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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.
At least 28 dead in Central America as Julia drenches with rainfall
Former Hurricane Julia has dissipated, but is still drenching Guatemala and El Salvador with torrential rains Monday after it reemerged in the Pacific following a pounding of Nicaragua.
At least 28 people were reported dead as a direct or indirect result of the storm.
Guatemala’s disaster prevention agency said five people died after a hillside collapsed on their house in Alta Verapaz province, burying them. And in Huehuetenango province, near Mexico, nine people died, including a soldier killed while performing rescue work.
Authorities in El Salvador said five Salvadoran army soldiers died after a wall collapsed at a house where they sought refuge in the town of Comasagua, where hundreds of police and soldiers have been conducting anti-gang raids. Another soldier was injured.
Two other people died in the eastern El Salvador town of Guatajiagua after heavy rains caused a wall of their home to collapse. Another man in El Salvador died when he was swept away by a current, and another died when a tree fell on him.
Rivers overflowed their banks and El Salvador declared a state of emergency and opened 80 storm shelters.
In neighboring Honduras, a 22-year-old woman died when she was swept away by currents, and three people died when their boat swamped or capsized in northern Honduras. A man in Nicaragua was killed by a falling tree.
Julia hit Nicaragua’s central Caribbean coast early Sunday as a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) and survived the passage over the country’s mountainous terrain, entering the Pacific late in the day as a tropical storm..
By Monday, Julia had moved inland over Guatemala and its winds were down to 30 mph (45 kph).
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Julia was centered about 80 miles (125 kilometers) west-northwest of Guatemala City, and was moving west-northwest at 15 mph (24 kph).
The center said floods and mudslides were possible across Central America and southern Mexico through Tuesday, with the storm expected to bring as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain in isolated areas.
In Guatemala, two people were listed as missing and two were hospitalized, and about 1,300 people had to leave their homes because of flooding and rising streams.
Julia was expected to dissipate later Monday as it passes along the Guatemalan coast.
Colombia’s national disaster agency reported Sunday that Julia blew the roofs off several houses and knocked over trees as it blasted past San Andres Island east of Nicaragua. There were no immediate reports of fatalities
In Nicaragua, Vice President Rosario Murillo told TN8 television that 9,500 people had been evacuated to shelters.
Heavy rains and evacuations were also reported in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica, where some highways were closed due to the downpours.
Ian evacuees return to mud, death toll rises to 101
Rotting fish and garbage lie scattered in Sanibel Island’s streets. On the mainland, debris from washed-away homes is heaped in a canal like matchsticks. Huge shrimp boats sit perched amid the remains of a mobile home park.
“Think of a snow globe. Pick it up and shake it — that’s what happened,” said Fred Szott.
For the past three days, he and his wife Joyce have been making trips to their damaged mobile home in Fort Myers, cleaning up after Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast.
As for the emotional turbulence, he says: “You either hold on, or you lose it.”
The number of storm-related deaths rose to at least 101 on Thursday, eight days after the storm made landfall in southwest Florida. According to reports from the Florida Medical Examiners Commission, 92 of those deaths were in Florida. Five people were also killed in North Carolina, three in Cuba and one in Virginia.
Ian is the second-deadliest storm to hit the mainland U.S. in the 21st century behind Hurricane Katrina, which left more than 1,800 people dead in 2005. The deadliest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. was the Great Galveston Hurricane in 1900 that killed as many as 8,000 people.
Residents of Florida’s devastated barrier islands are starting to return, assessing the damage to homes and businesses despite limited access to some areas. Pamela Brislin arrived by boat to see what she could salvage.
Brislin had stayed through the storm, but is haunted by what happened afterward. When she checked on a neighbor, she found the woman crying. Her husband had passed away, his body laid out on a picnic table until help could arrive. Another neighbor’s house caught fire. The flames were so large that they forced Breslin to do what the hurricane could not — flee with her husband and a neighbor’s dog.
Ian, a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour), unleashed torrents of rain and caused extensive flooding and damage. The deluge turned streets into gushing rivers. Backyard waterways overflowed into neighborhoods, sometimes by more than a dozen feet (3.5 meters), tossing boats onto yards and roadways. Beaches disappeared, as ocean surges pushed shorelines far inland. Officials estimate the storm has caused billions of dollars in damage.
