Senate Ag Panel Leaders Ask Budget Leaders for Farm Bill Reserve Fund

Senate Ag Committee to gear up action after the Easter break on new farm bill
 

Good Friday schedule; Happy Easter from Pro Farmer. Grain and livestock markets will trade normal hours today. Markets are closed for Good Friday, though gov’t offices are open. Grain markets reopen with overnight trade at 7:00 p.m. CT on Sunday, April 9. Livestock markets will resume trading at 8:30 a.m. CT on Monday, April 10. Pro Farmer wishes everyone a blessed Easter. Updates will be released on Friday as the important Employment report is released in the morning.

USDA confirms more U.S. corn sales to China. USDA Export Sales data for the week ended March 30 showed additional sales of U.S. corn to China. For 2022-23, net sales were reported for 586,100 tonnes of corn, 69,250 tonnes of wheat, 162,027 tonnes of soybeans, and 64,447 running bales of upland cotton. For 2023-24, there were cancellations of 66,000 tonnes of soybeans to China. For 2023, net sales of 688 tonnes of beef and 20,152 tonnes of pork were reported.

Some breaking news regarding the next farm bill surfaced via a special report we filed earlier this morning. Also, see Policy section for more

Farm Bureau in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack says USDA should insist on comprehensive reform of U.S. dairy pricing rather than considering a piecemeal approach from dairy processors for an increase in the make allowance. More in Policy section.

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned the global economy is set for years of weak growth, with medium-term prospects their weakest in more than 30 years. More in Markets section.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is signaling to China the country can’t influence who he meets with, following a Southern California get-together with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce today the largest community solar effort in the history of the United States at the South Korea Qcells solar panel factory in Dalton, Georgia. An agreement between Qcells and Virginia's Summit Ridge Energy is estimated to generate 1.2 gigawatts of electricity across Illinois, Maine and Maryland, enough to power 140,000 homes and businesses.

Some important SAF info ahead. The Treasury Department will soon unveil a new sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) tax credit called for in the climate law (Inflation Reduction Act) last summer. Details in Energy & Climate Change section.

USTR Katherine Tai keeps trying to explain President Biden’s trade strategy. She attempted again Wednesday evening. See Trade Policy section for details.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of America’s foremost political dynasties who has emerged as a prominent anti-vaccine activist in recent years, will challenge Joe Biden for president in 2024.

A liberal judge's victory in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election shows how abortion continues to sway many voters. The win by Judge Janet Protasiewicz, who openly touted her support for reproductive rights, was the latest in a string of electoral victories for Democrats in politically mixed states in which abortion rights have played a central role. More on the political impacts in Politics & Elections section.

Of note: Protasiewicz, the Democratic winner in yesterday’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, won 45% of the rural vote, topping President Biden’s performance in 2020 by 5 percentage points.

Equities today: Asian equities were mixed. The U.S. Dow opened around 70 points lower. The Nikkei was off 340.63 points, 1.22%, at 27,472.63. The Hang Seng gained 56.61 points, 0.28%, at 20,331.20, after being closed Wednesday for a holiday. European equities were higher in early trading. The Stoxx 600 was up 0.5% with regional markets seeing gains of 0.3% to 0.9%. Most European markets will be closed Friday and Monday.

     U.S. equities yesterday: The Dow gained 80.34 points, 0.24%, at 33,482.72. The Nasdaq was down 129.47 points, 1.07%, at 11,996.86. The S&P 500 declined 10.22 points, 0.25%, at 4,090.38.

