A blind spot and a lost
trail: How the gunman
got so close to Trump
(NYTimes) — About an hour before a gunman let loose a volley of bullets that nearly assassinated a former president, law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania, was on the verge of a great policing success. Among the thousands streaming in to cheer former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally Saturday, local officers spotted one man acting oddly and notified other law enforcement. Remarkably, law enforcement had found the right man — Thomas Matthew Crooks, a would-be assassin. Then they lost track of him. The call to let the rally go ahead while law enforcement looked for a potentially dangerous person is one of many Secret Service decisions now being called into question.
Menendez tells allies he
is considering resigning after conviction
(NYTimes) — Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., has privately told allies that he is considering resigning from Congress after his conviction in a bribery scheme rather than face a potential expulsion vote, according to three people familiar with his remarks. Two of the people cautioned that Menendez has not made a final decision. Publicly, he has maintained his innocence and vowed to appeal Tuesday’s guilty verdict on 16 felony counts. As he weighed a possible resignation, it remained unclear whether Menendez would continue running for reelection as a political independent. Doing so would allow him to continue raising funds to spend on his legal defense.
Vaccines significantly reduce the risk of long COVID, study finds
(NYTimes) — A large new study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that vaccines reduce the risk of developing long COVID. Scientists looked at people in the United States infected during the first two years of the pandemic and found that the percentage of vaccinated people who developed long COVID was much lower than the percentage of unvaccinated people who did. Medical experts have previously said that vaccines can lower the risk of long COVID, largely because they help prevent severe illness during the infection period, and people with severe infections are more likely to have long-term symptoms.
Trump’s proposed tax cuts and increased tariffs could hurt poorer households
(NYTimes) — When former President Donald Trump met with House Republicans last month, he touched on a mix of policies core to his economic agenda: cutting income taxes while also significantly raising tariffs on foreign goods. Tariffs and tax cuts were central to Trump’s economic thinking while he was in the White House. Trump and his supporters say mixing tariffs with tax cuts will revitalize American businesses and manufacturing, boosting jobs and benefiting working-class Americans. Some economists have a different view, saying that cutting taxes while raising tariffs could have harmful consequences by widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
Heat wave in Ukraine further strains electricity grid
(NYTimes) — For months, Ukraine’s electricity grid has faced repeated Russian missile and drone attacks that have knocked out power plants and gutted substations. Now it is contending with another, more unexpected threat: a sizzling heat wave. Most of the country is experiencing unusually hot summer weather, with temperatures reaching 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It has strained an already hobbled grid as residents turn on air conditioners and food businesses use more electricity to cool products. To prevent a collapse of the grid, authorities have imposed widespread rolling blackouts. In Kyiv, the capital, most buildings are now without power for at least 10 hours a day, including during long periods in the daytime.
Israel gives an indication of the war’s toll on Hamas
Judge orders boss who coughed at employee during pandemic to pay damages
(NYTimes) — A judge in Wales has ordered a business owner to pay a former employee thousands of pounds in damages for deliberately coughing at her during the coronavirus pandemic. Court papers shared publicly this week revealed that an employment tribunal judge in Wrexham found that the business owner, Kevin Davies, must pay his former employee 26,438 pounds (nearly $35,000) for his “inexcusable” conduct. The former employee had worked for a property company owned by Davies in Newcastle Emlyn, a town in northwest Wales, since December 2017. The court heard that she suffered from an autoimmune condition that made her particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
Mayor of Paris takes an Olympian plunge in a beautified Seine
(NYTimes) — Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, took to the cleaned-up waters of the Seine on Wednesday, fulfilling a promise that has become a symbol of the Paris Olympics. With the Games just nine days away, Hidalgo, a socialist who has pursued the ecological transformation of the city, stepped into the river. A vast engineering project, costing some $1.5 billion over the past several years, has stanched the flow of sewage and industrial waste into the Seine. The result is a river that is clean enough for several Olympic events to be held in it.
