Amid a national shortage of emergency medical technicians and a need for training here on Cape Ann, Beauport Ambulance Service Inc. has begun providing EMT basic training at a new training center at its office at 19 Pond Road in Gloucester.
Signups are ongoing for the upcoming course that begins April 3.
According to John R. Morris, the company’s president, this is the only EMT program being taught and offered on Cape Ann. The closest EMT basic course to Cape Ann other than the one now being offered by Beauport is being taught in Danvers. Morris said Beauport is trying to build a local pool of EMTs.
The company, whose motto is “A Local Service By Local People,” said in a statement the private ambulance service has expanded “to initial education for EMT Basics, in the hopes of making Emergency Medical Technician training accessible to the locals in the Cape Ann area.”
In October, the Beauport Ambulance Service Training Center opened its doors to its first Emergency Medical Technician course. The company said “its students have been thriving.”
The program is a 144-hour course incorporating lectures and hands-on skills practice.
Courses are tentatively planned to run three times a year, and each class can take up to 20 students.
Classes take place outside of normal business hours to accommodate non-traditional learners.
At the completion of the course and licensing testing, students will be prepared to enter the rapidly growing field of emergency medical services, the company said.
The program is being taught by the facility’s two instructor coordinators, Sean Rock, an EMT-Basic with seven years of experience in the field as an emergency medical dispatcher, and Samantha Clark, a paramedic with nearly 15 years of field experience in multiple states.
The training center also exposes students to its many seasoned providers who are willing to come in and assist students with practicing their skills, the company said.
The current class ends March 2, and Beauport will be accepting interest in its upcoming course that begins on April 3. Classes typically run Wednesdays from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon.
Those who are interested in the course or who have questions can reach out to Beauport Ambulance Service’s education coordinator at sclark@beauportambulanceservice.com.
BOSTON — A divided state commission is calling for more aggressive steps to shift Massachusetts away from its reliance on natural gas for energy, but it’s not clear if state lawmakers will take up any of the proposed changes.
In a report to the state Legislature, the Gas System Enhancement Working Group takes more steps to shift the state’s utilities away from installing gas infrastructure in the state. In some cases, the changes include only those to one or two words in the state laws on fixing gas leaks.
But the panel, which included state regulators, environmental groups, labor leaders and representatives of utility companies, was unable to reach a consensus on many of the proposed regulatory changes.
One proposal called for a shift from “replacement” to “repair” of leak-prone natural gas lines, which proponents argued would save ratepayers money and accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other renewable energy. But the utility panelists voted against in opposition, arguing that it would compromise safety and exceed the working group’s mandate.
“A shift in policy that prioritizes repair over replacement does not reduce the risk that leak-prone pipes pose to people, property, and the environment,” they wrote in a summary of the report. “Both cast iron and cathodically unprotected steel will continue to pose concerns as they age.”
The panel was created under a 2014 state law that requires utilities to track and grade all gas leaks on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being most serious, and immediately repair the most hazardous.
The panel’s report noted that Massachusetts gas companies are spending more than $800 million a year installing new gas mains to replace aging leak-prone pipes. The new pipes have a lifespan of 50 years and will be paid for by energy consumers in the form of higher rates, they noted.
But the report’s authors said estimates suggest utilities will spend $34 billion on new gas infrastructure, which would not be fully paid for until 2097. They noted that as more properties are retrofitted with heat pumps to replace gas, fewer customers will be on the gas distribution system.
“However, that gas system will still have the same number of miles of pipe, with the same fixed maintenance costs,” Audrey Schulman, a panelist and director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge nonprofit, wrote in a summary of the report. “These maintenance costs will be shouldered by fewer and fewer gas customers, making the customers overall gas bills increase.”
Schulman said the state is “wasting money and time now by installing long-lived combustion infrastructure, while knowing that combustion is going away.”
“Instead we are investing significantly and actively in the gas and electric system at the same time, without thinking through how to synergize the work to reduce the cost and increase the speed,” she wrote.
“It is as though we are taking out a mortgage to replace the foundation on our horse’s stable, even after we’ve ordered an electric car,” Schulman added.
Massachusetts utilities are under increasing pressure to employ alternatives to natural gas to comply with requirements of a climate change bill approved last year that requires the state to reduce its emissions to “net-zero” of 1990 levels by 2050.
Meanwhile, environmental groups have been prodding the state to force utilities to move away from new natural gas infrastructure as the state seeks to diversify its energy portfolio to include solar, wind and other renewable sources of power.
But industry officials argue the state will continue to need natural gas for a large portion of its energy, even as it turns to more renewable sources.
Roughly half of New England’s energy comes from natural gas, according to ISO New England, which oversees the regional power grid.
Critics have also noted the pocketbook costs to consumers from replacing natural gas infrastructure in homes and businesses.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
On this day in 1876, Moulton & Morey’s had something new! Lambrequins. Made of Japanese patented felted fabric, they were perfect imitations of “brocades of Lyons and Silk Damasks of Paris at 1/6th the price.” A lambrequin is like a…
LOS ANGELES — One of the nation’s largest real estate brokerages has agreed to pay $70 million as part of a proposed settlement to resolve more than a dozen lawsuits across the country over agent commissions.
The agreement was filed Feb. 1 with federal courts overseeing lawsuits in Illinois and Missouri. It also calls on Keller Williams Realty Inc. to take several steps aimed at providing homebuyers and sellers with more transparency over the commissions paid to real estate agents.
”We think it’s a tremendous victory for homeowners and homebuyers across the country,” said Michael Ketchmark, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.
The central claim put forth in the lawsuits is that the country’s biggest real estate brokerages engage in practices that unfairly force homeowners to pay artificially inflated agent commissions when they sell their home.
In October, a federal jury in Missouri found that the National Association of Realtors and several large real estate brokerages, including Keller Williams, conspired to require that home sellers pay homebuyers’ agent commission in violation of federal antitrust law.
The jury ordered the defendants to pay almost $1.8 billion in damages. If treble damages — which allows plaintiffs to potentially receive up to three times actual or compensatory damages — are awarded, then the defendants may have to pay more than $5 billion.
More than a dozen similar lawsuits are pending against the real estate brokerage industry.
