By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Monday it is pausing leases for five large-scale offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast due to what it said were national security risks identified by the Pentagon.

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The pause, effective immediately, is the latest step the administration has taken to hobble offshore wind in its push against renewable energy sources. It comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it unlawful.

The administration said the pause will give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks posed by the projects.

“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our east coast population centers.”

The statement did not detail the national security risks.

Wind proponents slammed the move, saying it was another blow by the administration against clean energy.

The administration said leases are paused for the Vineyard Wind project under construction in Massachusetts, Revolution Wind in Rhode Island and Connecticut, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, and two projects in New York: Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind.

The Interior Department said unclassified reports from the U.S. government have long found that the movement of massive turbine blades and the highly reflective towers create radar interference called “clutter.” The clutter caused by offshore wind projects obscures legitimate moving targets and generates false targets in the vicinity of wind projects, the Interior Department said.

National security expert and former Commander of the USS Cole Kirk Lippold said the projects were awarded permits “following years of review by state and federal agencies,” including the Coast Guard, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, the Air Force and more.

“The record of decisions all show that the Department of Defense was consulted at every stage of the permitting process,” he said, arguing that the projects would benefit national security because they would diversify the country’s energy supply.

The action comes two weeks after a federal judge struck down Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of wind farms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violates U.S. law.

Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful.

Saris ruled in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, that challenged Trump’s Day One order that paused leasing and permitting for wind energy projects.

Trump has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind, and prioritizes fossil fuels to produce electricity.

Wind supporters called the administration’s actions illegal and said offshore wind provides some of the most affordable, reliable electric power to the grid.

“For nearly a year, the Trump administration has recklessly obstructed the build-out of clean, affordable power for millions of Americans, just as the country’s need for electricity is surging,” said Ted Kelly of the Environmental Defense Fund.

“Now the administration is again illegally blocking clean, affordable energy,” Kelly said. “We should not be kneecapping America’s largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity.”

The administration’s actions are especially egregious because, at the same time, it is propping up aging, expensive coal plants “that barely work and pollute our air,” Kelly said.

The Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based environmental group, called the pause “a desperate rerun of the Trump administration’s failed attempt to kill offshore wind,” noting that courts have already rejected the administration’s arguments.

“Trying again to halt these projects tramples on the rule of law, threatens jobs and deliberately sabotages a critical industry that strengthens — not weakens — America’s energy security,” said Kate Sinding Daly, senior vice president for law and policy at the law foundation.

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Monday at the start of what’s expected to be a quiet holiday week.

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The S&P 500 rose 0.4% and is just below the all-time high it set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 130 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:03 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite climbed 0.6%.

The broader market eked out a slight gain last week in what has been a choppy month. Technology companies, especially those focused on artificial intelligence, have been the main force behind the market’s oscillations.

The gains on Monday were broad, with technology companies and banks leading the way. JPMorgan Chase rose 1% and Nvidia rose 1.2%.

Uber rose 3.3% and Lyft rose 5% after announcing plans to bring robotaxi services to London next year.

Gold and silver touched records and oil prices jumped after the U.S. Coast Guard said it was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean.

Gold prices rose 1.6% and are hovering around $4,458 per ounce, adding to their consistent gains throughout the year. Silver prices were up about 2.5%.

Crude oil prices in the U.S. rose 2.4% and prices for Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 2.3%.

Markets in Asia gained ground while markets in Europe slipped.

Markets in the U.S. will close early on Wednesday for Christmas Eve and remain closed on Thursday for Christmas. The short week for trading includes several economic reports that could shed more light on the condition and direction of the U.S. economy.

On Tuesday, the government releases the first of three estimates on gross domestic product, a reflection of how the broader U.S. economy fared in the third quarter. On Wednesday, the Labor Department will release its weekly data on applications for jobless benefits, which stands as a proxy for U.S. layoffs.

The Conference Board offers up results from its December consumer confidence survey on Tuesday as well.

Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this story.

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Media Writer

CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday didn’t air a planned story on Trump administration deportations of immigrants to El Salvador, pulling it only hours before airtime at the direction of new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.

FILE – The CBS logo at the entrance to its headquarters, in New York Dec. 6, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

The story, where correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi spoke to deportees who had been sent to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, was held because Weiss sought to add perspective from the Trump administration, according to people at the network.

In an email sent to some colleagues and reported by multiple media outlets, Alfonsi said she’d learned on Saturday that Weiss had decided not to air it. She said her story was factually correct and cleared by CBS attorneys and news standards officials. “In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

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The shift, publicly announced two hours before the broadcast aired, is sure to increase scrutiny on Weiss, the founder of the Free Press website who was installed at the top of CBS News this fall when its parent company, Paramount, was bought out.

President Donald Trump has been sharply critical of “60 Minutes.” He sued the network last fall over its interview with election opponent Kamala Harris, which was settled this summer, and recently complained about the show’s interview with former ally turned foe Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Weiss told The New York Times in a statement: “My job is to make sure that all the stories we publish are the best they can be. Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom.”

She said she looked forward to airing Alfonsi’s piece “when it’s ready.”

By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

Two NATO-nation intelligence services suspect Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon to target Elon Musk’s Starlink constellation with destructive orbiting clouds of shrapnel, with the aim of reining in Western space superiority that has helped Ukraine on the battlefield.

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Intelligence findings seen by The Associated Press say the so-called “zone-effect” weapon would seek to flood Starlink orbits with hundreds of thousands of high-density pellets, potentially disabling multiple satellites at once but also risking catastrophic collateral damage to other orbiting systems.

