TheChek News Flow

Plan would allocate billions in funding toward major space exploration effort and the International Space Station

Senate Republicans are working on a plan that would shield some NASA programs from large cuts proposed by the White House.

Officials have discussed directing $10 billion toward programs facing funding reductions, lawmakers said Thursday, confirming an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal. The reductions were proposed in the White House’s recent budget request, which would reduce the agency’s annual funding by about 25%.

One program is designed to build a rocket, called the Space Launch System, that would start missions for NASA’s flagship Artemis exploration effort. That program seeks to return American astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2027.

The funding would also support the International Space Station, the more than two decade-old facility where U.S. astronauts conduct scientific research.

NASA is rudderless at the moment, caught between President Trump and Elon Musk’s fraying relationship—and competing priorities between the White House and some Republican lawmakers about the agency’s direction.

It isn’t clear who will lead NASA after Trump abruptly withdrew support for his previous nominee, Jared Isaacman, the entrepreneur who twice flew to orbit with Musk’s SpaceX. Trump has said he plans to name a new nominee soon.

Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator since January, in an internal message sent Monday encouraged staff to stay focused on the agency’s mission, according to a copy viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Many NASA employees were stunned by Isaacman’s dismissal. Others are apprehensive about a White House budget proposal that would allocate about $19 billion for NASA for the government’s next fiscal year, down from nearly $25 billion currently.

If passed by Congress, the budget would prompt layoffs at the agency and reduce funding for the space station. It looks to impose big cuts to science programs and unwind the current setup of Artemis.

Artemis is underpinned by a slate of rockets and spacecraft that contractors are building for NASA. Those include the Boeing-developed Space Launch System rocket, and Orion, a crew ship built by Lockheed Martin.

In a budget document released in May, the White House called for phasing out the “grossly expensive and delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights” and moving to use commercially available vehicles.

NASA conducted the first Artemis flight, an uncrewed test mission, using SLS and Orion in 2022, and wants to mount a mission with astronauts early next year.

Congressional lawmakers have said the SLS rocket is essential for returning NASA astronauts to the lunar surface before China does so. Others have worried about upending work that has been under way for years at NASA.

SpaceX’s Starship is part of NASA’s Artemis program, but the company has been largely emphasizing its own plan to try to mount missions to Mars.

Musk has for decades wanted to send humans to the red planet, and brought that dream to the president. He had told Trump that sending people to Mars would distinguish the president’s legacy, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Trump mentioned the idea of a crewed mission to Mars in his inaugural address, and his budget proposal for the next government fiscal year proposes new funding to try to make that a reality.

On Thursday, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the government could save money by terminating contracts with Musk’s businesses. SpaceX is a major contractor at NASA, and frequently launches payloads for the Pentagon.

“Go ahead, make my day,” Musk said about Trump’s post. SpaceX is currently the only U.S. company regularly transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

An advocacy organization called Giant Leap for America on Thursday debuted television commercials for the Washington metropolitan area portraying the U.S. in a race to return astronauts to the moon before China. The ads encouraged viewers to urge senators to fund the Artemis program.

What Musk and Trump Risk Losing in Their High-Stakes Breakup

The billionaires’ battle royal could exact steep costs to their empires

Key Points

The aftermath of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s showstopping breakup raises the question: Who has the most to lose?

In one of the most consequential moments, Trump threatened to pull billions of dollars in federal contracts from Musk’s companies. If that happened, it would ripple across Musk’s business empire, including SpaceX, which launches astronauts for NASA and satellites for the Pentagon.

Underneath the drama is genuine political and financial risk for both billionaires.

Tesla, the electric-vehicle company that Musk helms as CEO, lost $152.4 billion of market value Thursday—the biggest one-day decline in its capitalization in the company’s history. Trump can’t lose more than three votes from Republican House members or his “big, beautiful bill” will be derailed. Members of the House Freedom Caucus have already been difficult to corral, airing concerns about the bill’s contributions to the deficit, the same argument Musk has made against it.

