas consumption in the residential and commercial sectors to meet space-heating demand. In 2023, natural gas consumption fell 10% in the residential sector to 12.3 Bcf/d compared with 2022 and 6%, or 0.5 Bcf/d, in the commercial sector. The amount of natural gas consumed in the industrial sector remained unchanged, averaging 23.4 Bcf/d. The largest increase in natural gas consumption by a U.S. economic sector in 2023 came in the electric power sector, which increased 7% (2.2 Bcf/d) from 33.2 Bcf/d in 2022 to a record of 35.4 Bcf/d.

Baker Hughes CEO Heralds ‘The Age of Gas,’ Touts LNG as Climate Solution - The world’s energy companies are becoming more pragmatic in their approach to reaching net-zero emissions and Baker Hughes Co.’s customers plan to boost their natural gas exposure in the coming years, CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said. It is “becoming clearer just how complex the undertaking is for the transition of the world’s energy ecosystem,” Simonelli said during the first quarter conference call. The “slower-than-expected expansion of renewable energy capacity” has led to “record levels of coal demand. Consequently, we are seeing more pragmatism toward a pathway to decarbonization… “There is mounting consensus that there is no possible route to decarbonize the energy system without driving greater efficiency and significantly increasing gas weighting within the..

Toby Rice: NatGas Currently Oversupplied, But New Demand Coming - Marcellus Drilling News - Following yesterday’s conference call with analysts to discuss EQT’s first quarter performance, CEO Toby Rice appeared on CNBC to answer questions (watch the segment below). As he did during the quarterly update call, Rice once again zeroed in on new demand markets coming from gas-fired power plants in the Southeastern U.S. He also said the market is currently oversupplied with natural gas, but he sees two catalysts to help lower the excess gas in inventory: hot summer weather and gas-fired powergen. And the powergen doesn’t just come from homes running AC to keep cool. He’s talking about new data centers appearing that operate artificial intelligence and need huge new amounts of electricity to operate all those computers.

Gulf Coast LNG Construction Milestones Mount, Foreshadowing Growing U.S. Natural Gas Demand - The outlook for added feed gas demand in the coming months is beginning to firm, portending a possible tight supply balance next year. Earlier in the week, Cheniere Energy Inc. asked FERC for permission to connect the first train of its Stage 3 expansion at Corpus Christi to power and gave an update of its progress to start the commissioning progress. The company will have to file separate requests for approval before being able to introduce gas to the Texas project, but the connection of power facilities is typically a sign that systems may be ready for broader testing. In the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, researchers estimated the Plaquemines and Corpus Christi Stage 3 liquefied natural gas projects could help boost net...

Freeport LNG Reports Second Train 3 Outage in Two Weeks as Maintenance Continues - Freeport LNG Development LP has reported another outage of its third train, currently the only one not under extensive maintenance at its Texas terminal, days after production appeared to resume, according to pipeline data and regulatory filings. The firm told Texas environmental regulators the unit experienced a system trip on Tuesday afternoon that lasted until midday Wednesday, requiring flaring. This time, the issue was ascribed to a problem with the main cryogenic heat exchanger. “The plant operators managed the cooldown and restart of Train 3 as efficiently as possible to minimize flaring, as well,” Freeport staff said in a filing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Natural Gas Pipeline Nominations, Vessel Traffic Indicate Freeport LNG Production Returns - Operations at Freeport LNG could be ramping up again after more than a week of near-zero gas flows to the Texas facility drove speculation that multiple trains were offline, according to pipeline and vessel data. Feed gas nominations for the liquefied natural gas terminal started rising over the weekend and have grown to about 17% of operational pipeline capacity as of Monday, according to Wood Mackenzie pipeline data. The consultancy also reported over the weekend that power output to the facility has risen for the first time since a reported outage of Train 3 on April 11, indicating that production has resumed. On Monday morning, a vessel controlled by Pavilion Energy PTE Ltd. was at Freeport’s Berth 1 for loading, according to Kpler data. At least three other vessels that..

Problem-Plagued Freeport LNG Finally (!) Exports Another Cargo -Marcellus Drilling News -- Have things finally turned around for the problem-plagued Freeport LNG export facility located in Quintana, Texas? We hope so. Last week, we reported gas flows to the facility had dropped to “near zero” for at least five days in a row (see Freeport LNG Still Mostly Shut Down – 5 Days in Row at < 5% of Gas). Earlier this week, we reported that Freeport had finally begun to receive feedgas again (see Texas Fines Freeport LNG – Some Feedgas Starts to Reflow). Reuters is now reporting that for the first time in 12 days, an LNG cargo tanker (partially filled with liquefied gas) has left the Freeport dock.

Emergency cleanup required for Bronx River oil spill -- An estimated 1,000 gallons of oil were leaked into the Bronx River on April 1. The cleanup took about 10 days. Con Edison leaked the oil into the river in Yonkers and, within two hours, cleanup had begun. Despite the quick response, oil was spotted as far down the river as Fordham Road. The spilled oil is classified as a non-hazardous insulating fluid used by the electrical company as a coolant. While the Bronx River Alliance is not directly involved with the cleanup, its role in protecting and restoring the Bronx River makes this incident members’ concern. Christian Murphy, ecology coordinator with the Bronx River Alliance, said the nonprofit stayed in the loop with the cleanup to coordinate between agencies and keep stakeholders up to date on progress. The oil is described as lightweight, so it typically will float along the river’s surface, but sections of turbulent flow could result in the oil mixing further into the water and sticking to rocks and other part of the riverbed. Part of the oil cleanup involved booms, which were described by Murphy as “very big pool noodles.” The booms are buoyant and stretch across the river to collect anything floating along the surface while allowing the river to continue flowing underneath. There are two types of booms, one is meant to stop debris and other surface-level contaminants from flowing down the river. The other is absorbent, and, in this case, helps absorb some of the oil, making it easier for the crews to collect oil from the surface. The oil spilled can be broken down with the help of sunlight, so the hope for the Bronx River Alliance is that any oil that gets past the cleanup area will be broken down by the sun. Murphy said last week’s heavy rain most likely pushed some of the oil out as far as the East River, into which the Bronx River empties, though any oil travelling that far would be heavily diluted by the water. Murphy said although the oil is classified as non-hazardous it doesn’t mean it can’t be harmful for water foul and other wildlife. If oil gets onto a bird’s feathers, it can affect the ability to fly or, if they then try to clean their feathers, and ingest the oil. Murphy said he can’t imagine eating the oil would be good for the birds but there is no data on what damage it can or has done. To date, Murphy said, there have been no reports of harmed wildlife from last week’s spill. The state department of environmental conservation supervised the cleanup with its dedicated emergency response team. The department anticipated needing 10 days for clean-up, which was finished as of Friday, April 12. “We were frustrated to see the situation happen but we’re happy the DEC responded quickly because we know this is an extra sensitive time for our wildlife,” Murphy said. The extra sensitive time to which Murphy referred is the oil spill’s overlap with migration. Migratory fish are starting to work their way up river around this time. The geese and ducks that inhabit the area are also having their babies during this early spring, earlier than songbirds. The Bronx River is teeming with wildlife. The ecosystem supports ducks and geese year-round. The river is also home to several migratory aquatic species including the freshwater American eel, striped bass, river herring, and sunfish. Several different species of turtles and muskrats also live in the waterway along this stretch.Other wildlife spotted throughout portions of the river include blue crabs, eastern oysters, beavers, and egrets.

Study shows the longer spilled oil lingers in freshwater, the more persistent compounds it produces - Oil is an important natural resource for many industries, but it can lead to serious environmental damage when accidentally spilled. While large oil spills are highly publicized, every year, there are many smaller-scale spills into lakes, rivers, and oceans.And, according to research published inEnergy & Fuels, the longer that oil remains in freshwater, the more chemical changes it undergoes, creating products that can persist in the environment.Approximately 600,000 gallons of oil were accidentally spilled into the environment in 2023, according to the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, a group that monitors oil spills. This figure represents ocean spills as well as freshwater spills in rivers and lakes. Over time, this oil weathers and undergoes a variety of chemical transformations, which could make compounds that are more soluble in water and stick around longer.Weathering in salt water is reasonably well understood, but what happens to oil in freshwater is still being investigated. So, Dena McMartin and colleagues investigated the chemical changes that could happen to that oil as it sits in rivers and lakes.The team simulated a freshwater oil spill in the laboratory by combining water and river sediment collected directly from the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta, Canada, in a tank and then adding conventional crude oil obtained from a pipeline operator in Alberta.The test was carried out at around 75 degrees Fahrenheit for 56 days. Researchers concluded that as the oil weathered, more and more oxygen atoms were incorporated into some compounds, causing them to become more persistent in water. As a result, higher concentrations of the oxygen-loaded chemicals could build up, potentially increasing the impact on aquatic organisms.This increase in oxygen atoms was observed for sulfur oxide compounds, along with some other classes of compounds present in the crude oil mixture. McMartin and team members say these results emphasize the importance of rapid responses to oil spills and could help set benchmarks for longer-term remediation efforts.

Texas Oil and Gas Production Hit Record Highs | Rigzone - In a statement posted on its site recently, the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) revealed that the state set records for both oil and gas production in 2023. Oil output hit 1.92 billion barrels in 2023, according to the RRC. The organization, which regulates the Texas oil and gas industry and tallies production reports submitted by operators, highlighted in its statement that this was 51 million barrels more than the previous record. Operators produced 12.01 trillion cubic feet of natural gas last year, the RRC pointed out in the statement. That surpassed the previous record by more than 13 percent, according to the RRC. “These production records are beyond impressive and reflect how Texas continues to provide reliable domestic production for the nation,” RRC Executive Director Wei Wang said in the statement. “As the state’s oil and gas regulator, the RRC is committed to our critical mission supporting Texas’ economic growth that benefits Texans. Production taxes collected from the oil and gas industry pay for our schools, highways, and the state’s Rainy Day Fund,” he added. “The commission will continue its hard work to ensure the state remains at the forefront of the energy sector,” Wang continued. Texas’ top five oil production years, including crude oil and condensate, now comprise 2023, at 1.92 billion, 2019, at 1.86 billion, 2020, at 1.77 billion, 2021, at 1.75 billion, and 2022, at 1.71 billion, the RRC highlights in its statement. The state’s top five gas production years, including gas well and casinghead gas, comprise 2023 at 12.01 trillion cubic feet, 2021, at 10.61 trillion cubic feet, 2022, at 10.51 trillion cubic feet, 2020, at 10.23 trillion cubic feet, and 2019, at 10.21 trillion cubic feet, according to the RRC. The Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association’s (TIPRO) latest state of energy report, which was released earlier this year, stated that oil production in Texas reached a record 1.99 billion barrels in 2023. It added that Texas led the country in natural gas production with a record 12.2 trillion cubic feet produced in 2023. The Texas oil and natural gas industry paid a record $26.3 billion in state and local taxes and state royalties in fiscal year 2023, according to the report, which noted that the Texas oil and natural gas industry purchased U.S. goods and services in the amount of $288 billion, “83 percent of which came from Texas businesses”. Oil and gas jobs in Texas paid an annual average wage of $124,453, 74 percent more than all average private sector jobs in the state, the report stated, adding that Texas had the highest oil and gas payroll in the country in 2023 ($59 billion).

