NATO chief says Finland, Sweden could join quite quickly – ABC News
NATO chief says Finland, Sweden could join quite quickly – ABC News

BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that Finland and Sweden would be embraced with open arms should they decide to join the 30-nation military organization and could become members quite quickly.

Stoltenberg’s remarks came as public support in Finland and Sweden for NATO membership mounts in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Media speculation in the two countries suggest the two might apply in mid-May.

“It’s their decision,” Stoltenberg said. “But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed, and I expect that process to go quickly.”

He gave no precise time frame, but did say that the two could expect some protection should Russia try to intimidate them from the time their membership applications are made until they formally join.

Stoltenberg said he’s “confident that there are ways to bridge that interim period in a way which is good enough and works for both Finland and Sweden.”

NATO’s collective security guarantee ensures that all member countries must come to the aid of any ally under attack. Stoltenberg added that many NATO allies have now pledged and provided a total of at least $8 billion in military support to Ukraine.

Before launching the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded that NATO stop expanding and pull its troops back from Russia’s borders. So the prospect of neighboring Finland, and Sweden, joining the trans-Atlantic alliance is unlikely to be welcomed in Moscow.

Finland has a conflict-ridden history with Russia, with which it shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border. Finns have taken part in dozens of wars against their eastern neighbor, for centuries as part of the Swedish Kingdom, and as an independent nation including two fought with the Soviet Union from 1939-40 and 1941-44.

In the postwar period, however, Finland pursued pragmatic political and economic ties with Moscow, remaining militarily nonaligned and a neutral buffer between East and West.

Sweden has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, choosing a path of peace after centuries of warfare with its neighbors.

Both countries put an end to traditional neutrality by joining the European Union in 1995 and deepening cooperation with NATO. However, a majority of people in both countries remained firmly against full membership in the alliance — until now.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nato-chief-finland-sweden-join-quickly-84365858

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Boy, 14, Charged With Murdering, Raping Lily Peters; Bond Set At $1 Million – CBS Minnesota
Boy, 14, Charged With Murdering, Raping Lily Peters; Bond Set At $1 Million – CBS Minnesota

Originally published April 27

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (WCCO) — A judge in western Wisconsin on Wednesday ordered that the boy arrested in the killing of Lily Peters be held on a $1 million cash bond after hearing that the teenage suspect allegedly admitted to killing and raping the 10-year-old girl.

READ MORE: The Death Of Lily Peters: Boy Taken Into Custody; Police Say He ‘Was Known To The Victim’

At an afternoon court hearing, Chippewa County District Attorney Wade Newell presented the criminal complaint, identifying the suspect as 14-year-old boy and an eighth grader who’s lived in Chippewa County his entire life. The boy’s name was not released; he was referred to only as C.P.B. He appeared in court via video, keeping his head lowered and not addressing the court.

The boy is facing charges of first-degree murder, as well as two charges of sexual assault. Two of the charges carry the maximum penalty of life in prison. Per Wisconsin law, the case will automatically start in adult court, although the defense can request that it be moved.

According to prosecutors, the boy confessed to investigators that he intended to rape and kill Peters “from the get-go” on Sunday evening, when he followed her on a trail as she left her aunt’s home. The boy allegedly admitted to punching the girl, hitting her with a stick, strangling her, and sexually assaulting her.

Peters’ father called police Sunday night after his daughter failed to return home from her aunt’s house. Her body was found Monday morning in the woods, not far from the trail, near the Leinenkugel’s brewery parking lot, which is near both residences.

READ MORE: Lily Peters, Missing Wis. Girl, Found Dead; Police Investigating As Homicide

The boy was arrested Tuesday, the same day a search warrant was executed at a residence owned by Peters’ aunt. Investigators said that the boy and Peters knew each other.

At the court hearing, prosecutors asked Judge Ben Lane to hold the boy on a $1 million cash bond, arguing that he poses a threat to the community. The boy’s defense asked for a $100,000 bond, saying that he has virtually no ability to raise money and that he isn’t a flight risk since he can’t drive.

The judge ordered that the boy be held on the $1 million cash bond. In light of the allegations presented by prosecutors, he described the crimes as “a serious threat to the community,” and said the court would be concerned if the boy were released.

Several law enforcement members were in the courtroom during the hearing. It did not appear that any of Peters’ relatives were present.

A second hearing was set for May 5. The criminal complaint remains sealed. The boy is being held in a juvenile detention facility in Eau Claire.

Source Article from https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2022/04/28/prosecutors-boy-14-told-investigators-he-intended-to-kill-rape-lily-peters/

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Biden requests $33 billion for Ukraine war; Putin threatens ‘lightning fast’ retaliation to nations that intervene – CNBC
Biden requests $33 billion for Ukraine war; Putin threatens ‘lightning fast’ retaliation to nations that intervene – CNBC

LIVE UPDATES

This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates. 

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has warned the West of a “lightning fast” response to any country that intervenes in its war against Ukraine war and creates what he called “strategic threats for Russia.”

“We have all the instruments [to respond] that no one can boast of … we’re going to use them if we have to,” he said, in what has widely been seen as an allusion to Russia’s arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

Russia shocked the European community by halting gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday because they had refused to pay for the gas in Russian rubles, as Moscow demanded.

The move comes as tensions remain high between Western allies and Russia after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday said the threat of a nuclear war is very significant and the risks should not be underestimated.

U.S. President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve $33 billion in additional money for the Ukraine war, which includes funding for U.S. military support to the embattled nation and a mix of direct cash and supplies for Ukraine.

Some Russian troops are leaving positions in Mariupol, U.S. Defense official says

The Pentagon has seen some Russian forces leave positions in the coastal Ukrainian city of Mariupol, a senior U.S. Defense official said.

“We don’t have an exact number on how many Russian forces are leaving Mariupol,” the official said, adding that the number is not insignificant. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to share new details from the Pentagon’s latest assessment of the war, said Russian forces are focusing a large number of airstrikes on Mariupol.

Russia has launched more than 1,900 missiles since the beginning of the invasion, according to the official. The person added that almost all of the strikes are coming from Russian airbases and not from inside of Ukraine.

“We are seeing them begin to leave Mariupol,” the official said, adding that some troops have moved north and northwest.

— Amanda Macias

Finland and Sweden could join NATO quickly, Stoltenberg says

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Finland and Sweden would be “welcomed with open arms to NATO” should they apply to the 30-member strong alliance.

“It’s their decision,” Stoltenberg said. “But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden will be warmly welcomed, and I expect that process to go quickly,” he said, without offering a timeline. He said the Nordic nations are NATO’s closest partners and already have “strong and mature democracies.”

“EU members and we have been working with Finland and Sweden for many, many years,” he added.

Stoltenberg’s comments, which came on the heels of a meeting with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, added that the militaries of Finland and Sweden are interoperable with NATO forces.

In recent weeks, Finland and Sweden have said they would consider joining the military alliance amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Russia has long warned against any future enlargement of NATO, reportedly accusing the alliance of being “a tool geared towards confrontation.”

— Amanda Macias

Former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed welcomed home after release from Russian prison

U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed was welcomed home following his release from a prison in Russia where he had been detained since 2019.

Photos shared by U.S. House Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, show Reed with his family, who has waged a public fight for his release, and the lawmaker at the Kelly Field airport in San Antonio, Texas.

Reed was released Wednesday in a brokered prisoner swap.

Reed was accused of assaulting a Russian officer and sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison. Reed and his family have maintained his innocence and the U.S. government has described him as unjustly imprisoned.

— Amanda Macias

UN chief Guterres visits Bucha after meeting with Putin

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha and Irpin, where Russian forces have been accused of committing atrocities.

“I imagine my family, in one of those houses,” he told reporters while pointing to a charred building behind him. “I see my granddaughters running away in panic. Part of the family eventually killed,” he added.

“This horrific scenario demonstrates something that is unfortunately always true, that civilians always pay the highest price. Innocent civilians were living in these buildings,” Guterres said.

Earlier in the week, Guterres met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later on Thursday.

— Amanda Macias

Biden to ask Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraine through September

President Joe Biden will ask Congress for $33 billion to fund both humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine through September of this year, senior administration officials said Thursday.

The massive aid package will be accompanied by a proposal to Congress that it amend several longstanding criminal laws to make it easier for the U.S. to seize the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, sell the seized property and funnel the proceeds to the Ukrainians.

The $33 billion includes a request for $20.4 billion in additional security and military assistance for Ukraine as well as additional money to fund U.S. efforts to bolster European security in cooperation with NATO allies.

The administration said that $20.4 billion is designed to equip Kyiv and European partners with additional artillery, armored vehicles and anti-armor and anti-air capabilities, accelerate cyber capabilities and advanced air defense systems, and help clear landmines and improvised explosive devices.

— Christina Wilkie and Thomas Franck

U.S. President Biden to unveil massive new Ukraine aid package at 10:45 a.m.

U.S. President Joe Biden will address the nation at 10:45 a.m. from the White House, where he is expected to announce a massive new package of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Precise numbers for the aid have not been released, but the package is expected to dwarf the $3 billion the United States has already committed to Ukraine’s defense and survival since Russia invaded its neighbor just over two months ago.

The new funding request will be accompanied by a White House proposal to Congress to change several criminal laws to make it easier for the government to liquidate the seized assets of Russian oligarchs and get that money to Ukraine.

Under federal law, in order to sell off seized assets, prosecutors must first show that they are the proceeds of a crime. Currently, being a sanctioned Russian oligarch isn’t a crime.

Legal scholars have noted that without a crime, oligarchs could sue for the return of their property, and would stand a good chance of winning in court. Under Biden’s proposal, Congress would create a new federal offense of knowingly possessing proceeds directly obtained from corrupt dealings with the Russian government.

— Christina Wilkie

Russia’s war in Ukraine is hitting Middle Eastern and African food security

Together, Russia and Ukraine account for roughly one-third of the world’s global wheat exports, nearly 20% of its corn, and 80% of its sunflower oil — and they provide the majority of the Middle East and North Africa region’s supply. 

Wheat futures are up 30% since the invasion began in late February.

Before the war, more than 95% of Ukraine’s total grain, wheat and corn exports was shipped out via the Black Sea, and half of those exports went to MENA countries. That vital conduit is now shut, choking off Ukraine’s maritime trade after its ports came under attack from Russia’s military. 

The country is now trying to export some of its produce by rail, which has enormous logistical limits, while Ukrainian farmers whose infrastructure hasn’t been destroyed attempt to till their fields wearing bulletproof vests. 

Russia is the world’s number one exporter of wheat, as well as – crucially – the top exporter of fertilizer. Fears of getting caught up in western sanctions on Moscow have already disrupted Russia’s exports, too. 

Experts have warned of the risk of riots, famine and mass migration hitting the region if basic food staples like wheat and flour become unaffordable or inaccessible.

Read the full story here.