Here’s what’s at stake:

Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI, has billions of dollars in government contracts and is pushing for changes to federal regulations to deliver on his promise to investors that he will transform Tesla into an AI and robotics giant worth trillions of dollars.

Trump threatened to terminate government contracts with Musk’s companies on Thursday—an idea the president’s allies have been pushing since the SpaceX CEO started attacking Trump’s cornerstone legislative bill earlier this week, according to a person close to the president.

Musk’s SpaceX has worked closely with the government for years, building close connections with the Pentagon, the intelligence community and NASA. The company frequently blasts off military payloads, and NASA is largely beholden to SpaceX for some of its most high-profile missions.

An administration official said Musk will find it extremely difficult to find a sympathetic voice in the Trump administration now.

To roll out a nationwide fleet of self-driving cars, Tesla needs regulatory changes at the federal level, which he has been pushing for. Currently, states control whether self-driving vehicles operate on public roads.

In April, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visited Tesla’s headquarters in Austin. “We’re here in Austin, Texas, at the Tesla factory with Elon Musk, the great,” Duffy said in a video posted on X. “Obviously, it would be wonderful for the United States to have a national set of rules for autonomous driving,” Musk said in the video.

Tesla is expected to roll out its first taxi service powered by self-driving cars in Austin later this month, as it gears up to compete with Waymo.

Musk has long blamed regulatory hurdles for the company’s inability to roll out autonomous driving features. Many of Tesla’s investments in self-driving cars and humanoid robots are fueled by Tesla sales, which have fallen sharply in the U.S. and across Europe in recent months as Musk and Trump’s relationship grew closer.

A bigger blow to Tesla could come from White House efforts to weaken fuel economy and emissions rules. Tesla earns hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter from regulatory credit sales to rival carmakers who need to buy them to avoid fines for exceeding tailpipe emissions caps. Last month, Congress voted to eliminate California’s ability to set its own limits on tailpipe emissions, effectively killing one of the biggest drivers of EV investment in the U.S.

SpaceX works hand-in-glove with the U.S. government across multiple contracts worth billions and billions of dollars. Several government agencies use its Falcon rockets, in-orbit space vehicles and Starlink, a network of more than 7,500 internet satellites that has also drawn attention for its role supporting Ukraine’s battle against Russia.

SpaceX needs air-safety regulators to review its flight plans and environmental agencies help regulate company plans for launch sites. In April, it landed a $5.9 billion contract to launch national-security payloads for the military.

Musk’s company is the only U.S. space firm regularly transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In 2022, NASA awarded SpaceX five more crewed space-station flights, bringing the company’s total contract for such operations to nearly $5 billion.

SpaceX is also a big part of NASA’s flagship human-exploration program, with about $4 billion in contracts to develop its Starship vehicle for future astronaut visits to the moon. NASA picked SpaceX to work on a spacecraft that would allow it to safely deorbit the space station in 2030—a deal worth up to $843 million.

SpaceX has struck agreements with U.S. spy agencies, too, including a $1.8 billion classified deal with the National Reconnaissance Office, an agency that operates surveillance satellites.

Musk had looked likely to win more significant deals under the Trump administration. SpaceX, working with two others, wants in on the president’s missile-defense program called Golden Dome for America.

Trump has pushed his entire legislative agenda into one massive bill, a mix of tax cuts, funding for the border and cuts to programs such as Medicaid and food stamps. The bill narrowly passed the house by a vote of 215-214 and is now working its way through the Senate before it will be voted on again by the House. Musk’s opposition to the legislation could derail it.

Musk said the bill would add $2.5 trillion to the federal deficit, calling it a “disgusting abomination” and threatening to fire politicians “who betrayed the American people.” His arguments could resonate with deficit-minded lawmakers.

The billionaire could also tap the massive war chest he used to support Trump in last year’s election, funding primaries against lawmakers who support the bill, or putting his money to work in more subtle ways to sway Republicans to vote against the bill. Musk donated more than $250 million toward re-electing Trump, and said Thursday that Trump would have lost the election without his support. “Such ingratitude,” he posted on X, the social-media platform he owns.

