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☆ Pentagon Looking Into How Accused Leaker Accessed Top Secret Documents
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Nancy A. Youssef | Daniel Nasaw | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Federal authorities on Thursday arrested Jack Teixeira in Dighton, Mass., for the suspected unauthorized removal, handling and distribution of secret information, officials said. Mr. Teixeira, 21 years old, holds the rank of airman first class in an intelligence unit of the Massachusetts Air National Guard and is a junior Air Force communications specialist, according to his service record. His job title—cyber transport systems journeyman—gives no obvious hint why he would have access to the types of files that were leaked. He joined the Air Force National Guard in September 2019, according to his service record. Mr. Teixeira is expected to appear Friday in federal court in Massachusetts.

☆ U.S. Readies ‘Wrongfully Detained’ Label for Reporter Held in Russia
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Vivian Salama | Andrew Restuccia | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The State Department is preparing to designate as “wrongfully detained” a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested by Russian security services last week during a reporting trip and accused of espionage, a designation that would rev up the U.S. government’s efforts to win his release. With the official designation, supervision of Evan Gershkovich ’s case would shift to a State Department section known as the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which is focused on negotiating for the release of hostages and other Americans classified as wrongfully detained in foreign countries. The designation is expected as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

☆ Blinken Says ‘No Doubt’ Russia Has Wrongfully Detained WSJ’s Evan Gershkovich
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Vivian Salama | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

BRUSSELS—Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that he has “no doubt” a Wall Street Journal reporter being detained by Russia is wrongfully detained, but the process to reach an official determination on his detention is still pending. The official designation would rev up the U.S. government’s efforts to win Evan Gershkovich ’s release. Supervision of his case would then shift to a State Department section known as the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which is focused on negotiating for the release of hostages and other Americans classified as wrongfully detained in foreign countries.

CompaniesCompanies Law Firms Conocophillips FollowApril 3 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday rejected a bid by environmentalists to temporarily suspend the U.S. government’s approval of ConocoPhillips' (COP.N) multibillion-dollar oil drilling project in Alaska’s Arctic. Gleason said an injunction was inappropriate because the groups wouldn't be irreparably harmed by the construction that ConocoPhillips has scheduled for this month, which includes building roads and a gravel mine. Bridget Psarianos, an attorney challenging the approval, called the planned construction schedule "aggressive" and said the judge's decision is "heartbreaking." The approvals for the project in northern Alaska give ConocoPhillips permission to construct three drill pads, 25.8 miles of gravel roads, an air strip and hundreds of miles of ice roads. The 30-year project would produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak, according to the company.

☆ Water’s big moment risks getting lost in the weeds
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Antony Currie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The latest is research published last Thursday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. The sum, though, is just $140 million, and the U.S. government’s International Development Finance Corporation is pouring in three-quarter of the proceeds. But there is a decent investment case for water without state or supranational support. Without them, water’s big moment risks getting lost in the weeds. Follow @AntonyMCurrie on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSThe United Nations 2023 Water Conference starts on March 22, World Water Day, in New York.

☆ America’s Political Divide Over Jan. 6 Reaches Into FBI
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Aruna Viswanatha | Sadie Gurman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government’s sweep-up of Jan. 6 suspects has led to conflict within the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the agency’s expansive efforts to pursue charges against more than 1,000 people, according to a review of testimony by three former or suspended bureau employees before a House committee and other people familiar with the matter. The investigation into a pro-Trump mob’s Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, two weeks before President Biden’s inauguration, is the largest in FBI history in terms of the number of cases and national reach. Prosecutors have said they may indict another thousand people in addition to those already charged. Led by agents in Washington, all 56 field offices were enlisted to help trace the rioters in the months after the attack.

☆ TikTok Ramps Up Lobbying in Washington to Try to Avoid U.S. Ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Julie Bykowicz | Siobhan Hughes | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Oracle Corp. has dozens of the most aggressive and well-connected lobbyists in Washington. Lobbyists for Oracle Corp. have been racing to build Capitol Hill support for TikTok’s proposed partnership with the Austin-based tech company as a solution to the U.S. government’s security concerns. Their roughly 90-person lobbying roster adds considerable firepower to TikTok’s growing Washington presence. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance Ltd., has spent more each year since it began lobbying in 2019, for a total of $13.5 million through the end of last year, lobbying records show. It now has the fourth-highest federal lobbying expenses of any internet company, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan platform tracking political spending.

Using the U.S. government’s latest estimates, Argentina’s corn and soy yields are set to fall 29% and 33%, respectively, from the long-term trends. Corn and soy yields fell 13% and 28% below trend in 2009, respectively, and they each fell 24% in 2018. Corn and soy yields: Argentina, Brazil, USAUSAComparable U.S. drought events include 1988 and 2012, where corn yields fell a respective 28% and 24% below trend. The only other year since where corn losses came anywhere close was 1993, when extreme flooding cut corn yield by 19%. Corn yields fell more than 40% below trend in Illinois and Indiana in 2012, and in Iowa and Minnesota in 1993.