Moving Keller Williams out from under that cloud of litigation and uncertainty motivated the company to pursue the proposed settlement, which would release the company, its franchisees and agents from similar agent commission lawsuits nationwide. The company based in Austin, Texas, operates more than 1,100 offices with some 180,000 agents.
”We came to the decision to settle with careful consideration for the immediate and long-term well-being of our agents, our franchisees and the business models they depend on,” Gary Keller, the company’s executive chairman, wrote in a companywide email Thursday. “It was a decision to bring stability, relief and the freedom for us all to focus on our mission without distractions.”
Among the terms of its proposed settlement, Keller Williams agreed to make clear that its agents let clients know that commissions are negotiable, and that there isn’t a set minimum that clients are required to pay, nor one set by law.
The company also agreed to make certain that agents who work with prospective homebuyers disclose their compensation structure, including any “cooperative compensation,” which is when a seller’s agent offers to compensate the agent that represents a buyer for their services.
As part of the settlement, which must be approved by the court, Keller Williams agents will no longer be required to be members of the National Association of Realtors or follow the trade association’s guidelines.
Two other large real estate brokerages agreed to similar settlement terms last year. In their respective pacts, Anywhere Real Estate Inc. agreed to pay $83.5 million, while Re/Max agreed to pay $55 million.
To help homeowners age 60 and up and veterans of all ages lower their property tax bills, the City Council is considering an ordinance to create senior and veteran property tax work-off programs.
If the City Council adopts state legislation, the administration could then establish programs to allow seniors and veterans to volunteer their services to the city in exchange for lower property taxes.
To do this, the City Council must first accept two provisions of state law. The council is scheduled to take this up at its next meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 13.
Communities in the region that already offer senior tax work-off programs include, but are not limited to, Salem, Beverly, Danvers, Boxford, Ipswich, Hamilton, Wenham, Marblehead and Middleton, according to various municipal websites. Some towns such as Middleton and Swampscott offer both senior and veteran tax work-off programs.
On Cape Ann, Rockport and Manchester-by-the-Sea offer the ability of seniors to volunteer to be able to reduce their taxes, while Essex and Gloucester do not.
Councilor at-Large Jason Grow, Councilor at-Large Val Gilman and Ward 2 Councilor Dylan Benson co-sponsored the order to enable the creation of the senior and veterans tax work-off programs before the council’s three-member Ordinances and Administration Standing Committee on Monday, Feb. 5. The committee unanimously recommended the move.
Grow told the subcommittee senior homeowners could volunteer in exchange for an abatement at a rate of 125 hours or $2,000.
“It’s basically minimum wage up to $2,000,” he said.
The senior tax work-off program would be for those 60 and up. There was a recent change in the legislation to allow for “the proxy possibility” for seniors who are infirm or unable to do the volunteer work to appoint someone to do it for them in exchange for the tax abatement, Grow said.
The enabling statute for the veteran tax work-off program makes it eligible for any veteran with no age restriction. This would allow for the establishment of a program for veterans that offers up to a $1,500 tax reduction in exchange for volunteer hours.
The council’s responsibility would be to accept the state legislation and it would be up to the administration to establish the parameters of the program, such as how much its funded, how many volunteers would be recommended, and what the maximum abatement might be, Grow said.
The reason to bring this forward was because property taxes continue to be a burden, especially on seniors.
“We have a program of abatement in the assessors’ office currently that seniors can take advantage of,” he said. “This is just one more opportunity for seniors and veterans to take advantage of volunteering in the community for whatever roles the administration determines is acceptable for this, and take that money off of their taxes and help with the annual expenses of living in Gloucester.”
Gilman, who serves as an ex-officio member of the Council on Aging, said they have been talking about doing a better job about communicating to Gloucester residents about the repertoire of benefits and cost savings available to them.
“Because the cost of aging in place has become more demanding and it’s a big concern for seniors,” she said.
Gilman said she looked online to see what other communities were doing to help seniors save, and one of them was the tax work-off program. Nearly 100 municipalities in Massachusetts doing this. She shared the idea with the Council on Aging “and the response was very positive.”
Benson said he has seen the positive impact of the senior tax work-off programs in other communities.
Lynn, Salem, Amesbury, Beverly, Newburyport and a number of area towns already have senior work-off programs, and Newburyport and Amesbury offer both veteran and senior tax work-off programs.
The reason he thinks this will help senior is because “it’s not forcing anyone to do anything, it’s an incentive and it’s an ability for seniors and veterans to have another way to reduce their property taxes,” Benson said.
Ward 4 Councilor Frank Margiotta, a member of Ordinances and Administration, gave the proposal “kudos.” Ward 3 Councilor and subcommittee member Marjorie Grace asked Benson what types of work seniors were doing.
Benson reiterated the council was only adopting state legislation and it would be up to the administration to enact the program.
However, in other communities, Benson said the work involves clerical volunteer hours to do things like scanning documents, greeting people in City Hall, beach cleanups or helping out at a senior and veterans centers.
Ward 5 Councilor Sean Nolan, the council vice president and chair of the subcommittee, noted that in Rockport, people would adopt fire hydrants to maintain or shovel out.
“There is a lot places for people to give their expertise,” Nolan said.
Grow added state legislation states such programs should not take away jobs or staffing.
With the three-member committee recommending the order’s adoption, the City Council is scheduled to take up the matter under committee reports at its meeting on Tuesday, 6:30 p.m., in the Kyrouz Auditorium in City Hall.
HAVERHILL — Elaine Barker never leaves home without several copies of her favorite faith-based book stuffed into her pocketbook.
It’s a very small book that has attracted a big following, mostly due to Barker, who after discovering the little red book she began handing out copies to people she encounters and are willing to share their burdens and worries.
A devout Catholic whose life is immersed in spirituality and has an unshakable faith in God, Barker says the 70-page “Keep Calm and Trust God” has not only become her daily reader, but it has also brought comfort to those she’s given it to.
Since 2015, she’s handed out more than 500 copies and just received another shipment of 25. She uses the book as a vehicle for sharing her faith.
“Every morning before I leave my bedroom I kneel down and I open the book to a random page and read it,” said Barker, 87, a long-time All Saints Parish member. “It seems there is something there that I’ve read before and gets me through the day. It’s like a spiritual daily vitamin.”
