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Report: Global crises can speed up move to clean energy
Spiraling energy costs caused by various economic factors and the Ukraine war could be a turning point toward cleaner energy, the International Energy Agency said in a report Thursday. It found the global demand for fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, is set to peak or plateau in the next few decades.
The report looked at scenarios based on current policies and said that coal use will fall back within the next few years, natural gas demand will reach a plateau by the end of the decade and rising sales of electric vehicles mean that the need for oil will level off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly by mid-century. Total emissions are currently going up each year, but slowly.
“Energy markets and policies have changed as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not just for the time being, but for decades to come,” said the IEA’s executive director Fatih Birol. A surge in demand following COVID-19 pandemic restrictions lifting and bottlenecks in supply chains have also contributed to soaring energy prices.
“The energy world is shifting dramatically before our eyes. Government responses around the world promise to make this a historic and definitive turning point toward a cleaner, more affordable and more secure energy system,” Birol said.
The role of natural gas as a “transition fuel” that will bridge the gap between a fossil-fuel based energy system to a renewable one has also taken a dent, the report said. Although it’s a fossil fuel, natural gas is considered cleaner than coal and oil, as burning it produces less carbon dioxide.
But despite the largely positive outlook, the report adds that the share of fossil fuels in the global energy mix puts the world on track to a warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, a whole degree (1.8 Fahrenheit) more than the target set in the Paris climate deal.
That’s in line with a U.N. report released Wednesday that said current climate pledges are “nowhere near” where they need to be to meet the ambitious target. Top climate scientists say that to keep warming in line with the 1.5 C goal, emissions need to be slashed by 45% by 2030.
Energy policy analysts say that while there are promising steps in the right direction, the move toward clean energy needs to be much faster.
“Clean energy investment is delivering. It is the reason why the world is on track to peak CO2 emissions. But that’s only the first step. We need big emissions cuts, not a plateau,” said Dave Jones, an energy analyst at London-based environmental think-tank, Ember.
The report estimated that clean energy investment will be above $2 trillion by 2030 but added it would need to double to keep the transition in line with climate goals.
“The energy crisis has detracted from the climate crisis, but fortunately the answer is the same to both: a gigantic step up in clean energy investment,” Jones said.
“This report makes a very strong economic case for renewable energy which is not only more cost-competitive and affordable than fossil fuel alternatives but also is proving to be much more resilient to economic and geopolitical shocks,” said Maria Pastukhova a senior policy advisor in E3G, a climate change think-tank.
She added that leaders and negotiators at the U.N. climate conference in Egypt next month will need to “double down” on reducing the demand for energy and unlock finance for developing countries to help fund their transition to renewables which would speed up emissions cuts.
US economy likely returned to growth after shrinking in first 2 quarters of 2022
The problems have hardly gone away. Inflation, still near a 40-year high, is punishing households. Rising interest rates have derailed the housing market and threaten to inflict broader damage. And the outlook for the world economy grows bleaker the longer that Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on.
But for now anyway, the U.S. economy has likely returned to growth after having shrunk in each of the first two quarters of 2022.
At least that’s what economists expect to see Thursday when the Commerce Department issues its first of three estimates of gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — for the July-September period.
Economists surveyed by the data firm FactSet have predicted, on average, that GDP grew at a 2% annual rate in the third quarter. That would reverse annual declines of 1.6% from January through March and 0.6% from April through June.
Consecutive quarters of declining economic output are one informal definition of a recession. But most economists say they believe the economy has so far skirted a recession, noting the still-resilient job market and steady spending by consumers. Most of them have expressed concern, though, that a recession is likely next year as the Federal Reserve continues to steadily ratchet up interest rates to fight inflation.
Preston Caldwell, head of U.S. economics for the financial services firm Morningstar, notes that the economy’s contraction in the first half of the year was caused largely by factors that don’t reflect its underlying health and so “very likely did not constitute a genuine economic slowdown.” He pointed, for example, to a drop in business inventories, a cyclical event that tends to reverse itself and generally doesn’t reflect the state of the economy.
