Tag: health and medical

First on CNN: Biden to zero in on abortion rights at DNC event 3 weeks from Election Day | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden will try to keep abortion rights in the spotlight when he speaks at a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, a Democratic official told CNN, as the White House hopes the issue will continue to galvanize voters heading into the midterm elections.

Three weeks from Election Day, Biden will deliver remarks at a DNC event at the Howard Theatre in the nation’s capital, according to the Democratic official, who said the President will discuss “the choice that voters face this November between Republicans who want to ban abortion nationwide with criminal penalties to put doctors in jail if they violate the ban, and Democrats who want to codify (Roe v. Wade) into law to protect women’s reproductive freedom.”

Biden and many Democrats have sought to make abortion rights a central focus of the campaign after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which removed the federal right to an abortion.

In both political and official White House venues, the President has zeroed in on the fight to protect abortion rights in recent weeks, pushing back on Republican-led efforts to enact abortion restrictions at the federal and state level. As his administration unveiled new steps to enhance abortion protections earlier this month, Biden said he would not “sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies.”

The White House has seized on a proposal from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would impose a federal ban on most abortions at 15 weeks of pregnancy. At a Democratic fundraiser in New York City last month, the President described Graham’s bill as emblematic of Republicans becoming “more extreme in their positions.”

As the midterm elections approach, Biden has argued that voters need to elect more Democrats in order to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into law. He’s also pledged to veto any bill that would ban abortions on the federal level if Republicans take control of Congress.

More than a dozen states have seen abortions bans come into effect since the Dobbs ruling, affecting nearly 30 million women of reproductive age.

While Democrats hope abortion rights will motivate voters, a recent CNN/SSRS poll found that the economy remains the central focus for voters, with 90 percent of registered voters saying it was extremely or very important to their vote. Fewer – 72 percent – said abortion was as important.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, however, found that the issue of abortion was a key motivator for American voters this year, with 50 percent saying the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe made them more motivated to head to the polls this year.

“Voters need to make their voices heard,” Biden said in June in the wake of the Dobbs ruling. “This fall, Roe is on the ballot. Personal freedoms are on the ballot. The right to privacy, liberty, equality, they’re all on the ballot.”

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October 16, 2022
Independent candidate upends Oregon race for governor and gives GOP an opening | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Betsy Johnson casts herself as the candidate for Oregon governor who will speak for voters who are “fed up” with homeless encampments and trash-strewn streets and tired of watching Republicans and Democrats “fight like two cats in a sack.”

The former Democratic state senator, now running as an independent, likes to boast that she is not campaigning as “Miss Congeniality” and promises to govern from the center. Johnson argues that the policies of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tina Kotek – the former state House speaker who is appearing at a private fundraising reception with President Joe Biden on Saturday – would leave the state “woke and broke,” while stating that her Republican opponent, Christine Drazan, a former state House minority leader, would endanger women’s reproductive rights.

“I am the champion and the voice right now of people who feel disrespected, disenfranchised, looked down on, and they’re sick of it,” the bespectacled former helicopter pilot said in a telephone interview as Biden was headed to the state this week. “I have always been pro-choice, pro-cop, pro-change, pro-accountability and pro-alternative to the status quo. The status quo was getting us no place, and the only people that were suffering were Oregonians.”

The resonance of that message from a moderate former Democrat with deep financial support in Oregon’s business community has upended the state’s race for governor this year – unnerving Democrats by creating a scenario under which Republicans could capture the office for the first time in 40 years.

Two years after Portland lived through 100 nights of protests against police brutality and racial injustice – demonstrations that often led to violence – the state’s largest city is still attempting to repair its image. That recovery process was hindered by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic that led to shuttered businesses. And the challenge for Democrats has been compounded by the financial stressors that many voters and business owners are now feeling as a result of inflation. Portland also had a record number of homicides in 2021 and is grappling with a wave of gun violence that has raised concerns about crime.

The race between Johnson, Kotek and Drazan to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Kate Brown was already unusual as a matchup between three women in what could be a record year for female gubernatorial hopefuls.

But Johnson was also able to pull off a rare feat for an independent candidate by keeping pace in fundraising with the major-party nominees by drawing on her relationships with business leaders. Nike co-founder Phil Knight donated $3.75 million to Johnson’s campaign before appearing to shift his allegiances to Drazan with a $1 million contribution earlier this month.

Johnson’s presence in the race has been an unexpected boon for Republicans, who only comprise about a quarter of the electorate. Democrats make up about 34% of the state’s voters and nonaffiliated Oregonians account for nearly 35%, according to the most recent figures from the Oregon secretary of state.

Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, said Johnson appears to be siphoning more votes from Democrats, creating what is essentially a tie between Kotek and Drazan in a state that Biden won by 16 points in 2020.

“Voters are growing increasingly unhappy with what the Democrats are doing, but they’re not willing to go to the Republicans who’ve gone further to the right,” said Moore. That has led to support for Johnson among disaffected Democrats and the state’s growing ranks of unaffiliated voters.

“There’s just a frustration that life overall appears to be getting harder,” Moore added. “So many people have come to Oregon – or grew up here – and say, ‘Yes, I get paid less than other places, but the quality of life is amazing.’ And they’re seeing that quality of life drop.”

Drazan, a social conservative and an opponent of abortion rights, has also centered her message around the idea that the state needs greater balance in government as it attempts to address the rise in homelessness, the affordability of housing and achievement gaps students are facing as a result of school closures during the pandemic. Drazan has also criticized the relaxation of certain high school graduation requirements as she argues for a parental bill of rights – echoing the message from Republicans, such as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who will campaign with her in Oregon next week.

“We have had single-party control for a decade, which means that we have had the legislature really, truly fail to hold the governor to account, and likewise we’ve had the governor fail to hold the legislature to account,” she said during a recent debate hosted by KOBI-TV and Southern Oregon University. “We need balance. We need commonsense solutions that are durable – with long term value.”

Kotek counters that Drazan demonstrated obstructionist tendencies when she led a legislative walkout in 2020 to protest a climate bill. The Democrat has argued that Drazan’s move effectively killed legislation that would have advanced the state’s efforts to improve homelessness, among other issues.

“Tina called for a homelessness state of emergency almost three years ago, but Representative Christine Drazan literally walked off the job – blocking millions of dollars for emergency homeless shelters and affordable housing construction,” Katie Wertheimer, Kotek’s communications director, said in a statement.

“Oregonians are justifiably frustrated and want real solutions to homelessness, crime, and the cost of living,” Wertheimer added. “Tina will do what Kate Brown couldn’t or wouldn’t, and finally declare that state of emergency, and she will hire crews to clean up the trash. She is the only trusted leader in this race bringing forward real plans that will deliver results.”

Drazan defended the rationale for the walkout at the time, saying it was not the time for cap-and-trade policies “because we cannot prevent these costs from being passed on – not to big companies, not utilities – but just straight down the line to Oregonians.”

“Homelessness, crime, affordability, and education all dramatically worsened during her time in power,” Drazan campaign spokesperson John Burke said of Kotek. “Oregonians have had enough of her excuses and her failed agenda. That’s why they’re going to elect Christine Drazan as their next governor.”

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October 15, 2022
Five takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

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CNN
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When Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker met to debate in the already contentious Georgia Senate race, all the focus was on how personal allegations against Walker would roil the first – and likely only – debate in the campaign.

The allegations that Walker paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time, however, were just a blip in the hour-long contest, which instead centered on Warnock’s ties to President Joe Biden, the vast differences between the two candidates on abortion and even, however briefly, Walker’s use of what appeared to be a sheriff’s badge.

Walker continued to deny the allegations about him – calling them “a lie” – and Warnock, as he has on the campaign trail, did not engage on the controversy, instead choosing to question his Republican opponent’s relationship to the truth.

“We will see time and time again, as we have already seen, that my opponent has a problem with the truth,” Warnock said. “And just because he says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

For Walker, the debate was as much about touting his own candidacy as it was about tying Warnock to Biden, who was invoked early and often. His effort, in the closing moments, to assuage fence-sitting voters about his readiness to serve also included a jab at Warnock and Biden.

“For those of you who are concerned about voting for me, a non-politician, I want you to think about the damage politicians like Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to this country,” Walker said.

Here are five takeaways from Friday’s debate:

Biden wasn’t on the stage Friday night, but Walker tried repeatedly to convince viewers that the Democratic President was ostensibly there with his Democratic opponent.

From the outset of the event, Walker repeatedly invoked Biden, hoping to tie his Democratic opponent to the President’s low approval ratings.

“This race isn’t about me. It is about what Raphael Warnock and Joe Biden have done to you and your family,” Walker said at the top of the debate.

Later, when pressed on voter fraud in the 2020 election, he added, “Did President Biden win? President Biden won, and Sen. Warnock won. That’s the reason I decided to run.”

He then synthesized his point: “I am running because he and Joe Biden are the same.”

Warnock did little to distance himself from Biden, even at times touting the legislation he passed with the President’s help. But during a question on foreign policy, he took the chance to note a specific time he stood up to the Biden administration.

“I am glad we are standing up to Putin’s aggression and we have to continue to stand up, which is why I stood up to the Biden administration when it suggested we should close the Savanah Combat Readiness Training Center,” Warnock said. “I told the President that was the exact wrong thing to do at the exact wrong time. … We kept that training center open.”

Walker went back to his message in response: “He didn’t stand up. He had laid down every time it came around.”

“It is evident,” said a somewhat exasperated Warnock, “that he has a point that he tried to make time and time again.”

Headed into the debate, the focus was on how Walker – and arguably less predictably, Warnock – would address the accusations that the Republican candidate allegedly paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time.

Walker did what he has done repeatedly as the allegations roiled an already contentious Senate race: Label the allegations a lie.

“As I said, that is a lie,” Walker said in response to a question from the moderator. “I put it in a book, one thing about my life, I have been very transparent. Not like the senator, he has hid things.”

Walker added: “I said that is a lie and I am not backing down. And we have Sen. Warnock, people that would do anything and say anything for this seat. But I am not going to back down.”

CNN has not independently verified the allegations about Walker.

Warnock, as he has done previously, did not address the allegations, instead choosing to let Walker fight them off without pushing them himself.

