Tokyo — Japan this week restated its aim to rid the world of atomic weapons as it marks the 79th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — even as the Japanese government seeks assurances the United States would be willing to use its own nuclear arsenal to protect Japan.

At 8:15 a.m. Tuesday — the time that the atomic bomb exploded 600 meters (1,969 feet) above Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 — people across Japan marked a minute’s silence to remember the horrors visited on the city.

“It is the mission of Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear war, to pass on the reality of the atomic bombings to future generations,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told delegates gathered in Hiroshima.

The manner of Japan’s defeat in World War II changed the country, driving an aversion to war and military power that lasted for generations. However, after decades of pacifism, the country is undergoing profound changes in its attitude to military power amid multiple regional threats, said Yee Kuang Heng, a professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo.

“The DPRK’s [North Korea’s] nuclear missile programs; Chinese military assertiveness and territorial claims in the East China Sea; Russia’s closer military cooperation with China in the past couple of years. These are underlying drivers that have been around for the past couple of years,” Heng told VOA.

“There is Prime Minister Kishida’s oft-quoted fear that Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow, especially with potential flashpoints close to Japan, such as Taiwan.”

Those threats prompted Japan to last year announce a doubling of defense spending, to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027.

Last week, the United States, Japan’s closest ally, announced a major upgrade of its military command in the country. During the visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Tokyo again sought assurances from the U.S. that it would be prepared to use “extended deterrence” — that is, nuclear weapons — to defend Japan.

“They have always had doubts about the American commitment to use all their might to defend them. And that includes nuclear weapons, which gives you some idea of just how somewhat paradoxical Japan’s supposed nuclear allergy is,” said Grant Newsham, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy and a former U.S. Marines colonel who served in Japan.

For decades, anger among Asian neighbors over Japan’s actions in World War II prevented closer regional cooperation. That’s also changing, said analyst Heng.

“Countries like the Philippines, they’ve recently signed very important defense agreements with Japan, such as the Reciprocal Access Agreement, actually the first Asian country to do so with Japan,” he said. “South Korea, notably under President Yoon [Suk Yeol], has talked up a more forward-looking relationship with Japan.”

But 79 years after the trauma of defeat — the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — are the Japanese people ready to become a military power once more?

“There’s a sea change also in the public opinion in my country as well,” said Kunihiko Miyake of Japan’s Canon Institute for Global Studies.

“We are not rabbits. We are tortoises. We are probably slow, but we always go ahead, and one step forward at a time,” Miyake added. “Maybe this time, two or three steps forward.”

China has reacted with anger to the rapid changes in Japan’s military posture.

“During World War II, Japan invaded and colonized some Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, and committed serious historical crimes. Japan needs to seriously reflect on its history of aggression and act prudently in the field of military security,” said Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a press conference last month.

At the same time, say analysts, Japan must secure itself against multiple threats — not least from China itself.
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Now that both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have selected their running mates, the question is whether those picks will actually help boost the campaigns’ chances of winning the November election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the historical relevance of vice presidential candidates and what Tim Walz and JD Vance bring to their respective tickets.
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CHARLESTON, S.C. — Tropical Storm Debby is taking a breather Wednesday over the western Atlantic Ocean but it isn’t done dousing the coastal Carolinas before it slowly marches north.   

Debby was expected to restrengthen and turn north toward the South Carolina coastline for a second landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday, weather officials said. The storm carried the threat not only of additional rainfall but also of tornadoes in coastal sections of the Carolinas spreading north into southeast Virginia on Thursday.   

The slow-moving storm drenched coastal cities in Georgia and South Carolina late Monday into Tuesday, stirring up tornadoes and submerging streets with waist-high floodwaters. The storm has dropped more than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain in some places already and could dump staggering rain totals of up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) in places by the time it ends.   

Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, were deluged into Tuesday, with curfews set and roads blocked by police. Dozens of roads were closed in the city of Charleston because of flooding similar to what it sees several times a year because of rising sea levels.   

As Debby swirls just offshore, the heavy rain is expected to move into parts of South and North Carolina that have already seen two billion-dollar floods in eight years.   

In one Savannah neighborhood, firefighters used boats to evacuate some residents and waded through floodwaters to deliver bottled water and other supplies to those who refused to leave.   

Michael Jones said water gushed into his home Monday evening, overturning the refrigerator and causing furniture to float. Outside, the water seemed to be everywhere and was too deep to flee safely. So Jones spent a sleepless night on his kitchen table before firefighters going door to door came in a boat Tuesday morning.   

“It was hell all night,” Jones said.   

In Charleston, Mayor William Cogswell said the road closures have kept businesses and homes from unnecessary damage and avoided the need for any high-water rescues.   

“We especially don’t need any yahoos driving through the water and causing damage to properties,” Cogswell said.   

Up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain was expected in some places in the Carolinas, totals that are close to what the region saw in a historic flood from Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Two years later, many of those records were broken during Hurricane Florence. Both storms killed dozens.   

North Carolina and Virginia have both declared a state of emergency.   

Several areas along North Carolina’s coastline are prone to flooding, such as Wilmington and the Outer Banks. Virginia could see impacts including strong winds, heavy rains and flooding.   

Debby’s center was about 90 miles (145) kilometers east of Savannah on Wednesday morning, according to a bulletin from the National Hurricane Center. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (73 kph) and was heading east at 5 mph (8 kph).   

“Tropical cyclones always produce heavy rain, but normally as they’re moving, you know, it doesn’t accumulate that much in one place,” said Richard Pasch, of the hurricane center. “But when they move very slowly, that’s the worst situation.”   

There will be lulls in the rain as dry spells appear between bands around the center of the poorly organized storm, forecasters said. But some bands will be heavy and keep moving over the same places.   

Green Pond in rural Colleton County, South Carolina, reported the most rain so far, just over 14 inches (36 centimeters). A nearby dam had water run over its top but did not crumble, while trees and washouts blocked a number of roads, county Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief David Greene said.   

Close to a foot (30 centimeters) fell down-coast from Charleston to Savannah, where the National Weather Service reported 6.68 inches (17 centimeters) just on Monday. That’s already a month’s worth in a single day: In all of August 2023, the city got 5.56 inches (14.1 centimeters).   

Tornadoes knocked down trees and damaged a few homes on Kiawah Island and Edisto Island.   

Crooked Hammock Brewery in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, decided to close early Tuesday.   

“Flash flooding is super unpredictable, and we’d rather our staff and guests be home and safe,” marketing coordinator Georgena Dimitriadis said.   

Far to the north in New York City, heavy storms that meteorologists said were being enhanced by Debby flooded some streets and expressways, stranding motorists. The weather service issued a flood watch until noon Wednesday for the entire city.   

Emergency officials warned of potential flash flooding, flying drones with loudspeakers in some New York City neighborhoods to tell people in basement apartments to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.   

Debby made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday along the Gulf Coast of Florida.   

At least six people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a 48-year-old man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank, WTSP-TV reported.   

About 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, police said. Just north of Sarasota, Manatee County officials said more than 200 people were rescued.   