— Natasha Turak

A coffin factory in Lviv works to meet the demand of a rising death toll in Ukraine

Ukrainian craftsmen work to meet the demand of the rising death toll at a coffin factory in Lviv.

The United Nations has confirmed 2,829 civilian deaths and 3,180 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor on Feb. 24.

Of those killed, the U.N. has identified at least 62 girls and 75 boys, as well as 68 children whose gender is unknown.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll in Ukraine is likely higher, citing delayed reports due to the armed conflict.

The international body said most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missiles and airstrikes.

— Amanda Macias, Adam Jeffery, Getty Images

Ukraine war could drag on for years, NATO chief says

There’s a possibility that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine will last for years, NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

“We need to be prepared for the long term …There is absolutely the possibility that this war will drag on and last for months and years,” Stoltenberg told a youth summit in Brussels.

He said the military alliance is ready to help Kyiv to transition from using old Soviet-era weapons to NATO-standard weapons.

— Holly Ellyatt

Don’t test our patience, Russia warns the West

Russia has warned the West against inciting Ukraine to attack Russian territory, saying that this will lead to a “tough response from Russia.”

“In the West, they are openly calling on Kyiv to attack Russia including with the use of weapons received from NATO countries,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters in Moscow, Reuters reported.

“I don’t advise you to test our patience further,” she said.

Zakharova’s comments come after several attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russian regions bordering Ukraine. Russia said earlier this week that if such attacks continued then it would target decision-making centers in Ukraine.

Ukraine has not directly admitted that its forces were responsible for the spate of attacks but presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak reportedly described the incidents as “karma.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Germany’s military must be strong enough to deter Russia from attacking, Scholz says

Germany’s leader said a strong military is needed to ensure Russia does not consider attacking it.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz also said Thursday that Putin is clinging to the idea of a “forced peace” in Ukraine and that will not work, Reuters reported.

Speaking in Tokyo, Scholz said Germany is looking to create closer ties with countries that share its values, naming Japan and India, among others.

— Holly Ellyatt

Central bank policy needs to be prudent amid gas shock threat, official says

Bank of Italy Governor and ECB Governing Council member Ignazio Visco warns the central bank’s policy must remain careful amid the threat of the Russian war in Ukraine, but signals a third-quarter hike may be in the cards.

— Holly Ellyatt

Exxon reportedly declared force majeure on Sakhalin-1 operations

Exxon Mobil’s Russian unit Exxon Neftegas has declared force majeure on its Sakhalin-1 operations, Reuters reported.

In a written response to Reuters, a spokesperson said Exxon is taking steps to exit the oil and gas project, which includes addressing contractual and commercial obligations.

The company previously said it would cease operations in Russia, including exiting the project.

Reuters reported that stakeholders in the project encounter increasing difficulty in shipping crude oil from the region due to sanctions on Russia, fear of reputational risk and trouble finding insurance coverage.

— Chelsea Ong

‘We would never feel safe again’ if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, UK says

The fate of Ukraine is hanging in the balance and Western allies must “double down” on their support for the country to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine, the U.K.’s foreign secretary said Wednesday.

“Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for us all,” Liz Truss said in a speech in London last night, as she argued the Group of Seven industrialized nations and their allies need to maintain pressure on Russia through tougher sanctions, including “cutting off oil and gas imports once and for all,” providing further military aid, and continued humanitarian support.

“If Putin succeeds there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe,” she said, adding that “we would never feel safe again.”

“So we must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine,” she said. Truss’ comments come at a time when tensions between Western nations and Russia have risen significantly, with President Vladimir Putin warning that Russia will retaliate against any intervention in the Ukraine war.

— Holly Ellyatt

Blinken says Europe has ‘ambitious’ plans to cut energy reliance on Russia

European countries have ‘genuinely ambitious’ plans to reduce their reliance on Russian energy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, adding that ‘further progress’ was expected on Russian oil imports in the coming weeks.

“The Europeans have, I think, genuinely ambitious plans to move away from this reliance on Russian energy. The challenge is to put them into effect,” Blinken said at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Around half of Russia’s 4.7 million barrels per day of crude exports go to the EU. Cutting them off would deprive Moscow of a major revenue stream.

“I think you are likely to see in the coming weeks further progress on the oil side of the equation in terms of Russian imports. Gas is a bigger challenge,” he added.

The European Union is considering options to cut imports of Russian oil as part of possible further sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, but none has been formally proposed as governments assess their impact.

— Reuters

White House set to make ‘massive’ funding request for more Ukraine aid

The White House is preparing to send a request to Congress for additional Ukraine aid as early as Thursday, administration officials confirmed to NBC News.

Officials described the amount of the request as “massive” but would not provide a specific dollar amount as some of the details have not been finalized.

The officials said the dollar amount sought should be able to fund U.S. support for Ukraine through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends in September. Since Russia’s late February invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has authorized $3.4 billion in military assistance.

Last week, President Joe Biden said that he was running out of funding authorized by Congress and would soon send a request to lawmakers.

The latest military aid package of $800 million, which is the eighth installment of aid, comes after eight weeks of war and as Russian forces prepare for a renewed fight in the east and south of Ukraine.

— Amanda Macias

Putin threatens to retaliate against anyone who interferes with war in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned world leaders against interfering with what he continues to call a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I want to stress once more, the special military operation in the Ukraine and Donbas, which started in February, all the objectives will be definitely carried out to guarantee the security of people in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, the Russian Crimea and all our country,” Putin said before Russia’s Council of Legislators in St Petersburg.

He said Russia’s military prevented a “real threat, which was hanging over our motherland.” Putin added that the Kremlin would retaliate against anyone who interfered with the ongoing military operation.

“Our response, our retaliation, those attacks will be lightning-fast. We have all instruments for that. Such instruments that no one can boast of … and we’re going to use them if we have to. I want everybody to know that,” Putin said.

It was not immediately clear what was meant by instruments. Putin also said the rafts of global sanctions against Russia have failed to “strangle us economically.”

— Amanda Macias

Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:

UN chief arrives in Kyiv after Moscow stop; Russia releases U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/28/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

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Ex-Marine Reed back in U.S. after prisoner swap with Russia – Reuters.com
Ex-Marine Reed back in U.S. after prisoner swap with Russia – Reuters.com

WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) – U.S. ex-Marine Trevor Reed arrived back in the United States, his spokesperson said on Thursday, after being freed by Russia in a prisoner swap that took place amid the most tense bilateral relations in decades over the war in Ukraine.

Reed was released on Wednesday in exchange for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko.

The swap was not part of broader diplomatic talks and did not represent an American change in approach on Ukraine, U.S. officials said. Russian-American ties have been at their worst since the Cold War era following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.

Reed, from Texas, was back in the United States, his spokesperson said, without immediately confirming where he entered the country.

His parents said earlier he would be taken to a military hospital for monitoring. Senior U.S. officials say the 30-year-old was in “good spirits.”

“Today, we welcome home Trevor Reed and celebrate his return to the family that missed him dearly,” President Joe Biden said in a statement prior to Reed’s arrival, noting the parents’ concerns about their son’s health.

“The negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly,” Biden added.

Asked later on Wednesday how he was able to raise the issue of Reed’s detention amid the broader tensions with Russia over Ukraine, Biden said, “I did it. I raised it. I raised it three months ago.”

Reed was convicted in Russia in 2019 of endangering the lives of two police officers while drunk on a visit to Moscow. The United States called his trial a “theater of the absurd.”

U.S. officials said Biden commuted the sentence of Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot who was arrested by American special forces in Liberia in 2010 and convicted for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Russia had proposed a prisoner swap for Yaroshenko in July 2019 in exchange for the release of any American.

The swap occurred in Turkey, and the United States thanked Turkey, a NATO ally, for its help in the exchange. Russian news agencies reported that Yaroshenko then flew from Ankara to Sochi and finally to Moscow. Rossiya 1, Russia’s main national news channel, showed video of Yaroshenko’s being embraced by his wife and his daughter, who was jumping up and down with joy, on the tarmac at a Moscow airport.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they were working to free another American held in Russia, Paul Whelan, also a former Marine.

Joey and Paula Reed, the parents of Trevor Reed, thanked Biden and others, saying in a statement that the “president’s action may have saved Trevor’s life.”

His father, Joey, later told reporters that they had two phone calls with their son on Wednesday.

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U.S. ex-Marine Trevor Reed, who was detained in 2019 and accused of assaulting police officers, is escorted before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia March 11, 2020. REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva/File Photo

“It didn’t sound like him (in the first call). The second call, he sounded more like himself. He must’ve gotten some fluids and food in him. He was cracking jokes,” Joey Reed said.

Russian state television video, played on CNN, showed Reed, appearing thin and wearing a dark overcoat, being supported on both sides by men wearing camouflage. Russia state media described the video as showing Reed at an airport in Russia.

“He looks terrible to us. As his parents, we know he does not look well,” Paula Reed told CNN outside their home in Granbury, Texas.

“The American plane pulled up next to the Russian plane, and they walked both prisoners like you see in the movies,” Joey Reed told CNN.

Biden met with Joey and Paula Reed on March 30. The following week, the parents said that a prisoner swap seemed to be the only way to bring Reed home and urged the White House to take all possible steps.

The months of tense diplomacy that led to Reed’s release focused strictly on securing his freedom and were not the beginnings of discussions on other issues, senior Biden administration officials said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the swap followed a lengthy negotiation process.

Russian news agencies reported on April 4 that Reed had ended a hunger strike and was being treated in his prison’s medical center. The prison service said Reed had gone on hunger strike on March 28 to protest disciplinary action against him.

Reed’s parents said at the time that he had been exposed to an inmate with active tuberculosis in December. The prison service said Reed had repeatedly tested negative for tuberculosis.

The Reeds said their son would tell his story when ready.

“We’d respectfully ask for some privacy while we address the myriad of health issues brought on by the squalid conditions he was subjected to in his Russian gulag,” they said.

Biden said his administration will continue to work for the release of Whelan and others. Whelan has been held on spying charges that he denies and that he has likened to a political kidnapping.

Whelan’s family said they worried that the deal made with Russia on Yaroshenko dimmed prospects for Whelan’s release.

“Is President Biden’s failure to bring Paul home an admission that some cases are too hard to solve?” they asked in a statement. “Who gets saved is the president’s choice.”

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at a Moscow airport on Feb. 17 when a search of her luggage allegedly revealed multiple cannabis oil vape cartridges. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/ex-marine-reed-back-us-after-prisoner-swap-with-russia-2022-04-28/

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What Russia cutting off energy to Poland and Bulgaria means for the world – NPR
What Russia cutting off energy to Poland and Bulgaria means for the world – NPR

Pipes are seen at the gas transmission point in Rembelszczyzna near Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday.

Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images


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Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

Pipes are seen at the gas transmission point in Rembelszczyzna near Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday.

Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

The Russian national energy giant Gazprom announced on Wednesday that it was cutting off natural gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria over the countries’ refusal to pay in rubles.

