Gold Prices Flat in Holiday-Thinned Trading
0013 GMT — Gold prices are flat in holiday-thinned trading as markets digest the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting and conflict in the Middle East. Israel and Iran continue to exchange attacks, and Trump has said he'll decide on a U.S. strike on Iran 'within two weeks.' The safe-haven metal is trading in a tight range amid lower volumes, but underlying risks remain pronounced, says Tammy Da Costa at FXStreet. Geopolitical tensions remain key upside drivers for gold, though it faces pressure from renewed USD strength after the Fed's update, she writes. Powell's unexpectedly cautious tone suggests monetary policy might stay tighter than anticipated. Non-interest-bearing gold tends to have an inverse correlation with rates. Spot gold was last flat at $3,368/oz. (fabiana.negrinochoa@wsj.com)
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Democrats in Virginia have a hefty fundraising advantage heading into November general election
RICHMOND, Va. -- Democrats in Virginia have built up a hefty fundraising advantage for their effort to reclaim the governor's mansion in a November election that is seen as a bellwether for the party in power in Washington ahead of the 2026 midterms. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA spy turned congresswoman, has a more than 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over her GOP opponent for governor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has struggled to draw support from her fellow Republicans. Both were unopposed for their party's nominations and were able to focus on the fall general election without having to overcome a challenge in this week's primaries. The match-up means Virginia is all but certain to elect the state's first female governor. Spanberger has amassed $6.5 million toward her campaign for governor over the last two months after raising $6.7 million between January and March, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Combined with the money Spanberger raised in 2024, she has gathered $22.8 million and still has $14.3 million in her coffers. Earle-Sears, meanwhile, spent more than she earned between April and June, bringing in $3.5 million and spending $4.6 million. Between January and March, she also raised a little over $3.1 million. In total, she has raked in nearly $9.2 million since launching her campaign last September. Now, she has a little under $3 million in the bank, according to Virginia Public Access Project data. In a statement, Earle-Sears' campaign said the candidate is putting forward a message for Virginians that money can't buy. 'Clearly the Spanberger campaign needs a lot of help attempting to erase Abigail's bad voting record on issues that actually matter to Virginians," press secretary Peyton Vogel said in an email. 'This race isn't being bought — it's being built on a message that matters.' 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San Francisco Chronicle
20 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Democrats in Virginia have a hefty fundraising advantage heading into November general election
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats in Virginia have built up a hefty fundraising advantage for their effort to reclaim the governor's mansion in a November election that is seen as a bellwether for the party in power in Washington ahead of the 2026 midterms. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA spy turned congresswoman, has a more than 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over her GOP opponent for governor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, who has struggled to draw support from her fellow Republicans. Both were unopposed for their party's nominations and were able to focus on the fall general election without having to overcome a challenge in this week's primaries. The match-up means Virginia is all but certain to elect the state's first female governor. Spanberger has amassed $6.5 million toward her campaign for governor over the last two months after raising $6.7 million between January and March, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Combined with the money Spanberger raised in 2024, she has gathered $22.8 million and still has $14.3 million in her coffers. Earle-Sears, meanwhile, spent more than she earned between April and June, bringing in $3.5 million and spending $4.6 million. Between January and March, she also raised a little over $3.1 million. In total, she has raked in nearly $9.2 million since launching her campaign last September. Now, she has a little under $3 million in the bank, according to Virginia Public Access Project data. In a statement, Earle-Sears' campaign said the candidate is putting forward a message for Virginians that money can't buy. 'Clearly the Spanberger campaign needs a lot of help attempting to erase Abigail's bad voting record on issues that actually matter to Virginians," press secretary Peyton Vogel said in an email. 'This race isn't being bought — it's being built on a message that matters.' Virginia is one of two states, along with New Jersey, that host statewide elections this year. The contests will be closely watched as a measure of whether voters in the shadow of Washington will embrace President Donald Trump's aggressive effort to overhaul the federal government, or be repelled by it. Democrats' outsized fundraising lead ahead of the primaries may reflect local Democratic enthusiasm and the party's ability to push people to the polls in light of Trump being in office. Mark J. Rozell, dean of George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, also referenced the noticeable frostiness among leading state Republicans. The party's statewide nominees have yet to campaign together, despite securing their nominations at the end of April. 'Enthusiasm drives fundraising and in Virginia right now the Democrats' voting base has much greater enthusiasm' than Republicans, Rozell said. 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Forbes
