In the early days of the United States, a candidate’s charisma did not matter as much in a presidential election. But in the era of electronic and social media, whether a candidate can connect individually with voters can determine whether he or she sits in the Oval Office.

The video generation began with a photogenic Democrat, John F. Kennedy, beating an unglamorous Republican, Richard Nixon, in the 1960 election. Nixon, however, was elected eight years later, defeating the Democratic Party’s nominee, the humdrum Hubert Humphrey.

Political novice Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016 is attributed to some degree by political analysts to the Democrat’s failure — despite her experience as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state — to connect with voters.

“That was my problem with many voters: I skipped the venting and went straight to the solving,” Clinton acknowledged in her book, “What Happened.”

A U.S. presidential candidate’s charisma and the country’s economic performance interact in predicting whether a leader is selected, according to a 2015 academic paper.

The respective approaches of President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Trump, to retail politicking helped each win the U.S. presidency and could give one of them the top job a second time in next year’s election.

After speeches, Biden sometimes works the crowd, posing for selfies and giving hugs.

Then there is Trump’s signature exit with his “thumbs up” gesture, the fist pumps and dance moves to the 1978 disco hit “YMCA.” Trump boasts about his deep connection with his supporters.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Trump said at a January 2016 campaign rally in the state of Iowa.

Trump has not shot anyone but is facing dozens of felony charges for crimes allegedly committed before, during and after his term in office, a career-killer for any conventional politician on the national stage. Polls, however, show him far ahead of the more than a dozen Republicans challenging him for the 2024 presidential nomination.

For those who study leadership, charisma is more than just being telegenic. Successful politicians excel at messaging.

“You feel like you’re one of them, and they are one of you, right? And so, kind of creating that collective identity, propelling values — all of those things can be done by framing the message, providing the substance and articulating in a way that’s engaging and present,” said Ulrich Jensen of Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs.

Jensen’s recent research demonstrates a connection between the charisma of U.S. governors and constituents following their pleas to mitigate behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By shaking hands, gesturing and repeating signature lines, presidential candidates amplify their messages to the wider world, according to Stephen Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington.

“The vast majority of people who are looking at these presidential candidates will never meet any of them,” said Farnsworth, a political science professor. “They will simply decide based on what they see on the media, whether this candidate or that candidate appeals to them more.”

Trump and Biden, the Democratic Party’s incumbent president, provide lessons in communication for those seeking to challenge them.

“You have to be genuine,” said Farnsworth. “I think that what you see with both of these men is exactly who they are.”

Perceptions of inauthenticity bedevil the campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who had been considered the most likely Republican candidate to dethrone Trump.

Awkward politicians cannot learn to be authentic, but they can be coached on what to emphasize, Trump’s first White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, told VOA.

“One of the things that sometimes politicians do is, if they get nervous about certain qualities, and so they’re afraid of leaning into them,” said Spicer. “And I think what Trump did was, he just went with his gut a lot more about what he thought and what he believed.”

“I completely agree [authenticity cannot be faked],” said Jensen. “An intuitive premise of charisma is [that] charisma isn’t much without authenticity. So, you can fool people using these tactics. But you can only do it for so long.”

Biden bets on his audiences believing his promises that he is authentic.

“I never, ever tell you anything I don’t mean. I never tell you anything I don’t believe, even when I know it’s not popular,” said Biden as a presidential candidate at Wofford College in South Carolina on Feb. 28, 2020.

“Creating that identification through showing people that you care and you’re willing to listen to their stories is one of the things Biden is known for,” said Jensen. “And what he does well is then reuse and repurpose those stories for the storytelling aspect and his own rhetoric. It’s an incredibly powerful way to help create that identification [with voters].”

Even Spicer is willing to acknowledge “Biden is very good one-on-one with folks,” but he contends Trump “is a little more genuine.”

“For the candidates who aren’t named Donald Trump or Joe Biden, I think the main lesson here is to be who you really are,” said Farnsworth, author of the book, “Presidential Communication and Character.” “If you try to present yourself as something less than fully genuine, the modern media environment detects that, and people see it.”
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Wind-whipped wildfires raced through parts of Hawaii on Wednesday, burning down businesses in a historic town on the island of Maui, injuring several people, forcing evacuations and leading some to flee to the relative safety of the ocean, where they were rescued by the Coast Guard.

Fire was widespread in Lahaina Town, including on Front Street, an area that is popular with tourists, County of Maui spokesperson Mahina Martin said by phone early Wednesday. Traffic has been very heavy as people try to evacuate, and officials asked people who weren’t in an evacuation area to shelter in place to avoid adding to the traffic, she said. Photos posted by the county overnight showed a line of flames blazing across an intersection in Lahaina and leaping above buildings in the town, whose historic district is on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Do NOT go to Lahaina Town,” the county tweeted hours before all roads in and out of West Maui’s biggest community were closed to everyone except emergency personnel.

Crews on Maui were battling multiple blazes concentrated in two areas: the tourist destination of West Maui and an inland, mountainous region. In West Maui, 911 service was not available and residents were directed to call the police department directly.

The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora, which was passing to the south of the island chain at a safe distance of 805 kilometers, was partly to blame for gusts above 97 kph that knocked out power, rattled homes and grounded firefighting helicopters. The strong winds were expected to diminish later Wednesday, but there was little chance of rain to aid firefighters, the weather service said.

The Coast Guard on Tuesday responded to areas where people had fled into the ocean to escape the fire and smoky conditions, the county said in a statement. The Coast Guard tweeted that a crew rescued 12 people from the water off Lahaina.

Burn patients have been flown to the island of Oahu, according to Honolulu Emergency Services Department spokesperson Shayne Enright. She couldn’t confirm how many patients were flown in from Maui, but she said a woman in her 60s was transported to a Honolulu hospital burn center in critical condition. Authorities said earlier Wednesday that a firefighter in Maui was hospitalized in stable condition after inhaling smoke.

Acting Gov. Sylvia Luke issued an emergency proclamation on behalf of Gov. Josh Green, who is traveling, and activated the Hawaii National Guard to assist.

Officials were not aware of any deaths, Martin said. There’s no count available for the number of structures that have burned or the number of people who have evacuated, but Martin said there were four shelters open and that more than 1,000 people were at the largest.

