U.S. stock markets on Wednesday closed at record highs as the Federal Reserve indicated that it would leave rates unchanged for the foreseeable future.

The S&P 500 closed at a record high of 3,386, while the Nasdaq composite closed at 9,817, beating previous closes by less than a point each. Both indexes touched even higher during midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, meanwhile, was up 115 points.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpFed saw risks to US economy fading before coronavirus spread quickened Pro-Trump super PAC hits Biden with new Spanish-language ad in Nevada Britain announces immigration policy barring unskilled migrants MORE hailed the rise in the markets earlier in the day as the “Highest Stock Market In History, By Far!”

Trump is relying on ebullient markets and a strong economy to bolster his reelection odds come November.

The Fed’s notes from its recent meetings pointed to a slew of strong economic indicators, with continued growth and low unemployment.

But the continued spread of the novel coronavirus could spell trouble for growth in the near term, the Fed noted. The number of confirmed cases has risen to more than 75,000, and the death toll has surpassed 2,000, almost exclusively in China.

The “threat of the coronavirus, in addition to its human toll, had emerged as a new risk to the global growth outlook,” the notes indicated.

Some analysts said the markets may be dismissing coronavirus risks, meaning a reversal could be in the making as the virus continued to spread.

“We believe the greater risk is that the impact of the coronavirus on earnings may well be underestimated in current stock prices, suggesting that the risks of a correction are high,” Goldman Sachs strategist Peter Oppenheimer wrote in an analysis.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpFed saw risks to US economy fading before coronavirus spread quickened Pro-Trump super PAC hits Biden with new Spanish-language ad in Nevada Britain announces immigration policy barring unskilled migrants MORE’s budget proposes closing a network of climate science centers, prompting concerns the administration will hamstring climate change research while booting employees from the federal workforce.

Trump’s fiscal year 2021 budget would slash funding for the National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers, eliminating all $38 million for research to help wildlife and humans “adapt to a changing climate.”

Rather than fund all eight regional centers along with the national one, the budget instead calls for just one center, at a cost of $20 million. 

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The restructuring plans follow similar steps employed by the Trump administration, where agencies with research ties are reshuffled or relocated, often prompting a reduction in staff.

“They have a track record of doing this,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director at the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental watchdog group. “In a normal administration, you wouldn’t blow up eight other regional climate centers without going through Congress. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to do, but, this being their wishlist, I won’t be surprised if they try to put some of it into action without approval from Congress.”

The administration previously moved two research wings of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to Kansas City. One of those agencies, the Economic Research Service, lost nearly 80 percent of its nearly 200-plus person staff and had trouble producing required reports.

The administration is also in the midst of relocating Bureau of Land Management (BLM) staff, shifting more than 150 Washington-based employees to locations across the West, leaving just 61 employees in the nation’s capital. The move is expected to break apart the team that reviews the environmental impacts of major projects.

The move ignited a fight between lawmakers and BLM, with agency officials arguing they did not need congressional approval to move forward with the relocation.

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The eight regional centers that are on the chopping block are part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) but housed at universities where they produce research about the local impacts of climate change.

This isn’t the first time the administration has tried to trim the number of regional centers, but it is the first time they’ve tried to eliminate all of them. Last year, Congress not only kept all eight centers, it also boosted their funding.

“Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) provide actionable science and research that directly address many of the climate-related challenges unique to different regions of the country,” the House Appropriations Committee wrote in a report. “The Committee believes the administration’s attempt to reduce and curtail the activities of these centers is shortsighted and counterproductive at a time when our natural and cultural resources, our communities, and our health are being assaulted by climate change.”

The National Center for Climate Adaptation is currently located in Reston, Va., outside of Washington, D.C., while the regional centers are located at universities in Fairbanks, Alaska, Manoa, Hawaii, Seattle, Tucson, Ariz., Boulder, Colo., Amherst, Mass., Norman, Okla., and Raleigh, N.C.

A spokeswoman for USGS argued the consolidation of regional centers would not harm its mission.

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“Doing so continues this work while achieving efficiencies,” Karen Armstrong said in a statement to The Hill.

But Joel Clement, a whistleblower who left the Department of the Interior amid an effort to reassign those working on climate change, said that because Congress routinely ignores presidential budget requests, the administration has focused on changes that disrupt the work itself.

“You can try to squeeze the funding but Congress may not allow that, so they squeeze the work,” he said, arguing that consolidating regional climate centers into one will “hobble those efforts.” 