It was seen as a way for Russia to prop up its unstable currency and also retaliate against its European neighbors for Western sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine.

It also marked a new front in the war. Russia, which has grown more isolated from a Europe increasingly aligned with the United States, signaled it was willing to use the continent’s heavy reliance on Russian natural gas as political leverage.

Here’s what the decision, which one European leader called “blackmail,” could mean for the continent and the world:

It could accelerate the European Union’s transition away from Russian energy

About 40% of the EU’s gas comes from Russia, but the bloc had been trying to wean itself off of Russian energy even before the invasion of Ukraine.

“We will remain united and support each other while phasing out Russian energy imports,” European Council President Charles Michel said in a tweet.

Analysts say the decision demonstrates that Russia would be prepared to penalize other, larger European countries for failing to pay in rubles — even if it means Gazprom takes a financial hit.

“It does show that Russia is willing to halt supplies if people don’t subscribe to the new payment system,” said James Waddell, head of European gas at the London-based Energy Aspects. “It’s a warning shot for other bigger buyers in Western Europe that they are willing to carry out that threat.”

Germany and Italy are among the major European importers of Russian natural gas.

Some European energy companies appear willing to meet Russia’s demand, however. At least four European gas buyers have made payments to Gazprom in rubles, Bloomberg reported. Hungary announced earlier this month that it would pay for Russian natural gas in rubles, too.

Energy prices could rise across the world as the EU seeks fuel elsewhere

EU countries that don’t buy natural gas from Russia will have to buy it somewhere else. That could lead to a shake-up in global energy markets, which have already seen their prices spike.

European buyers will likely seek out liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and bid up the prices as they have in the past, according to Henning Gloystein, energy director at the Eurasia Group.

“This, of course, means that gas buyers across the world as far away as Japan and China and South Korea will have to pay more for gas because these Europeans are entering the market and driving up the price,” Gloystein told NPR’s Morning Edition.

With the summer approaching and little need for heat, Gloystein says gas demand is lower, but that will change in the winter months.

In addition to buying new energy, some countries say they’ll rely on their energy reserves. Officials say both Poland and Bulgaria have fuel reserves they could draw from.

The European energy crunch may lead to a larger financial crisis

Rising energy prices could also worsen a global economy that’s already stifled by inflation, says Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

“If Russia were to really cut gas supplies to much of Europe, particularly Germany, it would cause severe economic pain,” he said. “You’re talking about potential recession.”

Bordoff said it would be too difficult to find enough alternative energy supplies to fill the gap in the short-term, which could lead to energy rationing and record high natural gas and energy prices.

Relations between Russia and the West remain tense

European leaders angered by Russia’s decision to cut off gas supply to EU members Poland and Bulgaria called it “blackmail” and said they would seek alternative sources of fuel.

“This is unjustified and unacceptable,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “And it shows once again the unreliability of Russia as a gas supplier.”

The Kremlin said the move was a “necessary” response to what it called “unprecedented unfriendly steps” — including a decision to freeze the Russian Central Bank’s foreign currency reserves.

“They blocked our accounts, or — to put in Russian — they ‘stole’ a significant portion of our reserves,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a call with journalists.

Some Russia-based analysts said taking payment in rubles was simply a way for Gazprom to protect its revenues from Western sanctions.

Peskov also pushed back on criticism that Russia was “weaponizing” its energy resources. “Russia was and remains a trusted source for gas deliveries and remains committed to all its contractual obligations,” he said.

But Bordoff, of Columbia University, says he thinks Russia made a misjudgment when it cut off supply to Poland and Bulgaria.

“I think using gas as a weapon, using energy as a weapon is shortsighted, self-defeating and shooting yourself in the foot from Russia’s standpoint,” he said.

“It’s why Russia, for the most part, has not used energy that way before, even at the height of the Cold War or the height of conflict between Europe and Russia.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095113387/what-russia-cutting-off-energy-to-poland-and-bulgaria-means-for-the-world

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Russia steps up assault on east Ukraine, Putin threatens countries that intervene – Reuters.com
Russia steps up assault on east Ukraine, Putin threatens countries that intervene – Reuters.com

KYIV, April 28 (Reuters) – Russia stepped up its assaults on eastern and southern Ukraine, Kyiv said on Thursday, and President Vladimir Putin threatened “lightning-fast” retaliation against any Western countries that intervene on Ukraine’s behalf.

More than two months into an invasion that has flattened cities but failed to capture the capital Kyiv, Russia has mounted a push to seize two eastern provinces in a battle the West views as a decisive turning point in the war.

“The enemy is increasing the pace of the offensive operation. The Russian occupiers are exerting intense fire in almost all directions,” Ukraine’s military command said of the situation on the main front in the east.

It said Russia’s main attack was near the towns of Slobozhanske and Donets, along a strategic frontline highway linking Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv with the Russian-occupied city of Izyum. The Kharkiv regional governor said Russian forces were intensifying attacks from Izyum, but Ukrainian troops were holding their ground.

Although Russian forces were pushed out of northern Ukraine last month, they are heavily entrenched in the east and also still hold a swathe of the south that they seized in March.

Ukraine said there were strong explosions overnight in the southern city of Kherson, the only regional capital Russia has captured since the invasion. Russian troops there used tear gas and stun grenades on Wednesday to suppress pro-Ukrainian demonstrations, and were now shelling the entire surrounding region and attacking towards Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, President Vladimir Zelenskiy’s southern home city, Ukraine said.

Kyiv accuses Moscow of planning to stage a fake independence referendum in the occupied south. Russian state media quoted an official from a self-styled pro-Russian “military-civilian commission” in Kherson on Thursday as saying the area would start using Russia’s rouble currency from May 1.

Western countries have ramped up weapons deliveries to Ukraine in recent days as the fighting in the east has intensified. More than 40 countries met this week at a U.S. air base in Germany and pledged to send heavy arms such as artillery for what is expected to be a vast battle of opposing armies along a heavily fortified front line.

Washington now says it hopes Ukrainian forces can not only repel Russia’s assault on the east, but weaken its military so that it can no longer threaten neighbours. Russia says that amounts to NATO waging “proxy war” against it.

“If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast,” Putin told lawmakers in St Petersburg.

“We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that.”

1/4

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the country’s oil and gas industry with representatives of Russian energy companies and officials via a video link at a residence outside Moscow, Russia April 14, 2022. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Putin’s remarks were a sign of “almost desperation, trying to broaden this either with threats or indeed, with potential false flags or attacks”.

“Having failed in nearly all his objectives,” Putin was now seeking to consolidate control of occupied territory, Wallace said. “Just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country in Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move them out of those fortified positions.”

Ukrainian troops are still holed up in a giant steel works in Mariupol, the ruined southeastern port where thousands of people have died under two months of Russian siege and bombardment. Putin claimed victory in the city last week, ordering the steel works blockaded. Kyiv has pleaded for a ceasefire to let civilians and wounded soldiers escape.

“As long as we’re here and holding the defence… the city is not theirs,” Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, told Reuters in video link from an undisclosed location beneath the huge factory.

“The tactic (now) is like a medieval siege. We’re encircled, they are no longer throwing lots of forces to break our defensive line. They’re conducting air strikes.”

More than 5 million refugees have fled abroad since Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbour and defeat nationalists there. The West calls that a bogus pretext for a war of aggression.

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks on Thursday in support of Ukrainians, the White House said.

While Russia presses its military assault in eastern and southern Ukraine, its economic battle with the West threatens gas supplies to Europe and is battering the Russian economy.

On Wednesday, Moscow halted gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria for refusing to pay for supplies in roubles, its first big retaliatory strike against sanctions. The president of the European Commission called the move “blackmail”.

“The sooner everyone in Europe recognises that they cannot depend on Russia for trade, the sooner it will be possible to guarantee stability in European markets,” Zelenskiy said in an overnight address.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europe-denounces-gas-blackmail-sanctions-batter-russian-economy-2022-04-28/

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DHS Secretary Mayorkas faces a partisan divide over Title 42 in Capitol Hill hearings – NPR
DHS Secretary Mayorkas faces a partisan divide over Title 42 in Capitol Hill hearings – NPR

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies in front of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. The secretary is expected to face more heated partisan questioning in a hearing Thursday morning.

Jose Luis Magana/AP


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Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testifies in front of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. The secretary is expected to face more heated partisan questioning in a hearing Thursday morning.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Political divisions over lifting Title 42 are expected to play out on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.

The public health order has been blocking many migrants at the border since the start of the COVID pandemic. And while the Department of Homeland Security has released a detailed plan on how to handle the likely influx of migrants expected at the border once Title 42 lifts on May 23, Republicans and some Democrats have been vocal that the plan isn’t enough.

Today, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will address the administration’s plan in front of the House Judiciary Committee, known for its heated partisan confrontations.

On Wednesday, Mayorkas testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee and was met with aggressive questioning from Republicans who repeatedly used the word failure to describe the administration’s handling of the border. Some Republicans called on the secretary to resign.

Mayorkas, though, said the administration has “effectively” managed the border and underscored the recent high volume of migrant encounters is in part due to recidivism from the same migrants seeking entry multiple times.

He also said the country’s immigration system is broken and that only Congress can fix it.

It’s also likely that Mayorkas could face questions from Democrats who support lifting Title 42 and have been critical of any attempts to delay to ending the order.

Progressive Democrats, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Veronica Escobar of Texas, are planning to hold a news conference after Mayorkas testifies tomorrow afternoon.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/04/28/1095115181/dhs-secretary-mayorkas-faces-a-partisan-divide-over-title-42-in-capitol-hill-hea

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Trump unleashes his temper on GOP allies over Ohio Senate primary split – CNN
Trump unleashes his temper on GOP allies over Ohio Senate primary split – CNN

Not since Anthony Scaramucci was fired a mere 10 days into his White House gig has someone fallen out of Donald Trump’s favor as quickly as David McIntosh.

At an April 9 rally in North Carolina, the former President appeared delighted with the Club for Growth chief. “He’s a winner. He’s a fighter. We are undefeated when we work together,” Trump said as he welcomed the conservative power broker onstage.

“You are a great man. … I am so proud to partner with you,” McIntosh replied.

But the duo’s partnership came to a screeching halt last week after the Club for Growth refused to end its negative ad campaign against Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance at the former President’s behest and doubled down with new ads against the Trump-backed “Hillbilly Elegy” author. The group has backed former state treasurer Josh Mandel in the heated Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Sen. Rob Portman.

Unnerved by McIntosh’s defiance, Trump reportedly asked an intermediary to deliver a curt text message to him.

“Go f— yourself,” it read.

The two men haven’t spoken since, according to a person close to Trump. On Wednesday, the Club launched a new ad once again targeting Vance for his past criticism of Trump and highlighting Trump’s past endorsement of Mitt Romney’s 2018 Senate campaign in Utah.