As legislators tried to parse the vitriolic rhetoric Thursday, most Republicans still appeared to be galvanized behind the president. But Musk only needs to pull away a handful of dissenters.

White House aides said they feel Musk’s broadsides against Trump would weaken those Republicans who had initially viewed the billionaire’s comments about the bill as helpful to their cause. The thinking is that Trump voters will, as they have time and again, rally to the side of the president.

Musk has received public support from only three House Republicans, including Reps. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R., Ohio), who previously voted against the bill. Rep. David Schweikert, an Arizona Republican who missed the first vote, told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that he wants “multiple changes” to the bill before he will support it.

“Is this the moment where Republicans and everyone in the country start to understand the threat and the scale of financing this debt?” said Schweikert, who is seen as vulnerable in the midterm elections next year. On the debt, he said: “Musk is absolutely right.”

A senior Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee said that Musk’s comments aren’t helpful in trying to pass Trump’s bill. He added the argument with the president will likely have negative residual effects on Musk’s relationship with Republican lawmakers.

Longer term, a permanent split between Musk and Trump could hurt Republicans’ chance at maintaining their razor-thin majority in the House in the 2026 midterm elections given the importance of having the support of the businessman’s massive following on X for the GOP to pick up wins in the midterms.

On Thursday, Musk mused about starting a new political party, asking his 220.5 million followers on X if they would support creating one. By Thursday night, more than 81% of the roughly 3.5 million respondents were in favor.

Technological advances give threadbare militaries and rebel fighters the ability to strike stunning blows against stronger forces

Key Points

What's This?

Ukraine’s drone attack on Russia highlights the growing threat of low-cost, high-tech strikes in modern warfare.

Cheap commercial drones enable smaller militaries to achieve significant returns, as demonstrated by Ukraine’s successful attacks.

The conflict underscores the need for rapid innovation and adaptation in military technology and tactics among Western powers.

Ukraine’s audacious drone attack wounded and embarrassed Moscow, but it also exposed a threat to Kyiv’s Western allies: Low-cost, high-tech strikes can deliver an increasingly potent punch to even the most heavily defended world powers.

Inexpensive drones such as those Kyiv used to attack dozens of Russian warplanes parked at airfields far from Ukraine on Sunday have become a cornerstone of what strategists call asymmetric warfare, where two sides square off with mismatched military power, resources or approaches. For years, the U.S. and its partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization prevailed in that imbalance thanks to their wealth and advanced technologies.

Now, a combination of technological advances and innovation-spawning armed conflicts has flipped the equation, leaving Washington and its allies behind on developments. For military commanders, the pace of change has meant an upheaval on a scale unseen since World War II.

“We’re going to have to be more agile. Drones are going to constantly change,” U.S. Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George told a conference on Monday. Ukraine’s attack was “a really good example of just how quickly technology is changing the battlefield,” he said.

Thanks to cheap commercial drones and other digital devices, rebels, terrorist organizations and threadbare militaries like Ukraine’s can achieve returns on military investments of a scale almost unimaginable a few years ago.

Ukraine said it launched 117 small drones in Sunday’s attacks on four Russian bases. The drones it employed sell for about $2,000 apiece. Even including the operation’s other expenses, Kyiv still probably spent well under $1 million to destroy aircraft that would cost well over $1 billion to replace—something Russia has little ability to do in the near future.

Kyiv amplified the impact through propaganda, releasing video images of the attack hours after it was carried out. The ease with which information spreads online now gives covert operations a potentially destabilizing element of psychological warfare previously impossible on a global scale.

Widespread deployment of dual-use technologies—including commercial drones and networking software similar to that used by ride-sharing services—has played a big role in allowing Ukraine to thwart Russia’s initial large-scale invasion in 2022 and hold on against a much larger military power.

Some of what the Ukrainians have learned was on display in the recent attack. Kyiv’s spy agency was able to execute the covert operation largely thanks to their grasp of the latest developments in military uses of civilian technologies, such as apparently using public cellphone networks to guide drones.