Agriculture markets yesterday:

• Corn: May corn futures closed a penny lower after trading as much as 7 1/4 cents lower Wednesday morning.  
• Soy complex: May soybean futures fell 6 1/2 cents at $15.11. May soybean meal dropped $6.80 to $450.60. May bean oil closed down 52 points at 55.22 cents. Prices closed nearer their session lows.  
• Wheat: May SRW fell 9 1/2 cents to $6.82, ending the session below the 10- and 20-day moving averages, while May HRW dropped 11 cents to $8.61 1/2. May spring wheat plummeted 16 cents to $8.73 2/4, falling to pre-report prices.
• Cotton: May cotton futures rose 2 points to settle at 81.07 cents.
• Cattle: June live cattle rose 7 1/2 cents at $160.30. May feeder cattle closed down 17 1/2 cents at $202.10. Prices closed nearer the session lows.
• Hogs: Expiring April hog futures climbed $1.175 to $73.40 Wednesday, while most-active June futures tumbled $1.20 to $88.375. April futures, which expire on Monday, April 17 and will cash-settle against that day’s official quote for the CME lean hog index, rallied strongly Wednesday and in doing so ended the day rather close to Tuesday’s preliminary quote.
   

Ag markets today: Corn and soybeans faced modest followthrough selling overnight, while wheat futures favored the upside. As of 7:30 a.m. ET, corn futures were trading 1 to 4 cents lower, soybeans were 3 to 8 cents lower, SRW wheat was around a penny lower, HRW wheat was 2 to 4 cents higher and HRS wheat was 3 to 6 cents higher. Front-month crude oil futures and the U.S. dollar index were both trading just above unchanged.

Market quotes of note:

• "Continued inflows into money market funds are quite likely, but at a slower pace," Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note yesterday. More than $300 billion has poured into money market funds over the last three weeks, driving the total assets invested to over $5 trillion.
   
• The recession predictions add to the importance of tomorrow’s jobs data. “Maybe it’s a good thing that markets are closed on Friday for the release of the payroll report considering its importance in terms of the recession debate,” Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist for LPL Financial, wrote in a note to clients yesterday.
   
• Analysts are bracing for a possible crisis in the roughly $20 trillion commercial real estate market. Commercial real estate, the lifeblood of the lending business, now “faces a huge hurdle,” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, warned investors in a note this week. More than half of the $2.9 trillion in commercial mortgages will need to be renegotiated by the end of 2025. Local and regional banks are on the hook for most of those loans.
   
• “What I’m saying is, we want to make fewer trips to Mars.” — FedEx Ground CEO John Smith, on a projection that drivers at various FedEx units will cover 3.4 billion miles this fiscal year, or the equivalent of 100 trips to Mars.
   
• Moscow has been looking to take back control of its wheat sectors for years, said Damien Vercambre of the agricultural brokerage Inter-Courtage. Three of the world's largest grain distributors have announced that they will pull out of Russia by July, a move likely to reinforce Moscow's control over the global wheat market. Government pressure and operational difficulties in the wake of Russia's war against Ukraine have made staying in the country unfeasible for Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and Viterra, the companies say.
   
• "There is some improvement in the U.S. weather after the rain, which should help planting," a Singapore-based trader told Reuters. "The weather is likely to dominate the market."
   

IMF and World Bank confab ahead. Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), gave a curtain-raising speech ahead of the Spring Meetings — the joint confab of the IMF and the World Bank. Finance ministers and central bankers will descend on Washington, DC, for this year’s event, which starts on April 10.

     Georgieva warned the global economy is set for years of weak growth, with medium-term prospects their weakest in more than 30 years. She said the world economy would expand at an average annual rate of around 3% over the next five years. The figure is well below the average 3.8% forecast of the past two decades and marks the weakest projection for medium-term growth since 1990. She noted key impediments to growth were increasing economic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions.

     Speaking of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Georgieva said, “This calamity not only kills innocent people; it also worsens the cost of living crisis and brings more hunger around the world. It risks wiping out the peace dividend we have enjoyed for the past three decades, adding also to frictions in trade and finance. “The path back to robust growth is rough and foggy, and the ropes that hold us together may be weaker now than they were just a few years ago,” Georgieva added.

     Additional financial instability should be dealt with by central banks offering ample liquidity to banks facing funding difficulties, she said. But if turmoil worsened, she acknowledged that the monetary authorities might have to ditch that stance and cut rates. Were this to happen, central banks would face “difficult trade-offs between their inflation and financial stability objectives, and the use of their respective tools,” she said.

     Georgieva indicated that the IMF’s latest growth forecasts, published next week, would be little changed from those in January.