“This is so unprecedented,” Martin said, noting that multiple districts were affected. An emergency in the night is terrifying, she said, and the darkness makes it hard to gauge the extent of the damage.

“Right now it is all-hands-on-deck and we are anxious for daybreak,” she said.

Alan Dickar said he’s not sure what remains of his Vintage European Posters gallery, which was a fixture on Front Street in Lahaina for 23 years. Before evacuating with three friends and two cats, Dickar recorded video of flames engulfing the main strip of shops and restaurants frequented by tourists.

“Every significant thing I owned burned down today,” he said. “I’ll be OK. I got out safely.”

Dickar, who assumed the three homes he owns burned down, said it will take a heroic effort to rebuild what has burned in Lahaina, which is home to about 13,000 people.

“Everyone who comes to Maui, the one place that everybody goes is Front Street,” he said. “The central two blocks is the economic heart of this island, and I don’t know what’s left.”

The fires weren’t only raging on Maui.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a disaster declaration to provide assistance with a fire that threatened about 200 homes in and around Kohala Ranch, a small rural community on the Big Island, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. When the request was made, the fire had burned more than 243 hectares and was uncontained.

Because of the wind gusts, helicopters weren’t able to dump water on the fires or get aerial estimates of the fire sizes, and firefighters were encountering roads blocked by downed trees and power lines as they worked the inland fires, Martin said.

About 14,500 customers in Maui were without power early Wednesday, according to poweroutage.us.

“It’s definitely one of the more challenging days for our island given that it’s multiple fires, multiple evacuations in the different district areas,” Martin said.

Winds were recorded at 129 kph in inland Maui and one fire that was believed to be contained earlier Tuesday flared up hours later with the big winds, she added.

“The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house,” Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said.

In the Kula area of Maui, at least two homes were destroyed in a fire that engulfed about 4.5 square kilometers, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said. About 80 people were evacuated from 40 homes, he said.

“We’re trying to protect homes in the community,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said of evacuating about 400 homes in four communities in the northern part of the island. As of Tuesday, the roof of one house caught on fire, he said.

Fires in Hawaii are unlike many of those burning in the U.S. West. They tend to break out in large grasslands on the dry sides of the islands and are generally much smaller than mainland fires.

Fires were rare in Hawaii and on other tropical islands before humans arrived, and native ecosystems evolved without them. This means great environmental damage can occur when fires erupt. For example, fires remove vegetation. When a fire is followed by heavy rainfall, the rain can carry loose soil into the ocean, where it can smother coral reefs.

A major fire on the Big Island in 2021 burned homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

The island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located, also was dealing with power outages, downed power lines and traffic problems, said Adam Weintraub, communication director for Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
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Two Navy sailors who allegedly spied for China appeared in separate federal courts in California on Tuesday for pretrial detention hearings, days after being arrested and accused of providing sensitive government information to intelligence officials from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

In separate cases announced together on August 3, the Department of Justice said Petty Officer 2nd class Jinchao “Patrick” Wei, 22, was charged with espionage and Petty Officer Wenheng “Thomas” Zhao, 26, was charged with transmitting information to a PRC intelligence officer. It remains unclear whether they were in touch with the same Chinese intelligence officer.

The suspects, who were born in China, are naturalized U.S. citizens. According to court papers, the sailors allegedly received cash in return for providing China with information about the technologies they used at work and about upcoming Navy operations, including international military exercises and radar placements.

According to ABC News, Zhao was denied bail during his detention hearing Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. The judge said he considered Zhao a flight risk and danger to the community while ordering him detained. Zhao’s attorney, Richard Goldman, told the court there are indications that Zhao believed he was dealing with an investment operative, not an agent of China.

Hours later in San Diego, Wei was also denied bail after the judge ruled he was a flight risk and danger to the community, according to ABC News. Wei’s defense attorney, Jason Conforti, had argued that Wei is not a danger to the community and “doesn’t have the access to information anymore.”

Both men had initial appearances on Aug. 3, during which they both pleaded not guilty to their charges, according to ABC News. Wei is next due in court on Aug. 21, while Zhao’s next court date has been scheduled for Sept. 26.

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S., told VOA Mandarin in an emailed statement, “I am not aware of the details of the case. In recent years, the US government and media have frequently hyped up cases of ‘espionage’ related to China. China firmly opposes groundless slander and smear of China by the US side.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the National Security Division of the Justice Department said in an August 3 release that the two sailors “stand accused of violating the commitments they made to protect the United States and betraying the public trust, to the benefit of the PRC government.”

In the same release, FBI Assistant Director Suzanne Turner said, “The PRC compromised enlisted personnel to secure sensitive military information that could seriously jeopardize U.S. national security.”

Wei was arrested on August 2 on espionage charges as he arrived for work at Naval Base San Diego, homeport to the Pacific Fleet Surface Navy, with 56 U.S. Navy ships and two auxiliary vessels. He was indicted for conspiracy to send national defense information to a PRC intelligence officer.

The indictment alleges that Wei was a machinist’s mate on the U.S.S. Essex stationed at Naval Base San Diego and held a U.S. security clearance with access to sensitive national defense information about the ship’s weapons, propulsion and desalination systems.

According to the indictment, Wei was approached by a PRC intelligence officer in February 2022 when he was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. During the course of the conspiracy, he allegedly sold information about the U.S.S. Essex and other Navy ships, especially photos, videos and documents concerning U.S. Navy ships and their systems to a PRC handler. His handler allegedly congratulated him once he obtained citizenship.

Wei is alleged to have provided the handler with technical and mechanical manuals for the Essex and similar ships.

If convicted, Wei could be sentenced to life in federal prison.

He graduated from Delavan-Darien High School in Delavan, Wisconsin, in 2019, receiving a student achiever award during his senior year, according to an online yearbook photo found by local news. No one answered calls to the school.

Zhao worked at Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, California, and held a U.S. security clearance. The base is home to the Pacific Seabees, the West Coast E-2/D Hawkeyes, the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and other divisions, according to its website.

According to a 13-page grand jury indictment  filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, Zhao allegedly transmitted to a PRC officer sensitive, nonpublic U.S. military information, photographs and videos, including operational plans for a large-scale U.S. military exercise in the Indo-Pacific Region and electrical diagrams and blueprints for a radar system stationed on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan. In exchange, he allegedly received $14,866 from his handler from August 2021 through at least May 2023.

