Democrat Raphael Warnock won re-election to the U.S. Senate in a hard-fought Georgia runoff on Tuesday, expanding his party’s razor-thin majority as he fought off a challenge by Republican former football star Herschel Walker.

Warnock’s projected victory was narrow. With 99% of the estimated vote counted, he led Walker by 50.8% to 49.2%, according to Edison Research.

The result cements Georgia as a battleground state certain to play a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election. Democrats have now won three Senate races in the past two years in the former Republican stronghold, and Democratic President Joe Biden carried the state in 2020.

Walker’s defeat is also a setback for Donald Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination to run for the White House again in 2024. The former president endorsed Walker and dozens of other high-profile Republicans in this year’s midterm elections, but he ends with a mixed record in his most competitive contests.

Walker’s campaign was plagued by repeated gaffes. A vocal anti-abortion advocate, he was also dogged by reports that he paid for multiple former girlfriends to have abortions, allegations that he denied.

Warnock highlighted those concerns in campaign appearances and a barrage of television ads that made the race the most expensive of the 2022 midterm season, with more than $400 million spent.

“I’m not going to make any excuses now, because we put up one heck of a fight,” Walker told supporters as he conceded the race on Tuesday evening.

Several hundred Warnock supporters gathered in an Atlanta ballroom erupted in applause when U.S. television networks called the race.

Many began dancing, some held their drinks in the air, and others took selfies to memorialize the moment. The group, a mix of young people, political activists, and wealthy professionals and donors, reflected the coalition of voters that Warnock drew on to win the contest.

“The people have spoken,” Warnock told the crowd as he began his acceptance speech.

The contest went to a runoff after neither candidate secured 50% of the vote on Nov. 8.

Warnock’s victory was powered by a strong showing in urban and suburban counties, including Atlanta’s Fulton County, where the incumbent Democrat was winning 77% of the vote – a higher share than he won in November.

Democrats now are on track for a 51-seat majority in the 100-seat Senate, which will make it slightly easier to advance Biden’s nominees for judicial and administrative posts.

Much legislation will still require Republican support. But, with an extra vote to spare, Democrats may not now always need the cooperation of centrist senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who were frequently at odds with their party as Democrats tried to advance Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda over the past two years.

They will, however, face a more formidable roadblock in the U.S. House of Representatives, after Republicans won a narrow majority on Nov. 8, though they fell short of the “red wave” that some in the party had forecast.

Warnock, who like Walker is Black, is pastor of the historic Atlanta church where assassinated civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. preached. It is the second runoff victory in two years for Warnock, who first won his seat in January 2021.

Venkayla Haynes, 28, a deputy communications manager for Black Voters Matter in Atlanta, was dancing in celebration at Warnock’s victory party after the race was called. She said Warnock’s win was especially meaningful for her after months of organizing get-out-the-vote efforts for both the general election and then the runoff.

“I’m very happy, I’m very excited that we won and that Black people have a candidate who represents the community and the issues they care about,” Haynes said.

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Indonesian authorities said on Wednesday that two people were killed and several others wounded when a suspected Islamic militant carrying a knife blew himself up shortly after entering a police station in the city of Bandung.

Ahmad Ramadhan, head of the public information bureau for the National Police, said Bandung police were coordinating with the counter-terrorism unit to investigate the incident.

The Islamic State-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) group may have been behind the attack, Ibnu Suhendra of Indonesia’s counterterrorism agency (BNPT) told Metro TV. He said JAD had carried out similar attacks in Indonesia.

The attack killed the suspected perpetrator and one officer, and wounded eight others, including officers and one civilian, Ibrahim Tompo, a spokesperson for the West Java police, told reporters on Metro TV.

Footage from Metro TV showed damage to the police station, with some debris from the building on the ground and smoke rising from the scene.

Islamic militants have in recent years carried out attacks in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, including at churches, police stations and venues frequented by foreigners.

In an efforts to crack down on militants, Indonesia created a tough new anti-terrorism law after suicide bombings linked to JAD.

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Democratic senator Raphael Warnock won the Georgia Senate election on Tuesday, securing his first full six-year term and giving Democrats control of the upper chamber next year.

