U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with senators and Cabinet officials on Tuesday to discuss ways to lower the cost of the nation’s biofuels policy to oil refiners, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting reflects rising concern in the White House over the current state of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, a law requiring refiners to mix biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuel, after a Pennsylvania refiner blamed the regulation for its recent bankruptcy.

The meeting will include Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst of corn state Iowa, along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, according to the sources.

The meeting will also include White House legislative director Marc Short, who will seek to ensure any agreement can be achieved through executive orders and regulatory actions defensible in court, the sources said.

Representatives for those officials, and the White House, declined to comment.

U.S. farm groups urged Trump in a letter on Monday not to weaken the RFS, calling it a critical engine of rural jobs. “Any action that seeks to weaken the RFS for the benefit of a handful of refiners will, by extension, be borne on the backs of our farmers,” according to the letter.

Under the RFS, refiners must earn or purchase biofuel blending credits called RINs to prove to the federal government that enough biofuels are being blended into their gasoline and diesel to comply with the policy.

As biofuels volumes quotas have increased over the years, however, so have prices for the credits – meaning refiners that buy them instead of acquire them by blending fuels themselves are facing rising costs.

Oil refiner Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which employs more than 1,000 people in a key electoral state, declared bankruptcy last month and blamed the regulation for its demise. Reuters reported other factors may also have played a role in the company’s bankruptcy, including the withdrawal of more than $590 million in dividend-style payments from the company by its investor owners.

Two of the sources familiar with the agenda of the Tuesday meeting said at least four options aimed at reducing the cost of RINs to refiners like PES will be considered — though they noted the effort would be constrained by political and legal realities that have derailed previous reform efforts.

Prices of RINs tumbled by nearly 20 percent in the past week on expectations of a regulatory tweak.

One idea would be to count U.S. ethanol exports toward annual biofuels volumes mandates that are currently focused purely on domestic usage, an idea the sources said had been studied by Agriculture Secretary Perdue who now favors it.

Another idea would be to place a cap on the price of a RIN.

Senator Cruz late last year suggested capping RIN prices at 10 cents each, far below the current value of over 60 cents, in a move that was roundly rejected by biofuels advocates.

The meeting will also consider measures to remove speculation from the RIN market, potentially by limiting RIN transactions to those directly involved in generating and consuming them: blenders and refiners, the sources said.

Any plan would also likely include a concession to the ethanol industry, they said, such as a waiver to allow gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol to be sold year round. Sales of high-ethanol blends are currently restricted in the summer due to concerns over smog.

The meeting could also look at solutions focused more directly on refiner PES — like waiving its current RIN obligation valued at about $350 million, the sources said. But any such move would likely draw a backlash from other refiners who have no hope of receiving such a waiver.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Only days after the spectacular liftoff of what is currently the heaviest space rocket, the privately-built Falcon Heavy, NASA announced the next launch will carry a specially built atomic clock. The new device, much smaller and sturdier than earth-bound atomic clocks, will help future astronauts navigate in deep space. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The governor of Sao Paulo and likely centrist presidential candidate Geraldo Alckmin said on Monday that he would privatize Brazil’s state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA if he wins the elections in October.

Alckmin, who has single digit support in opinion polls, said during a television interview with Band TV that he favored private ownership of Petrobras, as Brazil’s biggest company is known, as long as the sale was conducted within a strict regulatory framework.

Once a taboo issue in Brazilian politics because of national sovereignty concerns, the privatization of Petrobras is set to become a campaign issue this year as Brazil struggles to bring an unsustainable budget deficit under control.

Brazil’s left fiercely rejects the sale of Petrobras, but the leftist leader leading early opinion polls, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will likely be barred from running because of a corruption conviction and there are no obvious politicians who can fill his shoes.

It is not clear where the far right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently second in opinion polls, stands on relinquishing state control of Petrobras.

But his economic policy advisor Paulo Guedes told Valor newspaper in an interview published on Monday that he favored selling all state companies to raise 700 billion reais that would help pay off one fifth of Brazil’s public debt.
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From: MeNeedIt

British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran was named the world’s best-selling artist of 2017 on Monday, thanks to his album “Divide” and singles “Shape of You” and “Perfect.”

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said that “Divide,” which was released in March 2017, went multi-platinum in 36 nations.

