Amazon, Ford hit by massive losses on Rivian investments

Pras Subramanian

·Senior Reporter

Fri, April 29, 2022, 

Rivian's (RIVN) recent stock performance may have burned a hole in many a retail investor's portfolio. It's also burned a big hole in Ford (F), and now Amazon's, quarterly performance.

Last night in its first quarter earnings report, Amazon (AMZN) revealed it booked a $7.6 billion mark-to-market loss on its investment in Rivian, which led to an overall $3.8 billion net loss for the quarter. Amazon owns an 18% stake in the electric vehicle maker.

Earlier this week, Ford reported an overall $3.1 billion loss for the first quarter, due to its mark-to-market loss of $5.4 billion on its Rivian investment. Ford has a 12% stake in Rivian.

While the two companies are still up on their initial investments, it's been a rocky road for Rivian shareholders recently. Rivian shares were down more than 50% in the first quarter, and down nearly 70% year to date. Recall after its IPO, Rivian had a market cap of around $86 billion; today it's around a third of that, at $28.9 billion.

The future of these investments in Rivian by Ford and Amazon is an open question. When asked about Ford's Rivian investment as the 180-day lockup period nears expiration, Ford CEO Jim Farley made it firmly clear the company would not be commenting on the future of the investment at this time.

Note that Rivian and Ford's Lincoln luxury brand were planning to make an electric vehicle (EV) together, but those plans were squashed. That, combined with Ford's definitive "no comment" on Rivian raises the question whether Ford's Rivian investment might change in some manner.

This October 13, 2021 photo shows a Rivian electric truck at the Blue Origin Launch Site One in the West Texas region, 25 miles (40kms) north of Van Horn. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Amazon was not asked about its investment in Rivian on the earnings call, but with its 100,000 electric delivery van order in the books with Rivian, and Rivian SUVs appearing at Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket launches as service vehicles, it seems the online retail behemoth may stick with its stake, for now.

Regardless of what Amazon and Ford do, Rivian has a lot of work to do. Rivian produced 2,553 vehicles in Q1 and delivered 1,227 of them. If the company intends to hit its goal of 25,000 vehicles produced in 2022, it will really have to ramp up as the year progresses.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe isn't exactly signaling that this won't be a problem. In an interview last week with the Wall Street Journal from the Rivian factory floor, Scaringe said, "The world’s [battery] cell production combined represents well under 10% of what we will need in 10 years ... Meaning, 90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist."

Ford and its crosstown rival GM (GM) have both said they have acquired enough battery materials and semiconductor chips to meet their initial goals of EV production over the next couple of years. Based on what Scaringe said last week, it seems Rivian is foreshadowing future issues it sees with acquiring battery materials like lithium.

Investors and industry watchers will get to hear more on Rivian's production and financial standing when the automaker reports first quarter financial results on Wednesday, May 11, after the market close.

TIME TO DECRIMINALIZE

UK taxpayer takes stake in cannabis products firm through Future Fund

Madeleine Bruder2 days ago

 

The British government has become a shareholder in a cannabis-based products company called Grass & Co, as well as a south London brewery and a Nordic yoghurt bar maker as part of its most recent investments under the Future Fund Covid-19 support scheme.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak launched the Future Fund in May 2020 to help lossmaking but fast-growing businesses that needed equity funding to support their operations through coronavirus lockdowns.

The scheme had a unique angle, however, offering these firms convertible loans that would turn to equity stakes at the next fundraising. It was aimed at promising tech companies that typically rely on venture fundraising.

But its funds have since been used by a wide range of companies, from the owners of Bolton Wanderers football club to a jazz-focused record store in north London. A number of businesses have also gone into administration, risking taxpayer money.

On Thursday, the government revealed the latest 75 firms that have converted loans into equity stakes, taking the total number of companies in which the British taxpayer has ownership to 337.

The Future Fund issued 1,190 companies with convertible loan agreements worth £1.14bn in total, which means many more of the advances are expected to be converted into equity. Third-party investors were required to at least match the Future Fund’s investment.

