The Jim Bakker Show

Doctors devise care plan for babies as Zika threat looms in U.S.

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – As U.S. public health officials try to determine whether Zika has arrived in the country, doctors are establishing guidelines on how to care for the rising number of babies whose mothers were infected with the virus during pregnancy.

Florida said it is investigating two possible cases of Zika not related to travel to an area where Zika is active, raising the possibility of the first incidence of local transmission of the mosquito-borne virus.

On Thursday, the Florida Department of Health said it was investigating a non travel-related case of Zika in Broward County, marking the second such case. Florida has asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assist in its investigation that must also rule out sexual transmission.

So far, 400 pregnant women in the continental United States have evidence of Zika infection, up from 346 from a week ago, the CDC reported on Thursday. All of those were related to travel or sex with an infected person who had traveled.

Three more babies have been born in the United States with birth defects linked to Zika infections in their mothers, bringing the total to 12, CDC said.

Zika has been proven to cause microcephaly, a severe birth defect marked by small head size and undersized brains that requires a complex network of care providers and social workers to treat and provide support to parents.

But microcephaly is just the tip of the iceberg, according to experts speaking at a CDC-sponsored workshop on Thursday. They said many babies exposed in utero who appear normal at birth may have developmental problems down the road, including hearing and vision problems.

For example, babies born without a functional sucking reflex may never develop the ability to swallow and will need to be fed through a feeding tube. These infants will have a higher risk of pneumonia, said Dr. Edwin Trevathan, a pediatrician and child neurologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Less obvious damage to structures on only one side of the brain may cause seizure disorders that do not appear until adolescence, Trevathan said.

Pediatric experts at the workshop are reviewing the potential consequences of Zika infection and plan to make recommendations on ways to treat Zika-exposed infants.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly that it considers related to Zika infections in the mothers.

FLORIDA PROBE

The recommendations come as Florida officials investigate what may be the first cases of Zika in the continental United States caused by the bite of a local mosquito.

Florida officials will not elaborate on how a resident of Miami was infected and whether the first case under investigation was related to mosquitoes.

“We continue to investigate and have not ruled out travel or sexual transmission at this time,” Florida spokeswoman Mara Gambineri said in an email on Thursday. However, she said the state still suspects the case is not related to travel to a Zika-infected area.

The White House on Wednesday released a statement saying President Barack Obama had spoken to Florida Governor Rick Scott regarding a suspected case of mosquito transmission of Zika and promised more money to fight the virus.

At the Zika workshop, Dr. Marc Fischer, chief of surveillance and epidemiology activity at the arboviral diseases branch of the CDC, said the agency has worked with state health departments to establish strategies to identify possible local transmission in the United States.

“When and if there is a case of local transmission, we work with local health departments to identify additional cases to define the geographic scope of the outbreak,” he said.

That includes surveying households and neighbors within a 150-yard radius around the residence of the person who has Zika.

“That’s basically the flying radius of the vector mosquitoes,” he said.

According to the U.S. Zika response plan, Zika local transmission is defined as two or more cases not due to travel or sex with an infected person that occur in a one-mile diameter over the course of a month.

CDC has given Florida $2 million for Zika preparedness, and on Thursday awarded another $5.6 million to assist the state with Zika as part of an additional $60 million in Zika funds to states announced on Thursday. U.S. lawmakers so far have not approved any of the White House’s $1.9 billion request for Zika.

CDC plans to award another $10 million to states and territories on Aug. 1 to speed identification of microcephaly and other birth defects linked to Zika.

(Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Shooting of unarmed black man in Florida heightens calls for police review

By Zachary Fagenson

NORTH MIAMI, Fla. (Reuters) – The shooting by police of an unarmed black man as he lay on the ground with his hands in the air in North Miami, Florida, raised calls on Thursday for U.S. police to review their training programs and policies.

Behavioral therapist Charles Kinsey was shot on Monday as he tried to get an autistic patient back to a nearby group home from which he had wandered. A cell phone video showed Kinsey with his hands extended above his chest moments before a bullet struck his leg.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said the incident showed more police training was needed, particularly for situations involving people with disabilities.