The race was a coup for Democrats, who had been forced to share some committee powers with Republicans over the past two years, even while holding a technical Senate majority thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.

The Georgia race was one of the most competitive in the country, with outside groups spending over $380 million in the state, according to OpenSecrets. During the month-long runoff alone, Democrats outspent Republicans by a two-to-one margin, with Warnock and outside supporting groups pouring $57 million into the race, Fox News reported.

Walker’s win gives Democrats full control in the Senate, with 51 members compared to 49 for Republicans. Under a power-sharing agreement in the previous 50-50 Senate, Democrats controlled the committee chairmanships but both parties were allowed to appoint the same number of committee members.

Tuesday’s head-to-head rematch between Warnock and Walker came a month after the November election, when neither candidate was able to crack 50-percent in a race that included a third-party challenger. Under Georgia law, if no candidate wins a majority in the first race, the top two are required to compete in a runoff election.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Walker hammered Warnock over his church-owned apartment building’s attempts to evict low-income tenants, a story first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.

The building, which is owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church where Warnock continues to serve as senior pastor, filed eviction proceedings against over a dozen residents since the start of the pandemic, including one who owed just $28.50 in late rent. The apartment complex has also been hit with multiple housing code violations by the City of Atlanta for overflowing trash, rodent and pest infestations and mold issues, according to records obtained by the Free Beacon. The complex hired a previously-convicted murderer as a maintenance man who went on to kill a tenant in 2020, and has had other crime and safety issues, the Free Beacon also reported.

Walker launched a seven-figure ad campaign last week that featured one tenant, a Vietnam war veteran, who the building tried to evict over $119 in late rent.

The ad also highlighted domestic abuse allegations against Warnock by his ex-wife Oulèye Ndoye, who told police he ran over her foot with his Tesla in 2020—an allegation Warnock denied.

Warnock and Ndoye are currently embroiled in a contentious custody battle, with her claiming the senator neglected his time with their two kids and left her “financially strapped” by failing to reimburse her for childcare, the Free Beacon reported.

Warnock also faced scrutiny for taking a $7,400-per-month, income-tax-free housing allowance from the church last year, a loophole that let him dodge federal limits on outside income for senators, the Free Beacon reported. Financial disclosure records show Warnock more than doubled his salary since taking office in 2021, with most of that money coming from outside income and book deals.

Walker, a college football and NFL star, campaigned on a pro-business and tough-on-crime platform.

Warnock was elected to the Senate in a 2021 special election, and has faced several controversies during his past two campaigns.

Before Warnock was hired by Ebenezer Baptist Church, he ran a church camp in Maryland that was investigated for child abuse and plagued with health-code violations, according to records obtained by the Free Beacon. One former camper, who sued Warnock and the camp, told the Free Beacon that counselors locked him out of the cabin overnight and poured urine on him.

“I don’t think nobody like [Warnock] should be running for damn Senate nowhere, running a camp like that,” the camper, who is now in his 30s, told the Free Beacon in 2020. “He should not be running for government.”

Warnock also has a history of controversial statements. He argued in late 2016 that Americans needed to “repent” for their “worship of whiteness,” the Free Beacon reported in 2020. He also defended a speech by anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright—which compared U.S. leaders to al Qaeda and claimed the government invented HIV to kill black people—as a “very fine sermon.”

The post Warnock Skirts Eviction appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

(NewsNation) — Congress is poised to repeal a mandate requiring military service members be vaccinated against COVID-19, a major concession for Democrats whose party leader has continued to publicly support the policy.

The mandate was put in place during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and thousands of service members were discharged for their refusal to get a shot. Congressional Republicans demanded the vaccine mandate be removed in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes funding for the Defense Department.

A draft of the bill released Tuesday night includes the repeal.

“The end of President Biden’s military COVID vaccine mandate is a victory for our military and for common sense,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement. “While I applaud the end of this onerous mandate — the Biden administration must go further.”

McCarthy and other Republicans want the Biden administration to rehire service members who declined to get vaccinated. Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have both continued to support enforcement of the requirement and have not indicated whether service members would be rehired if it ends.

