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Tag: CTV What You Need To Know (National)

  • NATO scrambles jets to shoot down Russian drones in Poland

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    WOHYN, Poland — Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described Wednesday as an deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down. A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace.

    What You Need To Know

    • Multiple Russian drones crossed into Poland in what European officials described as an deliberate provocation, causing NATO to send fighter jets to shoot them down

    • A NATO spokesman said it was the first time the alliance confronted a potential threat in its airspace

    • The incursion happened late Tuesday and into the early hours of Wednesday during a wave of strikes by the Kremlin on Ukraine
    • The NATO response swiftly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been growing in Europe as Russia steps up its attacks and peace efforts go nowhere

    The incursion, which occurred during a wave of strikes by the Kremlin on Ukraine, and the NATO response swiftly raised fears that the war could spill over — a fear that has been growing in Europe as Russia steps up its attacks and peace efforts go nowhere.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said it did not target Poland, while Belarus, a close ally of Moscow, said it tracked some drones that “lost their course” because they were jammed.

    However, several European leaders said they believed the incursion amounted to an intentional expansion of Russia’s assault against Ukraine.

    “Russia’s war is escalating, not ending,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels. “What (Russian President Vladimir) Putin wants to do is to test us. What happened in Poland is a game changer,” and it should result in stronger sanctions.

    Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale in Poland or anywhere else in NATO territory.

    Poland said some of the drones came from Belarus, where Russian and Belarusian troops have begun gathering for war games scheduled to start Friday.

    It was not immediately clear how many drones were involved. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament 19 violations were recorded over seven hours, but he said information was still being gathered. Polish authorities said nine crash sites were found, with some of them hundreds of kilometers from the border.

    “There are definitely no grounds to suspect that this was a course correction mistake or the like,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told parliament. “These drones were very clearly put on this course deliberately.”

    Dutch fighter jets came to Poland’s aid and intercepted some drones. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later thanked the Dutch government “for the magnificent performance of Dutch pilots in neutralizing” the drones.

    NATO met to discuss the incident, which came three days after Russia’s largest aerial attack on Ukraine since the war began.

    Poland says some drones came from Belarus

    Tusk told parliament that the first violation came at approximately 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and the last around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. Earlier, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote on X that more than 10 objects crossed into Polish airspace.

    “What is new, in the worst sense of the word, is the direction from which the drones came. This is the first time in this war that they did not come from Ukraine as a result of errors or minor Russian provocations. For the first time, a significant portion of the drones came directly from Belarus,” Tusk said in parliament.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said its overnight strikes targeted Ukraine’s military-industrial complex in the western regions of the country — which border Poland — with no planned targets on Polish territory.

    In an unusual message of outreach, the ministry said it was ready to hold consultations with Poland’s Defense Ministry.

    Belarusian Maj. Gen. Pavel Muraveiko, the chief of the country’s general staff and first deputy defense minister, appeared to try to put some distance between his country and the incursion.

    In an online statement, he said that as Russia and Ukraine traded drone strikes overnight, Belarusian air defense forces tracked “drones that lost their course” after they were jammed, adding that Belarusian forces warned their Polish and Lithuanian counterparts about “unidentified aircraft” approaching their territory.

    Drones or parts of drones were found in eight locations in Poland, according to Polish officials. At a ninth site, objects of unknown origin were found.

    A house was hit in the village of Wyryki in the Lublin region near the Ukrainian border, Mayor Bernard Blaszczuk told the TVP Info television news channel. The roof was severely damaged, but no one was hurt.

    Rattled NATO members vow support

    NATO air defenses supported Poland in what spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell called “the first time NATO planes have engaged potential threats in Allied airspace.” That included the Dutch F-35 fighter jets that intercepted drones, according to Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans.

    The alliance “is committed to defending every kilometer of NATO territory, including our airspace,” O’Donnell said.

    Tusk told parliament consultations took place under Article 4 of the NATO treaty — a clause that allows countries to call for urgent discussions with their allies. The consultations happened Wednesday at a previously planned meeting. They do not automatically lead to any action under Article 5, which is NATO’s collective security guarantee.

    Mark Lyall Grant, U.K. national security adviser from 2015 to 2017, said the incursion was obviously an escalation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, but there was not yet enough evidence to say it was an attack on a NATO member.

    But many European leaders expressed deep concern, including those in the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia that are the NATO members most nervous about Russian aggression.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it an “extremely dangerous precedent for Europe” and called for Russia to “feel the consequences.”

    “Moscow always tests the limits of what is possible and, if it does not encounter a strong response, remains at a new level of escalation,” he said. “Not just one Shahed (drone), which could be dismissed as an accident, but at least eight attack drones that were aimed in the direction of Poland.”

    By midday in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump’s only public comments about the incursion was a short post on social media: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”

    Trump was set to speak later Wednesday to Polish President Karol Nawrocki, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the incident underscored the failure of NATO member states to accurately assess the threat posed by Russia and properly prepare for war.

    “NATO states, even front line ones, have clearly not prepared for war of the type that is happening now,” he said in his Substack newsletter.

    Poland has complained about Russian objects entering its airspace during attacks on Ukraine before.

    In August, Poland’s defense minister said that a flying object that crashed and exploded in a cornfield in eastern Poland was identified as a Russian drone, and called it a provocation.

    In March, Poland scrambled jets after a Russian missile briefly passed through Polish airspace on its way to a target in western Ukraine. And in 2022, a missile that was likely fired by Ukraine to intercept a Russian attack landed in Poland, killing two people.

    Russian attacks hit central and western Ukraine

    Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 415 strike and decoy drones, as well as 42 cruise missiles and one ballistic missile overnight.

    Ukrainian air defenses intercepted or jammed 386 drones and 27 cruise missiles, according to the report.

    One person was killed and at least five wounded, while several homes and businesses were damaged, according to local officials.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said in its morning report Wednesday that it had destroyed 122 Ukrainian drones over various Russian regions overnight, including over the illegally annexed Crimea and areas of the Black Sea.

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    Associated Press

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  • Employers add 22,000 jobs in August, falling short of forecasts

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    WASHINGTON — The U.S. job market has gone from healthy to lethargic during President Donald Trump’s first seven months back in the White House, as hiring has collapsed and inflation has started to climb once again as his tariffs take hold.

    What You Need To Know

    • The U.S. job market has gone from healthy to lethargic during President Donald Trump’s first seven months back in the White House

    • Friday’s jobs report showed employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%

    • Factories and construction firms shed workers

    • The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far.

    Friday’s jobs report showed employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%. Factories and construction firms shed workers. Revisions showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly losses since December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far. The White House prides itself on operating at a breakneck speed, but it’s now asking the American people for patience, with Trump saying better job numbers might be a year away.

    “We’re going to win like you’ve never seen,” Trump said Friday. “Wait until these factories start to open up that are being built all over the country, you’re going to see things happen in this country that nobody expects.”

    The plea for patience has done little to comfort Americans, as economic issues that had been a strength for Trump for a decade have evolved into a persistent weakness. Approval of Trump’s economic leadership hit 56% in early 2020 during his first term, but that figure was 38% in July of this year, according to polling by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

    The situation has left Trump searching for others to blame, while Democrats say the problem begins and ends with him.

    Trump maintained Friday that the economy would be adding jobs if Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had slashed benchmark interest rates, even though doing so to the degree that Trump wants could ignite higher inflation. Investors expect a rate cut by the Fed at its next meeting in September, although that’s partially because of weakening job numbers.

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump’s tariffs and freewheeling policies were breaking the economy and the jobs report proved it.

    “This is a blaring red light warning to the entire country that Donald Trump is squeezing the life out of our economy,” Schumer said.

    By many measures, Trump has dug himself into a hole on the economy as its performance has yet to come anywhere close to his hype.

    — Trump in 2024 suggested that deporting immigrants in the country illegally would protect “Black jobs.” But the Black unemployment rate has climbed to 7.5%, the highest since October 2021, as the Trump administration has engaged in aggressive crackdowns on immigration.

    — At his April tariffs announcement, Trump said, “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.” Since April, manufacturers have cut 42,000 jobs and builders have downsized by 8,000.

    — Trump said in his inaugural address that the “liquid gold” of oil would make the nation wealthy as he pivoted the economy to fossil fuels. But the logging and mining sectors — which includes oil and natural gas — have shed 12,000 jobs since January. While gasoline prices are lower, the Energy Information Administration in August estimated that crude oil production, the source of the wealth promised by Trump, would fall next year by an average of 100,000 barrels a day.

    — At 2024 rallies, Trump promised to “end” inflation on “day one” and halve electricity prices within 12 months. Consumer prices have climbed from a 2.3% annual increase in April to 2.7% in July. Electricity costs are up 4.6% so far this year.

    The Trump White House maintains that the economy is on the cusp of breakout growth, with its new import taxes poised to raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually if they can withstand court challenges.

    At a Thursday night dinner with executives and founders from companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, Trump said the facilities being built to develop artificial intelligence would deliver “jobs numbers like our country has never seen before” at some point “a year from now.”

    But Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that Trump’s promise that strong job growth is ahead contradicts his unsubstantiated claims that recent jobs data was faked to embarrass him. That accusation prompted him to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month after the massive downward revisions in the July jobs report.

    Strain said it’s rational for the administration to say better times are coming, but doing so seems to undermine Trump’s allegations that the numbers are rigged.

    “The president clearly stated that the data were not trustworthy and that the weakness in the data was the product of anti-Trump manipulation,” Strain said. “And if that’s true, what are we being patient about?”