Robin O’Malley, who helped establish the system of climate adaptation science centers at the beginning of the Obama administration before retiring from USGS late last year, said the attempts to limit the reach of the regional, university-based centers comes amid an Interior-wide push for greater scrutiny of the grants given to higher education.

Eliminating the regional centers would jeopardize important research on how the earth is changing, he said, giving wildlife managers local information about how species are being impacted by climate change.

“This will really impact the ability of fish and wildlife managers to understand where things are going to be changing, why they’re changing,” he said. “What is lost is the ability to manage things people love and care about. We love the outdoors in this county; we love birds and animals, and we have set up an enormous system to manage it.”

Regardless of how the USGS consolidation plays out, critics say the massive cut in funding for climate science speaks volumes. 

“The presidential budget is all about sending signals,” Clement said. “The signal they’re trying to send is: we do not value climate science.”

Leaders of a local chapter of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE Local 479) are reassuring their members that, despite a call for a boycott of Georgia by Hollywood elites over its new “heartbeat” abortion law, the union “expects continuing job stability.”

Amid recommendations that its members donate to the Georgia chapter of the ACLU to help fight the law in court, leaders of Local 479, which represents film industry professionals in Georgia and Alabama, said they do not expect to see a slowdown in film projects within Georgia.

On May 24, Local 479’s executive board released a notice in which it reassured its members of job stability and praised the production companies that are not pulling out of the state, referring to them as “our real supporters”:

Georgia’s Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act (HB 481) prohibits abortions in the state after a heartbeat is detected, usually at about six or seven weeks of pregnancy. Cases of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger are exceptions to the law.

Actress and political activist Alyssa Milano called for a Hollywood boycott of Georgia if Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the bill into law. Milano then followed with a call for a sex strike – urging women to engage in abstinence from sex – to protest the end to “reproductive rights.”

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Bob Iger, Walt Disney Company’s chairman and CEO, said this week it is not “practical for us to continue to shoot” in Georgia, given the law.

“Right now, we’re watching it very carefully,” Iger told Reuters, suggesting the law could be challenged in court. “We’re being careful and cautious about it. If it becomes law, I don’t see how it’s practical for us to continue to shoot there.”

However, Republican pollster Logan Dobson observed on Twitter that Disney’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi filmed scenes in Croatia, Ireland, and Bolivia – all nations in which abortion was highly restricted at the time of filming:

“In Croatia, abortion is illegal after ten weeks,” Dobson noted. “In Ireland, abortion was illegal (law since modified). In Bolivia, abortion was and is illegal.”

On May 16, Local 479’s executive board said, “Georgia’s film industry is unlikely to experience an industry-wide pull out.”

“Georgia is the 3rd largest production hub in the country, and recent events have sparked media discussions asking if Georgia will maintain that position,” the union leaders said. “We understand that this conversation is disturbing to our members, whose careers depend on job stability.”

“All signs continue to indicate that Georgia’s film industry is unlikely to experience an industry-wide pullout,” the leaders said, adding:

According to the union leaders, over 30 film projects are ongoing in the state.

“This volume of production is right on track with years past and we see no reason to expect any slowdown as the year progresses,” Local 479’s executive board stated. “Make no mistake, the industry understands that pulling out of GA, causing job loss, will not change anyone’s mind or anyone’s beliefs. It would only hurt us all, regardless of which side of this sensitive issue we fall on.”

In the battle over the rule of law, Poland is splitting the European Commission at its highest level.

EU officials and diplomats familiar with the latest developments say on one side of the split are Martin Selmayr, the Commission’s chief civil servant, and President Jean-Claude Juncker, and on the other is Frans Timmermans, the first vice president who has been leading the charge against Poland.

They say Selmayr and Juncker are ready to back away from the Article 7 disciplinary proceedings that the Commission has initiated against Warsaw — and which could lead to a loss of voting rights — because of fears that it could result in a series of potentially divisive votes by EU countries and ultimately fail to force Poland to undo its judicial changes. They want further talks with Warsaw instead.

A decision on whether to proceed with Article 7 — and if so, how aggressively — could have been taken as early as Wednesday at the weekly meeting of commissioners, according to one senior EU official. However, although Poland was on the agenda of the meeting, Maroš Šefčovič, a Commission vice president, told reporters the issue “was not discussed today.”