The bill does not include a reinstatement of service members.

Last week, more than a dozen Republican senators threatened to delay a vote for the National Defense Authorization Act if the vaccine requirement was not removed. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a recent press conference that 20 Senate Republicans have signed a letter saying they will vote against cloture on it, NewsNation partner The Hill reported.

The legislation must still clear the entire House and the Senate.

Former President Donald Trump had a mixed endorsement record in the U.S. midterms, pushing the Republican Party further to the right in nomination contests, but picking candidates who lost key elections, contributing to his party’s failure to take control of the Senate.

Trump, who launched a new run for the White House last month, endorsed more than 200 candidates during the election cycle, though most were Republicans competing in races that were easy wins for the party.

In 12 highly competitive endorsements, however, including several that started with primary challenges to incumbent Republicans, four won election but five lost, including Herschel Walker, who on Tuesday came up short in Georgia’s run-off contest for a U.S. Senate seat. Three others lost their primaries.

Here’s a look at Trump’s record:

Herschel Walker

* Lost to Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock in a Georgia runoff

A retired football star who has never held elected office, Walker forced a run-off against Warnock after neither won a majority of the vote in their Nov. 8 matchup. But on Tuesday, Walker underperformed in Georgia’s big, suburban counties. A vocal anti-abortion advocate, Walker was dogged by reports that he paid for multiple former girlfriends to have abortions. He denied all allegations against him.

Mehmet Oz

* Lost race for U.S. Senate seat for Pennsylvania vacated by a retiring Republican senator

Trump’s endorsement of the celebrity doctor divided Republican leaders in Pennsylvania. Oz was defeated by Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in a close race, after facing accusations of carpetbagging as a longtime New Jersey resident. Oz only narrowly beat former hedge fund executive David McCormick in the Republican Party’s nomination contest.

Joe Kent

* Suffered surprise defeat in Republican-leaning district

While Washington’s 3rd congressional district was viewed ahead of the election as leaning Republican, Kent narrowly lost to Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez after coming under criticism for his connections to the far right. Kent, a former special forces officer, campaigned with U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and told Oregon Public Broadcasting that he held a social media strategy call with white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, though he said he disagreed with Fuentes’ “ethno-nationalism.”

Kent had narrowly won the Aug. 2 Republican primary over incumbent U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump last year.

John Gibbs

* Lost bid for Michigan’s 3rd congressional district

Gibbs lost by a clear margin to Democrat Hillary Scholten in what had been expected to be a close contest. A former housing official under Trump with a history of inflammatory tweets, including references to baseless conspiracy theories about Democrats and Satanism, Gibbs had defeated U.S. Representative Peter Meijer in the primary after a Democratic Party group spent heavily on television ads touting Trump’s endorsement. Meijer, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump last year, slammed the ads as a ploy to help his “far-right opponent” get on the ballot and make it easier for Democrats to win the moderate district in November.

Kelly Tshibaka

* Lost bid to defeat incumbent U.S. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska

Trump backed Tshibaka, a former Alaska state administration commissioner, to unseat Murkowski, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in 2021 on impeachment charges. Both Murkowski and Tshibaka advanced from an August primary contest along with Democrat Pat Chesbro, but Murkowski triumphed in the general election, which featured a new ranked-choice voting system that takes into account voters’ second-choice picks. Neither Murkowski nor Tshibaka won more than 50% of the vote, but Murkowski ended up with 54% of the vote after Chesbro was eliminated, with most of her votes reallocated to Murkowski.

J.D. Vance

* Won U.S. Senate seat for Ohio vacated by a retiring Republican senator

Vance is widely known as the author of best-seller “Hillbilly Elegy,” which documented the descent of factory towns in states like Ohio into poverty and drug abuse. For the Senate contest, he shed his reputation as a Trump critic and styled himself as an angry populist in the Trump mold, winning the former leader’s endorsement. In the midterm contest, he defeated Democratic U.S. Representative Tim Ryan.