Written by Jake Provance and his father Keith Provance, “Keep Calm and Trust God” contains just 12 short chapters, each offering spiritual guidance for those struggling with concerns such as anxiety, depression, regret, stress and fear of the future. The authors don’t bog down the reader with wordy responses, but instead ask the reader to turn to prayer while citing biblical passages that relate to each area of worry and emphasizing to the reader to “Trust God.”
Barker shares her faith in many ways, but never to the point where she sounds like she’s preaching or forcing her faith onto anyone. Chances are if you bump into her, she always has a kind word or two and will always end a conversation with “God bless you” along with a hug.
“A few months ago they passed one million in sales,” she said. “And last month they sold 40,000 copies. The authors just can’t believe the way their book has sold.”
Back in 2015, Barker was shopping at the CVS in Lafayette Square and was perusing the book rack when she spotted the little red book.
“I bought a copy and when I got home I glanced at it then set it aside with my other Christian books,” she said. “When the pandemic hit, I needed something to bring me comfort so I went to my stack of books and sitting at the top was this book. I picked it up and read a few chapters that talked about stress and worry.”
The words inside carried such meaning that Barker returned to the CVS but the copies were all sold out.
“I contacted the distributor and ordered five copies,” she said. “I was so touched by the effect it had on my life that I gave out the copies to people I ran into and who talked about COVID and its effect on their lives. I told them I have a book that could take some stress out of their lives. So I ordered 25 more copies and gave them out over the next few months.
“I can be anywhere, such as a store, a Chamber event, a celebration or a cemetery and since I’m a good listener, I focus on what people are saying as people love to talk about their problems. Sometimes people just need someone to talk to.”
She has encountered mostly positive reactions from people she hands copies to. The opportunities are everywhere as she attends so many local events, including Chamber of Commerce events, awards and recognition programs, festivals, church gatherings and more. As a member of the Haverhill Exchange Club, you’ll find her at their weekly luncheon meetings. If there’s something happening around the city, Barker is usually there bringing her own style of light and happiness into a room.
“When someone has a problem, or there’s a sickness, or they have a family member they are worried about, I just listen,” she said. “And when the opportunity arises, I’ll tell them you seem very stressed and worried and that I have this wonderful booklet I’m sure can help you. I only give them out to people who talk about having a problem and I feel the book can help.”
While attending a bridal conference in North Carolina in 2022 as part of her work with her company Paper Pot Pourri, a custom maker of stationary, she was in a cafe at her hotel and noticed an elderly man who appeared to be alone and lonely.
“I saw that he had a pile of books and that one had the word Jesus on the cover,” she said. “I struck up a conversation and he told me about a problem with a family member who had attempted suicide. I told him I have a wonderful little book and will you accept it? Since then I continue to receive text messages from the man.”
She said she carries several copies in her pocketbook, just in case.
“It’s not that I go looking for people to hand them to, it just happens,” she said. “This book helps me to accept the trials and tribulations in life.”
Barker’s faith in God has brought her on many pilgrimages, including to a village called Medjugorje, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which she visited in 2022.
“I prayed a lot and climbed Apparition Hill while hobbling with a cane due to foot surgery the year before, and which has since healed,” she said. “I also submitted prayer petitions from people I know and who requested certain prayers.”
She’s been to the Holy Land twice to visit the place of Jesus’ birth and crucifixion and other holy sites, and last year she visited religious sites in Italy.
Barker said she initially purchased the books for the retail price of $4.99, but for the past four years she obtains them at a discount from Keith Provance, who lives in Oklahoma.
“I often write to him to tell him about situations that led to my handing out a copy,” she said. “During one phone conversation I reminded him that he’d included a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in Haverhill, and over time he’s learned a lot about Haverhill’s history, which I’m happy to talk to him about.”
“This little book speaks to common things people struggle with and is written in such a simple way that it doesn’t overwhelm the reader,” she said.
“It’s very easy to understand. I also like the sayings from well known people. I have other books but I’m not addicted to them as I am to this book and the message it brings to me. It doesn’t solve all problems, but it helps understand and accept things. Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, we must accept, and of course God is always here to help us.”
The earlier target represents a loss for the German Greens who, ahead of a three-day party congress in Lyon this weekend, had pushed for the climate neutrality target to be delayed to 2045, according to amendments seen by POLITICO.
The election manifesto, which was adopted by a large majority of national delegations, warned that meeting these climate objectives “must not rely on false solutions such as geo-engineering.”
The Greens are at risk of losing about a third of their seats in the European Parliament at the EU election in June, while a backlash against Brussels’ green agenda has been sweeping across the Continent in recent weeks. The party’s response has been to redouble the push on its core demands for higher climate ambition.
The final manifesto, for example, calls for the EU energy system to rely on 100 percent renewable sources and to phase out all fossil fuels by 2040, “starting with coal by 2030.” It also calls on the EU to adopt a plan for phasing out “fossil gas and oil as early as 2035 and no later than 2040.”
That point is another loss for the German Greens, who had pushed for deleting phaseout dates for fossil gas and oil from the manifesto.
The Greens have also been fighting back against the conservatives’ and far right’s attacks blaming them for farmers’ current struggles and for forcing the green transition to quickly on the sector.
Over the weekend, the Greens amended their manifesto to respond to farmers’ discontent, saying they will campaign for “a new agricultural model that reduces emissions, protect the environment, and foster social justice.”
The text insists that “farmers should make a decent income of their work,” and that the Greens will push to “make sure farmers are not exposed to unfair competition from products not respecting the same standards, including those imported from third countries” — which have been key demands of farmers’ unions during the recent demonstrations.
Britain is providing the executive an extra £3.3 billion to start patching holes in services and pay long-delayed wage hikes that just triggered the biggest public sector strike in Northern Ireland’s history. The trouble is, the head of Northern Ireland’s civil service, Jayne Brady, has already told the new leaders that these eye-watering sums are still too small to pay the required bills. The U.K. expects Stormont to raise regional taxes, something local leaders have been loath to do.
If anything can unite unionist and republican politicians, it’s their shared demand for the U.K. Treasury to keep sending more moolah — even though the British government already has committed to pay Northern Ireland over the odds into perpetuity at a new rate of £1.24 versus an equivalent £1 spent in England.