The broken causeway to Sanibel Island might not be passable until the end of the month. Officials on the island had ordered a complete curfew after the storm passed, allowing search and rescue teams to do their work. That meant residents who evacuated were technically blocked from returning.
The city of about 7,000 started allowing residents back from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesday. City manager Dana Souza told residents in a Facebook Live stream that he wished the municipality had resources to provide transportation but that, for now, residents would have to arrange visits by private boat.
Pine Island is closer to the mainland than Sanibel, and temporary repairs to its causeway were finished on Wednesday.
But the island was hit hard by the storm. Cindy Bickford’s house is still standing. Much of the damage was from flooding, which left a thick layer of rancid muck on her floors. She’s hopeful that a lot can be salvaged.
“We’ll tear the home apart so we can live in it,” said Bickford, who wore a T-shirt that said “Relax,” “Refresh” and “Renew.”
“It’s not our stuff we’re worried about. It’s our community. Pine Island is extremely close-knit,” said Bickford, who arrived Thursday for the first time.
Jay Pick said the island still feels cut off from the outside, and a bit chaotic.
“People are trying to do the right thing and help people, and yet other people are stepping up and taking their gas cans and stealing generators,” he said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, at a news conference Thursday in the Sarasota County town of Nokomis, praised the widespread restoration of running water through the storm-hit zone and the work toward restoring power. Some 185,000 customers remain without electricity, down from highs above 2.6 million across the state.
He said rescue workers have conducted around 2,500 missions, particularly on barrier islands on the Gulf coast as well as in inland areas that have seen intense flooding. More than 90,000 structures have been inspected and checked for survivors, he said.
He said residents areas devastated by the hurricane had been showing great resilience over the past week.
President Joe Biden toured some of Florida’s hurricane-hit areas on Wednesday, surveying damage by helicopter and then walking on foot alongside DeSantis. The Democratic president and Republican governor pledged to put political rivalries aside to help rebuild homes, businesses and lives. Biden emphasized at a briefing with local officials that the effort could take years.
US imposes more sanctions on Iran over Mahsa Amini's death
The U.S. on Thursday imposed more sanctions on Iranian government officials in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, as protests have embroiled dozens of Iranian cities for weeks and evolved into the most widespread challenge to Iran’s leadership in years.
U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated seven high-ranking leaders for financial penalties due to the shutdown of Iran’s internet, repression of speech and violence inflicted on protesters and civilians. Iran's interior and communications ministers and several law enforcement leaders were targeted for sanctions.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctions demonstrate the “United States stands with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”
And Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in announcing the sanctions that “the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly are vital to guaranteeing individual liberty and dignity.”
U.S. support of freedom in Iran, however, further undermines efforts to salvage the languishing 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, would provide Tehran with billions in sanctions relief in exchange for the agreeing to roll back its nuclear program..
How the administration can credibly side with a protest movement while hoping to strike a nuclear deal with a regime it accuses of engaging in human rights abuses is a question that has resonated through the halls of Congress.
“President Biden simply cannot offer the prospect of sanctions relief and de facto legitimize a regime that is ruthlessly gunning down its own citizens in the street,” said Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, director of a network of activists that promotes human rights in Iran and a nonresident scholar with the Middle East Institute’s Iran Program.
Amini was detained in September by the morality police, who said she didn’t properly cover her hair with the mandatory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab. She collapsed at a police station and died three days later.
Her death set off protests in dozens of cities across the country of 80 million people, with young women marching in the streets and publicly cutting off their hair in the most widespread challenge to Iran’s leadership since the 2009 Green Movement protests drew millions to the streets.
The government has responded with a fierce crackdown. An Associated Press tally of reports in state-run and state-linked media shows there have been at least 1,900 arrests connected to the protests.
And while state television last suggested at least 41 people had been killed in the demonstrations as of Sept. 24. an Oslo-based group called Iran Human Rights estimates at least 154 people have been killed.
Amini's death has drawn a host of U.S. actions against the government and its leaders.