During the war, both Russia and Ukraine have made leaps in drone design, defenses against them and electronic warfare. That face-off has presented other countries with a case study in the intensity—technological and military—of future conflicts.

“We are trying to learn every single lesson that can possibly be learned about modern warfighting and how quickly it can evolve and how we must innovate and be technologically nimble to address those threats that evolve over time,” said U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker on Wednesday.

The Army plans a massive increase in its use of drones, part of a broader shift in the Pentagon from large, expensive systems. The U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan deployed with great effect sophisticated uncrewed aircraft including the RQ-4 Global Hawk—which has a wingspan similar to a Boeing 737 passenger jet—and the MQ-9 Reaper, which can launch rockets designed for use by jet fighters. Both cost millions of dollars per aircraft. Now the U.S. is rolling out a fast-changing array of smaller, expendable units and applying lessons from attacks like Ukraine’s.

“It’s another example of how warfighting technology continues to advance and evolve, allowing armies to reach deeper with offensive capabilities, reducing an adversary’s critical assets, and reducing the cost curve of deterrence,” said Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, who is helping lead the change.

Similar efforts are under way across NATO countries, including Germany, Europe’s largest economy but long home to one of the alliance’s slowest-changing armed forces. German Chief of Defense Carsten Breuer, the country’s highest-ranking military officer, said that a pivotal lesson of the war in Ukraine is the need to speed up and shorten the innovation cycle.

“In Ukraine they have a direct link between industry and the front line,” he said in an interview. “We have to do this without having a front line.” He said that in late March the German military decided to acquire a type of drone, and that the so-called loitering munitions should be deployed with troops by year-end, marking a dramatic acceleration.

But procurement and distribution are only a start. Ukraine’s attack also showed advances in operations and military tactics.

Irregular warfare is hardly new. Though the Ukraine war is highlighting how armies can use technological advances and covert operations to get a leg up on more powerful opponents, terrorists and other rebel groups have for years employed such tactics against their enemies.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were the most extreme example of irregular, asymmetric warfare: They had historic repercussions at minimal financial cost for the organizers. Even so, they required suicidal assailants. Drones and other new technologies allow potentially massive impact for attackers who remain anonymous and out of danger.

“What it comes down to is, how can we remove the human and let a piece of technology do it instead?” said Mike Monnik, chief executive of DroneSec, a threat-intelligence company tracking drone attacks worldwide. Ukraine’s strikes are part of a worldwide trend, said Monnik.

Among the first fighters to turn commercial drones into weapons were Islamic State forces in Iraq, roughly a decade ago. Early in its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas sent slow, inexpensive drones to neutralize Israel’s sophisticated automated guard towers along its border with Gaza. Houthi rebels in Yemen have used relatively simple uncrewed systems to inflict costly damage on world shipping and Western navies.

Many more drone attacks go unnoticed. In Myanmar, rebels modified a $600 agricultural drone bought on Alibaba with unguided rockets, making it “almost a miniature attack helicopter,” and a criminal gang in Israel exploded a drone packed with explosives outside the 13th-floor window of a rival gang leader in an assassination attempt, Monnik said.

Ukraine used comparable innovation with the added twist of quickly posting videos as evidence of success for maximum international impact.

“It really is that psychological element,” said Monnik of the videos. The goal is to rally support for Ukraine’s cause and to scare Russia into thinking, “now we need to search every truck or protect every air base” because no target is out of the small systems’ reach, he said.

Advanced wireless technology doesn’t only benefit underdogs. Israel last year carried out hugely sophisticated covert attacks on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon by detonating explosives hidden in their walkie-talkies and pagers. It triggered the explosions remotely.

EU weighs adding Russia to money laundering ‘grey’ list

Moscow’s possible inclusion has ‘huge support’ as Brussels expects to adopt new listing next week after a delay

The EU is weighing whether to add Russia to its “grey list” of countries with lax money laundering controls, as Brussels’ lawmakers aim to increase financial pressure on Moscow.