“We are grateful that both Mr. Kinsey and his patient are alive, but without changes in policy and improved training of officers, we will very likely see more needless shootings and deaths at the hands of police,” Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement.

North Miami Police Chief Gary Eugene said on Thursday that an investigation into the shooting would be conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement at his request.

Kinsey’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon of the firm Rasco Klock Perez & Nieto in Coral Gables, Florida, sent the video to Reuters on Thursday. Napoleon did not provide information about who filmed it. Neither he nor Kinsey were immediately available for comment.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Thursday the U.S. Justice Department was gathering information about the incident, the latest controversial shooting of a black man by police in the United States.

Kinsey told Miami’s WSVN-TV that he was trying to calm the autistic patient when police showed up on Monday evening. Media reports have said Kinsey is 47 years old.

Kinsey said he dropped to the ground and lay on his back with his hands up and open to comply with commands from the police officers.

“As long as I’ve got my hands up, they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking,” Kinsey said in an interview with WSVN-TV from a hospital bed on Wednesday. “Wow, was I wrong.”

Kinsey said he kept his hands up throughout the incident and that he asked the officer, “Sir, why did you shoot me?”

“He said, ‘I don’t know.'”

Police said in a statement that the officers were responding to an emergency call about an armed man threatening suicide. They said the officer, who has not been identified, is on administrative leave according to standard procedures.

The shooting itself was not recorded, but in the video, which has been widely circulated on social media, Kinsey can be heard talking to his patient and police while lying flat in the street.

“All he has is a toy trunk in his hands … I am a behavior therapist at a group home,” Kinsey yelled in the video. He also urged his patient, who was sitting nearby, to lie down and be still. The autistic man told him to “shut up” and did not comply.

Clint Bower, chief executive for the Miami Achievement Center for the Developmentally Disabled, which runs the group home where Kinsey has worked for more than a year, said, “My employee saved that young man’s life.”

The United States has seen demonstrations from coast to coast over the use of excessive force by police, especially toward black men.

In the past month there have been deadly shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota and eight police officers have been killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Police in North Miami have offered few details about the shooting. Chief Eugene told reporters that officers had responded to the scene with the threat of a gun in mind, but no gun was recovered.

“There are many questions about what happened on Monday night,” he said. “I assure you we will get all the answers.”

Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Molly Best said the agency would not comment on the shooting.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien, Colleen Jenkins and Michelle Gershberg; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

South Korean President Park calls for unity over THAAD

South Korean President Park Geun-hye arrives for the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit of Heads of State and Government (ASEM11) in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, 15 July 2016.

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Thursday the move to deploy a THAAD missile defense system was “inevitable” because of a growing threat from North Korea and that division in the South over its deployment is what Pyongyang seeks.

North Korea’s launch of three ballistic missiles on Tuesday was the latest evidence that the anti-missile system is needed, Park said at a National Security Council meeting.

This month’s announcement by South Korea and the United States to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) unit with the U.S. military in a rural melon-farming county in the South triggered loud protests from residents worried about possible negative health and environmental impacts.

“If we continue to be divisive and social confusion grows about a decision we had no choice but to make to protect the country and the lives of our people, it would be exactly where North Korea wants us to go,” Park said, according to her office.

North Korea said on Wednesday it had conducted a ballistic missile test that simulated preemptive strikes against South Korean ports and airfields used by the U.S. military, likely referring to the three missiles fired on Tuesday.

The missiles flew between 500 kms and 600 kms (300-360 miles) into the sea off its east coast and could have hit anywhere in South Korea if the North intended, the South’s military said.

Many residents of Seongju, about 200 kms (120 miles) from the capital Seoul, joined by opposition members of parliament and civic groups, have demanded the government scrap the decision to site the THAAD battery there.

Some residents bearing South Korean flags and anti-THAAD banners held a rally in central Seoul on Thursday to demonstrate against the decision. Roughly 2,000 people joined the rally, according to police and organizers, including the governor of Seongju who shaved his head in protest.