    The White House maintained that Friday’s jobs report was an outlier in an otherwise good economy.

    Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said the Atlanta Federal Reserve is expecting annualized growth of 3% this quarter, which he said would be more consistent with monthly job gains of 100,000.

    Hassett said inflation is low, income growth is “solid” and new investments in assets such as buildings and equipment will ultimately boost hiring.

    But Daniel Hornung, who was deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden White House, said he didn’t see evidence of a coming rebound in the August jobs data.

    “Pretty broad based weakening,” Hornung said. “The decline over three months in goods producing sectors like construction and manufacturing is particularly notable. There were already headwinds there and tariffs are likely exacerbating challenges.”

    Stephen Moore, an economics fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and supporter of the president, said the labor market is “definitely softening,” even as he echoed Trump’s claims that the jobs numbers are not reliable.

    He said the economy was adjusting to the Trumpian shift of higher tariffs and immigration reductions that could lower the pool of available workers.

    “The problem going forward is a shortage or workers, not a shortage of jobs,” Moore said. “In some ways, that’s a good problem to have.”

    But political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz took the contrarian view that the jobs report won’t ultimately matter for the political fortunes of Trump and his movement because voters care more about inflation and affordability.

    “That’s what the public is watching, that’s what the public cares about,” Luntz said. “Everyone who wants a job has a job, for the most part.”

    From the perspective of elections, Trump still has roughly a year to demonstrate progress on improving affordability, Luntz said. Voters will generally lock in their opinions about the economy by Labor Day before the midterm elections next year.

    In other words, Trump still has time.

    “It’s still up for grabs,” he said. “The deciding point will come Labor Day of 2026.”

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    Associated Press

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  • DHS: 475 detained in immigration raid at Georgia Hyundai plant

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    SAVANNAH, Ga. — About 475 people were detained in an immigration enforcement action at a Hyundai factory in Georgia on Thursday, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

    In a press briefing Friday, the special agent in charge of the effort said the department executed a judicial search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices at the factory where the South Korean auto giant manufactures electric vehicles.

    What You Need To Know

    • About 475 people were detained in an immigration enforcement action at a Hyundai factory in Georgia on Thursday, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

    • In a press briefing Friday, the special agent in charge of the effort said the department executed a judicial search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices at the factory where the South Korean auto giant manufactures electric vehicles.

    • No criminal charges have been filed in what Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge Steven Schrank said was the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of DHS investigations
    • A majority of the 475 people who were detained were South Korean nationals, and all were illegally present in the United States or working unlawfully in the country, Schrank said

    “This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians and Americans, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy and protecting workers from exploitation,” Homeland Security Special Agent in Charge Steven Schrank said Friday.

    No criminal charges have been filed in what Schrank said was the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security investigations.

    A majority of the 475 people who were detained were South Korean nationals, and all were illegally present in the United States or working unlawfully in the country, Schrank said. He added that they had entered the country through a variety of means, including illegally crossing the border, entering through a visa waiver that prohibited them from working and overstaying visas. 

    “Each individual was questioned on their status,” Schrank said. “Their documents were checked.”

    Those determined to be illegally present have been turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for removal.

    The arrests were the result of a monthslong investigation conducted through a collaboration of agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security; ICE; the U.S. Labor Department; the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the IRS; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Georgia State Patrol. 

    Thursday’s raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea’s biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.

    ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed that federal authorities conducted an enforcement operation at the 3,000-acre site west of Savannah, Georgia. He said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant.

    In a televised statement, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jae Myung said the country is taking active measures to address the case, dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team centered on the local mission.

    “The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” he said.

    At an event with President Donald Trump earlier this year, Hyundai announced it would invest an additional $5 billion in the United States, on top of an already announced $21 billion it had committed for U.S. investments from 2025 to 2028. The company plans to build a new steel plant in Louisiana, expand its U.S. auto production and create a robotics innovation hub.

    Trump’s administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.

    The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.

    Hyundai and LG’s battery joint venture, HL-GA Battery Company, said in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities” and paused construction of the battery site to assist their work.

    Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson.

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    Susan Carpenter, Associated Press

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  • U.S. job openings slipped to 7.2M in July, more evidence labor market is cooling

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    WASHINGTON — U.S. employers posted 7.2 million job vacancies in July as the American labor market continues to cool.

    What You Need To Know

    • U.S. employers posted 7.2 million job vacancies in July as the American labor market continued to cool

    • The Labor Department reported Wednesday that job openings were down from 7.4 million in June and came in modestly below what economists had forecast

    • The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs rose

    • The number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their ability to find better pay, opportunities or working conditions elsewhere — was almost unchanged at 3.2 million from June

    The Labor Department reported Wednesday that job openings fell from 7.4 million in June and came in modestly below what economists had forecast.

    The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs rose slightly. The number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their ability to find better pay, opportunities or working conditions elsewhere — was almost unchanged from June at 3.2 million.

    Jobs openings remain at healthy levels but have fallen steadily since peaking at a record 12.1 million in March 2022 as the U.S. economy roared back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

    The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 and partly because President Donald Trump’s trade wars have created uncertainty that is paralyzing managers making hiring decisions.

    On Friday, the Labor Department will put out unemployment and hiring numbers for August. They are expected to show that businesses, government agencies and nonprofits added nearly 80,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. That would mark a modest improvement on the disappointing 73,000 they created in July.

    Worse than the lackluster July hiring figures were Labor Department revisions that slashed a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. A furious Trump responded to the bad numbers by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the technocratic agency that compiles the statistics, and nominating a partisan idealogue to replace her.

    So far this year, the economy has been generating 85,000 jobs a month, down from 168,000 last year and an average 400,000 a month during the hiring boom of 2021-2023.

    In a time of uncertainty, employers are less likely to hire, but they’re not letting workers go either. Layoffs remain below pre-pandemic levels.

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    Associated Press

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  • Gov. Greg Abbott vows to swiftly sign redrawn congressional map favoring GOP

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    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate gave final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map early Saturday, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Texas Senate has given final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map with five new districts that would favor Republicans, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature

    • President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections

    • The Republican Abbott is expected to quickly sign it into law. Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court, however

    • The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country

    President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. It has five new districts that would favor Republicans.

    Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement Saturday morning that he plans to swiftly sign the redrawn map into law.

    “I promised we would get this done, and delivered on that promise,” the Texas governor said.

    However, Democrats have vowed to challenge the redistricting in court.

    The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.

    Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the Senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage.

    State Sen. Carol Alvarado, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, announced on social media that she planned to filibuster the bill with a long speech and intended to speak for several hours. But just when she expected to start, the Senate broke for a long dinner break.

    When members returned, Alvarado never had a chance to filibuster because Republicans accused her of breaking Senate rules by attempting to fundraise off the coming filibuster.

    Sen. Charles Perry said it “appears to be potentially unlawful, at least unethical, using state resources for a campaign purpose.”

    A spokesperson for Alvarado did not immediately respond to an email and phone call from The Associated Press.

    “Shutting down a filibuster over a fundraising email is unprecedented,” Democratic Sen. Sarah Eckhardt said in a post on social media platform X. “It exposes the hypocrisy of Republicans, who will turn around and raise millions off stealing Texans’ votes while silencing their voices.”

    The weekslong showdown has roiled the Texas Legislature, marked by a Democratic walkout and threats of arrest from Republicans. Much of the drama unfolded in the House, where the map ultimately passed Wednesday.

    Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing Republican Sen. Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race.

    King vehemently denied that accusation, saying, “I had two goals in mind: That all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas.”

    “There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the House if the map does not pass, King said.

    The showdown has also inflamed a broader, state-by-state redistricting battle, with governors from both parties pledging to redraw congressional maps.

    California Democrats approved legislation Thursday calling for a special election in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more House seats next year. Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly signed it.

    “This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that I’d be doing,” Newsom said. “This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas.”

    California’s map needs voter approval because, unlike in Texas, a nonpartisan commission normally draws the map to avoid the sort of political battle that is playing out.

    On Friday, Abbott called California’s redistricting “a joke” and asserted that Texas’ new map is constitutional but California’s would be overturned.

    Battle for the House waged via redistricting

    On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The incumbent president’s party usually loses seats in the midterms.

    The Texas redraw is already reshaping the 2026 race, with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, announcing Thursday that he will not seek reelection to his Austin-based seat if the new map takes effect. Under the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of another Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar.

    The president has pushed other Republican-controlled states including Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.

    “Republicans are not finished in the United States,” Abbott said.

    Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to redraw district lines.

    ‘Fight fire with fire’

    More Democratic-run states have commission systems like California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, cannot draw new maps until 2028, and even then only with voter approval.

    Republicans and some Democrats championed a 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with a 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps.

    Both sides have shown concern over what the redistricting war could lead to.

    California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” is dangerous.

    “You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • DOJ releases transcripts of interviews with Epstein ex-girlfriend Maxwell

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    WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.

    What You Need To Know

    • Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump

    • That’s according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer

    • The Trump administration issued hundreds of pages of transcripts from interviews Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month

    • The administration has scrambled to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose records from the sex-trafficking case

    The Trump administration issued transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

    The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case.

    The transcript release represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trump’s base as they send Congress evidence they had previously kept from view.

    After her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas to continue serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on allegations that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her trial featured sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s homes.

    Neither Maxwell’s lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.”

    ‘Never inappropriate’

    “I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

    Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.

    Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump “had done anything inappropriate with masseuses” or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”

    Maxwell was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.

    Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim’s information.

    High-profile contacts

    The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation.

    Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epstein’s, and that she never saw him receive a massage — nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epstein’s plane.

    “That would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage,” Maxwell said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”

    She also spoke glowingly of Britain’s Prince Andrew and dismissed as “rubbish” the late Virginia Giuffre’s claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwell’s London home.

    Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epstein’s conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to “encompass children.”

    “I did see from when I met him, he was involved or — involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s,” she told Blanche. “And then the slide to, you know, 18 or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior.”

    Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.

    A story that’s consumed the Justice Department

    The saga has consumed the Trump administration following a two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department last month that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

    The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup. That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.

    Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein’s “black book” was under the “direct control of the director of the FBI.”

    The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

    After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

    But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

    Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as “weaklings” supporters who he said were falling for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

    The Justice Department has responded to a subpoena from House lawmakers by pledging to turn over information.

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    Associated Press

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  • FBI searches home and office of ex-Trump national security adviser John Bolton

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    Bolton served as Trump’s third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea.

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • U.S. measles count nears 1,200 cases as the Texas outbreak continues to slow

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    The U.S. logged fewer than 30 measles cases this week as Ohio health officials confirmed three outbreaks in two counties were over.

    What You Need To Know

    • There are 1,168 confirmed measles cases in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday

    • Health officials in Texas, where the nation’s biggest outbreak raged during the late winter and spring, said they’ll now post case counts only once a week

    • Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs

    • The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine

    There have been 1,197 confirmed measles cases this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Health officials in Texas, where the nation’s biggest outbreak raged during the late winter and spring, confirmed two cases in the last week.

    There are three other major outbreaks in North America. The longest, in Ontario, Canada, has resulted in 2,083 cases from mid-October through June 10. The province logged its first death June 5 in a baby who got congenital measles but also had other preexisting conditions.

    Another outbreak in Alberta, Canada, has sickened 868 as of Thursday. And the Mexican state of Chihuahua had 2,179 measles cases and four deaths as of Friday, according to data from the state health ministry.

    Other U.S. states with active outbreaks — which the CDC defines as three or more related cases — include Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

    In the U.S., two elementary school-aged children in the epicenter in West Texas and an adult in New Mexico have died of measles this year. All were unvaccinated.

    Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.

    How many measles cases are there in Texas?

    There are a total of 744 cases across 35 counties, most of them in West Texas, state health officials said Tuesday.

    Throughout the outbreak, 96 people have been hospitalized.

    State health officials estimated less than 1% of cases — fewer than 10 — are actively infectious. Fifty-five percent of Texas’ cases are in Gaines County, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has had 411 cases since late January — just under 2% of the county’s residents.

    The April 3 death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Local health officials said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child’s doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A unvaccinated child with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February; Kennedy said the child was 6.

    How many measles cases are there in New Mexico?

    New Mexico held steady Friday with a total of 81 cases.

    Seven people have been hospitalized since the outbreak started. Most of the state’s cases are in Lea County. Sandoval County near Albuquerque has six cases, Eddy County has three, Doña Ana County has two. Chaves, Curry and San Juan counties have one each.

    An unvaccinated adult died of measles-related illness March 6. The person did not seek medical care.

    How many cases are there in Oklahoma?

    Oklahoma stayed steady Friday with a total of 16 confirmed and three probable cases.

    The state health department is not releasing which counties have cases.

    How many cases are there in Arizona?

    Arizona has four cases in Navajo County. They are linked to a single source, the county health department said Monday. All four were unvaccinated and had a history of recent international travel.

    How many cases are there in Colorado?

    Colorado has seen a total of 14 measles cases in 2025, which includes one outbreak of eight related cases.

    The outbreak is linked to a Turkish Airlines flight that landed at Denver International Airport in mid-May, and includes four cases in Arapahoe County, three in El Paso County and one in Denver, plus a person who doesn’t live in Colorado.

    Other counties that have seen measles this year include Archuleta and Pueblo.

    How many cases are there in Illinois?

    Illinois health officials confirmed a four-case outbreak on May 5 in the far southern part of the state. It grew to eight cases as of June 6, but no new cases were reported in the following week, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

    The state’s other two cases so far this year were in Cook County, and are unrelated to the southern Illinois outbreak.

    How many cases are there in Kansas?

    Kansas has a total of 76 cases across 11 counties in the southwestern part of the state, with three hospitalizations. All but two of the cases are connected, and most are in Gray County.

    How many cases are there in Montana?

    Montana had 20 measles cases as of Tuesday. Twelve were in Gallatin County, which is where the first cases showed up — Montana’s first in 35 years.

    Flathead and Yellowstone counties had two cases each, and Hill County had four cases.

    There are outbreaks in neighboring North Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

    How many cases are there in North Dakota?

    North Dakota, which hadn’t seen measles since 2011, was up to 34 cases as of June 6, but has held steady since. Two of the people have been hospitalized, and all of the people with confirmed cases were not vaccinated.

    There were 16 cases in Williams County in western North Dakota on the Montana border. On the eastern side of the state, there were 10 cases in Grand Forks County and seven cases in Cass County. Burke County, in northwest North Dakota on the border of Saskatchewan, Canada, had one case.

    Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?

    Measles cases also have been reported this year in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

    Earlier outbreaks in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania were declared over by health officials after six weeks of no new cases. Tennessee’s outbreak also appears to be over.

    Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. The CDC said in May that more than twice as many measles have come from outside of the U.S. compared to May of last year, and most of those are in unvaccinated Americans returning home. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.

    What do you need to know about the MMR vaccine?

    The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.

    Getting another MMR shot as an adult is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says. People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said.

    People who have documentation that they had measles are immune, and those born before 1957 generally don’t need the shots because so many children got measles back then that they have “presumptive immunity.”

    Measles has a harder time spreading through communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — due to “herd immunity.” But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots.

    What are the symptoms of measles?

    Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.

    The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.

    Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.

    How can you treat measles?

    There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.

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    Associated Press

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  • It’s the first day of Atlantic hurricane season

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    Today is the first day of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. Here are some helpful resources to help you and your family prepare.

    How to prepare?

    Even if you are not in a storm’s path, there are ways to prepare in advance that will make it easier for you when the time comes. It’s important to know if you live in an evacuation zone, and if so, to develop an evacuation plan for you and your family.

    You can assemble a hurricane kit, including items like non-perishable food for your family and pets, water, flashlights, a first aid kit and more.

    Also, reviewing your insurance plans if you own a home and to sign up for flood insurance if it is a separate plan.

    Here is a full breakdown of how to prepare you and your family and what you can do today.

    This year’s forecast

    NOAA and Colorado State University are both predicting above normal activity this season.

    This year’s forecast includes several factors, primarily continued ENSO-neutral conditions, warmer than average ocean temperatures, forecasts for weak wind shear and the potential for higher activity from the West African Monsoon, a primary starting point for Atlantic hurricanes.

    More resources

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

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    Meteorologist Reid Lybarger

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  • Florida wins its third national title, rallying for 65-63 victory

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    SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Florida and Walter Clayton Jr. somehow overcame Houston’s spirit-crushing defense Monday night to will out a 65-63 victory in an NCAA title-game thriller not decided until Clayton’s own D stopped the Cougars from taking a game-winning shot at the buzzer.

    Clayton finished with 11 points, all in the second half, but what he’ll be remembered for most was getting Houston’s Emanuel Sharp to stop in the middle of his motion as he tried to go up for the game-winning 3 in the final seconds.

    Clayton ran at him, Sharp dropped the ball and, unable to pick it up lest he get called for traveling, watched it bounce there while the clock ticked to zero.

    Will Richard had 18 points to keep the Gators (36-4) in it, and they won their third overall title and first since 2007. The Cougars (35-5) and coach Kelvin Sampson were denied their first championship.

    This was a defensive brawl, and for most of the night, Clayton got the worst of it.

    He was 0 for 4 from the field without a point through the first half. He didn’t score until 14:57 remained in the game. He finished with one 3-pointer and, before that, a pair of three-point plays that kept the Gators in striking range.

    It was Florida’s defense, not Houston’s, that controlled the final minute.

    After Alijah Martin made two free throws to put Florida ahead 64-63 — its first lead since 8-6 — the Gators lured Sharp into a triple-team in the corner, where Richard got him to dribble the ball off his leg and out of bounds.

    Florida made one free throw on the next possession and that set up the finale. The ball went to Sharp, who was moving to spot up for a 3 when Clayton ran at him. That left him with no choice but to let the ball go.

    Sampson, who designed a defense that held Florida under 70 points for only the second time this season, looked on in shock.

    Instead of Sampson becoming the oldest coach to win the title at age 69, 39-year-old Todd Golden becomes the youngest since N.C. State’s Jim Valvano in 1983 to win it all.

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    Associated Press

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  • A frigid storm drops rare snow as Florida readies plows in the Panhandle

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A rare frigid storm charged through Texas and the northern Gulf Coast on Tuesday, blanketing New Orleans and Houston with snow that closed highways, grounded nearly all flights and canceled school for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.

    What You Need To Know

    • New Orleans shattered its all-time snowfall record with more than 9 inches in parts of the city

    • Florida also broke its all-time snowfall record, more than doubling the old record of 4 inches

    • The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border



    The storm prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, and snowplows were at the ready in the Florida Panhandle.

    In the Texas capital, two people died in the cold weather, according to a statement from the city of Austin. No details were provided, but the city said emergency crews had responded to more than a dozen “cold exposure” calls. Officials said one person died from hypothermia in Georgia.