Sheeran’s pop ballad “Shape of You” was also the best-selling single globally of 2017 and has been certified as multi-platinum in 32 nations, the organization said.

The IFPI said it was the first time that a recording artist has had both the best-selling album and single of the year.

Sheeran, 27, first found success in England in 2009 and 2010 by self-releasing his music online.

“Ed is truly an incredible songwriter, vocalist and performer, whose ability to tell stories and make people feel is what stands him out from the crowd,”  Max Lousada, chief executive of recorded music for Sheeran’s Warner Music Group record label, said in a statement on Monday.

Sheeran, known for his ginger hair and shy demeanor, delighted fans last month by announcing his engagement to his childhood friend Cherry Seaborn, who he has known since he was 11 years old.

Canadian rapper Drake and his album “More Life” was named the second biggest seller globally for 2017 and the IFPI said Taylor Swift’s “Reputation” was third, despite being released only in November 2017.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Trump Organization said Monday it has made good on the president’s promise to donate profits from foreign government spending at its hotels to the U.S. Treasury, but neither the company nor the government disclosed the amount or how it was calculated.

Watchdog groups seized on the lack of detail as another example of the secrecy surrounding President Donald Trump’s pledges to separate his administration from his business empire.

“There is no independent oversight or accountability. We’re being asked to take their word for it,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Most importantly, even if they had given every dime they made from foreign governments to the Treasury, the taking of those payments would still be a problem under the Constitution.”

Trump Organization Executive Vice President and Chief Compliance Counsel George Sorial said in a statement to The Associated Press that the donation was made on Feb. 22 and includes profits from Jan. 20 through Dec. 31, 2017. The company declined to provide a sum or breakdown of the amounts by country.

Sorial said the profits were calculated using “our policy and the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry” but did not elaborate. The U.S. Treasury did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Watchdog group Public Citizen questioned the spirit of the pledge in a letter to the Trump Organization earlier this month since the methodology used for donations would seemingly not require any donation from unprofitable properties receiving foreign government revenue.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said that the lack of disclosure was unsurprising given that the Trump’s family businesses have “a penchant for secrecy and a readiness to violate their promises.”

“Did they pay with Monopoly money? If the Trump Organization won’t say how much they paid, let alone how they calculated it at each property, why in the world should we believe they actually have delivered on their promise?” Weissman said.

Ethics experts had already found problems with the pledge Trump made at a news conference held days before his inauguration because it didn’t include all his properties, such as his resorts, and left it up to Trump to define “profit.” The pledge was supposedly made to ameliorate the worry that Trump was violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bans the president’s acceptance of foreign gifts and money without Congress’ permission.

Several lawsuits have challenged Trump’s ties to his business ventures and his refusal to divest from them. The suits allege that foreign governments’ use of Trump’s hotels and other properties violates the emoluments clause.

Trump’s attorneys have challenged the premise that a hotel room is an “emolument” but announced the pledge to “do more than what the Constitution requires” by donating foreign profits at the news conference. Later, questions emerged about exactly what this would entail.

An eight-page pamphlet provided by the Trump Organization to the House Oversight Committee in May said that the company planned to send the Treasury only profits obviously tied to foreign governments, and not ask guests questions about the source of their money because that would “impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand.”

“It’s bad that Trump won’t divest himself and establish a truly blind trust, and it’s worse that he won’t be transparent,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. He called the Republicans refusal to do oversight, such as subpoena documents, that would shed light on Trump’s conflicts of interest “unconscionable.”
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From: MeNeedIt

A freak warming around the North Pole is sending a blast of Arctic cold over Europe in a sign of “wacky” weather that may happen more often with man-made global warming, scientists said on Monday.

On the northern tip of Greenland, the Cape Morris Jesup meteorological site has had a record-smashing 61 hours of temperatures above freezing so far in 2018, linked to a rare retreat of sea ice in the Arctic winter darkness.

“It’s never been this extreme,” said Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI). Warmth was coming into the Arctic both up from the Atlantic and through the Bering Strait, driving and cold air south.

Around the entire Arctic region, temperatures are now about 20C (36°F) above normal, at minus eight degrees Celsius (17.6°F), according to DMI calculations.