Bolton Wanderers plays Sunderland. The League One team from Greater Manchester is among the beneficiaries of the Future Fund. © Isaac Parkin/PA

The most recent list includes Grass & Co, which makes cannabidiol-based health products, and Better All Round, a maker of products such as the world’s first round kitchen towel. More alcoholic drinks makers have also been included, such as the Gipsy Hill Brewery and Modern Contradiction, which makes alcoholic seltzers.

Other companies with state ownership include Borrow A Boat, which provides vessel hire services, cricketing business Batfast Cricket Centres and Nimble Babies, a maker of child-friendly cleaning products. Carousel Ventures owns a business that makes underwear including bras and “game-changing tights that defy gravity”.

Other businesses in the Future Fund portfolio include Epsilogen, a London-based developer of novel therapeutic antibodies to treat cancer, and nDreams, a virtual reality games developer.

The British Business Bank, which oversaw the scheme for the Treasury, said that by creating a bridge to next equity funding rounds, the Future Fund supported the ventures “through a period of considerable economic disruption and now the recovery”.

Ken Cooper, managing director, venture solutions at the British Business Bank, said: “As a shareholder in these businesses, the Future Fund is well positioned to share in the benefits of their continued growth.”

MUSK PROMISED BANKERS TWITTER LAYOFFS

Twitter CEO faces employee anger over Musk attacks at company-wide meeting

Fri, April 29, 2022, 

By Sheila Dang and Katie Paul

(Reuters) -Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal sought to quell employee anger on Friday during a company-wide meeting where employees demanded answers to how managers planned to handle an anticipated mass exodus prompted by Elon Musk.

The meeting comes after Musk, the Tesla chief executive who sealed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company, repeatedly criticized Twitter's content moderation practices and a top executive responsible for setting speech and safety policies.

At the internal town hall meeting, which was heard by Reuters, executives said the company would monitor staff attrition daily, but it was too soon to tell how the buyout deal with Musk would affect staff retention.

Musk has pitched lenders on slashing board and executive salaries but exact cost cuts remain unclear, according to sources familiar with the matter. One source said Musk would not make decisions on job cuts until he assumes ownership of Twitter.

"I'm tired of hearing about shareholder value and fiduciary duty. What are your honest thoughts about the very high likelihood that many employees will not have jobs after the deal closes?" one Twitter employee asked Agrawal, in a question read aloud during the meeting.

Agrawal answered that Twitter has always cared about its employees and would continue to do so.

"I believe the future Twitter organization will continue to care about its impact on the world and its customers," he said.

Executives said during the meeting that the employee attrition rate has not changed compared to the levels before the news of Musk's interest in buying the company.

In recent days, Musk has tweeted criticism of Twitter's top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, who is a Twitter veteran and widely-respected across Silicon Valley. Musk's attack triggered a barrage of online harassment targeting her.

Employees also told executives they feared Musk's erratic behavior could destabilize Twitter's business, and hurt it financially as the company prepares to address the advertising world in a presentation next week in New York City.

"Do we have a strategy in the near-term on how to handle advertisers pulling investment," one employee asked.

Sarah Personette, Twitter's chief customer officer, said the company was working to communicate frequently with advertisers and reassure them "the way that we service our customers is not changing."

After the meeting, a Twitter employee told Reuters there was little trust in what executives had to say.

"The PR speak is not landing. They told us don't leak and do a job you are proud of, but there is no clear incentive for employees to do this," the employee told Reuters, noting that compensation for non-executive staffers is now capped because of the deal.

Agrawal is estimated to receive $42 million if he were terminated within 12 months of a change in control at the social media company, according to research firm Equilar.

During the meeting, Agrawal urged staff to expect change in the future under new leadership, and acknowledged that the company could have performed better over the years.

"Yes, we could have done things differently and better. I could have done things differently. I think about that a lot," he said.

Twitter declined further comment.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Li and Daniel Wallis)

Elon Musk has reportedly lined up a new Twitter CEO, shared ideas for monetizing tweets

Aisha Malik
Fri, April 29, 2022,



Elon Musk has lined up a new CEO for Twitter and told banks that agreed to help fund his $44 billion acquisition offer about his plans to monetize tweets, according to a new report from Reuters. A source told Reuters that Musk has decided on who he plans to appoint as the new chief executive of Twitter, but the source didn't name the person. Twitter's current CEO Parag Agrawal, who took the role after Jack Dorsey stepped down in November, is expected to remain as CEO until the deal is completed.