    Snow covered the white-sand beaches of normally sunny vacation spots, including Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, Florida. The heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain hitting parts of the Deep South came as a blast of Arctic air plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.

    A powdery South made for some head-turning scenes — a snowball fight on a Gulf Shores beach, sledding in a laundry basket in Montgomery, Alabama, pool-tubing down a Houston hill.

    One of the country’s quirkiest cities, New Orleans, didn’t disappoint under the snowy spotlight. There was an attempt at urban skiing along Bourbon Street; a priest and nuns in a snowball fight outside a suburban church; snowboarding behind a golf cart; and sledding down the snow-covered Mississippi River levees on kayaks, cardboard boxes and inflatable alligators.


    High school teacher David Delio and his two daughters glided down the levee on a yoga mat and a boogie board.

    “This is a white-out in New Orleans, this is a snow-a-cane,” Delio said. “We’ve had tons of hurricane days but never a snow day.”

    The nuns at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School near New Orleans encouraged their students last week to pray to saints, including Our Lady of the Snows — a devotional term for Mary, mother of Jesus — for the snow day they received Tuesday, said the Rev. Tim Hedrick. The priest said he invited the nuns to make snow angels, and they challenged him to a snowball fight that has since received tens of thousands of views on social media.

    “It’s a fun way to show that priests and sisters are humans, too, and they can have fun,” Hedrick said.

    It has been more than a decade since snow last fell on New Orleans. With more than 9 inches of snow in parts of the city Tuesday, New Orleans has far surpassed its record — 2.7 inches on Dec. 31, 1963 — according to the National Weather Service. There were unofficial reports of 10 inches of snow in New Orleans in 1895, NWS meteorologist Christopher Bannan said.

    For Houston, the winter blast marks the latest dramatic fluctuation in extreme weather. Hurricane Beryl devastated the city in July, killing dozens and knocking out power to large swaths of the city. Several months later, a winter storm has dumped the most snow in decades over the Houston area.


    Nearly 2,000 flights to, from or within the U.S. were canceled Tuesday, with about 10,000 others delayed, according to online tracker FlightAware.com. Both Houston airports suspended flight operations starting Tuesday. Nearly every flight was cancelled at New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport, but most airlines planned to resume operations Wednesday.

    Alvaro Perez was hunkering down at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston on Tuesday after his flight to El Salvador was canceled. His new departure is scheduled for Thursday.

    “I’ll just ride it and stay here,” Perez said.

    Snow on the Gulf Coast

    Ahead of the storm, governors in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and even Florida — the Sunshine State — declared states of emergency and many school systems canceled classes Tuesday. School closures were planned in some coastal communities in North and South Carolina.

    The NWS said up to 4 inches of snow fell in the Houston area. Texas transportation officials said more than 20 snowplows were in use across nearly 12,000 lane miles in the Houston area, which lacks its own city or county plows.

    Forecasters say snowfall could stretch from north Georgia, through Atlanta, and into southern portions unaccustomed to such weather.

    Parts of the Florida Panhandle were coated white Tuesday. Tallahassee, Florida’s capital, last saw snow in 2018 — just 0.1 of an inch, according to the weather service. Tallahassee’s highest snowfall on record was 2.8 inches in 1958.

    “Believe it or not, in the state of Florida we’re mobilizing snowplows,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.


    Mobile, Alabama, hit 5.4 inches and counting Tuesday, topping the city’s one-day snowfall record of 5 inches, set Jan. 24, 1881, and nearing its all-time snowfall record of 6 inches in 1895, the weather service said.

    The blizzard warning in effect until midday Tuesday was the first issued by the office in Lake Charles, Louisiana, according to meteorologist Donald Jones.

    Louisiana transportation agency workers worked through the night to prepare bridges and roadways. Nonetheless, Louisiana State Police said they have already responded to more than 50 crashes Tuesday, and pleaded for people to stay home.

    Return of the Arctic blast

    This latest cold snap comes from a disruption in the polar vortex, the ring of cold air usually trapped at the North Pole.

    Frigid cold persisted across the eastern two-thirds of the country as the East Coast was blanketed in snow while people from the Northern Plains to the tip of Maine shivered in bitter cold. The NWS said normal temperatures would return slowly by the end of the week.

    A state of emergency was declared in at least a dozen New York counties with up to 2 feet of lake-effect snow and extreme cold expected around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through Wednesday.

    Wind chills are expected to reach minus 30 to minus 50 across the Dakotas and into the Upper Midwest through Friday, the NWS warned. Subzero wind chills were forecast from the Central Plains eastward through Wednesday night.

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    Associated Press

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  • Harris and Trump making furious last-day pushes before Election Day

    Harris and Trump making furious last-day pushes before Election Day

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    A presidential campaign that has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day.

    What You Need To Know

    • The presidential campaign comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day

    • This year’s race has careened through a felony trial, an incumbent president being pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts

    • Kamala Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome

    • Donald Trump makes four stops in three states, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan

    Kamala Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. The vice president and Democratic nominee will visit working-class areas including Allentown and end with a late-night Philadelphia rally that includes Lady Gaga and Oprah Winfrey.

    Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina, and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh. The Republican nominee and former president ends his campaign the way he ended the first two, with a late Monday night event in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

    About 77 million Americans already have voted early, but Harris and Trump are pushing to turn out many millions more supporters Tuesday. Either result on Election Day will yield a historic outcome.

    A Trump victory would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony, after his hush-money trial in New York. He will gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become the second president in history to win non-consecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

    Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office, four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming President Joe Biden’s second in command.

    The vice president ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket after Biden’s disastrous performance in a June debate set into motion his withdrawing from the race. That was just one of a series of convulsions that have hit this year’s campaign.

    Trump survived by millimeters a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. His Secret Service detail foiled a second attempt in September when a gunman had set up a rifle as Trump golfed at one of his courses in Florida.

    Harris, 60, has played down the historic nature of her candidacy, which materialized only after the 81-year-old president ended his reelection bid after his June debate against the 78-year-old Trump accentuated questions about Biden’s age.

    Instead, Harris has pitched herself as a generational change, emphasized her support for abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision ending the constitutional right to abortion services and regularly noted the former president’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Assembling a coalition ranging from progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York to Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, Harris has called Trump a threat to democracy and late in the campaign even embraced the critique that Trump is accurately described as a “fascist.”

    Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump. She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus, while sounding an almost exclusively optimistic tone reminiscent of her campaign’s opening days when she embraced “the politics of joy” and the campaign theme “Freedom.”

    “From the very start, our campaign has not been about being against something, it is about being for something,” Harris said Sunday evening at Michigan State University.

    Trump, renewing his “Make America Great Again” and “America First” slogans, has made his hard-line approach to immigration and withering criticisms of Harris and Biden the anchors of his argument for a second administration. He’s hammered Democrats for an inflationary economy, and he’s pledged to lead an economic “golden age,” end international conflicts and seal the U.S. southern border.

    But Trump also has veered often into grievances over being prosecuted after trying to overturn Biden’s victory and repeatedly denigrated the country he wants to lead again as a “failed nation.” As recently as Sunday, he renewed his false claims that U.S. elections are rigged against him, mused about violence against journalists and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House in 2021 — dark turns that have overshadowed another anchor of his closing argument: “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.”

    The election is likely to be decided across seven states. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to see them flip to Biden in 2020. North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada add the Sun Belt swath of the presidential battleground map.

    Trump won North Carolina twice and lost Nevada twice. He won Arizona and Georgia in 2016 but saw them slip to Democrats in 2020.

    Harris’ team has projected confidence in recent days, pointing to a large gender gap in early voting data and research showing late-deciding voters have broken her way. They also believe in the strength of their campaign infrastructure. This weekend, the Harris campaign had more than 90,000 volunteers helping turn out voters — and knocked on more than 3 million doors across the battleground states. Still, Harris aides have insisted she remains the underdog.

    Trump’s team has projected confidence, as well, arguing that the former president’s populist appeal will attract younger and working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. The idea is that Trump can amass an atypical Republican coalition, even as other traditional GOP blocs — notably college-educated voters — become more Democratic.

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    Associated Press

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  • Francine made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane along coastal Louisiana

    Francine made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane along coastal Louisiana

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    Francine formed into a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, Sept. 9, becoming the sixth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

    What You Need To Know

    • Francine made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane in Louisiana

    • It was the sixth named storm and fourth hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season

    • It brought dangerous storm surge, widespread flooding and strong winds to the Deep South


    It became a hurricane on Tuesday, Sept. 10. It slowly strengthened as it moved northeast in the Gulf, eventually becoming a Category 2 hurricane before moving inland.

    Francine made landfall on Wednesday, Sept. 11, in Terrebonne Parish, La, as a Category 2 storm with maximum winds of 100 mph. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport reported a wind gust of 78 mph Wednesday night and 7.32 inches of rain in 24 hours. 

    At the storm’s peak, 450,000 people in Louisiana were estimated to be without power. Many of the outages were attributed to falling debris, not structural damage. At one point, around 500 people were in emergency shelters, officials said.

    It moved inland Wednesday night and by Thursday morning, Sept. 12 it had weakened to a tropical storm. By the afternoon it became post-tropical, but continued to spin rain along the Deep South. 

    The remnant low brought rain as far north as the drought-stricken Mid-Mississippi River Valley and Tennessee Valley.


    Here’s a look at the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season so far.