European Commission officials said they were considering adding Russia, a move that a majority of members of the European parliament have been advocating. But no decision has been taken, officials stressed.

Markus Ferber, a German MEP who co-ordinates economic affairs for the centre-right European People’s party, said: “There is huge support for putting Russia on the list.”

The full list requires backing from a majority of MEPs and was expected to be announced this week. But the commission pulled its adoption at the last minute for “administrative/procedural reasons”, a commission spokesperson said, adding it would be adopted early next week.

Inclusion on the list carries reputational damage and requires financial institutions to carry out extra due diligence when processing transactions involving entities or people from the listed territories, resulting in higher costs.

The EU’s anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing grey list usually follows the one issued by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body set up to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.

An earlier version of Brussels’ list, seen by the Financial Times, mirrored the one last issued by FATF and planned to add Algeria, Angola, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Laos, Lebanon, Monaco, Namibia, Nepal and Venezuela. It also planned to withdraw Barbados, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Panama, Senegal, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.

Even though Russia’s membership of FATF was suspended a year after its invasion of Ukraine, several other countries would be expected to block any move to add it to the body’s own grey list.

Ferber urged Brussels to do more than simply adopt the FATF list, arguing: “[The commission] should put their own work in. FATF just assesses the legal framework and not whether it is implemented. It is not enough for us.”

FATF removed the UAE and Gibraltar from its list in 2024, but the EU’s attempt to follow suit failed last year when a majority of MEPs rejected the list. Social democrat, green and liberal MEPs objected to the Gulf state’s exclusion, while Spanish conservatives refused to lift controls on Gibraltar, a British Overseas territory claimed by Madrid.

“The socialists will not vote for the UAE and the conservatives will not vote for Gibraltar so there is no majority,” said one parliamentary group official, forcing the commission to postpone its proposal.

Adding Russia, which has been hit by EU sanctions over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, would help to persuade MEPs to back the list, as they can only approve or reject but not amend it, officials from different parliamentary groups said.

The UAE, which is negotiating a trade deal with the EU, said the money laundering issue is complicating efforts to improve bilateral ties, according to people familiar with the talks.

Maroš Šefčovič, EU trade commissioner, launched formal trade talks last month on a visit to Abu Dhabi. The UAE has an 18-month deadline to conclude deals, putting pressure on Brussels to act swiftly.

But he and the UAE government have said the money laundering issue was separate to trade talks.

A UAE official said: “Our commitment to anti-money laundering measures is . . . strong, and is consistent with our efforts to develop regulatory frameworks in line with global best practice.”

Spain is pushing hard to resolve issues with the UK over Gibraltar after the UK left the EU in 2020. It claims sovereignty over the territory, which the Spanish king ceded to Britain in 1713, and wants to keep it on the EU’s grey list to maintain leverage in negotiations.

“I don’t think the Spanish will change their mind, especially with the Gibraltar-Brexit agreement still pending,” said one person close to the conservative People’s Party.

The PP, which is the EPP’s second-biggest delegation, is vital to winning parliamentary support for the commission’s list. The PP and EPP, the largest caucus in parliament, both declined to comment on how they would vote on the proposal.

For Trump watchdogs, ‘deal’ is no longer a four-letter word

Conditional approval for union of Synopsys and Ansys hints at the new regime

Message from Donald Trump’s antitrust investigators: Lina Khan does not work here anymore. The Federal Trade Commission is distancing itself from the legacy of its hawkish former head. Its conditional approval of a $35bn union of two chip-design software companies hints at the new direction.

Synopsys and Ansys are two of the biggest companies making software for semiconductor design and production — the kind of thing that can attract regulatory scrutiny. The FTC looked, and last week decided its concerns over competition would be satisfied if they jettison three lines of business where their combined market power would be too great.

That raises the hope that Trump, a self-proclaimed dealmaker, is amenable to other people’s deals too. Wall Street advisers have been trying to read the tea leaves about how strict the new administration would be in evaluating competition effects in mergers and acquisitions. This is the kind of posture they can live with.