Alaska refuge drilling could threaten polar bears with ‘lethal’ oil spills - Fossil-fuel drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) could put polar bears at risk of “lethal” oil spills, new research suggests.Former president Donald Trump passed a law to enable drilling in the refuge in 2017.This followed decades of fierce debate between Democrats and Republicans about whether to allow extractive activities in the 7.7m-hectare (19m-acre) expanse, a haven for wildlife sitting on top of an estimated 11bn barrelsof oil.On his first day in office, US president Joe Biden suspended drilling inside the ANWR pending a review. In 2023, his administration cancelled the seven oil and gas licences issued for the reserve under Trump.However, by law, the Biden administration is still required to hold a second lease sale for the ANWR by December 2024, unless Congress is able to pass legislation undoing the provision set out in Trump’s tax bill.And with Trump pledging to “drill, baby, drill” if reelected to power later this year, a Republican victory in the next US election would likely see the refuge opened up for oil and gas extraction once again.The new study, published in Biological Conservation, uses modelling to examine how a series of “worst-case scenario” oil spills could impact polar bears that use the refuge to raise young and feast on bowhead whale carcasses. The research finds that a serious oil spill inside ANWR could expose up to 38 bears to lethal levels of oil and dozens more to harmful levels.The risk of exposure to oil spills could be worsened by climate change, which is forcing polar bears to spend greater amounts of time on land in summer as sea ice melts away, the study lead author tells Carbon Brief.Republicans and Democrats have been at loggerheads about whether to drill for oil in the ANWR since the 1970s. It is located in Alaska’s north slope, directly adjacent to a vast expanse of land that is a hotbed for oil and gas activity (see chart below). This activity includes the highly controversial Willow oil project, which was given final approval by Biden in 2023.At present, there are currently around 2,000 oil and hazardous substance spills each year in Alaska, in areas where extractive activities already take place.In 1989, Alaska faced one of the worst environmental disasters in US history when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground, spilling 11m gallons of oil. Conservationists have fought to protect the ANWR, a wilderness supporting migratory caribou, wolves, all three North American bear species and hundreds of bird species. The refuge is also the home of the Indigenous Gwich’in and Iñupiat people.But Republicans have long called for the ANWR to be opened up for drilling. According to Outside Magazine, Republicans have attempted to pass laws to enable drilling inside the ANWR nearly 50 times.They were finally successful in 2017, when Trump passed a tax bill requiring oil and gas licensing rounds to be held for an area inside the ANWR.

Biden administration restricts oil and gas leasing in Alaska (AP) — The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres (5.3 million hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.The decision — part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state — finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Democratic administration prepared to approve the contentious Willow oil project.The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated President Joe Biden’s pledge to combat climate change. Friday’s decision also completes an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, jumped out ahead of Friday’s announcement about the new limitations in the National Petroleum-Reserve Alaska before it was publicly announced. Sullivan called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood, and he predicted lawsuits.“It’s more than a one-two punch to Alaska,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “because when you take off access to our resources, when you say you cannot drill, you cannot produce, you cannot explore, you cannot move it — this is the energy insecurity that we’re talking about.” he decision by the Interior Department doesn’t change the terms of existing leases in the reserve or affect currently authorized operations, including Willow.The Biden administration also Friday recommended the rejection of a state corporation’s application related to a proposed 210-mile (338-kilometer) road in the northwest part of the state to allow mining of critical mineral deposits, including including copper, cobalt, zinc, silver and gold. There are no mining proposals or current mines in the area, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management determined the road-building alternatives analyzed “would significantly and irrevocably impact resources,” the agency said in a statement. A final decision on the recommendation is pending.

Report: Biden has Taken over 200 Actions Against U.S. Oil | The Ohio Star President Joe Biden and his administration have taken over 200 actions against the U.S. oil and natural gas industry as energy prices have gone up, according to a new report. “President Biden and Democrats have a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase,” the Institute for Energy Research states in a new report. “Since Mr. Biden took office, his administration and its allies have taken over 200 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce energy here in America.” The analysis highlights actions Biden took on his first day in office, listing them chronologically through March of this year. The first act was canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, issuing a moratorium on all oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and revoking Trump administration executive orders that decreased regulations in order to expand domestic production. Within a week of being in office, Biden issued additional moratoriums on new oil and gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters and imposed new regulations related to permitting and leasing practices, which were tied up in the courts for years. It was not until last month that a federal court upheld the first oil and natural gas lease sale on federal lands. Last December, the Fifth Circuit also ruled that Gulf lease sales must go forward. Other actions ahead of the midterm elections include threatening to tax the oil and natural gas industry, blaming them for profiteering. Roughly six months before the general election, his administration has proposed $110 billion tax hikes on oil, natural gas and coal. In response, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., led a coalition of 24 senators expressing “grave concern” about his “continued hostility towards American energy production.” IER published the report after the latest action taken to increase the cost of U.S. oil production and cancel plans to restock the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR has been depleted to roughly half of what it was when he first took office.

Mexico Lagging Behind Peer Markets in Natural Gas Storage, Report Warns - Mexico’s next government must invest in natural gas storage and pipeline infrastructure in order to keep up with rising demand and meet energy transition goals, according to a new report by the Instituto Mexicano Para la Competitividad (IMCO) think tank. Mexico is the world’s eighth largest natural gas market, with demand in excess of 8 Bcf/d. However, its natural gas storage capacity is a fraction of that of similar sized markets such as Germany or Italy, researchers said. Despite the widespread global use of underground gas storage in depleted reservoirs, confined aquifers and salt caverns, Mexico only stores gas in its liquid form at the Altamira, Ensenada and Manzanillo liquefied natural gas import terminals, “which have limited capacity,” the IMCO team said in a note...

Refinery Fires Upend Mexico Plan to Curb Oil Exports - Petroleos Mexicanos is offering more cargoes of oil to its customers after fires struck two of its refineries, hampering its plan to keep crude supplies to produce fuels domestically. Pemex’s PMI trading arm told some US refiners that it may have more crude to sell than initially expected during May, according to people with knowledge of the situation. That’s a change from earlier this month, when the state oil company told customers it would sell less oil and keep more for its own refineries. Pemex didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. Mexico’s decision to export more is sending prices of competing sour oils lower, with Mars crude produced in the Gulf of Mexico now trading at $1.70 less than benchmark Nymex West Texas Intermediate, according to Syntex Energy. That’s the widest discount since October. Prices of Southern Green Canyon reached the lowest in more than a year. Mexico’s refineries had been operating near their highest utilization rates in six years until a series of setbacks in recent days. Over the weekend, a boiler at the Salina Cruz refinery caught fire, newspaper Reforma reported, and on Friday the Minatitlan refinery had a fire and explosion, according to La Jornada. Earlier this month, Pemex also said that the new Dos Bocas refinery would reach full production by September, six months later than previously expected.

Canada Gas Firm Bags Venezuela Contracts but Stumbles on US Sanctions - LNG Energy Group Corp. said Wednesday it has won two contracts to develop hydrocarbons in Venezuela covering five producing fields. The contracts were signed just a day before the expiry of a reprieve for oil and gas activities issued by Washington to Caracas, based on a press release by LNG Energy Group announcing the awards. The Ontario, Canada-registered company said it intends to comply with the reimposition of United States sanctions against the South American country. LNG Energy Group said its wholly owned subsidiary LNGEG Growth I Corp. (LNG Venezuela) “entered into a binding agreement with PDVSA Petroleo S.A., a subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (‘PDVSA’), the Venezuelan national oil company, for the operation of the Nipa-Nardo-Niebla and the Budare-Elotes CPPs [Productive Participation Contracts] in onshore Venezuela”. The blocks sit in the adjacent northern states of Anzoátegui and Monagas. They contain five fields with a light and medium oil production of about 3,000 barrels per day, the Latin America-focused company said. “LNG Venezuela will provide the required investment to further develop the fields and conduct operations and has 120 business days from the date of signing to satisfy the required contractual conditions precedent in order to be awarded the CPPs and initiate operations”, LNG Energy Group said. The deal gives it a 50–56 percent share of production. However, on April 17, the disclosed date of the signing of the LNG Energy Group-PDVSA agreement, the Biden administration announced it would not renew a license issued to Venezuela for oil and gas activities, accusing the Maduro regime of failure to honor a commitment to upholding fair elections. “After a careful review of the current situation in Venezuela, the United States determined Nicolas Maduro and his representatives have not fully met the commitments made under the electoral roadmap agreement, which was signed by Maduro representatives and the opposition in Barbados in October 2023”, the State Department said in a statement at the time. “Therefore, General License 44, which authorizes transactions related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela, will expire at 12:01 AM on April 18”. The Treasury Department issued the six-month license last October 18 allowing transactions related to, per the official license text, the “production, lifting, sale, and exportation of oil or gas from Venezuela, and provision of related goods and services; payment of invoices for goods or services related to oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela; new investment in oil or gas sector operations in Venezuela; and delivery of oil and gas from Venezuela to creditors of the Government of Venezuela, including creditors of PdVSA Entities, for the purpose of debt repayment”. The State Department said, “Despite delivering on some of the commitments made under the Barbados electoral roadmap, we are concerned that Maduro and his representatives prevented the democratic opposition from registering the candidate of their choice, harassed and intimidated political opponents, and unjustly detained numerous political actors and members of civil society”. Simultaneous with the announcement, the U.S. Treasury issued a license for affected companies to wind down their operations in Venezuela. The wind-down period runs through May. “Effective April 17, 2024, General License No. 44, dated October 18, 2023, is replaced and superseded in its entirety by this General License No. 44A”, stated the official wind-down notice.