Ted Budd

* Won U.S. Senate seat for North Carolina vacated by a retiring Republican senator

Budd narrowly defeated Democrat Cheri Beasley in the Senate contest. A rank-and-file member of the House of Representatives, Budd had little statewide name recognition before he sought the Republican nomination. Following Trump’s endorsement, he surged in opinion polls and easily defeated former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory in the May 17 primary.

Harriet Hageman

* Won Wyoming’s at-large congressional district

Trump threw his backing behind Hageman, a lawyer, in September 2021, looking to punish incumbent Republican U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, who was stripped of her role as the No. 3 House Republican for voting to impeach the former president on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Cheney, the daughter of former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, also served as the vice chair of the House committee investigating the Capitol attack. Hageman easily won the Nov. 8 contest to represent Wyoming, which is overwhelmingly Republican.

Russell Fry

* Won South Carolina’s 7th congressional district, which is strongly Republican

Fry, a state representative, won Trump’s endorsement after U.S. Representative Tom Rice joined Democrats and a handful of Republicans in voting to impeach the former president for inciting the deadly attack on the Capitol. Fry defeated Rice in the June 14 Republican primary, telling supporters afterward he would work hard to make Trump proud. On Nov. 8, he easily beat Democratic opponent Daryl Scott.

Loren Culp

* Lost to incumbent U.S. Republican Representative Dan Newhouse

Former small-town police chief Loren Culp won Trump’s endorsement to take on Newhouse, who had stoked Trump’s ire by voting to impeach him last year. But Newhouse advanced in the August Republican primary, with Culp blaming his loss on a crowded field of Republican candidates who were similarly pro-Trump. Newhouse easily won re-election.

David Perdue

* Went up against Georgia’s incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp

Despite Trump’s endorsement, former U.S. Senator David Perdue did not come close to upsetting Georgia’s incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp in the party’s nomination contest. Kemp, who had angered Trump by dismissing the former president’s false statements about election fraud in the 2020 presidential contest, won his re-election bid against Democrat Stacey Abrams.

Katie Arrington

* Challenged Republican U.S. Representative Nancy Mace

Arrington, a former South Carolina state lawmaker, won Trump’s endorsement after incumbent Mace publicly criticized Trump for his role in his supporters’ assault on the Capitol. Mace, who voted against Trump’s impeachment, defeated Arrington in the Republican nomination contest and then easily defeated Democratic challenger Annie Andrews.

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U.S. senators scaled back a proposal that placed new curbs on the use of Chinese-made chips by the U.S. government and its contractors, according to a final version of the measure published Tuesday, amid pushback from trade groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The move, first reported by Reuters earlier on Tuesday, is the latest example of industry’s efforts to weaken proposals aimed at crimping China’s burgeoning tech sector, by pointing out how such measures will raise costs.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and John Cornyn, a prominent Republican China hawk, unveiled a measure in September that would have required U.S. federal agencies and their contractors to stop using semiconductors manufactured at China’s SMIC, as well as chips made by Chinese memory chip leaders YMTC and CXMT.

The final version no longer forbids contractors from “using” the targeted chips and pushes the compliance deadline back to five years from the immediate or two-year implementation deadlines included in the first version.

“This does not clearly prohibit contractors from themselves using covered semiconductor products,” said Robyn Burrows, a lawyer at Blank Rome specializing in federal contracting, when asked to read excerpts of a recent draft of the measure obtained by Reuters and later published Tuesday night as part of a final legislative package.

Chips made by SMIC are commissioned by companies all over the world and can be found in products as diverse as cell phones and cars. They are difficult to identify because chips are not typically labeled with the names of the companies that manufacture them.

The measure, added as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), drew fire from the Chamber of Commerce and other trade groups, who said in a letter last month that it would be costly and difficult for companies to determine whether SMIC manufactured the chips contained in a vast array of electronics.

The powerful U.S. business group also argued in the letter signed by telecommunications and defense industry groups that rooting out such chips from common appliances like toasters or forcing federal contractors like paper suppliers to take on such a monumental task would not further U.S. national security.

The letter was first reported by Politico.

Lawmakers released a final version of the NDAA Tuesday night. The legislation is expected to pass the Senate and House of Representatives this month, and be sent to the White House for Biden to sign into law.