Money demands and spending priorities should underpin short-term stability at Stormont. But a U.K. general election looms within months and DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson wants to reverse his party’s losses to Sinn Féin. That could be complicated by the fact that he’s just compromised on Brexit trade rules in a fashion that distresses and confuses many within his own divided party, leaving him vulnerable.
To strengthen his leadership, Donaldson boosted pragmatic allies and sought to neuter less reasonable opponents in Saturday’s DUP moves at Stormont.
The assembly’s new non-partisan speaker will be DUP lawmaker Edwin Poots, who defeated Donaldson for the party leadership in 2021 only to be tossed out almost immediately.
That move puts Poots — who used his previous role as Stormont’s agriculture minister to block essential resources for the required post-Brexit checks at ports — into a new strait-jacket of neutrality.
Little-Pengelly, by contrast, is one of Donaldson’s most trusted lieutenants and a Stormont insider. He put her into his own assembly seat when, shortly after the 2022 election, Donaldson dumped it in favor of staying an MP in London.
While Stormont is never more than one crisis away from another collapse, for Saturday, peace reigned — and an Irish republican, committed to Northern Ireland’s eventual dissolution, is in charge of making the place work.
“We have been saying this a long time,” he said on a visit to Brussels. “I have been here three times before and always we said if we didn’t do this … the Houthis will never stop. The Houthis have an ideology, have a project. Iran has a project in the region and unfortunately, the others do not respond.”
He expressed frustration that the EU and U.S. spent years pouring their diplomatic energies into wooing Tehran for a nuclear deal, rather than exerting more pressure on the Islamic Republic to stop supporting their Houthi allies, fellow Shi’ite Muslims who were seeking to impose what he labeled a “theocratic, totalitarian” police state.
The idea behind the nuclear talks was that Tehran should limit its nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief, but an accord proved out of reach.
No one paid attention
Bin Mubarak noted international momentum for action — which has included U.S. and British strikes on Houthi targets — did not finally come about “because of what [the Houthis] did to the Yemenis. They killed thousands of Yemenis. Not because of the atrocities they committed, raping women … jailing women … Just look at what Houthis did. No one is paying attention.”
He explained Western diplomacy toward Iran was supposed to have focused on three elements: the nuclear program, Tehran’s support for regional proxies, and its ballistic missile program. The fixation on the first, to the detriment of the other two, means the West is now facing an adversary in Yemen that has been very well armed by Iran, bin Mubarak complained.
“[Iran’s] Shahed drones, the first time we started hearing the European Union talking about it, they were being used in Ukraine. But before that, for years, we were saying Iran is supplying Houthis and drones are attacking Yemeni people. No one was believing [it],” he continued, adding that Houthi drone strikes stopped Yemeni oil exports in October 2022.
Kevin Durant, now in his first full season with the Phoenix Suns, explicitly stated that he did not want a tribute video in his return to Brooklyn. He did not think he deserved one. And in the days leading into Wednesday’s Nets-Suns matchup, many on social media debated whether the 14-time All-Star, who played just 129 games with Brooklyn, was with the franchise long enough to justify honoring him in that way.
Former fan favorites such as Bruce Brown and Joe Harris got tribute videos in their returns to Barclays Center. James Harden did not. And it remains to be seen whether Kyrie Irving will get one when the Dallas Mavericks visit Brooklyn on Feb. 6.
When the lights dimmed inside Barclays Center as Suns starters were announced, a tribute video is ultimately what Durant got despite his honest plea, about 24 seconds in length. The forward was greeted with cheers from Nets fans which quickly turned to boos each time he touched the ball on Wednesday night.
Durant, in superstar form, played like he still owned the place, too, pouring in a game-high 33 points with five rebounds and eight assists in Phoenix’s 136-120 win. Their victory snapped a two-game winning streak for the Nets (19-28), who have now lost 12 of their last 16 games.
Size mattered on Wednesday night. Ben Simmons was ruled out hours ahead of the game because of a left knee contusion suffered late in the fourth quarter of Monday’s win over the Utah Jazz, which was his first appearance in an NBA game since Nov. 6. The Nets were already without two rotation bigs in Day’Ron Sharpe (left knee hyperextension) and Dorian Finney-Smith (left ankle sprain), which left them thin in the frontcourt entering Monday’s matchup.
Phoenix’s Jusuf Nurkić took advantage, scoring virtually all 28 of his points at the rim. The Suns outscored Brooklyn 56-50 in the paint and dominated the glass 42-27. They shot 68.6% on two-point field goals and went 14-of-28 from deep.
Sparingly used forward Harry Giles III, 6-foot-10, did not get off the bench until the 1:26 mark in the third quarter. At that point the Nets trailed by 15 points. Unable to slow down a surprisingly lethal two-man game of Durant and Nurkić, Brooklyn was outscored 42-26 in the third quarter after trailing by just three points at halftime. The game was tied at 75 with 7:31 left in the third quarter.
And the Nets, who had 11 turnovers which led to 17 points for Phoenix, failed to make up much ground down the stretch, though they did cut their deficit to 10 points with 2:25 left in regulation. Allowing an opposing team to shoot 62% for the game is already difficult to overcome. It becomes even tougher when you foul 24 times, which led to 24 points at the free throw line for the Suns.
Six Nets players finished in double figures, led by Cam Thomas who had 25 points in his third consecutive start. Mikal Bridges added 21 points and six 3-pointers, the third time he has made at least six in his last five appearances.
The Nets will return to action on Saturday against the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center. It is unknown at this time whether Simmons or Finney-Smith will be available to play. Wednesday marked 24 days since Sharpe first suffered his knee injury against the Portland Trail Blazers.
While the scale and target of Biden’s promised response is not yet clear, any unilateral move is likely to draw blowback from key allies in the Middle East who worry about sparking a regional war.
Turkey, a key NATO ally, has denounced Israel’s campaign in Gaza, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused the U.K. and the U.S. of trying to turn the Red Sea into a “sea of blood.”
“Turkey does not want to be drawn into this conflict because it shares a border with Iran,” said Selin Nasi, a visiting fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. “If the U.S. as its main ally in NATO gets involved in this military conflict directly then Turkey has to choose a side, and that will mean it’s harder to maintain a balanced approach — like it has done with the war in Ukraine.”
