The Biden administration is seeking to approve renewable-energy projects on America's public lands in a bid to decarbonise fast enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. America's Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which has long issued permits for oil and gas drilling, manages 245 million acres of America's lands. The BLM's underfunding and staff shortages, as well as land-use conflicts arising from an increasingly difficult mission to balance extraction, recreation and conservation as well as deployments of renewables have made achieving its clean-energy transition goal challenging.
New York City is bussing asylum-seekers 60 miles up the Hudson River to the Crossroads Hotel on the outskirts of the town of Newburgh. The migrant residents are from countries as diverse as Venezuela and Mauritania and each wait to hear if they merit asylum. Once settled, many of the men in the hotel began asking for work immediately. Oscar Eduardo Angula Rivas, 29, left behind his wife and baby in Venezuela to walk for three months in search of freedom before seeking asylum. He was robbed while trying to live in a shelter in New York City, so when the city offered him a bus ride 60 miles upstate to Newburgh, he was pleased. About 60,000 people seeking asylum arrived in New York in the last year, with 41,000 housed in city-funded shelters. It is expected they will cost the city $2.9bn to care for them in the coming year - more than the city pays for its fire department.
President Biden will withdraw a nominee for the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had faced opposition from party members. Biden had nominated former New Hampshire attorney general Michael Delaney for the role, but members of both parties raised concerns about Delaney’s record. Delaney previously defended a parental notification law for abortions as well as representing a private school in the case of a student sexual assault. The Senate Judiciary Committee declined to back Delaney, signalling a lack of support for the nominee. Delaney is considered to be a centrist on legal matters.
The Pentagon overestimated the value of weapons it sent to Ukraine by around $3bn, according to sources. Assigned values were too high as replacement cost, rather than as the value as depreciated from purchase. It is possible the amount of overvalued weaponry could grow beyond $3bn as the Pentagon continues to examine the situation. Since August 2021, the US has sent weapons valued up to $21.1bn to Ukraine, an important and sensitive ally in its ongoing stand-off with Russia. Changing the valuation could delay the Biden administration's need to ask Congress to authorise further funds for Ukraine.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and Lael Brainard, President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser, have warned that a US debt default would send the economy into a recession. In a conference call for Democratic activists, the pair urged the activists to contact lawmakers to express opposition to a debt default that could be less than two weeks away. Harris and Brainard said that the Biden negotiating team had been instructed not to agree to any proposals from Republicans on lifting the debt ceiling which would take healthcare away from Americans or push them into poverty.
The US has never defaulted on debts, causing "massive uncertainty" to surround the possibility, according to Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The government would be forced to prioritise who gets paid and when in the event of a default, which would be a "very different situation" from a government shutdown, he said. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and economists have warned that a default would have "catastrophic" consequences, leading to job losses, unpaid federal government payments, "widespread suffering" and disruption to the air traffic control and law enforcement systems, among others.
The US Supreme Court has voted unanimously to powerfully restrict the scope of lawsuits brought against internet companies. Parties that lost in lower court rulings against Alphabet, Facebook, Twitter, and Snap have all had their suits dismissed. The decision could curb attempts to force tech firms to take more responsibility for users' conduct online. The case focused on whether the Tech firms were liable under antiterrorism laws for allegedly providing “material support” to Islamist militants who killed Americans overseas.
Several US cities and California will benefit from federal help with the All Inside initiative in getting the homeless into permanent housing. The state of California, which has the highest number of homeless people in the country, will receive the tailored support for two years from US government departments, local agencies and private businesses. The program seeks to provide knowledge, resources and funding, in addition to help in identifying where regulations can be loosened to help those without a home find shelter more quickly.
US-China experts have warned President Biden to approach creating regulations for outbound investment into "countries of concern" with "humility". This comes as the Biden administration prepares to review such investment in technologies that could threaten national security and in particular in China. Experts composed of both Democrats and Republicans have rejected the proposed bill, stating that every investment into China should not be reviewed and calling instead for the funding of companies known to be affiliated with the Chinese military to be cut off.
Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Michael McCaul, has agreed to pause an attempt to hold US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress after the US State Department offered to let McCaul review a classified cable from US diplomats in Kabul from July 2021. It reportedly warned of the potential fall of Kabul via a special dissent channel. The offer was made with the names of those who signed it redacted. The same offer was made to the top Democrat on the panel, Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, but McCaul urged State to grant access to all committee members.
The House Freedom Caucus has demanded that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suspend negotiations on raising the debt limit with the White House and focus on getting the House-passed “Limit, Save, Grow Act” through the Senate instead. The Republican group wants no discussion until the Republican-backed legislation has passed the Senate, which is currently an unlikely prospect as it would need to garner at least 60 votes in the Democratic-led Senate. McCarthy has told reporters negotiations on the budget were ongoing, as he aims to get a vote next week in the House on an agreement. The “X-date” — the day when Washington could run out of cash to pay the government’s bills on time — could arrive as early as June 1 according to the Treasury Department.