That follows a raucous standoff last week between residents and the country’s prime minister, who was pelted with eggs and plastic bottles and trapped inside a bus for several hours when he visited the county to explain the THAAD decision. Some residents blamed outside leftist activists for the incident.

Park said North Korea could stage an act of aggression at any time, including possibly a fifth nuclear test or cyber attack against the networks of national and financial institutions.

The North has also increased military equipment near the land and sea border separating the countries, she told the security meeting.

The two Koreas remain technically at war under a truce that ended fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a satellite launch and a string of test launches of various missiles.

(Reporting by Jack Kim, additional reporting by Daewoung Kim and James Pearson; Editing by Michael Perry and Himani Sarkar)

U.S. says its forces will keep operating in South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. military forces will continue to operate in the South China Sea in accordance with international law, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson said on Wednesday during a visit to a Chinese naval base.

China has refused to recognize a ruling by an arbitration court in The Hague that invalidated its vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and did not take part in the proceedings brought by the Philippines.

China has repeatedly blamed the United States for stirring up trouble in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.

China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam all have rival claims, of which China’s is the largest.

The United States has conducted freedom of navigation patrols close to Chinese-held islands, to Beijing’s anger, while China has been bolstering its military presence there.

Meeting Yuan Yubai, commander of the Chinese North Sea Fleet, Richardson “underscored the importance of lawful and safe operations in the South China and elsewhere professional navies operate”, the U.S. Navy said.

U.S. forces would keep sailing, flying and operating wherever international law allows, Richardson added.

“The U.S. Navy will continue to conduct routine and lawful operations around the world, including in the South China Sea, in order to protect the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of sea and airspace guaranteed to all. This will not change.”

Freedom of navigation patrols carried out by foreign navies in the South China Sea could end “in disaster”, a senior Chinese admiral said over the weekend.

State news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday that countries outside the region should stay out of the South China Sea issue lest they cause unwanted problems.

“Western countries have a long history of failing to establish orderly rule over parts of the world. The Middle East is a classic example,” it said.

Richardson said he was supportive of the deepening of relations between the U.S. and Chinese navies.

“But I will be continuously reassessing my support conditioned on continued safe and professional interactions at sea. In this area we must judge each other by our deeds and actions, not just by our words,” he added.

The United States has complained that Chinese aircraft and ships have performed “unsafe” maneuvers while shadowing U.S. ships and planes, particularly in the South China Sea.

Speaking in Sydney on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assured key ally Australia there would be no retreat from Washington’s pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of who wins November’s presidential election.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie)

North Korea fires three ballistic missiles in new show of force

KCNA file picture shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watching the ballistic rocket launch dri

By Jack Kim and James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea fired three ballistic missiles on Tuesday which flew between 500 and 600 km (300-360 miles) into the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of provocative moves by the isolated country.

The U.S. military said it detected launches of what it believed were two Scud missiles and one Rodong, a home-grown missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology.

North Korea has fired both types numerous times in recent years, an indication that unlike recent launches that were seen as efforts by the North to improve its missile capability, Tuesday’s were meant as a show of force.

“This smells political rather than technical to me,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California.

“I think the number and distance of the missiles lets them remind the ROK (Republic of Korea) of what they are up against,” she said, referring to South Korea by its official name.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy the Japan, South Korea and the South’s main ally, the United States.

The launches came nearly a week after South Korea and the United States chose a site in the South to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter threats from the North, which had prompted Pyongyang to threaten a “physical response”.

“Our assessment is that it was done as a show of force,” a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff official said at a briefing.

The missiles were launched from an area in the North’s western region called Hwangju between 5:45 a.m. South Korea time (04:45 p.m. EDT Monday) and 6:40 a.m., the South’s military said, an indication that the North was confident they would not crash on its own territory.

“The ballistic missiles’ flight went from 500 km to 600 km, which is a distance far enough to strike all of South Korea, including Busan,” the South’s military said in a statement.

Busan is a South Korean port city in the south.

