Rep. Byron Donalds won Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday with 47.8 percent, well clear of Lt. Gov. Jay Collins at 25.2 percent, putting Trump's handpicked pick a step from succeeding Ron DeSantis. On the other side of the ballot, Democratic Socialists of America member Angie Nixon upset impeachment-era figure Alex Vindman 55.8 to 44.3 in the Senate primary. Vindman burned through roughly $16.3 million against Nixon's $1 million and still lost by nearly twelve points.
Dr. David Morens, 78, longtime senior adviser to Anthony Fauci, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against and defraud the United States. Prosecutors say he used a personal Gmail account to dodge Freedom of Information Act requests tied to a $3.1 million bat coronavirus grant that included a $600,000 subaward to the Wuhan lab. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Minutes released today from the July 29 meeting show many Federal Reserve officials believe raising rates may become necessary if inflation doesn't cool. The benchmark rate is holding at 3.5 to 3.75 percent, while the 30-year Treasury yield touched about 5.31 percent this week, its highest since June 2007. Traders have pared September hike bets and now expect the Fed to sit tight.
The White House's affordability push is drawing fire from conservative groups, particularly a proposed 10 percent cap on credit card interest rates that critics warn would make lending to roughly 60 percent of Americans unprofitable. Manufacturing data offers a counterweight, with July output up 0.2 percent and business equipment production up 6.6 percent year over year. But polling still shows 53 percent of Americans calling the cost of living the worst they can remember.
Polish Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk told Super Express his country is "preparing for war, hoping that it never happens," as Moscow threatens Britain with consequences over drone warfare in Ukraine. Latvian and Lithuanian intelligence warn Russia is staging hybrid provocations — drones, missiles, deniable strikes — against the Baltics and Poland rather than a conventional invasion. NATO jets have already scrambled, with an Italian Eurofighter downing a drone over Latvian airspace.
Oil prices climbed as the memorandum of understanding governing the Strait of Hormuz expired with no clear resolution to the Iran conflict. Traffic through the strait has collapsed to 28 crossings over a three-day stretch, against a pre-war average of about 130 ships per day. Saudi Aramco has cautiously resumed loading at Juaymah and Ras Tanura, but the UAE says Iran struck a third ADNOC-linked vessel in under a week.
President Trump said today he expects to meet Kim Jong Un "later this year," calling the North Korean leader a "very powerful player" and saying their rapport is "a good thing, not a bad thing." He also put North Korea's arsenal at 57 nuclear weapons. Kim Yo Jong, the dictator's sister, says she is completely unaware of any such communications, and Seoul says it was not notified before Trump ordered joint exercises scaled back.
The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, suffered a generator casualty and lost power on July 24, drifting until tugs hauled it to Subic Bay in the Philippines on July 28. The outage knocked out galley service, toilets, air conditioning and potable water aboard the nearly 10,000-ton warship. The cruiser USS Robert Smalls ferried meals to the crew; no injuries were reported and the Navy is investigating.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to lift off on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Florida no earlier than 7:20 a.m. Eastern on August 30, then travel 100 days to a station point a million miles out. Its survey will catalog more than two billion galaxies and do in a month what Hubble would need a century to accomplish. Mission leads expect major gains on dark energy, cosmic expansion and exoplanet discovery.
Customs officers at Tokyo's Haneda Airport opened a Mexican traveler's suitcase and found roughly 200 live lizards stuffed inside 22 pairs of socks. Several of the reptiles belonged to endangered species, turning a smuggling bust into a wildlife-trafficking case. The suspect was arrested on the spot.