Officials said it may take two weeks to fully assess the damage in parts of north-central Florida as they wait for rivers to crest.   

“You’re going to see the tributaries rise. That’s just inevitable. How much? We’ll see,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday. “It may be that it’s not flooded today and it could be flooded tomorrow.”   

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also warned of more rain and flooding to come, saying, “Do not let this storm lull you to sleep.”   

President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations making federal disaster assistance available to Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.   

Debby is finally forecast to pick up speed Thursday, and it could move up the middle of North Carolina, through Virginia and into the Washington area by Saturday. 
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The two U.S. presidential tickets are set. Vice President Kamala Harris named her running mate Tuesday. But the presumed Democratic Party nominee wasn’t alone making news in one of America’s oldest cities, Philadelphia, in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania. That’s where we find VOA’s Senior Washington Correspondent Carolyn Presutti.
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WASHINGTON — Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, a Chinese American wrongfully detained in China since 2016, felt a mix of emotions after witnessing the recent return of Americans wrongfully imprisoned in Russia.

Last Thursday, President Joe Biden and the families of those released celebrated the return of three Americans and a permanent resident, including two journalists and an activist, as part of the largest prisoner exchange since the Soviet era.

Kai Li is one of at least three Americans wrongfully detained in China. He was arrested in Shanghai in September 2016 and in 2018 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage, which he has consistently denied. The other two wrongfully detained by China are Texas businessman Mark Swidan and California pastor David Lin.

The U.S. State Department does not disclose the number of wrongful detention cases due to privacy concerns and the sensitivity of efforts to secure the release of wrongfully detained U.S. nationals.

“U.S. citizens are not required to register their travel to a foreign country with us, and we do not maintain comprehensive lists of U.S. citizens residing overseas,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA in an email when asked about the total number of wrongfully detained Americans in China.

For the past eight years, Harrison Li has urged two consecutive U.S. administrations to secure his father’s release.

“Our family is extremely pleased to see the return of Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Evan Gershkovich back to the U.S. and wish them and their families the best in the long road to recovery,” Li told VOA in a written statement.

“Once again, President Biden has shown his willingness to make difficult decisions that prioritize the safety of Americans unjustly detained abroad … except in China.”

Li expressed frustration over the lack of attention given to his father’s case by the U.S. administration.

“All we can do is once again remind the President that my dad has suffered unjustly for almost 8 years now, and that he must act to ‘finish the job’ before it’s too late,” Li wrote.

Several members of Congress are also urging the Biden administration to secure the release of Americans wrongfully detained in China.

Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, told VOA that Americans wrongfully detained in China and elsewhere deserve to be home with their families.

“One American wrongfully detained abroad is too many,” he said. “As wrongfully detained Americans returned home this week from Russia, we cannot forget about those held around the world, including those in China — particularly Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and David Lin.”

Families call for urgent action

Katherine Swidan, the mother of Mark Swidan, revealed that her son has been on a hunger strike for many days. He has been detained in China since 2012 on narcotics trafficking charges, which he denies.

“Mark’s been on a hunger strike for 115 days. He’s lost a lot of weight, and he’s been sick. His leg was swollen, and they did a very sparse medical exam,” Swidan told VOA.

According to Swidan, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns visited her son in the past.

“When he went to see Mark, he told Mark the next time I come to see you, hopefully it will be to bring you home,” Swidan said.

That message left both her and Mark full of hope, but Mark continues to experience disappointment and anger and has had suicidal tendencies.

“When I talked to him, he said he was in a room with, like, nine other people, seven to nine people. He is doing gardening, planting stuff. But he is furious because he doesn’t understand why they are not pushing for him to come home,” she said.

Renewed focus

Peter Humphrey, a former British reporter in China, was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison for illegally obtaining citizen information. He was released early in June 2015 due to health reasons and was deported after medical treatment in Shanghai.

Now a nonresident researcher at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for China Studies, Humphrey uses his experience to assist foreign citizens detained in China and help them contact government officials. He says he has supported some American detainees whose cases remained unreported for fear that publicity would make their situations worse.

Humphrey believes that after last week’s U.S.-Russia prisoner exchange, the United States should refocus its attention on Americans improperly detained in China and elsewhere.

“These people are arbitrarily detained, and the American government should wake up and understand the fact that it is their duty of care to protect American citizens in China who become victims of this false and cruel process of Chinese justice,” he told VOA. “Some talks are happening but not like significant progress.”

Travel advisory

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the department has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas.

“Secretary Blinken, Ambassador Burns, and other senior U.S. government officials continue to advocate for the immediate and unconditional release of wrongfully detained U.S. citizens in meetings with PRC officials,” the spokesperson told VOA. “The U.S. mission in China will continue to offer consular services to every U.S. citizen detained in the PRC.”

The Department of State travel advisory is at Level 3 for mainland China, recommending that U.S. citizens reconsider travel due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws, exit bans and the risk of wrongful detentions.

“The sad facts are that the PRC has blocked U.S. citizens, including college students, minors, businesspeople and tourists from leaving the country. U.S. citizens have been wrongfully detained by the PRC, and the PRC often arbitrarily enforces its own laws,” the spokesperson said.

Family appeals

Nelson and Cynthia Wells, whose son Nelson Wells Jr. was detained in China in 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment for “drug smuggling” (later commuted to 22 years), have written letters to three consecutive U.S. presidents about their son’s imprisonment but have never received a response.

“We also don’t know if they received the letters,” they said. “I really believe that if we’re high-profile people, well, if we’re famous, or we’re a top athlete, or we have a lot of money, or we have any type of political connections, then we might get some recognition,” Nelson Wells told VOA.

The case has drawn the attention of U.S. Senators John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy, who are advocating for Nelson Wells Jr. to be recognized as “wrongfully detained.” Last October, Nelson and Cynthia Wells spoke with House Speaker Mike Johnson, who assured them he continues to address the issue.
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wichita falls, texas — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

It accused the advertising group’s brand safety initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

Musk posted about the lawsuit on X on Tuesday, saying “now it is war” after two years of being nice and “getting nothing but empty words.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit stemmed in part from evidence uncovered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which she said showed a “group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.

The Republican-led committee had a hearing last month looking at whether current laws are “sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.”

The lawsuit’s allegations center on the early days of Musk’s Twitter takeover and not a more recent dispute with advertisers that came a year later.

In November 2023, about a year after Musk bought the company, a number of advertisers began fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Musk later said those fleeing advertisers were engaging in blackmail and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.

The Belgium-based World Federation of Advertisers and representatives for CVS, Orsted, Mars and Unilever didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

A top Unilever executive testified at last month’s congressional hearing, defending the British consumer goods company’s practice of choosing to put ads on platforms that won’t harm its brand.

“Unilever, and Unilever alone, controls our advertising spending,” said prepared written remarks by Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA. “No platform has a right to our advertising dollar.”
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Washington — A Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran has been charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn announced criminal charges against Asif Merchant, accusing him of traveling to New York to try to hire a hitman for the assassinations. The plot was disrupted before it could be carried out.