To the south, a rare snow storm hit Rome on Monday and some Brussels mayors planned to detain homeless overnight if they refused shelter with temperatures set to fall as low as minus 10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit) in the coming week.

Hit by easterly winds from Siberia, cities from Warsaw to Oslo were colder than minus 8C.

As long ago as 1973, a study suggested that an ice-free Arctic Ocean could make regions further south colder. That “warm Arctic, cold continent” (WAC#C) pattern is sometimes dubbed “wacc-y” or “wacky” among climate scientists.

“Wacky weather continues with scary strength and persistence,” tweeted Professor Lars Kaleschke, a professor at the University of Hamburg.

“The question is whether this weather will happen more often. This is just one event so it’s hard to make a causal relationship,” he told Reuters.

Sea ice shrinking 

Scientists say a long-term shrinking of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, linked to global warming, exposes warmer water below that releases more heat into the atmosphere. That in turn may be disrupting the high altitude jet stream.

“The jet stream becomes wavier, meaning that colder air can penetrate further south and warmer air further north,” said Nalan Koc, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Arctic Ocean sea ice is at a record low for late February at 14.1 million square kilometres (5.4 million), according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. That is about a million less than normal, or roughly the size of Egypt.

Erik Solheim, head of the U.N. Environment, said the rare weather fits a wider pattern driven by a build-up of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels from cars, factories and power plants.

“What we once considered to be anomalies are becoming the new normal. Our climate is changing right in front of our eyes, and we’ve only got a short amount of time to stop this from getting significantly worse,” he told Reuters.

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 nations agreed to limit a rise in temperatures to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial times, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).

Polar vortex

“The risk of an ice-free Arctic in summer is about 50 percent or higher” with warming of between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees, according to a leaked draft of a scientific report by a United Nations panel of scientists, obtained by Reuters.

The World Meteorological Organization said the chill in Europe was caused by a “Sudden Stratospheric Warming” above the North Pole that led to a split in the polar vortex, a cold area of air above the Arctic that spilled cold south.

A big problem in figuring out whether the Arctic warmth is driven by human activities or natural variations is a lack of measuring stations. There are no thermometers at the North Pole and satellite measurements go back only to the late 1970s.

On the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, temperatures were just above freezing, with rain, and about 13.4C (24F) above the long-term average on Sunday.

“There have also been recent winters with similar deviations,” said Rasmus Benestad, senior scientist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who plans to quit the Paris Agreement, has often expressed doubts about mainstream global warming science during cold spells, such as at New Year in the eastern United States.

And Mottram at DMI said Europe’s winters had become less severe. “It’s not actually that cold. Its just our perceptions have shifted from a normal winter.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Greece entered a last round of reform talks with creditors Monday, just five months before the country’s massive rescue program ends — and with the government and central bank publicly disagreeing on how to finance the nation after the bailout.

Government officials said the talks with representatives of Greece’s European partners and the International Monetary Fund in Athens would cover privatizations and energy.

But the negotiations were upstaged by a continued spat between Greece’s central bank governor, Yannis Stournaras, and the government over financing policies after the bailout runs out in August. The country will then have to raise money from international investors in bond markets — at a much higher rate than bailout creditors charge.

Stournaras repeated his argument that the government should consider setting up a precautionary credit line from the bailout rescuers that would secure the country — and its banks — cheap funding if needed, particularly as the country’s bonds are still rated well below investment grade. The finance ministry countered that this would create market jitters as to Greece’s ability to finance itself.

“Regardless of intentions, (Stournaras’) position … creates objective doubts regarding the prospects of the Greek economy, increases uncertainty and impedes Greece’s smooth exit from the bailout,” said Franciscos Koutentakis, the ministry’s general secretary for fiscal policy.

Greece signed the first of its three multi-billion euro bailouts in 2010, after it admitted its budget deficit was much higher than initially reported and investors stopped buying Greek bonds.

To secure the funds that kept it solvent, the country has slashed spending and public sector incomes, hiked taxes and extensively reformed its economy.

But the measures worsened a recession that wiped out more than a quarter of the economy and sent unemployment spiraling up by 16 percentage points between 2008 and 2016. The third bailout runs out in August.

Over the past eight months, the country has raised money from bond markets on three occasions through issues that were amply oversubscribed but offered high interest rates to attract investors.

