NASS on possible acreage changes in Sept. 10 report | China turns to Brazil soybeans
In Today’s Digital Newspaper
Market Focus:
• Jobless claims at lowest level since March 14
• Surging Covid-19 cases are hammering Asian factories
• Big employers hiring tens of thousands of workers
• USDA daily export sale: 126,000 MT soybeans to China, 2021-2022 marketing year
• Refineries caught in path of Hurricane Ida could take weeks to resume
• Biden set to survey destruction in Louisiana during trip on Friday
• Louisiana faces fuel shortage after Ida
• Ida fallout for U.S. farmers as China begins shifting October orders for soybeans to Brazil
• Guessing game rampant re: post-hurricane damage in the ag transportation sector
• OPEC alliance stuck with gradual production increases
• NASS announces possible adjustment to U.S. corn, soybean and other acreage picture
• Canadian Pacific Railway gave KC Southern until Sept. 13 to accept buyout offer
• Ag demand update
• Early pressure on grain and soy futures gives way to some buying
• Cargill: storm damage, power outages keeping all southern Louisiana terminals closed
• Early cold snap for Russia
• Global food prices on the rise again
• FAO slices its global wheat crop estimate, citing drought in key producing areas
• Brazil investigating suspected BSE case
• Argentine producers mull grain & cattle trade strike to protest restrictions on beef exports
• Cash cattle trade gets underway at steady prices
• Weights in key hog producing region on the rise
Policy Focus:
• Vilsack to join FJ virtual town hall, discussing most pressing issues in agriculture
• USDA expands whole-farm revenue protection plan
Afghanistan:
• White House quietly corrects Biden
• U.S. estimates it left behind majority of Afghan interpreters and others
• Taliban plan to appoint most prominent religious figure as supreme authority
• U.N.’s emergency food supply in Afghanistan will run out by Sept. 30
• Taliban must overcome country’s financial problems
Biden Administration Personnel:
• White House adds Duffy as OSTP climate adviser
China Update:
• China stimulus ahead?
• China using talks with climate envoy John Kerry to push improved U.S. relationship
Trade Policy:
• Businesses pushing Biden administration to drop tariffs on Chinese goods
Energy & Climate Change:
• EPA asks court to reconsider 2018 biofuel waivers granted to refiners
• Treasury looks to address climate risks to insurance markets
Livestock, Food & Beverage Industry Update:
• Compound Foods, synthetic coffee startup, raised $4.5 million in seed funding
• Global food prices climbed 3.1% from July: FAO
• All House committee leaders call for hunger conference
• Restaurant trade group prepares for change in leadership
Coronavirus Update:
• WHO designates Mu from Colombia its newest Covid ‘variant of interest’
• Merck and Pfizer starting trials to test oral Covid-19 medicines
Politics & Elections:
• Biden’s approval rating dropping in recent polls
Congress:
• McCarthy threatens to retaliate on those that comply with inquiry into Capitol attack
Other Items of Note:
• Supreme Court lets Texas six-week abortion ban stay in effect
• San Francisco program to pay 10 people at risk of shooting others $300 each month
• U.S. gov’t has lost contact with thousands of migrant children released from its custody
• U.S. intelligence agencies will not have to disclose info re: Jamal Khashoggi’s murder
MARKET FOCUS
Equities today: Global stock markets were mostly firmer overnight. The Dow opened up slightly over 100 points higher. Asian equities were mostly higher. Japan’s Nikkei was up 92.49 points, 0.33%, at 28,543.51. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 62.14 points, 0.24%, at 26,090.43. European equities are narrowly mixed in choppy trading. The Stoxx 600 is up 0.2% with regional markets seeing gains of 0.2% to losses of 0.1%.
U.S. equities yesterday: The Dow slipped 48.20 points, 0.1%, to 35,312.53. The S&P 500 added 1.41 points, less than 0.1%, to 4,524.09. Nasdaq added 50.15 points, 0.3%, to 15,309.38.