US Democratic Party lawmakers are demanding accountability for the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot while covering a raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in May last year. The lawmakers, joined by the journalist’s family, have renewed calls for an independent investigation into Abu Akleh’s death, with some proposing the reintroduction of bills specifying US involvement in Israeli rights violations in Palestine. The US provides $3.8bn in aid to Israel yearly and previously opposed efforts to seek accountability for Abu Akleh at the International Criminal Court.
Six months after announcing a $20bn energy transition deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reach net-zero targets a decade early, Indonesia remains in a stalemate with its partners, voiced its frustration with their perceived lack of commitment and received nothing more than a loan from the US for a refinery. The Export-Import Bank, a government agency that assists US goods and services exports, will lend $99.7m to help fund the expansion of Pertamina’s refinery in East Kalimantan province, a move that counteracts the US pledge to end funding fossil fuel projects abroad. The loan also risks increasing Indonesia’s reliance on fossil fuels at the expense of its environmental ambitions. Indonesia was the fifth biggest greenhouse gas emitter worldwide due to deforestation and coal plants, which generated 61% of the country’s power, and renewable energy accounts for only 12% of national power capacity. Ministers from Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Norway, Denmark, and the EU were among the partners in the Just Energy Transition Partnership.
Leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies (G7) have discussed how to build support for a “strong response to economic coercion” by China. Ahead of a summit in Hiroshima, US officials predicted a joint response from all countries, which will involve protecting technologies in areas of national security. The EU has also been seeking to create support for a strategy against economic coercion, to “derisk” rather than disconnect from, China. However, all seven members of the G7 require a positive relationship with the world’s second-largest economy. The US imported goods amounting to $537bn from China last year, while its businesses invested nearly $120bn in China. EU investments in China over the course of two decades amounted to over $140bn. In the face of criticisms from the US, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin argued that the US was the chief culprit in the coercion of China.
The US dollar is close to a six-month peak against the yen as a result of rising US Treasury yields and optimism surrounding debt ceiling talks between President Biden and US Congressional Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Previous fears over an unprecedented US debt default were calmed, leading markets to speculate about where US interest rates may head. US data showing potential for a tight US labour market contributed to expectations that the Federal Reserve would deliver another rate hike in a bid to lessen inflation. Two Fed policymakers have said US inflation is not dropping quickly enough for the central bank to halt its interest rate hike campaign.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Papua New Guinea on 21-22 May, aiming to bolster defense and maritime security ties via bilateral agreements, and to meet Pacific Islands Forum leaders. President Joe Biden had cancelled his own visit to Papua New Guinea due to the unfolding US debt ceiling crisis. Blinken hails planned talks with Pacific Islands leaders about addressing the pressing shared priorities of tackling climate change, and fostering "inclusive economic growth for the people of the Pacific Islands".
The US, EU and Japan are putting forward a strategy of cooperating with China but adopting a "de-risking" approach to sensitive sectors such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence. This stance appears designed to avoid full decoupling with China and maintain economic interests while also protecting national security. The approach is backed by Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and the UK, Japan and the US. However, each country has adopted its own version of the strategy shaped by its exposure to the Chinese economy. The G7 has stressed the need to protect critical technologies and supply chains.
The Biden administration has reportedly informed European allies that it will not block their export of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. President Biden has previously expressed his opposition to the United States sending F-16s to Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a top item on the agenda at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, which President Biden is attending. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also attend the meeting, in person according to sources. During his visits to Berlin, Paris and London this week, Zelensky secured billions of dollars in new military support from European leaders, but experts say much of the weaponry pledged is unlikely to reach the battlefield until after the start of the upcoming counteroffensive, and Europe's ability to sustain such support remains unclear.
Ginni Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has become the focus of a number of ethical controversies, which has renewed interest in her 34-year-long career as a right-wing political lobbyist and Washington DC operator, and exposed gaps in disclosure obligations for justices’ families. New questions have emerged about her business dealings, including payments to one of her companies from a group that had business before the Supreme Court, according to investigative outlet ProPublica. Legal ethics experts call the payments “eye-popping.” Last year, she was investigated by law enforcement for a politically motivated “hit list.”
G7 leaders eye more sanctions against Russia at Hiroshima summit
CBC
23-05-19 04:11
The G7 group of nations plans to unveil new export controls and sanctions aimed at individuals and businesses supporting Russia's war in Ukraine, including those providing military technology. The US has indicated that it may allow European nations to export more modern weaponry to Ukraine, including F-16 fighter jets. The sanctions are being announced at the summit of the G7 in Hiroshima, Japan where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is believed to be present.