By contrast, consumer spending, fueled by a healthy job market, and stronger U.S. exports likely restored the world’s biggest economy to growth last quarter.
Thursday’s report from the government comes as Americans, worried about high prices and recession risks, are preparing to vote in midterm elections that will determine whether President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party retains control of Congress. Inflation has become a signature issue for Republican attacks on the Democrats’ stewardship of the economy.
The risk of an economic downturn next year remains elevated as the Fed keeps raising rates aggressively to try to tame stubbornly high consumer prices. The central bank has raised its benchmark short-term rate five times this year, and it’s expected to announce further hikes next week and again in December. Chair Jerome Powell has warned bluntly that taming inflation will “bring some pain” — namely, higher unemployment and, possibly, a recession.
Higher borrowing costs have already hammered the home market. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, just 3.09% a year ago, is approaching 7%. Sales of existing homes have fallen for eight straight months. Construction of new homes is down nearly 8% from a year ago.
Still, the economy retains pockets of strength. One is the vitally important job market. Employers have added an average of 420,000 jobs a month this year, putting 2022 on track to be the second-best year for job creation (behind 2021) in Labor Department records going back to 1940. The unemployment rate was 3.5% last month, matching a half-century low.
But hiring has been decelerating. In September, the economy added 263,000 jobs — solid but the lowest total since April 2021.
International events are causing further concerns. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted trade and raised prices of energy and food, creating a crisis for poor countries. The International Monetary Fund, citing the war, this month downgraded its outlook for the world economy in 2023.
Florida teen wins $10,000 by capturing 28 pythons
A 19-year-old South Florida man captured 28 Burmese pythons during a 10-day competition that was created to increase awareness about the threats the invasive snakes pose to the state’s ecology.
Matthew Concepcion was among the 1,000 participants from 32 states, Canada and Latvia who participated in the annual challenge, which removed 231 of the unwanted pythons, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a news release.
For his efforts, Concepcion was awarded the $10,000 Ultimate Grand Prize courtesy of the Bergeron Everglades Foundation. Dustin Crum won a $1,500 grand prize for removing the longest python, at just over 11 feet (3.3 meters).
Earlier this year, a team of biologists hauled in the heaviest Burmese python ever captured in Florida. That female python weighed in at 215 pounds (98 kilograms), was nearly 18 feet long (5 meters) and had 122 developing eggs, according to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Burmese pythons aren’t protected except by Florida’s anti-cruelty law, so participants had to document that each one was killed humanely.
Concepcion told the South Florida SunSentinel that he’s been hunting pythons for about five years, and typically looks for them at night because that’s when they’re on the move, seeking the warmth of roads. He uses his vehicle lights to spot them.
This year, however, he only spotted one on the roads in the Everglades, so he changed strategies.
“I worked a levee, caught a couple hatchings, and was like, ‘Dang, this might be the ticket!’ So every single night from then on, I went out there — just before sundown to sunup.”
Concepcion says he walked the canal, using a flashlight to probe the underbrush. Smaller snakes are so well camouflaged that he looks for their shadows cast by the flashlight beam, he told the newspaper. But larger snakes are easier to find.
“They will have a slightly purple tint to them. They’re really beautiful.”
Concepcion said he may use some of his earnings to buy a powerful lighting setup for his truck, which will help him spot more snakes.
“Our python hunters are passionate about what they do and care very much about Florida’s precious environment. We are removing record numbers of pythons and we’re going to keep at it,” South Florida Water Management District Governing Board Member “Alligator Ron” Bergeron said in a news release.
Illegal border crossings to US from Mexico reach annual high
A surge in migration from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua in September brought the number of illegal crossings to the highest level ever recorded in a fiscal year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The year-end numbers reflect deteriorating economic and political conditions in some countries, the relative strength of the U.S. economy and uneven enforcement of Trump-era asylum restrictions.
Migrants were stopped 227,547 times in September at the U.S. border with Mexico, the third-highest month of Joe Biden's presidency. It was up 11.5% from 204,087 times in August and 18.5% from 192,001 times in September 2021.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, migrants were stopped 2.38 million times, up 37% from 1.73 million times the year before, according to figures released late Friday night. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during Donald Trump's presidency in 2019.