    More Storm Season Resources


    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

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    Spectrum News Staff

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  • Boeing factory workers go on strike after rejecting contract offer

    Boeing factory workers go on strike after rejecting contract offer

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    Aircraft assembly workers walked off the job early Friday at Boeing factories near Seattle and elsewhere after union members voted overwhelmingly to go on strike and reject a tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years.

    What You Need To Know

    • Aircraft assembly workers have walked off the job at Boeing factories near Seattle and elsewhere after union members voted overwhelmingly to reject a tentative contract that would have increased wages by 25% over four years

    • The strike started at 12:01 a.m. PDT Friday, less than three hours after the local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced 96% of voting workers rejected the proposed contract and 96% approved the work stoppage

    • The labor action involves 33,000 Boeing machinists, most of them in Washington state
    • It’s expected to shut down production of Boeing’s best-selling airline planes but not affect commercial flights

    The strike started at 12:01 a.m. PDT, less than three hours after the local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced 94.6% of voting workers rejected the proposed contract and 96% approved the work stoppage, easily surpassing a two-thirds requirement.

    The labor action involves 33,000 Boeing machinists, most of them in Washington state, and is expected to shut down production of the company’s best-selling airline planes. The strike will not affect commercial flights but represents another setback for the aerospace giant, whose reputation and finances have been battered by manufacturing problems and multiple federal investigations this year.

    The striking machinists assemble the 737 Max, Boeing’s best-selling airliner, along with the 777, or “triple-seven” jet, and the 767 cargo plane at factories in Renton and Everett, Washington. The walkout likely will not stop production of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which are built by nonunion workers in South Carolina.

    Outside the Renton factory, people stood with signs reading, “Historic contract my ass” and “Have you seen the damn housing prices?” Car horns honked and a boom box played songs such as Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.”

    The machinists make $75,608 per year on average, not counting overtime, and that would rise to $106,350 at the end of the four-year contract, according to Boeing.

    However, the deal fell short of the union’s initial demand for pay raises of 40% over three years. The union also wanted to restore traditional pensions that were axed a decade ago but settled for an increase in new Boeing contributions of up to $4,160 per worker to employee 401(k) retirement accounts.

    Under the rejected contract, workers would have received $3,000 lump sum payments and a reduced share of health care costs. Boeing also had met a key union demand by agreeing to build its next new plane in Washington state.

    Several workers said they considered the wage offer inadequate and were upset by a recent company decision to change the criteria on which annual bonuses are paid. Toolmaker John Olson, 45, said he has received a 2% percent raise during his six years at Boeing.

    “The last contract we negotiated was 16 years ago and the company is basing the wage increases off of wages from 16 years ago,” Olson said. “They don’t even keep up with the cost of inflation that is currently happening right now.”

    Boeing responded to the strike announcement by saying it was “ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement.”

    “The message was clear that the tentative agreement we reached with IAM leadership was not acceptable to the members. We remain committed to resetting our relationship with our employees and the union,” the company said in a statement.

    Very little has gone right for Boeing this year, from a panel blowing out and leaving a gaping hole in one of its passenger jets in January to NASA leaving two astronauts in space rather sending them home on a problem-plagued Boeing spacecraft.

    As long as the strike lasts, it will deprive the company of much-needed cash it gets from delivering new planes to airlines. That will be another challenge for new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who six weeks ago was given the job of turning around a company that has lost more than $25 billion in the last six years and fallen behind European rival Airbus.

    Ortberg made a last-ditch effort to salvage a deal that had unanimous backing from the union’s negotiators. He told machinists Wednesday that “no one wins” in a walkout and a strike would put Boeing’s recovery in jeopardy and raise more doubt about the company in the eyes of its airline customers.

    “For Boeing, it is no secret that our business is in a difficult period, in part due to our own mistakes in the past,” he said. “Working together, I know that we can get back on track, but a strike would put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together.”

    The head of the union local, IAM District 751 President Jon Holden, said Ortberg faced a difficult position because machinists were bitter about stagnant wages and concessions they have made since 2008 on pensions and health care to prevent the company from moving jobs elsewhere.

    “This is about respect, this is about the past, and this is about fighting for our future,” Holden said in announcing the strike.

    The vote also was a rebuke to Holden and union negotiators, who recommended workers approve the contract offer. Holden, who had predicted workers would vote to strike, said the union would survey members to decide which issues they want to stress when negotiations resume.

    Depending on how long the strike lasts, suspension of airplane production could prove costly for the beleaguered Boeing. An eight-week strike in 2008, the longest at Boeing since a 10-week walkout in 1995, cost the company about $100 million daily in deferred revenue.

    Before the tentative agreement was announced Sunday, Jefferies aerospace analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu estimated a strike would cost the company about $3 billion based on the 2008 strike plus inflation and current airplane-production rates.

    Solomon Hammond, 33, another Renton toolmaker, said he was prepared to strike indefinitely to secure a better contract.

    Boeing’s offer “just doesn’t line up with the current climate. The wages are just too low,” Hammond said. “I make $47 an hour and work paycheck to paycheck. Everything costs more.”

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  • Trump seeks to tie Harris to Afghanistan War withdrawal

    Trump seeks to tie Harris to Afghanistan War withdrawal

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    Former President Donald Trump on Monday working to tie Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 service members.

    Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, laid wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of three of the slain service members — Sgt. Nicole Gee, Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover and Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. Later in the day, he was going to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.

    What You Need To Know

    • Former President Donald Trump is working to tie Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 service members

    • He visited Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to the service members killed in the bombing outside the Kabul airport
    • Trump will then go to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference

    • Last week, Trump pointed to comments by Harris that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan

    Monday marks three years since the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed 13 American service members and more than 100 Afghans. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

    On his Truth Social site Monday, Trump called the withdrawal “the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country. Gross Incompetence – 13 DEAD American soldiers, hundreds of people wounded and dead.”

    “You don’t take our soldiers out first, you take them out LAST, when all else is successfully done,” he said in the post.

    Since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump has been zeroing in on Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and her roles in foreign policy decisions. He has specifically highlighted the vice president’s statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan.

    “She bragged that she would be the last person in the room, and she was. She was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan,” he said last week in a North Carolina rally. “She had the final vote. She had the final say, and she was all for it.”

    In her own statement marking the anniversary of the Kabul airport attack, Harris said she mourns the 13 U.S. service members who were killed. “My prayers are with their families and loved ones. My heart breaks for their pain and their loss,” she said.

    Harris said she honors and remembers all Americans who served in Afghanistan.

    “As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war. Over the past three years, our Administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones,” she said. “I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people.”

    The relatives of some of the American service members who were killed appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention last month, saying Biden had never publicly named their loved ones.

    “Joe Biden has refused to recognize their sacrifice,” Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Gee, told the crowd. “Donald Trump knew all of our children’s names. He knew all of their stories.”

    In a statement Monday on the Kabul attack anniversary, Biden said the 13 Americans who died were “patriots in the highest sense” who “embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless.”

    “Ever since I became Vice President, I carried a card with me every day that listed the exact number of American service members who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—including Taylor, Johanny, Nicole, Hunter, Daegan, Humberto, David, Jared, Rylee, Dylan, Kareem, Maxton, and Ryan,” Biden said.

    Also Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that Congress will posthumously honor the 13 service members by presenting their families with the Congressional Gold Medal next month. It’s the highest civilian award that Congress can bestow.

    Under Trump, the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that was aimed at ending America’s longest war and bringing U.S. troops home. Biden later pointed to that agreement as he sought to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan, saying it bound him to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that engulfed the country.

    A Biden administration review of the withdrawal acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but attributed the delays to the Afghan government and military, and to U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.

    The top two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation said the administration inadequately planned for the withdrawal. The nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, told lawmakers earlier this year he had urged Biden to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces to give backup. Instead, Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the U.S. embassy.

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  • Walz accepts vice presidential nomination on DNC’s penultimate night

    Walz accepts vice presidential nomination on DNC’s penultimate night

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    On the penultimate night of the Democratic National Convention, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took the stage in Chicago and said that, “it’s the honor of my life to accept your nomination for vice president of the United States.”

    What You Need To Know

    • Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted the Democratic vice presidential nomination on Wednesday night, calling it “the honor of my life”

    • Delving into his backstory, Walz talked about growing up in a small Nebraska town, joining the Army National Guard and becoming a high school teacher and football coach; he said his players and students inspired him to run for Congress in 2006, when he won in a historically red district

    • Walz framed his pitch of Democrats’ “freedom agenda” around his struggle with having children with his wife Gwen

    • Per C-SPAN, at about 15 minutes, Walz’s VP acceptance speech was the shortest in the last 30 years, but he closed with a pep talk as he sought to rally Democrats



    Delving into his backstory, Walz talked about growing up in a small Nebraska town, joining the Army National Guard and becoming a high school teacher and football coach.

    He said his players and students inspired him to run for Congress in 2006, when he won in a historically red district.

    “They saw in me what I had hoped to instill in them: a commitment to the common good, an understanding that we’re all in this together and the belief that a single person can make a real difference for their neighbors,” Walz said.

    “There I was, a 40-something high school teacher with kids, zero political experience, and no money, running in a deep red district,” he continued. “But you know what? Never underestimate a public schoolteacher. Never.”

    Walz listed his proudest accomplishments from his time as governor, including cutting taxes, passing paid family and medical leave, investing in law enforcement and affordable housing, lowering prescription drug costs, and guaranteeing free school breakfast and lunches for students. 

    “While other states were banning books from their schools, we were banishing hunger from ours,” he said.

    He also signed a bill into law protecting abortions and other reproductive health care. 