On tap today (see detailed list of events and reports below):
• U.S. jobless claims are expected to fall to 345,000 in the week ended Aug. 28 from 353,000 a week earlier. (8:30 a.m. ET) Update: First-time jobless claims totaled 340,000 for the week ended Aug. 28, compared with the 345,000 estimate. That is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020, when first-time claims totaled 256,000, just before the coronavirus pandemic caused a historic spike in claims. The previous week’s level of initial claims was revised up by 1,000 from 353,000 to 354,000.
• U.S. trade deficit is expected to narrow to $70.9 billion in July from $75.7 billion a month earlier. (8:30 a.m. ET)
• U.S. productivity in the second quarter is expected to increase at a 2.4% annual pace from the prior quarter, a slight upward revision from an earlier estimate. (8:30 a.m. ET)
• USDA Weekly Export Sales report, 8:30 a.m. ET.
• U.S. factory orders for July are expected to increase 0.3% from the prior month. (10 a.m. ET)
• Federal Reserve: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic speaks to the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham at 1 p.m. ET, and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly speaks on an inclusive economy at 3 p.m. ET.
Surging Covid-19 cases are hammering Asian factories. Continuing struggles in the region’s manufacturing sector could lead to higher prices for consumer goods such as shoes and electronics. Gauges of manufacturing activity plummeted across major Asian economies, in large part because virus lockdowns, port congestion and higher input costs hampered production. There were also signs that global demand for some Asian goods has been leveling off, as consumers rein in spending in the West. Factories in Vietnam have been forced to shut or reduce their workforces during the country’s deadliest Covid-19 wave. In Malaysia, most manufacturers have been told to reduce capacity unless they have vaccinated at least 80% of factory workers. China partly shut down the world’s third-busiest port last month, though it has since reopened. The struggles could signal more problems ahead for buyers of Asian products that remain in high demand, such as toys and semiconductors.
Big employers hiring tens of thousands of workers. Some employers are hiring large numbers, with Walmart, Amazon, and Fidelity seeking around 70,000 jobs.
• Walmart is hiring 20,000 full- and part-time workers for its supply-chain operations, where wages average $20.37 an hour, plus it is paying workers a $150 cash bonus for getting coronavirus vaccinations.
• Amazon is hiring thousands of hourly workers in its operations network, on top of more than 40,000 U.S. corporate and technology roles. The company said earlier this year it would raise hourly worker pay by 50 cents to $3 an hour. Amazon’s warehouse workers start at $15 an hour.
• Fidelity Investments will hire another 9,000 workers this year amid a surge in stock trading and investing services, its third hiring spree in a year that has boosted its workforce 22% to nearly 60,000.
Market perspectives:
• Outside markets: The U.S. dollar index is lower, with strength seen in the pound sterling and euro. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell, trading near 1.29%, with a mixed-to-lower tone in global government bond yields. Gold and silver futures are mixed ahead of U.S. trading. Gold is trading slightly higher at around $1818 per troy ounce, while silver is little changed near $24.22 per troy ounce.
• Crude oil futures are higher ahead of U.S. trading, with U.S. crude trading at around $69.00 per barrel and Brent near $72.05 per barrel. Futures had been lower overnight in Asian trading.
• Refineries caught in the path of Hurricane Ida could take weeks to resume operations because of widespread power outages. Oil refiners along the banks of the Mississippi River near New Orleans are still assessing damages and trying to figure out when they can come back online. The impact on oil and fuel markets will likely remain muted, though. Gasoline inventories are ample ahead of Labor Day weekend, the start of a seasonal drop in fuel demand. Many motorists are still working from home because of the pandemic. The East Coast was expected by U.S. traders to draw higher imports from Europe in coming weeks. Average U.S. gasoline prices edged up less than 1 cent Tuesday to about $3.16 a gallon, while gasoline futures were essentially flat.
President Biden is set to survey the destruction in Louisiana on Friday.
• Louisiana faces fuel shortage after Ida. One of hurricane-ravaged Louisiana’s most pressing needs is fuel. “It’s impacting all of our recovery efforts,” Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said yesterday. “Fuel just isn’t available to us the way we would want it to be.” Most of the time, the state supplies much of the U.S. with gasoline and diesel. Louisiana’s refineries represent nearly one-fifth of the country’s crude-processing capacity. Many fuel producers shut their plants there as Hurricane Ida roared ashore Sunday, leaving supplies pinched. And widespread damage to the electricity grid has cut off their power.