     Three issues will dominate the IMF/World Board agenda, according to contacts:

     The first is the IMF’s $16 billion bailout of Ukraine, with interest rates equivalent to commercial loans, while there is uncertainty over the country’s ability to repay.

     The second is the IMF’s approach to climate change, and what financial assistance it can provide for adaptation and mitigation.

     The third is how to ease distressed and defaulting countries’ debts — China, now the world’s biggest official creditor, is opposed to reducing their face value.

U.S. ag exports, imports dropped in February. The value of U.S. agricultural exports in February was at $15.26 billion, down around 10% from January, while imports were valued at $15.21 billion, a decline of around 11%, leaving a trade surplus of just $49.1 million. That compares with a deficit in January of $85 million. That puts cumulative agricultural exports in fiscal year 2024 at $84.32 billion against imports of $81.26 billion for a surplus of $3.06 billion.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending April 1 decreased by 18,000 to 228,000 from last week's upwardly revised level of 246,000 (from 198,000). Continuing jobless claims for the week ending March 25 increased by 6,000 to 1.823 million from last week's revised level of 1.817 million (from 1.689 million). The four-week moving average for initial claims decreased by 4,250 to 237,750 from last week's revised level of 242,000 (from 198,250). The four-week moving average for continuing claims increased by 10,500 to 1,804,000 from last week's revised level of 1,793,500 (from 1,691,750). The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending March 18 was 1,905,334, a decrease of 1,183 from the previous week. In the same week a year ago, there were 1,728,353 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs.

Market perspectives:

     • Outside markets: The U.S. dollar index was weaker, with the euro and British pound only slightly firmer against the dollar. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note eased to trade around 3.27% while there was a mostly lower tone in global government bond yields. Crude oil firmed, with U.S. crude around $80.80 per barrel and Brent around $85.30 per barrel. Gold and silver futures are narrowly mixed, with gold weaker around $2,034 per troy ounce and silver firmer around $25.07 per troy ounce.

     • Ag trade: Japan purchased 78,732 MT of milling wheat in its weekly tender, including 27,830 MT U.S., 29,142 MT Canadian and 21,760 MT Australian. Egypt tendered to buy an unspecified amount of wheat from multiple origins.

     • NWS weather outlook: Severe thunderstorms possible across the Mid-Atlantic today... ...Heavy rain and the potential for scattered flash flooding stretches from southeast Texas to the western/central Gulf Coast through Friday... ...Unsettled weather forecast throughout much of the Pacific Northwest.

Items in Pro Farmer's First Thing Today include:

     • Corn and beans lower, wheat mostly firmer overnight
     • China will sell more wheat, rice reserves
     • Slowdown expected in jobs growth last month
     • Cash cattle trade higher
     • Bigger drop in cash hog index

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, suggested Poland could help form a coalition of Western countries that would supply Ukraine with aircraft. Zelenskyy was speaking in Warsaw, Poland’s capital, where he met Andrzej Duda, his Polish counterpart. During the visit, Poland announced it would send ten fighter jets to Ukraine, in addition to the four it has already provided.

— Cargill explains Russian grain market ‘departure’. Cargill Inc., the world’s largest grain trader, was very careful explaining its departure from the Russian grain market it announced last week. In a statement, the company said that by July, it would end its Russian grain “elevation” activities — trading jargon for the business of buying crops from local farmers, storing them in silos and using an export terminal to “elevate” the grain from the ground into a ship. But Cargill said it “intends to continue shipping grain from Russia to destination markets in line with our purpose to nourish the world.”

     Details: Starting July 1, Cargill will only charter cargo ships for agricultural shipments from Russia… "only essential food and feed facilities" in the country, it said in a statement. "However, as grain export-related challenges continue to mount, Cargill will stop elevating Russian grain for export in July 2023 after the completion of the 2022-2023 season."