Nearly 78,000 migrants from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua were stopped in September, compared to about 58,000 from Mexico and three countries of northern Central America that have historically accounted for most of the flow.
The remarkable geographic shift is at least partly a result of Title 42, a public health rule that suspends rights to see asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Due to strained diplomatic relations, the U.S. cannot expel migrants to Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. As a result, they are largely released in the United States to pursue their immigration cases.
Title 42 authority has been applied 2.4 million times since it began in March 2020 but has fallen disproportionately on migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
U.S. officials say Venezuelan migration to the United States has plunged more than 85% since Oct. 12, when the U.S. began expelling Venezuelans to Mexico under Title 42. At the same time, the Biden administration pledged to admit up to 24,000 Venezuelans to the United States on humanitarian parole if they apply online with a financial sponsor and enter through an airport, similar to how tens of thousands of Ukrainians have come since Russia invaded their country.
The first four Venezuelans paroled into the United States arrived Saturday — two from Mexico, one from Guatemala, one from Peru — and hundreds more have been approved to fly, the Homeland Security Department said.
“While this early data is not reflected in the (September) report, it confirms what we’ve said all along: When there is a lawful and orderly way to enter the country, individuals will be less likely to put their lives in the hands of smugglers and try to cross the border unlawfully,” said CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus.
The expansion of Title 42 for Venezuelans to be expelled to Mexico came despite the administration’s attempt to end the public health authority in May, which was blocked by a federal judge.
Venezuelans represented the second-largest nationality at the border after Mexicans for the second straight month, being stopped 33,804 times in September, up 33% from 25,361 times in August.
Cubans, who are participating in the largest exodus from the Caribbean island to the United States since 1980, were stopped 26,178 times at the border in September, up 37% from 19,060 in August.
Nicaraguans were stopped 18,199 times in September, up 55% from 7,298 times in August.
The report is the last monthly reading of migration flows before U.S. midterm elections, an issue that many Republicans have emphasized in campaigns to capture control of the House and Senate. Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee released a one-sentence statement Saturday in response to the numbers: "You’ve got to be kidding.”
US democracy has its own flaws, says a new survey
Days after Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen said that democracy everywhere including in the United States has ‘weaknesses’, a new survey in the US says that only about half of Americans have high confidence that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be counted accurately.
According to the new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just 9% of US adults think democracy is working “extremely” or “very well,” while 52% say it’s not working well, New York-based global news agency The Associated Press (AP) has reported.
The survey says many Americans remain pessimistic about the state of US democracy and the way elected officials are chosen -- nearly two years after a divisive presidential election spurred false claims of widespread fraud and a violent attack on the US Capitol, according to AP.
In a reversal from two years ago, Republicans are now more likely than Democrats to say democracy is not working well.
Also read: Many Americans pessimistic about US democracy: AP-NORC poll
This year, 68% of Republicans feel this way compared with 32% two years ago. The share of Democrats with a sour outlook on how democracy is functioning in the US dropped from 63% to 40%, the report says.
After every presidential election, members of the losing candidate’s party can experience a letdown. The fallout from the 2020 election has been deeper, fueled by the lies from former President Donald Trump and his allies that Democrats stole the election, AP said.
The general despair over democracy comes after decades of increasing polarisation nationwide, from the presidential and congressional races down to local contests such as races for school boards.
Overall, just a quarter of US adults — including similar percentages of Republicans and Democrats — say they are optimistic about the way leaders are chosen, while 43% say they are pessimistic. An additional 31% feel neither.
Read Democracy in US has weaknesses too: Momen
The AP-NORC poll also found a large segment of Republicans, 58%, still believe Biden’s election wasn’t legitimate. That’s down slightly from 66% in July 2021.
The poll shows 47% of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in the 2022 midterm elections will be counted accurately.
Confidence is highest among Democrats, 74% of whom say they’re highly confident. On the Republican side, confidence in elections is decidedly mixed: 25% have high confidence, 30% have moderate confidence and 45% have little to no confidence.