McIntosh’s swift exile from Trump World has now left some Republican candidates reeling. Meanwhile, four people familiar with the situation said the Club for Growth is grappling with frustrated board members and donors, who worry its influence will plunge if it doesn’t quickly patch things up with Trump. It’s the latest episode in the former President’s quest for singular influence over the GOP, further underscoring Trump’s expectation that allies either bend to his will or get out of his way.

But even if the Club acquiesced to regain its foothold in Trump’s post-presidency operation, some of his allies plan to urge the former President to keep the group at arm’s length.

“The Club for Growth is the single most destructive force among these outside groups in Republican politics. If you just go down the list of any policy that is at the core of Trump’s economic plan – except for corporate tax cuts – they oppose it,” said former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, whose “War Room” podcast has long been a platform for the Club’s most fervent critics.

“The Club for Globalists is basically one of a class … that basically push this globalist elitist agenda that is night to the day of … Donald Trump and the MAGA movement,” former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on one episode of the program.

Another person close to Trump, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said the group’s firm resistance to protectionist trade and industrial policies doesn’t align with the MAGA platform.

“Trump has been fooled by McIntosh, and I think he’s realizing that,” this person said.

A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment on the situation.

Club for Growth spokesman Joe Kildea said McIntosh and Trump have “worked well together in the past and will in the future,” before declining to respond to further requests for comment.

Kildea also noted that the group intends to continue supporting Mandel and Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks, whom Trump rescinded his endorsement for in March over the congressman’s desire to move on from the 2020 election.

“We’re glad to have the Club’s support and it doesn’t change much of what we’re doing here,” Brooks campaign press secretary Will Hampson said.

‘A target on his back’

Some Trump aides and allies said the former President’s relationship with McIntosh was already in trouble before the Club doubled down on its Ohio strategy.

In recent months, they said, Trump privately complained about an imbalance in the relationship even as the group spent millions to prop up Trump-backed candidates in difficult primaries who have received minimal contributions from Trump himself. While the former President continued to host McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman, at Mar-a-Lago to solicit his advice on different contests and candidates, he simultaneously griped to allies that the Club chief wasn’t fully committed to his 2022 recruits.

Trump has been especially annoyed, one ally said, that the Club has not endorsed or lent assistance to Wyoming congressional hopeful Harriet Hageman, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney in one of the former President’s highest-profile efforts to oust his foes inside the GOP.

“They spend money when they get Trump to endorse candidates that they want, but they haven’t lifted a finger for the things that just Trump wants,” said the Trump ally.

Two people familiar with the matter said the former President had also recently gotten wind that McIntosh was telling friends and Republican candidates he would be a top candidate for White House chief of staff if Trump runs successfully for president in 2024. Trump, who cycled through four chiefs of staff during his time in office, has been known to grow irritated with people who claim to be closer to him than they actually are.

“(McIntosh) was pushing the narrative that he was the gatekeeper for Trump endorsements, which inevitably got back to Trump, and that put a target on his back,” said one Trump adviser.

In another instance, Trump became annoyed with McIntosh when he arrived for a meeting, with Mandel in tow. Trump, who had not invited the Ohio Senate hopeful to join, was caught off guard, said one of the people close to him.

The Trump Jr. factor

Though the former President has refrained from chastising McIntosh in public so far, his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has made every effort to turn his father’s supporters against the Club for Growth and is now actively campaigning against Mandel in the final days before Ohio’s primary next week.

Trump has done nothing to stop his son’s public crusade against either the Club or Mandel, who aggressively sought the former President’s endorsement before Trump announced his support of Vance.

In tweets, videos and campaign trail appearances, the younger Trump has cast the Club as dove-ish on China and establishment-friendly – two cardinal sins in the MAGA universe. In the midst of the Club’s refusal to take down its anti-Vance ads last week, Trump Jr. shared a video on Twitter portraying Mandel as cozy with a trio of establishment icons: Romney, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and the late Arizona Sen. John McCain.

“Ohio friends – Meet the real @JoshMandelOhio. The Club for Chinese Growth backed establishment candidate in the #OHSen race,” he wrote above the clip.

A person close to Trump Jr., who spent Monday accompanying Vance to a series of town halls in Ohio, said he did not initially plan to invoke Mandel’s name on the campaign trail but changed his calculus following the Club’s actions. He is now weighing whether to oppose Club-backed candidates, too. Trump Jr. has repeatedly criticized the group during his appearances with Vance, telling audiences that the Club spent millions during the 2016 presidential election to stop his father from becoming the GOP nominee. (The group did spend roughly $7 million against Trump during the 2016 cycle and at one point described the then-candidate as “the worst kind of politician” following a tense meeting with him at Trump Tower).

However, this same person said Trump Jr. does not plan to target candidates whom he supports and who previously received Club endorsements – namely US Rep. Ted Budd and venture capitalist Blake Masters, who are running for Senate in North Carolina and Arizona, respectively.

But that hasn’t stopped a flurry of candidates and donors to the Club from voicing concerns about the group’s fractured relationship with the 45th president.

Two people familiar with the matter said one Trump-aligned consultant received calls from multiple GOP candidates, who were concerned that Trump Jr. would come after them because of their affiliation with the Club. One of these people, who works on a high-profile Senate campaign, said their candidate stopped soliciting an endorsement from the Club, seeing it as a potential political liability.

One Club donor, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said McIntosh should have defused the situation with Trump instead of doubling down with a bigger ad buy against Vance. This donor declined to say whether they had shared their frustrations directly with McIntosh, noting only that they want to see him repair his relationship with the former President.

Past endorsements

Long before the Club found itself pitted against Trump in the Ohio Senate primary, it endorsed other candidates competing against Trump-backed opponents.

In addition to sticking by Brooks after Trump withdrew his endorsement of the Alabama Senate hopeful, the group has endorsed former US Rep. Matt Salmon in Arizona’s gubernatorial primary – placing it in direct opposition to former news anchor Kari Lake, who has Trump’s enthusiastic support.

The Club’s PAC also endorsed Texas Rep. Chip Roy in his bid for reelection. Trump, by comparison, denounced Roy’s leadership ambitions last year and has not endorsed the congressman, who voted to certify the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.

“He has not done a great job and will probably be successfully primaried in his own district,” Trump said of Roy last May while the Texas congressman was weighing a challenge to New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for House GOP conference chair.

The Club previously has drawn the ire of Trump and his advisers after they were left feeling like McIntosh convinced Trump to take the wrong approach in a primary. Despite claiming at his North Carolina rally to be “undefeated” when he has teamed up with the group, Trump endorsee Susan Wright lost the special election runoff for Texas’ 6th Congressional District in July to fellow Republican Jake Ellzey. Trump had been urged by advisers not to wade into the race but moved before the first round of voting to endorse Wright after McIntosh convinced him to do so.

“Trump was totally taken to the cleaners by the Club for Growth,” former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who backed Ellzey, told Axios following the runoff. “They put Donald J. Trump in jeopardy.” ​

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/trump-club-for-growth-ohio/index.html

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Disney says Florida can’t dissolve Reedy Creek’s special tax status – CBS News
Disney says Florida can’t dissolve Reedy Creek’s special tax status – CBS News

The feud between Ron DeSantis and Florida’s largest private employer now centers on whether the state can legally dissolve the special tax district that governs Walt Disney World, as the governor and local lawmakers did last week.

The sparring began after DeSantis last month signed a controversial bill barring schools from instructing children in kindergarten through third grade on issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Disney CEO Bob Chapek initially tried to stay out of the heated public debate over the measure, derided by critics as the “Don’t say Gay” law. But with pressure growing from inside the company to oppose the measure, he eventually came out publicly against the measure at his company’s annual shareholders meeting in March.

The Republican governor responded by seeking to tarnish Disney as “woke,” and moved to end the special status that allows the resort to effectively run as its own municipal government on the 39-square mile property it owns, called the Reedy Creek Improvement District.

Making its only public statement since the Republican governor and lawmakers directed their ire at Disney, the company this week expressed confidence to investors that the state could not legally void its 55-year arrangement so long as the Reedy Creek district’s bond debt was not paid off. 

As a result, the bid to disband the special tax district in Orange and Osceola counties would break an agreement made by Florida when it created the district in 1967, the company signaled. 

Posted on the website of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on April 21, Disney stated: “In light of the state of Florida’s pledge to the district’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties.” 

Florida is contractually obligated not to get involved with the district until the bond debt is paid off, Jacob Schumer, a municipal attorney with Maitland, Florida, law firm Shepard, Smith, Kohlmyer & Hand, told CBS MoneyWatch.

“The task of dissolving a special district and dividing its responsibilities between two counties is tremendous,” he said. 


Disney World’s special tax status may not be in jeopardy, reporter says

06:27

Disney did not respond to a request for comment. The employs about 80,000 people at the resort, which includes multiple theme parks, hotels and its own bus fleet. 

The political brouhaha is likely to continue, with DeSantis signaling that he is ready to press the fight with Disney.

“The governor’s team is working on administering this legislation which is designed to level the playing field for businesses in Florida. When we have more to share on our path forward, we will be glad to send it along. As the governor has consistently stated, Floridians will not have to carry Disney’s burdens,” a spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch in an email. 

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/disney-florida-special-tax-status-walt-disney-world-reedy-creek/

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US says credible reports indicate Russians executed surrendering Ukrainians – Axios
US says credible reports indicate Russians executed surrendering Ukrainians – Axios

The U.S. has “credible information” that a Russian military unit in Ukraine’s Donetsk region “executed Ukrainians who were attempting to surrender, rather than take them into custody,” a top American official told the United Nations Wednesday.

What they’re saying: “If true, this would be a violation of a core principle of the laws of war,” said Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice in remarks to the UN Security Council.

  • Specifically, “the prohibition against the summary execution of civilians and combatants who are hors de combat by virtue of surrender, injury, or other forms of incapacitation,” she said.
  • Van Schaack added that the U.S. also has “credible reports of individuals killed execution-style with their hands bound; bodies showing signs of torture; horrific accounts of sexual violence against women and girls.”

The bottom line: “These images and reports suggest that atrocities are not the result of rogue units or individuals; they, rather, reveal a deeply disturbing pattern of systematic abuse across all areas where Russia’s forces are engaged,” Van Schaack said.

The big picture: The International Criminal Court and others are investigating whether Russian forces have committed war crimes and other human rights violations in Ukraine.

  • President Biden accused Putin’s forces earlier this month of committing “genocide” in Ukraine, but the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that its forces have committed any war crimes in the country.
  • The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that its military has committed any atrocities in Ukraine.

Between the lines: War crimes have been historically hard to investigate and often even more challenging to prosecute, per Axios’ Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath.

Go deeper: What counts as a war crime and why they’re so hard to prosecute

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/russian-troops-executed-surrendering-ukrainians-us-report-746990f0-bb72-48d3-becc-2981f6c1225c.html

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Putin threatens ‘lightning fast’ retaliation if nations intervene; UK says West must ‘double down’ on Ukraine support, UK says – CNBC
Putin threatens ‘lightning fast’ retaliation if nations intervene; UK says West must ‘double down’ on Ukraine support, UK says – CNBC

LIVE UPDATES

This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates. 

