Turkey Partners With Socar and BP in Azeri Caspian Sea Gas Field

Turkey’s state energy firm TPAO will sign a partnership deal with UK-based supermajor BP and with Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company Socar for the development of a natural gas field in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Monday.


The Turkish state energy firm TPAO will sign on Tuesday an agreement with BP and Socar for the Shafag-Asiman field, the Turkish energy ministry said on Monday.

BP and Socar have been partners developing the Shafag-Asiman field, where the first exploration well was spudded in 2020. BP is operator and holds a 50% interest in the Shafag-Asiman production sharing agreement (PSA) with partner SOCAR holding a 50% interest.


Now Turkey’s TPAO is entering the agreement with a 30% share, Minister Bayraktar said at an energy forum in Baku.


“We are also talking about other fields, especially in the Caspian Sea,” the Turkish official added, referring to the Turkish-Azeri energy cooperation.

Earlier this year, Bayraktar said that Turkey is boosting domestic natural gas production in its Black Sea waters and is looking to expand its international partnerships in oil and gas exploration in Bulgaria’s Black Sea, in the Caspian Sea region, and in Iraq.

Turkey explores opportunities for international cooperation in oil and gas exploration in Azerbaijan and other Caspian Sea areas, and potential new field exploration in northern and southern Iraq, according to the Turkish energy minister.

While Turkey looks to boost its international presence in oil and gas exploration, the country has just completed phase one development at the Sakarya Gas Field in its Black Sea waters.

Turkey has been boosting natural gas production from its Black Sea operations, where massive gas reserves have been found in recent years.

At Sakarya, daily gas production is now around 9.5 million cubic meters, which provides gas and energy to about 4 million Turkish households.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Turkey-Partners-With-Socar-and-BP-in-Azeri-Caspian-Sea-Gas-Field.html

ASCO: Immatics PRAME cell therapy tied to 56% response rate in melanoma study

 Immatics’ cell therapy has been linked to a 56% objective response rate (ORR) among 32 heavily pretreated patients with metastatic melanoma.

The biotech previously shared progression-free survival (PFS) data for the preferentially expressed antigen in melanoma (PRAME) cell therapy known as IMA203, recording a median PFS of six months.

Now, the German biotech is back to share more phase 1b data from the trial at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago, plus details about the ongoing phase 3 study designed to underpin a potential FDA submission.

The extended phase 1b follow-up included data from 33 patients with PD-1-refractory metastatic melanoma who had a median of two lines of prior treatments. Fourteen of the patients had cutaneous melanoma, while 16 patients had uveal melanoma. Two had mucosal melanoma, and one had melanoma of unknown primary.

Patients received a one-time infusion of the autologous PRAME therapy at the recommended phase 2 dose, which was 1 billion to 10 billion total TCR T cells.

The IMA203 infusion was tied to a confirmed ORR (cORR) for 18 of 32 eligible patients, Immatics said in a May 31 release. One patient with uveal cancer was excluded from the count due to an ongoing unconfirmed partial response.

For the 14 patients with cutaneous melanoma, the cORR was 50%. This compares to a 67% cORR for patients in the uveal melanoma subgroup, which included tebentafusp-refractory patients.

The median duration of response (mDOR) for all 33 patients was 12.1 months at a median follow-up of 13.4 months. For all patients, the median PFS was 6.1 months, and the median overall survival was 15.9 months.

Patients in the cutaneous melanoma subgroup had not reached a mDOR at 16.7 months of follow-up and recorded a median PFS of six months.

Those with uveal melanoma had a mDOR of 11 months at 13.4 months of follow-up and a median PFS of 8.5 months.

Safety data were taken from 74 patients across a phase 1a dose escalation and the phase 1b dose-expansion group.

The most common treatment-emergent adverse events were cytopenias—or low levels of normal blood cells—associated with lymphodepletion, a preparation step before IMA203 infusion.

Cases of cytokine release syndrome (CRS), an adverse event often tied to cell therapies, were mostly mild or moderate, with 37% of patients experiencing grade 1 CRS and 47% with a grade 2 event. Eleven percent of patients experienced a grade 3 CRS, while no grade 4 CRS events occurred. Zero grade 5 events related to IMA203 occurred, according to Immatics. 

The biotech said the new data slice demonstrates “favorable tolerability and promising clinical activity with ongoing deep and durable objective responses” in the company release.