That erosion of trust comes after two years of Trump and his allies promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election and peddling conspiracy theories about voting machines.
Read Many Americans pessimistic about US democracy: AP-NORC Poll
Narratives about mailed ballots mysteriously changing vote totals have been one persistent source of misinformation. To be clear, results announced on election night are unofficial and often incomplete. It’s normal for counting to continue several days after Election Day, as mailed ballots received by their deadline are processed and added to the tally.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of mailed balloting as voters opted to avoid crowded polling stations. A large number of those ballots slowed down the results as local election offices worked through the steps to verify the ballots and ensure they matched registered voters.
On October 11, Bangladeshi Foreign Minister criticised foreigners talking about democracy and elections in Bangladesh. He said that democracy in the US has its weaknesses.
“We do have weaknesses (in Bangladesh). But that does not mean that they have (US) the best. They have their own weaknesses,” Momen said.
Read BNP big obstacle to Bangladesh's security and democracy
The AP report echoed Momen’s points.
Gary Phelps, a 70-year-old retired truck driver in Clearwater, Minnesota, accepts Biden as president but doesn’t think he was legitimately elected, according to the AP.
Phelps told the news agency that he was concerned about voter fraud, mail ballots being received and counted after Election Day, and irregularities with some voting machines, although he acknowledged it’s based on his feeling rather than evidence.
Phelps remains concerned about the voting process and whether the tallies will be accurate. “I would hope so, but I don’t think so,” the Republican-leaning independent told the AP.
Read Govt cheating nation in name of development before democracy
Response to OPEC’s oil cuts: Biden will release 15mn barrels from US strategic reserve
President Joe Biden will announce the release of 15 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve Wednesday as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations, and he will say more oil sales are possible this winter, as his administration rushes to be seen as pulling out all the stops ahead of next month’s midterm elections.
Biden will deliver remarks Wednesday to announce the drawdown from the strategic reserve, senior administration officials said Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to outline Biden’s plans. It completes the release of 180 million barrels authorized by Biden in March that was initially supposed to occur over six months. That has sent the strategic reserve to its lowest level since 1984 in what the administration called a “bridge” until domestic production could be increased. The reserve now contains roughly 400 million barrels of oil.
Biden will also open the door to additional releases this winter in an effort to keep prices down. But administration officials would not detail how much the president would be willing to tap, nor how much they want domestic and production to increase by in order to end the drawdown.
Biden will also say that the U.S. government will restock the strategic reserve when oil prices are at or lower than $67 to $72 a barrel, an offer that administration officials argue will increase domestic production by guaranteeing a baseline level of demand. Yet the president is also expected to renew his criticism of the profits reaped by oil companies — repeating a bet made this summer that public condemnation would matter more to these companies than shareholders’ focus on returns.
It marks the continuation of an about-face by Biden, who has tried to move the U.S. past fossil fuels to identify additional sources of energy to satisfy U.S. and global supply as a result of disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and production cuts announced by the Saudi Arabia-led oil cartel.
The prospective loss of 2 million barrels a day — 2% of global supply — has had the White House saying Saudi Arabia sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin and pledging there will be consequences for supply cuts that could prop up energy prices. The 15 million-barrel release would not cover even one full day’s use of oil in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration.
The administration could make a decision on future releases a month from now, as it requires a month and a half for the government to notify would-be buyers.
Biden still faces political headwinds because of gas prices. AAA reports that gas is averaging $3.87 a gallon. That’s down slightly over the past week, but it’s up from a month ago. The recent increase at prices stalled the momentum that the president and his fellow Democrats had been seeing in the polls ahead of the November elections.
An analysis Monday by ClearView Energy Partners, an independent energy research firm based in Washington, suggested that two states that could decide control of the evenly split Senate — Nevada and Pennsylvania — are sensitive to energy prices. The analysis noted that gas prices over the past month rose above the national average in 18 states, which are home to 29 potentially “at risk” House seats.