North Korea has test-fired a series of ballistic missiles in recent months, in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, including intermediate-range missiles in June and a submarine-launched missile this month.

“In addition to the basic goal of enhancing missile units’ readiness to fight, it might be a way of reminding their southern neighbors that the site chosen for a THAAD battery in South Korea is within reach,” Joshua Pollack, editor of the U.S.-based Nonproliferation Review, said of Tuesday’s launches.

South Korea announced last week the THAAD system would be deployed in the southeastern county of Seongju.

In addition to the decision to base a THAAD system in South Korea, the United States recently angered North Korea by blacklisting its leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses.

“The threat to our national security is growing very quickly in a short period of time,” South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn told parliament on Tuesday.

BOMBS, MISSILES AND SANCTIONS

North Korea conducted its fourth test of a nuclear device in January, and activity at its nuclear test site has increased recently, according to media reports in South Korea and Japan citing government officials, as well as a report by Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North.

Following the latest nuclear test and a February space rocket launch that was widely viewed as a missile test in disguise, the U.N. Security Council imposed tough new resolutions that further isolate North Korea.

While China supported tougher sanctions against its neighbor and ally North Korea, it has sharply criticized the decision to base a THAAD battery in South Korea, saying the move would destabilize the security balance in the region.

“The situation on the Korean peninsula is severe and complex and all sides should avoid any actions that raise tensions,” China’s foreign ministry said, echoing previous statements.

Japan denounced the launches.

“The latest launch is a breach of the UN Security Council resolution and is extremely hazardous to shipping and aircraft and we have strongly protested,” the Japanese government said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park, Tim Kelly in Tokyo and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie)

‘No excuse’ for Turkey to abandon rule of law: Mogherini states

U.S. Secretary of State Kerry poses with EU foreign policy chief Mogherini during an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels

By Alastair Macdonald and Robert-Jan Bartunek

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned the Turkish government on Monday against taking steps that would damage the constitutional order following a failed weekend coup.

“We were the first… during that tragic night to say that the legitimate institutions needed to be protected,” she told reporters on arrival at an EU foreign ministers meeting, which was also to be attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“We are the ones saying today rule of law has to be protected in the country,” she said in Brussels. “There is no excuse for any steps that takes the country away from that.”

She also said: “The democratic and legitimate institutions needed to be protected. Today, we will say together with the ministers that this obviously doesn’t mean that the rule of law and the system of checks and balances does not count.”

“On the contrary, it needs to be protected for the sake of the country itself. So we will send a strong message.”

Other ministers also expressed concerns about events after the coup. Mogherini’s fellow EU commissioner, Johannes Hahn, who is dealing with Turkey’s membership request, said he had the impression that the government had prepared lists of those such as judges to be arrested even before the coup took place.

“It looks at least as if something has been prepared. The lists are available, which indicates it was prepared and to be used at a certain stage,” Hahn said. “I’m very concerned. It is exactly what we feared.”

Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said he was also concerned about the arrests of judges and also about President Tayyip Erdogan’s suggestion of reintroducing the death penalty for plotters. That, Reynders said, “would pose a problem with Turkey’s ties with the European Union”.

Abolishing capital punishment, as Turkey did in 2004 before it could open the formal process of accession negotiations with the EU, is a prerequisite for holding talks on membership.

Reynders said: “We cannot imagine that from a country that seeks to join the European Union. We must be very firm today, to condemn the coup d’etat but the response must respect the rule of law.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said: “We cannot accept a military dictatorship but we also have to be careful that the Turkish authorities do not put in place a political system which turns away from democracy … The rule of law must prevail … We need authority but we also need democracy.”

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Robin Emmott; Editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

China fears that Pokemon Go may aid locating military bases

File photo of a virtual map of Bryant Park displayed on the screen as a man plays the augmented reality mobile game "Pokemon Go" by

By Paul Carsten

BEIJING (Reuters) – Not everyone loves Pokemon GO, the mobile game that has become an instant hit around the world since a limited release just a week ago.