50,000 barrels of waste removed from Tobago coastline - Trinidad Guardian -- Approximately 50,000 barrels of liquid waste have been extracted from Tobago’s coastline between Scarborough and Cove in clean-up operations after the February 7 oil spill from the capsized barge there—and clean-up continues. This was confirmed by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in Parliament on Friday. Rowley was responding to UNC MP Rudy Indarsingh’s query on the financial cost incurred by the Central Government, the Tobago House of Assembly and state enterprises for management and clean-up of the oil spill that was caused by a 200-metre capsized barge off the Cove area. Rowley said it was observed that what appeared to be liquid hydrocarbon-based product was escaping from the vessel. Soon after that notification, Heritage Petroleum Company Limited was tasked with the major responsibility of responding to the spill. He said that involved obtaining specialised oil spill equipment, machinery and approximately 200 personnel, some from Tobago and many from elsewhere in the nation, Heritage and other entities. Rowley said, “The bottom line is while the spill is now abated and apparently ended, the clean-up operation still continues, there’s still some cleaning to be done and most importantly, the extraction from the vessel of about—it appears as though—a few tens of thousands of barrels of dangerous liquid which fortunately so far has remained within the hull of the vessel.” He added, “In terms of the clean-up, approximately 50,000 barrels of liquid waste have been extracted from the coastline between Scarborough and Cove and the operation continues.” Rowley said Government was not in a position at this time to indicate what the cost of the whole operation was as it was still continuing. “Rough seas in recent weeks would have delayed the extraction of the liquid that’s within the hull and we still have staff, some local, some foreign, on standby, at the first opportunity to begin to do that extraction,” he said. “So the operation is still ongoing and when it is completed and all costs are put forward and dealt with and accepted to be paid, we’ll be in a position to give an accurate answer to this question.”

Hammerfest, Freeport Outages Send Global Natural Gas Prices Higher – Three Things to Know About the LNG Market - A gas leak at the Hammerfest LNG export terminal in Norway that occurred during maintenance has shut the plant down until Friday. The facility, which is operated by Equinor ASA was evacuated Tuesday, and the leak has since been stopped. The cause is under investigation. Hammerfest is Europe’s only large-scale export terminal. It liquefies gas from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea. European and Asian natural gas prices edged higher Thursday amid a supply squeeze. Other Norwegian gas maintenance was limiting flows to Europe, while the broader market continues to watch the Freeport liquefied natural gas plant in the United States, where feed gas flows have again declined. NO. 2: Japan’s LNG inventories jumped by 26.5% to 2.05 million tons (Mt) on April 21

EU Energy Watchdog Says LNG Demand Could Peak This Year - The European Union’s (EU) LNG demand is likely to peak this year and buyers on the continent are likely to be over-contracted by 2030 as efforts to displace Russian natural gas over the last two years have been successful, according to the bloc’s energy watchdog. Since 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and cut off gas exports to most of Europe, the EU has added over 50 billion cubic meters (1.8 Tcf) of liquefied natural gas regasification capacity to import more of the super-chilled fuel. In a report released last week, the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) said the new infrastructure has eased supply constraints and helped to narrow the price gap between European gas hubs and LNG spot prices. About 75% of the new LNG import capacity...

Rising spot LNG prices starting to bite some Asian buyers (Reuters) - There are early signs that the rise in the spot price for liquefied natural gas (LNG) for delivery to Asia to a three-month high is starting to crimp demand from price-sensitive buyers such as India. The spot LNG price rose to $10.50 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in the week ended April 19, the most since Jan. 19, and up 26.5% from the low so far in 2024 of $8.30, reached in early March. The recent increase in the price has been driven more by supply concerns, with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East fuelling concerns that shipments from Qatar, the world's third-largest LNG exporter, may be disrupted. So far these fears have yet to be realised, but there have been increased costs for LNG shipments as vessels bound for Europe avoid the Red Sea, where Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group has launched missile strikes against several vessels, although none of these were LNG carriers. With the spot price once again above $10 per mmBtu, it has reached levels that have in the past resulted in buyers such as India, and even China, the world's top LNG importer, pulling back on purchases. This is because at these price levels imported LNG finds it hard to compete with other fuels in domestic markets. India's LNG imports for April are estimated at 1.90 million metric tons by commodity analysts Kpler, which is down from 2.26 million in March and also below the 1.98 million from April last year. LSEG data pegs India's April LNG arrivals at 1.79 million tons, a four-month low and down from 2.27 million in March and 1.88 million in April 2023. China's imports of the super-chilled fuel are estimated at 6.14 million tons in April by Kpler, down from 6.64 million in March, but above the 5.31 million in April last year. China's LNG imports in the first quarter of 2024 were strong, most likely as a result of the cheaper spot prices that prevailed for much of the buying period, but also because of the recovery of parts of the economy, especially manufacturing. The official Purchasing Managers' Index rose to a 13-month high of 51.6 in March, and has now spent the last five months in positive territory above the 50-level that separates expansion from contraction. The improving economic backdrop in China may serve to bolster demand for LNG, but the stronger price is also likely an obstacle. Much will depend on the availability of alternatives, and it's interesting to note that China's domestic output of natural gas has also been rising strongly, with production in the first quarter rising to 63.19 billion cubic metres, up 5.2% from the same period in 2023.

Japan’s LNG Consumption Expected to Decline This Year - Despite fuel restrictions at four of Jera Co. Inc.’s gas-fired power plants in Tokyo last month, Japan’s LNG imports are again expected to decline this year. Liquefied natural gas stockpiles hit their lowest point since January 2021 last month, when they fell below the five-year average of 2.14 million tons (Mt). Cargo deliveries were delayed due to poor weather conditions in Tokyo Bay. The situation, however, was not considered critical since Japan has exited the peak winter season. Japan’s LNG balance can change rapidly in a span of several weeks, Rystad Energy analyst Masa Odaka noted. “On a very cold day, the Tokyo region can consume approximately one LNG shipment worth of LNG,” or around 65,000 metric tons, for city gas, he said.

Galp Announces 10B Barrel Hydrocarbon in Place Estimate at Namibia Prospect | Rigzone - In a statement posted on its website on Sunday, Galp announced that it and its partners completed the first phase of the Mopane exploration campaign with the conclusion of the Mopane-1X well testing operations. “The flows achieved during the well test have reached the maximum allowed limits of 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, potentially positioning Mopane as an important commercial discovery,” Galp said in the statement. “In the Mopane complex alone, and before drilling additional exploration and appraisal wells, hydrocarbon in-place estimates are 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or higher,” it added. Galp noted in the statement that, in January, the Mopane-1X well discovered “significant oil columns containing light oil in high-quality reservoir sands at two different levels: AVO-1 and AVO-2”. The rig then moved to the Mopane-2X well, “where in March significant light oil columns were discovered in high-quality reservoir sands across exploration and appraisal targets: AVO-3, AVO-1, and a deeper target,” Galp highlighted. “In particular, the Mopane-2X well found AVO-1 to be in the same pressure regime as in the Mopane-1X discovery well, around 8km to the east, confirming its lateral extension,” it added. In its statement, Galp said all acquired data from the current Mopane drilling campaign will be analyzed and integrated into an updated reservoir model.

China's Imports of Russian Oil Near Record High --Russia remained China's top oil supplier in March, data showed on Saturday, as refiners snapped up stranded Sokol shipments. China's imports from Russia, including supplies via pipelines and sea-borne shipments, jumped 12.5% on the year to 10.81 million metric tons, or 2.55 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, according to data from the General Administration of Customs. That was quite close to the previous monthly record of 2.56 million bpd in June 2023. Seven Russian tankers under sanctions offloaded Sokol cargoes in Chinese ports in March, as Russia worked to clear a glut of stranded supply in the wake of tightened U.S. sanctions. More than 10 million barrels of the oil supplied by Sakhalin-1, a unit of Rosneft, had been floating in storage over the past three months amid payment difficulties and sanctions on shipping firms and vessels carrying the crude. Stockpiling of Russian crude for storage in strategic reserves by state-owned CNOOC also boosted imports from Russia. Data from consultancy Kpler forecast sea-borne shipments from Russia hitting a record high of 1.82 million bpd, including 440,000 bpd of Sokol and 967,000 bpd of ESPO. Russia was China's top supplier throughout 2023, shipping 2.14 million bpd despite Western sanctions and a price cap following the Kremlin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In coordination with other OPEC+ members, Russia opted to roll forward a voluntary reduction in crude oil output of 300,000 bpd into the first quarter of the year to support energy prices. Imports from Saudi Arabia, previously China's largest supplier, totalled 6.3 million tons in March, or 1.48 million bpd, down 29.3% on the same period last year. Riyadh has said it would extend its voluntary cut of 1 million bpd through the end of June, leaving its output at around 9 million bpd. The world's top exporter kept the March official selling price of its flagship Arab Light to Asia at $1.50 over the Oman/Dubai average as the Kingdom sought to secure market share. January-March imports from Malaysia, a trans-shipment point for sanctioned cargoes from Iran and Venezuela, soared 39.2% on the year to 13.7 million tons, or 3.23 million bpd. The data showed 375,296 tons of imports from Venezuela, following a rare shipment of 352,455 tons of Venezuelan crude in February amid a temporary relaxation of U.S. sanctions on Caracas. Sanctions were re-imposed from Thursday after the U.S. said President Nicolas Maduro had failed to meet his election commitments. Customs recorded no imports from Iran. Below lists imports from main suppliers with volumes in million metric tons and year-on-year percentage change calculations by Reuters:

Russia seeks expansion of economic ties with Iraq, Kurdistan Region: Consul - Russia is open to expanding its economic activities in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, particularly in the oil and energy sectors, its consul general told Rudaw on Wednesday, with several Russian oil and gas companies holding large stakes in Baghdad and Erbil’s fields. “Russian-Iraqi relations are expansive, strong, and close in several sectors, including in the field of energy in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region,” Russian Consul General to Erbil Maxim Rubin told Rudaw’s Mushtaq Ramadhan on the sidelines of the Sulaimani Forum. “We are open to expanding Russian-Iraqi cooperation in all fields, and are ready to expand our relations and cooperation in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region,” he said. Iraq and the Kurdistan Region share close economic ties with Russia as a number of Russian oil companies operate in both the Region and in oilfields in southern Iraq. The two countries first established diplomatic relations in 1944. Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, and Rosneft are some of the major Russian oil and gas companies operating in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. In December, Lukoil acquired an additional 20 percent of the massive Eridu oil field in southern Iraq’s Dhi Qar province after a Japanese company sold half its stake, bringing Lukoil’s stake in the field to 80 percent.