The challenge for Biden is how to retaliate without risking escalation by Iran and its partners in the region. Conversely, doing nothing — especially after having said he would avenge the deaths of the three U.S. soldiers — would leave him vulnerable to a charge of weakness from Trump.
“Iran’s leadership probably calculates that the United States will be reticent to fulsomely respond in any manner that would risk escalation of tensions in the Middle East and spark the region-wide [conflict] the Biden administration has admirably tried to prevent the past three months,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer.
But the U.S. may have “to undertake a more fulsome response to restore deterrence,” he added.
Jamie Dettmer, Jeremy Van der Haegen and Laura Kayali contributed reporting.
Though unsuccessful, the attack marks an intensification in the battle between the Houthis, which control large parts of Yemen, and a U.S.-led naval operation aimed at protecting commercial shipping in one of the most important global trade routes.
In recent weeks, Western navies have repeatedly responded to Houthi attacks against cargo ships traveling along the coast of Yemen that began soon after the October 7 attack by the Hamas militant group against Israel.
The Yemen-based group said it was conducting its attacks in solidarity with the Palestinian group. In response, Western militaries are now increasingly targeting Houthi weapons sites in Yemen.
On Friday, the Houthi rebels also struck an oil tanker with a missile, according to the ship’s operator Trafigura. The company said on Saturday that it was assessing the security risks of further Red Sea voyages after firefighters put out a blaze on the tanker, the Marlin Luanda.
The Biden administration’s announcement Friday that it’s pausing liquefied natural gas export approvals sparked political backlash, drew cheers from climate activists and stoked uncertainty in energy markets, but is unlikely to see the U.S. give up its title as the world’s top LNG exporter.
The U.S. will delay its decisions on new LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries, allowing time for the Energy Department to update the underlying analyses for LNG export authorizations, the White House said.
Those analyses are roughly five years old and “no longer adequately account for considerations” such as potential cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers or the “latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions,” it said.
The Biden administration likely “realizes the role of LNG in foreign policy, but at the same time it needs to show the Democrat base that it is doing something for climate change,” said Anas Alhajji, an independent energy expert and managing partner at Energy Outlook Advisors, pointing out that the announcement comes during a presidential election year.
“Delaying one project or stopping it may not be a big deal, but it is a problem if it becomes a trend,” he said in emailed commentary.
Environmental groups, which have pushed for action, cheered the decision.
The 12 impacted projects in the U.S. “would spew out as much climate-warming pollution as 223 coal plants per year, and they present explosion risks to the communities where they’re located and emit other health-harming chemicals,” the Sierra Club, an environmental group, said in a statement welcoming the decision.
Top exporter
The announcement is particularly important for a nation that became the world’s biggest LNG exporter in the span of less than a decade.
The U.S. became the world’s largest LNG exporter during the first half of 2022 on the back of increases in LNG export capacity, international natural gas and LNG prices, and global demand, particularly in Europe, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The country’s exports of LNG climbed to a fresh record in November 2023, with the EIA reporting domestic exports of 386.2 billion cubic feet, up from 384.4 bcf a month earlier. Exports in December 2016 were at just 41.8 bcf.
U.S. LNG exports soared after 2016.
EIA
With 90% of U.S. LNG going to non-free trade agreement destinations, withholding licensing effectively “halts project development,” John Miller, managing director, ESG and sustainability policy at TD Cowen wrote in a Friday note.
Equities
LNG equities with operating facilities likely won’t benefit from the administration’s announcement, at least not immediately, until the impacts of this pause in export approvals to non-FTA countries becomes more clear, Jason Gabelman, director, sustainability & energy transition at TD Cowen said.
U.S. companies with government approvals that have not been sanctioned, “could have a higher probability of moving forward this year, albeit modestly” as offtakers may be hesitant to sign up to new U.S. projects with LNG development getting “politicized,” he said. Among those, he pointed out approvals for proposed liquefaction units at NextDecade Corp.’s NEXT, +2.30%
Rio Grande LNG export facility project in Brownsville, Texas.
At the same time, it would not be a surprise if U.S. LNG companies pursuing growth that do not yet have non-FTA approval see downside pressure, said Gabelman.
LNG projects take around 4 years to build and any delays to project sanctions today will take “multiple years to manifest in the market,” he said.
Still, the U.S. announcement “introduces the risk of more stringent oversight that could limit new U.S. capacity” more than four years out, Gabelman said.
Companies that supply equipment to LNG liquefaction projects include Baker Hughes Co. BKR, +0.59%
and Chart Industries Inc. GTLS, -7.54%,
said Marc Bianchi, a senior energy analyst at TD Cowen.
Any slowing of approval would create “overhand on order growth,” he said.
Climate change
The White House said Friday that its decision will not impact the ability of the U.S. to continue supplying LNG to its allies in the near term but also acknowledged environmental concerns.
“I think we’ve got to be clear eyed about the challenges that we face. The climate crisis is an existential crisis, and we’ve got to be, I think, really forward leaning into making sure that we’re taking that head on,” said Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, told reporters Friday.
He added that given the number of approvals already completed, the number of projects under construction are set to double existing capacity with approvals beyond that set to double capacity yet again.
“So there’s a long runway here, and we’re taking a step back and thinking, OK, let’s take a hard look before that runway continues to build out,” he said.
Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise, argued that U.S. LNG exports actually reduce global carbon emissions as natural gas typically “displaces coal to generate electricity in countries such as China and India.”
They also improve global energy security as U.S. natural gas is becoming Europe’s primary energy supplier, replacing Russia, he said.
In a statement Friday, Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said that if the Biden administration has facts to prove that additional LNG export capacity would hurt Americans, it needs to make that information public. But if the pause is “another political ploy to pander to keep-it-in-the-ground climate activists,” he said he would “do everything in my power to end this pause immediately.
Manchin plans to hold a hearing on the decision in the coming weeks.
Market impact
The U.S. decision to delay new LNG export permits is unlikely to have an impact on domestic natural-gas supplies or prices, said Energy Outlook Advisors’ Alhajji.
LNG prices and the rate at which new LNG export terminals can be constructed help determine LNG export volumes, the EIA said, and higher LNG exports can result in upward pressure on U.S. natural-gas prices, while lower U.S. LNG exports can pressure prices.