    “Because in Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make,” Walz said. “And even if we wouldn’t make those same choices for ourselves, we’ve got a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”

    Walz talks of his family’s fertility struggles as he pitches Democrats’ ‘freedom’ agenda

    Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, second from right, poses with his wife Gwen Walz, from right, son Gus Walz and daughter Hope Walz after speaking during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz framed his pitch of Democrats’ “freedom agenda” around his struggle with having children with his wife Gwen.

    “If you’ve never experienced the hell that is in fertility, I guarantee you you know somebody who has, and I can remember praying each night for a phone call, the pit in your stomach when the phone had rung, and the absolute agony when we heard the treatments hadn’t worked,” Walz said. “It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments, and when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.”

    He then turned to his wife, daughter and son Gus and told them “you are my entire world and I love you.”

    His children, looking on at their dad giving his speech, were in tears. Hope made a heart sign with her hands, while Gus stood up, sobbing, and shouted, “That’s my dad!”

    Gus Walz cries as Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

    “I’m letting you in on how we started a family, because this is a big part about what this election is about: freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office. Corporations, free to pollute your air and water, and banks, free to take advantage of customers,” Walz said. “But when we Democrats talk about freedom, we mean the freedom to make a better life for yourself and the people that you love, freedom to make your own health care decisions, and, yeah, your kids freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot dead in the hall.”

    Walz then spoke of his relationship with guns as a veteran and a hunter and how he evolved on the issue of gun control. He boasted of being “a better shot than most Republicans in Congress, and I got the trophies to prove it.”

    “That’s what this is all about, the responsibility we have to our kids, to each other and to the future that we’re building together, in which everyone is free to build the kind of life they want, but not everyone has that same sense of responsibility,” Walz said. “Some folks just don’t understand what it takes to be a good neighbor.”

    Among those folks, Walz named Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, pinning them to the right-wing presidential transition plan Project 2025 crafted by Trump allies and former administration officials that they’ve attempted to distance themselves from.

    “Look, I coached high school football long enough to know and trust me on this. When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re going to use it,” Walz said. “Here’s the thing, it’s an agenda nobody asked for. It’s an agenda that serves nobody except the richest and the most extreme amongst us. it’s an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need.”

    “Is it weird? Absolutely, absolutely,” he continued. “But it’s also wrong and it’s dangerous.”

    ‘Coach’ Walz closes with a pep talk, urging Dems to fight for every inch on the campaign trail

    Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

    In his short time on the campaign trail, Walz hasn’t been known for long, drawn out orations – in fact, per C-SPAN, his speech was the shortest in the last 30 years, beating Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Dan Quayle in 1992 and, ironically, Kamala Harris in 2020, who each spoke for 18.5 minutes – which he was happy to admit fairly quickly into his truncated acceptance speech.

    “You might not know it, but I haven’t given a lot of big speeches like this…but I have given a lot of pep talks, so let me finish with this, team,” Walz said, before breaking deep into football metaphors.

    “It’s the fourth quarter. We’re down a field goal, but we’re on offense and we’ve got the ball; we’re driving down the field, and boy, do we have the right team,” Walz said, boasting about his quarterback. “Kamala Harris is tough, Kamala Harris is experienced and Kamala Harris is ready. Our job, for everyone watching, is to get in the trenches, do the blocking and tackling, one inch at a time, one phone call at a time, one door knock at a time.”

    In other words, he said, this campaign won’t be won by long-bomb Hail Mary passes to a streaking receiver over the outstretched hands of a pack of defenders — it’ll be won in a scrap, bulldozing forward, just the way Walz (who, as he noted, ran a big lineman- and linebacker-heavy 4-4 defense as a high school football coach) likes it.

    “We got 76 days. That’s nothing. There’ll be time to sleep when we’re dead. We’re going to leave it on the field,” he said, building toward a raspy-voiced football coach’s crescendo. “That’s how we’ll keep moving forward, that’s how we’ll turn the page on Donald Trump, that’s how we’ll build a country where workers come first, health care and housing are human rights and the government stays the hell out of your bedroom…that’s how we’re going to fight. 

    “And as the next President of the United States always says, when we fight, we win!” Walz said, as Neil Young’s anthem “Rockin’ in the Free World” began to blare.

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    Joseph Konig

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  • U.S. inflation slowed again in July, clearing way for Fed to begin cutting rates

    U.S. inflation slowed again in July, clearing way for Fed to begin cutting rates

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    Year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading and setting up the Federal Reserve for an interest rate cut in September.

    What You Need To Know

    • Year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July, the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading and setting up the Federal Reserve for an interest rate cut in September

    • Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose just 0.2% from June to July after dropping slightly the previous month for the first time in four years

    • Measured from a year earlier, prices rose 2.9%, down from 3% in June

    • It is the mildest year-over-year inflation figure since March 2021

    Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that consumer prices rose just 0.2% from June to July after dropping slightly the previous month for the first time in four years. Measured from a year earlier, prices rose 2.9%, down from 3% in June. It is the mildest year-over-year inflation figure since March 2021.

    The government said nearly all the increase last month reflected higher rental prices and housing costs, a trend that, according to real-time data, is easing.

    For months, cooling inflation has provided gradual relief to America’s consumers, who were stung by the price surges that erupted three years ago, particularly for food, gas, rent and other necessities. Inflation peaked two years ago at 9.1%, the highest level in four decades.

    Inflation has taken a central role in the presidential election, with former President Donald Trump blaming the Biden administration’s energy policies for the price increases. Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday said she would soon unveil new proposals to “bring down costs and also strengthen the economy overall.”

    Biden hailed the “real progress” shown in Wednesday’s report, but acknowledged that more needs to be done in order to lower costs for Americans.

    “Inflation has fallen below 3% and core inflation has fallen to the lowest level since April 2021,” Biden said in a statement. “We have more work to do to lower costs for hardworking Americans, but we are making real progress, with wages rising faster than prices for 17 months in a row.”

    “Prices are still too high,” the president continued. “Large corporations are sitting on record profits and not doing enough to lower prices. That’s why we are taking on Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices. We’re cutting red tape to build more homes while taking on corporate landlords that unfairly increase rent. And we’re taking on price gouging and junk fees to lower everyday costs from groceries to air travel.”

    “Congressional Republicans would raise prices for middle class families while cutting taxes for billionaires and big corporations,” he concluded. “While they try to take us back, we will fight for the future.”

    Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices climbed 0.2% from June to July, after a 0.1% increase the previous month. Compared to a year ago, core inflation rose 3.2%, down from 3.3% in June, the lowest since April 2021. Core prices are closely watched by economists because it typically provides a better read of where inflation is headed.

    Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said he is seeking additional evidence of slowing inflation before the Fed begins cutting its key interest rate. Economists widely expect the Fed’s first rate cut to occur in mid-September.

    When the central bank lowers its benchmark rate, over time it tends to reduce the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses. Mortgage rates have already declined in anticipation of the Fed’s first rate reduction.

    At a news conference last month, Powell said that cooler inflation data this spring had strengthened the Fed’s confidence that price increases are falling back to a 2% annual pace. Another inflation report will be issued next month before the Fed’s Sept. 17-18 meeting, with economists expecting that report to also show that price increases remained mostly tame.

    Inflation has eased substantially in the past two years as global supply chains have been repaired, a spate of apartment construction in many large cities has cooled rental costs and higher interest rates have slowed auto sales, forcing dealers to offer better deals to potential car buyers.

    Consumers, particularly lower-income ones, are also becoming more price-sensitive, forgoing high-priced items or shifting to cheaper alternatives. This has forced many companies to rein in price hikes or even offer lower prices.

    Prices are still rising sharply for some services, including auto insurance and health care. Auto insurance costs have shot up as the value of new and used vehicles has soared compared with three years ago. Economists, though, expect those costs to eventually grow more slowly.

    As inflation continues to decline, the Fed is paying increasingly close attention to the job market. The central bank’s goals, as defined by Congress, are to keep prices stable and support maximum employment.

    This month, the government reported that hiring slowed much more than expected in July and that the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight month, though to a still-low 4.3%. The figures roiled financial markets and led many economists to boost their forecasts for interest rate cuts this year. Most analysts now expect at least three quarter-point rate cuts at the Fed’s September, November and December meetings. The Fed’s benchmark rate is at a 23-year high of 5.3%.

    Still, the rise in the unemployment rate has reflected mainly an influx of job-seekers, especially new immigrants, who haven’t immediately found work and so have been classified as unemployed. That is a much more positive reason for a higher unemployment rate than if it came from a jump in layoffs. Measures of job cuts remain low.

    On Thursday, the government will release its latest data on retail sales, which are expected to show that consumers increased their spending modestly in July. As long as shoppers are willing to spend, businesses are likely to hold onto their workers and may even add staff.

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    Associated Press

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  • Trump, Harris out with new ads as both look to shape race

    Trump, Harris out with new ads as both look to shape race

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    Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump on Tuesday both released fresh TV advertisements as the competing campaigns look to find their footing in a dramatically changed — and bound to be contentious — presidential election in just 98 days. 

    The new ads from both sides focus on the vice president and come after President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid and endorse Harris, setting off a race to shape the narrative around the new candidate likely to be the Democratic presidential nominee. 