Schumer’s office, SMIC, YMTC, CXMT and the Chamber of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Cornyn said the five-year implementation deadline was designed to dovetail with the CHIPS Act, approved earlier this year to provide $52 billion in grants for chipmakers to expand operations in the United States.

“That funding will allow U.S. and western-allied production to come online to replace the production lost to these Chinese companies,” the spokesperson said.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said it “firmly” rejects the inclusion of negative language about China in the legislation and said that the Chamber of Commerce letter “shows that arbitrary disruption and damage to the global industrial … supply chains serves no one’s interest.”

The provision was modeled on the 2019 NDAA, which barred the U.S. government and its contractors from using telecoms or video surveillance equipment from China’s Huawei, ZTE, Dahua, Hytera or Hikvision.

Companies are still struggling to comply with the law, as regulators have yet to finalize rules fleshing out the curbs, a problem referenced by the Chamber of Commerce in its letter.

The final version also narrows the scope of the restrictions, noting they only apply to items destined for the government’s “critical systems,” which include telecoms or information networks involving intelligence activities or command of military forces or weapons, among others.

SMIC was blacklisted by the Trump administration over concerns the company aids the Chinese military. YMTC is under investigation by the Commerce Department over whether it violated U.S. export controls by selling chips to blacklisted Chinese telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and could be blacklisted in short order.

The Commerce Department in October announced new export controls to curb Chinese chipmakers’ access to U.S. chipmaking tools to make the most advanced chips, aiming to hamstring China’s bid to supercharge its chip industry and ratcheting up tensions with Beijing.

Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock won re-election in a hard-fought Georgia runoff on Tuesday, expanding his party’s razor-thin majority as he turned back a challenge by Republican former football star Herschel Walker, Edison Research projected.

With 97% of the expected vote counted and Warnock commanding a lead of 50.6% to 49.4%, Edison projected that Warnock had won reelection.

Warnock’s victory cements Georgia as a battleground state certain to play a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election. Democrats have now won three Senate races in the past two years in the former Republican stronghold and Democratic President Joe Biden carried the state in 2020.

Walker’s defeat is also a setback for Donald Trump as he seeks the Republican nomination to run for the White House again in 2024. The former president endorsed Walker and dozens of other high-profile Republicans in this year’s midterm elections, but he ends with a mixed record in his most competitive contests.

Several hundred Warnock supporters gathered in an Atlanta ballroom erupted in applause when U.S. television networks called the race.

Many began dancing, some held their drinks in the air, and others took selfies to memorialize the moment. The group, a mix of young people, political activists, and wealthy professionals and donors, reflected the coalition of voters that Warnock drew on to win the contest.

Walker’s campaign was plagued by repeated gaffes and claims by former girlfriends that he paid for their abortions, even though he has campaigned for the procedure to be outlawed. He has denied the accusations.

Warnock highlighted those concerns in campaign appearances and a barrage of television ads that made the race the most expensive of the 2022 midterm season, with more than $400 million spent.

The contest went to a runoff after neither candidate secured 50% of the vote on Nov. 8.

Warnock’s victory was powered by a strong showing in urban and suburban counties, including Atlanta’s Fulton County, where the incumbent Democrat was winning 79% of the vote — a higher share than he won in November.

Democrats now are on track for a 51-seat majority in the 100-seat Senate, which will make it slightly easier to advance Biden’s nominees for judicial and administrative posts. Most legislation will still require Republican support.

Warnock, who like Walker is Black, is pastor of the historic Atlanta church where assassinated civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. preached. It is the second runoff victory in two years for Warnock, who first won his seat in January 2021.

Republicans won a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nov. 8 election, but fell short of the “red wave” that some in the party had forecast.

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The U.S. State Department has approved the potential sale of $428 million in aircraft parts for Taiwan to help its air force, which is strained from repeatedly intercepting Chinese jets operating close to the island.

Taiwan’s air force is well-equipped but ageing, and is dwarfed by that of China’s. Beijing views the democratically governed island as its territory and during the past three years or so has been flying daily sorties near Taiwan.

Since early August, when China staged war games around Taiwan after the visit to Taipei by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China’s air force has also regularly crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which had served as an unofficial boundary.