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has warned the West of a “lightning fast” response to any country intervening in the Ukraine war and creating “strategic threats for Russia.”

“We have all the instruments [to respond] that no one can boast of … we’re going to use them if we have to,” he said, in what has widely been seen as an allusion to Russia’s arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

Russia shocked the European community by halting gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday because they had refused to pay for the gas in Russian rubles, as Moscow demanded.

The move comes as tensions remain high between Western allies and Russia after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said the threat of a nuclear war is very significant and the risks should not be underestimated.

Exxon reportedly declared force majeure on Sakhalin-1 operations

Exxon Mobil’s Russian unit Exxon Neftegas has declared force majeure on its Sakhalin-1 operations, Reuters reported.

In a written response to Reuters, a spokesperson said Exxon is taking steps to exit the oil and gas project, which includes addressing contractual and commercial obligations.

The company previously said it would cease operations in Russia, including exiting the project.

Reuters reported that stakeholders in the project encounter increasing difficulty in shipping crude oil from the region due to sanctions on Russia, fear of reputational risk and trouble finding insurance coverage.

— Chelsea Ong

‘We would never feel safe again’ if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, UK says

The fate of Ukraine is hanging in the balance and Western allies must “double down” on their support for the country to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine, the U.K.’s foreign secretary said Wednesday.

“Ukraine’s victory is a strategic imperative for us all,” Liz Truss said in a speech in London last night, as she argued the Group of Seven industrialized nations and their allies need to maintain pressure on Russia through tougher sanctions, including “cutting off oil and gas imports once and for all,” providing further military aid, and continued humanitarian support.

“If Putin succeeds there will be untold further misery across Europe and terrible consequences across the globe,” she said, adding that “we would never feel safe again.”

“So we must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine,” she said. Truss’ comments come at a time when tensions between Western nations and Russia have risen significantly, with President Vladimir Putin warning that Russia will retaliate against any intervention in the Ukraine war.

— Holly Ellyatt

Blinken says Europe has ‘ambitious’ plans to cut energy reliance on Russia

European countries have ‘genuinely ambitious’ plans to reduce their reliance on Russian energy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, adding that ‘further progress’ was expected on Russian oil imports in the coming weeks.

“The Europeans have, I think, genuinely ambitious plans to move away from this reliance on Russian energy. The challenge is to put them into effect,” Blinken said at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Around half of Russia’s 4.7 million barrels per day of crude exports go to the EU. Cutting them off would deprive Moscow of a major revenue stream.

“I think you are likely to see in the coming weeks further progress on the oil side of the equation in terms of Russian imports. Gas is a bigger challenge,” he added.

The European Union is considering options to cut imports of Russian oil as part of possible further sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, but none has been formally proposed as governments assess their impact.

— Reuters

White House set to make ‘massive’ funding request for more Ukraine aid

The White House is preparing to send a request to Congress for additional Ukraine aid as early as Thursday, administration officials confirmed to NBC News.

Officials described the amount of the request as “massive” but would not provide a specific dollar amount as some of the details have not been finalized.

The officials said the dollar amount sought should be able to fund U.S. support for Ukraine through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends in September. Since Russia’s late February invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has authorized $3.4 billion in military assistance.

Last week, President Joe Biden said that he was running out of funding authorized by Congress and would soon send a request to lawmakers.

The latest military aid package of $800 million, which is the eighth installment of aid, comes after eight weeks of war and as Russian forces prepare for a renewed fight in the east and south of Ukraine.

— Amanda Macias

Putin threatens to retaliate against anyone who interferes with war in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned world leaders against interfering with what he continues to call a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I want to stress once more, the special military operation in the Ukraine and Donbas, which started in February, all the objectives will be definitely carried out to guarantee the security of people in the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, the Russian Crimea and all our country,” Putin said before Russia’s Council of Legislators in St Petersburg.

He said Russia’s military prevented a “real threat, which was hanging over our motherland.” Putin added that the Kremlin would retaliate against anyone who interfered with the ongoing military operation.

“Our response, our retaliation, those attacks will be lightning-fast. We have all instruments for that. Such instruments that no one can boast of … and we’re going to use them if we have to. I want everybody to know that,” Putin said.

It was not immediately clear what was meant by instruments. Putin also said the rafts of global sanctions against Russia have failed to “strangle us economically.”

— Amanda Macias

Read CNBC’s previous live coverage here:

UN chief arrives in Kyiv after Moscow stop; Russia releases U.S. Marine veteran Trevor Reed

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/28/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

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What’s behind Russia cutting off natural gas to Bulgaria and Poland? – CBS News
What’s behind Russia cutting off natural gas to Bulgaria and Poland? – CBS News

Russia’s Gazprom says it is halting natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, escalating tensions between the Kremlin and Europe over energy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and adding new urgency to plans to reduce and then end the continent’s dependence on Russia as a supplier of oil and gas.

Here are key things to know about the natural gas situation in Europe:

What did Russia do?

State-controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom said it was cutting off Poland and Bulgaria because they refused to pay in Russian rubles, as President Vladimir Putin has demanded.

European leaders say natural gas contracts spell out payment in euros or dollars and that can’t be suddenly changed by one side. Poland has taken long-term steps to insulate itself from a cutoff, such as building an import terminal for liquefied gas that comes by ship, and had planned to cancel its import deal with Gazprom at year’s end anyway. Bulgaria says it has enough gas for now.

Still, the open questions about what the change could mean have sent shudders through energy markets, raising uncertainty about whether natural gas could be cut off to other European countries and cause a major hit to the economy.

“President Putin’s decree that gas payments made by ‘unfriendly’ countries must be denominated in rubles raises the risk that supply could be cut off to other European countries when payments are due in the next few weeks,” Edward Gardner of Capital Economics said in a report.

The Kremlin warned of that possibility if countries don’t pay for energy supplies in rubles. But Russia also relies on oil and gas sales to fund its government as sanctions have squeezed its financial system.

Under the new payment system, the Kremlin has said importers would have to establish an account in dollars or euros at Russia’s third-largest bank, Gazprombank, then a second account in rubles. The importer would pay the gas bill in euros or dollars and direct the bank to exchange the money for rubles.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that paying in rubles violates European Union sanctions and that companies with contracts “should not accede to the Russian demands.”

What is Putin after?

Because Putin’s order for ruble payments targets “unfriendly countries,” it can be seen as retaliation for the sanctions that have cut off many Russian banks from international financial transactions and led some Western companies to abandon their businesses in Russia.

“Gazprom’s decision to suspend deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria from today over their refusal to pay for Russian gas in rubles marks an escalation in Russia’s use of gas as political leverage,” Gardner wrote. 

The economic motives for demanding rubles aren’t clear because Gazprom already has to sell 80% of its foreign earnings for rubles, so the boost to Russia’s currency could be minimal. One motive could be political, to show the public at home that Putin can dictate the terms of gas exports. And by requiring payments through Gazprombank, the move could discourage further sanctions against that bank.

If Putin was looking for a pretext to cut off countries that have supported Ukraine, this could serve that function. Russia is still sending gas to Hungary — whose populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has agreed to Putin’s payment arrangement — on the same pipeline system.

“The Russian move is almost certainly a response to increasing levels of Western support to Ukraine,” analysts with Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm, said in a report. “It signals that Putin is now willing to put revenues on the line amid expansion of NATO military aid to Ukraine and amid stronger US. statements about helping Ukraine win the war.”

Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said “moving this way, Russia is leveraging EU fragmentation — it’s a divide and rule strategy … which is why we need a coordinated EU response.”

What’s the state of gas supply to Europe? 

Coordinated U.S. and European Union sanctions exempt payments for oil and gas. That is a White House concession to European allies who are much more dependent on energy from Russia, which provides 40% of Europe’s gas and 25% of its oil at a cost of $850 million a day.

Many aren’t happy that European utilities are still buying energy from Russia, which on average got 43% of its annual government revenue from oil and gas sales between 2011 and 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Russia’s decision to reduce gas sales outside of long-term contracts before the war, contributing to a winter energy crunch that drove up prices, served as a wakeup call that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy left it vulnerable. The war has meant a fast reassessment of decades of energy policy in which cheap gas from Russia supported Europe’s economy.


MoneyWatch: Europe’s reliance on Russian energy is helping fund war in Ukraine

04:25

But cutting off Europe’s natural gas doesn’t benefit Russia either.

When it comes to oil, Russia could in theory ship oil by tanker elsewhere, such as to India and China, countries that are energy hungry and not taking part in sanctions.

But gas is another matter. The gas pipeline system from major deposits in northern Russia’s Yamal Peninsula to Europe doesn’t connect to the pipeline leading to China. And Russia has only limited facilities to export liquefied gas by ship.

Could Europe survive a total gas cutoff?

Europe’s economy would struggle without Russian natural gas, although the impact would vary based on how much countries use. Economists’ estimates vary widely for lost growth for the European economy as a whole. Analysts at Moody’s said in a recent study that a total energy cutoff — gas and oil — would throw Europe into a recession.

Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is heavily dependent on Russian energy. Its central bank said a total cutoff could mean 5 percentage points of lost economic output and higher inflation.

Inflation is already at record highs, making everything from groceries to raw materials more expensive, driven by soaring energy prices.

The Bruegel think tank estimated that Europe would be 10% to 15% short of normal demand to get through the next winter heating season, meaning exceptional measures would have to be taken to reduce gas use.

What’s Europe doing to reduce reliance on Russian gas? 

European leaders have said they can’t afford the consequences of an immediate boycott. Instead, they plan to reduce Russian gas use as fast as possible. They’re ordering more liquefied natural gas, which comes by ship; seeking more gas from pipelines from places like Norway and Azerbaijan; accelerating deployment of wind and solar energy; and pushing conservation measures.

The aim is to cut use of Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year and completely by 2027. It remains to be seen if that goal can be met in practice. There’s a limit to liquefied gas supplies, with export terminals running at capacity.

Germany, which has no import terminal, is looking to build two — but that will take years. Italy, which gets 40% of its gas from Russia, has reached deals to replace about half that amount from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Angola and Congo and is looking to increase imports from Qatar. And Europe’s under pressure to restock its underground reserves in time for next winter’s heating demand.

The situation is serious enough that Germany has declared an early warning of an energy emergency, the first of three stages.


Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-gas-bulgaria-poland-europe/

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A timeline of Fauci’s predictions about the COVID pandemic – Axios
A timeline of Fauci’s predictions about the COVID pandemic – Axios

Biden’s chief medical adviser and NIAID director Anthony Fauci said this week that the U.S. is now out of the “full-blown explosive pandemic phase” — more than two years after COVID-19 was first identified in the U.S.