Stournaras argued Monday that the possibility of an official credit line, to be used if needed, “should not be dramatized” as it would lower borrowing costs and “offer security as to state and bank access to financing after the end of the bailout.”

He also warned that the economy would remain under supervision from its European creditors until 75 percent of its debts have been repaid. Presenting the Bank of Greece’s annual report for 2017, Stournaras said economic growth is expected to accelerate to 2.4 percent this year, mostly on the wings of higher tourism receipts and exports.

Also Monday, some 2,000 municipal employees marched through central Athens to protest planned changes in school policy that unions say would threaten jobs in municipally-run kindergartens. Minor scuffles with police broke out outside parliament, but no arrests or injuries were reported.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Weinstein Company’s board of directors says the company is expected to file for bankruptcy protection after last-ditch talks to sell its assets collapsed.

Now-disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein co-founded the company in 2005. He was fired last October after being accused of sexual assault and harassment by dozens of women. Weinstein Co. has been searching for a financial savior ever since. Weinstein has denied all allegations.

The Los Angeles Times reports the board said Sunday night it has no choice but to pursue bankruptcy.

The decision came after the board was unable to revive a deal to sell the struggling studio for about $500 million to an investor group.

As part of the pact, the bidders had promised to raise at least $40 million for a fund to compensate Weinstein’s accusers.
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From: MeNeedIt

Around the world, one in three people suffer from something known as “hidden hunger.” Their bellies may be full, but the food they are eating is not nutritious. A San Francisco food technology firm is working in Liberia to see if it can make a popular Liberian dish more nutritious. Michelle Quinn reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

A new super-material — stronger, lighter and cheaper than steel — has emerged from scientists’ labs. It’s not a high-tech nano-polymer or some new alloy. It’s wood. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Michelle Obama’s memoir, one of the most highly anticipated books in recent years, is coming out Nov. 13.

The former first lady tweeted Sunday that the book, to come out a week after the 2018 midterm elections, is called “Becoming.”

“Writing ‘Becoming’ has been a deeply personal experience,” she said in a statement. “It has allowed me, for the very first time, the space to honestly reflect on the unexpected trajectory of my life. In this book, I talk about my roots and how a little girl from the South Side of Chicago found her voice and developed the strength to use it to empower others. I hope my journey inspires readers to find the courage to become whoever they aspire to be. I can’t wait to share my story.”

She and her husband, former President Barack Obama, last year reached a joint agreement with Penguin Random House for their respective books. The deal is believed to be well in excess of $30 million. “Becoming” will be released in the U.S. through the Crown Publishing Group, a Penguin Random House division that has published works by both Obamas.

Memoirs by former first ladies usually sell well, with notable works including Laura Bush’s “Spoken from the Heart” and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Living History.” Michelle Obama’s memoir is expected to be a major commercial and cultural event. She is admired around the world and has never told her story at length. Her only previous book was a 2012 work on gardening, “American Grown.”

The book will be published simultaneously in 24 languages, from Swedish to Arabic, and Michelle Obama expects to promote “Becoming” in the U.S. and overseas. She will also narrate the audio version. According to Crown, Obama is working with a team of assistants, but that every word in the finished text will be hers.

“As first lady of the United States of America – the first African-American to serve in that role – she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world,” Crown said in a statement.

“In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her-from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address.”

Barack Obama, who has written the million-sellers “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” has not yet scheduled his memoir. He is expected to focus on his eight years in the White House.
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From: MeNeedIt

It began with politics. It ends with … politics.

In between, humanity’s most extraordinary feats of winter athletic prowess unfolded, revealing the expected triumphs but also stars most unlikely — from favorites like Mikaela Shiffrin, Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn to sudden surprise legends like Czech skier-snowboarder Ester Ledecka and the medal-grabbing “Garlic Girls,” South Korea’s hometown curling favorites.

Pyeongchang closes its chapter of the 122-year-old modern Olympic storybook on Sunday night with countless tales to tell — tales of North Korea and Russia, of detente and competitive grit and volunteerism and verve, of everything from an uncomfortable viral outbreak to an athlete’s boozy joyride. 