The Pentagon, in two statements late Tuesday, said the parts would support Taiwan’s F-16s, Indigenous Defence Fighter jets and all other aircraft and systems or subsystems of U.S. origin.

“The proposed sale will contribute to the sustainment of the recipient’s aerial fleet, enhancing its ability to meet current and future threats while providing defensive and transport capabilities critical to regional security,” it said.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday the sale was expected to “take effect” within one month, and offered its thanks.

With China trying to “normalise” its military activities near Taiwan and put pressure on its airspace and seas as well as ability to train and reaction, the sale will be of great assistance, the ministry added.

It will “help maintain the proper equipment and replenishment of our air force’s fighter jets, meet the needs of defence operations and combat readiness training, and ensure that our traditional combat power will not fall”, the statement said.

The United States is Taiwan’s most important international arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties.

China has repeatedly demanded the United States stop selling weapons to Taiwan and has put sanctions on U.S. arms manufacturers.

Tired of being cooped up to comply with China’s strict anti-COVID rules, people awaited clarity on an easing of restrictions that could be announced as soon as Wednesday, while the more cautious rushed to buy cold medicines and home test kits.

After President Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Communist Party’s politburo, state media fed the growing sense of anticipation by reporting that China should seek “to better coordinate epidemic policies with economic and social development”.

Widespread protests against some of the world’s toughest COVID curbs last month were quickly followed by various restrictions being lifted by authorities in some cities, while top officials began toning down their warnings about the dangers posed by COVID-19.

China may announce 10 new national easing measures as early as Wednesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

That has raised prospects that Beijing may slowly look to align with the rest of the world and start re-opening its economy three years into a pandemic which erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

But the looser curbs – which have included cuts in testing and less onerous quarantine rules – have set off a rush for preventative drugs as some residents, particularly the unvaccinated elderly, feel more vulnerable to the virus.

Authorities across the country have warned of tight supplies and price gouging from retailers in recent days.

“Please buy rationally, buy on demand, and do not blindly stock up,” the Beijing Municipal Food and Drug Administration was quoted as saying in the state-owned Beijing Evening News.

In Beijing’s upmarket Chaoyang district, home to most foreign embassies as well entertainment venues and corporate headquarters, shops were fast running out of some those drugs, according to a resident.

“Last night the medicines were already in stock, and now many of them are out of stock,” said Zhang, a 33-year-old educationist, who only gave one name.

“Epidemic preventions have been lifted…COVID-19 testing sites are mostly being dismantled… So, because right now in Chaoyang district cases are quite high, it is better to stock up on some medicines,” he said.

The surge in demand has driven up share prices in medicine manufacturers including cough syrup producer Guizhou Bailing (002424.SZ), and Xinhua Pharmaceutical (000756.SZ), which makes 40% of all Ibuprofen sold in China.

The shifting stance from authorities comes after a string of demonstrations last month that marked the biggest show of public discontent in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

While those protests petered out amid a heavy police presence, there have been pockets of unrest.

In the latest incident, videos posted on Twitter showed university students chanting protest slogans against COVID policies on their campus in Nanjing city. Reuters confirmed that the footage was taken at Nanjing Tech University.

The uneven nature of the easing measures and varying interpretation of the rules from city to city has been an ongoing source of frustration for many people and businesses.

The European Chamber of Commerce in China said in a statement on Tuesday that it was concerned about “the general lack of coordination and policy disparity seen across China, as well as by the overall lack of general information on what changes are to be expected and when.”

“This continues to be a cause of uncertainty for businesses and the public at large,” it said.

What has been more consistent in recent days are messages from officials downplaying the health risks of the virus – bringing China closer to what other countries have been saying for more than a year as they dropped restrictions, and shifted towards living with the virus.

Gu Xiaohong, a top traditional Chinese medicine official, was quoted in the state-run Beijing Daily on Wednesday as saying China should change its official name for COVID-19 to reflect the virus’ mutation and that patients with light symptoms could recuperate at home.

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When U.S. officials first floated the idea of capping Russian oil export prices in response to a planned European embargo in March, they pledged to squeeze revenues to Russia’s war machine, while avoiding a devastating oil price spike.

