Josh Stein's Bad Choice on School Choice
Mr. Stein's veto message takes a swipe at 'tax giveaways to wealthy parents already sending their kids to private schools.' That's one for the teachers unions that loathe non-public schools.
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Knoxville early voting totals are very low. Maybe a cookie will help?
Want a free cookie from Magpies Bakery? Get out and vote! Early voting in the Knoxville City Council primary election is halfway over, and only 2,002 early votes were cast as of Aug. 14. That means just 2% of Knoxville's eligible voters have cast ballots. Additionally, 472 absentee ballots have been cast. It's the lowest early voting participation at the halfway point in the past four city elections, officials said. The next-lowest was in 2021, when 2,419 votes were cast at the halfway point. If choosing the elected officials who make decisions that hit close to home isn't enough incentive, do it for a cookie. Magpies, the bakery that's been in North Knoxville since 1992, is giving out a free cookie to customers who flex their "I voted" sticker through early voting and on Election Day, Aug. 26. Magpie's is located at 846 N. Central St. They're open from 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturdays. They're closed on Sundays. Our Voter's Guide is available at to help you differentiate between the candidates. Who's voted? The Knox County Election Commission released a breakdown of the votes cast in each district: District 1: 379, or 3% of registered voters District 2: 561, 3% of registered voters District 3: 488, 3% of registered voters District 4: 625, 3% of registered voters District 6: 421, 3% of registered voters You can still request an absentee ballot The last day to request an absentee ballot is Aug. 16. Ballot requests can be emailed to absenteeballot@ There are a lot of eligibility restrictions around who can request absentee voting by mail, but some qualifications include voters who are 60 and older, will be outside the county on Election Day, are hospitalized, are attending school away from home, live in a nursing home or are away for military service and more. Find all the qualifications at Where is early voting in Knoxville? The early voting period is through Aug. 21. During that time, registered voters can go to any early voting location on any day or time it is open. Here are Knoxville early voting locations: City-County Building, 400 Main St., main floor across from Circuit Court Division 1 Downtown West, 1645 Downtown West Blvd., Unit 40 Eternal Life Harvest Center at Five Points, 2410 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. (next to Love Kitchen) Knoxville Expo Center, 5441 Clinton Highway New Harvest Park, 4775 New Harvest Lane Meridian Baptist Church, 6513 Chapman Highway When is early voting in Knoxville? Hours vary depending on the day and place you vote. There are no polls open on Sundays. Early voting hours for Downtown West, Eternal Life Harvest Center at Five Points, Knoxville Expo Center and New Harvest Park: Aug. 16: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Aug. 18-19: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Aug. 20: Noon-7 p.m. Aug. 21: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Early voting hours for the City-County Building: Aug. 16: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Aug. 18-19: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Aug. 20: Noon-7 p.m. Aug. 21: Noon-6 p.m. Early voting hours for Meridian Baptist: Aug. 16: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Aug. 18-19: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Aug. 20: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 21: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Allie Feinberg is the politics reporter for Knox News. Email: Reddit: u/KnoxNewsAllie This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Magpies Bakery offers free cookie to Knoxville voters Solve the daily Crossword
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Factbox-Russian energy export disruptions since start of Ukraine war
(Reuters) -When U.S. President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, one of his bargaining chips to encourage Putin to make progress toward a ceasefire in Ukraine will be to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia's energy industry and exports. Trump has also threatened tougher sanctions if there is no progress. Here is how sanctions have impacted Russian energy exports since the start of the conflict. NATURAL GAS AND LNG Russia was the top supplier of natural gas to Europe before the war. Most gas travelled through four pipeline routes: Nord Stream running under the Baltic Sea, the Yamal line crossing Poland, transit via Ukraine, and the Turkstream line. Europe also imports Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). In 2021, total Russian gas imports to the EU totalled 150 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year, or 45% of its total imports, and have fallen to 52 bcm or 19% since, according to the European Commission. While the EU has not imposed sanctions on Russian pipeline gas imports, contract disputes and damage to Nord Stream caused by an explosion, have cut supplies. As part of a fresh round of sanctions announced in July, the European Union has now banned transactions including any provision of goods or services related to Nord Stream, which albeit damaged could be revived as a gas supply route. Transit via Ukraine ended at the end of 2024, leaving just Turkstream as a functioning route for Russian pipeline gas to Europe. The European Commission has also proposed a legally binding ban on EU imports of Russian gas and LNG by the end of 2027, but this has not been passed into legislation yet. The U.S. in 2024 imposed sanctions on companies supporting the development of Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project, which would become Russia's largest plant with an eventual output of 19.8 million metric tons per year. OIL The U.S., UK, and EU all prohibited the import of seaborne crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia during the first year of the war in Ukraine. In addition to the embargoes, the G7 group of countries (including the US, UK, and EU) imposed a price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil for third countries at $60 per barrel in December 2022, and a cap on fuels the following February. The EU and UK altered the crude price cap level in June 2025 to $47.60, or 15% below the average market price, but the U.S. did not back the move. The price cap aims to reduce Russia's revenues from oil sales by prohibiting shipping, insurance and reinsurance companies from handling tankers carrying crude traded above the cap level. Western powers have also imposed sanctions on more than 440 tankers belonging to the so-called shadow fleet that transports sanctioned oil outside of Western services and the price cap. Russia's leading shipper Sovcomflot is also under sanctions in the West. The U.S. has also sanctioned major Russian oil companies including Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz. The measures banning Russian oil imports in the west and restricting Russian oil trade elsewhere have redirected Russian oil flows towards Asia, with China, India, and Turkey emerging as the major buyers for Russian crude. The price cap was meant to keep Russian oil flowing to prevent a spike in global oil prices which would have followed a halt or severe drop in Russian exports. Trump has, however, signalled a change in policy in recent weeks by threatening to impose secondary sanctions on India and China for buying Russian oil to put pressure on Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. COAL The European Union banned imports of Russian coal in 2022, seeing volumes drop from 50 million metric tonnes in 2021 to zero by 2023, according to data from Eurostat.