IMA203 is currently being evaluated in a phase 3 trial enrolling patients with advanced or metastatic cutaneous melanoma plus a continued phase 1b expansion into uveal melanoma.

The phase 3 study, dubbed SUPRAME, is an open-label, randomized trial testing IMA203 against an investigator’s choice of treatment in about 360 patients who have previously received a checkpoint inhibitor treatment.

The study’s primary endpoint is PFS, with secondary measures including OS, ORR, safety and patient-reported outcomes about quality of life.

Immatics’ TCR-T cell therapy has secured regenerative medicine advanced therapy designation from the FDA, and the biotech plans to submit a full approval request with the FDA in the first quarter of 2027.

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/asco-immatics-prame-cell-therapy-tied-56-response-rate-advanced-melanoma-ph-1b-study

Never Forget Their Excuses For Lockdowns

 by John Tamny via The Brownstone Institute,

The worst arguments against the lockdowns inspired by the coronavirus were medical and statistical.

To see why, it’s worth remembering that as humans we’ve evolved to protect ourselves from death and disease.

The taking of freedom to protect us is always and everywhere excess. 

The above statement of the obvious requires mention as free thinkers and free-thinking organizations continue to either ignore how they sat out the lockdowns, or worse, excuse their inaction amid a massive bludgeoning of freedom back in 2020.

Let’s start with those trying to excuse their inaction.

The not-infrequently offered excuse is that since most organizations and individuals in the libertarian space either weren’t staffed by medical doctors or weren’t medical doctors themselves, how could they have made credible cases against the lockdowns? Instead, and rather than take a stand, they adopted “wait and see” approaches so that medical verdicts could be rendered. About those verdicts, some libertarian types are now saying that those who were publicly against the lockdowns back in 2020 were correct, but they made their cases obnoxiously and blindly given their lack of medical knowledge. The only response to this kind of dissembling is nonsense, utter nonsense. See this write-up’s introductory paragraph to see why.

Just as the worst arguments against the lockdowns were medical and statistical, the medical and statistical arguments made in favor of lockdowns were, if possible, even worse. As stated above, no one requires force to avoid sickness or death. About this point, more on it in a bit.

For now, it should just be said that even if the medical consensus had been correct, that millions and millions of Americans would die absent being forced out of work and into their homes, then any lockdown orders foisted on us by nail-biting politicians would have read as tame relative to the precautions taken by free people. The more threatening anything is, the more superfluous is any kind of policy reaction to the threat.

The simple, overwhelming truth is that people should never have their individual freedom to protect themselves taken from them, period. End of story.

Applying the previous assertion to organizations like Cato, Students for Liberty, and others that seemingly took a “wait and see” approach to the lockdowns, their stances were wrongheaded. Lest they or readers forget, the organizations mentioned were founded on the notion of individual freedom as the foremost ideal. In which case a “wait and see what the science or medical establishment says” is dangerously wrong.

It is simply because, as Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker has pointed out, politicians at the local, state, and national levels did not take a “wait and see” approach. That they didn’t calls into serious question organizations and individuals sitting on their hands. How could they? Since we know government will never wait and see on anything, what an odd excuse or piece of internal reasoning to explain away a lack of action. It implies that freedom should always be the loser in times of uncertainty, or when politicians are feeling particularly hysterical. 

At which point it should be said that freedom is easily the best way to turn the unknowns and uncertainty into true knowledge. So, while libertarian groups and individuals who sat out the lockdowns should reflexively defend freedom every time government is in the process of taking it, it’s useful to add that free people crucially produce information.

Which brings us back to the earlier assertion in this write-up that people don’t need to be forced to avoid sickness or death. Some no doubt responded as they read the latter that some people would in fact have lived, worked, and run their businesses without regard to a spreading virus. To which the answer here can only be precisely.

Precisely because free people will respond in all manner of ways (including disdain) to fears driven by unknowns, we need them to be free. Without millions of different responses, or realistically hundreds of millions of different responses in the US, people (including “experts”) will be blinded to the truth about whatever it is that threatens us, or not. Since free people once again produce information, the only answer to uncertainty about what we don’t know is freedom. 