Kurdish Media Allege OPEC Request for Resumption of Oil Exports to Turkey --Just a week after the Iraqi federal government announced it was repairing its own oil pipeline to Turkey, which would override a Kurdish oil pipeline that has been offline amidst a three-way diplomatic dispute between Baghdad, Erbil and Ankara, Iraqi media report that OPEC is urging Baghdad to resume Kurdish oil exports to Turkey. According to Kurdistan24 news agency, citing an unnamed source in the Iraqi Federal Oil Ministry, OPEC has requested that Iraqi Federal Oil Minister Hayyan Abdul Ghani approve oil exports from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. In what the news agency called a “formal appeal to the Iraqi Oil Minister”, OPEC has allegedly requested that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) be allowed to export 200,000 barrels of oil per day via the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The news agency also claims that the request has now been forwarded to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. The 1.4-million-bpd-capacity Iraq-Turkey pipeline has been offline since March last year, but was pumping around 450,000 bpd just prior to its closure. Baghdad’s maneuvering here is intended to lead to the revocation of the KRG’s semi-autonomous status, and international oil companies are now being pressured to sign new contracts with Bagdad for their oil and gas operations on Kurdish territory. In the meantime, Iraqi officials say the repaired pipelinethat will replace the shut-down Kurdish pipeline is set to be operational by the end of this month, signaling a victory for Baghdad and the potential end of Kurdish semi-autonomy, which could prompt additional unrest in the region.

May WTI Slips at Expiry, RBOB Falls to 6-Week Low Intraday - Oil futures nearest delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange and Brent on the Intercontinental Exchange settled Monday's session mixed, with the May West Texas Intermediate contract expiring at a $0.95 bbl premium to the June contract at $82.85 bbl. ICE June Brent futures eased $0.29 with a $87 bbl settlement, reversing overnight losses after testing support at the $85.61 50-day moving average. Brent futures dropped back from a $92.18 bbl six-month high reached earlier in April bolstered by an expanding geopolitical risk premium in the international crude benchmark as Israel and Iran appeared poised for a direct military conflict. Tensions have been dialed back by both countries' leadership, easing the risk premium. U.S. commercial crude inventory at a 459.993 million bbl 10-month high as of April 12 moved above the three-year average for the first time in 2024, data from the Energy Information Administration shows. Commercial stock levels increased 14.951 million bbl or 3.4% during the four-week period ended April 12, easing supply tightness. The U.S. dollar softened, settling at a 105.913 three-day low in index trading against a basket of currencies, but holds near a 106.325 6-1/2-month intrasession high traded on April 16. The strength in the U.S. dollar, historically a drag for crude oil prices, is realized as expectations for interest rate cuts are pushed into the future. According to the CME FedWatch Tool, most investors do not expect a cut in the federal funds rate until the Federal Open Market Committee's September meeting, skipping past meetings in May, June, and July. And only a thin majority, 51.3%, expect two 25-basis point reductions in the key overnight bank borrowing rate, now in a 5.25% by 5.5% target range, in 2024. An unexpectedly strong U.S. economy and resilient labor market have stoked inflation pressure, which is seen holding borrowing costs higher for longer. The Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday will release its advanced reading for first quarter U.S. gross domestic product growth, with expectations eyeing a 2.3% annualized expansion rate. While a slowdown from the 3.4% growth rate registered in the fourth quarter of 2023, the anticipated growth rate defies expectations in 2023 that the U.S. economy would slow down at a quicker pace this year due to higher interest rates. The Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank's GDPNow indicator expects a first quarter annualized GDP growth rate of 2.9%. Economic growth lends support for diesel fuel demand, with the May ULSD futures contract settling Monday's session up $0.0191 at $2.5604 gallon, albeit reversing higher from a $2.5039 19-week low on the spot continuous chart. High interest rates have slowed home buying, which cuts into construction jobs, manufacturing activity has remained subdued, while freight hauling is stuck in a prolonged recession. NYMEX May RBOB futures settled lower for a fourth consecutive session Monday, down $0.0249 at $2.6854 gallon, paring an intrasession decline to a $2.6649 gallon nearly six-week low on the spot continuous chart. The most recent Commitment of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released Friday afternoon shows speculators and money managers have reduced sizable long positions in the gasoline contract halfway through April. Weak demand compared with a year ago, down 168,000 bpd or 1.9% at 8.806 million bpd during the four weeks that ended April 12 according to EIA data, and a break below trendline support sustained the selling pressure on Monday.

Crude Oil Prices Falls Over Weak Demand Expectations - BizWatchNigeria.Ng -Amid doubts over the prospects for demand, crude oil prices trended lower on the global commodities market. Despite fresh US sanctions against Venezuela, the market price of crude oil is retreating. The closing price of the previous trading session, which was $87.29 a barrel, was 1.65% lower for the international benchmark Brent oil, which was trading at $85.85 per barrel. At the same moment, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $80.75 a barrel, down 1.79% from the previous session’s closing price of $82.22 per barrel. Both benchmarks rose sharply on Friday as reports surfaced that Israel had launched a counterattack on Iran. The Brent crude price approached the $91 threshold amid concerns that a wider conflict would disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East, home to the majority of the world’s oil reserves. However, later on Friday, crude prices clawed back most of the gains after both sides downplayed the severity of the attack. As concerns of a wider conflict eased despite unprecedented direct strikes by both sides, the oil market refocused on market fundamentals on the first day of the new week. Demand concerns stemming from uncertainties regarding the global economy continue to weigh on prices. Weak demand worries were also sparked by the rise in crude oil stocks in the US, the largest oil consumer in the world. While uncertainty regarding the timing of the Fed’s interest rate cuts continues, the dollar index reached 106. The rise in the value of the US dollar makes oil expensive for buyers using other currencies, leading to reduced purchases and downward pressure on prices. Meanwhile, renewed US sanctions on Venezuela, which has an export capacity of around 600,000 barrels per day, fueled supply concerns. The OPEC+ group could influence oil prices by returning some of the 2 million bpd supply it is currently keeping off the market. The tensions in the Middle East have highlighted the ebb and flow of the geopolitical risk premium in oil prices so far this month. Analysts believe that oil currently includes between $5 and $10 per barrel in premium to reflect a risk of escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict. The past week has illustrated how traders perceive geopolitical risk. Just as Brent Crude prices had eased to the upper $80s after the Iranian drone attack against Israel in the April 13-14 weekend, oil spiked by 3% early on April 19 amid reports of an Israeli missile hit in Iran.

Oil rises in early Asian trading, Middle East tensions remain in focus -Oil prices edged higher in early Asian trading on Tuesday, reversing losses from the previous session, as investors continued to assess the risk from geopolitical concerns in the Middle East. Global benchmark Brent crude oil futures rose 39 cents, or 0.5%, to $87.39 a barrel by 0033 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 40 cents, or 0.5%, to $82.30 a barrel. Both benchmarks fell 29 cents in the previous session on signs that a recent escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran had little near-term impact on oil supplies from the region. However, analysts noted a multitude of risks remain in the oil market. ANZ analysts highlighted U.S. approval of new sanctions on Iran's oil sector that broaden current sanctions to include foreign ports, vessels and refineries that knowingly process or ship Iranian crude. Barclays analysts said on Monday that risks to their $90 a barrel forecast for this year's Brent prices remain skewed higher. "The imminent threat of geopolitical risk spilling over into oil market fundamentals has largely faded, but the overall trend in that risk since October last year is concerning," the Barclays analysts said in a note. U.S. crude oil inventories are expected to have increased last week while refined product stockpiles likely fell, according to a preliminary Reuters poll of analysts.

Supportive Economic Data Out of Europe and a Fall in the U.S. Dollar Index The oil market on Tuesday traded higher and retraced some of its previous losses amid some supportive economic data out of Europe and a fall in the U.S. dollar index to its lowest in over a week. The crude market traded higher in overnight trading as it rallied to $83.01. The market was well supported by data showing that overall business activity in the euro zone expanded at its fastest pace in nearly a year in April. The market also weighed the potential fallout from any new U.S. sanctions on Iranian crude exports, targeting ships, ports and refineries that handle Iranian oil. The market erased some of its early gains and posted a low of $80.88. However, the crude market bounced off its low and retraced more than 38% of its move from a high of $86.97 to a low of $80.70 as it rallied to a high of $83.43 ahead of the close. The June WTI, on its first session as the spot contract, settled up $1.46 at $83.36 and the June Brent contract settled up $1.42 at $88.42. The product markets ended the session higher, with the heating oil market settling up 1.88 cents at $2.5792 and the RB market settling up 3.99 cents at $2.7253. Goldman Sachs said it expects further moderation in the still elevated geopolitical risk premium of $5-10/barrel for crude oil in the coming months and maintained its range-bound view, with a $90/barrel ceiling on Brent. According to a report by Norwegian risk assessment firm DNV, oil demand in China's road sector is expected to decrease by 94% by 2050, a faster transition than that predicted by China's oil majors, which forecast gasoline demand halving by 2045. DNV said total oil consumption will halve by 2050 from its 2027 peak, with 84% of that still being met by imports. However, oil's share of aviation energy demand will fall from 99.6% in 2022 to 59% in 2050 as the use of alternatives such as bioenergy and e-fuels takes hold. Sources stated that Venezuela's PDVSA plans to increase digital currency usage in its crude and fuel exports as the U.S. reimposes oil sanctions on the country. Data provider Enverus said U.S. oil and gas deals reached a record $51 billion in the first quarter, a continuation of last year's pace centered in the top U.S. shale field. Energy companies have rushed to expand oil and gas drilling inventories, especially in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, where producer break-even costs are about $64/barrel. Enversus calculates that the number of deals increased to 27 last quarter, compared with 20 in the same period a year ago and 60% of first quarter transactions by value were in the Permian. A group of 22 states led by California and five cities are backing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new tailpipe emissions rules after 25 Republican-led states sued last week. The lawsuit filed on Thursday challenges the 2027-2032 model year EPA vehicle emissions rules that aim to cut tailpipe emissions for cars and light trucks by nearly 50% over 2026 levels in 2032. California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states sought to intervene in the lawsuit saying they could be harmed if the EPA could not require future reductions in harmful vehicle emissions. Early Market Call - as of 8:40 AM EDT: WTI - June $83.12, down 24 cents RBOB - May $2.7227, down 26 points HO - May $2.5645, down 1.47 cents