Instead, the senator took a broad approach, focusing on Walker’s “problem with the truth” and less on the specific allegations.

The candidates also clashed on abortion rights more generally, with Walker insisting he did not support a federal ban, in contrast to past statements, and pointing to the state’s restrictive “heartbeat” law. The law prohibits abortions as soon as early cardiac activity is detectable, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

“On abortion, I’m a Christian. I believe in life. Georgia is a state that respects life,” Walker said.

The Georgia law makes exceptions for cases of rape or incest, pending a timely police report, and in some cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk.

Before the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, state law had allowed abortions up to 20 weeks.

Warnock, who supports abortion rights, repeated an argument he’s made on the trail: “A patient’s room is too narrow and small and cramped for a woman, her doctor and the US government. … I trust women more than I trust politicians.”

Walker then shot back, invoking Warnock’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality.

“He told me Black lives matter… If Black lives matter, why are you not protecting those babies? And instead of aborting those babies, why aren’t you baptizing those babies?,” Walker said.

Warnock, as he did throughout the debate, didn’t directly answer Walker’s provocation. Instead, he repeated his position.

“There are enough politicians piling into the rooms of patients,” the senator said, “and I don’t plan to join them.”

Georgia is one of 12 states not to expand Medicaid and currently has an estimated 1.5 million uninsured residents.

Walker, when asked by the moderator if the federal government should step in to make sure everyone has access to health care, began a confusing non-response.

“Well, right now, people have coverage for health care. It’s according to what type of coverage do you want. Because if you have an able-bodied job, you’re going to have health care,” he said. “But everyone else – have health care is the type of health care you’re going to get. And I think that is the problem.”

Walker continued to say that Warnock wants people to “depend on the government,” while he wants “you to get off the government health care and get on the health care he’s got.”

To note: Warnock, as a US Senator, is on a government health care plan.

Walker also gave a puzzling response to Warnock’s attack on his opposition to federal legislation capping the price of insulin for people with diabetes.

“I believe in reducing insulin, but at the same time, you have to eat right,” Walker said. “Unless you have eating right, insulin is doing you no good. So you have to get food prices down and you got to get gas prices down so they can go and get insulin.”

Warnock responded by telling viewers who require the drug that Walker was, in effect, blaming them for their struggles accessing it.

Warnock, on the subject of his pledge to close the Medicaid gap, was asked how he would pay for it.

“This is not a theoretical issue for me,” he replied, invoking the story of a nurse in a trauma ward who lost coverage when she became sick and, as he put it, died “for lack of health care.”

“Georgia needs to expand Medicaid,” Warnock continued. “It costs us more not to expand. What we’re doing right now is we’re subsidizing health care in other states” – a reference to the state’s refusal to accept federal funds that residents already pay into.

The debate within the debate over Warnock’s support for police, in which the senator pointed to his support for legislation that backed smaller departments, was briefly derailed when Walker pulled out what appeared to be a police badge.

The moderator quickly admonished Walker, reminding him that props were not allowed onstage.

“You have a prop,” the surprised moderator said. “That is not allowed, sir.”

Moments earlier, Warnock – in response to Walker’s claims that he has “called (police officers) names” and caused “morale” to plummet – said that his opponent “has a problem with the truth.”

Warnock then hit Walker with a callback to a more than two-decade-old police report in which the Republican discussed exchanging gunfire with police and a subsequent false claim from Walker that he previously served in law enforcement.

“One thing that I haven’t done is I haven’t pretended to be a police officer and I’ve never, ever threatened a shootout with police,” he said.

Warnock also argued that his support for greater scrutiny of police didn’t undermine his support for law enforcement.

“You can support police officers, as I’ve done, through the COPS program, through the invest-to-protect program, while at the same time, holding police officers, like all professions, accountable,” he said.

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October 14, 2022
High levels of toxic chemical found in sports bras, watchdog warns | CNN Business

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New York
CNN Business
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New testing on a variety of popular branded sports bras and athletic wear has revealed high levels of BPA, a chemical compound that’s used to make certain types of plastic and can lead to harmful health effects such as asthma, cardiovascular disease and obesity.

Sports bras sold by Athleta, PINK, Asics, The North Face, Brooks, All in Motion, Nike, and FILA were all tested for BPA in the past six months, and the results showed the clothing could expose wearers to up to 22 times the safe limit of BPA, based on standards set in California, according to the Center for Environmental Health. The CEH, which conducted the testing, is a non-profit consumer advocacy group focused on exposing the presence of toxic chemicals in consumer products.

Under California law — specifically Proposition 65, enacted in 1986 — the maximum allowable dose level for BPA via skin exposure is 3 micrograms per day.

The group also tested athletic shirts from brands that included The North Face, Brooks, Mizuno, Athleta, New Balance, and Reebok and found similar results.

The CEH said Wednesday it has sent legal notices to the companies, which will have 60 days to work with the center to remedy the violations before the group files a complaint in California state court requiring them to do so.

To date, the watchdog said its investigations have found BPA only in polyester-based clothing containing spandex. “We want brands to reformulate their products to remove all bisphenols including BPA. In the interim, we recommend limiting the time you spend in your activewear by changing after your workout,” the group said.

Athleta, Nike, Reebok, The North Face and Victoria’s Secret (which owns PINK) did not immediately provide a comment.

BPA (Bisphenol A) is found in a large number of everyday products, from water bottles and canned foods to toys and flooring. In adults, exposure to BPA has been linked to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, obesity and erectile dysfunction.

Premature death was also associated with BPA exposure, a 2020 study found. More recently, BPA has also been linked to asthma in school-age girls.

“People are exposed to BPA through ingestion, from eating food or drinking water from containers that have leached BPA, or by absorption through skin,” Kaya Allan Sugerman, CEH’s illegal toxic threats program director, said in a statement.

“Studies have shown that BPA can be absorbed through skin and end up in the bloodstream after handling receipt paper for seconds or a few minutes at a time. Sports bras and athletic shirts are worn for hours at a time, and you are meant to sweat in them, so it is concerning to be finding such high levels of BPA in our clothing,” Allan Sugerman said.

Over the past year, the group has asked more than 90 companies, including Walgreens and socks and sleepwear brand Hypnotic Hats, to reformulate their products to remove all bisphenols, including BPA. Some have already agreed to do so.

“Even low levels of exposure [to BPA] during pregnancy have been associated with a variety of health problems in offspring,” said Dr. Jimena Díaz Leiva, science director with CEH.

Although CEH litigates under California’s Clean Drinking Water and Toxics Enforcement Act of 1986, it says the repercussions of its settlements extend beyond California “as it is most often economically infeasible for companies to reformulate for just the California market.”

“Our legal action has been successful in pushing entire industries to remove certain chemicals from products like children’s candy or toys,” the group said in a statement to CNN Business. “These cases not only serve to protect California consumers but also consumers throughout the country.”

– CNN’s Sandee LaMotte contributed to this story

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October 13, 2022
Five takeaways from the Michigan gubernatorial debate | CNN Politics

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Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican challenger, conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, squared off in their first debate Thursday night in Grand Rapids.

Whitmer has placed her support for abortion rights at the forefront of her bid for a second term in a state where Republicans control the legislature. She has also touted her economic efforts and increased funding for schools.

Dixon, who is backed by former education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family and won the GOP nomination after an endorsement from former President Donald Trump, has criticized Whitmer’s pandemic policies. She has also leaned into cultural battles, proposing a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with, as well as one modeled after the controversial measure Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year, which critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Here are five takeaways from their debate:

The governor’s race has largely revolved around the stark differences between Whitmer and Dixon on abortion rights, and Whitmer opened the debate by pointing to her lawsuit to halt the enforcement of a 1931 law banning abortions in virtually all instances in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this year.

“The only reason that law is not in effect right now is because of my lawsuit stopping it,” Whitmer said.

Whitmer also backed a referendum that is appearing on Michigan’s ballots this year that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Dixon responded by accusing Whitmer of opposing any limits on abortion rights. But she also downplayed her position, saying she will respect the outcome of that referendum.

“I am pro-life with exceptions for the life of the mother. But I understand that this is going to be decided by the people of the state of Michigan or by a judge,” Dixon said. “The governor doesn’t have the choice to go around a judge or a constitutional amendment.”

Whitmer highlighted Dixon’s comment in a podcast interview in which she said a 14-year-old child who is raped by a family member should not be allowed to have an abortion.

“To protect our rights, we cannot trust Ms. Dixon,” Whitmer said.

Dixon has repeatedly parroted Trump’s lies about Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election coming as a result of widespread fraud.

Whitmer sharply criticized Dixon over those comments early in Thursday night’s debate, as the Democratic governor sought to cast doubt on her Republican challenger’s claim that she would accept the results of the abortion referendum on this year’s ballot.

“This is a candidate who still denies the outcome of the 2020 election,” Whitmer said.

“For her to stand here and say she will respect the will of the people, when she has not even embraced the outcome of a last election or pledged to embrace the outcome of a future election, tells me we cannot trust what you say,” Whitmer said.

Dixon did not respond to Whitmer on the issue, or comment on whether she accepts the outcome of the 2020 election, during the debate.

Dixon was critical of Whitmer’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that school and business closures were too far-reaching and long-lasting.

“Not only did she make bad choices when she closed it down and refused to open our schools, but she hasn’t figured out how to recover,” Dixon said.

She said Whitmer kept children “locked out of schools, and wouldn’t listen to parents when they begged her to let them play.”

Whitmer, meanwhile, defended her actions amid the crisis, saying that “we made tough decisions because lives were on the line,” even as she conceded she would have done some things differently in hindsight.

Whitmer said 35,000 people in Michigan died during the pandemic. “They may not matter to some. But they matter to me, every single one of them,” Whitmer said.

“If I could go back in time with the knowledge we have now, sure, I would have made some different decisions. But we were working in the middle of a crisis and lives were on the line,” she said.

Whitmer’s memorable 2018 campaign slogan – “fix the damn roads” – was among the reasons she won the governor’s office.

On Thursday night, Dixon took aim at one way Whitmer attempted to pay for those road improvements: increasing Michigan’s 27 cents per gallon gas tax by 45 cents per gallon.

Dixon said Whitmer “didn’t fulfill her promise,” citing a report by the Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council warning that roads are continuing to deteriorate.