— Russia’s commercial aircraft fleet is running late for a checkup. Hundreds of Russian jets from Western suppliers have reached maintenance milestones without access to the parts, software and technical skills needed to carry out critical maintenance. The Wall Street Journal reports (link) U.S. and European sanctions have cut off Russian carriers from contact with jet makers Boeing and Airbus, along with maintenance partners and many of the suppliers for the planes’ key parts, from engines to landing gear. Russian airlines have kept flying amid buoyant demand for domestic flights, but the maintenance issues are raising safety concerns among industry executives and regulators. The Western aircraft are due for both biannual checks and more intensive “D” checks due every six to 10 years. The concerns over maintenance are separate from the freighters operated by Russian carriers that have been grounded by restrictions on aircraft lessors.
 

— Senate Agriculture panel seeks more spending for new farm bill via reserve fund. The Senate Agriculture Committee is requesting additional funding via a reserve fund to enable the panel to write the next farm bill. Panel leaders said they reached that conclusion after holding a series of 12 hearings on the farm bill and “it became clear that additional financial resources will be necessary to strengthen our farm and food safety nets.”  Link to our special report on the topic released earlier this morning.

     Comments: The key is whether Congress can pass a budget resultion. A veteran Capitol Hill watcher says, “It could pass one to establish 302a allocation for appropriations and to create the reserve fund but the downside is it would show huge deficits and Ds would be forced to vote on hundreds of very hard amendments.”

—Politico is reporting the Senate Ag Committee plans to gear up action after the Easter break on the farm bill, with a tentative schedule of five hearings by panel subcommittees: April 19 —a nutrition focus by the Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics and Research Subcommittee; April 20 — a conservation focus by the Conservation, Climate, Forestry and Natural Resources Subcommittee; April 27 — a crop insurance and farm credit focus by the Commodities, Risk Management and Trade Subcommittee; May 2 — a commodity groups focus by the Commodities, Risk Management and Trade Subcommittee; and May 17 — a broadband focus by the Rural Development and Energy Subcommittee.

— USDA should insist on comprehensive reform of U.S. dairy pricing rather than considering a piecemeal approach from dairy processors for an increase in the make allowance, said the American Farm Bureau Federation on Wednesday. “We urge you to reject the current proposals that risk further burden to America’s dairy farmers,” wrote AFBF president Zippy Duvall in a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack (link for details). 

     Make allowances are estimates of the cost to turn milk into products such as cheese or butter and are a factor in determining the minimum prices that processors pay for raw milk.

     Background: A pair of dairy processor groups, the International Dairy Foods Association and the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, asked USDA to increase make allowances on the grounds that their costs have risen dramatically. A higher make allowance would mean larger deductions from milk checks and less money for dairy farmers, Farm Bureau said. “We believe it is time to consider improvements that better reflect today’s milk markets across a much wider range of topics than just make allowances,” wrote Duvall. The AFBF said revisions should be considered in pricing systems for milk destined for table consumption and for processing into “soft” products, such as sour cream and yogurt, “hard” cheeses, and butter or dry milk. Milk is divided into four classes, depending on its use. “The last major update to the FMMO (federal milk marketing order) system occurred in 2000,” noted Duvall. “All of these other adjustments to class price formulas would help offset the negative impacts of increased make allowances to our dairy farmers,” said the AFBF president.

— House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an interview with Bloomberg TV (link) that Wall Street should be "very concerned" about the political stalemate between Republicans and Democrats over the looming debt ceiling, saying that the GOP is "never going to move a bill that just raises the debt ceiling."

     A GOP aide said that Republican lawmakers in the House plan to focus on passing the 12 annual federal government spending bills and pushing for spending cuts as those bills move through the appropriations process, which the aide said is likely to begin in May.

— House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California yesterday, where the Republican leader brushed aside stern warnings from China that the meeting not go forward, accusing the U.S. and Taiwan of “serious wrongdoing.”

     “There is no place that China is going to tell me where I can go or who I can speak to — whether you be foe or whether you be friend,” McCarthy said. McCarthy repeatedly signaled that lawmakers in both parties are unified in their desire to continue fostering a relationship with Taiwan. “The one thing I hope all countries see is that we’re united in the same approach together, on both sides. And we’re going to speak with one voice when it comes to China or any others when we look at foreign policy,” he said at a news conference following the meeting.