U.S. oil rises nearly 2% to top $83 a barrel as slowing manufacturing raises interest rate cut hopes - U.S. crude oil moved nearly 2% higher Tuesday to top $83 a barrel on optimism that weak manufacturing data could accelerate interest rate cuts.U.S. manufacturing activity hit a four month low of 49.9 in April, according to the S&P Global Flash U.S. Composite PMI. A reading below 50 indicates that activity is contracting.Oil prices turned higher on the data as traders see slowing manufacturing activity as support for the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates this year. Lower borrowing costs typically stimulate the economy and thereby crude demand. Here are Tuesday's closing energy prices:

• West Texas Intermediate June contract: $83.36 a barrel, up $1.46, or 1.78%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil is up more than 16%.
• Brent June contract: $88.42 a barrel, up $1.42, or 1.63%. Year to date, the global benchmark is up nearly 15%.
• RBOB Gasoline May contract: $2.72 a gallon, up 1.49%. Year to date, gasoline futures are up more than 29%.
• Natural Gas May contract: $1.81 per thousand cubic feet, up 1.71%. Year to date, natural gas is down about 28%.

The move higher comes after WTI hit a session low of $80.89 a barrel earlier in the morning, the lowest level since late March. U.S. oil prices also briefly dipped below the 50-day moving average of $81.22 a barrel for the first time since early February.U.S. oil prices are still below this year's high of $87.62, when traders bid up prices on fears of a war between Iran and Israel. Those concerns have largely dissipated as Iran and Israel have signaled they are not interested in a wider war after trading tit-for-tat strikes earlier this month.The oil market has also largely brushed off the threat of additional sanctions against Iranian oil.The House of Representatives passed legislation over the weekend that would broaden sanctions against Iran's oil exports to include foreign ports, vessels and refineries that knowingly process crude from the Islamic Republic. The Senate could vote on the bill as soon as this week.Under terms of the legislation, President Joe Biden would implement sanctions within 180 days of the bill's passage, but has the authority to waive penalties if he determines it is in the national security interests of the U.S."This bill significantly increases sanctions on Iran, it increases the enforcement mechanisms," Helima Croft, commodities strategist with RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday.The White House will face a "tough choice" this summer on whether to impose the sanctions or issue waivers due to concerns about a tight oil market, Croft said. The sanctions, if fully implemented, could contribute to higher gas prices."Biden's not going to pull the trigger ahead of the election because he can't afford to have gasoline prices go up before for the election," Flynn said. "It's kind of a farce."The Biden administration is very concerned about high oil prices ahead of the 2024 election, said Amrita Sen, founder and director of research at Energy Aspects."It's a U.S. election year, and the U.S. is going to do absolutely anything in its power to make sure prices don't go up," Sen told CNBC's "Crude Realities" on Tuesday.

U.S. Crude Oil And Gasoline Inventories Drop Off - Crude oil inventories in the United States fell this week by 3.23 million barrels for the week ending April 19, according to The American Petroleum Institute (API). Analysts had estimated a 1.8 million barrel build for crude oil. For the week prior, the API reported a 4.09 million barrel build in crude inventories. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DoE) reported that crude oil inventories in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) rose by 0.8 million barrels as of April 19. Inventories are now at 365.7 million barrels—the highest point since last April. Oil prices were trading up ahead of the API data release on Tuesday, buoyed in part by the falling U.S. dollar index as business activity slumped to a multi-month low. At 4:12 pm ET, Brent crude was trading up 1.60% on the day at $88.39, but $1.60 per barrel lower than this time last week. The U.S. benchmark WTI was also trading up on the day by 1.76% at $83.34, but down roughly $2 per barrel from this time last week. Gasoline inventories also fell this week, by 595,000 barrels, after falling by 2.51 million barrels in the week prior. As of last week, gasoline inventories were about 4% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data. Distillate inventories rose this week by 724,000 barrels, after last week’s 427,000-barrel dropoff. Distillates were 7% below the five-year average for the week ending April 12, the latest EIA data shows. Cushing inventories saw a draw this week, according to API data, falling by 898,000 barrels after falling by 169,000 barrels in the previous week.

WTI, ULSD End Lower as Weak Demand Undercuts Crude Draw- The nearby West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and ULSD futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Brent futures on the Intercontinental Exchange settled Wednesday's session lower as an unexpected and large drawdown from U.S. commercial crude inventory was countered by weak domestic demand for finished fuels. Midmorning Wednesday, Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a 6.368 million barrel (bbl) decline in commercial crude stocks to 453.625 million bbl during the week ended April 19 -- the first drawdown since the second week of March. The stock draw was realized because of a surge in U.S. crude exports, which jumped 453,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a 5.179 million bpd 2024 high. Fuel demand, however, was underwhelming, with gasoline supplied to the U.S. market down 239,000 bpd last week while distillate fuel pushed to the primary market fell 114,000 bpd. Domestic demand has trailed the 2023 pace so far this year, but the decline accelerated in April. During the four weeks that ended April 19, EIA shows gasoline supplied to the U.S. market 332,000 bpd or 3.7% below the comparable period in 2023 and distillate fuel supply down 449,000 bpd or 11.6%. A slump in U.S. manufacturing activity highlighted by preliminary PMI data from S&P on Tuesday showing no growth in April offers evidence for weak demand for diesel fuel. So does a prolonged recession in freight shipments now two years old. American Trucking Associations' chief economist Bob Costello on Wednesday said, "Tonnage in March suggests that truck freight volumes remain lackluster, and it is clear the truck freight recession continued through the first quarter. In the first three months of 2024, ATA's tonnage index contracted 0.8% from the previous quarter and declined 2.4% from a year earlier, highlighting ongoing challenges the industry is navigating." Wednesday morning, the U.S. Census Bureau reported new orders for manufactured durable goods were better than expected in March with a 2.6% monthly gain, but shipments of durable goods declined for the third out of the past four months, aligning with weak freight movement. Might the long-awaited end to the freight recession be nearing? NYMEX May ULSD futures settled $0.0293 lower at $2.5499 gallon, and June WTI futures fell $0.55 with a $82.81 bbl settlement. ICE June Brent crude eased $0.40 with a $88.02 bbl settlement, turned lower after testing resistance at the $88.85 bbl 20-day moving average.

Oil settles lower as U.S. business activity cools, concerns over Middle East ease (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Wednesday as worries over conflict in the Middle East eased and business activity in the United States slowed, although a fall in U.S. crude oil inventories put a floor on those losses. Brent crude futures fell 40 cents, or 0.45%, to settle at $88.02 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures slipped 55 cents, or 0.66%, to $82.81. That reversed some of Brent's gains earlier in the week, buoyed by a weaker U.S. dollar. "It appears the fundamentals that we trade with are leaning towards a little settling down in the Middle East," said Tim Snyder, economist at Matador Economics. Perceived de-escalation between Iran and Israel could remove another $5-10 a barrel in coming months, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note. These analysts estimated a $90 per barrel ceiling on Brent. U.S. crude stockpiles fell by 6.4 million barrels to 453.6 million barrels in the week ended April 19, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 825,000-barrel rise.[EIA/s] The large crude draw was the result of very high crude exports, said UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo. But it could be a one-off, he said, as preliminary tanker tracking data this week shows lower exports. U.S. business activity cooled in April to a four-month low, with S&P Global saying on Tuesday that its flash Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks the manufacturing and services sectors, fell to 50.9 this month from 52.1 in March. The U.S. central bank is expected to start lowering rates this year, which could bolster economic growth and, in turn, stimulate demand for oil. Elsewhere, Germany's business morale improved more than expected in April, according to a survey on Wednesday, boosting hopes that the worst may be over for Europe's biggest economy. Even as concerns about geopolitical tension in the Middle East eased, the Israel-Hamas conflict continues to rage with some of the heaviest shelling in weeks on Tuesday. Sources on Wednesday said Israel was preparing to evacuate Rafah ahead of a promised assault on the city.

Oil Futures Up, Shake Off Weakness Spurred by GDP Surprise -- Nearest delivered oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and Brent crude on the Intercontinental Exchange shrugged off early weakness spurred by a surprise reading for U.S. economic growth to end Thursday's session higher. Brent widened its premium to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) to a $5.44 per barrel (bbl) three-month high.June Brent pushed above the $88.99 20-day moving average with a $89.01 bbl settlement, up $0.99, with three trading days remaining before expiration. The international crude benchmark gained on the U.S. benchmark as sluggish demand for finished fuels in the United States aligned with slower-than-expected economic growth while geopolitical tensions underpin Brent.June WTI futures settled $0.76 higher at $83.57 bbl, gaining in market-on-close trade. The U.S. dollar weakened 0.2% to a 105.451 two-week low in index trading, pressured by a steep slowdown in first-quarter U.S. economic growth. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Thursday morning reported a 1.6% annualized growth rate by the U.S. economy for the first three months of 2024, well below expectations for a 2.3% expansion rate, and a steep fall-off from growth of 3.4% during the fourth quarter 2023.Compounding the economic slowdown, costs grew, with BEA reporting the personal consumption expenditures price index increased 3.4% in the first quarter from a 1.8% gain during the final three months of 2023. Consumer spending on services helped drive GDP higher in the first quarter, which offset a decline in consumer spending on goods. Wage gains by state and local government employees also boosted first-quarter GDP, adding inflationary pressure.Investors now expect one 25-basis point rate cut in 2024, down from two on Wednesday, with a 59.2% probability the Federal Open Market Committee will reduce the federal funds rate in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. The overnight bank borrowing rate is currently in a 5.25% by 5.5% target range.Weak distillate fuel demand in 2024, trailing the year-ago pace by 164,000 barrels per day or 4.3% through April 19, according to data from the Energy Information Administration foreshadowed the slowdown in U.S. economic growth. A prolonged recession in freight shipments and weak industrial output have weighed on both the U.S. economy and distillate fuel supplied to the U.S. market. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said manufacturing activity fell again in April, which follows a similar finding by the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank on Tuesday.May ULSD futures, which moved into a contango market structure in mid-April, settled flat, up five points at $2.5504 per gallon. The ULSD crack spread ended Thursday's session at an 11-month low.May RBOB futures gained $0.0239 with a $ 2.7582-gallon settlement, ending above the $2.7542 20-day moving average, with Memorial Day weekend four weeks away.