Whitmer touted a bonding program and measures approved by the legislature that she said amount to $4.8 billion in transportation funding. She also credited Biden and the Democratic-led Congress for its infrastructure bill, which she said “sent us billions.”

“There are orange cones and barrels all over the state because we are fixing the damn roads,” Whitmer said.

She added: “We are fixing the damn roads. We are moving dirt. We are using the right mix and materials, and they are built to last. But you don’t overcome decades of disinvestment overnight.”

Dixon, acknowledging that a shift to electric vehicles will over time reduce gas tax revenue, said Michigan will need to pursue “public-private partnerships” to fund road construction. She did not detail what those would include, but such partnerships typically involve tolls.

“We will have to find a way to fund the roads. It’s going to take public-private partnerships in the future. But it’s going to be a ways out, because the entire country is not going to go to EV vehicles overnight,” she said.

Among the clearest differences in Thursday night’s debate was over gun rights, with Whitmer advocating a series of restrictions while Dixon said she opposed policies that she said would “take guns away from law-abiding citizens.”

Whitmer said she supports background checks and “red flag” laws. She also criticized Dixon for opposing gun-free zones in places like schools and for supporting permitless carry.

Dixon’s positions would lead to “more guns, less oversight, less training,” Whitmer said.

Dixon responded that Michigan should respond to gun crimes by being “tough on crime in this state.”

“This idea that you’re going to take guns away from law-abiding citizens and somehow that’s going to keep them out of the hands of criminals? That’s never going to work,” Dixon said. “When we find someone who commits a gun crime, they need to be put away.”

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October 13, 2022
Regina Spektor postpones tour due to ‘bad case’ of Covid-19 | CNN

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Regina Spektor has put her national tour on hold after coming down with a “bad case” of Covid-19, the singer announced on Instagram.

The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, 42, wrote that she caught the virus “after being so careful and miraculously avoiding it for over 2.5 years,” and went on to apologize to ticket holders.

“I have gone from feeling bad, to worse, to terrible. I’ve lost my voice. I am a bit delirious from fever, so in advance I apologize if this note isn’t too coherent,” she wrote in a note posted to her official Instagram. “We will reschedule the shows for when the theaters are able to have me back.”

Her now-postponed tour was going to hit cities in New York, New Jersey, DC, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and California.

She performed the opening night of the tour, set to run through the end of this month, in Chicago earlier this week.

“I just want to add that my heart is with all the people who have suffered from the different iterations of this virus over this long while,” Spektor added. “…To some it is asymptomatic, or some sniffles, and to others it is a long road to recovery or worse, it alters the course of their entire life.”

Spektor most recently released “Home, Before and After,” her eighth studio album and the first one in six years.

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October 13, 2022
New poll finds Georgia Senate race remains unchanged after allegations about Walker | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Sen. Raphael Warnock continues to hold an advantage over Herschel Walker in Georgia’s US Senate race, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, with the margin between the two candidates little changed compared with polling conducted before allegations emerged that Walker paid for a woman’s abortion and encouraged her to have another one.

The survey, which was conducted after the allegations about Walker emerged last week, finds Warnock with 52% support among likely voters to 45% for Walker, about the same as in a mid-September poll. Walker’s favorability rating has shifted narrowly more negative, from 51% saying they held an unfavorable view of him in September to 55% now. Warnock’s favorability rating is unchanged.

Voters broadly say that Walker is not honest (57% feel that way, including 96% of Democrats, 63% of independents and 16% of Republicans), and 58% feel he does not have good leadership skills. Majorities say Warnock is honest, by contrast (54% overall, including 93% of Democrats, 58% of independents and 14% of Republicans), and that he does have good leadership skills (57%). More also see Warnock as caring about average Georgians (57% say Warnock does vs. 46% saying Walker does).

The race between Walker and Warnock is one of the most competitive Senate contests this midterm cycle, and is key to control of the evenly split chamber.

Last week, the Daily Beast reported that Walker, who has opposed abortion rights during his campaign, had reimbursed a woman with whom he was in a relationship for a 2009 abortion. Additionally, The New York Times reported that he asked her to get the procedure again when she became pregnant two years later; she refused the second time.

CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegations.

The Republican has repeatedly denied the allegations made in the reports, including in a Tuesday interview with ABC. “Yes, she’s lying,” he told the outlet.

Georgia’s gubernatorial contest is also largely unchanged from Quinnipiac’s prior polling on it and suggests there is no clear leader in the race, with 50% behind incumbent Brian Kemp and 49% backing Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams.

The survey of 1,157 Georgia likely voters was conducted October 7-10 by telephone and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

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October 13, 2022
New York City announces its largest fentanyl seizure in history, eclipsing record bust from last month | CNN

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CNN
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Days after federal officials announced the largest fentanyl seizure in New York City history, an even greater quantity of the highly addictive substance has been found, authorities say.

Two people have been arrested and charged with multiple drug and firearm charges in connection to the seizure on October 7 at a Bronx apartment building, prosecutors said in a news release.

Authorities found roughly 300,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills inside two closets in the apartment, and more than 22 pounds of the drug in powdered form were wrapped in clear plastic packaging in multiple rooms, according to the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York. The total sum of the drugs is worth about $9 million in street value, officials said.

The historic seizure saved lives, according to DEA Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino.

“Hundreds of thousands of lethal pills were lying in wait in a Bronx apartment to be unleashed onto our streets. In today’s world, the potential to overdose is dangerously high,” Tarentino said. “There is no quality control in these fake pills and it only takes two milligrams of fentanyl to be lethal.”

The seizure comes after federal officials announced last week that a woman has been charged with concealing about 15,000 rainbow-colored fentanyl pills in a Lego box as part of a drug trafficking scheme in September. That seizure at the time was also deemed the largest of fentanyl in New York City’s history.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s highly addictive. It can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control said.

Rainbow fentanyl comes in bright colors and can be used in pill form or powder.

“Rainbow fentanyl is the latest threat we face in our fight against the opioid epidemic that sadly continues to ravage our communities – a multi-colored poison specifically designed to attract younger users,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said.

And as Halloween nears, officials have been warning families to be especially vigilant regarding their children’s candy before they consume it.

The dangerous drug has been a major driver of fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the US as well as the opioid epidemic.

Although there has been a slight decrease in recent months in drug overdose deaths, the numbers remain high. About 108,000 people died of a drug overdose in the 12-month period ending May 2022 – which is down from the record high of more than 110,000 deaths reported in the 12-month period that ended March 2022, CDC provisional data published Wednesday shows.

The latest overdose death figure remains 32% than it was two years earlier and higher than any other period before November 2021, according to the CDC data. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, were involved in more than two-thirds of deaths in the 12-month period ending May 2022, and psychostimulants were involved in nearly a third.

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October 12, 2022
Tom Brady says he’s utilized therapy to address his mental health in recent years | CNN

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Tom Brady said he has used both physical and mental therapy to address his mental health in recent years so that he can “be good for people around me.”

Speaking on his “Let’s Go!” podcast alongside co-host Jim Gray on Monday, the 45-year-old quarterback opened up about the “intense amount of stress” he has faced over his 22-year NFL career.

“Everyone has different situations in their life and children and you worry about their mental health. You worry about your parents [and] obviously yourself,” Brady said.

“I think I’ve had to learn a lot of things over a long period of time in sports. I think there’s an intense amount of stress that we all deal with, and how do you relieve stress so that you’re not inflicting so much damage on yourself through kind of stress response?”

He added: “So [it’s] something I’ve always continued to try to work at, and it’s obviously a challenge for me and different forms of whether it’s physical therapy or mental therapy, all those things I’ve definitely done over the years.”

Brady has endured an uncharacteristically bumpy start to the 2022 NFL season, with issues on and off the field.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneer quarterback retired in February only to later reverse that decision. In the midst of August’s training camp, Brady took an 11-day leave of absence to “deal with personal things,” according to his head coach Todd Bowles.

In September, Brady twice hinted that retirement was not too far away, saying he was “close to the end” of his NFL career.

Earlier this month, a source close to Brady and his wife Gisele Bündchen told CNN that the estranged couple have each hired divorce attorneys and are “exploring their options” regarding their marriage.

CNN reported last month that Brady and Bündchen have been dealing with “marital issues,” according to a source close to the couple.

On the field, Brady’s Bucs have had a rocky start to the season. They currently have a 3-2 record and sit atop the NFC South but have had some bad losses and some underwhelming performances.

Brady said on Monday that the importance of addressing one’s mental health in sports is often underplayed.

“I think there was a part of us where we felt like, suck it up and deal with it,” Brady added. “And I think you realize that there’s a lot, especially in today’s day and age, with how fast things are happening in life for all of us, and the amount of responsibilities we have.

“You hear this a lot from people that say: ‘I’m only human.’ We are only human. We’re not inhuman. We’re not immune to a lot of the things that life brings us. We’re not robots.”

Brady said having a “great support system” has helped him cope with the pressure he’s had during his storied career, during which he’s won seven Super Bowl titles.

“You wake up every day trying to do the best you can do, understanding that life has its stresses and to deal with them with a great support system and understanding and having some introspectiveness in your life where you can look at yourself and say, where do I need to commit my time and energy to?” he explained.

“And how can I lessen some of the stress and lessen the burden on me so that I can be good for people around me? So those are all different things that you work at. I worked at them when I was 20.

“There was a lot of things that I was going through when I was 20. There was a lot of things I was going through in my 30s. There’s things I’m going through in my 40s.

“And it’s life. And you learn to grow up and you learn to deal with life. And that’s what we’re all trying to do. We’re trying to do it the best way we can.”

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October 12, 2022
Prosecutors ask jury to recommend death sentence for Parkland shooter | CNN

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Prosecutors have called on a Florida jury to recommend the Parkland school shooter be put to death, saying in a closing argument Tuesday he meticulously planned the February 2018 massacre, and that the facts of the case outweigh anything in his background that defense attorneys claim warrant a life sentence.

“What he wanted to do, what his plan was and what he did, was to murder children at school and their caretakers,” lead prosecutor Michael Satz said of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 14 students and three school staff members were killed. “That’s what he wanted to do.”

