BlackMask Breaking News

(Reuters) – A White House plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccination or repeated testing for around two-thirds of U.S. workers announced on Thursday could be hampered by supply challenges as COVID-19 test manufacturers strain to keep pace with demand. U.S. President Joe Biden will require all federal employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the U.S. Department of Labor will issue a rule requiring private businesses with more than 100 employees to have their workers vaccinated or tested weekly, officials said on Thursday. Around 25% of the approximately 255 million Americans 18 years of age and older have not yet received a COVID-19 shot, according to federal data. The White House said it will spend nearly $2 billion on 280 million rapid COVID-19 tests to help boost supply, but industry experts are doubtful that manufacturers can produce tests fast enough to keep up with the administration’s mandate.

The U.S. testing industry currently can only produce around 50 million rapid COVID-19 tests each month, said Vijay Kumar, an analyst at Evercore ISI who covers medical technology companies. That’s only enough tests to cover around 12 million people taking weekly tests.

The White House said on Thursday it will employ a wartime law known at the Defense Production Act to help test manufacturers access needed supplies. “It has to be a priority to increase the availability of tests,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. “Rapid tests should’ve been available from the very start of this pandemic and the shortages now are unacceptable.”

The largest U.S. manufacturers of rapid COVID-19 tests – Becton Dickinson and Co, Quidel Corp and Abbott Laboratories – did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the White House’s announcement. The Advanced Medical Technology Association, a trade group for testmakers, told Reuters that rapid point-of-care test supplies are still ramping up to meet demand although laboratory-based testing capacity is strong. It added that it sent a letter to the administration in September requesting additional support for test production. U.S. companies have been already been straining to provide COVID-19 tests requested by K-12 schools around the country as they roll out surveillance programs going into the new school year.

https://youtu.be/9EFVEA9jPcc

Moscow announced Friday the completion of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which critics say will increase Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and bypasses a key EU ally, Ukraine. “Chairman of the Management Committee Alexei Miller said that this morning at 8.45 Moscow time (05:45 GMT) construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was fully completed,” Gazprom said in a statement.

Nord Stream 2 is expected to double natural gas supplies from Russia to Germany, but it has divided European capitals and raised tensions between the bloc and Washington.

A key controversy is that it diverts supplies from an existing route through Ukraine and is expected to deprive the EU’s partner of crucial transit fees from Russia.  Ukraine — in conflict with Russia since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea — has warned Europe that Nord Stream 2 could be used by Moscow as a geopolitical pressure vice. In previous energy disputes, Russia has cut gas supplies to Kiev. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month described the pipeline as “a dangerous geopolitical weapon”.

The project is also fiercely opposed by Poland and the Baltic states, who fear Russia will use it as a geopolitical weapon in disputes.

Running from Russia’s Baltic coast to northeastern Germany, the underwater, 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) pipeline follows the same route as Nord Stream 1, which was completed over a decade ago. Like its twin, Nord Stream 2 will be able to pipe 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year to Europe, increasing the continent’s access to relatively cheap natural gas at a time of falling domestic production. Gazprom has a majority stake in the 10-billion-euro ($12 billion) project. Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall, France’s Engie, the Anglo-Dutch firm Shell and Austria’s OMV are also involved. Former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder serves as chairman of the Nord Stream’s shareholders committee. Russia and Germany insist Nord Stream 2 is a purely commercial project, but analysts disagree about the project’s economic benefits. A 2018 report by German think-tank DIW said it was unnecessary and undertaken based on forecasts that “significantly overestimate” demand in Germany and Europe. Germany — Europe’s top economy — imports around 40 percent of its gas from Russia, and Berlin believes the pipeline has a role to play in Germany’s transition away from coal and nuclear energy. The United States has warily given the green light for the project.

Like predecessors Barack Obama and Donald Trump, US President Joe Biden had objected to the project, saying it is a bad deal for Europe and a security risk.

But critics of this argument pointed out that the US also wants to boost sales of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.US sanctions on Russian vessels laying the pipeline succeeded in delaying Nord Stream 2, angering Germany.

But Biden, eager to rebuild transatlantic ties that were badly strained by Trump, unexpectedly waived sanctions in May on the Russian-controlled company behind the project.