Court documents do not identify any of the potential targets, but the case was unsealed just weeks after U.S. officials disclosed that a threat on Donald Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally last month in which Trump was injured by a gunman’s bullet. That shooting, carried out by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was unrelated to the Iran threat.

U.S. officials have warned for years about Iran’s desire to avenge the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. That strike was ordered by Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement: “The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security.”
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WASHINGTON/SYDNEY — The United States and Australia kicked off high-level talks Tuesday that will focus on China’s “coercive behavior,” as well as the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, mounting tensions in the Middle East and climate change, officials said.

The annual Australia-U.S. AUSMIN talks, taking place in Annapolis, Maryland, include the top defense and diplomatic officials from both nations.

“We’re working together today to tackle shared security challenges, from coercive behavior by the PRC [People’s Republic of China], to Russia’s war of choice against Ukraine, to the turmoil in the Middle East,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.

“And I know that [this] year’s AUSMIN will deliver results for both of our peoples.”

The U.S. and China are at odds on a range of issues, including U.S. support for Taiwan. Another topic will be Chinese military activity in the South China Sea. China claims control over most of the sea, including the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, where U.S. ally the Philippines has maritime claims.

Austin spoke in the wake of a rocket strike on Monday in Iraq that wounded seven U.S. personnel, as the Middle East braced for a possible new wave of attacks by Iran and its allies following last week’s killing of senior leaders of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles held meetings in Washington on Monday, a day before the AUSMIN talks.

Marles highlighted the expanding role of a U.S. Marine rotational force in northern Australia and defense industry cooperation.

“We’re seeing America’s force posture in Australia grow really significantly. AUKUS is part of that, but it’s not the only part of that,” Marles said in talks with Austin, according to a statement.

Under the AUKUS program, Washington will sell three nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the next decade. Wong said there was bipartisan U.S. political support for the program.

U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy told ABC Television that China and climate change — priorities for the Pacific Islands, where the U.S. and Australia are competing with China for security ties — would be discussed.

“Obviously with China being such an important … trading partner and competitor for both of us, that is obviously one of the main topics,” she said.

“We are also talking about what we can do together to fight climate change [and] to help the Pacific Islands to build critical infrastructure to connect them,” she said.

As part of cooperating on environmental and resource issues, Australia will spend $200 million ($130 million U.S.) to upgrade ground station facilities in its remote central desert to process data from NASA’s Landsat Next satellite.

Landsat Next is an earth observation program the U.S. space agency says will provide early warnings on the onset of fires or ice melting. The program is scheduled to be launched in 2030.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the satellite data would also be used to target resource exploration in Australia, as the two nations develop a supply chain for critical minerals.

The U.S. and its allies are seeking to reduce China’s market dominance in rare earths and critical minerals used in electric vehicles and defense technology.
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New York — Some calm is returning to Wall Street, and U.S. stocks are holding steadier after Japan’s market soared earlier Tuesday to bounce back from its worst loss since 1987.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading and on track to break a brutal three-day losing streak. It had tumbled a bit more than 6% after several weaker-than-expected reports raised worries the Federal Reserve had pressed the brakes too hard for too long on the U.S. economy through high interest rates in order to beat inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 47 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:43 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.

Stronger-than-expected profit reports from several big U.S. companies helped support the market. Kenvue, the company behind Tylenol and Band-Aids, jumped 13.5% after reporting stronger profit than expected thanks in part to higher prices for its products. Uber rolled 4.3% higher after easily topping profit forecasts for the latest quarter.

Caterpillar veered from an early loss to a gain of 1.7% after reporting stronger earnings than expected but weaker revenue.

Several technical factors may have accelerated the recent swoon for markets, beyond the weak U.S. hiring data and other reports, in what strategists at Barclays call “a perfect storm” for causing extreme market moves. One is centered in Tokyo, where a favorite trade for hedge funds and other investors began unraveling last week after the Bank of Japan made borrowing more expensive by raising interest rates above virtually zero.

That scrambled trades where investors had borrowed Japanese yen at low cost and invested it elsewhere around the world. The resulting exits from those trades may have helped accelerate the declines for markets around the world.

But Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 10.2% Tuesday, following its 12.4% sell-off the day before, which was its worst since the Black Monday crash of 1987. Stocks in Tokyo rebounded as the value of the Japanese yen stabilized a bit against the U.S. dollar following several days of sharp gains.

“The speed, the magnitude and the shock factor clearly demonstrate” how much of the moves were driven by how traders were positioned, rather than just worries about the economy, according to the strategists at Barclays led by Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.

Still, some voices along Wall Street are continuing to urge caution.

Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, is warning more drops could be ahead because of a slowing U.S. economy and sticky inflation. He had been predicting a coming “correction” in U.S. stock prices for a while, including an acknowledgement in July that his initial call was early. That was two days before the S&P 500 set its latest all-time high and then began sinking.

While fears are rising about a slowing U.S. economy, it is still growing, and a recession is far from a certainty. The U.S. stock market is also still up a healthy amount for the year so far. The S&P 500 has romped to dozens of all-time highs this year, in part due to a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology and critics have been saying prices looked too expensive.

Elsewhere, European markets were mostly left out of the rebound, with stock indexes down modestly in Germany France and the United Kingdom.
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HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. — Tropical Storm Debby moved menacingly into some of America’s most historic Southern cities and was expected to bring prolonged downpours and flooding throughout the day Tuesday after slamming into Florida and prompting the rescue of hundreds from flooded homes.

Record-setting rain from the storm that killed at least five people was causing flash flooding, with up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) possible in some areas, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm’s center was over southeast Georgia early Tuesday with maximum sustained winds near 45 mph (75 kph) and it was moving northeast near 7 mph (11 kph). The center is expected to move off Georgia’s coast later Tuesday. Some strengthening is forecast Wednesday and Thursday as Debby drifts offshore, before it moves inland Thursday over South Carolina.

“Hunker down,” Van Johnson, the mayor of Savannah, Georgia, told residents in a social media livestream Monday night. “Expect that it will be a rough day” on Tuesday, he said.

More than 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain had fallen through Monday at Savannah’s airport, but more rain fell overnight and was continuing Tuesday, the National Weather Service reported.

Flash flood warnings were issued in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, among other areas of coastal Georgia and South Carolina. Both Savannah and Charleston announced curfews Monday night into Tuesday.

In South Carolina, Charleston County Interim Emergency Director Ben Webster called Debby a “historic and potentially unprecedented event” three times in a 90-second briefing Monday.

In addition to the curfew, the city of Charleston’s emergency plan includes sandbags for residents, opening parking garages so residents can park their cars above floodwaters and an online mapping system that shows which roads are closed due to flooding.

In Edisto Beach, South Carolina, a tornado touched down Monday night, damaging trees, homes and taking down power lines, the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office said on social media. No injuries were immediately reported, officials said.

The weather service continued issuing tornado warnings well into Monday night for parts of the state including Hilton Head Island.

At the edge of Hilton Head Island, musician Nick Poulin wasn’t overly concerned about Debby since his equipment was inside and he made sure that his car wasn’t parked under trees so it won’t be hit by falling branches.