Reuters reports that Musk told Twitter chairman Bret Taylor that he does not have confidence in the company's management, which is a sentiment that he also stated in SEC filings. Agrawal would be set for a significant compensation package if the deal closes and Musk brings in new management, as he would receive $38.7 million due to a clause in his contract, according to the company’s latest proxy filing.

Reuters reports that Musk told banks that he plans to develop more ways to make money from tweets. For example, he said that he plans to create a way to monetize tweets that go viral or include important information. He also suggested the idea of charging a fee when third-party websites quote or embed tweets from verified accounts.

The Washington Post reports that Musk also brought up the idea of paying influencers to create content for the platform, which is a business model that has proven to be successful for TikTok. Musk is also said to be interested in the idea of subscription services that the company could offer.

In deleted tweets from earlier this month, Musk suggested significant changes to Twitter Blue, which is the social media giant's subscription service that is currently priced at $2.99 per month. Musk suggested cutting the price, adding a way to pay in dogecoin and banning advertising. In another now-deleted tweet, Musk said he wants to move Twitter away from its dependence on advertising for much of its revenue.

Musk had also told the banks he could crack down on executive and board pay at Twitter to slash costs. Reuters also reports that in his pitch to the banks, Musk said Twitter's gross margin is much lower than other social media services, such as Facebook and Pinterest, and argued that there are ways to run the company in a more cost-effective way.

Bloomberg News reported this week that Musk spoke to bankers about job cuts as part of his pitch to the lenders. Musk reportedly won't make decisions on job cuts until he receives ownership of the company.

Twitter says the transaction, which was unanimously approved by the board, will likely close this year following shareholder and regulatory approval and “the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.” Musk will have to pay Twitter a $1 billion termination fee if he doesn’t go through with his acquisition of the social network, per a recent SEC filing. The filing, which details the terms of the agreement, indicates Twitter would have to pay the same fee under specific circumstances.

A complete timeline of the Elon Musk-Twitter saga

Twitter deal could bolster lawsuit over Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay


Tom Hals
Fri, April 29, 2022,


 SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles

By Tom Hals

(Reuters) - Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter is helping provide ammunition for an upcoming trial where an investor will argue the CEO's $56 billion pay package from Tesla Inc is a waste of money that failed to secure his full-time services.

The deal for Twitter Inc and its potential to distract Musk from Tesla will play an important part of the trial in October, according to one of the shareholder's attorneys.

The lawsuit alleges Musk created the 10-year package and Tesla's board rubber-stamped it in 2018 without requiring the celebrity CEO devote himself to the electric vehicle maker.


"Look at most CEO contracts. The first line, it says 'you're going to be a full-time CEO and devote substantially full time to the business and affairs of the company.' That's standard," said Greg Varallo of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, the firm that is leading the case against the pay deal.

Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. In court papers, the defendants said the plan was properly crafted by independent directors, approved by stockholders and has generated unprecedented gains for investors.

Tesla's stock has fallen more than 20% since Musk disclosed he had taken a 9% stake in Twitter on April 4, partly on concerns he was distracted from the electric vehicle maker's supply chain problems.

In addition to Twitter, the multitasking entrepreneur is already chairman of rocket company SpaceX, founder of tunneling venture The Boring Company and owns Neuralink, a brain-chip startup. His stated ambitions include colonizing Mars.

The 2018 Tesla pay package grants stock options as the company meets escalating financial goals, which the company said would incentivize his continued leadership. If Tesla met all targets, described as "stretch" goals, the plan would be worth a minimum $56 billion, although as Tesla's stock rises so does the plan's value.

Curently, Musk's stock vested under the plan is worth around $75 billion, according to Amit Batish of research firm Equilar. He estimated that is about 35 times the combined value of the 100 highest CEO pay packages from 2021.

The lawsuit in Delaware's Court of Chancery by shareholder Richard Tornetta alleges the package was unnecessary, since Musk at the time owned 22% of Tesla, giving him plenty of incentive to make the company a success.