• Ida fallout for American farmers as China begins shifting October orders for soybeans to Brazil amid concerns over the reliability of U.S. export infrastructure in Ida’s wake. China rumors have surface regarding of buying some U.S. sorghum for December shipment.
• Guessing game is rampant regarding post-hurricane damage in the ag transportation sector, notably the shut down of the Port of New Orleans. Cargoes are being moved to other ports, such as Mobile, Houston, Lakes, and PNW. But some countries are turning to more expensive grain just to have grain. Today, it appeared only two elevators may have had much damage. It is electric power which has facilities shut down. Meanwhile, there are rumors of beans trading out of Mobile and PNW.
• OPEC alliance stuck with gradual production increases, despite a U.S. request. OPEC and a group of Russia-led producers are resisting, for the time being, recent U.S. pressure to open the alliance’s spigots wider. On Wednesday, the group chose to continue with that plan, boosting output in monthly installments of 400,000 barrels a day through the end of 2022. The move came despite the White House saying last month the planned increases were insufficient, urging OPEC to boost production faster.
• NASS announced a possible adjustment to the U.S. corn, soybean and other acreage picture. NASS says the review of FSA data typically takes place in October for most crops. The September report typically focuses on possible planted or harvested acreage changes for southern crops such as cotton, peanuts and rice. NASS said adjustments to planted or harvested acres could come for corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, sorghum, soybeans and sugarbeets. The change will happen if updated data warrant a change. This type of adjustment, for such a broad range of crops, is typically made in the October report.
What NASS said: “USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will review all available data, including survey data, satellite-based data, and the latest information from USDA’s Farm Service Agency and Risk Management Agency, for planted and harvested acreage for corn, cotton, peanuts, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and sugarbeets in preparation for the September Crop Production report,” NASS said in a statement. “If the data review justifies any changes, NASS will publish updated planted and harvested acreage estimates in the Sept.10 report.”
Industry analysts previously noted a potential boost in corn acres of around 1 million acres, and a cut in cotton acres, based on analysis of Farm Service Agency (FSA) information. As usual, analysts focus too much on corn and soybeans, as a few note the biggest potential acreage boost could come for U.S. sorghum, where plantings could show an increase of up to 2 million acres.
NASS did not say why the FSA data was “more complete.” One industry analyst said: “As for why USDA can update this year in September but not some other years: Last year Covid limited the speed of data collection. It took weeks longer to get as much data as we had this year in August. In 2019 we had the historic planting delays and options to farmers on prevented acres. A real mess too. But in a year like 2021 with early plantings and below average prevented plantings, you can get a reliable estimate for September with the data out now. That allows them to compare to other years with good planting weather that found the August data pretty close to final data.”
• USDA daily export sale: 126,000 MT soybeans to China, 2021-2022 marketing year.
• Ag demand: Turkey has started provisionally purchasing wheat in its international tender for 300,000 MT of the grain. Algeria reportedly purchased roughly 460,000 MT to 490,000 MT of milling wheat from optional origins in an international tender that closed Tuesday. Jordan’s state grain buyer made no purchase in its international tender to buy 120,000 MT of milling wheat. The country has also tendered to buy 120,000 MT of animal feed barley.
• Canadian Pacific Railway gave Kansas City Southern until Sept. 13 to accept its buyout offer.
• NWS weather: Post-Tropical Cyclone IDA is forecast to move northeastward into Canada... ...There is a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall over parts of the Upper Midwest into the Central Plains through Friday morning... ...There is a Slight Risk of severe thunderstorms over parts of Central Plains through Friday morning.
Items in Pro Farmer’s First Thing Today include:
• Early pressure on grain and soy futures gives way to some buying
• Cargill: storm damage, power outages keeping all southern Louisiana terminals closed
• Early cold snap for Russia
• Global food prices on the rise again
• FAO slices its global wheat crop estimate, citing drought in key producing areas
• Brazil investigating suspected BSE case
• Argentine producers mull grain & cattle trade strike to protest restrictions on beef exports
• Cash cattle trade gets underway at steady prices
• Weights in key hog producing region on the rise
POLICY FOCUS
— Ag Secretary Vilsack to join virtual town hall, discussing most pressing issues in agriculture. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack will join Farm Journal’s Clinton Griffiths for a live town-hall virtually today at 2 p.m. CDT. The event will give farmers and ranchers the opportunity to directly ask Vilsack about the issues and opportunities facing agriculture not only today, but tomorrow.