“I’m born and raised here, so we’ve had plenty of storms,” he said. “It’s usually not as bad as people hype it up to be.”

Debby made landfall along the Gulf Coast of Florida early Monday as a Category 1 hurricane. It has weakened to a tropical storm and is moving slowly, drenching and bringing areas of catastrophic flooding across portions of eastern Georgia, the coastal plain of South Carolina and southeast North Carolina through Wednesday.

About 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, a beach city popular with tourists, the Sarasota Police Department said in a social media post. Just north of Sarasota, officials in Manatee County said in a news release that 186 people were rescued from flood waters.

“Essentially we’ve had twice the amount of the rain that was predicted for us to have,” Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun said on social media.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that the state could continue to see threats as waterways north of the border fill up and flow south.

“It is a very saturating, wet storm,” he said. “When they crest and the water that’s going to come down from Georgia, it’s just something that we’re going to be on alert for not just throughout today, but for the next week.”

Five people had died due to the storm as of Monday night, including a truck driver on Interstate 75 in the Tampa area after he lost control of his tractor trailer, which flipped over a concrete wall and dangled over the edge before the cab dropped into the water below. Sheriff’s office divers located the driver, a 64-year-old man from Mississippi, in the cab 40 feet (12 meters) below the surface, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

A 13-year-old boy died Monday morning after a tree fell on a mobile home southwest of Gainesville, Florida, according to the Levy County Sheriff’s Office. In Dixie County, just east of where the storm made landfall, a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy died in a car crash on wet roads Sunday night.

In south Georgia, a 19-year-old man died Monday afternoon when a large tree fell onto a porch at a home in Moultrie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

More than 140,000 customers remained without power in Florida and Georgia on Tuesday morning, down from a peak of more than 350,000, according to PowerOutage.us and Georgia Electric Membership Corp. Nearly 12,000 more were without power in South Carolina early Tuesday. 

More than 1,600 flights were also canceled nationwide on Monday and more than 550 flights were canceled early Tuesday, many of them to and from Florida airports, according to FlightAware.com.

President Joe Biden approved a request from South Carolina’s governor for an emergency declaration, following his earlier approval of a similar request from Florida. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he has asked Biden to issue a preemptive federal emergency declaration to speed the flow of federal aid to the state.

Vice President Kamala Harris postponed a campaign stop scheduled for Thursday in Savannah.

North Carolina is also under a state of emergency after Gov. Roy Cooper declared it in an executive order signed Monday. Several areas along the state’s coastline are prone to flooding, such as Wilmington and the Outer Banks, according to the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program.

North Carolina and South Carolina have dealt with three catastrophic floods from tropical systems in the past nine years, all causing more than $1 billion in damage.

In 2015, rainfall fed by moisture as Hurricane Joaquin passed well offshore caused massive flooding. In 2016, flooding from Hurricane Matthew caused 24 deaths in the two states and rivers set record crests. Those records were broken in 2018 with Hurricane Florence, which set rainfall records in both Carolinas, flooded many of the same places and was responsible for 42 deaths in North Carolina and nine in South Carolina.
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WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, a daughter of immigrants who rose through the California political and law enforcement ranks to become the first female vice president in U.S. history, formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday — becoming the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket.

More than four years after her first attempt at the presidency collapsed, Harris’ coronation as her party’s standard-bearer caps a tumultuous and frenetic period for Democrats prompted by President Joe Biden’s disastrous June debate performance that shattered his own supporters’ confidence in his reelection prospects and spurred extraordinary intraparty warfare about whether he should stay in the race.

Just as soon as Biden abruptly ended his candidacy, Harris and her team worked rapidly to secure backing from the 1,976 party delegates needed to clinch the nomination in a formal roll call vote. She reached that marker at warp speed, with an Associated Press survey of delegates nationwide showing she locked down the necessary commitments a mere 32 hours after Biden’s announcement.

Harris’ nomination became official after a five-day round of online balloting by Democratic National Convention delegates ended Monday night, with the party saying in a statement released just before midnight that 99% of delegates had cast their ballots for Harris. The party had long contemplated the early virtual roll call to ensure Biden would appear on the ballot in every state. It said it would next formally certify the vote before holding a celebratory roll call at the party’s convention later this month in Chicago.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted after Biden withdrew found 46% of Americans have a favorable view of Harris, while a nearly identical share has an unfavorable view of her. But more Democrats say they are satisfied with her candidacy compared with that of Biden, energizing a party that had long been resigned to the 81-year-old Biden being its nominee against former President Donald Trump, a Republican they view as an existential threat.

Already Harris has telegraphed that she doesn’t plan to veer much from the themes and policies that framed Biden’s candidacy, such as democracy, gun violence prevention and abortion rights. But her delivery can be far fierier, particularly when she invokes her prosecutorial background to lambast Trump and his 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records in connection with a hush money scheme.

“Given that unique voice of a new generation, of a prosecutor and a woman when fundamental rights, especially reproductive rights, are on the line, it’s almost as if the stars have aligned for her at this moment in history,” said Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California, who was tapped to succeed Harris in the Senate when she became vice president.

A splash in Washington before a collapse in the 2020 primaries

Kamala Devi Harris was born Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, to Shyamala Gopalan, a breast cancer scientist who emigrated to the United States from India when she was 19 years old, and Stanford University emeritus professor Donald Harris, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Jamaica. Her parents’ advocacy for civil rights gave her what she described as a “stroller’s-eye view” of the movement.

She spent years as a prosecutor in the Bay Area before her elevation as the state’s attorney general in 2010 and then election as U.S. senator in 2016.

Harris arrived in Washington as a senator at the dawn of the volatile Trump era, quickly establishing herself as a reliable liberal opponent of the new president’s personnel and policies and fanning speculation about a presidential bid of her own. Securing a spot on the coveted Judiciary Committee gave her a national spotlight to interrogate prominent Trump nominees, such as now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“I’m not able to be rushed this fast,” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said during a 2017 hearing as Harris repeatedly pressed him on potential conversations with Russian nationals. “It makes me nervous.”

Harris launched her 2020 presidential campaign with much promise, drawing parallels to former President Barack Obama and attracting more than 20,000 people to a kickoff rally in her hometown. But Harris withdrew from the primary race before the first nominating contest in Iowa, plagued by staff dissent that spilled out into the open and an inability to attract enough campaign cash.

Harris struggled to deliver a consistent pitch to Democratic voters and wobbled on key issues such as health care. She suggested she backed eliminating private insurance for a full government-run system — “Medicare for All” coverage — before releasing her own health care plan that preserved private insurance. Now, during her nascent general election campaign, Harris has already reversed some of her earlier, more liberal positions, such as a ban on fracking that she endorsed in 2019.

And while Harris tried to deploy her law enforcement background as an asset in her 2020 presidential campaign, it never attracted enough support in a party that couldn’t reconcile some of her past tough-on-crime positions at a time of heightened focus on police brutality.

Joining Biden’s team — and an evolution as vice president

Still, Harris was at the top of the vice presidential shortlist when Biden was pondering his running mate, after his pledge in early 2020 that he would choose a Black woman as his No. 2. He was fond of Harris, who had forged a close friendship with his now-deceased son Beau, who had been Delaware’s attorney general when she was in that job for California.

