Month: August 2017

Hurricane Harvey is not expected to hit the Texas Gulf Coast until late Friday or early Saturday, but it is already boosting the cost of crude oil and gasoline and raising concerns about $40 billion worth of homes in harm’s way.

The Gulf of Mexico region is home to nearly one-fifth of the nation’s crude oil output and almost half the refining capacity in the United States. Energy production could be hampered by storm winds; the shipping of crude oil and refined products could be prevented by flooding and storm surges; and the storm could damage complex, expensive refineries and other facilities.

Oil companies have evacuated people from some of their most vulnerable offshore facilities and have reduced or stopped production at some operations.

Crude oil prices rose Friday morning on concerns that storm disruptions could limit supplies.

Officials said Harvey’s storm surge could push seawater levels as much as 2 meters higher than normal for the threatened coastal area. That could place 200,000 homes, which could cost tens of billions to rebuild, in danger, according to CoreLogic, a firm that gathers and analyzes data on real estate.

More than half the threatened homes are in the Houston area, while many of the rest are around Beaumont and Port Arthur.
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The Republican National Committee walked the tightrope Friday in carefully but resolutely denouncing white supremacist groups without criticizing President Donald Trump, who waffled in his own statements in the wake of the deadly clash in Virginia this month.

Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, the RNC approved a raft of resolutions, including one asserting “Nazis, the KKK, white supremacists and others are repulsive, evil and have no fruitful place in the United States.”

And while the vote was unanimous, some members had grumbled the resolution was unnecessary and reflected unnecessary defensiveness.

“It’s amazing that we have been lured into this argument that we’re not racists. It’s absurd,” said Colorado Republican Chairman Jeff Hays. “Why would we feel compelled to do that?”

The sentiment reflects a difference between RNC leaders concerned about the party’s image in light of Trump’s latest rhetorical thicket and newer, more ardently pro-Trump state Republican leaders who say such a statement appears defensive.

But this was a priority for Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, as well as for committee members who were openly bothered by Trump’s initial resistance to singling out the racist groups after the Charlottesville violence.

Hearing about the grumbling, McDaniel made the rounds Friday morning to reinforce with members that the measure was a priority.

“Every day, I wake up proud that we’re the party of Lincoln,” McDaniel told the committee Friday. “Condemning violence is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It is an American issue.”

Backing for Trump

Despite the resolution, there doesn’t appear to be a softening of support for the president within the party’s national organization.

Rather, what was to be a sleepy, pro-forma late summer gathering seemed to spark renewed backing for the president despite a series of recent setbacks: the GOP’s stunning failure to repeal and replace Obamacare; the furious backlash over his comments about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and the departure of crowd favorite Reince Priebus, the former RNC chairman, as Trump’s chief of staff.

“The president was not wrong to point out what the media has failed to point out,” that counterprotesters also “came for a battle” in Charlottesville, said Pennsylvania Republican Chairman Val DiGiorgio.

DiGiorgio stood by the “many sides” comment Trump made immediately after the clash in Virginia, in which a car was driven into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman. The president was criticized harshly by both Republicans and Democrats because he didn’t immediately denounce the white nationalist groups.

There was palpable contempt in the conference room for counterprotesters who were ready to fight. RNC member Morton Blackwell, who affirmed his support for the resolution, said “Every person who came to Charlottesville intending violence was evil.”

Bill Palatucci, an RNC committeeman from New Jersey who sponsored the resolution, said it was important for the committee to formally denounce white supremacists. Palatucci said, “I think he got it wrong a week ago Tuesday, in regards to Charlottesville,” when Trump said during a free-wheeling, defiant news conference that there were “very fine people on both sides” at the demonstration.

But even Palatucci, who was a devout supporter of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s 2016 presidential campaign, said, “I support the president’s agenda.” He cited deregulation measures Trump has signed and the president’s plan, outlined Monday, to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan to revive the effort to root out terrorist cells.

Blame for Congress

The party’s robust $87 million raised to date — dwarfing what Democrats have raised — has also lifted spirits, as has improving economic confidence.

The consensus in Nashville is that the Republican-controlled Congress, not Trump, has let down the party.