The discussion will happen in a virtual town-hall-style conversation around the most critical topics in agriculture during Farm Journal’s next Farm Country Update. The free webinar is titled “American Ag Policy: A Conversation with the Secretary of Agriculture.” Link.
— USDA expands whole-farm revenue protection plan. USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) announced an expansion of its Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) plan Wednesday (Sept. 1). The changes include increased expansion limits for organic producers, increased insurance limits for aquaculture producers, new acreage reporting options for organic producers, and flexibility for producers with partial yield histories. “These improvements to the Whole-Farm Revenue Protection program will make it a better risk management tool for producers,” said RMA Acting Administrator Richard Flournoy. “USDA is committed to equity in program delivery, and this includes specialty crop, organic, and aquaculture producers, who will benefit from these enhancements to WFRP.”
AFGHANISTAN
— White House quietly corrected President Joe Biden after he said in a speech Tuesday that 90% of U.S. citizens who wanted to evacuate Afghanistan were able to leave. A transcript of his remarks, delivered from the White House, shows that figure crossed out and replaced with 98%, which still falls short of the president’s promise to keep U.S. military forces in the country until every U.S. citizen seeking an escape could get one. “Now, we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. Most of those who remain are dual citizens, longtime residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan. The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” Biden said in his speech.
— U.S. estimates it left behind the majority of Afghan interpreters and others who applied for visas to flee Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday, despite frantic efforts to evacuate those at risk of Taliban retribution.
— Taliban plan to appoint their most prominent religious figure as Afghanistan’s supreme authority, a role similar to supreme leader in Iran. The Taliban is set to name Haibatullah Akhundzada, the group’s top religious leader, as Afghanistan’s new supreme leader. A hard-line cleric in his 60s, Akhundzada rose to power in 2016, after his predecessor Mohammad Mansour was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Once in position, Akhundzada will have the final say over political, military, and religious decisions.
— U.N.’s emergency food supply in Afghanistan will run out by Sept. 30, officials said. Prices of flour and eggs have surged as much as 20%. Banks have long lines of people looking to withdraw their cash.
— Taliban must overcome the country’s financial problems. During two decades of American control, the Afghan economy significantly increased in size but also became deeply dependent on foreign aid, which is now being cut off by the U.S. and others, the New York Times reports (link).
• More than three-quarters of the $11 billion spent each year by the Afghan government was provided by foreign governments or donors.
• Afghanistan exports $870 million a year in goods — mostly carpets, as well as figs, licorice and other agricultural products — which is small in relation to its $20 billion economy of nearly 40 million people.
• Much of the country’s transactions flow through informal and unregulated dealers called hawalas that in the past have helped stabilize the currency, the afghani.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PERSONNEL
— White House adds Duffy as OSTP climate adviser. The White House yesterday named Philip Duffy to be climate science adviser to its Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Climate and Environment Division. In his new role, Duffy will contribute scientific guidance to the White House on science-based policies to address climate change. During the Obama administration, he served as a senior policy analyst at OSTP and senior advisor in the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
CHINA UPDATE
— China stimulus ahead? Caixin’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index indicated that the sector was contracting for the first time since April 2020, fueling speculation that policymakers in Beijing will take steps to boost economic growth. “Investors are taking a ‘bad is good’ approach, which predicts more policy easing”, said Barclays head of European equity strategy Emmanuel Cau.
— China is using talks with climate envoy John Kerry to push the U.S. to commit to an improvement in their broader relationship, with one report saying he will meet Beijing’s top diplomat during his visit to the port city of Tianjin. Kerry will speak with Yang Jiechi, a member of the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo, on a video call tonight, the South China Morning Post reported. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Kerry in a video call yesterday that Washington must take the first step to improve ties that frayed during the Trump administration, when a trade war erupted and the nations started bickering over issues from the technology industry to visas for journalists and students.