☆ BBC Staff Revolts Over Suspension of Sports Commentator for Political Tweets
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Max Colchester | David Luhnow | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

BBC sports commentator Gary Lineker was suspended after publishing tweets criticizing the U.K. government’s new policies on migrants. LONDON—The British Broadcasting Corp. has sparked one of its biggest crises in years by suspending its top sports commentator for criticizing the U.K. government on Twitter, leading to a staff rebellion and allegations that the state-funded broadcaster had compromised its independence by folding to government pressure. The venerable broadcaster yanked Gary Lineker, one of England’s most famous former football players and its highest paid presenter, from the country’s most watched football roundup show after he published tweets criticizing the government’s new policies on migrants, comparing them to Nazi Germany. The BBC said it considered Mr. Lineker’s “recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines” and said he “should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies.”

LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) - The founder of collapsed private equity company Abraaj Group on Wednesday lost a bid to challenge his extradition from London to the United States to face fraud charges. Judge Jonathan Swift on Wednesday refused Naqvi permission to bring a judicial review against the 2021 approval of his extradition to the United States. Naqvi also suffers from severe depression and there is a “real risk” of suicide if he is extradited, Fitzgerald argued. The judge also said that Naqvi’s suicide risk could be adequately managed if he was held in prison. Naqvi’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

☆ JetBlue, Spirit Brace for Justice Department Lawsuit to Block Airlines’ Merger
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Andrew Tangel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

JetBlue Airways Corp. is bracing for the Justice Department to try to block the airline’s planned takeover of Spirit Airlines Inc. in the coming days, JetBlue’s chief executive said Monday. Robin Hayes , CEO of New York-based JetBlue, said the U.S. government’s antitrust regulators have seemed intent on stopping the merger from the outset, while the airlines’ arguments that merging will increase, rather than undermine, competition among the nation’s biggest airlines and reduce overall airfares.

U.S. corn export sales for 2022-23, which ends on Aug. 31, totaled 29.2 million tonnes (1.15 billion bushels) through Feb. 23. Through Feb. 23, China had booked about six U.S. corn cargoes since late January for delivery in the current marketing year. Since July, Brazil has shipped over 45 million tonnes of corn, well above the prior record of 36.4 million set three years ago. Preliminarily, Brazil shipped 2.3 million tonnes of corn last month, down sharply from January’s 6.2 million and the lowest monthly volume since June. USDA’s latest predictions show Japan’s 2022-23 corn imports flat on the year around 15 million tonnes, which suggests Japanese buyers still have substantial corn needs to cover.

☆ Chips Act Will Test Whether U.S. Can Reverse Semiconductor Exodus
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Yuka Hayashi | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration kicks the $53 billion Chips Act program into gear this week—and with it, a test of the U.S. government’s ability to reverse an overseas exodus of the domestic semiconductor industry. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is set to unveil how the administration plans to award chip-manufacturing subsidies on Thursday, followed next week by more details on how companies can apply for funds.

☆ TikTok CEO to testify before U.S. Congress over security concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The news comes as the House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to hold a vote next month on a bill aimed at blocking the use of TikTok in the United States over national security concerns. "ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data," McMorris Rodgers said, adding that Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security. TikTok said on Friday "calls for total bans of TikTok take a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms". The U.S. government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in 2020 ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that U.S. user data could be passed onto China’s government. CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks for more than two years aiming to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of U.S. TikTok users.

The U.S. government’s system for labeling and tracking classified documents appears to be broken, with potentially serious consequences for the country’s national security, lawmakers, former officials and scholars said Tuesday. Democratic and Republican lawmakers said there was a “systemic failure” if both the Obama and Trump administrations could not keep track of classified documents after their tenures ended. I don’t know how anybody ends up with classified documents. “We clearly don’t have an effective management system to oversee where classified documents go and how they’re retrieved,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah. Goitein and others said the recent discoveries of classified documents present a political opportunity for the White House, and possibly Congress, to at last tackle the problem.

☆ Debt ceiling fight threatens to deepen divide between GOP and corporate America
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Shannon-Pettypiece-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Shannon Pettypiece | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

WASHINGTON — Corporate America’s warnings of a financial catastrophe if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling are falling on deaf ears among key congressional Republicans who find themselves increasingly at odds with the party's longtime allies. Republicans, who for decades closely aligned with the business community, have largely downplayed the alarm bells sounded by business groups, corporate CEOs and Wall Street investors over the economic consequences of missing an early June deadline for action on Capitol Hill. Instead, many GOP lawmakers vow to seek spending cuts in exchange for passing legislation that would let the U.S. government keep paying its bills. “The business groups and the major economic agents in this country are still going to be very influential by once again reminding Congress about the severe consequences the U.S. will face if the debt ceiling is not raised,” said the political consultant with corporate clients involved in the debt ceiling debate. “I think a lot of Republicans in the House, in the Senate, will understand that.