According to Zhao’s LinkedIn profile, his mother tongue is Chinese, and his work experience in the U.S. began in January 2016 as a travel agent. He joined the U.S. Navy in April 2017 and started school at American Military University in 2020. He later became an instructor in the U.S. Naval Architecture Division in 2023. VOA reached out to the American Military University but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

Zhao’s family lives in in Monterey Park, California. The property is divided with a front house and a rear house. A “BEWARE OF DOG” sign hung on the fence when a VOA Mandarin reporter visited on Aug. 3, and trees covered the surrounding walls.

When the VOA reporter arrived at the door, a woman came outside and told the reporter not to take photos.

“I won’t answer any of your questions. Please leave immediately,” she said.  

Several neighbors told VOA Mandarin they rarely saw the family coming and going.

Rocky Zhang, a Monterey Park resident, told VOA that the allegations show how China spies on U.S. military intelligence.

“America is a free country, people from all over the world can come here, and some people will abuse the freedom to steal intelligence,” he said. “I came from mainland China, and now I am a citizen of the United States. This is my country.”

Zhang added he didn’t want the U.S. to face political or military threats from China.

He also said incidents like the spying allegations against Zhao and Wei significantly affect people of Chinese descent in the U.S. Over time, other people would think that all Chinese are like the two alleged spies, he said, so they treat Chinese and even other Asians differently from any other American.

“In fact, most Chinese are good people with a clear mind and would not do such a thing,” he said. 
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Modernist structures designed by African Americans targeted for preservation
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U.S. President Joe Biden was in Arizona Tuesday to mark the creation of a new national monument near the Grand Canyon to protect more than 4,000 square kilometers of land sacred to Native Americans. Matt Dibble has the story.
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Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year. 

The defeat of Issue 1 keeps in place a simple majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments. It would have raised that to a 60% supermajority, which supporters said would protect the state’s foundational document from outside interest groups. 

While abortion was not directly on the special election ballot, the result marks the latest setback for Republicans in a conservative-leaning state who favor imposing tough restrictions on the procedure. Ohio Republicans placed the question on the summer ballot in hopes of undercutting a citizen initiative that voters will decide in November that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state. 

Dennis Willard, a spokesperson for the opposition campaign One Person One Vote, called Issue 1 a “deceptive power grab” that was intended to diminish the power of the state’s voters. 

“Tonight is a major victory for democracy in Ohio,” Willard told a jubilant crowd at the opposition campaign’s watch party. “The majority still rules in Ohio.” 

A major national group that opposes abortion rights, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the result “a sad day for Ohio” while criticizing the outside money that helped the opposition. In fact, both sides relied on national groups and individuals in their campaigns. 

Other states where voters have considered abortion rights since last year’s Supreme Court ruling have protected them, including in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky. 

Interest in the special election was intense. Voters cast nearly 700,000 early in-person and mail ballots ahead of Tuesday’s final day of voting, more than twice the number of advance votes in a typical primary election. Early turnout was especially heavy in the Democratic-leaning counties surrounding Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. 

One Person One Vote represented a broad, bipartisan coalition of voting rights, labor, faith and community groups. The group also had as allies four living ex-governors of the state and five former state attorneys general of both parties, who called the proposed change bad public policy. 

In place since 1912, the simple majority standard is a much more surmountable hurdle for Ohioans for Reproductive Rights, the group advancing November’s abortion rights amendment. It would establish “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” 

Voters in several states have approved ballot questions protecting access to abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but typically have done so with less than 60% of the vote. AP VoteCast polling last year found that 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal. 

The result came in the very type of August special election that Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a candidate for U.S. Senate, had previously testified against as undemocratic because of historically low turnout. Republican lawmakers just last year had voted to mostly eliminate such elections, a law they ignored for this year’s election. 

Voters’ rejection of the proposal marked a rare rebuke for Ohio Republicans, who have held power across every branch of state government for 12 years. 

Ohio Right to Life, the state’s oldest and largest anti-abortion group and a key force behind the special election measure, vowed to continue fighting into the fall. 
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Geopolitical events such as war or the dissolution of a government, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, can leave people without a country. In the U.S. more than 200,000 people are living in a stateless status. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum
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A federal judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election has ordered his attorneys and federal prosecutors to appear in court on Friday for a hearing to help determine how evidence can be used and shared in the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the hearing for Friday at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT), shortly after Trump’s attorneys and members of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office had clashed over when to schedule the proceeding.

Prosecutors had said they were available all week, while Trump’s lawyers had asked for a postponement until early next week.

Prosecutors request protective order

Friday’s hearing comes after Trump’s defense team on Monday opposed a request from prosecutors for Chutkan to impose a protective order to ensure confidential evidence is not shared publicly by Trump, suggesting he could use the information to intimidate witnesses. Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the charges politically motivated.

Trump’s attorneys said limits would infringe on his right to free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is not expected to be present in the courtroom on Friday, after Chutkan waived his appearance.

Typically, defense lawyers do not oppose such protective orders because doing so can delay the government from producing the evidence it intends to use at trial in a process known as discovery.

Defense tries to slow proceedings

The disagreement between the parties over the hearing date represented the latest effort by Trump’s team to delay or slow legal proceedings.

It also underscored the logistical challenges that Trump’s team may have as it continues to represent him in two separate federal criminal cases brought by Smith’s office, one in Washington and the other in Florida, where Trump is charged with retaining highly classified records after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s efforts to have the records returned. Trump also pleaded not guilty in that case.

One of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche, will be in federal court in Florida on Thursday for an arraignment, after the government filed a superseding indictment that charged Trump with additional criminal counts and also charged another one of his employees in the case.

In the joint Washington filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump wished for both Blanche and his other lawyer John Lauro to be present for the hearing before Chutkan.
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China’s exports plunged by 14.5% in July compared with a year earlier, adding to pressure on the ruling Communist Party to reverse an economic slump.

Imports tumbled 12.4%, customs data showed Tuesday, in a blow to global exporters that look to China as one of the biggest markets for industrial materials, food and consumer goods.