It’s just something to keep in mind in the here and now. Four years ago this month, over 40 million Americans lost their jobs, and hundreds of millions around the world found themselves hurtling toward starvation amid a global panic among politicians. Shamefully and tragically, some of the foremost organizations and individuals devoted to liberty sat out the tragedy and seemingly defend their inaction to this day by hiding behind medicine, science, and a lack of information. The excuses and internal justifications are wholly insufficient. Freedom is its own always and everywhere virtue, period.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/never-forget-their-excuses-lockdowns

Feds investigate Gov. Kathy Hochul’s home care program reforms after chaotic rollout

 Federal investigators are probing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s troubled consolidation of a popular $9 billion Medicaid homecare program, The Post has learned.

The US Department of Justice has interviewed officials from Public Partnerships, LLC, the firm hand-picked by the state Department of Health to handle “middleman” payroll services for the consumer directed personal assistance program, or CDPAP.

“They have been very active over the last couple months in investigating the transition and the various concerns that have been raised related to it,” a source who has had direct contact with investigators said.

The Department of Justice is probing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Medicaid homecare program reforms.Stephen Yang

“They are devoting significant resources to the investigation with an eye towards potential criminal or civil actions at the conclusion of the investigation,” the source added, noting that the investigators on the case are career professionals from the agency’s consumer protection division.

Hochul’s administration forced the nearly 280,000 people receiving care under CDPAP to re-register from their current payroll services firm or “fiscal intermediary” to PPL. The change was ostensibly made to cut down on the waste, fraud and abuse stemming from under-regulation of the hundreds of firms that used to handle the payroll services for CDPAP home caregivers.

A court stepped in at the last minute to try to alleviate an increasingly unrealistic April 1 deadline set by the DOH for the transition — with PPL massively backlogged and many home care aides in danger of going unpaid. Even with the injunction in place, caregivers are still reporting significant issues getting paid, even prompting legal action.

Earlier this year, the DOJ’s Consumer Affairs Branch chimed in on a federal lawsuit saying it would keep an eye on the situation.

The six-page “statement of interest” expressed concerns that the health department proceeded with the transition despite significant warning signs it would fail, made false statements about impacts on consumers’ eligibility for the Medicaid program, and did not ensure sensitive personal health data was protected during the process.

“The transition process—transferring, within a short period of time, CDPAP services for hundreds of thousands of patients from hundreds of Fiscal Intermediaries to PPL—has been plagued by myriad structural, operational, and logistical defects,” Assistant Director of DOJ’s Consumer Affairs Branch, Patrick Runkle, wrote in the court filing.

The source said the DOJ’s probe follows those same lines, and also could extend to allegations surrounding the impetus of Hochul’s push to overhaul the program, including allegations the $1.05 billion contract PPL was awarded was rigged.

“They’re interested in the full-scope of the transition, the selection and transition,” the source said.

The DOJ didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A Hochul spokesperson called the reforms “much-needed” and said they would stop “the runaway bureaucratic spending” that put the program “on the verge of a fiscal crisis.”

“Removing more than 600 administrative middlemen is a commonsense approach to cutting waste, fraud and abuse,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“The CDPAP transition is proceeding effectively and the Department of Health will continue working with all stakeholders to ensure that consumers and workers receive the care and support they need,” Hochul’s spokesperson continued.

A PPL spokesperson said the company would continue to “work diligently to support” consumers and workers who wish to continue in the program.

A health department spokesperson said the agency “remains committed to prioritizing continuity of care for consumers and fair treatment of personal assistants,” but did not comment further.

https://nypost.com/2025/06/02/us-news/feds-investigate-gov-kathy-hochuls-home-care-program-reforms-after-chaotic-rollout-source/

Trump blames ‘Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy’ for Colorado terror attack

 President Trump blamed what he called “Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy” for Sunday’s brutal terror attack in Boulder, Colo., insisting suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman “must go out under ‘TRUMP’ Policy.”

“Yesterday’s horrific attack in Boulder, Colorado, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED in the United States of America. He came in through Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy, which has hurt our Country so badly. He must go out under ‘TRUMP’ Policy,” the president wrote on Truth Social in his first remarks about Sunday’s attack, which left eight people injured.

3

Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly firebombed a demonstration for Israeli hostages Sunday. Eight people were injured in the attack.

Soliman, 45, arrived in the US from Egypt in August 2022 on a tourist visa that permitted him to stay in the country until February 2023. He then filed for work authorization that granted him legal status until March 28 of this year meaning he was in the country illegally for two months.