Most-active CBOT corn futures had declined more than 2% through Jan. 10, and CBOT soybeans fell fractionally. Corn and soybean futures both rose about 3% from Wednesday through Friday. However, strength in corn and soy, along with much lighter-than-predicted Dec. 1 U.S. wheat stocks, allowed CBOT wheat to rise 1.6% in the last three sessions. The managed money net short in Minneapolis wheat futures and options decreased slightly through Jan. 10 to 2,704 contracts. wheat futures and optionsKaren Braun is a market analyst for Reuters.

☆ The U.S. Government’s Woke Training
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Department of Veterans Affairs has a gender gingerbread person. And if U.S. Army servicewomen express “discomfort showering with a female who has male genitalia,” what’s the brass’s reply? Talk to your commanding officer, but toughen up. These are details from hundreds of pages of diversity and inclusion training materials used by the federal government in 2021 and obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Everyone in corporate life knows such training, lampooned in the second episode of the TV show “The Office.” Yet taxpayers might be curious how their money is being spent to instruct the federal workforce these days.

☆ Key Tests Loom in 2023 for U.S. Antitrust Enforcers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Jan Wolfe | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Federal Trade Commission, in Washington, is challenging Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of videogame maker Activision. WASHINGTON—The U.S. government’s aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement faces key tests in 2023, with rulings expected in several high-profile cases against Silicon Valley technology giants. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have in recent years adopted a “high-risk legal strategy” of bringing difficult cases that push the boundaries of antitrust law, said Rebecca Allensworth , a professor at Vanderbilt Law School.

☆ Divided America will unite under economic duress
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

That will happen when a new term begins in 2023, making it difficult for American legislators to accomplish goals. But one thing needs to happen: Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can continue to chug along. The debt ceiling, currently at $31.4 trillion, needs to go higher for government employees to get paid and welfare checks to be delivered, among other things. If only because they are all vying for a win in the presidential election in 2024, Congress could unite under high inflation and economic duress. Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives in 2023, making a bipartisan solution necessary to lifting the limit.

☆ Senate passes bill to bar federal employees from using TikTok on government devices
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate late on Wednesday passed by voice vote a bill to bar federal employees from using Chinese-owned short video-sharing app TikTok on government-owned devices. Stanislav Kogiku / Sipa via AP fileDuring the last Congress, the Senate in August 2020 unanimously approved legislation to bar TikTok from government devices. Many federal agencies including the Defense, Homeland Security and State departments already ban TikTok from government-owned devices. “TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on government devices,” Hawley said previously. At a hearing last month, FBI Director Chris Wray said TikTok’s U.S. operations raise national security concerns.

☆ ‘I want to talk’: Brittney Griner opened up during her long trip home
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner didn’t want any alone time as soon as she boarded a U.S. government plane that would bring her home. I want to talk,” Griner said, according to Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who helped secure the basketball star’s release and bring her back to the U.S. last week. “It was really amazing.”Ultimately, Griner spent about 12 hours of an 18-hour flight talking with others on the plane, Carstens said. The U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected. But the U.S. was unable to secure the freedom of Paul Whelan, who has been held in Russia for nearly four years.

☆ U.K. Tax Change to Yield Higher Costs, But Much-Needed Certainty For Companies
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | Nina Trentmann | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Now, under a new prime minister, the government is pledging fiscal austerity, accompanied by an increase in the corporate tax rate to 25%. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesWith the latest change, the corporate tax rate has flip-flopped four times in less than a year. The tax increase, from the current rate of 19%, will apply to companies with annual profit of more than £250,000, equivalent to more than $307,000. We know it is increasing to 25%.”The U.K. government’s change brings the corporate tax rate in line with those of other large economies. Photo: Jason Alden/Bloomberg NewsU.K. companies’ costs are rising on multiple fronts.

☆ U.K. Tax Change to Yield Higher Costs, but Much-Needed Certainty for Companies
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | Nina Trentmann | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

☆ Fact Check-Graph of unverified data is not evidence of increased miscarriage risk with COVID vaccination
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The graph image has been circulated with remarks including, “THIS IS INSANE…4070% increase in VAERS miscarriage reports from 2019 to 2021. In contrast, VAERS shows 38 miscarriage reports in 2019 with 15 reported stillbirths, for a total of 53. VAERS data is unverified, and reporting rates are known to fluctuate, influenced by a variety of factors, including media attention to a particular illness or a new vaccine. Multiple studies around the world have found no increased risk of miscarriage or stillbirths associated with COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy. Reuters has previously fact-checked claims that COVID-19 vaccination is associated with greater risk of pregnancy loss (here), (here), (here), (here), (here).

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