Exports fell to $281.8 billion as the decline accelerated from June’s 12.4% fall. Imports sank to $201.2 billion, widening from the previous month’s 6.8% contraction.

The country’s global trade surplus narrowed by 20.4% from a record high a year ago to $80.6 billion.

Chinese leaders are trying to shore up business and consumer activity after a rebound following the end of virus controls in December fizzled out earlier than expected.

Economic growth sank to 0.8% in the three months ending in June compared with the previous quarter, down from the January-March period’s 2.2%. That is the equivalent of 3.2% annual growth, which would be among China’s weakest in three decades.

Demand for Chinese exports cooled after the U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia started raising interest rates last year to cool inflation that was at multidecade highs.

The export contraction was the biggest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to Capital Economics. It said the decline was due mostly to lower prices, while volumes of goods were above pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect exports to decline further over the coming months before bottoming out toward the end of the year,” said Capital Economics in a report. “The near-term outlook for consumer spending in developed economies remains challenging.”

The ruling party has promised measures to support entrepreneurs and to encourage home purchases and consumer spending but hasn’t announced large-scale stimulus spending or tax cuts. Forecasters expect those steps to revive demand for imports but say that will be gradual.

“Domestic demand continues to deteriorate,” said David Chao of Invesco in a report. “Policymakers have pledged further policy support, which could buoy household spending and lead to an improvement in import growth for the coming few months.”

Exports to the United States fell 23% from a year earlier to $42.3 billion, while imports of American goods retreated 11.1% to $12 billion. China’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the United States narrowed by 27% to a still-robust $30.3 billion.

China’s imports from Russia, mostly oil and gas, narrowed by just under 0.1% from a year ago to $9.2 billion. Chinese purchases of Russian energy have swelled, helping to offset revenue lost to Western sanctions imposed to punish the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine.

China, which is friendly with Moscow but says it is neutral in the war, can buy Russian oil and gas without triggering Western sanctions. The United States and French officials cite evidence that China is delivering goods with possible military uses to Russia but haven’t said whether that might trigger penalties against Chinese companies.

Exports to the 27-nation European Union slumped 39.5% from a year earlier to $42.4 billion, while imports of European goods were off 44.1% at $23.3 billion. China’s trade surplus with the EU contracted by 32.7% to $19.1 billion.

For the first seven months of the year, Chinese exports were off 5% from the same period in 2022 at just over $1.9 trillion. Imports were down 7.6% at $1.4 trillion.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a request by President Joe Biden’s administration to reinstate – at least for now – a federal regulation aimed at reining in privately made firearms called “ghost guns” that are difficult for law enforcement to trace.

The justices put on hold a July 5 decision by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas that had blocked the 2022 rule nationwide pending the administration’s appeal.  

The decision was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s three liberal justices to grant the administration’s request. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.

O’Connor found that the administration exceeded its authority under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act in implementing the rule relating to ghost guns, firearms that are privately assembled and lack the usual serial numbers required by the federal government.

The rule, issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to target the rapid proliferation of the homemade weapons, bans “buy build shoot” kits that individuals can get online or at a store without a background check. The kits can be quickly assembled into a working firearm.  

The rule clarified that ghost guns qualify as “firearms” under the Gun Control Act, expanding the definition of a firearm to include parts and kits that may be readily turned into a gun. It required serial numbers and that manufacturers and sellers be licensed. Sellers under the rule also must run background checks on purchasers prior to a sale.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday found that 70% of Americans support requirements that ghost guns have serial numbers and be produced only by licensed manufacturers. The idea had bipartisan support among respondents, with 80% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans in favor.

There were about 20,000 suspected ghost guns reported in 2021 to the ATF as having been recovered by law enforcement in criminal investigations – a tenfold increase from 2016, according to White House statistics.

Biden’s administration on July 27 asked the justices to halt O’Connor’s ruling that invalidated a Justice Department restriction on the sale of ghost gun kits while it appeals to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Alito, who handles emergency matters arising from a group of states including Texas, the next day temporarily blocked O’Connor’s decision to give the justices time to decide how to proceed.  

The administration said that allowing the O’Connor’s ruling to stand would enable an “irreversible flow of large numbers of untraceable ghost guns into our nation’s communities.”

Plaintiffs including various gun owners, parts manufacturers and two gun rights groups – the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation – filed suit to block the rule in federal court in Texas. They claimed that the rule violated the Gun Control Act, portraying the policy as a threat to the long history of legal private gunsmithing in the United States.

O’Connor blocked the rule as an overreach, concluding that the congressional definition of a firearm “does not cover weapon parts, or aggregations of weapon parts, regardless of whether the parts may be readily assembled into something that may fire a projectile.” The judge also rejected the administration’s concern that such a ruling would allow felons, minors and others legally prohibited from owning a firearm to easily make one.  

“Even if it is true that such an interpretation creates loopholes that as a policy matter should be avoided,” O’Connor wrote, “it not the role of the judiciary to correct them.”

The United States, with the world’s highest gun ownership rate, remains a nation deeply divided over how to address firearms violence including frequent mass shootings.  

In three major rulings since 2008, the Supreme Court has widened gun rights, including a 2022 decision that declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution protects an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
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Watching news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. comic book editor Scott Dunbier felt compelled to help. He reached out to comic book professionals to create “Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds” to raise funds to provide emergency supplies and services to Ukrainians. Genia Dulot has this report.
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An Israeli official brushed off on Tuesday the rare U.S. use of the term “terror attack” to condemn the killing of a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, as two Jewish settlers held as suspects asked a court to release them from police custody.  

With U.S.-sponsored peacemaking stalled for almost a decade, Washington has watched worriedly as West Bank violence spirals, including with settler revenge riots in which many Palestinians, among them U.S. dual nationals, have suffered property damage.  

Israeli police arrested the two settlers over the killing on Friday of a 19-year-old Palestinian near Burqa village in what their lawyers say was a self-defense shooting by one of them at a much larger group of rock-throwers.  

“We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers,” the U.S. State Department’s Near East Bureau said on Saturday, in its first application of the term in the context of settler violence.  

Police initially accused the settlers of “deliberate or depraved-indifference homicide” with a racist motivation, but a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet argued that culpability for the Burqa death was far from clear.  