Her first months as vice president were far from smooth. Biden asked her to lead the administration’s diplomatic efforts with Central America on the root causes of migration to the United States, which triggered attacks from Republicans on border security and remains a political vulnerability. It didn’t help matters that Harris stumbled in big interviews, such as in a 2021 sit-down with NBC News’ Lester Holt when she responded dismissively that “I haven’t been to Europe” when the anchor noted that she hadn’t visited the U.S.-Mexico border.

For her first two years, Harris also was often tethered to Washington so she could break tie votes in the evenly divided Senate, which gave Democrats landmark wins on the climate and health care but also constrained opportunities for her to travel around the country and meet voters.

Her visibility became far more prominent after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that dismantled Roe v. Wade, as she became the chief spokesperson for the administration on abortion rights and was a more natural messenger than Biden, a lifelong Catholic who had in the past favored restrictions on the procedure. She is the first vice president to tour an abortion clinic and speaks about reproductive rights in the broader context of maternal health, especially for Black women.

Throughout her vice presidency, Harris has been careful to remain loyal to Biden while emphasizing that she would be ready to step in if needed. That dramatic transition began in late June after the first debate between Biden and Trump, where the president’s stumbles were so cataclysmic that he could never reverse the loss of confidence from other Democrats.

Headed to the top of the ticket

After Biden ended his candidacy July 21, he quickly endorsed Harris. And during the first two weeks of her 2024 presidential bid, enthusiasm among the Democratic base surged, with donations pouring in, scores of volunteers showing up at field offices and supporters swelling so much in numbers that event organizers have had to swap venues.

The Harris campaign now believes it has a renewed opportunity to compete in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia — states that Biden had started to abandon in favor of shoring up the so-called “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

“The country is able to see the Kamala Harris that we all know,” said Bakari Sellers, who was a national co-chair of her 2020 campaign. “We really didn’t allow the country to see her” four years ago. Sellers said: “We had her in bubble wrap. What people are seeing now is that she’s real, she’s talented.”

Yet Democrats are anticipating that Harris’ political honeymoon will wear off, and she is inevitably going to come under tougher scrutiny for Biden administration positions, the state of the economy and volatile situations abroad, particularly in the Middle East. Harris has also yet to answer extended questions from journalists nor sit down for a formal interview since she began her run.

The Trump campaign has been eager to define Harris as she continues to introduce herself to voters nationwide, releasing an ad blaming her for the high number of illegal crossings at the southern border during the Biden administration and dubbing her “Failed. Weak. Dangerously liberal.”

The Republican nominee’s supporters have also derisively branded Harris as a diversity hire, while Trump himself has engaged in ugly racial attacks of his own, wrongly asserting that Harris had in the past only promoted her Indian heritage and only recently played up her Black identity.

His remarks are previewing a season of racist and sexist claims against the person who would be the first woman and the first person of South Asian heritage in the presidency.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said while addressing the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists. “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

In her response, Harris called it “the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect” and said voters “deserve better.”

“The American people deserve a leader who tells the truth, a leader who does not respond with hostility and anger when confronted with the facts,” Harris said at a Sigma Gamma Rho sorority gathering in Houston. “We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us.”
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phoenix — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis, who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani, will cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in exchange for charges being dropped against her in a fake electors case, the state attorney general’s office announced Monday.

Ellis has previously pleaded not guilty to fraud, forgery and conspiracy charges in the Arizona case. Seventeen other people charged in the case have pleaded not guilty to the felony charges — including Giuliani, Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows and 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona.

“Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the State in proving its case in court,” Attorney General Kris Mayes said in a statement. “As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined — it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”

Last year, Ellis was charged in Georgia after she appeared with Giuliani at a December 2020 hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. She had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. The cooperation agreement signed by Ellis in the Arizona case requires her to provide truthful information to the Attorney General’s Office and testify honestly in proceedings in any state or federal court. Prosecutors can withdraw from the deal and refile charges if Ellis violates the agreement.

Prosecutors have already asked a court to dismiss the Arizona charges against Ellis. It wasn’t immediately clear if a judge had yet approved the request.

The Associated Press left messages with Ellis’ attorney, Matthew Brown, after the agreement was announced Monday.

While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors say Ellis made false claims of widespread election fraud in the state and six others, encouraged the Arizona Legislature to change the outcome of the election and encouraged then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept Arizona’s fake elector votes.

The indictment said Ellis, Giuliani and other associates were at a meeting at the Arizona Legislature on Dec. 1, 2020, with then-House Speaker Rusty Bowers and other Republicans when Giuliani and his team asked the speaker to hold a committee hearing on the election.

When Bowers asked for proof of election fraud, Giuliani said he had proof but Ellis had advised that it was left back at a hotel room, the indictment said. No proof was provided to Bowers.

Ellis also is barred from practicing law in Colorado for three years after her guilty plea in Georgia.

Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April. Overall, charges were brought against 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona, five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides. President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment.

The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
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new york — A scary Monday that started with a plunge abroad reminiscent of 1987 ’s crash swept around the world and pummeled Wall Street with more steep losses, as fears worsened about a slowing U.S. economy.

The S&P 500 dropped 3% for its worst day in nearly two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reeled by 1,033 points, or 2.6%, while the Nasdaq composite slid 3.4% as Apple, Nvidia and other Big Tech companies that used to be the stars of the stock market continued to wilt.

The drops were the latest in a global sell-off that began last week. Japan’s Nikkei 225 helped begin Monday by plunging 12.4% for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.

It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday’s report showing U.S. employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the U.S. economy to come in weaker than expected, and it’s all raised fear the Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the U.S. economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.

Professional investors cautioned that some technical factors could be amplifying the action in markets, and that the drops may be overdone, but the losses were still neck-snapping. South Korea’s Kospi index careened 8.8% lower, and bitcoin dropped below $54,000 from more than $61,000 on Friday.

Even gold, which has a reputation for offering safety during tumultuous times, slipped about 1%.

That’s in part because traders began wondering if the damage has been so severe that the Federal Reserve will have to cut interest rates in an emergency meeting, before its next scheduled decision on Sept. 18. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for the Fed, briefly sank below 3.70% during the morning from 3.88% late Friday and from 5% in April. It later recovered and pulled back to 3.89%.

“The Fed could ride in on a white horse to save the day with a big rate cut, but the case for an inter-meeting cut seems flimsy,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Those are usually reserved for emergencies, like COVID, and an unemployment rate of 4.3% doesn’t really seem like an emergency.”

Of course, the U.S. economy is still growing, the U.S. stock market is still up a healthy amount for the year and a recession is far from a certainty. The Fed has been clear about the tightrope it began walking when it started hiking rates sharply in March 2022: Being too aggressive would choke the economy, but going too soft would give inflation more oxygen and hurt everyone.

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle sees a higher chance of a recession within the next 12 months following Friday’s jobs report. But he still sees only a 25% probability of that, up from 15%, in part “because the data look fine overall” and he does not “see major financial imbalances.”