“There is a level of frustration that Congress didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare,” Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken said. “They want the president’s agenda passed. They blame Congress.”

While Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have feuded before and since the failed health care vote in July, there was little talk in Nashville of dumping the veteran Kentucky senator as leader.

“I’m not ready to abandon McConnell,” Pennsylvania’s DiGiorgio said. “But I would urge him to come together and get this done.”

Trump has complained about McConnell and other Republican senators who have criticized the president or opposed his efforts. He notably pointed to Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, Arizona Republicans, during an angry speech to supporters in Phoenix on Tuesday.

Trump’s intraparty attacks have some GOP strategists worried that the fighting could harm Republicans’ chances of holding the Senate in next year’s midterm elections, though that would require Democrats to retain almost all the 10 seats they occupy in states Trump won last year.

Chairwoman McDaniel said Trump’s taunts are the outspoken New Yorker’s way of urging action.

“The president wants to see his agenda passed,” McDaniel said. “He’s channeling what I’m hearing from the American people, which is, `We gave you the White House. You have the Senate. You have the House. Why aren’t you getting these things done?”‘
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High above the Persian Gulf, an Iranian drone crosses the path of American fighter jets lining up to land on the USS Nimitz.

The drone buzzes across the sky more than a mile above the massive aircraft carrier and is spotted by the fighters. It is unarmed.

But for the senior Navy commanders on the ship, the presence of the enemy drone so close is worrying. Their biggest fear is the surveillance aircraft will start carrying weapons, posing a more direct threat to U.S. vessels transiting one of the world’s most significant strategic and economic international waterways.

“It’s just a matter of time before we see that,” said Navy Rear Adm. Bill Byrne, commander of the carrier strike group that includes the Nimitz. He said the Iranian drone activity has “generated a lot of discussion” and was becoming an increasingly pressing matter of concern.

If, at some point, Byrne believes a drone is threatening his ship, he and his staff would have to carefully proceed through the required responses — efforts at communication, sounding the horn, firing flares and warning shots, and flying a helicopter close to the unmanned vehicle. If all those efforts fail and he still perceives a threat, Byrne said it would be his duty, his “responsibility,” to shoot down the Iranian drone.

So far, it hasn’t come to that. But the drones have become an even more dangerous security risk as U.S. carriers in the Persian Gulf like the Nimitz play a key role in Iraq and Syria. Planes from these ships are regularly flying to each country to bomb militants fighting with the Islamic State group and other targets. From the Nimitz alone, U.S. fighter jets flew missions resulting in at least 350 bombs being dropped on IS militants just in the last month.

Iran has routinely challenged U.S. ships and aircraft across the Gulf, asserting at times that the entire waterway is its territory. Navy commanders say Iran’s unpredictable behavior is the biggest safety hazard.

“Iranians don’t always follow the rules,” Byrne said. “There is a well-established set of norms, standards and laws. They don’t tend to follow them.”

To counter the threat, Pentagon experts are searching for new ways to deter, defeat or disable the drones. According to Byrne and Cdr. Dave Kurtz, the Nimitz’s executive officer, Iranian drones fly over the carrier strike group almost daily.

They said the danger is that as the F/A-18 fighters return from their missions in Iraq and Syria, they circle overhead, lining up for their turn to land on the carrier. Even if the Iranian drones are only meant to annoy, their buzzing across the American flight paths risks an accident.

Up in the carrier’s control room, a book on Iranian naval and maritime forces sits above the radar screen. Commanders on the ship announce when a drone appears. Then, they go through a careful, planned response of attempted radio calls and warnings.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, visited the Nimitz on Thursday, also stopping on the nearby USS Vella Gulf, a guided missile cruiser. The drone, he said, also flew over that ship.

“The proliferation of drones is a real challenge,” said Votel, who was finishing his 10-day trip to the Middle East and Afghanistan. “It’s growing exponentially.”

Speaking with traveling reporters, Votel said the Pentagon has sought to devise more high-tech ways to handle the drones through the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization, originally set up in 2006 to counter improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan to kill and maim American troops.