“I wouldn’t advise treating the U.S. definition as a precise professional definition. At the end of the day, they are not drawing on intelligence, but on media reports,” said Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former counterterrorism chief for Israel’s Shin Bet security service.  

“Everything gets poured into media reports — things that are correct, things that are wrong, tendentious and other things. In the end of the day, what is important as far as we are concerned is what happened there,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.  

Police guard

Jerusalem District Court heard arguments that the suspects — one of whom had been hospitalized, with a police guard, for a head wound — should be freed pending possible prosecution.  

“Their act was to save lives — their lives and others’ lives,” defense lawyer Nati Rom told reporters. “It’s very sad to see them here in court and hopefully they will be released soon.”  

A police spokesperson did not immediately respond.  

Separately, Israeli forces arrested five Palestinians from Burqa in an apparent effort to expand the investigation. They were due to appear before a military court in the West Bank.  

The State Department appeared disinclined on Monday to elaborate on its sharpened censure over the Burqa killing.

“The thinking is that it was a terror attack, and we are concerned about it, and that’s why we called it that,” spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

“We have made quite clear our concerns, but I would note that the government of Israel has made an arrest in this case and is seeking to hold the perpetrator accountable, and that’s an appropriate action.” 
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A federal appeals court on Monday halted a rule from President Joe Biden’s administration that could make it easier to obtain student loan debt relief for borrowers who say they were victims of misleading information about the quality of education they would receive.

At issue is a rule broadening existing policy ending the debt of students who borrowed money to attend colleges and universities that are determined to have misled them on matters such as whether their courses would actually prepare them for employment in their field or the likely salary they would earn upon obtaining a degree.

Career Colleges and Schools of Texas, an association of for-profit higher learning institutions, filed a lawsuit against the rule in February. Among its complaints was that the rules are so broad that they cover even unintentional actions by a college. They also said the rule unconstitutionally gives an executive branch agency, the Department of Education, what amounts to the power of a court in deciding whether to grant claims for debt relief.

Administration lawyers said relief granted by the department could be appealed in federal court.

The colleges asked a Texas-based federal judge to block the rule while the case plays out. The judge refused in a June ruling. But three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges on Monday issued a brief order granting an injunction. The order said the panel would hear arguments in November.

The three judges on the panel in New Orleans are Edith Jones, nominated to the court by former President Ronald Reagan; and two nominees of former President Donald Trump, Stuart Kyle Duncan and Cory Wilson.
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Former President Donald Trump’s legal woes keep getting worse, and they threaten to jeopardize his presidential bid and personal freedom.

Last week, Trump was indicted on four felony counts in connection with his alleged efforts to reverse his election loss to President Joe Biden in 2020.

This was his third indictment in more than four months — one state and two federal. In all, the former president faces 78 criminal charges.

A fourth indictment is widely expected later this month in the southern U.S. state of Georgia, where a local prosecutor has been investigating Trump and his allies for election meddling in the state.

If convicted of all charges in the three indictments and given the maximum penalty, Trump could face up to 641 years in prison, according to a Politico calculation.

A conviction is not a given, however, and legal experts say the former president could avoid jail time by negotiating plea deals with prosecutors and appealing the verdicts.  

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all three cases and termed the charges “election interference” designed to hurt his presidential run.

His legal troubles have not dented his dominance as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. But with at least two criminal trials looming next year, the criminal cases will likely cast a long shadow over the presidential race, as well as the news headlines. 

Here is a look at where the cases stand.

Hush money payment

This case, announced in March, made Trump the first and only former American president to be charged with crimes.

On March 30, a Manhattan grand jury indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with paying off an adult film star in 2016.

In an unprecedented scene, Trump surrendered to authorities five days later and was arraigned in a Manhattan courthouse.

Trump’s lawyers sought to move the case from New York state court to federal court, arguing that his alleged conduct in the case was related to his official duties as president.

But in July, a federal judge rejected the argument, setting the stage for a trial in a state court.

The trial is scheduled for March 25, 2024.

Classified documents

This case, brought by special counsel Jack Smith, marked the first federal indictment of an American president, sitting or former.

The case grew out of Smith’s monthslong investigation of Trump’s handling of government secrets after he left the White House in January 2021.

On June 8, a grand jury in Miami indicted Trump on 37 felony counts, including 31 counts of illegally retaining national defense information, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, was also charged. Trump was arraigned on June 13.

In late July, prosecutors unveiled three additional charges and added another co-defendant to the case — Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira. 

Among the new charges, Trump and his two aides are accused of asking another employee to “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the new charges. 

The trial in the case is set to begin May 20, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Florida. 

The trial date, set by the presiding judge, Aileen Cannon, was a compromise between a request by prosecutors to schedule the trial for December and Trump’s request to put it off until after the presidential election. 

2020 election 

In what many see as the most damning indictment against Trump, this federal case is focused on the former president’s alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.  

Last week, Smith issued a four-count indictment, charging Trump with three conspiracy counts and one obstruction count in connection with the scheme.

The indictment stemmed from the Justice Department’s massive investigation of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump’s supporters.

On August 3, the former president appeared in Washington, D.C., before a federal magistrate judge, who gave prosecutors one week to propose a trial date.

The first hearing in the case before the presiding judge, Tanya Chutkan, has been set for August 28.

After his arraignment, Trump complained on his Truth Social platform that he can’t get a fair trial in Washington, a Democratic-leaning city. 

A judge would have to approve a change of venue request, and it remains unclear if it will be granted.

Georgia election interference 

Trump could face criminal charges in Fulton County, Georgia, where District Attorney Fani Willis has been probing attempts by Trump and his allies to overturn the outcome of the presidential election. 

A special grand jury examined the state case and issued a report in January recommending criminal charges. 

Willis said she’ll announce charging decisions by mid-August.  

More than a dozen people have been notified by Willis’ office that they are under investigation, suggesting some or all of them could face charges.  

Implications for presidential bid

Although the outcome of the charges remains uncertain, there is a consensus among legal experts that even if convicted, Trump can still run for president. 

The U.S. Constitution sets forth three key requirements for presidential candidates: they must be natural-born American citizens, at least 35 years old and residents of the United States for no less than 14 years.  However, the Constitution is silent on the question of criminal records or convictions of candidates. 