Some of Wall Street’s recent declines may simply be air coming out of a stock market that romped to dozens of all-time highs this year, in part on a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.

“Markets tend to move higher like they’re climbing stairs, and they go down like they’re falling out a window,” according to JJ Kinahan, CEO of IG North America. He chalks much of the recent worries to euphoria around AI subsiding, with pressure rising on companies to show how AI is turning into profits, and “a market that was ahead of itself.”

Treasury yields also pared their losses Monday after a report said growth for U.S. services businesses was a touch stronger than expected. Growth was led by arts, entertainment and recreation businesses, along with accommodations and food services, according to the Institute for Supply Management.

Still, stocks of companies whose profits are most closely tied to the economy’s strength took sharp losses on the fears about a slowdown. The small companies in the Russell 2000 index dropped 3.3%, washing out what had been a revival for it and other beaten-down areas of the market.

Making things worse for Wall Street, Big Tech stocks tumbled as the market’s most popular trade for much of this year continued to unravel. Apple, Nvidia and a handful of other Big Tech stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” had propelled the S&P 500 to record after record this year, even as high interest rates weighed down much of the rest of the stock market.

But Big Tech’s momentum turned last month on worries investors had taken their prices too high and expectations for future growth are becoming too difficult to meet. A set of underwhelming profit reports that began with updates from Tesla and Alphabet added to the pessimism and accelerated the declines.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 160.23 points to 5,186.33. The Dow sank 1,033.99 to 38,703.27, and the Nasdaq composite tumbled 576.08 to 16,200.08.
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NANTERRE, France — No one can match America’s depth at the pool.  

That said, claiming the top step on the Olympic medal podium is no longer a given for U.S. swimmers.  

Nine days of thrilling competition at La Defense Arena wrapped up Sunday night with the Americans barely pulling out the lead in the gold medal standings thanks to a victory in the last race.  

The U.S. finished with eight golds, its fewest since the 1988 Seoul Games and one ahead of its biggest rival, Australia.  

“It’s one of the worst performances in history as a U.S. team,” Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian ever and part of the NBC broadcast team in Paris, said Monday. “Something’s got to happen before 2028 because if you have a repeat like this, it’s gonna be even more embarrassing.”  

Notably, the rest of the world totaled more victories (20) than the United States and Australia combined, the first time that’s happened since the 1996 Atlanta Games.  

The Americans will certainly be intent on improving their performance heading into the home games at Los Angeles in 2028, when swimming will have in its largest, most spectacular setting yet — a temporary pool inside SoFi Stadium with a capacity for some 38,000 fans.  

Still, with more and more international swimmers getting their training in the U.S. — and prominent American coaches such as Bob Bowman spreading their knowledge to other countries — a more diverse list of gold medalists is likely to be the norm going forward.  

“This sport is growing and I can’t help but feel like we’ve been a part of that,” American gold medalist Bobby Finke said. “It’s something we should take home and be proud of.”  

Two of the biggest swimming stars in Paris, France’s Léon Marchand and Canada’s Summer McIntosh, train in the U.S. but won a bevy of medals for their home countries.  

Marchand, who captured four individual golds as well as a relay bronze, is coached by Bowman, best known as the guy who guided Michael Phelps throughout his record-setting career. It was a bit strange to see Bowman in a France shirt, working on the coaching staff of Marchand’s nation.  

After a break to savor his Olympic triumph, Marchand will return to the U.S. to continue his work with Bowman, who now heads the swimming program at the University of Texas.  

“Look at Bob Bowman. He doesn’t care if you’re from the USA or whatever,” said Shane Ryan, an American-born swimmer who competes for Ireland. “He just wants to coach the fastest swimmers at all times.”  

McIntosh trains with a team in Sarasota, Florida, where she honed the form that produced three individual gold medals — the most ever by a Canadian athlete — and a silver.  

“I think competition is great,” said longtime American stalwart Ryan Murphy, who trains with several international athletes at Cal-Berkeley including Spain’s Hugo González. “He’s pushed me a lot. There’s plenty of days where he’s right next to me and helping me get better.”  

Murphy said it’s only natural in today’s information-driven world that more nations are rising up to challenge the U.S.   

“People will take a video of what they’re doing in practice and put it up on social media right away,” he said. “The learning curve is so quick around the world. That’s a big reason why there’s so many talented athletes across the world now.”  

The U.S. certainly has its shining moments in Paris.  

Katie Ledecky won two more golds, moving her into a tie for second place among all athletes on the career list with nine. She also joined Phelps as the only swimmers to win the same event at four straight Summer Games with her victory in the 800-meter freestyle.  

The women’s team produced several more stars, including Torri Huske (three golds, two silvers), Gretchen Walsh (two golds, two silvers) and Regan Smith (two golds, three silvers).  

But there were plenty of disappointments, particular on the men’s side.  

Caeleb Dressel, a big star at the Tokyo Games with five gold medals, finished sixth in the 50 freestyle and didn’t even qualify for the final of the 100 butterfly.  

Murphy settled for a bronze in the 100 backstroke and, like Dressel, failed to qualify for the final of his other individual event, the 200 back.  

In all, the American men produced only two gold medals, and they didn’t pick up an individual victory until Finke’s world record in the 1,500 freestyle on the final night.   

“You always want to be better,” said Anthony Nesty, head coach of the men’s team. “Yes, we want our athletes to win gold medals, but the other teams have great athletes as well. We have to go back, all the coaches in the U.S., get back on it and hopefully four years from now we have a better result. From the men, for sure.”  

The depth of the American team remains its biggest strength. Even with four of its most prominent stars — Dressel, Murphy, Lilly King and Simone Manuel — managing only one individual medal (Murphy’s bronze in the 100 back), the U.S. easily led the overall medals table with 28.  

Three of the four world records set at the meet came from the Americans, two of them in relays.  

“Whether our athletes won a gold medal or failed to make a semifinal or whatever it might be,” said U.S. women’s coach Todd DeSorbo, “you’ve got to learn from it, go back home and be better.” 
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Paris — American gymnast Simone Biles didn’t get the golden sendoff she hoped. 

Biles earned silver in the floor exercise finals on Monday — her 11th Olympic medal — after a routine that included a couple of costly steps out of bounds. 

Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade became the first gymnast to beat Biles in a floor final in a major international competition, posting a score of 14.166 that finished just ahead of Biles at 14.133. 

Jordan Chiles, a longtime friend of Biles, earned the bronze. 

The 27-year-old Biles, considered the greatest in the history of the sport, wasn’t at her usual best during a routine set to music from pop icons Taylor Swift and Beyonce. 

Still, she boosted her medal haul in Paris to four, gold in the team, all-around and vault finals and a silver that came as a surprise in her signature event. 

Biles’ medal total (including seven gold, two silver, two bronze) ties Czechoslovakia’s Vera Caslavska for the second-most by a female gymnast in Olympic history. She missed a chance to add a fifth Paris medal earlier Monday when she fell during the beam final, finishing fifth. 