    What You Need To Know

    • Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump both released fresh TV advertisements on Tuesday
    • Harris’ ad accuses Trump of wanting to take the country backward, while the Republican hits the VP on immigration and the border
    • The Harris campaign ad is the first in a new $50 million battleground state paid media blitz ahead of the Democratic National Convention, set to kick off on Aug. 19
    • Trump’s team has spent $12 million to air ads through the beginning of August, according to AdImpact
    • Later Tuesday, Harris unveiled a new video ad taking Trump to task on immigration, accusing him of killing the bipartisan border bill crafted by the Senate 


    The ad from the Harris campaign, called “Fearless,” highlights the vice president’s history as a courtroom prosecutor and attorney general of California, noting she “put murderers and abusers behind bars” and took on big banks. 

    “Because Kamala Harris has always known who she represents,” the ad continues, before going on to accuse Trump of wanting to “take our country backward,” building on a theme Harris has sought to establish during her first week on the trail when she has often said the election is about a vision for the future versus the past. 

    “But we are not going back,” the ad concludes in Harris’ voice. 

    “Throughout her career as a courtroom prosecutor, Attorney General, United States Senator, and now as Vice President, Kamala Harris has always stood up to bullies, criminals and special interests on behalf of the American people – and she’s beaten them,” Harris’ campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. “She’s uniquely suited to take on Donald Trump, a convicted felon who has spent his entire life ripping off working people, tearing away our rights, and fighting for himself.”

    The one-minute spot will run during the Olympics Games and other programming such as The Bachelorette, The Daily Show and Love & Hip Hop, according to Harris’ team. It’s the first ad in the Harris campaign’s new $50 million battleground state paid media blitz ahead of the Democratic National Convention, set to kick off on Aug. 19. 

    Trump’s team on Tuesday, on the other hand, released its first major TV ad targeting Harris just over a week since she became Democrats’ likely nominee. 

    The 30-second spot seeks to hit the vice president on immigration and the southern border, starting with a video of her dancing and referring to her as “America’s border czar,” a phrase Republicans have latched onto to criticize Harris and one Democrats have sought to aggressively push back against. Biden tasked Harris, his vice president, with leading the charge to tackle the root causes of migration. 

    The ad goes on to say that under the vice president, “over 10 million [are] illegally here” and “a quarter of a million Americans [are] dead from fentanyl.” 

    The spot then highlights an interview Harris did with NBC News’ Lester Holt three years ago in which the anchor pressed the vice president on criticism for not visiting the border. 

    “Kamala Harris. Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal,” the ad concludes with the words appearing on the screen. 

    The ad is part of a $12 million reservation the Trump team has made through Aug. 12 across the six biggest swing states, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks data on advertisements. 

    Both ads out on Tuesday build on storylies the campaigns have already sought to establish in just the first week since it appeared likely that it would be Trump and Harris facing off in November. 

    The vice president has pointed to her background as a prosecutor and contrasted it with Trump’s legal troubles, including the guilty verdict in his New York hush money trial in May. Trump has often pointed to the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the border as polls show the issue has surged in importance to voters. 

    Arrests for illegal border crossings hit all-time highs during Biden and Harris’ time in office. Encounters have significantly dropped in recent weeks after Biden took executive action to put restrictions on asylum. 

    Not to be outdone on the issue of immigration, later Tuesday, Harris unveiled a new video ad attacking Trump on the issue, accusing him of killing the bipartisan border bill crafted by the Senate earlier this year. The measure was crafted by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, but it was killed by Republicans after House Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival,” pressured by Trump who did not want to give Biden a win on the issue.

    The video highights Harris’ support for increasing the number of border patrol agents, investing in new technology to detect fentanyl and providing funding to stop human traffickers — all provisions of the bill — while painting Trump as the person who convinced Republicans to block the bill.

    It also highlights Trump’s felony conviction and criminal charges, with the narrator saying: “Kamala Harris prosecuted transnational gang members and got them sent to prison. Trump is trying to avoid being sentenced to prison.”

    “There’s two choices in this election: The one who will fix our broken immigration system, and the one who’s trying to stop her,” the narrator continues.

    “After killing the toughest border deal in decades, Donald Trump is running on his trademark lies because his own record and ‘plans’ are extreme and unpopular,” Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. “As a former district attorney, attorney general, and now vice president, Kamala Harris has spent her career taking on and prosecuting violent criminals and making our communities safer. She’ll do the same as president.”

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    Maddie Gannon

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  • Widespread Microsoft outage disrupts flights, banks, and companies worldwide

    Widespread Microsoft outage disrupts flights, banks, and companies worldwide

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    A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

    What You Need To Know

    • Escalating disruptions continued hours after Microsoft said it was gradually fixing an issue

    • The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta

    • Meanwhile, major disruptions reported by airlines and airports grew; the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded

    Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

    But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued — and escalated.

    Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

    President Joe Biden has been briefed on the outage and members of his administration have been in touch with CrowdStrike and other impacted entities.

    Biden’s team “is engaged across the interagency to get sector by sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed, per the White House.

    “We’re continuing to address effects on transportation systems from today’s widespread tech outage,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote on social media. “Many flights are impacted as systems recover—passengers should check with their airline for updates and visit our website for more on passenger protections.”

    Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed as was the arrival of their uniforms and accreditations, but Games organizers said disruptions were limited and didn’t affect ticketing or the torch relay.

    A disturbing reminder of vulnerability

    “This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.

    DownDectector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.

    Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we’ve come to rely on at critical times are not going to be available. Hospitals, for example, will struggle to sort out appointments and those who need care may not get it.

    “There are going to be deaths because of this. It’s inevitable,’’ Bore said. “We’ve got so many systems tied up with this.”

    Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

    The company did not respond to a request for comment.

    CrowdStrike said in an emailed statement that the company “is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”

    It said: “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

    The Austin, Texas-based company’s Nasdaq-traded shares were down nearly 15% in premarket trading early Friday.

    A recording playing on its customer service line said, “CrowdStrike is aware of the reports of crashes on Microsoft ports related to the Falcon sensor,” referring to one of its products used to block online attacks.

    Broadcasters go dark, surgeries delayed, ‘blue screens of death’

    Meanwhile, governments, officials and companies across the world scrambled to respond.

    New Zealand’s acting prime minister, David Seymour, said on X that officials in the country were “moving at pace to understand the potential impacts,” adding that he had no information indicating it was a cybersecurity threat.

    The issue was causing “inconvenience” for the public and businesses, he added.

    On the Milan stock exchange, the FTSE MIB index of blue-chip Italian stocks could not be compiled for an hour, though trading continued.

    Major delays reported at airports grew on Friday morning, with most attributing the problems in booking systems of individual airlines.

    In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded.

    Airlines and railways in the U.K. were also affected, with longer than usual waiting times.

    In Germany, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport halted flights for several hours due to difficulties in checking in passengers, while landings at Zurich airport were suspended and flights in Hungary, Italy and Turkey disrupted.

    The Dutch carrier KLM said it had been “forced to suspend most” of its operations.

    Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport warned that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The chaotic morning coincided with one of the busiest days of the year for Schiphol.

    Widespread problems were reported at Australian airports, where lines grew and some passengers were stranded as online check-in services and self-service booths were disabled — although flights were still operating.

    In India, Hong Kong and Thailand, many airlines were forced to manually check in passengers. An airline in Kenya was also reporting disruption.

    Australia bears brunt of outages in Asia

    While the outages were being experienced worldwide, Australia appeared to be severely affected by the issue. Disruption reported on the site DownDetector included the banks NAB, Commonwealth and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as internet and phone providers such as Telstra.

    National news outlets — including public broadcaster ABC and Sky News Australia — were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels for hours. Some news anchors went on air online from dark offices, in front of computers showing “blue screens of death.”

    Hospitals in several countries also reported problems.

    Britain’s National Health Service said the outage caused problems at most doctors’ offices across England. NHS England said in a statement said the glitch was affecting the appointment and patient record system used across the public health system.

    Some hospitals in northern Germany canceled all elective surgery scheduled for Friday, but emergency care was unaffected.

    Israel said its hospitals and post office operations were disrupted.

    In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing nationwide service disruptions as customers reported they were unable to make payments using their bank cards in stores. The New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were down as well.

    Shipping was disrupted too: A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, the Baltic Hub, said it was battling problems resulting from the global system outage.

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    Associated Press

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  • Full list of congressional Democrats calling on Biden to leave presidential race

    Full list of congressional Democrats calling on Biden to leave presidential race

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    On Monday, Biden sent a letter to Democratic lawmakers saying he is “firmly committed to staying in this race” and calling for an “end” to speculation within the party about the future of his candidacy.

    Here is a look at the 20 known congressional Democrats — 19 in the House, one in the Senate — who have said either publicly or privately they’d like to see Biden step aside.

    Rep. Earl Blumenauer

    The Oregon lawmaker, who is retiring in January, on Wednesday joined the chorus of Democrats urging Biden to withdraw. 

    “It is a painful and difficult conclusion but there is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms,” Blumenauer said. “He has earned that right.”

    Rep. Ed Case

    Case, a longtime fixture in Hawaii politics, said in a statement Thursday that his “guidepost is what is the best way forward for our country.”

    “I do not believe President Biden should continue his candidacy for re-election as President,” Case said, adding that his decision has nothing to do with the incumbent’s “character and record” as president. “If it did, there would be no decision to make.”

    Rep. Angie Craig

    The Minnesota congresswoman issued a statement Saturday saying she has “great respect for President Biden’s decades of service to our nation and his steadfast commitment to making our country a better place,” but, “given what I saw and heard from the President during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the President himself following that debate, I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump.”

    Craig called for “an open, fair, and transparent Democratic process to select a new nominee to inspire and unite our great nation.”