TRADE POLICY
— Businesses are pushing the Biden administration to drop tariffs on Chinese goods and provide more clarity about the critical trade relationship. American import duties still exist on roughly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, and almost all of the exemptions that shielded more than 2,000 products from those tariffs have expired. During his White House bid, Biden assailed President Donald Trump over his trade war and promised to enlist allies to counter China over its trade practices. Since taking office, Biden has persuaded European officials to adopt a more assertive trade policy toward China this year. And he has pitched his infrastructure plan as a way to counter Beijing, saying it would “put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years.” But the administration has said little about whether it intends to restart economic talks and address outstanding issues, including tariffs. Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has described the tariffs as providing leverage.
White House comments. Asked on Wednesday about the administration’s review of the tariffs, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said, “I don’t have any timeline for you on when that review will be completed.”
In early August, a group of U.S. business groups sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and USTR Tai urging the administration to restart trade talks with China and cut tariffs on imported Chinese goods. “The main kind of dilemma that companies face right now is just uncertainty,” said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, which organized the letter. “Will the tariffs remain in place? Are they in place in perpetuity? What is the exclusion process to request an exemption from the tariffs? Nobody knows.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared Wednesday that U.S. leadership must direct a “new focus” toward the China threat now that America has fully withdrawn forces from Afghanistan. Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley addressed the public on the end of the Afghanistan war at a Wednesday press briefing.
ENERGY & CLIMATE CHANGE
— EPA asks court to reconsider 2018 biofuel waivers granted to refiners. EPA has asked a U.S. appeals court to send back 31 of the Renewable Fuel Standard exemptions it granted to small oil refineries for 2018. EPA argues that a voluntary remand would give the agency a chance to reconsider the waivers “in light of intervening judicial decisions” and “provide a more robust explanation of its action,” according to an Aug. 25 filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. If granted, it appears EPA would have leeway to “revoke exemptions or to shore up legal defense of the exemptions should the agency choose to leave them in place as is,” ClearView Energy Partners analysts wrote in a note Wednesday.
The Renewable Fuels Association supports EPA’s attempt to reconsider the “lawless exemptions,” but opposes the remand request because it wouldn’t vacate the waivers or put “some kind of limitations” on EPA’s review, RFA CEO Geoff Cooper said in a statement. He said “EPA’s own records reflect the fact that these exemptions were issued without any analysis or substantiation, and it is unsettling yet unsurprising that EPA doesn’t even have the records to account for all the RINs involved in these giveaways. While RFA supports EPA’s reevaluation of these lawless exemptions, we object to EPA’s remand request because it is unaccompanied by vacatur or some kind of limitations on its review. EPA has to act promptly if it wants to restore stability and integrity to the RFS.”
— Treasury looks to address climate risks to insurance markets. The Treasury Department launched a new effort this week to assess the potential for disruptions of private insurance coverage in areas of the U.S. that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Treasury is soliciting public comment on topics like data needed to measure and assess the insurance sector’s exposure to climate risks and “climate-related issues or gaps in the supervision and regulation of insurers… Ensuring that consumers have adequate information, and that the insurance industry is appropriately assessing climate-related financial risk is essential as we work to address the climate crisis,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
LIVESTOCK, FOOD & BEVERAGE INDUSTRY
— Compound Foods, a synthetic coffee startup, raised $4.5 million in seed funding from Lowercarbon Capital, SVLC, Humboldt Fund, Collaborative Fund, Maple VC and Petri Bio. Link for more info.
— Global food prices climbed 3.1% from July, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ food price index which came in at 127.4 points in August — up a dramatic 32.9% from year-ago. The rebound followed two consecutive months of decline. Strong gains in sugar, vegetable oils and cereal sub-indices led the rise.
— All House committee leaders call for hunger conference. In a letter to President Biden, the leaders of every House committee said the pandemic had revealed the extent of hunger in America. “We call on you to convene a national conference on food, nutrition, hunger, and health ... to design a roadmap to end hunger in America by 2030,” they wrote. Link to letter.