The augmented reality game, in which players walk around real-life neighborhoods to hunt and catch virtual cartoon characters on their smartphone screens, has been blamed in the United States for several robberies of distracted mobile phone users and car crashes.

A U.S. senator has asked the developers of the game to clarify its data privacy protections.

And although the game is not available in China, the world’s biggest smartphone and online gaming market, some people there fear it could become a Trojan horse for offensive action by the United States and Japan.

“Don’t play Pokemon GO!!!” said user Pitaorenzhe on Chinese microblogging site Weibo. “It’s so the U.S. and Japan can explore China’s secret bases!”

The conspiracy theory is that Japan’s Nintendo Co Ltd which part owns the Pokemon franchise, and America’s Google can work out where Chinese military bases are by seeing where users can’t go to capture Pokemon characters.

The game relies on Google services such as Maps.

The theory is that if Nintendo places rare Pokemon in areas where they see players aren’t going, and nobody attempts to capture the creature, it can be deduced that the location has restricted access and could be a military zone.

“Then, when war breaks out, Japan and the U.S. can easily target their guided missiles, and China will have been destroyed by the invasion of a Japanese-American game,” said a social media post circulated on Weibo.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said he was unaware of reports that the game could be a security risk and that he didn’t have time to play with such things. He gave no further details.

Other government ministries did not respond to faxed questions about the game.

UNDETERRED FANS

But the calls for a boycott, and the fact that Pokemon GO hasn’t even been released in China, have not deterred fans.

“I really looked forward to playing the Pokemon artificial reality game since they first announced it. I really liked Pokemon as a kid,” said Gan Tian, a 22-year-old student at Tsinghua University. She plays an unofficial version with an artificial map based on countries where the game is available.

But for many others in the country, playing is proving a challenge. Not only is the game not on Chinese app stores, but Google services are blocked in China.

Nintendo has given no indication as to when or whether Pokemon GO will be released in China.

Niantic, the lab that developed the game, declined to comment on Friday on an eventual launch. Chief executive John Hanke said in an interview that it would be technically possible to launch in China, but noted a host of complex rules and restrictions.

(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom and Shanghai Newsroom; Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan, Ben Blanchard, Jake Spring and Jeremy Wagstaff; Editing by Ian Geoghegan and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

U.S. launches quiet diplomacy to ease South China Sea tensions

A ship of Chinese Coast Guard is seen near a ship of Vietnam Marine Guard in the South China Sea

By Lesley Wroughton and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is using quiet diplomacy to persuade the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other Asian nations not to move aggressively to capitalize on an international court ruling that denied China’s claims to the South China Sea, several U.S. administration officials said on Wednesday.

“What we want is to quiet things down so these issues can be addressed rationally instead of emotionally,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic messages.

Some were sent through U.S. embassies abroad and foreign missions in Washington, while others were conveyed directly to top officials by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials, the sources said.

“This is a blanket call for quiet, not some attempt to rally the region against China, which would play into a false narrative that the U.S. is leading a coalition to contain China,” the official added.

The effort to calm the waters following the court ruling in The Hague on Tuesday suffered a setback when Taiwan dispatched a warship to the area, with President Tsai Ing-wen telling sailors that their mission was to defend Taiwan’s maritime territory.

The court ruled that while China has no historic rights to the area within its self-declared nine-dash line, Taiwan has no right to Itu Aba, also called Taiping, the largest island in the Spratlys. Taipei administers Itu Aba but the tribunal called it a “rock”, according to the legal definition.

The U.S. officials said they hoped the U.S. diplomatic initiative would be more successful in Indonesia, which wants to send hundreds of fishermen to the Natuna Islands to assert its sovereignty over nearby areas of the South China Sea to which China says it also has claims, and in the Philippines, whose fishermen have been harassed by Chinese coast guard and naval vessels.

‘UNKNOWN QUANTITY’

One official said new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte remains “somewhat of an unknown quantity” who has been alternately bellicose and accommodating toward China.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that ahead of the ruling he had spoken to Carter, who he said told him China had assured the United States it would exercise restraint, and that the U.S. government made the same assurance.

