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Top economist warns the U.S. is ‘on the precipice of recession’ — and it will be hard for the Fed to come to the rescue– fortune.com
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The shocking jobs report on Friday wasn’t the only red flag. Indicators from the past week paint an overall picture of an economy that’s headed for a downturn, according to Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi.

After months of looking remarkably resilient in the face of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the economic outlook has suddenly turned gloomier.

“The economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump,” Zandi wrote in a series of posts on X on Sunday. “Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue.”

Payrolls grew by just 73,000 last month, well below forecasts for about 100,000. Meanwhile, May’s tally was revised down from 144,000 to 19,000, and June’s total was slashed from 147,000 to just 14,000, meaning the average gain over the past three months is now only 35,000.

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The US Senate has confirmed Jeanine Pirro – a former Fox News host and staunch Donald Trump ally who boosted lies that he lost the 2020 presidential race because of electoral fraudsters – as the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital.

Pirro – a former New York state district attorney and county judge who joined Fox News in 2011 – was confirmed on Saturday in a 50-45 vote along party lines.

In a statement issued by Pirro after the vote, the Republican said she was “blessed” to have been confirmed as the US attorney for Washington DC. “Get ready for a real crime fighter,” said Pirro’s statement, which called the US attorney’s office she had been confirmed to lead the largest in the country.

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After the Supreme Court signaled on Oct. 1 that it would seek to probe whether or not states violate the Constitution when they attempt to remedy violations of the Voting Rights Act by adding an additional majority-minority district to make sure that Black voters and voters of color have an equal chance to elect the candidate of their choice, election law experts began to sound the alarm regarding what the Supreme Court could do to bring about the end of the Voting Rights Act.

As one expert, Rick Hasen, of the UCLA School of Law, wrote in his blog, he believes that the Supreme Court is taking “a big, and dangerous, step toward knocking down” a key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

According to CNN, the case, which will test whether or not the State of Louisiana’s “intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution,” is regarded as one of the most important appeals the court will issue rulings on over the back half of the judiciary calendar.

The case has been decided differently by two federal courts; one ruled that the state violated the Constitution by drawing only one majority-Black district out of the six that currently comprise the state. When it tried to remedy that problem by drawing another majority-Black district, another federal court said that it violated the Constitution by relying too much on race to meet that court’s demands, which seems to directly contradict language in Section 2 of the VRA.

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recent YouGov poll sent a jolt through American politics: Zohran Mamdani, a 32-year-old Democratic Socialist from Queens, outperformed both former Governor Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in a hypothetical general election for New York City mayor. Nationally, 24 percent of Americans say they’d vote for Mamdani—more than Cuomo (9 percent) and Adams (8 percent) combined.

The numbers are more than symbolic. They reveal just how far trust in establishment leadership has collapsed—and how eager younger Americans around the nation are to embrace ideological clarity over managerial competence, charisma over experience, and revolutionary rhetoric over cautious reform.

Mamdani is not, by any traditional measure, a mainstream figure. His base includes young progressives, housing activists, and online socialist media. But the poll captures something deeper than his personal popularity: a profound disillusionment with a political class seen as ethically compromised, strategically adrift, and emotionally disconnected from the public it claims to serve.

This disaffection has real roots. Adams is mired in FBI investigations, plagued by ethical lapses, and widely criticized for inconsistent messaging and underperformance on housing and safety. Cuomo, meanwhile, carries the weight of pandemic-era mismanagement and personal scandal. These aren’t just flawed politicians—they’ve become cautionary tales for a generation fed up with failure.

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When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, declared: We now overrule those decisions [Roe and Casey] and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” Following the Dobbs ruling, several Republicans — including President Trump — said abortion was now in the hands of the states. “The states will determine … whatever they decide must be the law of the state,” Trump insisted.

While I disagree with the notion that abortion should be regulated solely at the state level, the reality is that most pro-life protections have historically been advanced at the state level. During my time in the Louisiana legislature, I authored and passed numerous laws defending the sanctity of life.