That means Trump could run for president as a convicted felon or even from behind bars, as Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party presidential candidate, did more than a century ago.
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A federal judge in New York tossed out a lawsuit Monday by Donald Trump in which he claimed he had been defamed by a former magazine columnist after she won a sex abuse case against him.  

The former president was found liable in May for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a New York department store in the 1990s — but not for raping her.  

Trump sought to turn the tables on the 79-year-old former Elle magazine columnist by filing his own suit in June arguing she had defamed him by continuing to tell U.S. media that he raped her, despite the civil trial verdict.

But in his dismissal ruling Monday, District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Carroll’s statements that Trump raped her are “substantially true.”  

Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million after the civil trial.

He denies the allegations and has appealed the judgement.

Carroll has sought new damages after Trump called her a “whack job” on CNN the day after the civil trial verdict.
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U.S. Department of the Interior officials are visiting Native American communities to learn about the impact of government-run residential schools on former students and their families. The institutions once suppressed Native cultures, but the few schools that remain now celebrate them. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Riverside, California.
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Raging waters that ate away at riverbanks, destroyed at least two buildings and undermined others were receding Monday in Alaska’s capital city after a glacial dam outburst last weekend, authorities said. 

Levels along the Mendenhall River had started falling by Sunday, but the city said the riverbanks remained unstable. Onlookers gathered on a bridge over the river and along the banks of the swollen Mendenhall Lake to take photos and videos Sunday. A home was propped precariously along the eroded riverbank as milky-colored water whisked past. 

There were no reports of any injuries or deaths. The city said it was working to assess the damage. 

Such floods occur when glaciers melt and pour massive amounts of water into nearby lakes. A study released earlier this year found such floods pose a risk to about 15 million people worldwide, more than half of them in India, Pakistan, Peru and China. 

Suicide Basin — a side basin of the Mendenhall Glacier — has released water that has caused sporadic flooding along the Mendenhall Lake and Mendenhall River since 2011, according to the National Weather Service. However, the maximum water level in the lake Saturday night exceeded the previous record flood stage set in July 2016, the weather service reported. 

Nicole Ferrin, a warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said that while it’s not uncommon for these types of floods to happen, this one was extreme. 

“The amount of erosion that happened from the fast-moving water was unprecedented,” she said. 

Water levels crested late Saturday night. Video posted on social media showed a home teetering at the edge of the riverbank collapsing into the river. 

The Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, but the awe-inspiring glacier continues to recede amid global warming. 
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A mother is suing the city of Detroit, saying unreliable facial recognition technology led to her being falsely arrested for carjacking while she was eight months pregnant. 

Porcha Woodruff was getting her two children ready for school the morning of February 16 when a half-dozen police officers showed up at her door to arrest her, taking her away in handcuffs, the 32-year-old Detroit woman said in a federal lawsuit.

“They presented her with an arrest warrant for robbery and carjacking, leaving her baffled and assuming it was a joke, given her visibly pregnant state,” her attorney wrote in a lawsuit accusing the city of false arrest. 

The suit, filed Thursday, argues that police relied on facial recognition technology that should not be trusted, given “inherent flaws and unreliability, particularly when attempting to identify Black individuals” such as Woodruff.

Some experts say facial recognition technology is more prone to error when analyzing the faces of people of color.

In a statement Sunday, the Wayne County prosecutor’s office said the warrant that led to Woodruff’s arrest was on solid ground, NBC News reported.

“The warrant was appropriate based upon the facts,” it said.

The case began in late January, when police investigating a reported carjacking by a gunman used imagery from a gas station’s security video to track down a woman believed to have been involved in the crime, according to the suit.

Facial recognition analysis from the video identified Woodruff as a possible match, the suit said.

Woodruff’s picture from a 2015 arrest was in a set of photos shown to the carjacking victim, who picked her out, according to the lawsuit.

Woodruff was freed on bond the day of her arrest and the charges against her were later dropped due to insufficient evidence, the civil complaint maintained. 

“This case highlights the significant flaws associated with using facial recognition technology to identify criminal suspects,” the suit argued.

Woodruff’s suit seeks unspecified financial damages plus legal fees. 
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Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said definitively that rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, an acknowledgement the Florida governor made after years of equivocating answers.

“Of course he lost,” DeSantis said an interview with NBC News posted Monday. “Joe Biden’s the president.”

DeSantis has often sidestepped questions about whether he believes the 2020 election results were legitimate. But in recent days he has started publicly questioning the lies that Trump and his allies have made about the election’s legitimacy.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general said there was no credible evidence the election’s outcome was affected by fraud. The former president’s allegations were also roundly rejected by courts at the time, including judges he appointed.

Last week, Trump was charged by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith with four felonies related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

DeSantis’ shift in rhetoric has come as he seeks to reset his stagnant 2024 White House campaign. Trump, who remains widely popular with the Republican Party base, is the early and commanding front-runner in next year’s Republican presidential primary.

DeSantis in his interview at first didn’t offer a clear answer when asked if Trump lost, saying, “Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20 every four years is the winner.” But he gave a more direct answer when pressed again.

The governor repeated his concerns about voting methods from the 2020 election, criticizing mail voting and so-called “ballot harvesting,” but like other Republicans he said he would embrace the methods he had criticized.

“We are going to do it, too. We’re not going to fight with one hand tied behind our backs,” DeSantis said.

Academic research has shown that mail voting increases turnout but doesn’t benefit either party. Campaigns have normally pushed for it, allowing them to lock in votes early and focus their efforts on Election Day to encourage straggling supporters to get to the polls.

“The issue is, I think, what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election. I don’t think it was a good-run election, but I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening,” he said.

DeSantis has cast himself on the campaign trail as someone who could more successfully implement Trump’s politics and has walked a wobbly line criticizing his actions.

Last month, he said Trump should have offered a stronger condemnation of the January 6 attack. But he also said it was not an insurrection but a “protest” that “ended up devolving, you know, in a way that was unfortunate.”

DeSantis has argued Republicans will lose in 2024 if they’re focusing on the past election and the former president’s legal problems, which also includes federal charges of mishandling classified documents, including those stored at Mar-a-Lago in a ballroom and bathroom, among other spaces.