Tornetta seeks to cancel the plan, including stock options already granted.

Musk is using his Tesla stock as collateral for loans to buy Twitter.

Musk and Tesla's directors argued in court filings that the pay package did what it set out to do -- align Musk's incentives with shareholders and create value.

"Since it was implemented, Tesla’s value has increased by more than 1,800% from about $53 billion to over $1 trillion," the filing said. They noted that despite the enormous growth in value, Musk has not reached all the milestones.

Shareholders in March 2018 approved the package, which in securities filings were called "challenging."

The lawsuit said shareholders should have been informed before the vote that management knew some milestones were likely to be achieved, which was described as a materially misleading omission.

Tesla countered in court papers that the internal projections were "stretch" targets.

"Nothing that Elon touches or does is not bold and super stretched and aggressive,” Tesla’s former chief financial officer, Deepak Ahuja, testified in a deposition in the case, according to a court filing.

Despite the outlandish size of the pay, the trial will likely turn on the thinking of directors in negotiating the package and what the board told shareholders before the vote.

"No one could have looked in the crystal ball and seen the Twitter situation," said Minor Myers, a professor at University of Connecticut School of Law. "But they could have negotiated for some measure of Musk’s time at Tesla."

The trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 24 in Wilmington, Delaware and last five days.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Lisa Shumaker)

Oil’s Hired Hands See Outlook Brighten as War Fractures Markets

April 24, 2022 Stu Turley 

ENB Publishers Note: In what is called the last “Supercycle” 14 years ago with $145 oil it was even by the name a cycle. The energy crisis has migrated beyond a cycle into a staged event. The stages now will last decades rather than years. More on stages in other articles.

The global oil industry is on pace to repeat or even surpass the heady days of 2008 when crude ascended to dizzying heights and drilling profits soared, according to the world’s biggest oilfield contractor.

In the sector’s most bullish forecast yet, Schlumberger told investors and analysts Friday that the widespread disarray set off by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is creating growth opportunities last seen during the so-called supercycle of 14 years ago.

Exploration companies are now expanding the search for crude from onshore shale fields to the deep seas, spurred at least in part by a widespread aversion to Russia’s oil since it went to war in late February, Chief Executive Officer Olivier Le Peuch said during a conference call.

“The combination of these effects creates an exceptional sequence for our sector, likely resulting in a cycle of higher magnitude and duration than previously anticipated,” Le Peuch said after the company disclosed its strongest first-quarter margins since 2015 and rewarded investors with a surprise dividend increase.

Le Peuch’s optimism was the culmination of a week in which his biggest rivals — Halliburton Co. and Baker Hughes Co. — unveiled similarly positive, if more modest, business outlooks.

Fracking Giant

Halliburton, which controls more fracking capacity than any other company, predicted North American exlorers will boost spending by 35% this year, up from a pre-war forecast of 25%.

Meanwhile, Baker Hughes estimated that overseas growth will reach the low- to mid-double digits, while North America will see a 40% boost this year.

“We expect global oil and gas supply to remain constrained in the coming years which should support higher commodity prices and multiple years of spending growth from our customers,” Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said earlier this week during a call with analysts and investors. “Recent geopolitical events have severely constrained what was already a tight global natural gas market and have refocused the world on the importance of energy, security, diversity and reliability.”

Feel The Boom

Often the first to feel the pain in a oil-price bust and the last to benefit from a boom, oilfield servicers are looking to cash in on the global energy rally.

Schlumberger’s allusion to 2008 resonates with oil-market veterans, for in that year international crude surged above $145 a barrel in a so-called supercycle that only ended when financial markets collapsed under the weight of the mortgage crisis.

Since then, the oil-services sector added capacity in order to meet customer demand only to run headlong into a worldwide crude glut that crushed prices and their order books. A wave of bankruptcies in subsequent years helped chew through that oversupply of gear, positioning contractors like Liberty Oilfield Services Inc. to capitalize going forward.

“The emerging cycle is likely to last longer and be characterized by a much slower and more modest rise in active frack,” Liberty CEO Chris Wright said.“It is encouraging to see improving returns moving the last sector that has yet to see them in the oil and gas industry: energy services.”