According to a federal complaint, Soliman threw two homemade Molotov cocktails at members of an organization called Run For Their Lives — many of them elderly — who were holding a group walk to call attention to the plight of hostages held by Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack.

Investigators say Soliman yelled “Free Palestine!” as he threw the homemade incendiary devices — 14 more of which were found in a black plastic container near the site of the attack.

3

Trump said the attack in Boulder “WILL NOT BE TOLERATED” as he slammed lax border policies in the US.Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

During an interview with federal authorities, the complaint states, Soliman said he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.”

The suspect added that he had researched how to make Molotov cocktails on YouTube and had been planning Sunday’s attack for a year, but had waited until after his daughter had graduated to put the plan in motion.

Soliman, who authorities say lived in Colorado Springs with a wife and five children, also posted a video to X during the attack, in which he can be seen shirtless and pacing back and forth while holding the homemade Molotov cocktails.

During the video, the feds say, Soliman can be heard saying, “how many children killed” and “end Zionist.”

3

Trump blamed Biden’s border policies for Sunday’s attack.REUTERS

Four men and four women between the ages of 52 and 88 were injured in Sunday’s attack.

Soliman was arrested and was charged Monday with committing a federal hate crime. He also faces state charges, including first-degree attempted murder.

“Acts of Terrorism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law,” Trump added.

“This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland. My heart goes out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, and the Great People of Boulder, Colorado!”

Trump’s border policy has been focused on deporting illegal criminals, but his top immigration policy maker Stephen Miller has indicated he wants to ramp up the number of arrests. 

In response to the Boulder attack, Miller wrote on X Sunday night that “Suicidal migration must be fully reversed.”

https://nypost.com/2025/06/02/us-news/trump-blames-bidens-open-border-policy-for-boulder-colorado-terror-attack/

American Retail Giants Demand Chinese Suppliers Cover Up To 66% Of US Import Tariffs

Last week we showed that contrary to conventional wisdom, inflation - so widely and erroneously expected to soar after Trump's tariffs - had not only continued to decline, but the Fed's most closely watched metric, supercore PCE, just posted its biggest monthly drop since the covid crash.

And it's about to get even worse for the inflation fanatics: according to the South China Morning Post, American retail giants are now demanding that their Chinese suppliers shoulder half to 66% of the cost of US import duties, as the ongoing US-China trade war ramps up pressure on businesses’ bottom lines.

Amid widespread confusion over who will shoulder the burden of import tariffs, US retailers have been quietly locked in talks with Chinese producers for weeks over how to handle the additional costs caused by the trade war, with the firms facing intense political pressure at home to “eat the tariffs” and keep prices stable.

While Walmart and several other major US retail groups previously agreed to bear the full cost of the tariffs when they asked their Chinese suppliers to resume shipments in late April, global brands including several US retail giants are now pushing suppliers in both China and parts of Southeast Asia to absorb a large chunk of the cost of the levies, according to sources from suppliers serving companies including Walmart, Target, Nike, Puma and Adidas.

“Most of our customers, the garment vendors exporting to major retailers and brands, are being asked to cover 50 to 66 per cent of the current tariffs,” said an executive at a fashion supplier, which produces and sources from China and Southeast Asia and then sells across the United States and Europe.

While negotiations remain fluid, the details of how the tariff costs will be divided have not yet been finalized, the SCMP sources stressed, as both sides remain in constant contact as they try to navigate a “tough time” for the industry.

But many Chinese suppliers said they would struggle to bear the additional costs being demanded of them – especially if the current 90-day truce in the US-China trade war expires without Beijing and Washington reaching a deal.

In mid-May, Beijing and Washington agreed to drastically scale back tariffs on each other’s products for 90 days, with the US reducing its additional duties on Chinese goods from 145 per cent to 30 per cent and China slashing its levies on US products from 125% to 10%. But absent a deal, the tariffs will skyrocket back to three-digit levels in August. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted on Thursday that talks between Beijing and Washington were currently “a bit stalled”.

A source with a stationery maker in eastern China’s Zhejiang province told the Post that the company had been in discussions with Walmart and other US retailers over “a backup plan” for what may happen after the tariff truce ends in August.

Walmart agreed to cover the full cost of any tariffs until August in its previous deals with the stationery maker, but the US retailer has yet to place any orders beyond August.