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Trump and Putin Have Different Goals for Anchorage Summit
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will measure success at their summit in Alaska very differently, even as both leaders are already looking toward a second meeting. The US president sees any kind of ceasefire in Ukraine as a key objective of the talks. For the Russian leader, getting face time with Trump on American soil without having made any concessions on the war is already a win. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider Festivals and Parades Are Canceled Amid US Immigration Anxiety To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain Princeton Plans New Budget Cuts as Pressure From Trump Builds Those are the contrasting stakes as both leaders head to Anchorage for their first summit since 2018 in Helsinki. The imbalance points to the perils and opportunities for Trump, who has long cast himself as the only one who can end the war. Putin has little incentive to stop the fighting as Russia's military slowly grinds out gains in Ukraine, but can ill afford to alienate a president with whom he's long cultivated a relationship. En route to Anchorage on Friday morning, Trump didn't rule out that Ukraine might get some form of security guarantees from western nations, or that it might have to agree to swap land with Russia. But he said it wasn't his place to decide. 'I've got to let Ukraine make that decision,' Trump said of the idea of the two countries trading land. 'And I think they'll make a proper decision. But I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I'm here to get them at the table.' By invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin began Europe's biggest war for 80 years and became an international pariah. The summit with Trump helps him to chip away at the isolation the US and its Group of Seven allies have sought to impose on the Russian leader over his aggression. Even more symbolically potent is the decision to host the encounter at a military base, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in the US. By that metric, Putin has scored a victory simply by showing up. The meeting also marks a repudiation of former President Joe Biden's approach of 'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,' a mantra that made sure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy always had a seat at the table. 'Russia wants to continue to pursue its objectives, which are to dramatically weaken Ukraine and essentially undermine its independence and sovereignty,' Richard Haass, a former senior State Department official, said in an interview. 'So Russia sees negotiations not as an alternative to that, but as a means toward that end.' The perils for Trump account for the White House's strategy of tamping down expectations for the meeting. Trump described it as a 'feel-out meeting,' a message reinforced by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who called the summit 'a listening exercise for the president.' Trump is already looking ahead to a potential second summit that would include Zelenskiy — and perhaps European leaders — which he anticipated would be 'more productive than the first.' The Kremlin, anticipating that move, has invited Trump to come to Russia next. It's a far cry from Trump's boasts on the campaign trail that he could end the war within a day of taking office. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was 'abundantly clear' that a breakthrough was only possible with involvement of Trump and Putin. The new framing gives Trump room to maneuver during the actual meeting, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. That will allow him to make decisions in the moment as he relies on his instincts, which aligns with his preference for personal diplomacy over traditional bureaucratic deliberations. In one optimistic scenario, the two leaders could leave Alaska with an agreement to halt the fighting — at least temporarily or partially, for instance by agreeing to pause Russian air attacks. Trump could boost Putin's proposal to take Ukrainian territory that his forces have captured. Or they could come away with nothing at all, something Trump was happy to accept after he walked out of talks with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in 2019. Trump said in an interview with Bret Baier on Friday that if the meeting does not go well, 'I would walk,' according to Fox News. 'I think it's going to work out very well and if it doesn't, I'm going to head back home real fast,' he told Baier. For his part, Putin is eager to widen cracks between the US and Europe while seeking relief from sanctions that have crippled Russia's economic growth. The list of attendees reflects the importance both sides attach to the meeting. Trump will be joined by Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as well as his CIA director, John Ratcliffe. There's a concern among governments in Europe that rather than focus on Ukraine's interests, the meeting could pivot to improving the US-Russia economic relationship. That might provide Putin a lifeline to continue the war, according to a European diplomat who asked not to be identified without authorization to speak to publicly. 'Once he gets into the room with Vladimir Putin, and Putin is able to make his case, I think he will be malleable, and the inclination will be to get along with Putin,' Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told reporters on Thursday. 'I think a lot of the goodwill and agreement with the Europeans may very well go right out the door.' Trump told reporters on Air Force One he belived Putin would also include economic officials in his delegation. 'I noticed he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that's good I like that because they want to do business,' Trump said. 'But they're not doing business until we get the war settled.' Putin brings his longtime foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as his defense and finance ministers. That suggests Russia wants to discuss the potential for increased economic cooperation — an idea that appeals to Trump. Trump and Putin are expected to speak alone ahead of a lunch with their delegations and a joint press conference is planned afterward. That raises the specter of a repeat of the now-infamous news conference in Helsinki where Trump publicly sided with Putin in rejecting US intelligence assessments that Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential election. --With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron. (Updates with Trump comment in 17th paragraph. A previous version of this story corrected that Vice President JD Vance is not expected to attend the summit.) Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan Dubai's Housing Boom Is Stoking Fears of Another Crash Twitter's Ex-CEO Is Moving Past His Elon Musk Drama and Starting an AI Company ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