Khan was generally opposed to so-called remedies — the idea that problems caused by companies combining could be effectively lessened by asset divestitures or bans on certain kinds of business practices. The view, shared by her peers at the Department of Justice, was it was better to go to court and fight for an injunction. And losing a judge’s ruling itself was not an outcome to fear.

The FTC and the justice department had made noises that, like their Joe Biden-era predecessors, they would not be pushovers on M&A. New broom Andrew Ferguson isn’t rejecting Khan’s ideas outright. However, in the FTC order on Synopsys and Ansys’ merger he suggests her goals can be addressed with more care. Fighting deals in court, he says, can divert resources needed for reviews of other deals.

More broadly — and encouraging for companies looking to tie the knot — he claims to have no reflexive bias against consolidation, in a departure from the messaging of the Biden regime. Mergers can allow investors to exit at a profit, he suggests, and such capital formation is crucial in order to promote innovation.

The chilling effect from a widely held belief that the government was out to stop deals was real. According to law firm Dechert, nine deals were abandoned amid US competition investigations in 2024, the highest since it started tracking. Settlements, similarly, were at record lows. Some boards, on advice of their lawyers, eschewed transactions because prevailing in court was not worth the time and cost of litigation.

The risk has not gone away. One transaction is not enough to make sweeping judgments, and Ferguson says he’d still rather litigate than settle. That will be tested as more deals come to light. But there is at least now evidence that there’s more room for compromise. Officials and company-side lawyers can hammer out the details, knowing that both are open to meeting somewhere in the middle.

TotalEnergies promotion of natural gas under fire in greenwashing trial

Landmark case over claim of misleading commercial practices by oil and gas group

TotalEnergies defended its strategy of labelling natural gas as a transition fuel in promotional material as part of its rebranding, in a landmark trial over the claim that the French oil and gas group had overstated its climate commitments and misled consumers.

The case is the first in France to bring “greenwashing” allegations against an oil and gas company and drew a large crowd of courtroom observers, including legal experts, during opening arguments on Thursday. It also highlights fossil fuel industry moves to promote gas as a more environmentally friendly alternative to oil and coal.

Environmental campaign groups Greenpeace, Notre affaire à tous and Friends of the Earth brought the case alleging that TotalEnergies misled consumers in communications campaigns when it changed its name from Total in 2021.

They allege that TotalEnergies made misleading statements in 44 pieces of communication in 2021, ranging from advertisements to social media posts and statements on its website. Some of the campaign had stated that TotalEnergies was a “major actor in the energy transition” and encouraged the use of gas and biofuels, according to the claim.

The environmental groups said TotalEnergies’ assertion that it would reach “carbon neutrality with society” ran counter to its continued expansion of fossil fuel production.

They also criticised the promotion of natural gas as the “least polluting” fossil fuel, pointing to the high degree of global warming generated by leaks linked to the production and distribution of methane, which is the largest component of gas. The molecule retains 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a shorter lifespan of two decades, while CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

“Total has deployed communication campaign on gas aimed at associating it with renewable energies, in an attempt to make it seem positive, clean, desirable energy and even a ‘fantastic resource for decarbonisation’. This impression is, once again, seriously erroneous,” said Clémentine Baldon, a lawyer representing the environmental groups.

In defending the claim, TotalEnergies argued that many of the communications referred to were not destined for consumers, and the consumer law should not be applied.

It also said many of the communications were designed to explain the “transformation of the group” and the increase in its production of renewable energy.

TotalEnergies’ lawyer Françoise Labrousse said: “It is false and artificial to accuse TotalEnergies of greenwashing . . . TotalEnergies has never said that [fossil fuels] are good for the climate.”

She added: “According to the applicants, communicating on carbon neutrality would imply an immediate halt to all investment in new fossil fuel projects, including natural gas, which is nevertheless considered a transitional fuel by all stakeholders.”