Analysts saw the move as an olive branch to Berlin, whose support Washington is counting on in the face of other challenges, including a rising China. Zelensky said the sanctions waiver was a win for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reaffirming support for Ukraine, Biden hosted Zelensky at the White House in early September. After the meeting Zelensky told reporters Biden had assured him the United States would impose sanctions on the pipeline if there were “violations” from Russia that would create problems for Ukraine’s energy security. Nick Note: Europe is so fucked…. Talk about becoming Putin’s bitch. Do they really want to be hopelessly reliant on Russian energy…. And Ukraine got a dick pulling session with Biden as he sold them out.. After a proper wait Putin will be pulling the plug on Ukraine’s Russian gas that flows through the counrty to Europe….

LONDON/HONG KONG, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Global shares rose and the dollar edged lower on Friday as news of a call between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden offered some relief to traders eyeing cautious central bank steps towards ending stimulus. The U.S. president and his Chinese counterpart spoke for 90 minutes in their first talks in seven months on Thursday, discussing the need to avoid letting competition between the world’s two largest economies veer into conflict. That helped China shares rise 0.9%, giving a fillip to the region and lifting MSCI’s World index , its broadest gauge of global stock markets, up 0.2% in early European deals, ending a three-day losing streak. Despite the gains, helped by a similar performance across Europe’s top markets, the index remains down 0.7% on the week and on course for its first drop in three, albeit hovering just 1% off a record high and up 92% since the lows of 2020. U.S. stock futures pointed to a 0.3% high open on Wall Street later in the session.Observers cautioned, however, against over-interpreting one telephone conversation as a sign of a broader rapprochement between China and the United States, whose relations are more strained that any time in decades. “There were some small market moves after the news of the call, but it’s not a fundamental change – markets are still more concerned about Fed tapering and China regulation,” said Gary Ng, an economist at Natixis in Hong Kong. The pace at which central banks, especially the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, choose to trim their support to the economy remains the driving force of market sentiment. Thursday’s move by the ECB to trim its bond purchases is expected to be followed by the Fed later this year according to some officials, despite a weak August labour report. Nick Note: China is in a war to take over the world. To think any negotiation will deter them. Why should they change course now. Whatever they are doing is working. The US loves endless negotiations where her leaders can pontificate from on high. A great example of what the US gets in this silly ass tactic  is a failure for all to see with the Taliban. Its right out of the Mao play. Do the dance and in the background do what you want!

More than 80 million Americans working in the private sector will be required to receive a COVID vaccine or produce a negative test result at least once a week, a senior Biden administration official said Thursday.

Why it matters: The new rule, to be developed by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), underscores the Biden administration’s ramped up efforts to control the virus as cases and hospitalizations largely driven by the Delta variant surge nationwide.

Driving the news: OSHA is developing the rule that will require vaccinations or once a week testing for companies with more than 100 employees, set to be implemented in the coming weeks, per the White House official.

The big picture: The Biden administration unveiled a six-pronged plan to respond to the virus on Thursday, which includes efforts to encourage vaccinations and bolster protections for the vaccinated, among other areas.

• Health care workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other health care settings — more than 17 million people — will also be required to get vaccinated.
• The administration is also preparing boosters to start as early as the week of Sept. 20.
• President Biden will also sign an executive order requiring most federal employees to get the COVID vaccine, without the option of getting regular testing instead, Axios previously reported.

Other components of the six-part plan include:

• Urging large entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing for entry.
• Requiring staff in school settings — including at the Head Start programs, youth program personnel at the Department of Defense and at the Bureau of Indian Education-Operated Schools — to be vaccinated.
• Providing funding to school districts to support reopening, including backfilling salaries.
• Bolstering COVID-19 testing, including increasing supply of over-the-counter at-home tests, and reducing the cost of at-home tests by ensuring top manufacturers — Walmart, Amazon and Kroger — sell at-cost for the next three months.

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Amazon.com (AMZN.O) said it will cut the cost of its direct-to-consumer COVID-19 PCR Test Collection kit to $36.99, a $3 price reduction. The U.S. retailer said the price cut reflects its costs for selling the FDA-approved kit and is the result of a public-private partnership with the Biden administration. The White House said Thursday that Amazon, Walmart (WMT.N), and Kroger (KR.N) will sell at home rapid COVID-19 tests at-cost for the next three months.  Nick Note: What assholes… we see the above  BinaxNOW Antigen at home test kit for $29.99. And get this they will not let us sell them in our Amazon affilaities store. We have them in stock same day shipping. You can get them from our online store. Go to the link below..