But Cruz “is a brain damaged, broken, mentally ill person, through no fault of his own,” defense attorney Melisa McNeill said in her own closing argument, pointing to the defense’s claim that Cruz’s mother used drugs and drank alcohol while his mother was pregnant with him, saying he was “poisoned” in her womb.

“And in a civilized humane society, do we kill brain damaged, mentally ill, broken people?” McNeill asked Tuesday. “Do we? I hope not.”

With closing arguments, the monthslong sentencing phase of Cruz’s trial is nearing its end, marking prosecutors’ last chance to convince the jury to recommend a death sentence and defense attorneys’ last opportunity to lobby for life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors have argued Cruz’s decision to commit the deadliest mass shooting at an American high school was premeditated and calculated, while Cruz’s defense attorneys have offered evidence of a lifetime of struggles at home and in school.

Each side was allotted two and a half hours to make their closing arguments.

Jury deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday, during which time jurors will be sequestered, per Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer.

If they choose to recommend a death sentence, the jurors must be unanimous, or Cruz will receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. If the jury does recommend death, the final decision rests with Judge Scherer, who could choose to follow the recommendation or sentence Cruz to life.

In his remarks, Satz outlined prosecutors’ reasoning, including the preparations Cruz made. For a “long time” prior to the shooting, Satz said, Cruz thought about carrying it out.

Revisiting ground covered in the trial, the prosecutor said Cruz researched mass shootings and their perpetrators, including those at a music festival in Las Vegas; at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; at Virginia Tech; and at Colorado’s Columbine High School.

Cruz modified his AR-15 to help improve his marksmanship; he accumulated ammunition and and magazines; and he searched online for information about how long it would take police to respond to a school shooting, Satz said.

Then, the day of, Satz said, Cruz hid his tactical vest in a backpack and took an Uber to the school, wearing a Marjory Stoneman Douglas JROTC polo shirt to blend in. Based on his planning, he told the Uber driver to drop him off at a specific pedestrian gate, knowing it would be open soon before school let out.

“All these details he thought of, and he did,” Satz said.

Satz also detailed a narrative of the shooting, which he called a “systematic massacre,” recounting how the shooter killed or wounded each of his victims, whose families and loved ones filled the courtroom gallery. Prosecutors also showed jurors a video of the shooting, which was not shown to the public.

Cruz, wearing a striped sweater and flanked by his public defenders, looked on expressionless, occasionally looking down at the table in front of him or talking to one of his attorneys.

“The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty,” Satz concluded.

In her own statement, McNeill stressed to jurors that defense attorneys were not disputing that Cruz deserves to be punished for the shooting.

“We are asking you to punish him and to punish him severely,” she said. “We are asking you to sentence him to prison for the rest of his life, where he will wait to die, either by natural causes or whatever else could possibly happen to him while he’s in prison.”

The 14 slain students were: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 14.

Geography teacher Scott Beigel, 35; wrestling coach Chris Hixon, 49; and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, 37, also were killed – each while running toward danger or trying to help students to safety.

The lengthy trial – jury selection began six months ago, in early April – has seen prosecutors and defense attorneys present evidence of aggravating factors and mitigating circumstances, reasons Cruz should or should not be put to death.

The state has pointed to seven aggravating factors, including that the killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, as well as cold, calculated and premeditated, Satz said Tuesday. Other aggravating factors include the fact the defendant knowingly created a great risk of death to many people and that he disrupted a lawful government function – in this case, the running of a school.

Together, these aggravating factors “outweigh any mitigation about anything about the defendant’s background or character,” Satz said.

Satz rejected the mitigating circumstances presented during trial by the defense, including that Cruz’s mother smoked or used drugs while pregnant with him. Those factors would not turn someone into a mass murderer, Satz argued, adding it was the jury’s job to weigh the credibility of the defense witnesses who testified to those claims.

Satz cast doubt on the defense’s other proposed mitigators. In response to a claim that Cruz has neurological or intellectual deficits, Satz pointed to the gunman’s ability to carefully research and prepare for the Parkland shooting.

In response to claims Cruz was bullied by his peers, Satz argued Cruz was an aggressor, pointing to testimony that he walked around in high school with a swastika drawn on his backpack, along with the N-word and other explicit language.

“Hate is not a mental disorder,” Satz said.

During trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing the gunman spent months searching online for information about mass shootings and left behind social media comments sharing his express desire to “kill people,” while Google searches illustrated how he sought information about mass shootings. On YouTube, Cruz left comments like “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” and promised to “go on a killing rampage.”

“What one writes,” Satz said, referencing Cruz’s online history Tuesday, “what one says, is a window to someone’s soul.”

Public defenders assigned to represent Cruz have asked the jury to take into account his troubled history, from a dysfunctional family life to serious mental and developmental issues, contending he was born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

On Tuesday, McNeill reiterated the defense’s case, starting with one of the first witnesses called in August, Cruz’s older sister, Danielle Woodard. Woodard testified their mother, Brenda Woodard, used drugs and drank alcohol while pregnant with him.

“Her brother, Nikolas Cruz never recovered from the drugs and the alcohol that Brenda put in her polluted womb,” McNeill said Tuesday.

Several neighbors who knew Cruz when he lived with his late adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, also testified about watching him grow up, McNeill reminded jurors Tuesday. They shared how they saw him behaving in ways they described as “strange” or “weird,” or saw him being bullied. One neighbor, McNeill said, had told jurors that “from the moment he set eyes on Nikolas, he could tell something was not right with him.”

McNeill also revisited Cruz’s academic struggles throughout his childhood, recounting the “many people” – including educators and school counselors or psychologists – who testified they had concerns about his bad behavior or poor performance in school.

Those struggles continued into adolescence, McNeill said: When he was 15 years old, Cruz’s skills in reading, writing and math were well below the levels they should have been. These academic struggles, along with his anxiety and depression, were indicators, McNeill said, of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Various counselors and psychiatrists also testified, McNeill reminded the jury, offering their observations from years of treating or interacting with Cruz. One, former Broward County school district counselor John Newnham, testified that while Lynda Cruz was a caring mother, after the death of her husband, she was “overwhelmed” and did not take advantage of the support available.

This was a factor in Cruz’s failure to receive the proper help, McNeill told jurors Tuesday.

“Everybody told you that Lynda never truly appreciated what was wrong with Nikolas … But the evidence has shown you that Lynda consistently minimized, enabled, ignored, excused, defended and ultimately lied to the very people that were trying to help Nikolas.”

“Sometimes the people who deserve the least amount of compassion and grace and remorse are the ones who should get it,” she said.

As part of the prosecution’s case, family members of the victims were given the opportunity this summer to take the stand and offer raw and emotional testimony about how Cruz’s actions had forever changed their lives. At one point, even members of Cruz’s defense team were brought to tears.

“I feel I can’t truly be happy if I smile,” Max Schachter, the father of 14-year-old victim Alex Schachter, testified in August. “I know that behind that smile is the sharp realization that part of me will always be sad and miserable because Alex isn’t here.”

The defense’s case came to an unexpected end last month when – having called just 26 of 80 planned witnesses – public defenders assigned to represent Cruz abruptly rested, leading the judge to admonish the team for what she said was unprofessionalism, resulting in a courtroom squabble between her and the defense (the jury was not present).

Defense attorneys would later file a motion to disqualify the judge for her comments, arguing in part they suggested the judge was not impartial and Cruz’s right to a fair trial had been undermined. Prosecutors disagreed, writing “judicial comments, even of a critical or hostile nature, are not grounds for disqualification.”

Scherer ultimately denied the motion.

Prosecutors then presented their rebuttal, concluding last week following a three-day delay attributed to Hurricane Ian.

Their case included footage of Cruz telling clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Robert Denney he chose to carry out the shooting on Valentine’s Day because he “felt like no one loved me, and I didn’t like Valentine’s Day and I wanted to ruin it for everyone.”

Denney, who spent more than 400 hours with the gunman, testified for the prosecution that he concluded Cruz has borderline personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder.

But Cruz did not meet the criteria for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, as the defense has contended, Denney testified, accusing Cruz of “grossly exaggerating” his “psychiatric problems” in tests Denney administered.

When read the list of names of the 17 people killed and asked if fetal alcohol spectrum disorder explained their murders, Denney responded “no” each time.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of defense attorney Melisa McNeill.

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October 11, 2022
Jimmy Carter Fast Facts | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Here is a look at the life of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States.

Birth date: October 1, 1924

Birth place: Plains, Georgia

Birth name: James Earl Carter Jr.

Father: James Earl Carter Sr., a farmer and businessman

Mother: Lillian (Gordy) Carter

Marriage: Rosalynn (Smith) Carter (July 7, 1946-present)

Children: Amy Lynn, Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff,” James Earl III “Chip” and John William “Jack”

Education: Georgia Southwestern College, 1941-1942; Georgia Institute of Technology, 1942-1943; US Naval Academy, B.S., 1946

Military: US Navy, 1946-1953, Lieutenant

Religion: Christian

Carter was the first US president to be born in a hospital.

Champion of human rights, especially regarding the governments of South Korea, Iran, Argentina, South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

The Carter Center, established by the former president and his wife in 1982, has observed 113 elections in 39 countries since 1989.

Created the Department of Energy and established a national policy to address the energy shortage.

Is the oldest living former president.

Has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and has won three.

1953 – Works on his own farm in Plains, Georgia, and operates Carter’s Warehouse, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company.

1962 – Wins election to the Georgia state Senate.

1966 – Runs for governor and loses to Lester Maddox.

November 3, 1970 – Runs for governor a second time and wins.

January 12, 1971 – Is inaugurated as Georgia’s 76th governor.

1974 – Serves as the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional elections.

December 12, 1974 – Officially announces his candidacy for president of the United States.

November 2, 1976 – Elected as the 39th president of the United States.

January 20, 1977 – Inaugurated.

March 26, 1979 – In a ceremony in Washington, DC, Egypt and Israel formally sign a peace treaty ending 31 years of war between them. The successful Camp David Accords are one of the highlights of Carter’s presidency.

November 4, 1979 – The US Embassy in Tehran, Iran, is stormed and diplomatic staff are taken hostage. Carter’s inability to successfully negotiate release of the hostages becomes a major political liability. The hostages are released on January 20, 1981, the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.