The big picture: Fauci, an ever-present government representative on cable news over the last two-plus years, has regularly given his predictions, expectations and analysis on the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a timeline of his remarks, consolidated for brevity’s sake.

2020
Fauci with former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence in February 2020. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

March 15, 2020: Fauci says that the U.S. “should be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting” to COVID-19.

  • “For a while, life is not going to be how it used to be in the United States,” he said. “We have to just accept that if we want to do what’s best for the American public.”

March 29, 2020: Fauci warns that models suggest that coronavirus may infect millions of Americans and could kill 100,000–200,000 people.

April 2, 2020: Fauci urges all U.S. states to implement stay-at-home orders to curb the virus, standing in stark contrast to then-President Trump’s calls for “flexibility.”

April 12, 2020: Fauci says that “no one is going to deny” that lives could have been saved during the pandemic if Trump had put in place social distancing measures before March.

  • “But it is what it is. We are where we are right now,” he added.

May 12, 2020: Fauci says unequivocally that the U.S. will “without a doubt” have more infections and deaths in the fall and winter if testing, contact tracing and social distancing measures are not ramped up.

June 6, 2020: Fauci says he’s “very concerned” about the protests that followed George Floyd’s death resulting in a surge in COVID-19 cases.

June 28, 2020: Fauci says that the efficacy of vaccinations and Americans’ opposition to the shots make herd immunity “unlikely.”

June 30, 2020: Fauci testifies that he would “not be surprised” if the U.S. begins to report as many as 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day.

  • “I’m very concerned and not satisfied with what’s going on because we’re going in the wrong direction,” he said.

Sep. 11, 2020: Fauci warns that it’s unlikely that daily life in the U.S. will go back to normal by the end of 2020, saying pre-coronavirus conditions may not return until “well into 2021, maybe even toward the end of 2021.”

Oct. 9, 2020: Fauci says that there was “a superspreader event at the White House,” referring to the celebration in the White House’s Rose Garden for the introduction of then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Oct. 18, 2020: Fauci tells CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he’s “absolutely not” surprised that Trump contracted COVID-19 after seeing him on TV in a crowded place with “almost nobody wearing a mask.”

Oct. 28, 2020: Fauci cautions that a COVID-19 vaccine will likely not be ready until at least January 2021. He adds that the U.S. is in a “bad position” after failing to keep case numbers low after summer.

2021
Fauci and President Joe Biden in February 2021, at the National Institutes of Health. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Jan. 17, 2021: Fauci commends then-President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to administer 100 million COVID-19 vaccines in 100 days as “absolutely … doable.”

Feb. 15, 2021: Fauci tells “Axios on HBO” that despite the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, emerging variants could pose a “stumbling block.”

  • “You don’t want people to become complacent. We still have a long way to go,” he said.

May 20, 2021: Fauci pleads with Americans to get vaccinated against the virus, saying if 70% of Americans receive one dose of the vaccine by July 4, “there will be enough protection in the community that I really don’t foresee there being the risk of a surge.”

June 9, 2021: Fauci urges Americans to get vaccinated to halt the spread of the Delta variant.

  • “We don’t want to let happen in the United States what is happening currently in the U.K., where you have a troublesome variant essentially taking over as the dominant variant.”

Aug. 4, 2021: Fauci fears that a deadlier strain than the one caused by Delta could be around the corner.

  • “If another [variant] comes along that has an equally high capability of transmitting but also is much more severe, then we could really be in trouble,” he said.

Aug. 12, 2021: Fauci predicts that it is “likely” that everyone will need a vaccine booster shot in the future.

Aug. 24, 2021: Fauci says that the U.S. could return to a “degree of normality” by spring of 2022 if more Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19.

Sep. 9, 2021: Fauci tells Axios that Americans are getting infected with COVID-19 at 10 times the rate needed to end the pandemic.

  • “The endgame is to suppress the virus. Right now, we’re still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That’s not even modestly good control … which means it’s a public health threat,” he said.

Nov. 17, 2021: Fauci predicts that COVID-19 could reach endemic levels in the U.S. by 2022, but added that increased vaccinations are necessary to reach this.

Nov. 28, 2021: Fauci cautions that the Omicron variant will “inevitably” be found in the United States and urges the country ramps up precautionary measures, including vaccinations, to halt the spread.

  • “If and when, and it’s going to be when, it comes here, hopefully we will be ready for it by enhancing our capabilities via vaccine, masking — all the things that we do, and should be doing,” Fauci says.

Dec. 19, 2021: Fauci predicts that the U.S. will see record numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks ahead due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

  • “We are going to see a significant stress in some regions of the country on the hospital system, particularly in those areas where you have a low level of vaccination.”

Dec. 23, 2021: Fauci warns that large gatherings during the holiday season are unsafe even for fully vaccinated people due to the Omicron variant surge. Fully vaccinated families should be safe to attend smaller gatherings, he said.

Dec. 27, 2021: Fauci encourages a COVID vaccine requirement for domestic air travel in response to the Omicron variant. “When you make vaccination a requirement, that’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” he said.

Dec. 29, 2021: Fauci cites preliminary data showing that “all indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron versus Delta” during a White House COVID-19 briefing.

Dec. 30, 2021: Fauci pleads with parents to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19 to prevent “avoidable” hospitalization.

2022
Fauci testifies on Capitol Hill in January 2021. Photo: Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images.

Jan. 23, 2022: Fauci says that he is “confident as you can be” that most U.S. states will reach a peak in Omicron coronavirus cases by mid-February.

Feb. 9, 2022: Fauci says that COVID-19 pandemic restrictions could end “soon” as he believes the virus will reach an “equilibrium.”

  • Fauci also says that the U.S. is “certainly heading out” of a particularly difficult phase of the pandemic driven largely by Omicron.

March 18, 2022: Fauci is optimistic that the BA.2 Omicron variant will likely cause an uptick in cases, but not necessarily an increase in hospitalizations or deaths.

April 27, 2022: Fauci says now the U.S was out of a “full-blown explosive pandemic phase” and into a “transitional phase” that should lead to a “more controlled phase and endemicity.”

  • However, he cautioned: “The world is still in a pandemic,” he told the Washington Post. “There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that. We are still experiencing a pandemic.”

Go deeper … COVID-19 dashboard

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/covid-timeline-told-through-fauci-predictions-d696e20d-507b-4956-8baa-2ec46e7044d1.html

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Disney says Florida can’t dissolve special tax district until debt is fully paid – Fox Business
Disney says Florida can’t dissolve special tax district until debt is fully paid – Fox Business
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Trevor Reed: Parents overjoyed at release of US Marine in Russia – BBC
Trevor Reed: Parents overjoyed at release of US Marine in Russia – BBC

On a drunken night out, he was detained by two police officers after attending a party. While being driven to the police station, he is said to have grabbed the police officer driving, causing him to swerve, and elbowed the other officer who tried to intervene.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61156745

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What’s behind Russia cutting off natural gas to Bulgaria and Poland? – CBS News
What’s behind Russia cutting off natural gas to Bulgaria and Poland? – CBS News

Russia’s Gazprom says it is halting natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, escalating tensions between the Kremlin and Europe over energy and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and adding new urgency to plans to reduce and then end the continent’s dependence on Russia as a supplier of oil and gas.

Here are key things to know about the natural gas situation in Europe:

What did Russia do?

State-controlled Russian energy giant Gazprom said it was cutting off Poland and Bulgaria because they refused to pay in Russian rubles, as President Vladimir Putin has demanded.

European leaders say natural gas contracts spell out payment in euros or dollars and that can’t be suddenly changed by one side. Poland has taken long-term steps to insulate itself from a cutoff, such as building an import terminal for liquefied gas that comes by ship, and had planned to cancel its import deal with Gazprom at year’s end anyway. Bulgaria says it has enough gas for now.

Still, the open questions about what the change could mean have sent shudders through energy markets, raising uncertainty about whether natural gas could be cut off to other European countries and cause a major hit to the economy.

“President Putin’s decree that gas payments made by ‘unfriendly’ countries must be denominated in rubles raises the risk that supply could be cut off to other European countries when payments are due in the next few weeks,” Edward Gardner of Capital Economics said in a report.

The Kremlin warned of that possibility if countries don’t pay for energy supplies in rubles. But Russia also relies on oil and gas sales to fund its government as sanctions have squeezed its financial system.

Under the new payment system, the Kremlin has said importers would have to establish an account in dollars or euros at Russia’s third-largest bank, Gazprombank, then a second account in rubles. The importer would pay the gas bill in euros or dollars and direct the bank to exchange the money for rubles.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that paying in rubles violates European Union sanctions and that companies with contracts “should not accede to the Russian demands.”

What is Putin after?

Because Putin’s order for ruble payments targets “unfriendly countries,” it can be seen as retaliation for the sanctions that have cut off many Russian banks from international financial transactions and led some Western companies to abandon their businesses in Russia.

“Gazprom’s decision to suspend deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria from today over their refusal to pay for Russian gas in rubles marks an escalation in Russia’s use of gas as political leverage,” Gardner wrote. 

The economic motives for demanding rubles aren’t clear because Gazprom already has to sell 80% of its foreign earnings for rubles, so the boost to Russia’s currency could be minimal. One motive could be political, to show the public at home that Putin can dictate the terms of gas exports. And by requiring payments through Gazprombank, the move could discourage further sanctions against that bank.

If Putin was looking for a pretext to cut off countries that have supported Ukraine, this could serve that function. Russia is still sending gas to Hungary — whose populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has agreed to Putin’s payment arrangement — on the same pipeline system.

“The Russian move is almost certainly a response to increasing levels of Western support to Ukraine,” analysts with Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm, said in a report. “It signals that Putin is now willing to put revenues on the line amid expansion of NATO military aid to Ukraine and amid stronger US. statements about helping Ukraine win the war.”

Simone Tagliapietra, an energy expert and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said “moving this way, Russia is leveraging EU fragmentation — it’s a divide and rule strategy … which is why we need a coordinated EU response.”

What’s the state of gas supply to Europe? 

Coordinated U.S. and European Union sanctions exempt payments for oil and gas. That is a White House concession to European allies who are much more dependent on energy from Russia, which provides 40% of Europe’s gas and 25% of its oil at a cost of $850 million a day.

Many aren’t happy that European utilities are still buying energy from Russia, which on average got 43% of its annual government revenue from oil and gas sales between 2011 and 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Russia’s decision to reduce gas sales outside of long-term contracts before the war, contributing to a winter energy crunch that drove up prices, served as a wakeup call that Europe’s dependence on Russian energy left it vulnerable. The war has meant a fast reassessment of decades of energy policy in which cheap gas from Russia supported Europe’s economy.


MoneyWatch: Europe’s reliance on Russian energy is helping fund war in Ukraine

04:25

But cutting off Europe’s natural gas doesn’t benefit Russia either.

When it comes to oil, Russia could in theory ship oil by tanker elsewhere, such as to India and China, countries that are energy hungry and not taking part in sanctions.

