Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Waiting for a rate cut: “Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said Friday he expects the central bank will cut its key interest rate in the near future in response to slower economic growth and cooling inflation. At a speech during the Fed’s annual August summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell said ‘the time has come for policy to adjust.’ His remarks come as price growth has slowed and the jobs market, as well as demand for borrowing money, has begun to soften to a weaker level than before the onset of the pandemic.”
* Ukraine steps up strikes in Russia: “As Ukrainian forces fight to isolate a large group of Russian soldiers caught between a river in Russia’s Kursk Province and the Ukrainian border, Kyiv has launched a series of strikes at airfields, ports and oil depots in other regions of Russia aimed at degrading the Kremlin’s war effort.”
* Difficult diplomacy: “The White House said Friday that cease-fire talks in Cairo have been constructive and will continue over the weekend as the U.S. and Mideast allies continue to press Israel and Hamas to forge an agreement. CIA Director William Burns and Brett McGurk, a senior adviser on the Middle East to President Joe Biden, are leading the U.S. side of negotiations that began on Thursday amid major differences between Israel and Hamas over Israel’s insistence that it maintain forces in two strategic corridors in Gaza.”
* A case worth watching: “Texas and 15 other Republican-led states sued the Biden administration on Friday seeking to halt a new program that could give legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. Filed just days after the program opened for applications, the lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Texas has led challenging federal immigration policies and powers.”
* This NLRB story was overshadowed this week, but it’s important: “Prosecutors at a federal labor agency have determined that Amazon is a joint employer of subcontracted drivers who delivered packages for the company in California, pushing back on claims from the online retailer that they are not its employees. The decision, made by a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board in Los Angeles, came after the agency investigated unfair labor practice charges filed against the company by the Teamsters union.”
* The latest Jan. 6 arrest: “A live-streamer who was a frequent presence at the ‘Freedom Corner’ protests in support of Jan. 6 defendants has been arrested on Capitol attack charges, nearly two years after he was publicly identified by online ‘sedition hunters’ who have aided in hundreds of Jan. 6 arrests.”
* In related news: “A Maryland man who threw a smoke bomb at police officers defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and who later became a police officer himself in Montgomery County, was convicted Friday of civil disorder, assaulting police and other charges.”
* The governor might need to pick up a new hobby: “Data obtained by NBC News seems to indicate that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not send a single bus full of migrants out of the state in July, despite his vow at the Republican National Convention on July 17 to keep sending buses north until the border is ‘secure.’”
Have a safe weekend.