26 minutes ago
- Forbes
Game-Changing Wind Turbines Harvest Underused Resource Close To The Ground
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The Wind Harvest turbines neither seek to replace nor compete with the horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT), which are the dominant propeller-type turbines seen everywhere. These operate at heights from 200 feet to 500 feet above ground. Instead, these vertical turbines are at the most 90 feet above the ground and, ideally, can operate beneath large turbines, complementing the tall, horizontal turbines and potentially doubling the output from a wind farm. The wind disturbance from conventional tall, horizontal turbines is additional wind fuel for vertical turbines sited below. Studies and modeling from Caltech and other universities predict that the vortices of wind shed by the verticals will draw faster-moving wind from higher altitude into the rotors of the horizontals. For optimum performance, their machines should be located in pairs just about 3 feet apart and that causes the airflow between the two turbines to accelerate, enhancing electricity production. Kevin Wolf, CEO and co-founder of Wind Harvest, told me that they used code from the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratory to engineer and evaluate their designs. They believe they have eliminated known weaknesses in vertical turbines and have a durable and easy-to-make design, which they call Wind Harvester 4.0. This confidence is reflected in the first commercial installation of the Wind Harvest turbines on St. Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. Some 20 turbines are being proposed for construction on a peninsula made from dredge spoils. This 1-megawatt project would produce 3000 megawatt hours of power annually. All the off-take from this pilot project will go to a local oil refinery for its operations, replacing propane generators. Wolf said the Wind Harvester will be modified to withstand Category 5 hurricanes; can be built entirely in the United States of steel and aluminum; and are engineered to last 70-75 years with some refurbishing along the way. Future turbines will avoid dependence on rare earths by using ferrite magnets in the generators. Recently, there have been various breakthroughs in small wind turbines designed for urban use. But Wind Harvest is squarely aimed at the utility market, at scale. The company has been working solidly to complete the commercialization process and spread VAWTs around the world. 'You don't have to install them on wind farms, but their highest use should be doubling or more the power yield from those farms with a great wind resource under their tall turbines,' Wolf said. Horizontal wind turbines, so named because the drive shaft is aligned horizontally to the ground, compared to vertical turbines where the drive shaft and generator are vertically aligned and much closer to the ground, facilitating installation, maintenance and access. Wolf believes his engineering team has eliminated the normal concerns associated with VAWTs, like resonance and the problem of the forces of 15 million revolutions per year on the blade-arm connections. The company has been granted two hinge patents and three others. Four more are pending. Wind turbines have a long history. The famous eggbeater-shaped VAWT was patented by a French engineer, Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, in 1926, but had significant limitations on efficiency and cost-effectiveness. It has always been more of a dream machine than an operational one. Wind turbines became serious as a concept in the United States as a result of the energy crisis that broke in the fall of 1973. At that time, Sandia began studying windmills and leaned toward vertical designs. But when the National Renewable Energy Laboratory assumed responsibility for renewables, turbine design and engineering moved there; horizontal was the design of choice at the lab. In pursuing the horizontal turbine, DOE fit in with a world trend that made offshore wind generation possible but not a technology that could utilize the turbulent wind near the ground. Now, Wind Harvest believes, the time has come to take advantage of that untouched resource. Wolf said this can be done without committing to new wind farms. These additions, he said, would have a long-projected life and some other advantages: Birds and bats seem to be more adept at avoiding the three-dimensional, vertical turbines closer to the surface. Agricultural uses can continue between rows of closely spaced VAWTs that can align fields, he added. Some vertical turbines will use simple, highly durable lattice towers, especially in hurricane-prone areas. But Wolf believes the future will be in wooden, monopole towers and to reduce the amount of embodied carbon in their projects. One way or another, the battle for more electricity to accommodate rising demand is joined close to the ground.