On Friday, natural gas for February delivery NG00, +0.23%
NGG24, +0.26%
settled at $2.71 per million British thermal units, up 7.7% for the week.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is likely to keep its position as the world’s top LNG exporter, according to Tortoise’s Thummel.
The U.S. is the currently the largest LNG exporter at almost 12 bcf per day, with Qatar coming in second, he said.
Qatar is expanding its LNG export capacity and is expected to have the ability to export almost 20 bcf per day by 2028, he said. The EIA reported recently that Qatar has averaged 10.3 bcf per day in exports during the last 10 years.
That would mark sizable growth. But the EIA reported in November that LNG export capacity from North America is likely to more than double from around 11.4 bcf per day to 24.3 bcf per day by the end of 2027.
The EIA said North America’s LNG export capacity is likely to more than double by 2027.
EIA
Given expected growth in U.S. LNG export capacity, the U.S. is likely to “remain the largest exporter of LNG in the world” despite the U.S. announcement, said Thummel.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a rally in advance of the New Hampshire presidential primary election in Rochester, New Hampshire, U.S., January 21, 2024.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Markets need to begin thinking about the structural impact of Donald Trump‘s proposed 10% tariff increase, which “shakes up every asset class,” according to Michael Every, global strategist at Rabobank.
The former president, and overwhelming favorite to secure the Republican nomination for the 2024 race, plans to impose a 10% tariff on all imported goods, trebling the government’s intake and aiming to incentivize American domestic production.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said earlier this month that the plan would “raise the cost of a wide variety of goods that American businesses and consumers rely on,” though she noted that tariffs are appropriate “in some cases.”
Criticism of the policy has been relatively bipartisan. The Tax Foundation think tank highlights that such a tariff would effectively raise taxes on U.S. consumers by more than $300 billion a year, along with triggering retaliatory tax increases by international trade partners on U.S. exports.
The center-right American Action Forum estimated, based on the assumption that trading partners would retaliate, that the policy would result in a 0.31% ($62 billion) decrease to U.S. GDP, making consumers worse off and decreasing U.S. welfare by $123.3 billion.
“First of all, they can’t model that because they don’t really understand what the second and third order effects are, and more importantly, they don’t grasp that Trump isn’t talking about a 10% tariff just because it’s a 10% tariff,” Every said.
“He’s talking about structurally breaking the global system by hook or by crook to basically reindustrialize the U.S. in a neo-Hamiltonian manner which is how the U.S. originally industrialized, putting up a barrier between it and the rest of the world so it’s cheap to produce in America and more expensive to produce everywhere else if you’re importing into America.”
A second Trump term
Every added that a return to this type of trade policy “shakes up every asset class — equities, FX, bonds, you name it — everything gets put in a box and shaken around, so that’s what markets should start thinking about.”
In the American Action Forum’s November report, data and policy analyst Tom Lee concluded that in the most likely scenario that trading partners impose retaliatory tariffs, a new 10% duty on all goods imported to the U.S. would “distort global trade, discourage economic activity, and have broad negative consequences for the U.S. economy.”
“It’s not going to stop business because it’s not that much,” he claimed, “but it’s enough that we really make a lot of money.”
During his first term in office, Trump triggered a trade war with China by unilaterally slapping $250 billion worth of tariffs on goods imported from China, which the AAF estimated have cost Americans an extra $195 billion since 2018.
China responded with its own tariffs on U.S. goods, and Trump also imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from most countries, including many of Washington’s biggest allies.
Keen to maintain a firm stance on Beijing, President Joe Biden‘s administration has largely kept these tariffs in place, though converted some of the metal tariffs into tariff-rate quotas, which allow a lower tariff rate on particular product imports within a specified quantity.
Dan Boardman-Weston, CEO of BRI Wealth Management, said the macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape is now very different and more challenging than when Trump’s first term began in 2017, and added that his erratic approach to policy decisions would add to the kind of uncertainty that markets most dislike.
“In 2017, markets really appreciated the Trump presidency because of all the tax cuts and deregulation, and there was a more conducive market environment I think back then, with where rates were, for markets to move higher,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.
“I think this time is going to be very different, and I do think the geopolitical risks across the world are rising, and this doesn’t seem to be on investors’ radars as of yet.”
He noted Trump’s tendency to “change his mind” so frequently on geopolitical issues that “people won’t know where his thinking is at.”
He was also impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for allegedly threatening to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sanctioned a politically motivated investigation into his then-leading electoral challenger Biden. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
“That unpredictable approach to how he will approach the war in Ukraine or how he will approach relations with China and Taiwan I think lead to heightened risks from a geopolitical perspective, which I think will impact into market valuations,” Boardman-Weston said.
“It’s that added element of uncertainty in an already very uncertain world.”
Moody’s Investors Service has a negative outlook for sovereign creditworthiness in Asia-Pacific this year, due to China’s slower economic growth as well as tight funding and geopolitical risks.
China’s rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t as fast as several economists had expected at the start of 2023. The country’s GDP for the last three months of 2023 rose by 5.2%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, missing estimates of 5.3% in a Reuters poll.
In a Jan. 15 report, Moody’s predicted China’s real GDP growth would slow to 4% this year and next, from an average of 6% between 2014 and 2023. The credit rating agency said the slowdown in China’s growth “significantly influences” APAC economies because of its strong integration in global supply chains.
On top of the “lackluster situation in China,” tight funding conditions will also weigh on Asia-Pacific sovereigns, Christian De Guzman, senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service, told CNBC.
“This is also predicated on global liquidity conditions where we really don’t see the Fed easing until the middle of the year,” Guzman said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
“And Asia-Pacific central banks – we don’t see much decoupling [from] global liquidity conditions there.”
The Moody’s report said high interest rates will prevent material gains in debt affordability, though rates are expected to ease gradually. As a result, international financing will remain difficult for lower-rated sovereigns, it concluded.
Guzman also said strategic tensions between China and the U.S. will persist.
China is a top trading partner for most Asian nations, while the U.S. remains an important economic partner as well. As the wedge between China and the U.S. widens, it may be increasingly difficult to maintain this balancing act, according to a 2018 World Economic Forum report.
That could also mean opportunities for countries with large manufacturing bases and improving infrastructure such as India, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as companies diversify supply chains away from China to mitigate geopolitical risks, the Moody’s report wrote.