Source Bloomberg

Elliott seeks overhaul at Suncor in bet on Canada’s oil sands

April 29, 2022 Mariel Alumit 


Hedge fund Elliott Administration has launched an activist marketing campaign towards Suncor Power, certainly one of Canada’s greatest oil producers, calling for an overhaul of firm management in a guess on the way forward for the nation’s controversial oil sands.

Elliott, which mentioned it was certainly one of Suncor’s prime shareholders with a 3.4 per cent stake, hit out at a “slow-moving, overly bureaucratic company tradition” that left the corporate underperforming friends and failing to take advantage of a powerful place atop the world’s third-largest confirmed oil reserves.

“With the suitable management, the corporate can restore its prior success,” Elliott wrote in a letter to the board dated Thursday. “Suncor’s built-in oil sands operations are a vital a part of the worldwide power provide, and we consider these belongings are dramatically undervalued.”

Whereas the marketing campaign displays Elliott’s unhappiness with Suncor’s board and technique, it’s also a vote of confidence in Canada’s oil sands, the place producers take away tarlike bitumen from the bottom in a carbon-intensive course of.

Oil sands corporations had fallen out of favour when crude costs had been decrease and traders targeted on the environmental impression of their operations. Suncor is among the many oil sands corporations which have proposed an enormous new mission to seize carbon from their initiatives alongside the Athabasca river in Alberta province.

Elliott known as for 5 new administrators on Suncor’s board, a evaluate of administration, a pointy improve in returns to shareholders and the potential sale of the corporate’s retail enterprise, Petro-Canada, which operates a community of round 1,800 petrol stations.

“Shareholders have seen their funding lag behind almost all large-cap North American oil and fuel corporations, as Suncor’s share worth has remained nearly unchanged since early 2019, whilst oil costs have climbed to their highest degree in nearly a decade,” Elliott wrote.

Suncor’s shares are up about 5 per cent previously decade, in contrast with a 90 per cent rise within the shares of Canadian Pure Sources, one other giant oil sands producer, and a 14 per cent rise within the S&P 500 power index. The Calgary-based firm didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Elliott, with about $51.5bn in belongings underneath administration, mentioned a reboot of Suncor may increase its worth by 50 per cent. Suncor’s market capitalisation was C$60bn ($47bn) on Wednesday, and its shares rose 10 per cent after Elliott’s announcement on Thursday.

The hedge fund’s newest transfer comes amid a world seek for power provides after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despatched crude oil costs above $100 a barrel.

“These belongings are fairly distinctive in that they’ve a long time of manufacturing life forward of them,” mentioned an individual conversant in Elliott’s transfer. “There’s a vital place for the Canadian oil trade going ahead.”

Suncor produced 743,000 barrels of oil a day final 12 months, about 15 per cent of the 4.7mn b/d produced in Canada, which is by far the US’s greatest supply of international oil.

Source: Moneymarketadvisor.com

Canadian police face off with protesters opposed to mandates










1 / 10
A protester confronts police during a demonstration, part of a convoy-style protest participants are calling "Rolling Thunder", Friday, April 29, 2022, in Ottawa. 

(Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)


Fri, April 29, 2022, 8:47 PM·

OTTAWA (AP) — Police wearing helmets and shields made several arrests Friday night in Canada’s capital after facing off against protesters opposed to COVID-19 mandates.

Big-rig trucks attempted to make their way to Parliament Hill as part of the “Rolling Thunder” rally, organized by Freedom Fighters Canada, a group dedicated to speaking out against COVID-19 mandates.

Many of the protesters were also part of the three-week Freedom Convoy demonstration that gridlocked Ottawa’s downtown earlier this year with big rigs, prompting Canada's federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time. That protest ended after hundreds of police officers moved in to disperse the crowds, making dozens of arrests.

Ottawa police promised earlier Friday that protesters would not be allowed to get a foothold for a prolonged occupation.

More than 800 reinforcements were called in from the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police and regional police services to guard every major downtown intersection and prevent protesters from bringing vehicles into the core.

Things started calmly, with shouts of “Freedom!” as protesters mingled and danced on Wellington Street, the main drive in front of Parliament Hill. Protesters also marched through the ByWard Market with a police escort.