The morality police and the leaders of other Iranian law enforcement agencies were hit with one round of sanctions, and on Sept. 23, the Treasury Department announced that it would allow American tech firms to expand their business in Iran, where most internet access has been cut off in response to the protests.
Agency officials said an updated general license authorizes tech firms to offer more social media and collaboration platforms, video conferencing and cloud-based services.
“We’re going to continue to impose further costs on the perpetrators of this violence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday afternoon.
Before Amini’s death, U.S. sanctions on Iran have accelerated in recent months.
Firms from Iran, China, India, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere that the Biden administration says have been involved in shipping sanctioned Iranian oil around the world have also seen penalties.
US national debt surpasses $31 trillion: Treasury report
The nation’s gross national debt has surpassed $31 trillion, according to a U.S. Treasury report released Tuesday that logs America’s daily finances.
Edging closer to the statutory ceiling of roughly $31.4 trillion — an artificial cap Congress placed on the U.S. government’s ability to borrow — the debt numbers hit an already tenuous economy facing high inflation, rising interest rates and a strong U.S. dollar.
And while President Joe Biden has touted his administration’s deficit reduction efforts this year and recently signed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which attempts to tame 40-year high price increases caused by a variety of economic factors, economists say the latest debt numbers are a cause for concern.
Owen Zidar, a Princeton economist, said rising interest rates will exacerbate the nation’s growing debt issues and make the debt itself more costly. The Federal Reserve has raised rates several times this year in an effort to combat inflation.
Zidar said the debt “should encourage us to consider some tax policies that almost passed through the legislative process but didn’t get enough support,” like imposing higher taxes on the wealthy and closing the carried interest loophole, which allows money managers to treat their income as capital gains.
“I think the point here is if you weren’t worried before about the debt before, you should be — and if you were worried before, you should be even more worried,” Zidar said.
The Congressional Budget Office earlier this year released a report on America’s debt load, warning in its 30-year outlook that, if unaddressed, the debt will soon spiral upward to new highs that could ultimately imperil the U.S. economy.
In its August Mid-Session Review, the administration forecasted that this year’s budget deficit will be nearly $400 billion lower than it estimated back in March, due in part to stronger than expected revenues, reduced spending, and an economy that has recovered all the jobs lost during the multi-year pandemic.
In full, this year’s deficit will decline by $1.7 trillion, representing the single largest decline in the federal deficit in American history, the Office of Management and Budget said in August.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in an emailed statement Tuesday, “This is a new record no one should be proud of.”
“In the past 18 months, we’ve witnessed inflation rise to a 40-year high, interest rates climbing in part to combat this inflation, and several budget-busting pieces of legislation and executive actions,” MacGuineas said. “We are addicted to debt.”
A representative from the Treasury Department was not immediately available for comment.
Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University, said “it took this nation 200 years to pile up its first trillion dollars in national debt, and since the pandemic we have been adding at the rate of 1 trillion nearly every quarter.”
Predicting high inflation for the “foreseeable future,” he said, “when you increase government spending and money supply, you will pay the price later.”
US drops traveler health notices for individual countries
The federal government is scrapping another of its responses to the pandemic.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped its country-by-country COVID-19 travel health notices that it began issuing early in the pandemic.
The reason: Fewer countries are testing for the virus or reporting the number of COVID-19 cases. That limits the CDC’s ability to calculate travelers' risk, according to the agency.
CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said the agency will only post a travel health notice for an individual country if a situation such as a troubling new variant of the virus changes CDC travel recommendations for that country.
The CDC still recommends that travelers remain up to date on vaccines and follow recommendations found on its international travel page.
That page divides countries into three categories – practice usual precautions, enhanced precautions or avoid nonessential travel.
Restrictions such as testing and quarantine requirements greatly slowed international travel earlier in the pandemic, but many countries eventually lifted those rules for fully vaccinated and boosted people to increase tourism.
In early 2020, before vaccines were available, the United States barred people who had recently been in any of more than three dozen countries. In 2021, the U.S. instead began requiring people to test negative for COVID-19 shortly before boarding planes to the U.S. That rule too was eventually dropped.