Since Dobbs, 41 states have acted to protect the unborn in some form. Twelve now have comprehensive protections beginning at conception, while 28 have established gestational limits.

Yet, despite this, abortion hasn’t decreased. In fact, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, abortions have increased more than 10% since Dobbs, rising from roughly 930,000 to over one million annually — more than 2,800 abortions each day.

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In an explosive new interview with former Congressman and Fox News host Trey Gowdy, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said more declassified documents are coming that expose the FBI’s coordinated effort to bury the truth and amplify a lie—all to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and destroy Donald Trump’s presidency.

Ratcliffe confirmed that he and current FBI Director Kash Patel are preparing to declassify additional records proving that the FBI actively suppressed a counterintelligence referral about Hillary Clinton’s plan to frame Trump while giving full legitimacy to the now-debunked Steele Dossier, paid for by Clinton herself.

According to Ratcliffe, foreign intelligence services had already flagged a plot by Hillary Clinton to smear Trump as a Russian agent, a scheme known internally as the “Clinton Plan.”

Yet this intelligence was never shared with Congress. Instead, it was buried, while Obama’s inner circle, including Biden, were fully briefed on it.

According to declassified materials already made public by Ratcliffe and former Special Counsel John Durham, the Clinton campaign not only greenlit the collusion hoax, but also coordinated with foreign groups including the Soros Foundation to build a disinformation war chest against Trump.

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Texas Democrats have become famous, or infamous, depending on who you talk to, for cutting and running to try and stop Republican state lawmakers from passing legislation they don’t like, and history has repeated itself in 2025.

As RedState reported, Democrats there fled into the arms of Illinois Gov. and prospective 2028 presidential candidate JB Pritzker (D) on Sunday after Republicans unveiled a new Congressional map that some have called a “bloodbath” for Democrats headed into the 2026 midterms if enacted.

“We’re not walking out on our responsibilities; we’re walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent. As of today, this corrupt special session is over,” Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu proclaimed in a statement.

Already, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is laying the smack down on those who fled amid the special session, noting that consequences could soon be coming, including arrests on abandonment grounds and possibly appointing others to fill the vacancies created thanks to Democrats deliberately walking off the job.Though infuriating on one hand, on the other, you have to laugh at this stage in the game. I mean, as we pointed out, going to Illinois, which is home to one of the most corrupt and blatantly rigged Democrat political machines in the country, is not exactly the brightest idea these folks have had.

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In a high-stakes WarRoom segment, Steve Bannon and investigative bulldog John Solomon laid out the case that the Hillary Clinton-led Russia hoax was never a conspiracy theory—it was an orchestrated political dirty trick that corrupted our intelligence agencies, weaponized the media, and nearly derailed the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

And the most explosive part? The key players did it again in 2020—and they’re positioning to repeat it in 2026.

“This isn’t about old news,” Bannon declared. “This is about a pattern of institutional abuse that, if unpunished, will finish off our constitutional republic.”

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Comedian Bill Maher and Democratic Colorado Rep. Jason Crow debated President Donald Trump’s moves against universities, with Maher saying they had turned into “indoctrination camps.” Crow claimed Trump was not interested in improving universities and making them more affordable and argued that he was engaged in “his culture war” against them, prompting the comedian to point to responses to Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel as an example of universities producing radicalism. The Daily Caller’s Natalie Sandoval breaks down the exchange for Media Madness. SUBSCRIBE to the Media Madness YouTube channel and please support our work by becoming a Daily Caller Patriot subscriber today.

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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Federation of America in a bold and necessary move to protect women and uphold truth. His charge argues that Planned Parenthood lies to women, and those lies are costing lives.

Bailey’s suit, filed under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, accuses the nation’s largest abortion provider of misleading Missouri women about the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone.

