Trump doubles down on Pulte
President Donald Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be his next director of national intelligence. Trump’s last selection for the DNI post, Bill Pulte, was met with heavy opposition on Capitol Hill. Trump said Thursday that he still plans to install Pulte as the acting DNI director to serve until Clayton is confirmed. Trump’s attempt to put Pulte, who has no demonstrated national security background, into the job prompted pushback from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Pulte currently is Trump’s head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. He is a Trump loyalist and has used his position to issue criminal referrals about some people who Trump believes to be his political enemies.
Trump appeals order on Kennedy Center
The Trump administration on Thursday evening appealed a judge’s order that overturned the decision to rename the Kennedy Center for Donald Trump and its plans to close down the arts center for renovation. In an afternoon meeting, the board of directors appointed by Trump voted to file an appeal contesting U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper’s order. In his ruling, Cooper gave the center 14 days to remove all references to the name “Trump Kennedy Center” or the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The center’s general counsel had the staff to remove Trump’s name from their email signatures last week and change to the website logo, though the exterior signage remained in place. Trump himself dialed in to the board meeting from the Oval Office.
Severe storms hit parts of U.S.
Another barrage of severe thunderstorms barreled through parts of the central U.S. Thursday, including areas that had endured hurricane-force wind gusts, tornadoes and hail in recent days. Storms with 70 to 90 mph wind gusts hit Iowa Thursday killing a 54-year old man who was struck by a tree in Des Moines. There were over a dozen tornado reports Thursday, nearly all in Illinois and Indiana. Tornado watches were issued for more than 20 million people in parts of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. Chicago; South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana; Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Davenport, Iowa, were among the cities included. The number of homes and businesses without power across the Midwest and Northeast soared to more than 650,000 late Thursday night.
Elon Musk is poised to become a trillionaire
With an initial public offering of stock in Elon Musk’s company SpaceX today, Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire. Musk already owns about $270 billion in stock and options in Tesla. With the public trading of SpaceX he would be worth an additional $841 billion. He owns nearly half the stock of SpaceX. That’s $1.11 trillion for Musk from just his two public companies. However, Musk’s wealth is on paper, not a pile of cash in a bank somewhere. One trillion dollars is one million million dollars. That would be impossible to spend in any reasonable manner in one lifetime. If one were to spend $1 million every hour every day, it would still take more than a century to spend $1 trillion. Only 20 countries have economies that are larger than $1.1 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Oil stockpiles rapidly falling
Oil stockpiles in the world’s wealthiest nations are falling by 6.3 million barrels per day and are sitting at just 2.6 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s just 100 million barrels above operational stress levels, said David Oxley, chief climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics. Below a certain threshold, pipelines can’t maintain pressure and refineries can’t deliver all the various fuel grades their customers demand. “We’re raising alarm bells right now,” American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said on CNN. “We’re getting to levels where we are starting to be concerned.” Oil could easily go to $140 to $160 a barrel in the coming months, said Oxley. If oil got close to $200 a barrel it would mean gasoline would be selling for around $9 a gallon.
India upset by U.S. strike that killed three
The deaths of three Indian sailors in a U.S. military attack on a commercial oil tanker has prompted public fury in India, and added new friction to relations between India and the U.S. On Wednesday morning, the M/T Settebello was transiting the Sea of Oman, laden with Iranian oil, when a U.S. aircraft fired precision munitions into its engine room causing a fire. The three men found dead following the attack. “The attacks that are happening must stop,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Thursday. The timing is particularly delicate, coming days before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 leaders’ summit in France next week.
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