    “If we truly believe that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans must be stopped, there is only a small window left to make sure we have a candidate best equipped to make the case and win,” she said.

    Rep. Lloyd Doggett

    On July 2, the Texas lawmaker became the first congressional Democrat to urge Biden to drop out the race, citing his performance in the presidential debate and the need to defeat former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. 

    “Instead of reassuring voters [during the debate], the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said in a statement.

    “Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” he continued. “Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory.”  

    In an interview with Spectrum News after his announcement, Doggett said that he came to the decision to ask Biden to withdraw “reluctantly and sadly” because of his accomplishments as president.

    “I’ve watched the polls and what’s happened over the last year,” he said. “We’ve been running behind, hoping that we get some momentum out of this debate. Instead, we got disappointment.”

    “I watched it with my wife, we were alarmed by his inability to counter the Trump lies and to really defend an admirable effort that the president’s made these last few years,” he continued, detailing that he discussed his position about wanting to replace Biden as the nominee with colleagues in Congress and his constituents in Texas.

    He also said the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump’s immunity case last week underscored the importance of defeating the Republican ex-president at the ballot box in November.

    “There is so much at risk in having a criminal and his gang take over our government, that I just think we have to have a stronger candidate than President Biden has happened to be,” Doggett added.

    Rep. Raúl Grijalva

    Grijalva, a progressive Democrat from Arizona, was the second member of Congress to call on Biden to step aside, telling The New York Times on July 3: “What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”

    Grijalva said a second Trump presidency would be “very, very dangerous,” describing the former president as an “anti-democratic, authoritarian despot.”

    Rep. Jim Himes

    The Connecticut lawmaker was one of at least four House Democrats who said during a private call Sunday that Biden should step aside. Himes is the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

    According to Politico, Himes said he has received several hundred texts and emails about Biden’s age, all from people who wanted the president to leave the race. Himes also reportedly expressed concerns about Democrats losing both chambers of Congress if Biden presses on.

    On Thursday, after Biden’s NATO press conference, Himes went public with his call for Biden to exit the race.

    “Joe Biden’s record of public service is unrivaled. His accomplishments are immense. His legacy as a great president is secure,” Himes wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “He must not risk that legacy, those accomplishments and American democracy to soldier on in the face of the horrors promised by Donald Trump.”

    Rep. Seth Moulton

    Moulton, of Massachusetts, told radio station WBUR on July 4 that he does not believe Biden can defeat Trump and should bow out.

    “President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our Founding Fathers — George Washington’s — footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump,” Moulton said.

    On Sunday, Moulton told WCVB-TV: “There are a lot of colleagues who share my concern, but have not gone public. We should be cleaning up and down the ballot, and that’s just not the case right now. So, we need to ask, ‘What do we need to do differently?’”

    Rep. Jerry Nadler

    The New York Democrat and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee was on the same call Sunday with Himes. 

    Nadler, as one of the more senior members on the call, was the first person to say that Biden should step aside, according a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to discuss it with The Associated Press. He did so aware of his seniority and that it would allow others to join him.

    However, on Tuesday Nadler told CNN of Biden: “He said he’s going to remain in, he’s our candidate, and we’re going to support him.”

    Rep. Scott Peters

    Shortly after Himes’ post-debate detraction, Peters, a California Democrat, expressed that in a “high stakes” election, Democrats “are on a losing course” with Biden at the helm.

    While praising his accomplishments as president, Peters said in a statement that Biden’s debate performance “was not a blip.”

    “Today I ask President Biden to withdraw from the presidential campaign,” Peters said. “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course. My conscience requires me to speak up and put loyalty to the country and to democracy ahead of my great affection for, and loyalty to, the President and those around him.”

    Rep. Brittany Pettersen

    On Friday, the day after Biden’s NATO press conference, Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat, urged Biden to “please pass the torch” to a new generation of Democratic leaders in a statement posted to social media.

    Pettersen, an organizer for the incumbent Democrat’s 2008 campaign, expressed “deep admiration for Joe Biden and all he has done for this country,” which she said makes her decision to ask him to stand aside “more painful.”

    “Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump,” she added.

    Rep. Mike Quigley

    In an appearance on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” on Friday, Quigley, of Illinois, had a direct message for Biden: “Your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude, the only thing you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this.”

    Quigley doubled down on his opinion Monday, saying Biden’s Friday interview with ABC News did nothing to change his mind. 

    “He looks very frail,” Quigley told CNN. “His voice is very soft. It’s not robust. And again, it is not how I perceive that. It’s how the American people perceive it.”

    Rep. Pat Ryan

    A Democrat representing a frontline New York district, Ryan called on Biden to step aside Wednesday, telling The New York Times, “I’d be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall.”

    “For the good of our country, for my two young kids, I’m asking Joe Biden to step aside in the upcoming election and deliver on the promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders,” Ryan told the outlet. “I really hope, with all my heart, that he will listen.”

    In a subsequent post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ryan doubled down on his comments.

    “Trump is an existential threat to American democracy; it is our duty to put forward the strongest candidate against him,” he wrote. “Joe Biden is a patriot but is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump.”

    In an interview with Spectrum News on Thursday, Ryan called the debate “a wake-up call” for Democrats.

    Trump “is unfit for office and has to be stopped, he cannot go anywhere near the White House again. And so I believe it’s our patriotic duty as a party to put forward the strongest candidate to defeat him,” he added.

    Rep. Brad Schneider

    Schneider, an Illinois Democrat and prominent member of the New Democrat Coalition in the House, said in a statement Thursday that “the time has come … for President Biden to heroically pass the torch to a new generation of leadership to guide us to the future he has enabled and empowered us to pursue.” 

    Schneider hailed Biden’s accomplishments in office, notably leading the country through the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic recovery in its aftermath, and said that the incumbent “now has the opportunity to secure his legacy and boldly deliver the nation to a new generation of leadership.”

    “The stakes in this election could not be higher,” he said. “Donald Trump and the administration he would install are an absolute threat to the very core of our nation.”

    Rep. Hillary Scholten

    Scholten, who represents a district in western Michigan once held by Gerald Ford, joined the chorus calling for Biden to step aside Thursday, hailing his “incredible” legacy but expressing concern that Americans cannot “unsee” his performance at last week’s debate.

    “We just have too much at stake in this election to sit on the sidelines and be silent while we still have time to do something,” Scholten, a frontline Democrat in a battleground state, said in an interview with The Detroit News on Thursday.

    She said she will continue to support Biden over Trump should she stay in the race but urged him to “allow a new leader to step up.”

    “But the people of Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District elected me to represent them with integrity,” Scholten said. “They elected a Congresswoman they trust to speak the truth, even when it’s hard. They voted for someone who would put America’s future first and stand up for what is right. That’s what I am doing now.”

    Rep. Mikie Sherrill

    The New Jersey congresswoman said in a statement Tuesday she is asking Biden to “declare that he won’t run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee.”

    Sherrill praised Biden for his more than 50 years serving the country and working to pass “remarkable legislation that will reverberate for generations.” She said her constituents “want a leader who can continue to build on our successes but is also able to turn the nation’s attention to the urgent threat that Trump presents to our democracy, to our freedoms, to our country.”

    The “stakes are too high — and the threat is too real — to stay silent,” Sherrill said.

    Rep. Adam Smith

    On Monday, Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, urged Biden to “take a step back” from the ticket and called for Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.

    “I think it’s become clear that he’s not the best person to carry the Democratic message,” the Washington state Democrat said on CNN, before praising the Democrats’ platform and record and acknowledging Biden’s role in the country’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    He went on to call a second Trump presidency a “complete disaster,” condenming the far-right Project 2025 agenda, which the ex-president attempted to distance himself from last week, and his economic proposals.

    “We’ve got a good message,” said Smith, who also made his opinion known at Sunday’s call of top Democratic committee members. “The president has shown he is not capable of delivering that message in an effective way.”

    Rep. Eric Sorensen

    The Illinois Democrat became the third Democratic lawmaker following Biden’s NATO press conference to call for his departure from the race.

    “In 2020, Joe Biden ran for President with the purpose of putting country over party,” Sorensen said in a statement posted to social media. “Today, I am asking him to do that again.”

    Rep. Greg Stanton

    Arizona’s Stanton, who called himself “one of President Biden’s earliest supporters in 2020” in a statement Thursday, hailed the president’s record in delivering for his state, but argued that Trump “poses an existential threat” to the U.S. Constitution and American democracy and the party needs a nominee who can make a case against him.

    “For the sake of American democracy … I believe it is time for the President to step aside as our nominee,” he said.

    “The stakes in this election could not be higher,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “For our country’s sake, it is time for the President to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.

    Rep. Mark Takano

    The California lawmaker, too, said during Sunday’s private call that Biden should withdraw, a source told the AP. Takano is the ranking member of the the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

    Many others on the call raised concerns about Biden’s capability and chance of winning reelection, even if they stopped short of saying Biden should step out of the race.

    Sen. Peter Welch

    The Vermont politician on Wednesday became the first Senate Democrat to call for Biden to leave the race.

    “I understand why President Biden wants to run,” Welch said in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. “He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not. For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.”

    Welch cited recent polling analysis from the Cook Political Report that found that six battleground states have shifted toward Trump after Biden’s disastrous debate performance. Some states, like Minnesota and New Hampshire, are still expected to lean Democratic, while Nevada, Arizona and Georgia have moved from “toss up” to “lean Republican.”

    Spectrum News’ Kevin Frey and The Associated Press contributed to this report

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    Ryan Chatelain

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