✈️ 🇪🇺 🛢 As airlines ground planes and officials urge citizens to cut back on their commutes, Europe’s effort to prevent shortages caused by the Iran war is running into an unexpected hitch:
Europe doesn’t know how much fuel it has
The scramble comes as the war in Iran drives up Europe’s fossil fuel bill and threatens to choke off supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for oil and gas. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the conflict is costing the EU nearly €500 million a day in higher energy costs, even as U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered his aides to prepare for a prolonged blockade of Iran that could further disrupt global energy markets.
“In Europe, we have visibility and commitments into May and June … what happens beyond is hard to forecast,” Tobias Meyer, chief executive of DHL Group, said during a press breakfast attended by POLITICO earlier this month. “There are strategic reserves, but there's not much visibility on how much has been drawn.”
At a high-level summit last month, ministers from Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain called attention to these knowledge gaps, urging the EU to coordinate more real-time monitoring and analysis, particularly around refined products, according to minutes seen by POLITICO. Greece's delegate went so far as to ask the Commission to set up a WhatsApp or Signal channel between member countries and the EU executive.
Tracking jet fuel stocks — held primarily in fixed-roof tanks — is “much more difficult,” Falakshahi said. Data on the fuel is drawn largely from voluntary disclosures by companies, and the lack of transparency is consistent with ongoing disagreements over how much fuel Europe has left.
In 1983, America's biggest daytime talk show did something that's never happened since.
It spent an hour on a live debate on the DPT shot and vaccine mandates. Injured kids were in the studio, and the host asked what no host would dare ask today:
"Why does it have to be a law? Should we have the freedom to decide?"
🇺🇸 A Red Baron delivery worker went viral after snapping at a social media prankster who pretended to steal $10 from his phone via Apple Pay while he was working.
The father of four broke down over his exhausting schedule and financial struggles, prompting the internet to rally behind him. A GoFundMe has since raised more than $500,000, while Red Baron publicly backed the employee and confirmed his job is safe.
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New York fined private Amish schools $118,000 for refusing vaccine mandates.
Their lawyer says only the Supreme Court can save them now.