Broadly firmer growth driven by domestic demand and regional trade amid easing financial conditions could improve the region’s outlook to stable, said Moody’s.
The crisis in the Red Sea poses serious risks to oil flows and prices could change quickly if tensions lead to a major supply disruption in the Middle East, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth told CNBC on Tuesday.
“So much of the world’s oil flows through that region that were it to be cut off, I think you could see things change very rapidly,” Wirth said.
Chevron has continued transporting crude through the region as the company works closely with the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Wirth said. The CEO cautioned that situation is evolving.
“We really have to watch very carefully,” Wirth told CNBC.
The British oil major Shell has suspended shipments through the Red Sea, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. Shell declined to comment in response to a request from CNBC.
Shell’s decision to halt shipments through the crucial trade chokepoint comes about a month after BP paused transits through the Red Sea. Several major tanker companies, which transport petroleum products such as gasoline as well as crude oil, halted traffic toward the Red Sea on Friday.
Houthi militants, who are based in Yemen and allied with Iran, have repeatedly attacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s war in Gaza. The U.S. and Britain have launched airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen to secure shipping through the waterway.
The Houthis have continued to launch attacks despite the U.S.-led strikes. The militants on Tuesday launched an antiship ballistic missile that struck a Maltese-flagged bulk carrier in the Red Sea, according to U.S. Central Command. No injuries were reported and the vessel continued to transit the waterway, according to CENTCOM.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said nations with influence in Iran need to take a stronger stand to demonstrate the “entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can basically hijack the world as they are doing.”
The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution last week condemning the Houthi attacks “in the strongest possible terms.” Permanent council members China and Russia, which wield veto power, abstained from the vote on the resolution.
“We anticipated that the Houthis would continue to try to hold this critical artery at risk, and we continue to reserve the right to take further action, but this needs to be an all hands on deck effort,” Sullivan said during an interview in Davos on Tuesday.
Oil market and geopolitical analysts say that the biggest risk to energy supplies would come if Middle East tensions erupt into a regional conflict that disrupts crude oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz.
Some 7 million barrels of crude oil and products transit the Red Sea daily, compared to 18 million barrels that transit the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from the trade analytics firm Kpler.
Goldman Sachs has warned that a prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz could double oil prices, though the investment bank views that scenario as unlikely.
Wirth said Chevron had two ships attacked by the Iranian Navy last year, one of which was hijacked by commandos and taken to an Iranian port and the other took fire for four hours until the U.S. Navy intervened.
Iran seized an oil tanker last week in the Gulf of Oman. The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker St. Nikolas was previously involved in a dispute between the U.S. and Iran over sanctioned crude.
DAVOS, Switzerland — Britain’s top finance minister Jeremy Hunt has warned Donald Trump that a return to U.S. protectionism would be a “profound mistake” if he wins the U.S. election in November.
Speaking during a press briefing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Hunt hit out at the Republican party frontrunner’s proposal for a universal tariff on all goods imported into the U.S.
Asked by POLITICO if he was concerned about the impact on the U.K. economy “if the U.S. elects a protectionist candidate for president like Donald Trump”, Hunt replied: “I don’t support protectionist measures. I think they harm the people who introduce them as much as the people they are aimed at.”
Hunt argued that a “huge flourishing of global trade” has helped to lessen poverty around the world, adding: “It would be a profound mistake to move back to protectionism.”
In an interview with Fox News in August last year, Trump floated an automatic 10 percent tariff on all goods imported to the U.S.
During his first term as U.S. president, Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and declared that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Hunt’s comments will be seen as a direct rebuke of the U.S. Republican frontrunner, who has had a mixed relationship with senior U.K. politicians in the past.
Trump was known to hold a low opinion of former PM Theresa May, whom he undermined during her time in Downing Street. The former president was closer to her successor Boris Johnson, however — even giving Johnson his private phone number.
BELFAST — First its government collapsed. Then austerity began to bite. Now fresh elections are set to be cancelled, and tens of thousands of workers are going on strike.
This is Northern Ireland in 2024 — a land of political deadlock, public sector cuts and mass labor unrest, with neither British ministers in London nor local powerbrokers the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) willing to do what is needed to restore a coherent government in this ever-divided corner of the United Kingdom.
Nearly two years after the DUP first sabotaged the Northern Ireland Executive — the cross-community government at the heart of the region’s decades-old peace process — its leadership appears no closer to ending its boycott on cooperation with Sinn Féin. The Irish republicans overtook their DUP opponents as the most popular party at the last Stormont election in May 2022, but have been waiting ever since to lead a government under a power-sharing system the DUP refuses to revive.
Similarly unwilling to fill the political vacuum is Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who refuses to resume “direct rule” from Westminster. Northern Ireland was governed directly from London through most of its decades of bloodshed during the 20th century, and through a previous collapse of powersharing at Stormont between 2002-07.
At least partly filling the vacuum over the past year have been Northern Ireland’s senior civil servants, abandoned to run their country without the help of elected politicians. They protest they lack both the power and democratic mandate to make essential spending and cost-cutting decisions — a weakness that has left public services to wither from within.
This long-running crisis has triggered months of labor unrest, finally reducing Northern Ireland to a standstill on Thursday as 16 unions staged the region’s first coordinated mass strike in a half-century. It may not be the last.
“This is a campaign we will continue,” said Gerry Murphy of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. “This is a campaign we will win.”
Labor pains
More than 170,000 workers — nearly a fifth of the entire workforce — shut down schools, transport links, non-emergency healthcare and almost all government-funded services on Thursday in a mass demand for long-withheld pay raises.
The promised salary hikes were secured in principle years ago as part of wider U.K. labor agreements, but most of this money has yet to reach paychecks and pensions in Northern Ireland because the relevant Stormont ministers aren’t in office. In their absence, the U.K. Treasury is withholding the required funds.
That was supposed to change as part of a conditional funding package that Heaton-Harris presented to local parties last month in a bid to break the DUP logjam. If Democratic Unionist leader Jeffrey Donaldson agreed to lead his party back to Stormont, Heaton-Harris announced, the U.K. would provide £3.3 billion in exceptional financial supports to make the relaunch of power-sharing a success. Included in the package: £584 million for the outstanding pay claims.