1982 – Becomes a professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

1982 – Founds the Carter Center in Atlanta, in partnership with Emory University. Carter Center initiatives include monitoring international elections, fighting diseases in developing countries and seeking international peace. One of the key accomplishments of the Carter Center is the near eradication of Guinea worm disease from more than three million cases in 1986 to 14 cases in 2021.

August 9, 1999 – Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor for an American civilian.

May 14, 2002 – In a speech given in Cuba, Carter outlines his vision for improvement between the United States and Cuba regarding their trading relations. The speech is broadcast live and uncensored on Cuban state television.

October 11, 2002 – Wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

February 19, 2005 – The USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23) is commissioned.

February 11, 2007 – Wins a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio book of “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis.” He shares the award with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.

April 17, 2008 – Meets with Hamas leaders in Cairo, Egypt. US and Israeli government officials object to Carter’s meeting, as both governments classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

September 15, 2009 – Carter causes controversy with remarks on NBC Nightly News about President Barack Obama. Carter says, “An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American.”

August 27, 2010 – Carter negotiates the release of US citizen Aijalon Mahli Gomes. Gomes had been imprisoned in North Korea after entering illegally in January 2010. “At the request of President Carter, and for humanitarian purposes, Mr. Gomes was granted amnesty by the chairman of the National Defense Commission, Kim Jong-Il,” the Carter Center says in a statement.

March 28, 2011 – Carter arrives in Cuba for a three-day visit, to meet with President Raul Castro.

April 26, 2011 – Visits Pyongyang, North Korea, for talks to ease tensions between North and South Korea, accompanied by former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.

May 4, 2011 – In a Washington Post opinion piece, Carter urges the support of the Hamas-Fatah unity government.

June 24, 2012 – In a New York Times opinion piece, Carter says that the United States is no longer a champion of human rights in light of recent legislative action and drone strikes.

July 7, 2015 – His autobiography, “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety,” is published.

August 3, 2015 – Has a “small mass” removed from his liver during surgery.

August 12, 2015 – Carter announces that “recent liver surgery revealed that [he has] cancer that now is in other parts of [his] body.” Carter says he will receive treatment at Emory University in Atlanta.

August 20, 2015 – Carter holds a press conference to announce that doctors found spots of melanoma on his brain and he will undergo treatment.

December 6, 2015 – Carter announces that according to his most recent MRI brain scan, his cancer is gone.

February 15, 2016 – Wins a Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category for the audio book version of “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety.” It is his second Grammy win.

July 13, 2017 – Carter is admitted to a hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, after becoming dehydrated while working outdoors for Habitat for Humanity. He is released the following day.

February 10, 2019 – Wins his third Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category, this time for the audio book version of “Faith – A Journey For All.”

May 13, 2019 – The Carter Center says that the former president is recovering from surgery to repair a broken hip after falling at his home in Plains, Georgia.

June 3, 2019 – Emory University announces that Carter has become a tenured faculty member after teaching at the Atlanta-based private university for 37 years.

June 28, 2019 – Carter suggests that a full investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election would show that Donald Trump didn’t win the presidency. In response, Trump later says that Carter is a Democrat and repeating a “typical talking point,” calling him a “nice man, terrible president.”

September 17, 2019 – During a town hall at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Carter says if he were 80 years old he would not be able to handle the responsibilities of being President and jokes that he hopes there is an “age limit” on the office. The comments are especially notable as the age of the three top Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls, who are in their 70s, has been the subject of ongoing debate.

October 6, 2019 – Carter receives 14 stitches after falling and hitting his head in his home. Hours later he travels to Nashville to speak at the Ryman Auditorium.

October 21, 2019 – Carter falls in his home and is admitted to Phoebe Sumter Medical Center for observation and treatment of a minor pelvic fracture.

November 12, 2019 – Undergoes an operation to relieve pressure on his brain caused by bleeding from his recent falls, according to the Carter Center. The center says there are no complications from the procedure. He is released from the hospital on November 27.

December 2, 2019 – In a statement, the Carter Center says that the former president has returned to the hospital over the weekend for a urinary tract infection. Carter is discharged on December 4.

September 9, 2020 – The documentary film, “Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President,” is released in theaters.

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October 11, 2022
Google unveils new Pixel 7 smartphones and first-ever Pixel smartwatch | CNN Business

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Google on Thursday unveiled its new Pixel 7 smartphone lineup and its first-ever Pixel smartwatch, packed with tracking and health features from its subsidiary Fitbit.

At a press event in New York City, Google showed off the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro devices, which largely look the same as the year prior but with new camera features, an improved screen and battery, and an updated Google Tensor processor.

While many of the updates are iterative, the lineup will likely appeal to tech enthusiasts who want the latest version of Android and an alternative to Apple or Samsung smartphones, as well as those who haven’t upgraded their Pixel device in a few years.

The 6.3-inch Pixel 7 features a glass back, aluminum frame and a sleek band on the back with black cutouts for the camera system. Its always-on OLED display allows for quick checking of widgets that highlight useful information, such as baggage claim details at the airport or when packages are arriving (not unlike what’s been recently made available on the new iPhone 14 line with the lockscreen).

Google

(GOOG) said the Pixel 7’s screen is now 25% brighter for visibility indoors, and the device can go a full day on a single charge (or 72 hours when on extreme battery saver mode). It comes in three colors – obsidian, snow and lemongrass – and starts at $599, or $200 less than a baseline iPhone 14 with the same amount of storage.

“We want people to give Pixel a try, so while phones in this tier typically start at $799, we’re starting the price at $599,” Brian Rakowski, Google vice president of product management, said on stage during the event.

The larger 6.7-inch Pixel Pro – which comes in a matte aluminum finish – features an always-on display, the same long-lasting battery as the Pixel 7 and a new triple rear camera system, which includes a 5x telephoto lens, 30x super resolution zoom and an upgraded ultrawide lens. The ultrawide lens comes with autofocus capabilities to support new features including Macro Focus that picks up on fine details.

Both models run on Google’s new Tensor G2 processor, which powers the device’s machine learning and speech recognition capabilities, and several camera features. With Night Sight, for example, the camera now processes photos twice as fast. The tech also drives Cinematic Blur, a new dramatic blurring effect for videos.

A new accessibility feature called Guided Frame helps visually impaired users take better selfies by vocally instructing them to move the device in specific directions. Google also announced updates to making calls, including cutting down on background noise and the ability to transcribe audio messages into text messages.

The Pro model, which comes in obsidian, snow and hazel, starts at $899. Pre-orders start on Thursday for both models and the devices hit shelves on Thursday, October 13.

Google’s Pixel line remains a niche product. Its global market share for smartphones has never surpassed 1% on an annual basis, according to data from IDC Research. Google also limits sales to only a handful of countries, so keeping the volume low has been strategic as Google remains predominantly a software company with many partners running Android. (Google said the Pixel 7 line, however, will launch in sevral new countries, including India, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.)

Google won’t likely take much market share away from Apple with these Pixel updates, as iPhone owners are known to be brand-loyal. Other Android smartphone makers, however, such as Samsung or smaller Chinese manufacturers may feel the pressure from consumer interest in Google hardware, according to Ben Wood, an analyst with CC Insight. “But given the incremental updates, it’s possible there will be less excitement than there has been in the past,” he said.

At the event, Google also teased another early look at its upcoming Pixel tablet, which will feature the Tensor G2 processor, and is expected to launch in 2023.

But one area where Google could make a greater impact this year is with the introduction of the Pixel watch. It is Google’s first wearable that plays up Fitbit’s strengths in health, fitness and wellness since closing its $2.1 billion acquisition of the smartwatch company early last year. Until now, Google had been quiet about how the Fitbit brand would integrate with its Wear OS software.

The new 41 mm Google Pixel Watch features a circular, domed-shaped Gorilla Glass display that’s scratch- and water-resistant. It promises up to 24 hours of battery life and is compatible with Android 8 and newer devices. Built with Fitbit’s tracking capabilities, the Pixel Watch can monitor a user’s heart rate and sleep quality, offers 40 workout modes, and learns user behavior over time.

The device also assists with emergency SOS and supports a handful of Google services, including Google Wallet, Gmail and calendar updates, as well as sending messages and talking over 4G. The Pixel Watch comes in black, gold and silver finishes. It will cost $349 for Bluetooth and $399 for 4G LTE.

“Pixel Watch poses zero threat to the Apple Watch, but it has an important role to play in raising the awareness of smartwatches for Android smartphone owners,” Wood said. “Given the success of the Apple Watch, there has to be a bigger market for smartwatches in the Android segment and together with Samsung’s Galaxy Watch, the new Pixel Watch should be a key driver for growth.”

It may take the Pixel Watch a few generations to catch up to the Apple Watch in terms of usability, however, as Apple’s smartwatch is now in its ninth iteration. But coupled with the Fitbit acquisition and the formation of Wear OS in collaboration with Samsung, Google is showing its greater commitment to the smartwatch market and perhaps hoping the time may finally be right for it.

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October 11, 2022
Thai PM orders tighter gun control, drugs crackdown after mass killing | CNN

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Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Monday ordered law enforcement agencies to tighten gun ownership rules and crack down on drug use following a mass killing by an ex-policeman at a daycare center that left has the nation in shock.

A total of 36 people including 24 children were killed in a knife and gun rampage last week by an ex-cop who later killed himself in Uthai Sawan, a town 500 kilometers (310 miles) northeast of Bangkok. It was one of the worst child death tolls in a massacre by a single killer in recent history.

Prayut has instructed authorities to proactively search and test for the use of illicit drugs among officials and communities, and step up treatment for addicts, government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri said in a statement.

The prime minister has ordered government registrars to revoke the gun licenses of registered owners who have reportedly behaved in a way that “threatens society” and “creates chaos or causes unrest,” Anucha said, alongside a crackdown on illegal gun sales, weapons smuggling, and the use of illegal firearms.

Thai authorities plan to recall guns from officials and police officers who have misused their firearms or have behaved aggressively on duty.

Regular mental health checks will also be required for gun license applicants and holders, Police Chief Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas told reporters.

Gun ownership is high in Thailand compared with some other countries in Southeast Asia. Illegal weapons, many brought in from strife-torn countries, are common.