Even if voters want cheaper gasoline, expected gains in supply are not materializing because of a weaker global economy. The U.S. government last week revised downward its forecasts, saying that domestic firms would produce 270,000 fewer barrels a day in 2023 than was forecast in September. Global production would be 600,000 barrels a day lower than forecast in September.
The hard math for Biden is that oil production has yet to return to its pre-pandemic level of roughly 13 million barrels a day. It’s about a million barrels a day shy of that level. The oil industry would like the administration to open up more federal lands for drilling, approve pipeline construction and reverse its recent changes to raise corporate taxes. The administration counters that the oil industry is sitting on thousands of unused federal leases and says new permits would take years to produce oil with no impact on current gas prices. Environmental groups, meanwhile, have asked Biden to keep a campaign promise to block new drilling on federal lands.
Biden has resisted the policies favored by U.S. oil producers. Instead, he’s sought to reduce prices by releasing oil from the U.S. reserve, shaming oil companies for their profits and calling on greater production from countries in OPEC+ that have different geopolitical interests, said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute.
“If they continue to offer the same old so-called solutions, they’ll continue to get the same old results,” Macchiarola said.
Because fossil fuels lead to carbon emissions, Biden has sought to move away from them entirely with a commitment to zero emissions by 2050. When discussing that commitment nearly a year ago after the G-20 leading rich and developing nations met in Rome, the president said he still wanted to also lower gas prices because at “$3.35 a gallon, it has profound impact on working-class families just to get back and forth to work.”
Since Biden spoke of the pain of gas at $3.35 a gallon and his hopes to reduce costs, the price has on balance risen another 15.5%.
US Student loan forgiveness application website goes live
President Joe Biden on Monday officially kicked off the application process for his student debt cancellation program and announced that 8 million borrowers had already applied for loan relief during the federal government's soft launch period over the weekend.
He encouraged the tens of millions eligible for potential relief to visit studentaid.gov and touted the application form that the president said would take less than five minutes to complete. An early, “beta launch” version of the online form released late Friday handled the early stream of applications “without a glitch or any difficulty,” Biden said.
“It means more than 8 million Americans are — starting this week — on their way to receiving life-changing relief,” Biden, accompanied by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said Monday. The president called his program a “game-changer” for millions of Americans saddled with student loan debt.
The number of borrowers who applied during the testing period already amounts to more than one-fourth of the total number of applicants the administration had projected would submit forms, underscoring the popularity of the program and the eagerness of borrowers to receive the debt relief. Some 8 million borrowers who have income information already on file with the Education Department would see their debt canceled without applying.
Biden’s plan calls for $10,000 in federal student debt cancellation for those with incomes below $125,000 a year, or households that make less than $250,000 a year. Those who received federal Pell Grants to attend college are eligible for an additional $10,000. The plan makes 20 million eligible to get their federal student debt erased entirely.
Biden promised to pursue widespread student debt forgiveness as a presidential candidate, but the issue went through more than a year of internal deliberation amid questions about its legality. His plan sparked intense debate ahead of the midterm elections, with Republicans and some Democrats saying it’s an unfair handout for college graduates.
But on Monday, Biden offered a full-throated defense of his decision.
“My commitment was if elected president, I was going to make government work to deliver for the people," Biden said. “This rollout keeps that commitment.”
He also took aim at Republican officials who have either criticized the plan or are working in court to defeat it.
“Their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical,” Biden said. "I will never apologize for helping working Americans and middle class people as they recover from the pandemic.
Biden on Monday said the White House has received more than 10,000 comments and calls of thanks from borrowers. Indeed, thousands took to social media to share the form, with many saying they submitted their applications with little trouble.
The Biden administration has touted it as a “simple, straightforward” application. It asks for the borrower’s name, Social Security number, contact information and date of birth. It does not require income information but asks users to check a box attesting that they are eligible under the program’s income limits.
That information will be checked against Education Department records to help identify applicants who are likely to exceed the income limits, the administration says. Those people will be asked for more information to prove their incomes.
An estimated 1 million to 5 million people will be required to provide that extra documentation, the Education Department said in a recent submission to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
Creating and processing the form is estimated to cost nearly $100 million, a figure that angered advocates who view the application as an unnecessary barrier. The form is meant to help exclude the roughly 5% of borrowers who exceed the income limits, but advocates say it could also deter some lower-income Americans who need the relief.