But to the exasperation of other parties, and despite Donaldson’s own efforts to telegraph a coming move, the DUP leader failed to persuade his most powerful deputies to grasp the offer as a moment for compromise.
Donaldson since has insisted that talks with U.K. government officials will drag out indefinitely until the DUP wins further concessions on Northern Ireland’s complex post-Brexit trading arrangements, which unionists fear are pushing the economy toward a united Ireland.
The DUP leader failed to persuade his most powerful deputies to grasp the offer as a moment for compromise | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Indeed, dangling billions in front of the DUP seems only to have backfired. Heaton-Harris has repeatedly said the £3.3 billion will not be forthcoming until the DUP returns to Stormont — a condition that both British unionists and Irish nationalists have denounced as blackmail.
Mass unrest
Reflecting that anger, tens of thousands of striking workers braved freezing conditions on Thursday to march in central Belfast, Londonderry and Enniskillen, venting their anger and demanding their salaries be boosted to the levels of their professional peers in England, Scotland and Wales.
As one example, they cited how a newly qualified teacher in Northern Ireland earns around £24,000 a year, versus £30,000 elsewhere in the U.K. Official U.K. statistics indicate that public sector workers in Northern Ireland have seen the value of their incomes fall by 11 percent in real terms during the past two years of government collapse.
Heaton-Harris, an arch Brexiteer who was appointed to the post by ex-PM Liz Truss during her brief Downing Street reign, has struggled to find any pressure point that works on Donaldson, whose DUP is frequently cited as the most stubborn political party in Europe.
Heaton-Harris’ most common threat — to call an early election for Stormont — has proved particularly absurd because it would potentially help the DUP. Donaldson would hope to claw back ground lost to politicians representing the moderate middle ground, who did unusually well in the 2022 vote.
Indeed, the prospect of fresh elections is one reason why Donaldson keeps playing for time. Accepting a deal now — and so accepting the current post-Brexit trade arrangements are here to stay — would likely split his party and drive support toward Traditional Unionist Voice, an even harder-line unionist rival that rejects working with Sinn Féin in all circumstances.
Reflecting that anger, tens of thousands of striking workers braved freezing conditions on Thursday to march in central Belfast | Paul Faith/AFP via Getty Images
And so the stasis — and the misery — looks set to continue.
The unions behind Thursday’s mass strike have vowed to conduct a rolling series of similar protests until Heaton-Harris untethers their pay demands from any proposed DUP sweetheart deal.
But Heaton-Harris looks poised to kick the Stormont can down the road yet again, meaning Northern Ireland’s public services keep suffering via piecemeal funding half-measures.
The minister is expected to unveil emergency legislation next week that gives both himself, and Northern Ireland’s permanent secretaries, a new “hybrid” mix of powers and responsibilities over the region.
But a former permanent secretary who oversaw the Brexit process in Northern Ireland, Andrew McCormick, said Heaton-Harris’ mismanagement of the situation to date meant neither the Stormont mandarins nor the secretary of state himself “have a legal basis for the strategic decisions that are needed. The government can and should change course as a matter of urgency. Abdication is not acceptable.”
The legislation also is expected to delay, once again, the legally required date for the next Stormont election to early 2025 — by which time a U.K.-wide general election will likely have ended the Conservative government’s 14-year reign and turned Northern Ireland into a problem for the British Labour Party.
Men stand near a billboard bearing the image of a commercial ship with the flag of Israel as it is burning after Yemen’s Houthi-affiliated naval forces struck it, at a street on January 10, 2024 in Sana’a, Yemen.
Mohammed Hamoud | Getty Images
A U.S.-owned and operated container ship on Monday was struck by an anti-ship ballistic missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, according to the U.S. Central Command.
The U.S. said via social media that the attack took place at around 4 p.m. local time (8 a.m. ET) but the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel, known as the M/V Gibraltar Eagle, reported no injuries or significant damage and continued on with its journey.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organization said authorities were investigating the incident, which occurred southeast of Aden in Yemen. The UKMTO said ships were “advised to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity.”
It comes shortly after the U.S. and U.K. launched joint strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The Iran-backed group has been attacking ships traversing the Red Sea since late last year, wreaking havoc on global trade and drawing international condemnation.
The militants claim their attacks in the Red Sea are in response to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
British maritime security firm Ambrey said three missiles were reportedly launched by the Houthis, according to Reuters, with two not reaching the sea and one hitting the vessel.
The U.S.-owned bulk carrier was said to have been transiting in the westbound lane of the International Recommended Transit Corridor, a shipping route through the Gulf of Aden. The missile reportedly caused a fire in a hold.
Ambrey was reported to have said it assessed the attack to have targeted U.S. interests in response to recent military strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Last week, U.S. and U.K. forces carried out airstrikes on over 60 targets at 16 Houthi militant locations, including missile launch sites, production facilities and radar systems. The strikes came after the Houthis defied a warning to stop targeting maritime vessels in the Red Sea.
The Houthis, which oppose the U.S. and Israeli influence in the Middle East, is not internationally recognized as the government of Yemen but it does control large parts of the country. This includes the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial maritime chokepoint that connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
MADISON (WKOW) — Wisconsin Repubicans have unveiled a new proposal to establish a medical marijuana program in the state.
The bill would limit the drug to only those who are severely ill with chronic diseases like cancer. Smokeable marijuana would not be allowed.
The proposal also regulates medical cannabis growers, processors, and testing laboratories, and requires the state to establish five state-owned dispensaries to grow and sell medical cannabis products.
Cannabis lawyer Jason Tarasek worked closely with lawmakers in Minnesota to hone the state’s adult-use cannabis bill that legalized recreational marijuana in the state. He said this week that he sees similarities between Wisconsin’s proposal and Minnesota’s initial medical marijuana program that was established in 2014. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has indicated this proposal is based on Minnesota’s program.
Tarasek said that their initial program was similarly restrictive, but has loosened in recent years to include other conditions such as autism, intractable pain, and sleep apnea.
“Like everything with marijuana, it is very controversial when it’s first introduced, the stigma is real around marijuana,” he said. “I think it’s interesting to watch these states come online, and I’m certain that if the medical marijuana program is introduced in Wisconsin, as intended, society will see this…