But early in the evening police warned of a large convoy trying to make its way into the city. Soon, hundreds of protesters were crowded around large trucks and campers just outside the parliamentary precinct.

Protesters yelled “hold the line,” trying to push police officers away from the vehicles. Police attempted to push the crowds away from the trucks and back toward Parliament Hill.

By late Friday afternoon, city bylaw officers said they had issued 185 tickets and towed 20 vehicles related to the rally.

Ottawa city councilor Jeff Leiper reported seeing police smash a truck window to take control of the vehicle. Police were seen making arrests on the street.

On Saturday, the protesters plan to loop around the downtown, with a stop at the War Memorial and march to a rally on Parliament Hill.

Vehicles involved in the rally won’t be allowed into a zone that includes the war monument and Parliament, police say. Nor will they be allowed to stop along the route, but participants can walk through the area.

The “Rolling Thunder” group has not been clear about the cause they’re rallying for, except to say they will be in Ottawa to "peacefully celebrate our freedom."

A statement on the “Rolling Thunder” website attributed to organizer Neil Sheard says the protesters plan to leave on Sunday, and they do not support “blockades, obstruction of police performing their duties, damage to property or hate and vitriol directed to the residents of Ottawa.”

The statement also encourages supporters to follow the laws and says police will be held accountable in court for their actions during the event.

THIRD WORLD USA

Kansas tightening rules for adults receiving food assistance

JOHN HANNA and MARGARET STAFFORD,

 Associated Press
April 29, 2022

Kansas state Reps. Kyle Hoffman, left, R-Coldwater, and Joe Seiwert, right, R-Pretty Prairie, confer during a House debate, Thursday, April 28, 2022, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The Republican-controlled Legislature has overridden Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of tighter rules for food assistance recipients.

John Hanna/AP

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas will be tightening its rules for adults receiving food assistance even though critics have warned that its new law is so sloppily written that it will apply to thousands more people than supporters intended.

The Republican-controlled Legislature on Thursday overrode Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a GOP bill imposing a new job-training requirement for non-disabled adults. The changes will take effect July 1.

Republicans could overturn Kelly's action on their own because they have more than the two-thirds majorities in both chambers needed to do it. The votes were 86-36 in the House and 29-11 in the Senate, and almost no Democrats supported the override attempt.

GOP lawmakers have long argued that tighter rules for people receiving public assistance, coupled with state-provided job training, moves people from being dependent on the state's help into jobs.

“What is the central solution to poverty? It’s work,” said Republican state Rep. Susan Humphries, of Wichita. "Work is not a punishment, it’s a blessing. Helping someone move to a place of self sufficiency is as gift to them.”

In her veto message earlier this month, Kelly said the measure would “unnecessarily burden” some 30,000 adults. Republicans have put the number affected at less than half that, or about 12,000 adults.

Republicans said the new law applies only to non-disabled adults from 18 through 49 who do not have children. But Democrats said because of the bill's language, it could apply to both that group and all adults not working at least 30 hours a week.

“There already were issues with this bill,” Sen. Pat Pettey, a Kansas City Democrat, said Thursday in supporting Kelly's veto. “We don’t know with this additional language whether that is going that far.”

Since July 2021, an average of nearly 199,000 people, including nearly 87,000 children, have received food assistance each month, with an average benefit of $300, according to the state Department for Children and Families.

The state tightened its rules for people receiving cash assistance in 2015 and 2016 under then-Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Kansas gained national attention in 2015 for adding to state law a list of several dozen items that couldn't be purchased with the state aid, including tattoos, lingerie, concert tickets or sessions with a psychic.

Critics of those changes argued that they mostly kicked needy people off cash assistance and that many of those who obtained jobs still didn't earn enough to escape poverty. Advocates for the poor, social services agencies and food bank operators all said this year's bill simply would result in more struggling families going hungry.

They also argued that the tougher rules would increase bureaucracy, citing estimates that the state would have to spend $3 million to $5 million on additional staffing to enforce the new requirements.

“It’s punitive in nature," said state Rep. Jason Probst, a Hutchinson Democrat. "We are going to harm people with this if we do this override.”