TotalEnergies’ strategy since its name change has involved increasing electricity generation through renewable energy and gas-powered plants, while also continuing to grow its fossil fuel production by about 3 per cent a year.

The company has said it aims to produce 100TWh of electricity generated from renewable energy sources by 2030, equivalent to 20 per cent of its hydrocarbon production at that point.

However, it has joined many of its peers in vaunting liquefied natural gas as a cleaner fuel.

TotalEnergies’ lawyers referred to a Wood Mackenzie report citing that LNG had a 60 per cent lower warming potential than coal over a 100-year period. It is developing several large liquefied natural gas projects including in Qatar and Mozambique.

The environmental groups are seeking for TotalEnergies to alter its communications, including by placing banners on promotional material linked to the energy transition that would make clear its continued growth of fossil fuel production.

Labrousse said the demands should be rejected by the court and that the transition away from fossil fuels was a long process. She highlighted Greenpeace’s own defence of its continued use of internal combustion engines on boats it uses for its campaigns.

“As Greenpeace recognises . . . replacing [fossil fuels] takes time, is expensive and depends on an evolution of existing technologies.”

The court will deliver a judgment on October 23.

Japanese queue for hours as rice shortage deepens

Rising prices and poor harvest create political pressure for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of July poll

Within a few minutes of the doors opening, the farm produce co-operative in Atami, a seaside town south-west of Tokyo, had completely sold out of subsidised Japanese rice.

“This will only last us a couple of weeks,” said 46-year-old Yujiro Osaki, one of the dozens of people who had queued up for a 3kg bag just a few dollars cheaper than the supermarket price for rice of the same quality. “It’s a ridiculous situation for Japan to be in.”

For millions of consumers struggling with sharply rising food costs after years of stagnant prices, queues and the quest for better deals are now part of buying rice in Japan.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government — an administration already unpopular after a near-doubling of domestic rice prices in 2024 — faces an upper-house election in July that analysts forecast will hinge on public dismay over inflation and the price of rice.

The average price of a 60kg bag of rice harvested in 2024 has reached an all-time high of more than ¥26,400 ($184). While Japan has not run out of supply, it has yet to recover from a poor 2023 harvest that coincided with an end to Japan’s long deflationary period and retailers’ greater willingness to raise prices.

There has also been some hoarding by individuals and deliberate stock withholding by wholesalers. The government has tapped its strategic rice reserve outside a natural disaster for the first time, and when part of that went on sale last weekend, immense, multi-hour queues formed at supermarkets around the country.

Ishiba is setting up a special cabinet committee to discuss urgent rice policy reform. He has also sacked his previous agriculture minister and appointed Shinjiro Koizumi, the charismatic and ambitious son of former premier Junichiro Koizumi, to resolve the crisis.

Japan’s long-standing efforts to protect domestic farmers from outside competition, including limiting imports of foreign rice, means solving the problem will not be easy, said Kazuhito Yamashita, a director at the Canon Institute of Global Studies and an expert on Japan’s rice market.

Decades of government policy have focused on shoring up rice prices to appease the critical rural vote, but rising prices have hit millions of urban families and made inflation a broader political problem for the government.

Many criticise the government’s so-called set-aside programme, which attempted to raise rice prices by incentivising farmers not to grow. The policy only ended in 2018.

“The set-aside programme was always the problem,” said Yamashita. “If Japan switched to subsidies, as in other countries, everything would change. Farmers would be able to afford to accumulate more farmland, lower their costs through scale and produce more rice.

“Japan could have been a global exporter of top-quality rice if its policies had not been pushing in the opposite direction for all these years,” he added.

Although Japan’s population of working farmers has fallen to less than 1 per cent of the total population from 4.4 per cent in 1976, they remain a powerful lobby.

“The reduction in numbers has actually made it easier for the farmers to reach a unified political consensus,” said Kunio Nishikawa, a rice expert at Ibaraki University. “Japan’s electoral system means that a relatively large number of seats in the Diet are allocated to rural areas, reinforcing farmers’ political influence.”