But gas is another matter. The gas pipeline system from major deposits in northern Russia’s Yamal Peninsula to Europe doesn’t connect to the pipeline leading to China. And Russia has only limited facilities to export liquefied gas by ship.

Could Europe survive a total gas cutoff?

Europe’s economy would struggle without Russian natural gas, although the impact would vary based on how much countries use. Economists’ estimates vary widely for lost growth for the European economy as a whole. Analysts at Moody’s said in a recent study that a total energy cutoff — gas and oil — would throw Europe into a recession.

Germany, the continent’s largest economy, is heavily dependent on Russian energy. Its central bank said a total cutoff could mean 5 percentage points of lost economic output and higher inflation.

Inflation is already at record highs, making everything from groceries to raw materials more expensive, driven by soaring energy prices.

The Bruegel think tank estimated that Europe would be 10% to 15% short of normal demand to get through the next winter heating season, meaning exceptional measures would have to be taken to reduce gas use.

What’s Europe doing to reduce reliance on Russian gas? 

European leaders have said they can’t afford the consequences of an immediate boycott. Instead, they plan to reduce Russian gas use as fast as possible. They’re ordering more liquefied natural gas, which comes by ship; seeking more gas from pipelines from places like Norway and Azerbaijan; accelerating deployment of wind and solar energy; and pushing conservation measures.

The aim is to cut use of Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year and completely by 2027. It remains to be seen if that goal can be met in practice. There’s a limit to liquefied gas supplies, with export terminals running at capacity.

Germany, which has no import terminal, is looking to build two — but that will take years. Italy, which gets 40% of its gas from Russia, has reached deals to replace about half that amount from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Angola and Congo and is looking to increase imports from Qatar. And Europe’s under pressure to restock its underground reserves in time for next winter’s heating demand.

The situation is serious enough that Germany has declared an early warning of an energy emergency, the first of three stages.


Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-gas-bulgaria-poland-europe/

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Disney-governed district in Florida responds to efforts to dissolve it – NBC News
Disney-governed district in Florida responds to efforts to dissolve it – NBC News
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A timeline of Fauci’s predictions about the COVID pandemic – Axios
A timeline of Fauci’s predictions about the COVID pandemic – Axios

Biden’s chief medical adviser and NIAID director Anthony Fauci said this week that the U.S. is now out of the “full-blown explosive pandemic phase” — more than two years after COVID-19 was first identified in the U.S.

The big picture: Fauci, an ever-present government representative on cable news over the last two-plus years, has regularly given his predictions, expectations and analysis on the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a timeline of his remarks, consolidated for brevity’s sake.

2020
Fauci with former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence in February 2020. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

March 15, 2020: Fauci says that the U.S. “should be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting” to COVID-19.

  • “For a while, life is not going to be how it used to be in the United States,” he said. “We have to just accept that if we want to do what’s best for the American public.”

March 29, 2020: Fauci warns that models suggest that coronavirus may infect millions of Americans and could kill 100,000–200,000 people.

April 2, 2020: Fauci urges all U.S. states to implement stay-at-home orders to curb the virus, standing in stark contrast to then-President Trump’s calls for “flexibility.”

April 12, 2020: Fauci says that “no one is going to deny” that lives could have been saved during the pandemic if Trump had put in place social distancing measures before March.

  • “But it is what it is. We are where we are right now,” he added.

May 12, 2020: Fauci says unequivocally that the U.S. will “without a doubt” have more infections and deaths in the fall and winter if testing, contact tracing and social distancing measures are not ramped up.

June 6, 2020: Fauci says he’s “very concerned” about the protests that followed George Floyd’s death resulting in a surge in COVID-19 cases.

June 28, 2020: Fauci says that the efficacy of vaccinations and Americans’ opposition to the shots make herd immunity “unlikely.”

June 30, 2020: Fauci testifies that he would “not be surprised” if the U.S. begins to report as many as 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day.

  • “I’m very concerned and not satisfied with what’s going on because we’re going in the wrong direction,” he said.

Sep. 11, 2020: Fauci warns that it’s unlikely that daily life in the U.S. will go back to normal by the end of 2020, saying pre-coronavirus conditions may not return until “well into 2021, maybe even toward the end of 2021.”

Oct. 9, 2020: Fauci says that there was “a superspreader event at the White House,” referring to the celebration in the White House’s Rose Garden for the introduction of then-Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Oct. 18, 2020: Fauci tells CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he’s “absolutely not” surprised that Trump contracted COVID-19 after seeing him on TV in a crowded place with “almost nobody wearing a mask.”

Oct. 28, 2020: Fauci cautions that a COVID-19 vaccine will likely not be ready until at least January 2021. He adds that the U.S. is in a “bad position” after failing to keep case numbers low after summer.

2021
Fauci and President Joe Biden in February 2021, at the National Institutes of Health. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Jan. 17, 2021: Fauci commends then-President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to administer 100 million COVID-19 vaccines in 100 days as “absolutely … doable.”

Feb. 15, 2021: Fauci tells “Axios on HBO” that despite the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, emerging variants could pose a “stumbling block.”

  • “You don’t want people to become complacent. We still have a long way to go,” he said.

May 20, 2021: Fauci pleads with Americans to get vaccinated against the virus, saying if 70% of Americans receive one dose of the vaccine by July 4, “there will be enough protection in the community that I really don’t foresee there being the risk of a surge.”

June 9, 2021: Fauci urges Americans to get vaccinated to halt the spread of the Delta variant.

  • “We don’t want to let happen in the United States what is happening currently in the U.K., where you have a troublesome variant essentially taking over as the dominant variant.”

Aug. 4, 2021: Fauci fears that a deadlier strain than the one caused by Delta could be around the corner.

  • “If another [variant] comes along that has an equally high capability of transmitting but also is much more severe, then we could really be in trouble,” he said.

Aug. 12, 2021: Fauci predicts that it is “likely” that everyone will need a vaccine booster shot in the future.

Aug. 24, 2021: Fauci says that the U.S. could return to a “degree of normality” by spring of 2022 if more Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19.

Sep. 9, 2021: Fauci tells Axios that Americans are getting infected with COVID-19 at 10 times the rate needed to end the pandemic.

  • “The endgame is to suppress the virus. Right now, we’re still in pandemic mode, because we have 160,000 new infections a day. That’s not even modestly good control … which means it’s a public health threat,” he said.

Nov. 17, 2021: Fauci predicts that COVID-19 could reach endemic levels in the U.S. by 2022, but added that increased vaccinations are necessary to reach this.

Nov. 28, 2021: Fauci cautions that the Omicron variant will “inevitably” be found in the United States and urges the country ramps up precautionary measures, including vaccinations, to halt the spread.

  • “If and when, and it’s going to be when, it comes here, hopefully we will be ready for it by enhancing our capabilities via vaccine, masking — all the things that we do, and should be doing,” Fauci says.

Dec. 19, 2021: Fauci predicts that the U.S. will see record numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks ahead due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

  • “We are going to see a significant stress in some regions of the country on the hospital system, particularly in those areas where you have a low level of vaccination.”

Dec. 23, 2021: Fauci warns that large gatherings during the holiday season are unsafe even for fully vaccinated people due to the Omicron variant surge. Fully vaccinated families should be safe to attend smaller gatherings, he said.

Dec. 27, 2021: Fauci encourages a COVID vaccine requirement for domestic air travel in response to the Omicron variant. “When you make vaccination a requirement, that’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” he said.

Dec. 29, 2021: Fauci cites preliminary data showing that “all indications point to a lesser severity of Omicron versus Delta” during a White House COVID-19 briefing.

Dec. 30, 2021: Fauci pleads with parents to get their children vaccinated against COVID-19 to prevent “avoidable” hospitalization.

2022
Fauci testifies on Capitol Hill in January 2021. Photo: Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images.

Jan. 23, 2022: Fauci says that he is “confident as you can be” that most U.S. states will reach a peak in Omicron coronavirus cases by mid-February.

Feb. 9, 2022: Fauci says that COVID-19 pandemic restrictions could end “soon” as he believes the virus will reach an “equilibrium.”

  • Fauci also says that the U.S. is “certainly heading out” of a particularly difficult phase of the pandemic driven largely by Omicron.

March 18, 2022: Fauci is optimistic that the BA.2 Omicron variant will likely cause an uptick in cases, but not necessarily an increase in hospitalizations or deaths.

April 27, 2022: Fauci says now the U.S was out of a “full-blown explosive pandemic phase” and into a “transitional phase” that should lead to a “more controlled phase and endemicity.”

  • However, he cautioned: “The world is still in a pandemic,” he told the Washington Post. “There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that. We are still experiencing a pandemic.”

Go deeper … COVID-19 dashboard

Source Article from https://www.axios.com/covid-timeline-told-through-fauci-predictions-d696e20d-507b-4956-8baa-2ec46e7044d1.html

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Ukraine-Russia War News: Live Updates – The New York Times
Ukraine-Russia War News: Live Updates – The New York Times

Even as news of a U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange offered a glimmer of hope for diplomatic engagement, Mr. Putin warned that he would order more “counterstrikes” against any adversaries that “create threats of a strategic nature unacceptable to Russia.”

At the same time, a series of explosions across Ukraine’s borders stoked fears that the war, now in its third month, might spread. Blasts were reported in three Russian districts on Wednesday morning, and suspicion fell on Ukrainian forces, which are benefiting from increasingly sophisticated weapons and intelligence from the United States and its allies.

Those blasts came a day after explosions shook Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova, on Ukraine’s southwestern flank. Some analysts — and Ukrainian and Moldovan officials — said it was likely that Russia, which has thousands of troops in Transnistria, had orchestrated the explosions to create a pretext to invade Ukraine from that direction.

Taken together, the developments raised the risk of worse to come.

“What’s the ‘so what’ of this escalatory cycle? Further escalation becomes more likely as animosity builds,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting organization. “The chance that Russia hits a staging facility in Poland goes up. The risk that NATO supplies aircraft to Ukraine goes up. Ukraine could strike bigger targets in Russia. Moscow could cut gas to more European nations.”

Economists warned that Europe could face a sharp slowdown of growth if the cutoff of sales by Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas company, spreads — or if Europe imposes an embargo on Russian gas. European natural gas prices surged as much as 28 percent on Wednesday and the euro’s value fell below $1.06 for the first time in five years on rising concerns about energy security and a slowdown in European growth. The currency has fallen nearly 4 percent against the U.S. dollar in April alone.

Gazprom’s stated reason for halting gas deliveries was the refusal by Poland and Bulgaria to pay in rubles, a new requirement Russia announced last month, despite the fact that its foreign contracts generally call for payment in dollars or euros. Most European buyers have not complied, which would subvert European Union financial sanctions imposed on Russia after the Ukraine invasion and help prop up the battered ruble.

The European Union had been preparing for the possibility that Russia might halt natural gas deliveries, said Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. Nonetheless, she told a news conference, the Russian move was an attempt “to use gas as an instrument of blackmail.”