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October 10, 2022
Louis Farrakhan Fast Facts | CNN

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Here’s a look at the life of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.

Birth date: May 11, 1933

Birth place: The Bronx, New York

Birth name: Louis Eugene Walcott

Father: Percival Clark

Mother: Sarah Mae (Manning) Clark

Marriage: Khadijah Farrakhan, formerly Betsy (Ross) Walcott, (September 12, 1953-present)

Children: Mustapha, Joshua Nasir, Abnar, Louis Junior, Donna, Hanan, Maria, Fatimah and Khallada

Education: Attended Winston-Salem Teachers College, 1951-1953

Farrakhan was named for Louis Walcott, the man his mother became involved with after his biological father, Percival Clark, deserted them.

The Walcott family moved from the Bronx to the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston during the mid-1930s.

He won a track scholarship to college in North Carolina.

Farrakhan is an accomplished classical violinist who began playing at the age of 5. He is also a singer, songwriter, playwright and film producer. Farrakhan wrote two plays, “The Trial” and “Orgena.” (“A Negro” spelled backward).

Farrakhan is known for having preached antisemitic, anti-White, anti-Catholic and anti-homosexual rhetoric.

1955 – Joins the Nation of Islam (NOI) and adopts the name Louis X.

December 4, 1964 – Condemns rival Malcolm X in the NOI newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, saying “the die is set and Malcolm shall not escape… such a man is worthy of death.”

February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X is assassinated. Louis X replaces him as the national spokesman of the NOI.

Late 1960s – Takes the name Louis Abdul Farrakhan.

Late 1970s – Farrakhan has a falling out with NOI leader, Wallace Deen Muhammad, who wants to move the NOI away from racial separatist teachings to a more conventional and racially inclusive Islam. The dispute leads to the formation of two rival groups. Farrakhan becomes head of the NOI, while Muhammad becomes the head of the World Community of al-Islam.

December 1983 – Accompanies Jesse Jackson and other clergy to Syria to negotiate the release of US Navy pilot Lt. Robert O. Goodman.

1984 – Months after Jesse Jackson came under heavy fire for his off-the-record comments that were later published in the Washington Post, referring to Jews by the insulting nickname “Hymie” and New York as “Hymietown,” Farrakhan, during his weekly radio broadcast, comes to Jackson’s defense claiming Judaism is a “gutter religion” and supporters of Israel are criminals in the sight of God.

May 1, 1985 – Announces acceptance of a $5 million interest-free loan from Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi.

June 25, 1986 – Files a lawsuit against US President Ronald Reagan, Secretary of State George Schultz, Secretary of Treasury James Baker and Attorney General Edwin Meese, claiming the government’s economic sanctions and travel ban on Libya violate Farrakhan’s freedom to worship and freedom of speech.

June 3, 1987 – Farrakhan’s lawsuit against the government is terminated after a district court judge upholds economic sanctions against Libya and prevents the repayment of the $5 million loan.

1991 – Receives first prostate cancer diagnosis.

October 16, 1995 – Organizes the Million Man March, also known as the Day of Atonement, on the Mall in Washington, DC. The event features 12 hours of speeches on the commitment of black men to take responsibility for improving themselves, their families and communities.

April 1999 – Prostate cancer reoccurrence requires emergency surgery at Howard University.

February 25, 2000 – Farrakhan makes peace with former NOI leader, Muhammad, who formed his own Islamic group in the wake of a dispute with Farrakhan on the direction of NOI. The men announce the unification of their groups during an event called the Savior’s Day Rally.

May 10, 2000 – Appears on “60 Minutes” with Malcolm X’s daughter, Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz, and says he regrets that his writing may have influenced others to assassinate Malcolm X.

October 15, 2005 – Organizes and speaks at the Million More Movement at the Mall in Washington, DC, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March.

September 22, 2006 – Releases a letter stating he is giving up many day-to-day duties as leader of the NOI due to illness, but will remain its leader.

January 6, 2007 – Farrakhan undergoes a successful surgery to remove his prostate and cancerous colon tissue.

October 10, 2015 – Farrakhan speaks at the “Justice or Else” rally in Washington, DC, marking the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.

February 11, 2016 – Farrakhan speaks at a rally at Tehran University in Iran, marking the 37th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

May 2, 2019 – Facebook designates Farrakhan “dangerous,” and bans him from its social media platforms.

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October 10, 2022
‘Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me’ trailer puts her mental health front and center | CNN

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CNN
—

Selena Gomez is opening up even more about her health struggles.

In the trailer for her Apple TV+ documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me,” the “Only Murders in the Building” star is seen dealing with various issues, including trying to get a handle on her mental health.

“After years in the limelight, Selena Gomez achieves unimaginable stardom,” the description on the trailer reads. “But just as she reaches a new peak, an unexpected turn pulls her into darkness. This uniquely raw and intimate documentary spans her six-year journey into a new light.”

The trailer was released on World Mental Health Day.

In 2021, Gomez launched Wondermind, a mental health platform that connects people with educational resources focuses on ending the stigma around mental illnesses.

She also joined President Joe Biden in May for a conversation with mental health.

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October 10, 2022
White-collar workers are feeling the brunt of the Fed’s rate hikes. Here’s why | CNN Business

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A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.

New York
CNN Business
—

September’s hotly anticipated jobs data ended up cooling markets on Friday. Stocks fell sharply as investors evaluated the report, which showed more jobs than expected were added to the US economy and indicated that more pain-inflicting interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve lie ahead.

But a breakdown of the numbers shows that the Fed’s plans to weaken the labor market to fight persistent inflation may already be working, just not for everybody.

White-collar office workers appear to be feeling the brunt of the Fed’s actions: The financial and business sector saw a large decline in employment last month. Legal and advertising services also experienced drops. Service and construction workers, meanwhile, are still thriving.

What’s happening: The US economy added 263,000 jobs in September, higher than analyst estimates of 250,000. The unemployment rate came in at 3.5%, down from 3.7% in August.

Leading the gain in jobs was the leisure and hospitality industry, which added 83,000 jobs in September — and employment in food services and drinking places made up 60,000 of those jobs alone. Manufacturing and construction also came in hot, adding 22,000 and 19,000 jobs, respectively.

The largest non-governmental losses in jobs came from the financial industry, which shed 8,000 between August and September. Large banks hire in cycles, extending offers to recent graduates in the early fall months. That makes this September’s drop particularly significant.

Business support services — such as telemarketing, accounting and administrative and clerical jobs — are also bleeding jobs. The sector lost 12,000 in September. Meanwhile, legal services lost 5,000 jobs, and advertising services also dropped 5,000 jobs.

What it means: The Federal Reserve’s hawkish policy appears to be cooling certain parts of the economy, but not others. Finance workers are likely beginning to worry as their industry depends on stock and lending markets which have been particularly hard hit by Fed actions.

Friday’s numbers indicate that we’re beginning to see that impact in the employment data.

What remains to be seen is whether the Fed can cool the economy just by loosening employment in white-collar industries or if these losses will trickle down to other industries, hurting lower-income workers.

Coming up: Earnings season begins in earnest this week with big banks like JPMorgan, Citigroup

(C), Morgan Stanley

(MS) and BlackRock

(BLK) reporting. Investors will be watching closely for any guidance on hiring and layoff plans.

Two key inflation indicators, PPI and CPI are also set to be released. Expect markets to react poorly if inflation comes in hot.

A panel of top US economists just released its economic outlook for the next year, and it’s not great.

The panel of 45 forecasters, led by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE), said they expected slower growth, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and weakening employment in both 2022 and 2023 than they previously expected.

Most of the worries come down to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

“More than three-quarters of respondents believe the odds are 50-50 or less that the economy will achieve a ‘soft landing’,” said NABE Vice President Julia Coronado. “More than half the panelists indicate that the greatest downside risk to the U.S. economic outlook is too much monetary tightness.”

NABE panelists downgraded their median forecast for real GDP for the fourth quarter of 2022 to a 0.1% increase, compared to a 1.8% increase in the May 2022 survey. The vast majority of respondents placed more than a 25% probability of a recession occurring in 2023, with the most likely start date in the first quarter.

The latest report comes as a growing number of economists are predicting that recession is imminent. Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told CNN on Thursday that it’s “more likely than not” the US will enter a recession, calling it a consequence of the “excesses the economy has been through.”

Friday’s jobs report showed that the share of workers telecommuting or working from home because of the pandemic ticked lower — falling to just 5.2% in September from 6.5% in August.

Fully remote work in the United States, which many predicted would remain the norm long after the pandemic, appears to be edging away, especially as the job market loosens for white collar workers and employees have less leverage.

Last week, a KPMG survey of US-based CEOs found that two-thirds believed in-office work would be the norm within the next three years.

Still, it may not be enough to help an ailing commercial real estate market, where the outlook is dire. New York City office properties declined by nearly 45% in value in 2020 and are forecast to remain 39% below their pre-pandemic levels long-term as hybrid policies continue, according to a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Looking forward: The Bureau of Labor Statistics has noted that while hybrid work may still be popular, Covid-19 is no longer fueling work from home trends. The October report will rephrase its telework questions to remove references to the pandemic.

Since May 2020, each jobs report has asked: “At any time in the last four weeks, did you telework or work at home for pay because of the Coronavirus pandemic?”

In May 2020, 35.4% answered yes.

Starting next month, the question will be revised. “At any time in the last week did you telework or work at home for pay?” it will ask, limiting the timeline and eliminating any reference to the pandemic.

The US bond market is closed for Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Coming later this week:

▸ Third quarter earnings season begins. Expect reports from big banks like JPMorgan Chase

(JPM), Wells Fargo

(WFC), Citigroup

(C), Morgan Stanley

(MS), PNC

(PNC) and US Bancorp

(USB) and consumer staples like Pepsi

(PEP), Walgreen

(WBA)s and Domino’s

(DMPZF).

▸ CPI and PPI, two closely watched measures of inflation in the US are also due to be released.

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October 10, 2022
Republican Sen. Rick Scott to campaign for Herschel Walker in Georgia this week | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida will travel to Georgia on Tuesday to support GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, whose campaign has been reeling following reports Walker asked a woman to terminate two pregnancies.

The move by Scott highlights how critical the race in Georgia is with a 50-50 split in the US Senate. Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate Republican campaign arm.