Timmermans, meanwhile, is urging the Commission to take a hard line and not ease the pressure until Poland’s governing Law and Justice party repeals the judicial changes, including a controversial law on the Supreme Court set to take effect on July 3.

“For the European Commission, but also for the European Council, Article 7 in the context of Poland is a hot potato,” said Ryszard Czarnecki, a Polish MEP and member of Law and Justice. “I think everyone or almost everyone wants to stop working on it — even people who are reluctant [about] the current government in Poland.” Continuing to pressure Warsaw, he said, only creates “more support for the current Polish authorities.”

Some Commission officials said talk of a split in the Commission is mostly pro-Warsaw spin, and that Selmayr, Juncker and Timmermans are of one mind when it comes to the rule of law.

But while they ultimately want the same result — to bring Poland into line with EU standards — other officials in Brussels say the division reflects a sobering frustration. “The EU is largely defenseless in confrontation with illiberal democracies,” a senior official said.

‘Systemic threats’

In December, the Commission triggered Article 7 of the EU treaty for what it considered “systemic threats” to the independence of the Polish judiciary. The key concerns focused on the Polish government’s ability to remove up to 40 percent of the Supreme Court’s judges and the justice minister’s power to discipline judges. Separately, the Commission has sought redress through the European Court of Justice.

While the Law and Justice party proposed changes to its legislation, Timmermans said at a recent press conference that the main issue remains “how much political control can you have to be able to say that the judiciary is independent, and we have some concerns there.”

Supporters of Timmermans’ view are hoping the EU General Affairs Council — meetings of foreign affairs and Europe ministers — would, at a meeting on June 26, send a strong signal that the bloc is not backing down by scheduling a hearing on the Poland case.

If it does call for a hearing, member countries would get to vote on moving to the next phase of the Article 7 process — known as the “sanctions mechanism.”

At least a four-fifths majority, under the Council’s qualified majority voting system, would be needed to proceed. But even if the Commission secures the necessary support, calling such a vote would be a divisive step at a time when the EU is trying to tackle numerous other challenges including reform of the eurozone and drawing up a new long-term budget.

Partly as a result of the disagreement over how to proceed, and partly because the EU is wrestling with other challenges, officials say they expect further action in the rule-of-law fight to be delayed for weeks if not months.

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Theoretically, Article 7 can lead to an EU country being stripped of its voting rights in the European Council. But that final, severe punishment would require a unanimous vote and allies of Poland — including Hungary — have long said they would prevent it.

On the up

Dialogue between Brussels and Warsaw has improved since a government reshuffle in Poland in December and the appointment of Mateusz Morawiecki as prime minister. While Timmermans has led negotiations for the Commission, officials said Selmayr has met privately with Adam Bielan, the deputy speaker of the Polish senate and ally of the Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s most powerful politician.

One EU official briefed on the process said the tension between Selmayr and Timmermans is widely known and has been building for months. “Selmayr told Bielan he’d like to close down the issue of Article 7 against Poland,” the official said.

“Many people would like to close this file,” the official added. “It’s in nobody’s interest to pursue Article 7 proceedings, especially now with political events in Italy. It’s better to have appropriate relations with the Poles.”

But the official acknowledged the political difficulty of taking such a step.

“It will mean that they recognize they have made a mistake,” the official said, adding that the most likely result would be further delay.

An EU diplomat said that Timmermans is advocating a more principled approach, while Selmayr and Juncker seemed to favor pragmatism.

“There are different views on what to do next,” the diplomat said. “Timmermans and Selmayr diverge quite substantially on this. Timmermans would rather go forward with the Article 7 procedure. Juncker and Selmayr have more of a political view on this.”

The diplomat said that Timmermans, who is the Dutch commissioner but faces an uncertain future because his party is no longer part of the governing coalition, is also trying to position himself ahead of next year’s European election.

“Timmermans wants to deliver on this,” the diplomat said. “Because what we hear is that he made a proposal to stand as Dutch candidate for the Commission or run for a seat in the European Parliament.”

Law and Justice party officials in Poland and Brussels insist they have already offered sufficient concessions to the EU and will not back down further. They have also accused the EU of singling out Poland for making changes to its judicial system that are within its sovereign rights and, they insist, would raise no concerns if adopted in a Western European country.

Actor Kumail Nanjiani says he’ll vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is because the fate of the planet hinges on defeating President Donald Trump.

