** President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing the “Genesis Mission,” a federal effort to boost innovation using artificial intelligence — the latest step by the administration to promote AI technology and its adoption. The effort aims to better coordinate research done by agencies across the government and more effectively integrate AI tools to achieve more scientific breakthroughs, according to Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who spoke to reporters on the order ahead of Trump’s signature.
** Texas factory activity expanded at a markedly faster pace in November, according to business executives responding to the Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey.
** A federal court is set to order Oakland, California, to pay up to $654 million in damages for canceling a contract with a coal export shipping terminal developer over climate concerns in 2016, potentially pushing the city into bankruptcy.
** The Trump administration’s plan to expand offshore oil and gas drilling would open nearly all of Alaska’s coastal waters to new leasing.
** Researchers find that building data centers on power grids with high shares of “dry renewables” such as solar and wind will decrease their indirect water consumption for electricity generation.
** The Trump administration is weakening pollution standards for coal plants as utilities across the country cancel plans to retire units as demand from artificial intelligence rises.
** North Dakota natural gas production reached a record high in September as oil production continued to exceed forecasts.
World
** Four Democratic U.S. senators said on Monday that lax enforcement by the Trump administration of sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 export terminal allows China to buy discounted liquefied natural gas and helps Moscow fund the war in Ukraine. The lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, urged the Trump administration in September to resume targeted sanctions on Russian energy supplies.
** –Artificial intelligence will bestow influence on a par with nuclear technology to countries able to get ahead now, a top Russian AI executive said, giving them superiority this century.
** Two cargo vessels were headed for grain port terminals near New Orleans on Monday to load with the first U.S. soybean shipments to China since May, according to a shipping schedule seen by Reuters.
** India has agreed to deepen its energy trade with the United States in a bid to avoid the introduction of higher tariffs on exports by President Donald Trump. In recent months, Trump has threatened several countries with tariffs if they do not import larger quantities of U.S. gas, to varying success.