“The Democrats want to destroy this country, and they will try to destroy anyone who gets in their way. Today it’s Herschel Walker, but tomorrow it’s the American people,” Scott said in a statement sent to CNN on Saturday. “I’m proud to stand with Herschel Walker and make sure Georgians know that he will always fight to protect them from the forces trying to destroy Georgia values and Georgia’s economy, led by Raphael Warnock.”

Warnock, a Democratic senator from Georgia, is Walker’s opponent.

The Daily Beast reported on Friday that Walker paid for a woman’s abortion in 2009. The woman told The New York Times that Walker asked her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later, but she refused the request and their relationship ended.

Walker, who said in May he supports a full ban on abortions, with no exceptions, has denied the earlier report from The Daily Beast, calling the allegation a “flat-out lie.”

CNN has not independently confirmed the woman’s allegation about the abortion or that Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy. CNN has reached out to the Walker campaign for comment.

Earlier Saturday, Warnock, said Walker “has trouble with the truth.”

“It’s up to Georgia voters. It’s not up to him, it’s not up to me,” Warnock said. “We do know that my opponent has trouble with the truth. And we’ll see how all this plays out, but I am focused squarely on the health care needs of my constituents, including reproductive health care.”

NRSC spokesperson Chris Hartline said on Saturday that the organization will “have a big presence in Georgia in the final stretch.”

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas will also be in Georgia to campaign for Walker on Tuesday.

“Senator Cotton is headed to Georgia on Tuesday to campaign for Herschel Walker and help Republicans take back the Senate next month,” Cotton’s communications director, Caroline Tabler, told CNN. “He believes Herschel will be a champion for Georgia who will vote to keep violent criminals in jail, for lower gas prices, and to stop Joe Biden’s inflationary policies.”

The Washington Post first reported on Scott and Cotton’s trip to Georgia.

On Sunday, GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who is facing a competitive reelection in a swing district in Nebraska, told NBC he still backs Walker.

“I sure do,” Bacon told Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.”

“Hershel needs to come clean and be honest,” he added. “We also know that we all make mistakes. It’s better – if this actually did happen – it’s better to say ‘I’m sorry’ and ask for forgiveness.”

This headline and story have been updated.

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October 9, 2022
A single mom’s 4 kids had to fend for themselves when tragedy struck. How a chance encounter years ago saved their future | CNN

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CNN
—

On a dark autumn evening almost four years ago, Janie Yoshida was driving her daughter home from high school play rehearsal when she noticed a teenager walking by himself next to a busy road.

Tre Burrows, it turned out, was also in the play at Somerset Academy Canyons High School in Boynton Beach, Florida.

“I pulled over to the side of the sidewalk and rolled the window down and said, ‘Hey, where do you live? I’ll take you home,’” Janie recalled.

The 17-year-old kept insisting he was fine, until Janie put on “my mom’s voice” and demanded: ‘“Get in the car.”

The polite young man with the gregarious smile complied. But, Janie soon learned, he led a life more challenging than she imagined – one in which she’d soon play a far bigger role.

“He wanted me to drop him off at a main intersection. And I said, ‘Of course not. Just show me where you live.’ And he goes, ‘No, I can walk the rest of the way,’” Janie recalled.

Reluctantly, Tre directed Janie to where he and his family were living.

A motel.

“I tried to play it off, like no big deal,” Janie recalled. But in reality, “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God … just terrible.’”

From that point on, Janie gave Tre a ride every day after play rehearsal. Sometimes, she would make up an excuse to get fast food along the way, just to make sure Tre had a hot meal.

“‘I don’t want to cook tonight,’” she’d tell him. “’Let’s just go through the drive thru.’”

Then one day, Tre let slip another detail about his family life.

“‘I’m gonna save this (meal),’” he told Janie, “’and split it with my sisters’” – one older and two younger, all together at the motel.

Tre’s mother, it turned out, had been working two jobs and hanging by a thread to support her four children against immeasurable odds.

Despite the financial challenges, Cindy Dawkins worked tirelessly to give her kids everything they needed. She had every meal ready, even without a kitchen. She helped with homework. Instead of asking her older ones to work part-time to support the family, she encouraged extracurricular activities such as track or school theater.

Eventually, Tre told Janie why he’d been so nervous about telling anyone where he lived.

“He didn’t want anybody to know because he was worried that the Department of Children and Families would come and take them away from his mom,” Janie said. “That’s just heartbreaking.”

Janie asked to meet this matriarch – and was floored by her work ethic and strength.

And as much as he loved his mom, Tre had no idea how much she sacrificed for her children.

Soon, immense tragedy would force him to learn.

A native of the Bahamas, Cindy moved to the US for what seemed like a promising career in the hospitality industry. But an avalanche of “bad luck on top of bad luck” fell on her, Janie said, including a layoff and a divorce.

She ended up waitressing at two restaurants – one during the day, the other at night.

“For the longest (time), she was working two jobs just to keep us afloat, paycheck to paycheck,” said Tre, now 21.

“And she did all of that with a smile on her face because she didn’t want us to know exactly how hard it was to do all that.”

But despite working two jobs, Cindy couldn’t get an apartment on her own because of a prior eviction. So she and her children moved into the motel, which cost far more per month than an apartment.

For three years, Cindy raised her four children in a motel room while working multiple jobs.

Behind the omnipresent smile she put on for her kids, though, Cindy was struggling.

She lamented that “‘in three years, I haven’t been able to make a home-cooked meal,’” Janie recalled.

“She was like, ‘I don’t have a moment to myself or any privacy except when I’m in the shower. So if I’m going to break down, I’m going to cry, it’s going to be in the shower,’” Janie recalled.

“‘And I’ve got to put my face back on, walk out of the bathroom in front of the kids and make sure that they don’t see it from me because I have to make them think everything’s OK.’”

The family’s bad luck culminated the day Tre missed play rehearsal.

The next day, Janie asked if he had been sick.

“‘They kicked us out of the hotel because my mom couldn’t pay,’” Janie recalled him telling her.

Janie went home and told her husband: “We need to get this family an apartment. I’m going tomorrow.”

And as readily as she’d opened her car door to Tre that first time, “we just rented an apartment for them,” she said.

With Janie’s name on the lease, the family of five moved into a two-bedroom apartment – mom in one bedroom, her four children sharing the other.

Cindy meticulously paid the rent and utilities “earlier or on time – always,” Janie said.

She got a raise at one of her restaurant jobs, Tre said, allowing her to quit her second job and spend more time with her kids.

But that cherished time with her children would be short-lived.

With a new home and better pay, Cindy and her kids eagerly anticipated celebrating her 50th birthday last summer.

“We were planning on going up to Orlando a few days before and then spend her birthday up there,” Tre said.

“We noticed that she started getting sick literally the day that we got there. As soon as we arrived, she went to bed and went to sleep and was just sleeping the entire time.”

Cindy spent her birthday, August 1, in bed with severe Covid-19. The disease ravaged her body so quickly, “I didn’t even get to see her after she went into the hospital,” Tre said.

On August 7, 2021 – six days after her birthday – Cindy died.

Disbelief exacerbated her children’s agony.

“She didn’t have any prior illnesses. … We just didn’t think anything like that would happen because we were healthy,” Tre said.

“We were seeing the news (about) all the people passing away from Covid, but you never really understand exactly how bad it is until you experience it firsthand. We weren’t thinking this would completely uproot our lives.”

Tre said his mother did not get vaccinated, in part due to rumors about side effects.

“We didn’t want to do this and then (have it) potentially cause us to get sick,” Tre said. “We know better than that now. But I guess that was the reasoning behind her not getting” vaccinated.

Tre and his siblings joined a growing group of children no one wants to be part of: the orphans of Covid. More than 212,000 US children have lost one or both parents to Covid-19, according to estimates from Imperial College London. And the number of children robbed of their parents keeps rising.

“It never crossed my mind,” Tre said, “that me and my older sister would be the ones taking care of our little sisters.”

Tre was the first to hear from the doctor his mother had passed. He rushed to the hospital and told his older sister, Jenny Burrows, now 25, to get there immediately.

When Jenny arrived, “We cried for hours,” Tre recalled. “Our little sisters were at home (sleeping). Then we gathered ourselves and we tried to figure out, ‘OK, how are we going to tell our sisters?’”

They woke up heir siblings Zoe Clarke, then 15, and Sierra Clarke, then 12. The most horrific nightmare had just turned into reality.

But Tre and Jenny didn’t have time to mourn. Their minds were racing:

“‘OK, are we about to get kicked out of the apartment we’re staying in because we can’t afford the bills?

“‘How are we going to move on from this home?

“‘How are we going to get the girls … everything they need for school?’”

And the biggest question of all: Will the younger children get taken away?

Despondent, overwhelmed and tasked with planning a funeral, Tre told Janie his mother passed.

“I just lost it. I couldn’t believe it,” Janie said. “It was devastating.”

She realized the siblings quickly needed help – and not just financially.

They needed to learn how to parent on the fly.

So once again, like she did all those years back from the driver’s seat, Janie went into mom mode.

Without a living legal guardian, the children’s greatest fear was getting separated. Maybe the younger siblings would get taken away into state custody and foster care. Or maybe they would be sent to the Bahamas to live with relatives.

Janie helped Jenny get to work on Priority No. 1: Becoming the younger girls’ legal guardian. It was one of the myriad legal complications that followed their mother’s death.

“Another thing that’s helping us tremendously is we were able to get the girls set up with Social Security benefits from my mom,” Tre said, which will help support Sierra and Zoe until they turn 18.

Janie and her husband also paid the remaining six months on the apartment’s lease. And she started a GoFundMe account, with an initial goal of paying for Cindy’s funeral expenses.

Then just as Janie had stepped in as a stranger to help Tre’s hard-working but struggling family, hundreds more strangers did the same.

The crowdsourcing fund grew so popular, it yielded enough for a down payment on a house so the children wouldn’t have to worry about getting evicted. Any extra funds likely will go toward Sierra’s and Zoe’s college education in the coming years.

Janie also taught the older siblings about car insurance, credit and other life skills they would need to know immediately, now that they had dependents.

The hardest part of being both a brother and a parent to younger siblings is “definitely the mental aspect of all of that,” Tre said.