“This might not be the right thing to say, but I will vote for whoever the democratic candidate is,” the Stuber star said in an interview with Variety. “There are people who I favor but even if the bottom of my list is the Democratic candidate, I am voting for them.”

“I like Kamala Harris. I like Elizabeth Warren. But there are still so many candidates,” Nanjiani said of the Democratic White House hopefuls that he’s fond of.

“Good societies make good people and bad societies make bad people. And I think we’re really on a sort of a cusp of deciding what kind of society we’re going to be,” the actor said when asked about how much hope he has in America in the Trump-era. “This next election is going to be extremely, extremely important — not just for the fate of America but for the fate of the world.”

“I mean I donate a lot,” he said when asked how much he’ll get involved with the election. “I was very, very, vocal going into the 2016 election. I was very for the 2018 midterms. I have been a little more quiet. I realized that when I say this stuff, the only people who are listening to me are the people who agree with me.”

Indeed, in September 2017 the Silicon Valley star said America is “much scarier” today than it was after the deadly Islamic terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. But the actor has been far less vocal about politics, particularly on social media.

Nanjiani said “I’m trying to fight for positive stuff. If I can have ideas in the work I do that hopefully can affect people’s minds or change people’s minds about something. If mainstream entertainment doesn’t have the power to change people’s thinking then what’s the point of it?”

“I have to hope. I do think that if somehow the 2020 election can go the other way, that we can turn things around; it’s not that these ideas are new or that these now feel like this. They’ve always felt like this. They just fell more comfortable expressing how they feel. And hopefully that’s change.”

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson

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Delivering a rambling, often disjointed and disorganized State of the Union speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at times gripped the lectern in the Parliament hemicycle in Strasbourg as if he was holding on for dear life.

Unlike the smooth, polished performances of previous years, in which he put forth a litany of policy proposals in French, German and English, Juncker tripped up in all three languages Wednesday, as he veered chaotically from claiming credit for past successes, like managing the Greek debt crisis, to pledging new action on continuing challenges, like migration.

It was neither a legacy speech, nor a forward-looking battle plan, but rather an odd, mushy stew, in which arguably the most concrete policy proposal was a plan to end the semiannual changing of clocks.

If the State of the European Union is uncertain, the state of the Commission president was clear: Having made himself a lame duck by declaring he will not seek a second term when his mandate ends next year, Juncker seemed deeply exhausted — and not just because he and his aides were awake most of the night making last-minute changes to the speech.

Juncker’s weary performance, following a NATO leaders’ dinner last summer at which he stumbled up the stairs and appeared to be unable to walk without assistance (aides said he was suffering from a flare-up of sciatica), suggested that the EU’s old lion is ready to be retired. Or at least, ready for a break — a point he made during the speech with a flash of humor, when he thanked the audience for applauding a line about the importance of the free press.

Taking a sip from the water glass in front him, Juncker quipped: “Thank you for your applause, as it gives me an opportunity to drink.” The audience laughed a bit too loud.

On some levels, Juncker has a right to be tired. For four years as Commission president, and eight years before that as head of the Eurogroup, he has carried the weight of Europe on his slightly hunched shoulders. Aides have long struggled to keep the toll of stress and poor health from showing. But on Wednesday, it was unmistakable.

Juncker careened from taking credit for Europe’s record-high employment numbers and Greece’s financial recovery — “I have always fought for Greece, its dignity, its role in Europe, and its place inside the euro area; of this I am proud” — to proclaiming a need for EU to show solidarity in the western Balkans and to take a stand against the humanitarian crisis in Syria. He called for greater military and defense cooperation, and proposed a vast increase in the size of the EU’s border protection and coast guard forces — with 10,000 additional guards by 2020.

“Clock-changing must stop,” Juncker said in declaring that the EU would no longer mandate the one-hour switch in fall and spring. “We are out of time.”

It was a remarkable triple entendre: out of the business of telling countries how to tell time; out of time for completing his Commission’s legislative agenda; and at the end of an extraordinary political career. Having served not quite 20 years as prime minister of Luxembourg, Juncker holds the record as the longest-serving head of government in the history of the European Council.

Though weary and unsteady, Juncker also displayed the political skills he has honed over those decades. Call it crafty or cowardly, he made his points without stirring controversy, or setting off any new diplomatic row.

He decried the continuing divisions between east and west but did not single out Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán by name and thereby avoided exacerbating an already bitter fight in Parliament. “It is time we put an end to the sorry spectacle of a divided Europe,” he said. “Our Continent and those who brought an end to the Cold War deserve better.”