     Several Chinese ministries released coordinated statements condemning the meeting. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the U.S. had ignored “repeated warnings” against allowing Tsai to visit and promised “resolute and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity in response to the serious wrongdoing of U.S./Taiwan colluding together.” State broadcaster China Central Television accused the U.S. of using Taiwan as a “chess piece” in a strategy of containment and as an “ATM for American arms sellers.”

     Taiwan said it had detected a Chinese aircraft carrier off its east coast. Taiwan’s defense minister suggested the Chinese carrier was deployed as part of a training exercise, and said that his country’s forces were monitoring the situation. China also launched a three-day operation to conduct “on-site inspections” of ships in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan said it would not co-operate.

— Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, met with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, in Beijing. Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, joined Macron on a three-day visit to China, which takes place amid Western concerns about the close relationship between Xi and Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart. Macron said he was counting on Xi to “bring Russia to its senses.”

— Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, met Hossein Amirabdollahian, his Iranian counterpart, in China. The meeting takes place after China brokered a rapprochement between the two countries in March; it is the first official encounter of their top diplomats in seven years. In a joint statement, Saudi Arabia and Iran confirmed that they would resume diplomatic relations within two months.

— China to focus on Paraguay? As China seeks to further whittle down the list of seven countries in the Americas that still recognize Taiwan, U.S. officials believe Paraguay may be the island’s next diplomatic ally to flip loyalties to Beijing. Link to details via Reuters.

— USTR Tai again tries to explain Biden trade policy strategy: Stronger ties with like-minded countries. The Biden administration is writing “a new story on trade” that emphasizes cooperation with allies because countries such as China have abused open markets and low tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai said in a Wednesday speech (link). “It is clear today — even to many who are accustomed to a more traditional approach to trade policy — that we must adapt to the realities of today’s economies,” said Tai in a speech at American University in Washington. “And in this new phase, we must confront the PRC’s [China] economic mercantilism,” said Tai, citing weak regulation and a thirst for low-cost materials for Chinese prominence in key industries. “The PRC continues to use unfair, distortive trade policies and practices in pursuit of harmful and anticompetitive industrial policy objectives.”

     Tai cited examples of new export opportunities for agriculture and other industries. “We opened markets for U.S. rice, wheat, corn, shellfish, and beef exports to the EU,” she said, pointing to agreements for increased ethanol exports to Japan and pork exports to India. Mexico agreed last year to remove trade barriers to U.S. potatoes. Non-tariff barriers “are real and can be more significant hurdles than tariffs,” Tai said. The Indo-Pacific Economic Forum is another arena for working on reducing non-tariff barriers.

— Mexico to slash imports of glyphosate. Along with a ban on imports of GMO corn for making tortillas, Mexico will slash imports of glyphosate, the most widely used weedkiller in the world, by 50% this year. Link for details.

— Some important SAF info ahead. The Treasury Department will soon unveil a new sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) tax credit called for in the climate law (Inflation Reduction Act) last summer. It will give up to $1.75 to producers for each gallon of sustainable fuel, based on the amount of carbon reductions in the product versus conventional jet fuel. The credit could provide a major boon to biofuel products made of wastes and oils, but producers are also eyeing a big new market for corn-based ethanol.

     Last year, U.S. production reached 15.8 million gallons — less than 0.1% of total fuel consumed by U.S. airlines. Finland-based Neste is set to produce 500 million gallons of waste-based SAF annually by the end of 2023. Last year, biofuels producer Gevo, which broke ground at its plant in Lake Preston, S.D., signed a deal with Delta Airlines to provide 400 gallons of SAF by 2030. Gevo is aiming to produce 1 billion gallons annually of biofuel by 2030. In comparison, the Biden administration has a goal for the U.S. to produce 3 billion gallons of SAF annually by next decade.

     One issue is whether corn-based ethanol should qualify for the tax credit. Many environmentalists argue that only waste products such as corn leaves and stalks — not ethanol — should qualify to limit environmental degradation, increase farm efficiency and preserve global food supply.