Carter had sought and been given the same assurance from the Philippines, Lorenzana added.

China, for its part, repeated pleas for talks between Beijing and Manila, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying the it is time to get things back on the “right track” after the “farce” of the case.

On Thursday, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party said China had shown it can fix territorial issues via talks, pointing to agreement reached with Vietnam over their maritime boundary in the Gulf of Tonkin and ongoing talks with South Korea.

“China is a faithful defender of the principle that countries large and small are equal and has consistently upheld using consultations to resolve border issues on the basis of sovereign equality and mutual respect,” the People’s Daily said in a commentary.

Meanwhile, two Chinese civilian aircraft landed on Wednesday at two new airports on reefs controlled by China in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, a move the State Department said would increase tensions rather than lower them.

“We don’t have a dog in this fight other than our belief … in freedom of navigation,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a briefing on Wednesday. “What we want to see in this very tense part of Asia, of the Pacific, rather, is a de-escalation of tensions and we want to see all claimants take a moment to look at how we can find a peaceful way forward.”

CONTINGENCY PLANHowever, if that effort fails, and competition escalates into confrontation, U.S. air and naval forces are prepared to uphold freedom of maritime and air navigation in the disputed area, a defense official said on Wednesday.

Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said confrontation is less likely if the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries work with the United States rather than on their own.

“I don’t think China wants a confrontation with the United States,” he told reporters. “They don’t mind a confrontation with a Vietnamese fishing boat, but they don’t want a confrontation with the United States.”

The court ruling is expected to dominate a meeting at the end of July in Laos of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang, will attend the ministerial.

Sino-American relations suffered two fresh blows on Wednesday as a congressional committee found China’s government likely hacked computers at the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the United States challenged China’s export duties on nine metals and minerals that are important to the aerospace, auto, electronics and chemical industries.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Yara Bayoumy, and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Kieran Murray, Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast)

U.S. jobless claims hover at lower levels

Job seekers fill out applications during 11th annual Skid Row Career Fair the Los Angeles Mission in Los Angeles

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly held at lower levels last week, pointing to further momentum in the labor market after job growth surged in June.

Another report on Thursday showed producer prices recorded their biggest gain in a year in June on rising costs for energy products and services. The data signaled economic strength that could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates later this year.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits were unchanged at a seasonally adjusted 254,000 for the week ended July 9, the Labor Department said. Claims are near the 43-year low of 248,000 touched in mid-April.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast initial claims rising to 265,000 in the latest week. Claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market, for 71 consecutive weeks, the longest stretch since 1973.

The labor market is on a strong footing, with nonfarm payrolls having increased by a robust 287,000 jobs in June, which should underpin economic growth for the rest of the year.

Prices for U.S. Treasuries fell slightly and the dollar pared losses against a basket of currencies after Thursday’s data. U.S. stock futures were trading higher.

In a second report, the Labor Department said its producer price index for final demand rose 0.5 percent last month, the largest increase since May 2015, after advancing 0.4 percent in May.

In the 12 months through June, the PPI increased 0.3 percent, rising for the first time since December 2014, after slipping 0.1 percent in May.

Producer inflation is being boosted by the fading drag from a strong dollar and lower oil prices.

The dollar’s surge between June 2014 and December 2015 put downward pressure on producer prices, helping to keep inflation below the Fed’s 2 percent target.

The greenback’s rally appears to be over. The currency has slipped on a trade-weighted basis this year while oil prices have rebounded from multi-year lows.

Last month, energy prices jumped 4.1 percent after increasing 2.8 percent in May. Prices for services rose 0.4 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in May. Services were boosted by a surge in costs related to securities brokerage and dealing.

Healthcare costs were unchanged as a 0.1 percent rise in doctor visits was offset by weak home healthcare services.

A key measure of underlying producer price pressures that excludes food, energy and trade services rose 0.3 percent last month after edging down 0.1 percent in May. The so-called core PPI was up 0.9 percent in the 12 months through June. The core PPI increased 0.8 percent in May.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show