Much as it did with that decade-old roadside bomb battle, the organization now focuses on how to deal with Iran’s drones, Votel said. He didn’t provide details, but he acknowledged that U.S. cyber capabilities could be used to defeat a drone or the network controlling it.

The military is training troops on drone response, he said. But right now, said Byrne, they’re still following their normal procedures. And he still hasn’t been forced to shoot one down.

Byrne described how a helicopter from the Nimitz flew by the drone to ensure it wasn’t weaponized. In the month the Nimitz has been in the Gulf, efforts to speak with the drone operators have been hit or miss, he said.

“Sometimes they answer, sometimes they don’t,” he said, echoing experiences American forces have had with small Iranian fast boats that pose a similar threat of coming too close by sea.

When the Iranians do answer, Byrne said, they often “challenge our assertion that they are flying into danger.” The drones fly out of airfields up and down the Iranian coast, mainly watching U.S. ships and taking photos.

On Thursday, the Nimitz was about 40 miles from the Iranian coast, halfway between the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia.
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An angry employee shot one person Thursday and was holding “a couple” of others hostage at a crowded restaurant during lunchtime in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, authorities said.

Hostage negotiators were trying to talk to the man inside Virginia’s, Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said at a news conference outside the restaurant, located on usually crowded King Street, a line of shops and nice dining that caters to both tourists and residents in South Carolina’s largest and most historic city.

“This is not an act of terrorism. This is not a hate crime. It is a disgruntled employee,” Tecklenburg said.

Police spokesman Charles Francis said at a news conference that the employee was holding a “couple” of hostages. He did not respond to follow-up telephone calls seeking a more specific number and he did not give any details on the condition of the shooting victim.

The shooting was reported shortly after noon Thursday.

Peter Siegert, 73, and his son Peter Siegert IV, 45, were quoted by The Post and Courier of Charleston as saying that just after several waitresses and kitchen workers walked out the door without saying a word, a man in an apron with a gun came out of the kitchen and locked the front door.

He said, “‘I am the new king of Charleston'” the Siegerts said.

The man told diners to get on the floor and move to the back of the restaurant. The Siegerts said they escaped out a back door and didn’t know how many people were left behind.

Charleston Police sent SWAT teams and a bomb disposal unit to the area. Authorities instructed people inside to stay inside and those outside to leave the area.

The site is a few blocks away from Emanuel AME church, where nine black members of a church were killed by a white man during a June 2015 Bible study. Dylann Roof was sentenced to death in the case.
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A 53-year-old Massachusetts hospital worker stepped forward Thursday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history — $758.7 million — after breaking the news to her employer the way the rest of us only dream of: “I called and told them I will not be coming back.”

“The first thing I want to do is just sit back and relax,” Mavis L. Wanczyk told reporters at a news conference.

Wanczyk chose to take a lump-sum payment of $480 million, or $336 million after taxes, lottery officials said. Winners who take a gradual payout stand to get more money spread out over several decades.

The previous evening, she recalled, she was leaving work with a firefighter and remarked, “It’s never going to be me. It’s just a pipe dream that I’ve always had.”

Then she read the number on her ticket and realized she had won.

Wanczyk has two adult children, a daughter and a son.

The jackpot is the second-largest U.S. lottery prize, ahead of a $656 million Mega Millions prize won by three people in 2012. But Wednesday’s big prize is still dwarfed by a $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot divided among three winners in January 2016.

The announcement that a winner had come forward came after a turbulent morning in which lottery officials initially misidentified not only the store that sold the winning ticket, but the town.

The lottery corrected the site where the single winning ticket was sold to Chicopee, Massachusetts. Overnight, it had mistakenly announced the winning ticket was sold at a shop in Watertown, just outside Boston.

But shortly before 8 a.m., the lottery said it had made a mistake, and that the winning ticket was sold at the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, about halfway across the state. Reporters had descended on the Watertown store hours before it opened around 6:30 a.m.

Transcription error

Massachusetts Lottery Executive Director Michael Sweeney said officials were manually recording the names of the retailers that sold the winning ticket and transcribed it incorrectly. Sweeney issued an apology for the confusion created by the error, but said lottery staff remained thrilled that a jackpot-winning ticket and two $1 million winning tickets had been sold in Massachusetts — one of those at the Watertown location.