“If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and the failures that we’ve seen and we are presenting a positive vision for the future, we will win the presidency,” DeSantis told NBC. “If, on the other hand, the election is not about Jan. 20, 2025, but Jan. 6, 2021, or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it’s a referendum on that, we are going to lose.”
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Fueled by election gains, Democrats in Minnesota and Michigan this year enacted far-reaching policy changes that party leaders in other states are looking to as a potential roadmap for what they could swiftly achieve with similar control.

Gun safety packages, expanded voting rights, free meals for all students, and increased protections for abortion rights and LGTBQ+ people were just some of pent-up policy proposals that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law within months under the new legislative majorities.

“We’ve definitely paid attention to what they’ve done,” Pennsylvania state Sen. Sharif Street, chair of the state Democratic party, said about the two states. “I’ve offered to Pennsylvanians that if we could flip the Senate, we could pass similar legislation.”

Democrats in four states, including Massachusetts and Maryland, scored victories in the 2022 midterms to gain a “trifecta” — control of the state House, state Senate and the governor’s office. Republicans, who held trifectas in 19 more states than Democrats just six years ago, now hold an advantage of 22 states to the Democrats’ 17.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Hampshire are hoping similar election gains can help them achieve trifectas. They’re looking to Michigan and Minnesota, where leaders have been unapologetic about quickly rolling back years of Republican measures and implementing their own liberal agendas.

“This is the first time in 40 years that we’ve had this opportunity,” Whitmer said of Michigan Democrats, who last held a trifecta in 1983. “This is a huge step forward that we’ve taken.”

Michigan Democrats were able to flip both chambers with the help of new districts redrawn by a citizens commission instead of ones crafted by Republican lawmakers and a ballot proposal enshrining abortion rights into the state constitution that led to record midterm turnout.

The power shift in Michigan and Minnesota comes as statehouses nationwide have grown even more polarized. In GOP-led states, leaders have focused this year on rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, tightening abortion access, protecting gun rights and waging a war on what some have called “woke” agendas.

Whitmer, who spoke with The Associated Press last week, said she hopes voters in other states see that “you can lead with your brain and also be a kind person in the process.” She added an oft-repeated phrase of her second-term that “bigotry is bad for business.”

The quick work by Democrats in the two states was due in part to uncertainty over how long the full control will last considering voters could decide to flip state House majorities back to Republican control as soon as next year. Michigan and Minnesota Republicans are already strategizing to regain some power in the 2024 elections by calling out what they say have been overly partisan sessions.

In Michigan, Republican legislators in the House and Senate out-raised Democrats in the first part of 2023, led by the efforts of former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Minnesota Republicans, who lost a majority when Democrats won a decisive Senate district by only 321 votes, have criticized Democrats for excluding them from a legislative session that ended in May.

“The issues, I think, are still on the table. It’s public safety, it’s education, it’s tax relief. And the Democrats did not deliver on any of those promises or expectations,” said Minnesota Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson.

The key Democratic leaders in Minnesota — Walz, House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic — decided to act swiftly, knowing they might not get another chance for a long time if they hesitated. Their last trifecta, in 2012-13, lasted only two years, but they’re betting that this year’s successes will prove popular with voters come 2024.

House Democrats, who have a six-seat majority, kept a big checklist on the wall of their caucus room of their top 30 priorities for the session. They started checking them off in January, including a big abortion rights bill. By the end of the session in May, all 30 had been checked off, including the legalization of recreational marijuana for adults; drivers’ licenses for all regardless of immigration status, tax cuts aimed at lower-income workers and spending increases for education, transportation and other infrastructure, affordable housing, child care, and public safety.

Leaders in the state were among those invited to the White House to brief the president’s advisers on legislation, including a paid family and medical leave program, that the Biden administration would like to enact nationally if not for a divided government.

“If you need a reminder that elections have consequences, check out what’s happening in Minnesota,” former President Barack Obama tweeted earlier this year.

National leaders are hoping that the liberal swing in the Midwest continues in 2024. The party is hosting the Democratic convention next year in Chicago and voter sentiment after two years of unchecked liberal policy in Michigan and Minnesota could have an enormous impact on national politics; recent presidential races have hinged on the critical Midwestern “blue wall,” which also includes Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden applauded Michigan for “leading” on labor rights after the state became the first in nearly 60 years to repeal a union-restricting law known as “right-to-work” that was passed over a decade ago by a Republican-controlled Legislature.

Major legislation, such as the right-to-work repeal, has only been possible in Michigan due to strong party discipline with Democrats only holding a two-seat majority in each chamber.

State Rep. Joe Tate, who is Michigan’s first Black speaker of the House, said the Democratic caucus began the year by finding legislation all members could agree on with.

“This is legislation that we’ve been talking about for, if not years, decades. So it helped to prioritize where we needed to go at the beginning of this session,” said Tate.

Michigan Democrats have already passed many of their top priorities only halfway through this year’s legislative session, including a 11-bill gun safety package that had stalled in the Legislature for years.

Winnie Brinks, the first female Senate majority leader in Michigan history, called said it was an “intense six months” and that Democrats don’t plan to ease up the rest of the year. Future legislation, Brinks said, will include a focus on climate and the environment in addition to more work on reproductive rights.
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Washington has never been a particularly friendly place for Donald Trump. And after pleading not guilty to federal charges that he had tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Trump was quick to show that the feeling was mutual.

“It was also very sad driving through Washington, D.C., and seeing the filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti,” he said on the tarmac of Reagan National Airport in Virginia, just a few kilometers away. “This is not the place that I left. It’s a very sad thing to see it.”

Trump’s comments drew some skepticism due to the fact that he basically was on two blocks of the district’s streets. His route to and from the airport took him past one of the district’s larger shelters for homeless people, but “filth and decay” drew some eye rolls from longtime Washington defenders.

“He’s just talking off the top of his head and angry to be back in D.C.,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. “He saw D.C. for less than a minute.”

Norton also pointed out that when Trump last left Washington as president, the downtown federal area was essentially a militarized zone, with massive fences around the U.S. Capitol after Trump supporters overran the building on Jan. 6, 2021.