Supporters of the bill countered that the extra state staffing and spending would be an investment in improving poor families' lives.

“We do nothing more than allow more people to be able to go to work, have an even better job and allow our employers to hire people who are better trained,” said Republican Sen. Beverly Gossage, of Eudora.


Stafford reported from Liberty, Missouri.

Guyanese crude cargo bought by Exxon sets sail for Europe 

Tue, April 26, 2022, 

By Marianna Parraga

HOUSTON, April 26 (Reuters) - A tanker carrying Guyana's first share of oil from a recently inaugurated floating production facility has set sail for Rotterdam, tanker monitoring data showed on Tuesday.

South America's newest crude producer, which has secured billions of dollars in investment from an Exxon Mobil, Hess Corp and China CNOOC consortium, earlier this month fetched $106 million from the sale of 1 million barrels of Unity Gold light sweet crude to Exxon.

Exxon won the purchase through a competitive bidding process following the expiration of a previous deal with a unit of Saudi Aramco for marketing the government's share of crude.

The Bahamas-flagged Suezmax vessel Dimitrios is expected to deliver its cargo on May 10, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

The Guyanese government, which will receive a larger volume of crude produced off the country's coast this year, has not revealed how it will manage future oil sales.

But Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo in February said Guyana was exploring cutting out the "middleman" and directly selling its share of crude from the country's two floating production, storage and offloading facilities in a move to save on marketing fees.

Exxon did not reply to a request for comment on the final customer or destination of the cargo.

Guyana's government has engaged in previous talks with India to directly sell crude to the Asian nation's refineries, but the parties have failed to reach an agreement over prices.

Exxon earlier on Tuesday said it found oil in three new wells drilled off Guyana's coast, raising recoverable oil and gas potential from its discoveries to nearly 11 billion barrels.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga Editing by Chris Reese)

Sudan
Violent attacks leave tens of thousands without access to healthcare in West Darfur

Project Update 29 April 2022

People in parts of West Darfur state, Sudan, have been left without all essential healthcare services after a fresh wave of violence started on 24 April around Kreneik town, with fighting reported in El Genina. In both locations, teams from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) supported the two main health facilities. Four days after the attacks, the situation remains fragile and tense, and our teams continue to hear the occasional shots being fired.

Violence and shooting also took place within healthcare facilities, with four hospital staff killed and a number of patients and staff flee in fear for their lives. Our team was informed that all patients had fled; including mothers who had their children on oxygen, interrupting their treatment and fleeing with them.

“The inpatient department was full of patients, as well as the outpatient department and triage area,” says Emily Wambugu, MSF Project Medical Referent working in El Geneina Teaching Hospital at the time of the attack. “There were approximately 200 people waiting for consultations.”

Insecurity has spread over recent months to different parts of West Darfur, making it extremely difficult for MSF to assist communities who have been displaced and affected by the recurrent attacks. The most recent violence that started in Kreneik has once again led terrified families to flee from makeshift settlement to makeshift settlement, in a desperate search for safety.

“It is stressful, because when you think about the hospital and all the lives we have been saving every day, very desperate children coming for hospitalisation, and now we are not able to treat anyone of them,” says Wambugu. “It’s not easy for us, but there is nothing we can do, as we still feel it is not safe to move out and move to the hospital.”

MSF runs different projects in West Darfur state. Until the most recent attack, we provided humanitarian assistance and healthcare services to both internally displaced and local communities. We ran fixed and mobile clinics in and around El Geneina town, and supported the El Geneina Teaching Hospital and the main healthcare facility in Kreneik town.

An MSF team has since been able to assess the status of some healthcare clinics, and visited several gathering sites with newly displaced families that had run for their lives from the fighting inside El Geneina. We are closely following the security situation to restart medical activities and to adapt the movement of mobile clinics to new sites where people are now sheltering, to provide much needed medical care and humanitarian assistance as soon as it is safe to do so.


MSF has been working in Sudan since 1978. In recent years our operations have focused on Khartoum, Gedaref, Blue Nile, Kassala, East Darfur, West Darfur, South and Central Darfur states, with emergency teams launching interventions in other areas as needed.