Mike Donatelli, a spokesman for the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, said the store was notified shortly before 8 a.m. that it had actually sold the record jackpot ticket.

Sweeney said the store would pocket $50,000 for selling the jackpot winner. Bob Bolduc, owner of the Pride store chain, said the proceeds would be donated to local charities.

“The phone started ringing at 8 o’clock,” Bolduc said. “We were as surprised as everybody else. We’re happy for our customer, and we’re happy for the charities.”

The lucky numbers from Wednesday night’s drawing were 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number was 4.

Powerball is played in 44 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, all of which collectively oversee the game. Drawings are held twice a week. Five white balls are drawn from a drum containing 69 balls and one red ball is selected from a drum with 26 balls. Players can choose their numbers or let a computer make  random choices.
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Experts at credit rating agencies are watching Washington’s political squabbling over budgets and spending closely, and they might make another cut in the U.S. credit rating if the Republican-controlled White House, Senate and House cannot reach an agreement.

President Donald Trump has promised to build a massive wall along the southern U.S. border in a bid to stop illegal immigration. Trump has said he will press Congress hard to fund the controversial measure, even if it stalls action on other budget issues and forces the government to shut down.

Some of Trump’s fellow Republicans who ran on promises to limit or cut government spending are reluctant to fund the measure, and most rival Democrats oppose the wall.

U.S. law provides for a “debt ceiling,” meaning the Treasury cannot borrow more money unless Congress agrees to raise the limit. That limit was reached months ago, and the federal government will apparently run out of cash by the end of September or early October if nothing changes.

The political situation is made more complex by the fast-approaching end of the budget year and the need for Congress to agree on next year’s spending priorities.

Congress and presidents have bickered over budgets in the past, and in 2011 a debt ceiling impasse prompted the Standard & Poor’s agency to make the first downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.

The Fitch agency Wednesday said failure to raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner would prompt a review of the nation’s credit rating. Fitch currently gives the United States its top rating.

Moody’s experts Thursday wrote that they expected Washington politicians to work out their differences, but that failure to reach an agreement could prompt the government to shut down, disrupting the economy more and more if the impasse drags on.

Moody’s noted that a previous government shutdown prompted lenders to demand higher interest rates, raising the cost of government by about $1.3 billion in just one year.

Moody’s and other experts have urged Congress to remove the debt ceiling because it does not restrain spending but does add “to the noise” around the budget process.
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A Connecticut farm once owned by Mark Twain is for sale for $1.8 million.

The Connecticut Post reports the 18.7-acre property in Redding is next to Twain’s country home, known as “Stormfield.”

He bought it for his daughter, Jean Clemens, in 1909 and named it “Jean’s Farm.” But Clemens died soon after. Twain died five months later, in April 1910.

The real estate agency, William Raveis, says the house includes five bedrooms and four bathrooms. The property also includes a movie theater, saltwater swimming pool, fish pond and a barn built in the 1860s that includes an extra apartment.

It calls it a perfect Connecticut gentleman’s farm.
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Chinese and Russian officials have expressed objections to sanctions the United States imposed Tuesday against several companies for allegedly supporting North Korea’s nuclear program.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news briefing the sanctions are not helping U.S.-China cooperation on efforts to rein in North Korean nuclear activity.  

She said the United States should “immediately correct its mistake,” and reiterated China’s calls for restraint and dialogue to resolve the situation with North Korea.

At the United Nations, Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia echoed one of his government’s ministers who said it is “another unfriendly move by the United States.”

“We strongly condemn unilateral sanctions, not only those aimed at us, but at anybody,” Nebenzia.  He said if Washington wanted to sanction third parties, it should do so through existing channels, namely the U.N. sanctions committee for North Korea.  There it could put forward names of individuals or companies it believes is violating sanctions and seek to have them added to the sanctions list.

“We first of all condemn that move and secondly, we do not think it is legal,” Nebenzia added.  “And thirdly, we do not think it facilitates the stabilization and improvement in Russia-U.S. relations.”