And above it all: unforgettable experiences for meticulously trained athletes from around the world, all gathered on a mountainous plateau on the eastern Korean Peninsula to test for themselves — and demonstrate to the world — just how excellent they could be.

“We have been through a lot so that we could blaze a trail,” said Kim Eun-jung, skip of the South Korean women’s curling team, which captured global renown as the “Garlic Girls” — all from a garlic-producing Korean hometown. They made a good run for gold before finishing with runner-up silver.

Closing ceremonies

As the sun set on the games’ final day, people began trickling into Olympic Stadium to encounter a far different atmosphere that showed one of the games’ memorable arcs: the weather. Temperatures, so bitterly frigid at the outset that some spectators had to take cover from opening-ceremony winds, were nearly 20 degrees warmer (11 degrees Celsius) as the evening began.

Other trailblazers: Chloe Kim, American snowboarder extraordinaire. The U.S. women’s hockey team and men’s curlers, both of which claimed gold. And the Russian hockey team, with its nail-biting, overtime victory against Germany. 

That these games would be circumscribed by politics was a given from the outset because of regional rivalries. North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China are neighbors with deep, sometimes twisted histories that get along uneasily with each other in this particular geographic cul-de-sac.

But there was something more this time around. Hanging over the entire games was the saga — or opportunity, if you prefer — of a delicate diplomatic dance between the Koreas, North and South, riven by war and discord and an armed border for the better part of a century. 

The games started with a last-minute flurry of agreements to bring North Koreans to South Korea to compete under one combined Koreas banner. Perish the thought, some said, but Moon Jae-in’s government stayed the course. By the opening ceremony, a march of North and South into the Olympic Stadium was watched by the world, and by dozens of North Korean cheerleaders applauding in calibrated synchronicity. 

Also watching was an equally extraordinary, if motley, crew. Deployed in a VIP box together were Moon, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s envoy sister, Kim Yo Jong. The latter two, at loggerheads over North Korea’s nuclear program, didn’t speak, and the world watched the awkwardness.

What followed was a strong dose of athletic diplomacy: two weeks of global exposure for the Korean team, particularly the women’s hockey squad, which trained for weeks with North and South side by side getting along, taking selfies and learning about each other. 

On Sunday night, the closing ceremony will bookend those politics with U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, in attendance as well as Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee and a man suspected of masterminding a lethal 2010 military attack on the South.

There’s no reason to believe that the uneasy VIP-box scene will repeat itself. There’s also no reason to believe it will not. But the outcome could provide a coda to an extraordinary two weeks of Olympic political optics — and offer hints of the Trump administration’s approach in coming weeks as it tries to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and deals with the North-South thaw.

That wasn’t all when it came to these odd games. Let’s not forget Russia — or, we should say, “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” the shame-laced moniker they inherited after a doping brouhaha from the 2014 Sochi Games doomed them to a non-flag-carrying Pyeongchang Games. 

But two more Russian athletes tested positive in Pyeongchang in the past two weeks. So on Sunday morning, the IOC refused to reinstate the team in time for the closing but left the door open for near-term redemption from what one exasperated committee member called “this entire Russia drama.” 

What’s next for the games? Tokyo in Summer 2022, then Beijing — Summer host in 2008 — staging an encore, this time for a Winter Games. With the completion of the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, that Olympic trinity marks one-third of a noteworthy Olympic run by Asia.

For those keeping score at home: That means four of eight Olympic Games between 2008 and 2022 will have taken place on the Asian continent. Not bad for a region that hosted only four games in the 112 years of modern Olympic history before that — Tokyo in 1964, Sapporo in 1972, Seoul in 1988 and Nagano in 1998. Japan and China will, it’s likely, be highly motivated to outdo South Korea (and each other). 

Meantime, the Olympians departing Monday leave behind a Korean Peninsula full of possibility for peace, or at least less hostility. 

The steps taken by North and South toward each other this month are formidable but fluid. People are cautiously optimistic: the governor of Gangwon, the border province where Pyeongchang is located, suggested Sunday that the 2021 Asian Games could be co-hosted by both Koreas. 

It might not happen. But it could. That could be said about pretty much anything at an Olympic Games, inside the rings and out. Corporate and political and regimented though it may be, that’s what makes it still the best game in town for an athletic thrill every other year — and sometimes a political one, too.
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From: MeNeedIt