Discounted home Covid19 test kit

(Reuters) -Wall Street dipped on Thursday after weekly jobless claims fell to a near 18-month low, allaying fears of a slowing economic recovery, but also stoking worries the Fed could move sooner than previously expected to scale back its accommodative policies. The Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 35,000 to a seasonally adjusted 310,000 for the week ended Sept. 4, the lowest level since mid-March 2020. That suggested that job growth could be hindered by labor shortages rather than cooling demand for workers. Microsoft and Amazon each fell almost 1% and they were among the stocks weighing most on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The S&P 500 real estate and healthcare indexes both fell more than 1%, while financials and materials made modest gains. JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi Group and Morgan Stanley each added about 0.5%, tracking a slight rise in benchmark bond yields following the claims data. [US/] “The problem with the market these days is it’s rotating more than it’s moving. Today, because of the jobs claims report, everyone is buying cyclical stocks,” said Jay Hatfield, chief executive of Infrastructure Capital Management in New York. “We see it as a rangebound market, between 4,400 and 4,600 (on the S&P 500).” Investors have become more worried in recent sessions after a recent monthly jobs report showed a slowdown in U.S. hiring, suggesting the economic recovery may be losing steam faster than expected. Also dragging on sentiment has been uncertainty about when the U.S. Federal Reserve’s will scale back massive measures enacted last year to shield the economy from the coronavirus pandemic. In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.39% at 34,894.03 points, while the S&P 500 lost 0.33% to 4,499.38. The Nasdaq Composite slid 0.03% to 15,282.36. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.02-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.29-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 27 new 52-week highs and 1 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 63 new highs and 31 new lows. Nick Note: This market is starting to look very dicey to me.

(Reuters) – Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic believes the Fed will pull back on its asset-buying campaign this year though he does not expect a decision in this month’s central bank meeting, he told the Wall Street Journal.”As strong as the data was coming in the early part of the summer, I was really very much leaning into advocating for an earlier start than what many may have expected” on the bond buying taper, Bostic told WSJ in an interview published on Thursday.

“The weaker data that we’ve seen more recently suggests to me that maybe there’s a chance for some play on this, but I still think that sometime this year is going to be appropriate (to slow the asset buying).”

Bostic, who does not currently hold a vote on the Federal Open Market Committee, does not expect there to be any call to pull back on asset buying at the Sept. 21-22 FOMC meeting, according to the report.

The microchip nightmare crippling auto factories globally is hitting Ford Motor Co.’s operations the hardest globally in terms of actual vehicles taken out of the production schedule, according to AutoForecast Solutions in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. The company calculates factory-by-factory company announcements, shift production and work schedules in the U.S., Asia and Europe.

Ford stockpiling thousands of new F-150 pickups near Detroit Metro Airport

Ford is conducting final quality checks on thousands of early-production F-150 pickups that are stockpiled in lots around Metro Airport as dealers clamor for deliveries of America’s best-selling truck.  Ford factory employees at the Dearborn Truck Plant have been working to meet an insatiable demand for the 2021 F-150. That meant Ford had to build trucks while the prototypes were still being driven as test models.Those trucks from the early build make up the stockpile of vehicles that are plain to see parked near the airport lately, and they are undergoing a final assessment, according to Ford. New F-150s coming out of the factory in recent weeks have been loaded directly with no delay onto truck haulers and trains to go to dealerships around the country, Ford said.

Ford F-150s parked at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City awaiting quality review

Ford needs to install seat belts and conduct software checks on early-production F-150 pickups parked in lots around the Kansas City Assembly Plant, as well as thousands in lots around metro Detroit, while some dealers await deliveries of America’s bestselling truck, Ford confirmed to the Free Press on Monday.

“As part of our commitment to delivering high-quality vehicles, we are conducting final quality inspections on trucks built before dealer shipments started last month to ensure they meet the quality expectations of our customers,” said Kelli Felker, Ford global manufacturing and labor communications manager. Nick Note ….. I would say its not a good year to by a car built peace meal in a parking lot.    I’ll just wait on them to get overstocked again and give them away………..