Though she can make it look easy at times, it is not. She thudded to the floor during her floor warm-up and had the balky left calf she tweaked in qualifying re-wrapped before she competed. 

Her tumbling passes weren’t perfect — she stepped out of bounds twice — but her difficulty is usually so far above everyone else that it hardly matters. 

Not this time. She received a 7.833 execution score that included 0.6 in deductions for stepping out of bounds, allowing Andrade to win her second Olympic gold. 

Still, wearing a red-white-and-blue leotard featuring thousands of crystals, Biles ended nine days of competition in Paris by silencing the critics once and for all who have long derided her for pulling out of multiple events at the Tokyo Games three years ago. 

She won four medals in all, just one less than she did eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro. 

Chiles — the last competitor of the day — initially received a 13.666 from judges. After some delay, her total was boosted by 0.1 when she filed an inquiry about her difficulty score, pushing Chiles past Romanians Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea and into third. 
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New York — Nearly everything on Wall Street is tumbling Monday as fear about a slowing U.S. economy worsens and sets off another sell-off for financial markets around the world.

The S&P 500 was down by 3.1% in early trading, coming off its worst week in more than three months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 996 points, or 2.5%, as of 9:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite slid 3.8%.

The drops were just the latest in a sell-off that swept the Earth. Japan’s Nikkei 225 helped start Monday by plunging 12.4% for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.

It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday’s report showing U.S. employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the U.S. economy to come in weaker than expected, and it’s all raised fear the Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the U.S. economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.

Losses elsewhere in the world were nearly as neck-snapping. South Korea’s Kospi index careened 8.8% lower, stock markets across Europe sank roughly 3% and bitcoin dropped 12%.

Even gold, which has a reputation for offering safety during tumultuous times, slipped 1.6%.

That’s in part because traders are wondering if the damage has been so severe that the Federal Reserve will have to cut interest rates in an emergency meeting, before its next scheduled decision on Sept. 18. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for the Fed, fell to 3.79% from 3.88% late Friday and from 5% in April.

“The Fed could ride in on a white horse to save the day with a big rate cut, but the case for an inter-meeting cut seems flimsy,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “Those are usually reserved for emergencies, like COVID, and an unemployment rate of 4.3% doesn’t really seem like an emergency.”

“The Fed could respond by stopping” the shrinking of its holdings of Treasurys and other bonds, which could put less upward pressure on longer-term yields, he said. “That could at least by a symbolic action that they’re not blind to what’s going on.”

Of course, the U.S. economy is still growing, and a recession is far from assured. The Fed has been clear about the tightrope it began walking when it started hiking rates sharply in March 2022: Being too aggressive would choke the economy, but going too soft would give inflation more oxygen and hurt everyone.

After leaving the federal funds rate steady last week, before several discouraging economic reports hit, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said officials “have a lot of room to respond if we were to see weakness” in the job market after raising their main rate to the highest level in more than two decades.

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle sees a higher chance of a recession following Friday’s jobs report. But he still sees only a 25% chance of that, up from 15%, in part “because the data look fine overall” and he does not “see major financial imbalances.”

Still, stocks of companies whose profits are most closely tied to the economy’s strength took heavy losses on the fears about a sharp slowdown. The small companies in the Russell 2000 index dropped 5.5%, further dousing what had been a revival for it and other beaten-down areas of the market.

Making things worse for Wall Street, Big Tech stocks also tumbled sharply as the market’s most popular trade for much of this year continued to unravel. Apple, Nvidia and a handful of other Big Tech stocks known as the “ Magnificent Seven ” had propelled the S&P 500 to dozens of all-time highs this year, in part on a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. They were so strong that they overshadowed weakness for areas of the stock market weighed down by high interest rates.

But Big Tech’s momentum turned last month on worries investors had taken their prices too high and expectations for future growth are becoming too difficult to meet. A set of underwhelming profit reports from Tesla and Alphabet added to the pessimism and accelerated the declines.

Apple fell 4.6% Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it had slashed its ownership stake in the iPhone maker.

Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the poster child of Wall Street’s AI bonanza, fell even more, 8.3%. Analysts cut their profit forecasts over the weekend for the company after a report from The Information said Nvidia’s new AI chip is delayed. It has trimmed its gain for the year to 98.7% from 170% in the middle of June.

Because the Magnificent Seven companies have grown to be the market’s biggest by market value, the movements for their stocks carry much more weight on the S&P 500 and other indexes.

Worries outside corporate profits, interest rates and the economy are also weighing on the market. The Israel-Hamas war may be worsening, which beyond its human toll could also cause sharp swings for the price of oil. That’s adding to broader worries about potential hotspots around the world, while upcoming U.S. elections could further scramble things.
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TAMPA, FLORIDA — The center of Hurricane Debby is expected to reach the Big Bend coast of Florida early Monday bringing potential record-setting rains, catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge as it moves slowly across the northern part of the state before stalling over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.

Debby was located about 40 miles (70 kilometers) west of Cedar Key, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph). The storm was moving north at 12 mph (19 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Monday.

Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season after Tropical Storm Alberto, Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Chris, all of which formed in June.

Forecasters warned heavy amounts of rain from Debby could spawn catastrophic flooding in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.

The storm was expected to make landfall around midday Monday in the Big Bend area of Florida, north of Tampa, the hurricane center said. A tornado watch also was in effect for parts of Florida and Georgia until 6 a.m. Monday.

“Right now, we are trying secure everything from floating away,” said Sheryl Horne, whose family owns the Shell Island Fish Camp along the Wakulla River in St. Marks, Florida, where some customers moved their boats inland. The sparsely populated Big Bend region in the Florida Panhandle was hit last year by Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane.

“I am used to storms and I’m used to cleaning up after storms,” Horne said.

Debby was expected to move eastward over northern Florida and then stall over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina, thrashing the region with potential record-setting rains totaling up to 76 centimeter) beginning Tuesday. Officials also warned of life-threatening storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast, with 1.8 to 3 meters of inundation expected Monday between the Ochlockonee and Suwannee rivers.

“There’s some really amazing rainfall totals being forecast and amazing in a bad way,” Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, said at a briefing. “That would be record-breaking rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone for both the states of Georgia and South Carolina if we got up to the 30-inch level.”

Flooding impacts could last through Friday and are expected to be especially severe in low-lying areas near the coast, including Savannah, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina. North Carolina officials were monitoring the storm’s progress.

Officials in Savannah said the area could see a month’s worth of rain in four days if the system stalls over the region.

“This is going to a significant storm. The word historic cannot be underscored here,” Savannah Mayor Van. R. Johnson said during a press conference.

The hurricane center said at 11 p.m. that Debby was located about 161 kilometers west of Tampa, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 120 kph. The storm was moving north at 19 kph.

Debby’s outer bands grazed the west coast of Florida, flooding streets and bringing power outages. Sarasota County officials said most roadways on Siesta Key, a barrier island off the coast of Sarasota, were under water. The hurricane center had predicted the system would strengthen as it curved off the southwest Florida coast, where the water has been extremely warm.

At a briefing Sunday afternoon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the storm could lead to “really, really significant flooding that will happen in North Central Florida.”