Poland and Bulgaria will quickly receive gas supplies from neighboring E.U. countries to compensate for the loss of Russian gas, she said, declaring that “the era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.”

Both Poland and Bulgaria said the Russian cutoff would have little impact. In Poland, where electricity is largely generated with coal, not gas, the government sought to assuage any public fears. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki assured Poles that gas storage tanks were three-quarters full — much higher than in other countries.

And if the Kremlin’s plan was to intimidate Poland and Bulgaria with a future of unheated homes and cold meals in the hope of fracturing Western unity to aid Ukraine, it may have miscalculated. On a sunny spring day in Warsaw, the Polish capital, many people reacted with shrugs to the news — mixed with disbelief that anyone would ever view Russia as a trustworthy supplier.

“We have nothing to worry about if the weather stays like this,” said Joanna Gres, a ballet dancer with a troupe attached to the Polish military.

Bulgaria, too, has sufficient gas supplies for the next month, Alexander Nikolov, the energy minister, told Bulgarian news media, vowing that the country would “not negotiate under pressure and with its head bowed. ”

A top German official said the flow of Russian gas to Germany, Russia’s biggest energy customer, remained steady, while adding that the country could live off existing reserves until at least next winter.

Russia announced the cutoff a day after 40 U.S.-led allies met at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany and pledged to provide Ukraine with long-term military aid, following a weekend visit to the country by top Biden administration officials who said they want to see Russia not only defeated but degraded militarily.

That toughened American message is viewed by Mr. Putin and his subordinates as validation of their argument that the Ukraine war is really about the American desire to weaken Russia, and they are indirectly at war with NATO.

Despite fears of a broadened war, there was also a small measure of cooperation on Wednesday between Russia and the United States, which announced a prisoner swap.

They confirmed that Trevor R. Reed, a former Marine convicted on charges that his family said were bogus, had been freed, an unexpected diplomatic success. Mr. Reed, first detained in 2019, was released in exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced to a lengthy term in the United States on cocaine-trafficking charges.

Trevor R. Reed before a hearing in Moscow in 2020.Credit…Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters

Other Americans remain in detention in Russia, including Paul Whelan, who was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison on espionage charges during a trial that was closed to the public; and Brittney Griner, a basketball star arrested in mid-February on drug charges that could carry a sentence of up to 10 years.

Neither the American nor Russian sides gave any indication that the exchange signaled a broader diplomatic effort to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis.

Sehii Schevchuuk with some of the abandoned dogs he cares for as water boils in front of his bombed-out apartment block in the Kyiv suburb of Horenka on Wednesday.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Ukraine appeared to have attempted to strike deeper into Russian territory overnight, although officials on both sides were vague about the details. Three local governors described drone flights and explosions as attacks.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a close adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, also described the explosions inside Russia as attacks on sites that Russia had used to launch the invasion, but he attributed them to “karma” — not the Ukrainian military.

As described by the three Russian governors and Russian media, an ammunition depot was set afire near Belgorod, a city less than 20 miles from the border, two explosions were reported in Voronezh, nearly 200 miles from the border, and a Ukrainian drone was shot down over Kursk, about 70 miles from the border. If Ukraine was responsible, the attacks in Kursk and Voronezh would be the deepest inside Russia since the Feb. 24 invasion.

In Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary for Mr. Putin’s security council, urged Russian officials across a wide swath of the southwestern region near Ukraine to ensure emergency alerts and civil defense facilities were “working reliably.”

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has generally declined to discuss reports of attacks on Russian soil. Ukrainian officials have, for example, declined to comment on Russia’s claim that two Ukrainian helicopters fired on an oil depot in Belgorod in early April. In more than two months of war, the fighting has largely been contained within Ukraine’s borders.

Over the past few weeks Russian forces have concentrated on a full-scale assault in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, where analysts say Russia is making slow and measured advances on the ground as it confronts entrenched Ukrainian troops.

The pace of Russia’s ground assault appears more planned and deliberate than the initial invasion in February, which aimed at seizing more Ukrainian territory and depended on swift advances of tanks ­— a strategy that failed, at great cost to Russian forces.

Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern Luhansk region in February, before the Russian invasion.Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Military analysts with the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington research group, said in their Tuesday assessment that Russian forces had “adopted a sounder pattern of operational movement in eastern Ukraine,” which is allowing them to “bring more combat power to bear” in their narrower goal of capturing just the eastern region.

Ukrainian troops have been defending positions in Donbas region since 2014, when secessionists there, backed by Russia, declared themselves the Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Brussels, Neil MacFarquhar from Istanbul, and Shashank Bengali and Megan Specia from London. Reporting was contributed by Andrew Higgins from Warsaw, Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia, Cora Engelbrechtfrom Krakow, Poland, Liz Aldermanfrom Paris, Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine, Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/27/world/ukraine-russia-war-news

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14-year-old Chippewa Falls boy arrested in Lily Peters homicide, ordered held on $1 million bail – Post-Crescent
14-year-old Chippewa Falls boy arrested in Lily Peters homicide, ordered held on $1 million bail – Post-Crescent

Editor’s note: This report contains information about a violent assault that could cause trauma for some readers. Discretion is advised.

CHIPPEWA FALLS – A 14-year-old boy followed 10-year-old Iliana Peters out of her aunt’s home Sunday night in Chippewa Falls, then strangled and sexually assaulted her on a walking trail where her body was found the next morning, prosecutors alleged Wednesday. 

The boy, who has been identified only by the initials CPB, appeared by video Wednesday in a Chippewa County courtroom where a judge set his bail at $1 million.

The case drew national attention Monday after Chippewa Falls police reported the girl, who went by Lily, was missing and pleaded for tips from the public. Her body was found later Monday morning in a wooded area near the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. property. She was a fourth-grader at Parkview Elementary School, where fellow students and others decorated fences and left memorials after learning of her death.

Source Article from https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/crime/2022/04/27/chippewa-falls-boy-arrested-lily-peters-homicide-court-appearance-judge-orders-1-million-bail/9556846002/

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EU nations accuse Russia of using natural gas as ‘blackmail’ – The Associated Press
EU nations accuse Russia of using natural gas as ‘blackmail’ – The Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish and Bulgarian leaders accused Moscow of using natural gas to blackmail their countries after Russia’s state-controlled energy company stopped supplying them with gas Wednesday. European Union leaders echoed those comments and were holding an emergency meeting on the Russian move.

The gas cutoff to Poland and Bulgaria came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “unfriendly” countries would need to start paying for gas in rubles, Russia’s currency, which Bulgaria and Poland refused to do.

Russian energy giant Gazprom said in a statement that it hadn’t received any payments from Poland and Bulgaria since April 1 and was suspending their deliveries starting Wednesday. And if those countries siphon off Russian gas intended for other European customers, Gazprom said deliveries to Europe will be reduced by that amount.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the announcement by Gazprom “is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail.”

Europe is not without some leverage in the dispute, since it pays Russia $400 million a day for gas, money Putin would lose with a complete cutoff.

Russia, however, rejected the idea that it was using blackmail while warning it may halt gas supplies to other European customers if they also refuse to switch to paying in rubles.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, argued that the Russian demand to switch to paying for gas in rubles resulted from Western actions that froze Russian hard currency assets. He said those were effectively “stolen” by the West in an “unprecedented unfriendly action.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Poland’s parliament that he thinks the suspension was revenge for new sanctions against Russia that Warsaw imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Morawiecki called it an “attack on Poland” and an example of “gas imperialism” while vowing that Poland would not be cowed by the cutoff. He said the country was safe from an energy crisis thanks to years of efforts to secure gas from other countries.

“We will not succumb to Russia’s gas blackmail,” he told lawmakers, to applause. He also sought to assure citizens that the gas cutoff would not affect Polish households.

Some Poles and Bulgarians welcomed the cutoff for moving them closer to independence from Russian energy.

“I don’t know what the results will be for regular citizens like myself,” said Nina Rudnicka, a lecturer at Poznan University. “But I believe that one should not bow to Russia’s blackmail. It was the right decision not to change to payment in rubles.”

Dobrin Todorov, a resident of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, said given a “choice between freedom and dignity or gas, the answer is clear, in favor of freedom and dignity.”

“So we will go through this ordeal. It cannot be compared to the hardship and tribulations that the Ukrainian people are currently suffering,” Todorov added.

The new Polish sanctions against Russia, announced Tuesday, targeted 50 Russian oligarchs and companies, including Gazprom. Hours later, Poland said it had received notice that Gazprom was cutting off its gas supplies for failing to pay in Russian rubles. Poland’s gas company, PGNiG, said the gas supplies from the Yamal pipeline stopped early Wednesday.

Russian gas supplies to both Poland and Bulgaria already were expected to end later this year anyway.

Poland relies on coal for 70% of its energy needs, with gas only making up around 7% of its energy mix. Several years ago, the country opened its first terminal for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, in Swinoujscie, on the Baltic Sea coast. A pipeline from Norway is to due to start operating this year.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, whose government has been cutting many of the country’s old ties with Russia, called Gazprom’s suspension of gas deliveries “a gross violation of their contract” and “blackmail.” He vowed to defend the country’s interests and “support military-technical assistance to Ukraine.”

“Unfortunately, in the recent past we were treated as Russia’s fifth column. And there are many political and economic circles that protect Russia’s interests,” he said. “We and our party will protect only Bulgarian interests.”

In Bulgaria, the main consumers of gas are district heating companies. Bulgaria’s energy minister said his country can meet the needs of users for at least one month.

“Alternative supplies are available, and Bulgaria hopes that alternative routes and supplies will also be secured at the EU level,” Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said.

Russia’s move raised wider concerns that other countries could be targeted next as Western countries increase their support for Ukraine amid a war now in its third month.

The Greek government held an emergency meeting Wednesday in Athens. Greece’s next scheduled payment to Gazprom is due on May 25, and the government must decide whether it will comply with the demand to pay in rubles.

Greece is ramping up its liquefied natural gas storage capacity, and has contingency plans to switch several industry sectors from gas to diesel as an emergency energy source. It has also reversed a program to reduce domestic coal production.

“It appears there is some posturing by Gazprom,” said Gianna Bern a University of Notre Dame finance professor. “There are probably fewer consequences to turning off natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria than larger countries in Europe. Russia is definitely sending a message.”

If European nations decide not to pay in rubles, Russia can sell its oil elsewhere, such as to India and China, because oil primarily moves by ship.

It has less options with natural gas, because the pipeline network that carries gas from Russia’s huge deposits in northwestern Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula does not connect with pipelines that run to China. And Russia only has limited facilities to export super-chilled liquefied gas by ship.

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Toshkov reported from Bulgaria. Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Frank Jordans in Berlin, Jon Gambrell in Lviv, Ukraine, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Fred Monyak in Washington contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-business-poland-europe-22ddce581505fcb1eb6ca31864d98f76

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