He lamented the rise of “unhealthy nationalism” without naming and shaming leaders like Italy’s Matteo Salvini who have exploited nativism for electoral gain. “We should never forget that the patriotism of the 21st century is two-fold: both European and national, with one not excluding the other,” he said.

In weaving his lofty argument in favor of Europe,  Juncker recycled old material, including a reference to the French philosopher Blaise Pascal he has rolled out repeatedly over the years. “I like things that go together,” Juncker said. “To love Europe is it love its nations. To love your nation is to love Europe. Patriotism is a virtue. Unchecked nationalism is riddled with both poison and deceit.”

Like his speech, Juncker’s policy proposals seemed to require a winding road, one that he envisions will lead to the historic Romanian city of Sibiu, where EU leaders plan to hold an extraordinary Europe Day summit next May, following the expected departure of the U.K. in March 2019.

On Brexit, the subject that will likely define — and stain — his legacy, Juncker walked a tightrope. He torpedoed a central element of U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiating position, saying, “Someone who leaves the Union cannot be in the same privileged position as a member state. If you leave the Union, you are of course no longer part of our single market, and certainly not only in the parts of it you choose.”

But he also praised May’s proposal, saying it could form the basis for a new relationship. “The United Kingdom will never be an ordinary third country for us,” he said.

Juncker also expressed some exasperation over the tendency of national leaders to take credit for all that is good in Europe, while blaming Brussels for all that is bad — clearly a changed perspective from his days as a prime minister.

“I cannot accept that the blame for every failure — and there have been a few — is laid solely at the Commission’s door,” he said. “There are scapegoats to be found in all three institutions — with the fewest in the Commission and Parliament.”

The address was rambling, yes, but it was also clearly valedictory.

“A few years ago, standing in this very same spot, I told you that Europe was the love of my life,” he said, offering the first of what will undoubtedly be many goodbyes. “I love Europe still and shall do so forever.”

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Appearing Wednesday on SiriusXM’s The Michelangelo Signorile Show, left-wing actress Rosie O’Donnell claimed, without evidence, that President Donald Trump has long done “very bad things” with his daughter Ivanka Trump, musing there is a “creepy incest feel” to the pair’s relationship.

A transcript is as follows: 

Rosie O’Donnell, who recently announced her support for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, has a history of hyperbolic attacks on President Trump and his administration.

The former View co-host has said the president is a “mad man” and should “rot in jail” and has speculated he will be arrested before the next presidential election. Last month, O’Donnell raised eyebrows for claiming the U.S. operates at least 100,000 concentration camps that house illegal aliens.

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(AFP) British singer Joss Stone said she was “gutted” after being deported from Iran ahead of the latest leg of a world tour that has already taken her to Syria and North Korea.

She was held shortly after arriving at Kish airport, according to a post on her Instagram account, as authorities suspected she was planning to play a public gig.

Women have been banned from singing solo in public in Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

“We were aware there couldn?t be a public concert as I am a woman and that is illegal in this country,” she wrote, without specifying where or how she had hoped to play.

“So close yet so far, this moment broke a little piece of my heart,” she wrote it the post, below a picture of herself wearing a headscarf.

The gig in Kish would have been the 200th of the “Total World Tour” she embarked on five years ago, she wrote in another post before departing for Kish.

That tour is an ambitious project to perform in every country on Earth and has seen her play in war-torn Libya, South Sudan as well as an “unofficial” gig in the capital of North Korea.

However she described the Iranian immigration officials as “genuinely nice kind people that felt bad that they couldn?t override the system,” and that they had refused her entry “with a heavy heart”.

A vast majority of EU citizens want to scrap daylight savings rules and stop changing their clocks twice a year, German media reported Wednesday.

Some 80 percent of respondents of a public consultation launched by the European Commission last month said they would support abolishing daylight savings, according to Westfalenpost.

The Commission launched the consultation as part of its review of the EU summer time directive. It has not provided details on its outcome, but has said some 4.6 million EU citizens participated.

European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc will inform commissioners of the results this week and compile a formal report ahead of consultations with the European Parliament and relevant stakeholders, according to a Commission spokesperson.

The consultation, which isn’t binding, followed a February request from the European Parliament to carry out a “thorough assessment” of summer time arrangements, despite the decades-old practice of putting the clocks forward by an hour between March and October.

This article has been updated.

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