For decades, Planned Parenthood has marketed itself as a health care provider and a champion of women’s rights. But behind the pink logos and the slick messaging lies a profit-driven machine that has consistently downplayed the physical, emotional, and spiritual risks of abortion, including chemical abortion. Now, under legal scrutiny, that deception is receiving the pushback it deserves.

According to Bailey’s complaint, Planned Parenthood falsely equated Mifepristone to over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol, misleading women into believing that chemical abortion is a minor and routine procedure. In reality, the risks are anything but minimal.

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Raul Luna-Perez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, killed a New Jersey mom and her 11-year-old daughter who were on their way to get milkshakes from Wawa, according to the New York Post. Perez was reportedly drunk behind the wheel of an SUV when he veered into oncoming traffic and crashed into their compact car.

 

The suspect had two previous arrests for DUIs in March and April and a domestic violence arrest in 2023.

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ROME — ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged more than a million Catholic youths to “spread your enthusiasm and the witness of your faith” when they return home to some 150 countries, during a Mass closing a weeklong encounter with the next generation of faithful.

“Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are,’’ Leo urged the young faithful. “Do not settle for less. You will then see the light of the Gospel growing every day, in you and around you.”

The young people camped out in sprawling fields southeast of Rome overnight after attending a vigil service for the Jubilee of Youth on Saturday, also presided by Leo who has been ferried to and from Vatican City by helicopter.

The Vatican said more than 1 million young people were present, along with 7,000 priests and 450 bishops.

The special Jubilee celebration is part of the Holy Year that is expected to draw 32 million people to the Vatican for the centuries-old pilgrimage to the seat of Catholicism.

The week has been a joyous gathering marked by bands of youths singing hymns as they move down cobblestoned streets, praying rosaries in piazzas and standing for hours at the Circus Maximus to confess their sins to priests offering the sacrament in a dozen languages.

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President Donald Trump’s administration has suspended more than $200 million in research grants to UCLA, citing antisemitism and bias as the reasons.

The suspended grants are primarily through the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, according to a memo to the community from UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk.

The Los Angeles Times reported that with the addition of halted Department of Energy grants, the censure represents $300 million in suspended grants, according to “information shared with The Times on Friday by UC and Trump administration officials.”

Frenk, in his memo, denounced the decision as wrongheaded.

“With this decision, hundreds of grants may be lost, adversely affecting the lives and life-changing work of UCLA researchers, faculty and staff,” Frenk wrote in his July 31 memo. “In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination.”

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In a stunning display of the Democratic Party’s ongoing effort to blur the line between citizenship and lawbreaking, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) claimed that illegal immigrants—who by definition broke federal law to enter or remain in the country—are merely “long-term residents of the United States who happen to be undocumented.” The remark highlights the Left’s continued push to downplay the rule of law in favor of feel-good rhetoric, redefining criminal entry into the country as nothing more than a paperwork issue.

During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Padilla doubled down on his defense of illegal immigration, claiming his mission is to protect the millions of undocumented individuals living in the United States from what he called an “aggressive” and “cruel” approach to enforcement. Padilla criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest, detain, and deport those who entered the country illegally, painting law enforcement and immigration officials as the villains, rather than acknowledging the legal consequences of breaking U.S. immigration laws.

Padilla is just one of many left-wing voices in Congress that continue to weaken immigration enforcement, reward illegal entry with taxpayer-funded benefits, and vilify anyone who dares to demand secure borders. By rebranding illegal immigrants as “undocumented residents,” Padilla and his fellow Democrat colleagues are attempting to erase the distinction between those who respect the nation’s laws and those who break them.

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The shock and outrage over President Donald Trump firing the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner because of weak jobs numbers seems increasingly bipartisan.

Several Republican senators told NBC News that they did not support Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer if it was, in fact, motivated by his displeasure over the poor jobs numbers released on Friday. (All indications are that it was.) Democrats, meanwhile, said Trump’s latest move was the behavior of an authoritarian.