     A Government Accountability Office report last month (link) faults the Biden administration for not establishing “performance measures to monitor, evaluate, and report the results” of all federal tax and grant programs that could help deliver on the 3-billion-gallon-a-year White House target. The departments of Energy, Transportation and Agriculture agreed with recommendations from GAO for greater coordination among agencies.

— OMB completes review on USDA notice regarding salmonella in some uncooked chicken products. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed its review of an extended review of a notice from USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) regarding salmonella in certain not-ready-to-eat stuffed chicken products. The plan focuses on setting a numeric limit of 1 colony forming unit (CFU) per gram based on risk assessments and other relative information, USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Food Safety Sandra Eskin said at a recent meeting. The action follows USDA declaring salmonella to be an adulterant in poultry, joining E.coli as one in ground beef. In her remarks, Eskin said while industry deserves a lot of credit on salmonella, “what we found is that we are still seeing outbreaks.” She indicated that there will be ample opportunity for stakeholders to comment on the plan.

— Republicans fret about impact of Wisconsin vote this week. Democratic candidate Janet Protasiewicz won the statewide race by 10 points. Since the Supreme Court handed down its opinion last June, Democrats have gained control of four state legislative chambers while losing none of the ones they had already controlled, added a seat to its majority in the U.S. Senate and kept losses in the House well below the historic norm. “I don’t think Democrats have fully processed that this country is now 10% to 15% more pro-choice than it was before Dobbs in state after state and national data,” pollster Celinda Lake told the New York Times.

     Meanwhile, a Wall Street Journal editorial (link) says “the Badger State results are a five-alarm warning to Republicans about 2024.” Key excerpts from the editorial:

     [A] “major issue was abortion, especially the fate of an 1849 state statute that became law after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The law bans abortion in nearly all cases. Republicans who control the state Legislature helped her cause by failing to amend the law. They had ample warning from results last year in Michigan and Kentucky, where abortion drove Democratic turnout.

     “The Wisconsin results show abortion is still politically potent. In a special election for the state Senate on Tuesday, the Republican candidate barely won in a longtime GOP stronghold in the northern Milwaukee suburbs. If Republicans can’t win in Mequon, their legislative majorities will soon be imperiled, and you can move Wisconsin out of the swing-state column for the Presidency in 2024.

     “Republicans had better get their abortion position straight, and more in line with where voters are or they will face another disappointment in 2024. A total ban is a loser in swing states. Republicans who insist on that position could soon find that electoral defeats will lead to even more liberal state abortion laws than under Roe. That’s where Michigan is now after last year’s rout.”

— Rural vote shifted Democratic for Janet Protasiewicz, the Democratic winner in yesterday’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, won 45% of the rural vote, topping President Biden’s performance in 2020 by 5 percentage points. Link for details.

— The Democratic field challenging Biden for the presidential nomination is growing: anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of RFK and nephew of JFK, officially declared his candidacy yesterday. The Associated Press calls Kennedy’s challenge to President Biden “a long shot.” While he was “once a bestselling author and environmental lawyer who worked on issues such as clean water,” more than 15 years ago, “he became fixated on a belief that vaccines are not safe. He emerged as one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement, and his work has been described by public health experts and even members of his own family as misleading and dangerous.”

— The number of swing seats in Congress this year is half what it was in 1999, as urbanization and rural polarization, and, to a lesser extent, redistricting, reduce competitiveness, says the Cook Political Report (link).
 

— Twitter labels NPR “state-affiliated media.” The social network changed its policies to put the broadcaster in the same category as China’s Xinhua and Russia’s RT, drawing a protest from the American media group (which receives only a tiny portion of its funding from the U.S. government).

— Genesis Market, a suspected Russian marketplace that sold access to 80 million stolen online accounts and passwords, was seized and 119 arrests were made in association with the takedown. The FBI, Department of Justice, Europol and police in 14 countries executed the takedown, dubbed Operation Cookie Monster, as part of an ongoing crackdown targeting cybercrime markets. Link to more via the WSJ.

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