The U.S. Treasury Department announced the sanctions Tuesday, saying they were a complement to a U.N. Security Council resolution passed earlier this month that applied new sanctions against North Korea and condemned the country’s ballistic missile tests.  China and Russia were among the countries that unanimously approved the August 5th resolution.

A U.S. Treasury statement listed 10 companies and six people, including Chinese coal, steel and financial firms, as well as three Russian individuals.

“It is unacceptable for individuals and companies in China, Russia, and elsewhere to enable North Korea to generate income used to develop weapons of mass destruction and destabilize the region,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.  “We are taking actions consistent with U.N. sanctions to show that there are consequences for defying sanctions and providing support to North Korea, and to deter this activity in the future.”

 
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Conservation groups are airing TV ads, planning rallies and creating parody websites in a last-minute blitz to stop Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from downsizing or eliminating national monument areas that cover large swaths of land and water from Maine to California.

The deadline for Zinke to announce his recommendations is Thursday following a four-month review of 27 sites ordered by President Donald Trump.

The outdoor recreation industry has hammered home its message that peeling back protections on areas where its customers hike, bike and camp could prevent future generations from enjoying the sites.

In addition, the Wilderness Society has created a parody website featuring Trump and Zinke selling luxury real estate at the sites.

Groups that want to see the areas reduced have been less vociferous, pleading their cases on social media and working behind the scenes to lobby federal officials.

They say past presidents have misused a century-old law to create monuments that are too large and stop energy development, grazing, mining and other uses.

Stan Summers, a Utah county commissioner who chairs a group that advocates for multi-use of public lands, said outdoor recreation companies are peddling lies and misconceptions when they say local officials want to bulldoze monument lands.

Summers said residents treasure the lands that comprise Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah, but don’t want to close the areas to new oil drilling and mining that produce good jobs.

“We want to tend this area like a garden instead of a museum,” he said.

The review includes sweeping sites mostly in the West that are home to ancient cliff dwellings, towering sequoia trees, deep canyons or ocean habitats roamed by seals, whales and sea turtles.

Zinke has already removed six areas in Montana, Colorado, Idaho and Washington from consideration for changes. He also said Bears Ears on tribal land in Utah should be downsized.

Environmental groups said the 1906 Antiquities Act is intended to shield significant historical and archaeological sites, and that it allows presidents to create the monuments but only gives Congress the power to modify them.

Threatening White House with lawsuits

They have vowed to file lawsuits if Trump attempts to rescind or reduce the monument designations.

No other president has tried to eliminate a monument, but they have trimmed and redrawn boundaries 18 times, according to the National Park Service.

REI and Patagonia have joined a group of 350 outdoor companies, including The North Face, YETI Coolers and Orvis, in signing a letter sent last week to Zinke by the Outdoor Industry Association.

“It’s an American right to roam in our public lands,” the letter reads. “As business leaders, we simply ask that your final report remain true to the Teddy Roosevelt values we share with you – to maintain the national treasures presidents of both parties have protected.”

Patagonia recently ran a TV ad in Montana and Utah with company founder Yvon Chouinard fishing and declaring, “Our business is built on having wild places” and warning that public lands are under the greatest threat ever.

Led by U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, monument supporters plan a rally Thursday at an REI store in Albuquerque.

The tribal coalition that pushed for the Bears Ears National Monument, designated by president Barack Obama in December, unveiled a new webpage Thursday that recaps the historical and cultural importance of lands consider sacred to them. The sprawling monument features a mix of cliffs, plateaus, towering rock formations, rivers and canyons across wide expanses covered by sagebrush and juniper trees.

The Wilderness Society website also features a photo of ancient ruins at Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and the words, “Developer ready.” Each monument was given a fictional price tag, such as $932 million for Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in New Mexico.

In a description of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, the website says: “This is the chance for someone to claim a little piece of that offbeat New England charm for themselves and leave hikers, birdwatchers, snowshoers and hunters on the outside, looking in!”

Proponents of downsizing the monuments say state governments are better suited to make management decisions that would ensure federal lands are used for a mix of uses.

“The only reason there is roads in some of these places is because of the mining and the oil and the gravel pits,” Summers said.
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