Concerns Over Fuel Demand in the U.S. Against Worries of Supply Disruptions - The crude market on Thursday posted an outside trading day as the market weighed slower economic growth in the first quarter, which added to concerns over fuel demand in the U.S., against worries of supply disruptions as Israel may start an assault on Gaza’s city of Rafah. The oil market breached its previous low of $82.44 and traded to a low of $81.99 by mid-morning as the market refocused on Wednesday’s EIA report. The report showed gasoline stocks falling less than expected and distillates stocks building against expectations of a draw, reflecting signs of slowing demand. The market was further pressured by news that U.S. GDP in the first quarter slowed more than expected. The crude market later bounced off its low and breached its Wednesday’s high of $83.71 as it rallied to a high of $83.73 on the close. The June WTI contract settled up 76 cents at $83.57 and continued to trade higher in the post settlement period, posting a high of $83.76. The June Brent contract settled up 99 cents at $89.01. Meanwhile, the product market ended the session higher, with the heating oil market settling up 5 points at $2.5504 and the RB market settling up 2.39 cents at $2.7582.The United States and 17 other countries on Thursday issued an appeal for Hamas to release hostages as a pathway to end the crisis in Gaza. According to a senior U.S. official, a statement released by the countries will say “We call for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now for over 200 days.” The signatories were the leaders of the U.S., Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and Britain. The U.S. official said there were some indications that there might be an avenue for an agreement on the hostage crisis but that he was not totally confident. Meanwhile, Hamas reiterated its demand Israel end the Gaza war as part of any deal to release hostages held there, with Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official telling Reuters that U.S. pressure on Hamas “has no value”.The Russian government said gasoline and diesel fuel production in Russia stabilized in April. According to the report, fuel supplies to the domestic market exceeded last year’s volumes in April.Alexander Dyukov, the head of Gazprom Neft, said that there was no need to lift restrictions on gasoline exports from the country and there are no shortages of fuel on the domestic market. He also said the company's operations have not been affected by floods in the Orenburg region in the Urals Mountains.U.S. economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter, but an acceleration in inflation suggested that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates before September. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its advance estimate of first-quarter GDP that GDP increased at a 1.6% annualized rate last quarter. Economists had forecast GDP rising at a 2.4% rate. The economy grew at a 3.4% rate in the fourth quarter. The personal consumption expenditures price index, excluding food and energy, increased at a 3.7% rate. That was the fastest increase in that measure in nearly a year and followed a 2% pace of increase in the fourth quarter.

Oil settles higher on supply concerns in the Mideast, economic woes subdue gains (Reuters) - Oil prices settled higher on Friday, garnering support from tensions in the Middle East, but a strong dollar and U.S. inflation data quashed hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates soon, giving prices a ceiling. Brent crude futures settled up 49 cents, or 0.55%, to $89.50 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled up 28 cents, or 0.34%, to $83.85 a barrel. Supply concerns supported prices as tensions continue in the Middle East. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said any rulings by the International Criminal Court, which is investigating Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and Israel's military assault on Gaza, would not affect Israel's actions but would "set a dangerous precedent." As tensions escalate, Israel's military said on Friday that its air force struck in Lebanon's West Beqaa District and killed a militant who advanced attacks against Israel. Israel stepped up air strikes on Rafah on Thursday after saying it would evacuate civilians from city in southern Gaza and launch an all-out assault despite allies' warnings that doing so could cause mass casualties. "Israel is not afraid to come and support themselves on their own if they have to, people are watching to see what happens between Netanyahu and Biden," said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics. "The geopolitical element is not over, the proxy battles going on right now will continue," and this is still providing support and helping to offset the negative pressure from the inflationary data, Snyder added. Meanwhile, macroeconomic pressures capped gains after data released on Friday showed growing inflation. In the 12 months through March, U.S. inflation rose 2.7% after an advance of 2.5% in February. Last month's increase was broadly in line with economists' expectations. The Fed has a 2% inflation target. The U.S. central bank is expected to leave rates unchanged at its policy meeting next week. "The economic data this morning was enough for market participants to conclude that the Fed is not going to be forthcoming with interest rate cuts any time soon," said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital LLC. "Geopolitical jitters in the market are what is keeping us aloft. Those two competing forces should keep us in check," Kilduff added. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters on Thursday that U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter could be revised higher, and inflation will ease after a clutch of "peculiar" factors held the economy to its weakest showing in nearly two years. U.S. economic growth was likely stronger than suggested by the weaker quarterly data, Yellen said. Oil prices have flip-flopped since Yellen's comments and the release of the inflation data on Friday. Meanwhile, the dollar soared to a fresh 34-year high against the yen on Friday, bolstered in part by the U.S. inflation data. "Dollar strength is helping to exert negative pressure today," Kilduff said. Elsewhere, OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said in an op-ed article that the end of oil is not in sight, as the pace of energy demand growth means that alternatives cannot replace it at the needed scale, and the focus should be on cutting emissions not oil use.

Oil Posts Weekly Gain as Market Tightens Oil rose this week amid signs of a tightening physical market while traders continue to assess lingering Middle East risks. West Texas Intermediate edged higher to settle just below $84 a barrel, concluding a weekly advance of 2% for the June contract. A report earlier this week showed US crude stockpiles dropping to the lowest since January, while gauges such as the WTI cash roll and key timespreads are signaling supply constraints. The roll, which reflects supply-demand balances at Cushing, Oklahoma, climbed to the highest in two years. Meanwhile, WTI’s prompt spread — the gap between its two nearest contracts — has strengthened to 72 cents in backwardation, up from 55 cents last week. Crude’s gains are being restrained by US economic data showing inflation rose in March, reinforcing concerns of persistent price pressures. The data followed weaker US economic growth and traders paring back expectations for the timing of a Fed rate reduction. Crude has advanced this year, supported by supply cuts from OPEC+ and political risks in the Middle East, including heightened tensions between Israel and Iran that helped lift Brent above $90 a barrel earlier this month. Israel is stepping up preparations for a potential all-out war with Hezbollah. Despite the strength in crude futures, there are concerns in other corners of the oil markets. A sharp drop in returns from making diesel is prompting some Asian refiners to make modest reductions in operating rates, which could crimp regional oil imports. Analysts have meanwhile forecast a decline in margins for making the fuel in Europe. WTI for June delivery rose 0.3% to settle at $83.85 a barrel in New York. Brent for June settlement rose 0.6% to settle at $89.50 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia Needs Oil Price Near $100, IMF Says - -- Saudi Arabia will need a higher oil price than previously thought this year as the OPEC+ leader spearheads the group’s production cuts, according to the International Monetary Fund. Riyadh will require an average oil price of $96.20 a barrel to balance its budget, assuming it holds crude output steady near 9.3 million barrels a day this year, the Washington-based Fund said in its regional economic outlook on Thursday. That’s up 21% from a previous forecast in October, when the IMF predicted that the kingdom would pump 10 million barrels a day in 2024. It’s also higher than the current price for international benchmark Brent futures, which are trading near $89 a barrel. The Saudis have led the OPEC+ alliance in curbing output to stave off a global crude surplus and shore up prices, deepening cutbacks by 1 million barrels a day since last July. The measures have helped buoy the market, but as Riyadh sacrifices sales volumes it need a higher price to compensate. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its partners will gather on June 1 to consider whether to continue to supply curbs into the second half of the year. With conflict in the Middle East bolstering the market, some analysts expect that OPEC+ may start to unwind the curbs. The kingdom needs considerable revenue to fund the ambitious transformation plans of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which involve spending hundreds of billions of dollars on everything from futuristic cities like Neom to top-flight sports players. The government has resorted to debt as a way of bridging some gaps, selling $12 billion of bonds in January, equivalent to more than half the fiscal deficit projected for this year. Neom is also planning a debut riyal bond sale later this year as it looks for more sources of funding, Bloomberg reported this week. The kingdom’s quest for foreign direct investment has so far under-delivered. The government wants to hit $100 billion of FDI annually by 2030, a haul roughly three times bigger than it has ever achieved and about 50% more than what India gets today. Kazakhstan and Iran, fellow OPEC+ members, also saw their price needs climb, according to the IMF’s calculations. But the break-evens for several others in the group — which haven’t made such deep output sacrifices as the Saudis — remained broadly stable or even decreased. Assuming the kingdom relaxes the supply cuts and revives production to 10.3 million barrels a day next year, its break-even price requirement should subside to $84.70 a barrel, according to the IMF.

Fire reported in Syrian oil pipeline - Mehr News Agency --Local media in Syria reported a fire in an oil pipeline in the west of the country on Sunday. The official Syrian news agency -SANA- reported a fire in an oil pipeline in the Al-Furls District in Homs province in the eastern suburbs of Homs province. According to the report, firefighters were dispatched to the area to extinguish the fire. There were no more details about the incident.

Yemen's Houthis Target Two Ships in Gulf of Aden - Yemen’s Houthis targeted commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday and Thursday as part of their campaign to protest the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.The attacks came after a relative lull in Houthi operations following months of frequent attacks. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, claimed they hit the Maersk Yorktown, a US-flagged, owned, and operated container ship that has an American crew. However, US Central Command said a Houthi missile was intercepted that appeared to be targeting the Maersk Yorktown. CENTCOM said that “a coalition vessel successfully engaged one anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM)” that was fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. CENTCOM also said its forces downed four drones over Yemen on Wednesday.The following day, the Houthis claimed another attack on the MSC Darwin, a Liberian-flagged container ship. The British military’s UK Maritime Trade Operations Center also reported the attack and said the “vessel and all crew are safe.”Also on Thursday, the Houthi leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthisaid Ansar Allah forces would expand attacks on Israeli shipping into the Indian Ocean, a threat he first made back in March. Al-Houthi noted how his forces first started attacking Israel-linked commercial shipping to show support for Gaza and expanded to include British and American shipping when the US and the UK launched a new bombing campaign in Yemen on January 12.

