March, 2020

WTI prices are back above $20.00 (barely) but remain notably down on the day after reports that Presidents Trump and Putin spoke on the phone today - with the Kremlin making clear that the call was at the request of the US president.

“Look, she’s a sick puppy in my opinion,” the president said when asked about Pelosi criticizing his response to the coronavirus outbreak. “She really is. She’s got a lot of problems.” Trump continued his fuming against Pelosi later when he slammed her for “playing the impeachment game” and being controlled by “the radical left,” including freshman New York Congresswoman and Green New Deal author Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Pelosi, touring San Fran’s Chinatown Feb. 24: “We do want to say to people, come to Chinatown, here we are … come join us” pic.twitter.com/0FEOq9t4VM

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 29, 2020

Our galaxy is a whole lot bigger than it looks. New work finds that the Milky Way stretches nearly 2 million light-years across, more than 15 times wider than its luminous spiral disk. The number could lead to a better estimate of how massive the galaxy is and how many other galaxies orbit it... The precise diameter is 1.9 million light-years, give or take 0.4 million light-years, the team reports February 21 in a paper posted at arXiv.org...

What does it mean? It means that Putin is closing tax havens and tax loopholes so he can get the money he needs to pay for the epidemic. It means he’s taking on the wealthiest and most powerful people in Russia so he can provide relief for the people who are stuck in their homes trying to survive...

In total there have been at least 190 reports of severe weather in the last 24 hours from the Midwest to the South to the Ohio Valley. The same powerful storm system was responsible for a 90 mph wind gust in Henderson County, Kentucky.

Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massively downgraded projection of the potential deathtoll on Wednesday. Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve...

"The modeling estimates that the peak in death rate is likely to hit in two weeks. I will say it again. The peak, the highest point of death rates, remember this, is likely to hit in two weeks... Therefore, we will be extending our guidelines to April 30, to slow the spread," the president said in the White House Rose Garden.

Meadows' former communications director Ben Williamson confirmed to CNBC in an email that he has "moved to the White House to serve as senior advisor to White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows." Multiple outlets reported that Meadows' first official day as Trump's chief of staff will begin Tuesday.

The agency allowed for the drugs to be "donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible," HHS said in a statement

"If a driver is showing symptoms associated with COVID-19, such as fever, coughing or shortness of breath, a trooper will follow them to their destination."

Saudi Arabia appears to be exploiting weaknesses in the global mobile telecoms network to track its citizens as they travel around the US, according to a whistleblower who has shown the Guardian millions of alleged secret tracking requests.

Data revealed by the whistleblower, who is seeking to expose vulnerabilities in a global messaging system called SS7, appears to suggest a systematic spying campaign by the kingdom, according to experts.

Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, who commands NORAD and NORTHCOM, told reporters on Facebook Live last Tuesday that essential staff is being moved from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to the underground bunker complex that is 24 miles away in Cheyenne Mountain. The facility is more than 2,000 feet underground and can survive a 30 megaton nuclear explosion.

An evangelical Christian relief organization on Sunday began setting up a massive field hospital in Central Park to help New York City cope with the crush of patients sickened by the deadly coronavirus. Samaritan’s Purse — which is led by Franklin Graham, son of the late televangelist Billy Graham — trucked in four trailers of gear, including tents, beds, personal protective equipment and 10 ventilators for the most seriously ill.