Once the Education Department begins processing applications, borrowers should expect to see their debt forgiven in four to six weeks, officials say. Most applications submitted by mid-November will be processed by Jan. 1 — the day federal student loan payments are set to resume after being paused during the pandemic.
Borrowers will be able to submit applications through the end of 2023.
The Biden administration is pushing ahead with the debt cancellation even as it fights a growing number of legal challenges. Six Republican-led states are suing to block the plan, saying it oversteps Biden’s authority and will lead to financial losses for student loan servicers, which are hired to manage federal student loans and earn revenue on the interest.
A federal judge in St. Louis is now weighing the states’ request for an injunction to halt the plan. In court documents, the Education Department has vowed not to finalize any of the debt cancellation before Oct. 23.
Biden acknowledged Monday that litigation is ongoing but said his administration believes the lawsuits won't ultimately affect the program.
Musk seeks US funds for satellite network in Ukraine
The Defense Department has gotten a request from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces since almost the beginning of its war with Russia, U.S. officials said Friday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter not yet made public, said the issue has been discussed in meetings and senior leaders are weighing the matter. There have been no decisions.
In a statement later Friday, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, “We can confirm the Department received correspondence from SpaceX about the funding of Starlink, their satellite communications product in Ukraine. We remain in communication with SpaceX about this and other topics.”
During a Pentagon briefing, she declined to provide any details about the communication or say to whom the correspondence was sent and when the communications with Musk began.
Musk began sending Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine just days after Russia invaded in February. On Feb. 28, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted a photo of the first Starlink kits arriving on the back of a truck.
Musk’s generosity was hailed by Ukrainians and seen as a game changer in war tactics — the Russians could try to cut Ukrainian ground communications but it could not control space.
The Starlink system of more than 2,200 low-orbiting satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. Early Friday, Musk tweeted that it was costing SpaceX $20 million a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs.
In addition to the terminals, he tweeted that the company has to create, launch, maintain and replenish satellites and ground stations.
CNN was the first to report the Musk request.
The Starlink satellite internet’s vital role in Ukraine’s defense cannot be overstated. It has, for example, assisted front-line reconnaissance drone operators in targeting artillery strikes on key Russian assets. A senior military official on Friday made it clear that the U.S. believes the system has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide U.S. assessment of the Ukrainian battlefield.
In a tweet on Friday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak said Ukraine will find a solution to keep Starlink working.
“Let’s be honest. Like it or not, @elonmusk helped us survive the most critical moments of war. Business has the right to its own strategies,” he tweeted. “We expect that the company will provide stable connection till the end of negotiations.”
In response to multiple questions during the briefing, Singh said the Pentagon was working with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. “We know that there is this demand, and (satellite communications) capability ... is needed and we want to be able to ensure that there are stable communications for the Ukrainian forces and for Ukraine.”
The request from the world’s richest man to have the Pentagon take over the hundreds of millions of dollars he says the system is costing comes on the heels of a Twitter war between Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And in tweets overnight Musk referred to the friction, suggesting it may affect his decision to end his company’s largesse in funding the systems.
In a Twitter exchange last week, Musk argued that to reach peace Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014. He also said Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join NATO.
Musk also started a Twitter poll asking whether “the will of the people” should decide if seized regions remain part of Ukraine or become part of Russia.
In a sarcastic response, Zelenskyy posted a Twitter poll of his own asking “which Elon Musk do you like more?”: “One who supports Ukraine” or “One who supports Russia.” Musk replied to Zelenskyy that “I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.”
Andrij Melnyk, the outgoing Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, responded to Musk’s original tweet with an obscenity.
It’s not clear how much of the cost of deploying Starlink satellite uplinks in Ukraine has been covered by U.S. funding. In April, the U.S. Agency for International Development said it had delivered 5,000 of the terminals. The Pentagon had no response to that question.