— Restaurant trade group prepares for change in leadership. The National Restaurant Association’s (NRA’s) announced Tuesday (August 31) that its current president and CEO Tom Bené is stepping down to return to the beverage distribution sector. A 30-year veteran of the food and beverage industry, Bené joined the NRA during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been deeply involved efforts to help the industry recover from impact of the heath crisis, NRA said. “We appreciate Tom’s leadership and commitment to the industry during this difficult time,” said NRA Board Chair Brian Casey. After Bené’s departure, the NRA’s current CFO and Chief People Officer Marvin F. Irby will temporarily take the helm at NRA and serve as interim CEO, while the trade group begins a search for a new permanent CEO.
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
— Summary: Global cases of Covid-19 are at 218,502,500 with 4,544,546 deaths, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The US case count is at 39,396,408 with 642,081 deaths. The Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center said that there have been 370,128,361 doses administered, 174,600,017 have been fully vaccinated, or 53.19% of the US population.
— WHO designates Mu from Colombia its newest Covid ‘variant of interest.’ The World Health Organization (WHO) designated Mu, a coronavirus variant first documented in Colombia in January 2021, as its newest “variant of interest.” It has now been detected in 39 countries. The WHO said early data on Mu indicate that the immunity provided by vaccines or through previous infections “may not be as strong against this variant.” There have been Mu outbreaks in South America and Europe. Mu’s global prevalence is low, and falling, but in recent weeks it has risen sharply in Colombia, where it makes up 39% of sequenced cases, and in Ecuador, where it is 13% of sequenced cases.
— Merck and Pfizer both announced they were starting trials to test their oral Covid-19 medicines. Merck’s study is in people who live in the same household as someone who tested positive, and Pfizer’s is for symptomatic adults who aren’t hospitalized.
POLITICS & ELECTIONS
— Biden’s approval rating has been dropping in recent polls, with about 47% of voters approving of his performance and just under 49% disapproving, according to the Real Clear Politics average (link).
CONGRESS
— Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader from California, threatened to retaliate against technology companies that comply with the inquiry into the Capitol attack.
OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE
— Supreme Court decides not to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks, less than a day after it went into effect. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s liberal wing — Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — in dissent. The law bans virtually all abortions without exception for pregnancies resulting after incest or rape, making it the most restrictive in the nation. It also lets private citizens sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion, including drivers who take a patient to a clinic. The justices suggested that their order likely isn’t the last word, since other challenges can still be brought. While 13 other states have passed laws banning abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat, the Texas law is the first to go into effect across the nation.
— U.S. gov’t has lost contact with thousands of migrant children released from its custody, according to data obtained by Axios through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Link for details.
— U.S. intelligence agencies will not have to disclose how much they knew about Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, The Hill reports (link). The D.C. Circuit ruled that disclosures could present a serious national security risk.
— San Francisco program will pay 10 people at risk of shooting others $300 each month. The Dream Keeper Fellowship is set to launch in October and pay 10 individuals $300 each month to not be involved in shootings, The San Francisco Examiner reported. Participants will also be able to earn an additional $200 more per month by hitting program milestones, including landing job interviews, meeting with mentors and complying with probation. It pairs them with life coaches from the city’s Street Violence Intervention Program, as well. By the end of the year, city officials plan to extend the program to up to 30 more people, according to the Examiner.
EVENTS AND REPORTS
Thursday, Sept. 2
· Chinese politics. Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual discussion on “Rethinking Chinese Politics.”
· Covid issues. Washington Post Live virtual discussion on “Coronavirus: Finding Answers.”
· Climate change planning. Final day of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meeting by teleconference to introduce a project called East Coast Climate Change Scenario Planning.
· End of World War II. Friends of the National World War II Memorial and the National Park Service hold a ceremony to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Allied Forces’ victory in the Pacific and the end of World War II.
· Wind energy. Final day of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meeting by teleconference of the Hydrographic Services Review Panel on issues relevant to NOAA’s navigation services, including offshore wind energy and data sharing for ocean mapping and technology to address ocean mapping in 40 meters and shallower.
· Economic reports. Motor Vehicle Sales | Jobless Claims | International Trade | Productivity and Costs | Factory Orders
· Energy reports. EIA Natural Gas Report
· USDA reports. FAS. Export Sales ERS: September 2021 Farm Income Forecast