Ultimately, the declining farmer population will make a debate on wholesale agricultural policy reform easier, he added.

“Even in the short term, because this rice crisis has become a topic of discussion for the entire nation, including consumers, I expect that agricultural policy reform will now progress,” he said.

Given the size of the price increases, the government may feel more pressure to placate consumers, said Tobias Harris, a political analyst at Japan Foresight. “But clearly Ishiba and Koizumi are going to have to find some way of placating the producers ahead of the upper-house campaign.”

Tapping the rice reserves may provide some relief, but analysts expect it will only be temporary.

The knock-on effect of shortages and rising prices has been to create huge competition between the rice-buying co-operatives, which command roughly 40 per cent of the Japanese market, wholesalers and other large-scale buyers such as national restaurant chains and food producers.

Many co-operatives approached farmers directly, offering prices that were locked in at about ¥26,000 for a 60kg bag. The co-operatives cannot now sell rice much below that, said analysts, without making a loss.

In supermarkets across the country, meanwhile, prices of Japanese-grown grain are at record highs, shelves are empty or sparsely filled and many shops display signs suggesting cash-strapped customers seek cheaper carbohydrates from bread and noodles.

In Atami, an elderly couple walked away from the farm produce store empty-handed. The cheaper rice was sold out by the time they had got to the front.

“We asked them when the next sale would be,” said the husband. “They said they didn’t know.”

Pret A Manger owner sounds out new investors ahead of potential IPO

JAB Holding has engaged advisers to explore options for the sandwich and coffee chain after a turbulent few years

The owner of Pret A Manger has recently explored bringing in new investors to the sandwich and coffee chain ahead of a potential initial public offering.

JAB Holding, the European investment group that acquired Pret for £1.5bn in 2018, has in recent months engaged advisers to explore various options for the business ahead of a potential listing, including a stake sale, said people with direct knowledge of the matter.

JAB said it is not “currently” considering a stake sale in Pret. It added: “As we move closer to a potential IPO, we may evaluate bringing on a pre-IPO investor.”

JAB, which has not previously commented on any IPO plans for Pret, last month appointed former Restaurant Brands International chief executive José Cil as chair of Pret and its other restaurant chains.

Pret, which also sells soups, salads and breakfasts, has weathered a number of shocks under JAB’s ownership. The pandemic pushed the chain to a £343mn operating loss in 2020 as its primary customers — office workers and commuters — were kept at home.

The business is led by Pano Christou, who started as an assistant manager in a central London Pret outlet, aged just 22. He climbed the ranks over the next two decades before JAB promoted him to chief executive in 2019.

Since the pandemic, which forced Pret to close dozens of outlets and cut more than 3,000 jobs, its trading figures have become a barometer of sorts for the number of people returning to the office.

The chain has introduced various subscription services to lure back customers after the pandemic, but was hit with a backlash after doubling the price of a monthly coffee subscription last year to £10. Pret eventually backtracked from the plan.

Pret also became a lightning rod for criticism when it raised prices aggressively after being hit by a wave of post-pandemic inflation.

Despite a turbulent time in its home market — where labour costs have been rising substantially — Pret has been pushing ahead with international expansion.

While most of its 700 outlets are in the UK, a quarter of Pret’s sales are now made in other countries. The US and France are the company’s biggest international markets and it also has outlets in Canada, India, Greece and Spain.

Pret’s sales jumped by a fifth to £1.1bn in 2023, while adjusted core profit increased 12 per cent to £166mn, mainly off the back of international openings.

The company’s outstanding loans and borrowings stood at £740mn at the end of 2023, although Pret raised £250mn of new capital last year to reduce its debt load.

The decision to seek new investors comes as JAB, which also owns Krispy Kreme and Keurig Dr Pepper, shifts focus from the consumer sector and diversifies into the insurance and asset management industry.

JAB, which primarily manages the wealth of Germany’s secretive Reimann family, has transitioned power to a new generation of leadership, after its previous managers embarked on a £50bn deal spree principally targeting the consumer sector.