In fairness, heavily Democratic Washington — while generally cool to all Republican presidents — was distinctly hostile to the Trump administration. Multiple Trump Cabinet members were publicly berated by activists while eating in district restaurants. And Trump’s decision to skip the Kennedy Center Honors every year was usually a relief for organizers, who would have faced annual boycott threats from different artists if he did attend.

Trump received just over 4% of the presidential election vote in the district in 2016 and 5.4% in 2020.

He continued his attacks on the city Sunday, calling for a federal takeover of the nation’s capital. In a post on Truth Social, he called Washington a “filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation” and said he wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial there.

“It has always been [Trump’s] pattern to vilify the district,” said Bo Shuff, executive director of DC Vote, one of the organizations leading the uphill fight for statehood. “It is easy to vilify a people who have no voice in the government.”

Republicans in Congress have taken up the anti-Washington mantra, as has Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s challengers for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Trump was indicted by a grand jury of Washington residents, and DeSantis has joined in with Trump’s lawyers in arguing that he can’t receive a fair trial in Washington.

“Washington, DC is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” DeSantis said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, after Trump’s indictment.

Schuff said Trump’s behavior Thursday mimicked the pattern of his presidency. “He didn’t spend any time in D.C. when he was in D.C. He spent it at one of two buildings, the White House and his hotel,” Shuff said.

He noted that “every bit of land” that Trump was on when he was in town for the court appearance was under federal control.

During Trump’s turbulent four years in office, he and the local government publicly sparred multiple times — in tones ranging from playful to deeply personal. When Trump floated the idea of a massive July 4 military parade complete with tanks rolling through the streets, the D.C. Council mocked him.

When mass protests broke out in the summer of 2020 over the death of George Floyd and wider police brutality and racial issues, Trump and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser faced off multiple times. Trump accused Bowser of losing control of her city; he eventually declared his own multi-agency lockdown that included low-flying helicopters buzzing protesters. Bowser responded by having “Black Lives Matter” painted on the street in giant yellow letters one block from the White House.

After Trump’s departure, a newly Republican-held House of Representatives continued the fight, with the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability aggressively using its powers to essentially vet new Washington laws and manage its government. In March, the committee summoned Bowser and two members of the D.C. Council and grilled them for three hours about the district’s rising crime rates.

Shuff said Trump’s portrayal of Washington in such dystopian terms hasn’t necessarily spread throughout the Republican Party. But it has established itself among the wing of the party that holds Trump in the highest esteem.

“I believe that the folks who utilize this tactic are not numerous, but they’re boisterous,” he said. “The rhetoric is a little stronger, but the tactic is the same we’ve seen.”

During the March hearing on crime in Washington, several conservative Republican members spoke of the district in terms that indicated a fairly thin understanding of the on-the-ground situation.

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado repeatedly asked D.C. Council Member Charles Allan why public urination was legal in Washington; it isn’t.

Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama asked why 25-year-old defendants in Washington are allowed to be charged as minors; they aren’t.

Undeterred, Palmer told the assembled Washington political leadership, “You’ve got crappy schools. Your schools aren’t only dropout factories, they’re inmate factories.”
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It’s all about speed and skill — in the air and on the water. In Seattle, the annual Seafair summer festival concluded with Coast Guard rescue operation demonstrations, U.S. Navy Blue Angels’ aerobatics and the fastest hydroplanes in the world racing for the Gold Cup. Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Lake Washington.
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U.S. scientists have achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction for the second time since December, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said on Sunday.

Scientists at the California-based lab repeated the fusion ignition breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on July 30 that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

Final results are still being analyzed, the spokesperson added.

Lawrence Livermore achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers on Dec. 5, 2022. The scientists focused a laser on a target of fuel to fuse two light atoms into a denser one, releasing the energy.

That experiment briefly achieved what’s known as fusion ignition by generating 3.15 megajoules of energy output after the laser delivered 2.05 megajoules to the target, the Energy Department said.

In other words, it produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy used to drive it, the department said.

The Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

Scientists have known for about a century that fusion powers the sun and have pursued developing fusion on Earth for decades. Such a breakthrough could one day help curb climate change if companies can scale up the technology to a commercial level in the coming decades.
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Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July, just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan pushed by President Joe Biden.

It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal and stop the Education Department from carrying it out while the case is decided. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute.

The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”

“We are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families,” the department said in a statement.

It’s part of a wave of legal challenges Republicans have leveled at the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce or eliminate student debt for millions of Americans. Biden has said he will pursue a different cancellation plan after the Supreme Court decision, and his administration is separately unrolling a more generous repayment plan that opponents call a “backdoor attempt” at cancellation.

The Biden administration announced July 14 that it would soon forgive loans for 804,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans. The plans have long offered cancellation after borrowers make 20 or 25 years of payments, but “past administrative failures” resulted in inaccurate payments counts that set borrowers back on their progress toward forgiveness, the department said.

The new action was announced as a “one-time adjustment” that would count certain periods of past nonpayment as if borrowers had been making payments during that time. It moved 804,000 borrowers across the 20- or 25-year mark needed for cancellation, and it moved millions of others closer to that threshold.

It’s meant to address a practice known as forbearance steering, in which student loan servicers hired by the government wrongly pushed borrowers to go into forbearance — a temporary pause on payments because of hardship — even if they would have been better served by enrolling in one of the income-driven repayment plans.

Under the one-time fix, past periods in forbearance were also counted as progress toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that offers cancellation after 10 years of payments while working in a government or nonprofit job.

Biden’s action was illegal, the lawsuit says, because it wasn’t authorized by Congress and didn’t go through a federal rulemaking process that invites public feedback.

“No authority allows the Department to count non-payments as payments,” the lawsuit says. It adds that the action came in “a press release that neither identified the policy’s legal authority nor considered its exorbitant price tag.”

The conservative groups say Biden’s plan undercuts Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The Mackinac Center and Cato Institute say they employ borrowers who are working toward student loan cancellation through the program. They say Biden’s action illegally accelerates progress toward relief, diminishing the benefit for nonprofit employers.

“This unlawful reduction in the PSLF service requirement injures public service employers that rely on PSLF to recruit and retain college-educated employees,” the suit alleges.

The Cato Institute previously sued the administration over the cancellation plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Mackinac Center is separately challenging Biden’s pause on student loan payments, which is scheduled to end this fall with payments resuming Oct. 1.
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