On Friday, Trump quickly claimed without any evidence that the revised jobs numbers, which showed weaker job growth in May and June than previously projected, had been “manipulated.” But experts on the work of the BLS, which is part of the Department of Labor, pushed back, saying Trump’s claim is not plausible.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who served in the Clinton administration, said on ABC’s This Week that Trump’s firing “is way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did.” Summers explained: “These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number.”

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The Trump administration declined to provide a guest to ABC News after the leader of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was fired over a poor jobs report.

On Sunday, This Week host George Stephanopoulos revealed that ABC had contacted the White House after President Donald Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer.

“After the president fired the head of the BLS on Friday, we invited the White House to provide a guest to respond,” the host explained. “They declined.”

Instead, Stephanopoulos spoke to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers about the BLS shakeup.

“I mean, this is way beyond anything that Richard Nixon ever did,” Summers remarked. “I’m surprised that other officials have not responded by resigning themselves, as took place when Richard Nixon fired people lawlessly. This is a preposterous charge.”

“These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals,” he continued. “There’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number.”

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DHAKA, Bangladesh — Abdur Rahman Tarif was talking to his sister Meherunnesa over the phone when the voice on the other end of the call suddenly fell silent.

In that moment, Tarif knew something bad had happened. He rushed home, dodging the exchange of fire between security forces and protesters on the streets of Dhaka. When he finally arrived, he discovered his parents tending to his bleeding sister.

A stray bullet had hit Meherunnesa’s chest while she was standing beside the window of her room, Tarif said. She was taken to a hospital where doctors declared her dead.

Meherunnesa, 23, was killed on Aug. 5 last year, the same day Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee the country in a massive student-led uprising, which ended her 15-year rule. For much of Bangladesh, Hasina’s ouster was a moment of joy. Three days later, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus took over the country as head of an interim government, promising to restore order and hold a new election after necessary reforms.

A year on, Bangladesh is still reeling from that violence, and Hasina now faces trial for crimes against humanity, in absentia as she is in exile in India. But despite the bloodshed and lives lost, many say the prospect for a better Bang

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CBS News is tracking the rising cost of products, including those most likely to be impacted by tariffs imposed earlier this year and new ones announced by President Trump on August 1, from the cost of common grocery items to the price of owning a vehicle.

Economists and other experts say consumers can expect to see higher prices in coming weeks and months for imported items.

Perhaps the most impacted day-to-day purchases for American families will be at the grocery store, where a large share of our most commonly purchased fruits and vegetables are imported from Mexico, Canada, China and other countries facing tariffs. Experts suggest the cost of those tariffs will be passed on to consumers in the grocery checkout lane.

The categories in this tracker reflect a selection from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index and average price data. We focused on goods and services that make up a meaningful share of household budgets and have noted with a special orange marker those that could be affected most by tariffs.

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The US Department of Veterans Affairs is proposing to end certain abortion services to veterans, rolling back a Biden-era move to expand abortion rights.

In a proposed rule filed Friday, the department said that it is seeking to revoke access to abortions and abortion counseling for veterans and the beneficiaries of the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“We take this action to ensure that VA provides only needed medical services to our nation’s heroes and their families,” the department said in the filing.

Under the Biden administration’s rule, the department currently provides access to abortions when a pregnant veteran’s life or health is at risk if their pregnancy were carried to term, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest — regardless of state laws.

The proposed rule would allow abortions in cases where “a physician certifies that the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term,” which, according to the filing, had been permitted even before the 2022 expansion.

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The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, has vowed to protect the Democratic members of the Texas house of representatives who left the state in an attempt to block Republican efforts to redraw Texas’s congressional maps.

“We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that – ’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,” Pritzker said at a press conference on Sunday in Illinois alongside some of the the Texas Democratic lawmakers.

The Texas Democrats fled the state on Sunday in an effort to prevent the Texas house from reaching the quorum on Monday needed to vote on a newly proposed congressional map.