But keeping Russian oil on the market and global prices low soon became the bigger priority as oil prices jumped, people familiar with the mechanism’s evolution and energy analysts said.

The $60-per-barrel price limit on seaborne crude imposed by G7 democracies and Australia on Monday bears that out, lining up with current market prices.

Analysts said the cap will have little immediate impact on the oil revenues that Moscow is currently earning. Russia said on Monday the cap would not hurt the financing of its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The price cap is “an unhappy compromise that will do very little to cut Russia’s oil revenue” from current levels, said Ben Cahill, an energy security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“I really think that the U.S. Treasury’s main objective was to defuse the EU shipping, insurance and services bans that are part of the sanctions on Russian oil exports,” Cahill said.

Russia’s Urals blend crude for delivery to Europe was quoted at an average price $55.97 on Tuesday, below the cap and down from $61.35 on Sunday.

The benchmark Brent crude price slid to its lowest since January on Tuesday at below $80, extending a downward trend as growing concerns about global demand offset any bullish effects from the price cap on Russian oil sales.

Officials at the U.S. Treasury, the driving force behind the G7 price cap, sought to evenly weigh reducing Russia’s revenues and maintaining supply, though market pricing influenced this at times, a senior Treasury official told Reuters.

“There have been times when Brent has fluctuated an enormous amount over the past eight months, where we were worried about one over the other, but in general, we’ve created these to be the twin goals that have equal importance.”

The official said the price cap is “institutionalizing” current market discounts, arguing that plans for the cap were responsible for oil price declines over the past several months.

Analysts also attribute the drop in global oil prices to a weakening global economy, COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the OPEC+ group’s decision to maintain steady production.

At the current price cap level, Russia would earn oil export revenues of about $10 billion to $15 billion a month, said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York.

That is far lower than over $21 billion a month Moscow earned in June, according to an estimate from the International Energy Agency (IEA), as Brent topped $120.

At current oil price cap levels, Russia is earning about the same as it did before talk of a Ukraine invasion started driving prices up. Russia earned about $15 billion in June and July 2021, before Russian troop buildups near Ukraine.

The $60 price cap level was agreed on Friday after fierce debate. Poland, Lithuania and Estonia argued that European Union countries should make the cap as low as $30, closer to Russia’s production cost, after an initial proposal of $65-70.

As crude prices have fallen, the language surrounding the price cap from U.S. officials has evolved from “reducing” Russia’s revenues, to “limiting” future cash flow.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told the Reuters NEXT conference in New York on Thursday that the cap “will lead to Russia earning less revenue going forward and having less money to invest in conducting the war.”

“The key thing to remember is that we’re starting at $60 but we have the ability to…further use the price cap to constrain Russia’s revenues over time,” Adeyemo said.

In July, Adeyemo said the goal was to eliminate the “risk premium,” or price increase that Russia had introduced into the

oil market with its invasion of Ukraine, to give Moscow less money to “pay for their war machine.”

If Moscow makes good on threats to curtail production rather than sell oil to countries observing the cap, prices could shoot higher, and that is where it could get tricky for the United States and G7 allies.

U.S. officials “want to avoid that at all costs,” said Mizuho’s Yawger, adding that this could mean that “suddenly support for Ukraine starts to dry up.”

Oil markets have shifted significantly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 sent prices soaring.

Internal Treasury estimates around that time had showed that global crude prices could exceed $150 with the EU embargo in place and no mitigating measures.

And with the IEA predicting that oil markets could lose 3 million Russian barrels per day if the most stringent EU sanctions were imposed, Barclays and Rystad Energy warned that oil could hit $200.

Treasury’s “true motivation after March has been primarily to preserve Russian flows in the face of EU sanctions, which they don’t think were a good idea,” said a source briefed on Biden administration discussions.

“They believed if there was an oil price spike, not only will it hurt us economically and politically, but it’ll damage Western support for Ukraine,” in its fight against Russia’s military.

As the G7 formed the plan, India and China have snapped up heavily discounted Russian oil, and are expected to continue big purchases outside the price cap, moves endorsed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

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