Musk’s commitment to spend $44 billion to purchase Twitter “has to factor into his decision that he can no longer afford to do this for free,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Musk’s request that the Pentagon begin to pick up the tab comes as the Space Force and Pentagon have been looking at how commercial vendors will play a role in national security. Musk’s threat to withdraw highlights the risk of leaning too much on commercial capabilities, Ferrari said.
“Commercial vendors always get to change their mind, ” Ferrari said, adding that the reliance on Starlink to provide communications for Ukraine also serves as a reminder that the Pentagon has to expand this service beyond SpaceX, he said.
“The government needs many vendors for key capabilities, of course that often means more money, but it is an insurance policy and insurance costs money,” Ferrari said.
In March, commander of U.S. Space Command Army Gen. James Dickinson said that having vendors provide needed capabilities, such as Maxar’s satellite imagery of stalled Russian convoys, has become essential, because it frees up limited military satellite assets to focus on other things.
In his tweets, Musk also raised a question that various vendors and the Pentagon are considering as space becomes a more critical part of wartime operations: If a commercial vendor is assisting the U.S. and is targeted, does the U.S. owe it protection?
“We’ve also had to defend against cyberattacks & jamming, which are getting harder,” Musk tweeted.
Jan. 6 panel summons Trump, shows startling new video
The House Jan. 6 committee voted unanimously Thursday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, demanding his personal testimony as it unveiled startling new video and described his multi-part plan to overturn his 2020 election loss, which led to his supporters’ fierce assault on the U.S. Capitol.
With alarming messages from the U.S. Secret Service warning of violence and vivid new video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders pleading for help, the panel showed the raw desperation at the Capitol. Using language frequently seen in criminal indictments, the panel said Trump had acted in a “premeditated” way ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, despite countless aides and officials telling him he had lost.
Trump is almost certain to fight the subpoena and decline to testify. On his social media outlet he blasted members for not asking him earlier — though he didn’t say he would have complied — and called the panel “a total BUST.”
“We must seek the testimony under oath of January 6′s central player,” said Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the committee’s vice chair, ahead of the vote.
In the committee’s 10th public session, just weeks before the congressional midterm elections, the panel summed up Trump’s “staggering betrayal” of his oath of office, as Chairman Bennie Thompson put it, describing the then-president’s unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
While the effort to subpoena Trump may languish, more a nod to history than an effective summons, the committee has made clear it is considering whether to send its findings in a criminal referral to the Justice Department.
In one of its most riveting exhibits, the panel showed previously unseen footage of congressional leaders phoning for help during the assault as Trump refused to call off the mob.
Pelosi can be seen on a call with the governor of neighboring Virginia, explaining as she shelters with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and others that the governor of Maryland has also been contacted. Later, the video shows Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders as the group asks the Defense Department for help.
“They’re breaking the law in many different ways,” Pelosi says at one point. “And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States.”
The footage also portrays Vice President Mike Pence — not Trump — stepping in to help calm the violence, telling Pelosi and the others he has spoken with Capitol Police, as Congress plans to resume its session that night to certify Biden’s election.
The video was from Pelosi’s daughter, Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker.
In never-before-seen Secret Service messages, the panel produced evidence that extremist groups provided the muscle in the fight for Trump’s presidency, planning weeks before the attack to send a violent force to Washington.
The Secret Service warned in a Dec. 26, 2020, email of a tip that members of the right-wing Proud Boys planned to outnumber the police in a march in Washington on Jan. 6.
“It felt like the calm before the storm,” one Secret Service agent wrote in a group chat.
To describe the president’s mindset, the committee presented new and previously seen material, including interviews with Trump’s top aides and Cabinet officials — including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia — in which some described the president acknowledging he had lost.
Ex-White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin said Trump once looked up at a television and said, “Can you believe I lost to this (expletive) guy?”
Cabinet members also said in interviews shown at the hearing that they believed that once legal avenues had been exhausted, that should have been the end of Trump’s efforts to remain in power.
“In my view, that was the end of the matter,” Barr said of the Dec. 14 vote of the Electoral College.
But rather than the end of Trump’s efforts, it was only the beginning — as the president summoned the crowd to Washington on Jan. 6.