According to the source, the Zhejiang manufacturer is capable of footing about 30 per cent of the additional costs from the tariffs, but there is “no room” to go up to 50 per cent or higher. The company has yet to reach an agreement with Walmart.

“We agree to get prepared for the worst situation, while hoping for the best,” the person said, referring to a potential return to triple-digit tariffs.

When contacted by the Post for comment, a spokesperson for Walmart said: “We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible. We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.”

Puma declined to comment, while Target, Nike and Adidas did not immediately respond to the Post’s inquiry.

Bessent said on Thursday that there was “likely” a need for US President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping to intervene to get a deal over the finishing line before August 12.

In keeping with Beijing's protecionist tradition, there has been a focus in China on mitigating the impact of the trade war by helping exporters pivot to the domestic market. But that often is not possible for Chinese factories that make products on a contract basis for foreign brands, according to a report by Christopher Beddor, deputy China researcher at analysis firm Gavekal.

“One executive at a large online retailer notes that pants made for the US market run much longer than those in China,” he wrote. “There’s also less domestic demand for oven gloves – as fewer housing units in China have ovens – and no buyers for some products such as bulk Christmas cards.”

Chinese exporters “will almost certainly be forced to curtail output and divert supply to other markets”, Beddor noted, hinting at a wave of deflationary exports by China.

In the US, meanwhile, retailers are coming under political pressure not to raise prices. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon warned on May 15 that the retail giant was unable to absorb all the costs of the trade war and would need to hike some prices. Two days later, Trump posted on social media that Walmart and China should “eat the tariffs”.

On May 21, Nike announced that it would start raising prices to offset the high costs brought by US tariffs. German sportswear brand Puma, meanwhile, has adapted its supply chain by cutting the volume of goods being shipped directly from China to the US, but has not ruled out the possibility of price rises.

Fellow German sportswear giant Adidas said in a company statement on April 29 that it “cannot make any ‘final’ decisions” on what to do, but added that “cost increases due to higher tariffs will eventually cause price increases”.

Target CEO Brian Cornell said on May 21 that price hikes were a “very last resort” for the company as it sought to deal with the cost of higher tariffs.

On Sunday, Trump said his tariff policies were aimed at promoting the reshoring of hi-tech products, rather than clothing and footwear, to America. “We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts,” he said. “We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things, and tanks and ships.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/american-retail-giants-demand-chinese-suppliers-cover-66-us-import-tariffs

'Pew Finds BlueSky's 'News Influencers' Aren't Influencing Anyone'

 Following last fall's U.S. presidential election, a wave of left-leaning X accounts—some of which self-proclaimed themselves as "news influencers"—announced their plans to abandon Elon Musk's social media platform in favor of the woke Bluesky platform.

A new Pew Research Center analysis of 500 top news influencers (each with over 100,000 followers) shows that Bluesky's adoption surged after the 2024 presidential election, rising from 21% to 43% by March 2025. Nearly half of the Bluesky accounts were created after the election, with a sizeable spike in the final weeks of November.

Despite Bluesky's rise as a digital 'safe space' for progressives, X remains one of the most influential platforms for online conversation:Many news influencers on Bluesky joined during the platform's recent wave of growth. About half of sampled news influencers with a Bluesky account (51%) created that account after the 2024 election, including 42% who did so in the last three weeks of November 2024.

Even with Bluesky's growth, X remains popular among the 2024 sample of news influencers. As of early 2025, 82% have an account there, about the same share as in summer 2024 (85%).

And most of these news influencers with a Bluesky account also have an X account. Only 6% of the influencers we studied have a Bluesky account but not an X account, while 37% have both. The largest share (46%) have an X account but not a Bluesky account.

Pew's findings will disappoint rage-fueled leftist news influencers: 

 At the same time, most news influencers across the political spectrum have not left X. Three-quarters of left-leaning news influencers have an X account, as do 87% of right-leaning news influencers and 83% of those without a clear political orientation.

Pew also noted that most influencers continue to post regularly on X rather than on Bluesky.

The left relentlessly tried to dismantle X, with their army of PR propagandists staging a mass exodus. Months later, realizing Bluesky has zero influence at all, these crazed leftists have returned to X.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/pew-finds-blueskys-news-influencers-arent-influencing-anyone