In response to the Democrats’ actions, Greg Abbott, the Republican Texas governor, threatened to expel the Texas Democrats from the state house if they do not return by Monday at 3pm CT – when the legislature is set to resume. Ken Paxton, Texas’s Republican attorney general, also condemned their actions on Sunday and threatened their arrest.

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Texas Democrats who left the state in a bid to block redrawn U.S. House maps have responded to Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s threat to remove them from office if they don’t return by Monday afternoon.

In a statement on Sunday, Abbott threatened to expel the Democrats from the Texas House of Representatives and said they may have committed felonies.

“This is ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable,” Texas State Representative Elizabeth Campos, a Democrat, wrote on X early Monday. “Threatening legal action against lawmakers for standing up to protect our democracy is not leadership, it’s intimidation. We have every right to fight. Fighting for fair representation is not running from a fight, it’s standing up.”

Another State Representative Vikki Goodwin, who traveled to New York, wrote on X that she was “willing to take the risk of being arrested, removed from office, or fined $500 a day.”

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The Trump administration has launched a concerted drive to undermine American elections. These moves are unprecedented and in some cases illegal. They began with the pardon of the January 6 defendants who sought to overturn the 2020 results. They include affirmative attacks on democratic institutions, the repeal and withdrawal of voter protections, and symbolic or demonstrative moves. A clear pattern suggests a growing effort. As the 2026 midterms approach, that effort will likely gather momentum.

This resource offers the first chronicle of the Trump administration’s actions this year to undermine election integrity. They include:

  • attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems;
  • targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair;
  • supporting people who undermine election administration; and
  • retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the election process.
<b>Hamas releases second video of Israeli hostage and says it will not disarm until Palestinian state established - The Guardian</b>

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Hamas has reaffirmed that it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established, as the group released its second video in two days of an Israeli hostage.

Responding to one of the key Israeli demands to end the war in Gaza, Hamas – which has dominated the territory since 2007 – said it could not yield its right to “armed resistance” unless an “independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital” is established.

Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of hostages ended last week in deadlock.

On Saturday, Hamas released a second video of hostage Evyatar David. In it, David is skeletally thin and is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave.

Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials, stoking international demands for a ceasefire. UN-backed food security experts said this week that the “worst-case scenario of famine” is now playing out in Gaza.

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Many Democrats see their political party as “weak” or “ineffective,” according to a poll that finds considerable pessimism within Democratic ranks. Republicans are more complimentary of their party, although a small but significant share describe the GOP as “greedy” or say it is generally “bad.”

The poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in July reveals warning signs for both major U.S. parties as the political focus shifts to elections in New Jersey and Virginia this fall and the midterm contests next year.

Respondents were asked to share the first word or phrase that came to mind when they thought of the Republican and Democratic parties. Answers were then sorted into broad categories, including negative and positive attributes. Overall, U.S. adults held a dim view of both parties, with about 4 in 10 using negative attributes, including words such as “dishonest” or “stupid.”

But nearly nine months after Republican Donald Trump won a second presidential term, Democrats appear to be harboring more resentment about the state of their party than do Republicans. Democrats were likelier to describe their own party negatively than Republicans. Republicans were about twice as likely to describe their own party positively.

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Illegal voting charges against student prompt wider concerns about campus election integrity, civics education

Concerns about election integrity have arisen after a University of Michigan international student’s illegal voting at a campus polling site highlighted risks of same-day registration fraud and inadequate voter verification processes.

The College Fix recently obtained court records in the case of Haoxiang “Neil” Gao that suggest the international student was not well-educated about voting rights and spent less than 15 minutes registering and casting his ballot at the on-campus polling site, which was co-organized by two Democrat donors.

Just hours later, Gao told an election official he was “freaking out” when he realized he had voted illegally. He immediately contacted them in an attempt to take back his ballot – which cannot be done.