Analysts who haven’t seen the findings say they doubt such a weapon could work without causing uncontrollable chaos in space for companies and countries, including Russia and its ally China, that rely on thousands of orbiting satellites for communications, defense and other vital needs.

Such repercussions, including risks to its own space systems, could steer Moscow away from deploying or using such a weapon, analysts said.

“I don’t buy it. Like, I really don’t,” said Victoria Samson, a space-security specialist at the Secure World Foundation who leads the Colorado-based nongovernmental organization’s annual study of anti-satellite systems. “I would be very surprised, frankly, if they were to do something like that.”

But the commander of the Canadian military’s Space Division, Brig. Gen. Christopher Horner, said such Russian work cannot be ruled out in light of previous U.S. allegations that Russia also has been pursuing an indiscriminate nuclear, space-based weapon.

“I can’t say I’ve been briefed on that type of system. But it’s not implausible,” he said. “If the reporting on the nuclear weapons system is accurate and that they’re willing to develop that and willing to go to that end, well it wouldn’t strike me as shocking that something just short of that, but equally damaging, is within their wheelhouse of development.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t respond to messages from the AP seeking comment. Russia has previously called for United Nations efforts to stop the orbital deployment of weapons and President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow has no intention of deploying nuclear space weapons.

Weapon would have multiple targets

The intelligence findings were shown to the AP on condition that the services involved were not identified and the news organization was not able to independently verify the findings’ conclusions.

The U.S. Space Force didn’t respond to e-mailed questions. The French military’s Space Command said in a statement to the AP that it could not comment on the findings but said, “We can inform you that Russia has, in recent years, been multiplying irresponsible, dangerous, and even hostile actions in space.”

Russia views Starlink in particular as a grave threat, the findings indicate. The thousands of low-orbiting satellites have been pivotal for Ukraine’s survival against Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year.

Starlink’s high-speed internet service is used by Ukrainian forces for battlefield communications, weapons targeting and other roles and by civilians and government officials where Russian strikes have affected communications.

Russian officials repeatedly have warned that commercial satellites serving Ukraine’s military could be legitimate targets. This month, Russia said it has fielded a new ground-based missile system, the S-500, which is capable of hitting low-orbit targets.

Unlike a missile that Russia tested in 2021 to destroy a defunct Cold War-era satellite, the new weapon in development would target multiple Starlinks at once, with pellets possibly released by yet-to-be launched formations of small satellites, the intelligence findings say.

Canada’s Horner said it is hard to see how clouds of pellets could be corralled to only strike Starlink and that debris from such an attack could get “out of control in a hurry.”

“You blow up a box full of BBs,” he said. Doing that would “blanket an entire orbital regime and take out every Starlink satellite and every other satellite that’s in a similar regime. And I think that’s the part that is incredibly troubling.”

System is possibly just experimental

The findings seen by the AP didn’t say when Russia might be capable of deploying such a system nor detail whether it has been tested or how far along research is believed to be.

The system is in active development and information about the timing of an expected deployment is too sensitive to share, according to an official familiar with the findings and other related intelligence that the AP did not see. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the nonpublic findings.

Such Russian research could be simply experimental, Samson said.

“I wouldn’t put it past some scientists … to build out something like this because it’s an interesting thought-experiment and they think, you know, ‘Maybe at some point we can get our government to pay for it,’” she said.

Samson suggested the specter of a supposed new Russian threat may also be an effort to elicit an international response.

“Often times people pushing these ideas are doing it because they want the U.S. side to build something like that or … to justify increased spending on counterspace capabilities or using it for a more hawkish approach on Russia,” she said.

“I’m not saying that this is what’s happening with this,” Samson added. “But it has been known to happen that people take these crazy arguments and use them.”

Tiny pellets could remain undetected

The intelligence findings say the pellets would be so small — just millimeters across — that they would evade detection by ground- and space-based systems that scan for space objects, which could make it hard to pin blame for any attack on Moscow.

Clayton Swope, who specializes in space security and weaponry at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based security and policy think tank, said if “the pellets are not trackable, that complicates things” but “people would figure it out.”

“If satellites start winking out with damage, I guess you could put two and two together,” he said.

Exactly how much destruction tiny pellets could do isn’t clear. In November, a suspected impact by a small piece of debris was sufficient to damage a Chinese spacecraft that was meant to bring three astronauts back to the Earth.

“Most damage would probably be done to the solar panels because they’re probably the most fragile part” of satellites, Swope said. “That’d be enough, though, to damage a satellite and probably bring it offline.”

‘Weapon of fear’ could threaten chaos

After such an attack, pellets and debris would over time fall back toward Earth, possibly damaging other orbiting systems on their way down, analysts say.

Starlink’s orbits are about 550 kilometers (340 miles) above the planet. China’s Tiangong space station and the International Space Station operate at lower orbits, “so both would face risks,” according to Swope.

The space chaos that such a weapon could cause might enable Moscow to threaten its adversaries without actually having to use it, Swope said.

“It definitely feels like a weapon of fear, looking for some kind of deterrence or something,” he said.

Samson said the drawbacks of an indiscriminate pellet-weapon could steer Russia off such a path.

“They’ve invested a huge amount of time and money and human power into being, you know, a space power,” she said.

Using such a weapon “would effectively cut off space for them as well,” Samson said. ”I don’t know that they would be willing to give up that much.”

Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.