Dryad Says Reports Indicate Iran Intends to Disrupt Strait of Hormuz - Dryad Says Reports Indicate Iran Intends to Disrupt Strait of Hormuz - Recent reports indicate that Iran intends to disrupt operations in the Strait of Hormuz, Dryad Global stated in its latest Maritime Security Threat Advisory (MSTA), which was released on April 22. “The most recent incident, the seizure of the MSC Aries, demonstrates that Iran, despite being preoccupied with missile operations against Israel, continues to interdict and control vessel movement in the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf, and Arabian Sea,” Dryad noted in the MSTA. “While Iran has repeatedly stated that it has the capability to shut down the choke point, doing so has appeared unfavorable because it would enrage its neighboring Arab nations,” it added. In the MSTA, Dryad said Iran’s most recent missile attack on Israel “was more theatrical than genuine military operations, knowing that Israel’s defense systems could easily defeat its drone and missile barrage”. “Iran is likely to intensify its operations in more easily controlled territory, such as the Strait of Hormuz, posing a significant threat to Israeli and NATO-affiliated commercial vessels,” it added. In a release sent to Rigzone earlier this month, Xeneta, which describes itself as the leading ocean freight rate benchmarking and intelligence platform, said the seizure of a container ship by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13 “is extremely concerning and threatens to put trade lanes in the Middle East at risk”. “It has been reported that the MSC Aries was seized by Iran Revolutionary Guards 50 nautical miles (92km) northeast of Fujairah, an area close to the Strait of Hormuz that forms the entrance to the Arabian Gulf,” Xeneta noted in the release. “The latest incident follows ongoing conflict in the Red Sea region - the gateway to the Suez Canal - which has seen ocean freight container ships avoiding the area due to missile attacks by Houthi militia,” it added. Peter Sand, a Chief Analyst at Xeneta, said in the release, “an already bad situation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has just got worse and could put ocean freight container imports and oil exports in the Middle East at risk”. On its site, Dryad describes the Strait of Hormuz as a narrow 21 mile wide channel separating Iran from the Arabia Peninsula. “It is used to transport a fifth of the world’s petroleum liquids which is around 21 million barrels or $1.2 billion worth of oil every day,” Dryad states on its site. “The majority of Saudi Arabia’s crude exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, meaning much of the oil-dependent economy's wealth is situated there, similarly, 10 percent of the U.S.’s total oil imports per month transit the straits,” it adds. “Further, a quarter of the world’s LNG is also transported through the channel. This makes the Strait of Hormuz not only the world’s busiest shipping lane but also the most strategically important choke point for the world’s oil supply because there are limited alternatives to bypass the strait,” it continues. In a gas and LNG market update sent to Rigzone on April 17, Rystad Energy Senior Analyst Lu Ming Pang said, “the strategic significance of the Straits of Hormuz cannot be overstated and market participants will be closely monitoring developments in the region”. Pang described the straits as “a crucial artery for Qatar and the UAE to reach both European and Asian markets”.

Why Biden is Unlikely to Enforce the New Iran Oil Sanctions - Over the weekend, as part of the $95 billion package providing funding for aiding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan which passed by a vote of 360-58 on Saturday, the US House also passed new sanctions on Iran’s oil sector set to become part of a foreign-aid package, putting the measure on track to pass the Senate within days.The legislation, as Bloomberg reports, would broaden sanctions against Iran to include foreign ports, vessels, and refineries that knowingly process or ship Iranian crude in violation of existing US sanctions. It would also would expand so-called secondary sanctions to cover all transactions between Chinese financial institutions and sanctioned Iranian banks used to purchase petroleum and oil-derived products.About 80% of Iran’s roughly 1.5 million barrels of daily oil exports are shipped to independent refineries in China known as “teapots,” according to a summary of similar legislation.Yet while the sanctions could impact Iranian petroleum exports - and add as much as $8.40 to the price of a barrel of crude - they also include presidential waiver authorities, according to ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based consulting firm. "President Joe Biden might opt to invoke these authorities, vitiating the sanctions’ price impact; a second Trump Administration might not," ClearView wrote in a note to clients. Amrita Sen, founder and research director of Energy Aspects, agreed and told Bloomberg Television in an interview that Biden's Administration is unlikely to “strongly enforce” the restrictions in an election year. “I think all sanctions are sanctions on paper, with anything that remotely causes oil prices to go up, I don't believe they will enforce it strongly,” the research analyst told Bloomberg. “What I really want to highlight is this is a US election year, so let’s not kid ourselves,” the analyst noted. Moreover, China is buying most of Iran's crude oil exports, and the majority of buyers in the world’s top crude oil importer are the independent refiners, the so-called ‘teapots’ in the Shandong province, which are not connected with the U.S. financial system in any way. Therefore, the U.S. doesn’t have any means to enforce sanctions on China’s independent refiners for buying Iranian crude oil, Sen told Bloomberg.The teapots will continue to import Iran’s crude, while any new restrictions could take up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil off the market, she added. Crude oil exports from Iran hit the highest level in six years during the first quarter of the year, data from Goldman recently showed. The daily average over the period stood at 1.56 million barrels, almost all of which was sent to China, earning the Islamic Republic some $35 billion.

Iran Says Nuclear Weapons Have No Place in Its Nuclear Doctrine - On Monday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry reaffirmed that Tehran is not seeking a nuclear bomb and that weapons have no place in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.“Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program only serves peaceful purposes. Nuclear weapons have no place in our nuclear doctrine,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani.Kanaani’s comments came after an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general suggested Iran could change its nuclear doctrine if Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities.Any decision to build nuclear weapons would have to be made by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who issued a fatwa in 2003 forbidding the production and use of any weapon of mass destruction. The Islamic Republic’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also prohibited the creation of a WMD program.The fact that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon was recently reaffirmed by the US’s annual “threat assessment” and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device,” the threat assessment says.Iran is enriching some uranium at 60%, which is the highest level it has ever attempted but is still lower than the 90% needed for weapons-grade. Iran has increased uranium enrichment since the US withdrew from the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, in 2018 and in response to Israeli covert attacks on its civilian nuclear program.“Iran uses its nuclear program to build negotiating leverage and respond to perceived international pressure. Tehran said it would restore JCPOA limits if the United States fulfilled its JCPOA commitments and the IAEA closed its outstanding safeguards investigations,” the threat assessment reads.

Afghanistan’s 1st rail cargo crosses Iran to Turkey – Afghanistan's first export shipment containing 1,100 metric tons of mineral ore was exported by train from Roznak Railway Station in Herat towards Turkey crossing Iran. In a statement, the Afghanistan Railway Department announced that this export included talc mineral exported to the city of Mersin, Turkey. This is the first shipment of Afghanistan's "talc" that has gone to Turkey through Iran, the report added. Spokesman for the Transportation and Aviation Authority of the Taliban government in Afghanistan Imamuddin Ahmadihad previously announced that import and export between Afghanistan and Turkey will be carried out by land route for the first time. Hand-woven carpets and rugs, dried fruits, and precious stones are among the goods exported from Afghanistan to Turkey and other countries.

200,000 settlers in occupied lands escaped Hezbollah strikes - (MNA) – Sirens in multiple northern towns in occupied territories went off on Tuesday after suspected drone and rocket attacks by the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.Sirens in multiple northern towns warn of suspected drone and rocket attacks, Times of Israel reported on Tuesday. Alerts are heard in the coastal city Acre and towns a short distance north of Haifa, the regime media added.Meanwhile, Hezbollah Al-Manar TV cited the Israeli media outlets as reporting the explosion of a missile intercepting a suspicious object in the airspace of Nahariya.The suspected rocket and drone fire came after the Hezbollah moment mourned Martyr All the Way to Al-Quds Hussein Ali Azqoul (Hadi), who was martyred in an Israeli regime air strike in the south of Lebanon. Israeli military radio has reported that as many as 200,000 settlers in the North have resorted to shelters after three drones have been launched into Nahariya.

Nearly 300 bodies discovered in mass graves at Gaza’s Nasser hospital - Nearly 300 bodies were discovered in a series of mass graves near Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, on Sunday and Monday. The dead include men, women and children, as well as people with clear indications of being medical patients. Some were discovered handcuffed, indicating that victims were killed in mass summary executions. After the discovery of similar mass graves in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital last month, the mass grave at Nasser Hospital presents further evidence that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has turned Gaza’s hospitals into killing fields as part of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinians in the narrow enclave. Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda visited the mass grave on Monday, documenting that “some bodies” were found “without organs or skin or heads.” Bisan pointed the camera at one of the hundreds of decomposed bodies strewn across the field where she was standing. The legs of the body were bandaged, suggesting the victim was a patient at the hostpital. “He or she was injured. And the Israeli army killed him and buried him in a mass grave,” she said. On Monday, Col. Yamen Abu Suleiman, Director of Civil Defense in Khan Younis, told CNN that “73 bodies were recovered” on Monday, bringing the total number to 283. Suleiman told CNN that some bodies were discovered with their hands and feet tied, pointing to summary executions. “We do not know if they were buried alive or executed.” Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician who had worked at Shifa Hopsital, told The Young Turks that the massacre is a “moral collapse.” Gilbert condemned Israel’s “ruthless massacres of unarmed civilian people in the hospitals.” He said these were “places of sanctuary to protect life, and to give people a shelter when they are wounded or injured or sick. The Israeli occupation army used these places to perform the most horrible, sadistic massacres of the Palestinian people.”\

Israeli Strikes in Rafah Kill 22, Including 18 Children - Israeli strikes hit the southern Gaza city of Rafah Saturday night into Sunday morning, killing 22 people, including 18 children, The Associated Press reported.The bombardment came just hours after the US House of Representatives passed a $26 billion bill that includes about $17 billion in military aid for Israel to support the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.According to AP, one of the overnight strikes killed a man, his wife, and their three-year-old child. The woman was 30 weeks pregnant, and medical staff at the nearby Kuwaiti hospital were able to save the baby. The second strike killed two women and 17 children.Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed in the Strip has reached 34,097, and 76,980 more have been wounded. The death toll is considered a low estimate since it doesn’t take into account people who are dead under the rubble.Rafah is packed with over 1 million Palestinian civilians and has been getting hit with near-daily Israeli strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to launch a full-scale invasion of the city.The US has claimed that it’s concerned about Netanyahu’s plans to invade Rafah but is not putting any real pressure on Israel since it continues to provide military aid and political support. US and Israeli officials discussed the potential assault last week, and the White House said the two sides had a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.” On Sunday, Netanyahu thanked the US for the new aid being passed through Congress and vowed to escalate in Gaza. “In the coming days, we will increase the military and diplomatic pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages and achieve our victory,” he said.