The panel showed clips of Trump at his rally near the White House that day saying the opposite of what he had been told. He then tells supporters he will march with them to the Capitol. That never happened.
“There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational,” said Cheney. “No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in our constitutional republic, period.”
Thursday’s hearing opened at a mostly empty Capitol complex, with most lawmakers at home campaigning. Several people who were among the thousands around the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now running for congressional office, some with Trump’s backing. Police officers who fought the mob filled the hearing room’s front row.
The House panel said the insurrection at the Capitol was not an isolated incident but a warning of the fragility of the nation’s democracy in the post-Trump era.
“None of this is normal,” Cheney said.
Along with interviews, the committee is drawing on the trove of 1.5 million pages of documents it received from the Secret Service, including an email from Dec. 11, 2020, the day the Supreme Court rejected one of the main lawsuits Trump’s team had brought against the election results.
“Just fyi. POTUS is pissed,” the Secret Service message said.
White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled Trump being “fired up” about the court’s ruling.
Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of: ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,’” Hutchinson told the panel in a recorded interview.
Thursday’s session served as a closing argument for the panel’s two Republican lawmakers, Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who have essentially been shunned by Trump and their party and will not be returning in the new Congress. Cheney lost her primary election, and Kinzinger decided not to run.
The committee, having conducted more than 1,000 interviews and obtained countless documents, has produced a sweeping probe of Trump’s activities from his defeat in the November election to the Capitol attack.
Under committee rules, the Jan. 6 panel is to produce a report of its findings, likely in December. The committee will dissolve 30 days after publication of that report, and with the new Congress in January.
At least five people died in the Jan. 6 attack and its aftermath, including a Trump supporter shot and killed by Capitol Police.
More than 850 people have been charged by the Justice Department, some receiving lengthy prison sentences for their roles. Several leaders and associates of the extremist Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been charged with sedition.
Trump faces various state and federal investigations over his actions in the election and its aftermath.
5 killed in N. Carolina shooting, suspect held
A North Carolina mayor announced that five people, including a police officer, were killed in a shooting in a residential area.
Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin told reporters that multiple people were shot on the Neuse River Greenway around 5 p.m., and that the police department told her around 8 p.m. that the suspect had been “contained” at a residence in the area.
Numerous police vehicles and multiple ambulances had swarmed the Hedingham neighborhood starting in the late afternoon, and officers remained in place for hours during an apparent manhunt. Details of what happened remained scant by early evening.
“State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe,” Gov. Roy Cooper had tweeted shortly before 7 p.m.
Earlier, WakeMed Hospital spokesperson Deb Laughery said said at least four people connected to the shooting were being treated at the hospital, but no other information was immediately available.
Police closed off several streets in the area, and numerous law enforcement vehicles could be seen parked both in the street and in the driveways of two-story homes. The neighborhood borders the Neuse River Greenway Trail, and is about 9 miles (14 kilometers) from Raleigh’s downtown.
The Raleigh Police Department said it was “on the scene of an active shooting” in a statement via Twitter, and advised residents in multiple neighborhoods to stay indoors.
Brooke Medina was driving home at around 5:15 p.m. when she saw about two dozen police cars, both marked and unmarked, race toward her neighborhood as she got off the highway. She then saw ambulances speeding the other direction, toward the closest hospital.
She and her husband, who was working from home with their four children, started reaching out to neighbors and realized there was a shelter-in-place order.
The family closed all of their window blinds, locked the doors and congregated in an upstairs hallway together, said Medina, who works as a communications vice president at a think tank. Thee family listened to the police scanner and watched local news before going back downstairs once the danger seemed to have moved further away from their home.
“We’re just going to hunker down for the rest of the night and be very vigilant. Keep all of our lights on, doors locked,” she said.
She described Hedingham as a sprawling, dense, tree-lined neighborhood that’s full of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes that are more moderately priced compared to other parts of the Raleigh area.
Medina said she often takes her kids on bike rides along the greenway during the day, but typically brings pepper spray along just in case.
“There’s a lot of places one could disappear,” she said.