“The attitude stuff is a big thing for teenagers. They’re teenagers. Like getting chores done, getting your homework done, the attitude that comes with all that … basically, everything that goes with raising a 16- and 12-year-old,” he said.

He and Jenny try to balance it all “while also making sure they don’t look at it like, ‘Oh, since Mom isn’t here, now you think you’re the boss and you can do all this stuff?’”

And Tre tries to balance tough love with “not being too harsh with them, obviously, because we all just went through a horrible situation.”

Tre and Jenny also now juggle a daily marathon of jobs, their own schooling and taking care of their sisters’ basic needs, their education and their mental health.

Tre works at a computer repair company and has started training to become an emergency medical technician and firefighter. And Jenny, a dental assistant, wants to finish training to become a dental hygienist.

The older siblings devised a plan for how to finish their education while paying the bills and taking care of the girls.

“When I was going through EMT school … my sister would drop them off at school. I would pick them up, and (then) I would head to school. That was our plan,” Tre said.

“And my sister would be the one at home with them, making sure they’re getting their homework done, making sure they’re OK mentally. And obviously I would help with that whenever I’m not in school. And basically I would get through that, get through the fire academy, doing the same thing,” he said.

“And then once I’m done with schooling, the roles will kind of be reversed. So I’ll be the one that’s dropping them off, and I’ll be home with them (while) my sister’s at school, getting her career situated.”

It’s a daunting task. But it’s nothing compared to what his own mother did, Tre said.

“My biggest (concern) was just making sure I can fill her shoes,” he said. “I never really understood exactly how much she was doing until now, when my sister and I are the ones who have to do it.”

Tre is also immensely grateful to the countless strangers who helped him and his siblings find a home and stay together.

And it all traces to Janie giving him a ride home from school that dark autumn evening.

“Without her,” he said, “we wouldn’t know what we would have done.”

And Janie has learned from Cindy’s children, she said. Perhaps they inherited their mother’s fortitude.

“I know they have the same instinct inside of them, just like their mom did – that hey, even if it sucks, let’s get up and make the best of it,” she said.

“They’re my inspiration now.”

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October 9, 2022
Opinion: The Fed doesn’t have a choice anymore. Get ready for a recession | CNN Business

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Editor’s Note: Gad Levanon is the chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute. He’s the former head of The Conference Board’s Labor Market Institute. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

To many economists and analysts, the US economy has represented a paradox this year. On the one hand, GDP growth has slowed significantly, and some argue, even entered a recession. On the other hand, overall employment growth has been much stronger than normal.

While GDP declined at an annualized rate of 1.1% in the first half of 2022, the US economy added 2.3 million jobs in the last six months, far more than in any other six-month period in the 20 years prior to the pandemic.

This tight labor market – and the rapid wage growth it has spurred – is causing inflation to become more entrenched. The Consumer Price Index, which measures a basket of goods and services, was 8.3% year-over-year in August. That’s lower than the 40-year high of 9.1% in June, but still painfully high. To address it, the Federal Reserve is likely to drive the economy into a recession in 2023, crushing continued job growth.

Why has employment growth remained so strong? First, the US economy is holding on better than many expected. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate for real GDP growth in the third quarter of 2022 is 2.3%, suggesting that while the economy is now growing much more slowly than it did last year, we are still not in a recession. When the demand for goods and services strengthens, so does the demand for workers producing these goods and services.

Second, despite the slowing of the economy and the growing fears of recession, layoffs are still historically low. Initial claims for unemployment insurance, an indicator highly correlated with layoffs, were 219,000 for the week ended October 1 – higher than the week prior, but still one of the lowest readings in recent decades. After years of increasingly traumatic labor shortages, many employers are reluctant to significantly reduce the number of workers even as their businesses are slowing. That’s because companies are worried that they will have trouble recruiting new workers when they start expanding again.

Third, many industries are growing faster than normal because they are still recovering from the pandemic. Convention and trade show organizers, car rental companies, nursing homes and child day care services, among others, are all growing fast because they are still well below pre-pandemic employment levels.

Fourth, just as some industries are growing because they are still catching up, others are experiencing high growth as they adjust to a new normal of higher demand. Demand for data processing and hosting services, semiconductor manufacturing, mental health services, testing laboratories, medical equipment and pharmaceutical manufacturing is higher than before the pandemic. And it’s likely that these represent structural changes to buying patterns that will keep demand high.

Fifth, during the pandemic, corporate investments in software and R&D reached unprecedented levels, which drove a rapid increase in new STEM jobs. Because these workers are especially well paid, they have had plenty of disposable income to spend on goods and services, which has supported job growth throughout the economy.

These factors are spurring positive momentum that will not disappear overnight. Employment growth is likely to slow down from its historically high rates, but it will still remain solid in the coming months. ManpowerGroup’s Employment Outlook Survey shows that the hiring intentions for the fourth quarter are still very high, despite dropping from the previous quarter.

Next year, however, will look very different. Many of the industries that are still recovering from the pandemic will have reached pre-pandemic employment levels. With demand saturated, those industries may revert to slower hiring. But this alone is unlikely to push job growth into negative territory. What will do that is monetary policy.

There are two ways to rein in the labor market: Either reduce demand for workers or increase the labor supply. But it’s hard to engineer a boost in labor supply. That takes the kind of legislative action needed to increase immigration, drive people into the labor force or grow investment in workforce training. This is likely to prove elusive in today’s polarized political environment.

The only option that leaves the Fed is to engineer a recession by continuing to raise interest rates. Expect to see that happen in 2023.

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October 7, 2022
Kelly warns ‘wheels’ could ‘come off our democracy’ while Masters tries to tie him to Biden in Arizona Senate debate | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

While trying to distance himself from his own party, Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly warned during an hour-long debate on Thursday that the “wheels” could “come off our democracy” if candidates like his GOP opponent, Trump-backed Blake Masters, are elected in November.

But Masters aggressively pushed back on those attacks, portraying Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term, as a rubber stamp for the Biden administration, while refusing to acknowledge that he has attempted to moderate his positions on abortion and the 2020 presidential election.

The Arizona Senate race is among the most competitive in the country, and with the chamber currently split 50-50, every race matters. But Kelly appears to have strengthened his position over the past two months as Masters has struggled to keep up with the Democrat’s fundraising prowess. A new CNN poll released Thursday found that 51% of likely voters are behind Kelly, with 45% backing Masters.

Masters – a venture capitalist and political novice who won the primary in large part because of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and the financial backing of billionaire Peter Thiel (his former boss) – released a campaign video last year proclaiming that he believed Trump won the 2020 election. But after the primary, he removed language from his website that included the false claim that the election was stolen.

Masters attempted to maneuver around questions about the election during Thursday’s debate – just days before Trump, whose 2020 loss in Arizona set off a cascade of election denialism in the state, heads there to campaign for Masters and other Republicans.

When the moderator asked him whether President Joe Biden, who narrowly carried Arizona, is the “legitimately elected President of the United States,” Masters replied: “Joe Biden is absolutely the President. I mean, my gosh, have you seen the gas prices lately?”

“Legitimately elected?” the moderator interjected.

“I’m not trying to trick you,” Masters said. “He’s duly sworn and certified. He’s the legitimate president. He’s in the White House and unfortunately for all of us.”

When the moderator followed up by using Trump’s language, asking whether the election was “stolen” or “rigged in any way” through vote counting or election results, Masters replied: “Yeah, I haven’t seen evidence of that.”

But Kelly argued that Masters has espoused “conspiracies and lies that have no place in our democracy.”

“I’m worried about what’s going to happen here,” Kelly said. “This election in 2024. I mean, we could wind up in a situation where the wheels come off of our democracy, and it’s because of folks like like Blake Masters that are questioning the integrity of an election.”

Masters insisted that he does not want to get rid of mail-in voting as Kelly alleged. He said he believed military service members should be able to mail ballots back from overseas and said he’d be fine with other voters sending their ballots back by mail if they included a copy of their driver’s license.

Masters and Kelly repeatedly clashed over immigration, with Masters claiming Kelly supports “open borders” and Kelly rejecting those attacks as he insisted that he’s brought more resources to Arizona to deal with that issue.

When asked whether he had done enough to address immigration concerns, Kelly distanced himself from national Democrats.

“When I got to Washington, DC, one of the first things I realized was that Democrats don’t understand this issue. And Republicans just want to talk about it, complain about it, but actually not do anything about it. They just want to politicize that. We heard this tonight from my opponent Blake Masters.”

Masters charged that Biden and Kelly have put out “the welcome mat” to migrants. “We treat these people better than we treat our own US military service members. I find that shameful.”

Kelly said he’s pushed back on the Biden administration multiple times on immigration issues, including when the administration planned to end Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed border patrol agents to send migrants back to their home countries.

“I’ve stood up to Democrats when they’re wrong on this issue … including the President.”

“When the President decided he was going to do something dumb on this, and change the rules,” Kelly said, “I told him he was wrong.”

Some of the sharpest exchanges were over abortion as the moderator and Libertarian candidate Marc Victor drew attention to the fact that Masters scrubbed some of the language about his anti-abortion stances from his website as he tried to pivot toward the general election.

Abortion rights have been a subject of fierce controversy in Arizona since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, because there are conflicting abortion laws in the state – leading to debate over which one should take precedence.

The state legislature passed a 15-week ban earlier this year that does not include exceptions for rape or incest, only medical emergencies. Masters has said he supports that plan, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.

But Arizona also had a pre-statehood law on the books banning nearly all abortions that was enjoined in 1973 after the Roe decision. A Pima County Superior Court judge recently ruled that it could go back into effect at the urging of the state’s GOP attorney general.

Kelly argued that Masters wants to make decisions for Arizona women and curtail their rights. “I think we all know guys like this,” said Kelly, also faulting Masters for supporting a national ban on abortion at 15 weeks that has been proposed by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

“You know, guys that think they know better than everyone about everything,” Kelly continued.

“What I’m doing is I am protecting your constitutional rights,” he added.

When the moderator pressed Kelly to explain what limits he would support on abortion, Kelly said he supports the kind of framework contemplated by the Roe v. Wade decision where “late term abortion in this country only happens when there is a serious problem.”

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October 6, 2022