Hamas Official Says Group Willing To Disarm for Two-State Solution - A top Hamas political official has told The Associated Press that the Palestinian group would be open to a five-year truce with Israel and would disarm and become solely a political party if a Palestinian state was established along the pre-1967 borders.Speaking in Istanbul, Khalil al-Hayya said Hamas would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions.” He said that Hamas wants to unite with Fatah, which heads the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organization, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank.Hamas first sent the signal last week that it might be willing to dissolve its military wing, known as al-Qassam Brigades, in exchange for a two-state solution. After a meeting with Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the Palestinian group was willing to accept those conditions.Israel is not expected to pursue any deal that would give the Palestinians a state, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his opposition to the idea very clear. He has said he wouldn’t allow a Palestinian state in any post-war scenario and has credited himself as the person who prevented a two-state solution in the past.Another major impediment to a two-state solution along the 1967 borders is the over 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Settlers continue to terrorize Palestinians and drive them out of their homes, and the Netanyahu government has explicitly stated it supports settlement expansion with the ultimate goal of annexing the West Bank.Netanyahu has maintained that his goal in Gaza is to “eradicate” Hamas even though both US and Israeli intelligence have said the group isn’t going anywhere. Al-Hayya said that Israeli forces “have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor in the field. If they can’t finish (Hamas) off, what is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus.”

Independent report does not find UN’s Palestinian agency is compromised by outside groups --A highly anticipated independent report did not find the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is compromised by outside groups or has a systemic neutrality failure, a point of major contention after Israel accused 12 staffers at the agency of participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. The report from an independent group appointed by the United Nations in February and led by former French Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna determined UNRWA has “a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles.” The report notes there is an “emphasis on the principle of neutrality” and that UNRWA “possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities.” Colonna said at a U.N. press briefing Monday that there is “room for improvement” and some neutrality issues persist, but overall she found that the mechanisms at UNRWA are “elaborate.” “Now what needs to be improved will be improved,” she said. “I would strongly encourage the international community to [stand] side-by-side with the agency so it can perform its mission and overcome the challenges when they are there.” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that he “accepts the recommendations” provided by the independent report. “Moving forward, the Secretary-General appeals to all stakeholders to actively support UNRWA, as it is a lifeline for Palestine refugees in the region,” he said. The report contradicts claims from Israel that UNRWA is compromised by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. Israel accused 12 staff members of working with Hamas and claimed 10 percent of the 32,000-member agency had ties to the militant group. UNRWA provides critical relief to Gaza, and the backlash over allegedly supporting Hamas led to 16 countries cutting off aid to the agency, including the U.S. and European allies. Some of those countries, but not the U.S., have reinstated funding for UNRWA. Colonna worked with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway and the Danish Institute for Human Rights in the report. The group released interim findings in March that detailed mechanisms and procedures in place to ensure neutrality. The U.N. has a separate inquiry into the allegations of the 12 UNRWA staffers who allegedly worked with Hamas on Oct. 7, when Palestinian militant fighters invaded southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. The Colonna report looked at whether UNRWA has a systemic problem compromising its neutrality, and investigated this by reviewing the agency’s management and operations. The report shows UNRWA has teams, policies and training in place to ensure neutrality compliance and requires reports of misconduct to be filed.

Malala Yousafzai confirms support for Palestine after backlash over musical with Hillary Clinton --Activist Malala Yousafzai confirmed her support for Palestine in a post online after receiving backlash over a report she collaborated with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a musical. “I have and will continue to condemn the Israeli government for its violations of international law and war crimes, and I applaud efforts by those determined to hold them to account,” Yousafzai posted on social media platform X. “Publicly and privately, I will keep calling on world leaders to push for a ceasefire and to ensure the delivery of urgency humanitarian aid.” Yousafzai, a 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been criticized by some for partnering with Clinton on a new musical, “Snuffs,” which has begun playing in New York, Arab News reported. In an op-ed published last November, Clinton argued against a full cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, saying it would allow Hamas to refuel and prolong the conflict. Clinton has backed humanitarian pauses in the fighting to allow for aid to be sent to civilians in Gaza. She said she would eventually agree to a cease-fire, but it must happen at the right time. She criticized current Israeli leadership and said international interim leaders should support efforts to help Israel “resume control in Gaza.” Users have posted online calling Yousafzai a sellout, among other things. The outlet reported that she has been met with suspicion in her home country of Pakistan, where critics have said she pushes Western feminist and liberal ideas on the conservative countries. “I stand against any form of violence against innocent civilians, including the taking of prisoners and hostages. And I stand in solidarity with the people in Gaza whose voices and demands must be heard,” she said.

NATO Says China Must Cut Trade With Russia To Have Good Relations With West -NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday went after China for its trade relationship with Russia, saying Beijing must reduce its trade with Moscow to have good relations with the West.Western officials often accuse China of supporting Russia’s military, but there’s no evidence of Beijing shipping weapons. Instead, they point to China’s export of semiconductors and raw materials.“Russia’s friends in Asia are vital for its war effort. First and foremost, China. China is propping up Russia’s war economy,” Stoltenberg said. “Sharing high-end technology like semiconductors and other dual-use items with Russia. Last year, Russia imported 90 percent of its micro-electronics from China. Used to produce missiles, tanks, and aircraft.”Stoltenberg also accused China of “fueling” the war even though Beijing has consistently called for peace talks while the US and leading NATO countries have discouraged diplomacy and have dumped tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine.“China says it wants good relations with the West. At the same time, Beijing continues to fuel the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War Two. They cannot have it both ways,” Stoltenberg said.

World defense spending reaches highest levels on record: Report -Military spending across the world last year reached the highest levels ever recorded by a major global think tank, soaring to $2.4 trillion in 2023, according to a new report. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said the $2.4 trillion in global defense spending last year marked a 6.8 percent increase from 2022 and is the ninth consecutive year of increased military spending. World military spending per person reached $306, the highest number recorded by SIPRI since 1990. “The rise in global military spending in 2023 can be attributed primarily to the ongoing war in Ukraine and escalating geopolitical tensions in Asia and Oceania and the Middle East,” researchers wrote in the report. “Military expenditure went up in all five geographical regions, with major spending increases recorded in Europe, Asia and Oceania and the Middle East.” The Hill previously reported how global defense spending has surged with the return of great power competition and a more multipolar world. That has sparked countries to rethink critical national security priorities and policies, from Europe to the Indo-Pacific. According to the SIPRI report, the U.S. and China account for about half of all global defense spending and the top 10 spenders account for 74 percent of all military spending. The U.S. spent $916 billion on defense last year, far higher than any other country. China spent $296 billion on defense last year, becoming the second highest spender and increasing its military budget by 6 percent from 2022. SIPRI noted that China has increased its military expenditures for the past 29 years, but that has slowed in the past 10 years, inline with a lagging economy. The third highest spender was Russia at $109 billion, up 24 percent from 2022, while India was the fourth highest spender at $83.6 billion and Saudi Arabia was fifth at $75.8 billion, according to the report. Russia is spending 5.9 percent of its total economic output on the war, according to the SIPRI report, which noted that Moscow’s numbers in the report may not be entirely accurate because of the opaqueness of the financial system since the war in Ukraine. In East Asia, defense spending has soared as tensions rise in the Indo-Pacific between China and the U.S. and its allies, the report shows. Japan, which has shifted away from a longstanding pacifist policy and is moving to increase military funds, spent around $50 billion last year, which is 11 percent more than in 2022 and 31 percent more than in 2014. Taiwan, a self-governing island nation threatened by China, grew its military budget by 11 percent last year. In Europe, defense spending increased to $588 billion, up 16 percent from 2022 and 62 percent from 2014, SIPRI found. The increase in defense spending on the continent comes as NATO members are trying to reach a 2 percent of economic output target for defense spending, a goal driven more urgent by the war in Ukraine.

In huge police raids, Australian teenagers arrested on vague “terrorism” charges -More than 400 heavily-armed police and intelligence agency officers stormed 13 homes in Sydney’s southwestern suburbs yesterday and arrested seven teenagers, as young as 14, on a range of vague terrorism-related accusations.All the circumstances point to a politically-charged and timed police and intelligence operation, launched by the highest levels of the police-intelligence apparatus, with the direct backing of the Albanese Labor government.The Joint Counter-Terrorism Team, which includes the New South Wales (NSW) state police, the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the NSW Crime Commission, raided homes across the suburbs of Greenacre, Strathfield, Bankstown, Prestons, Casula, Lurnea, Rydalmere, Chester Hill and Punchbowl, which have significant Middle Eastern populations. A home in the regional town of Goulburn was also searched.The raids—the largest for a decade—were conducted despite police admitting there was no evidence of any specific plans, locations, times or targets for a terrorist act. Instead, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett said investigations had revealed a “network” of people who share a “similar violent extremist ideology.”This common “ideology” was not named, but clearly the accusation was directed at identification with Islamic belief.These teenagers, aged from 14 to 17, were said to be in online contact with a 16-year-old boy who has been charged with stabbing a Christian priest in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley last week. That attack was quickly labelled by the NSW and federal Labor governments as a “terrorist” incident, with the boy now facing possible life imprisonment, despite evidence presented in court of his mental health problems.This morning, police charged five of the young people arrested yesterday. Two 16-year-old boys were charged with “conspiring” to engage in any act in preparation for, or planning, “a terrorist act.” A 17-year-old was charged with that too, as well as carrying a knife in a public place. Two boys, aged 17 and 14, were charged with possessing “violent extremist material online.” All were refused bail and were due to face a Children’s Court today.The federal Labor government immediately hailed the police-ASIO operation. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the counter-terrorism “activity” was connected to the ongoing investigation into the Wakeley incident. “I wanted to take this opportunity to salute the courage of the people involved, and to thank them for their professionalism as well,” he said.