The storm would follow a similar track to Hurricane Idalia but would “be much wetter. We are going to see much more inundation,” he said.

A hurricane warning was issued for parts of the Big Bend and Florida Panhandle areas, while tropical storm warnings were posted for Florida’s West Coast, the southern Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas. A tropical storm watch extended farther west into the Panhandle.

Tropical storms and hurricanes can trigger river flooding and overwhelm drainage systems and canals. Forecasters warned of 15 centimeters to 30 centimeters of rain and up to 46 centimeters in isolated areas of Florida.

Storm surge expected to hit Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay

Flat Florida is prone to flooding even on sunny days and the storm was predicted to bring a surge of 0.6 to 1.2 meters along most of the Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay, with a storm tide of up to 2.1 meters north of there in the Big Bend region.

Forecasters warned of “a danger of life-threatening storm surge inundation” in a region that includes Hernando Beach, Crystal River, Steinhatchee and Cedar Key. Officials in Citrus and Levy counties ordered a mandatory evacuation of coastal areas, while those in Hernando, Manatee, Pasco and Taylor counties called for voluntary evacuations. Shelters opened in those and some other counties.

Citrus County Sheriff Mike Prendergast estimated 21,000 people live in his county’s evacuation zone.

Residents, businesses prepare for flooding

Residents in Steinhatchee, Florida, which flooded during Hurricane Idalia, spent Sunday moving items to higher ground.

“I’ve been here 29 years. This isn’t the first time I’ve done it. Do you get used to it? No,” Mark Reblin said as he moved items out of the liquor store he owns.

Employees of Savannah Canoe and Kayak in Georgia said they were busy tying down their watercraft, laying sandbags, and raising equipment off the ground. Mayme Bouy, the store manager, said she wasn’t too concerned about the forecast calling for a potential historic rain event.

“But we do have some high tides this week so if the rain is happening around then, that could be bad,” Bouy added. “I’d rather play it safe than sorry.”

Governors declare emergencies ahead of landfall

DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 61 of Florida’s 67 counties, with the National Guard activating 3,000 guard members. Utility crews from in and out of state were ready to restore power after the storm, he said in a post on X. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster made their own emergency declarations.

In Tampa alone, officials gave out more than 30,000 sandbags to barricade against flooding.

“We’ve got our stormwater drains cleared out. We’ve got our generators all checked and full. We’re doing everything that we need to be prepared to face a tropical storm,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said.

Northeast coast also preparing for storm conditions

Emergency managers in New England and New York were already monitoring the path of the storm for the possibility of remnants striking their states. States including New York and Vermont have been hit by heavy rain and thunderstorms in recent weeks and were still coping with flooding and saturated ground.
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CHICO, California — Fire crews battling California’s largest wildfire this year have corralled a third of the blaze aided in part by cooler weather, but a return of triple-digit temperatures could allow it to grow, fire officials said Sunday.

Cooler temperatures and increased humidity gave firefighters “a great opportunity to make some good advances” on the fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills, said Chris Vestal, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Park Fire has scorched 1,623 square kilometers since igniting July 24 when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then fled. The blaze was 30% contained as of Sunday.

The massive fire has scorched an area bigger than the city of Los Angeles, which covers about 1,302 square kilometers. It continues to burn through rugged, inaccessible, and steep terrain with dense vegetation.

The fire’s push northward has brought it toward the rugged lava rock landscape surrounding Lassen Volcanic National Park, which has been closed because of the threat. The inhospitable terrain remains one of the biggest challenges for firefighters.

“The challenge with that is we can’t use our heavy machinery like bulldozers to go through and cut a line right through it,” Vestal said.

“On top of that, we have to put human beings, our hand crews, in to remove those fuels and some of that terrain is not really the greatest for people that are hiking so it takes a long time and extremely hard work,” he added.

The fire has destroyed at least 572 structures and damaged 52 others. At least 2,700 people in Butte and Tehama Counties remain under evacuation orders, Veal said.

After days of smoky skies, clear skies Sunday allowed firefighters to deploy helicopters and other aircraft to aid in the fight against the blaze as temperatures reached above 38 degrees Celsius.

“The fire is in a good place from the weather conditions we had the last couple of days but we still have to worry about the weather that we have and the conditions that are going to be present now for about the next five or six days,” Veal said.

The fire in Northern California is one of 85 large blazes burning across the West.

In Colorado, firefighters were making progress Sunday against three major fires burning near heavily populated areas north and south of Denver. Many residents evacuated by the fires have been allowed to go back home.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a blaze threatening hundreds of homes near the Colorado city of Littleton as arson.

About 50 structures were damaged or destroyed, about half of them homes, by a fire near Loveland. And one person was found dead in a home burned by a fire west of the town of Lyons.

Scientists say extreme wildfires are becoming more common and destructive in the U.S. West and other parts of the world as climate change warms the planet and droughts become more severe.

In Canada, a 24-year-old firefighter battling a blaze in Jasper National Park was killed Saturday by a falling tree, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The firefighter from Calgary, whose name was not released, was battling a fire north of Jasper, a town in Alberta Province that was half destroyed last month by a fast-moving fire.
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Washington — Ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield.

“Too little law and we’re not safe, and our liberties aren’t protected,” Gorsuch told The Associated Press in an interview in his Supreme Court office. “But too much law and you actually impair those same things.”

“Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” is being published Tuesday by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Gorsuch has received a $500,000 advance for the book, according to his annual financial disclosure reports.

In the interview, Gorsuch refused to be drawn into discussions about term limits or an enforceable code of ethics for the justices, both recently proposed by President Joe Biden at a time of diminished public trust in the court. Justice Elena Kagan, speaking a couple of days before Biden, separately said the court’s ethics code, adopted by the justices last November, should have a means of enforcement.

But Gorsuch did talk about the importance of judicial independence. “I’m not saying that there aren’t ways to improve what we have. I’m simply saying that we’ve been given something very special. It’s the envy of the world, the United States judiciary,” he said.

The 56-year-old justice was the first of three Supreme Court nominees of then-President Donald Trump, and they have combined to entrench a conservative majority that has overturned Roe v. Wade, ended affirmative action in college admissions, expanded gun rights and clipped environmental regulations aimed at climate change, as well as air and water pollution more generally.

A month ago, the Supreme Court completed a term in which Gorsuch and the court’s five other conservative justices delivered sharp rebukes to the administrative state in three major cases, including the decision that overturned the 40-year-old Chevron decision that had made it more likely that courts would sustain regulations. The court’s three liberal justices dissented each time.

Gorsuch also was in the majority in ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution in a decision that indefinitely delayed the election interference case against Trump. What’s more, the justices made it harder to use a federal obstruction charge against people who were part of the mob that violently attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden in the 2020 election.

Gorsuch defended the immunity ruling as necessary to prevent presidents from being hampered while in office by threats of prosecution once they leave.

The court had to wrestle with an unprecedented situation, he said. “Here we have, for the first time in our history, one presidential administration bringing criminal charges against a prior president. It’s a grave question, right? Grave implications,” Gorsuch said.

But in the book, co-authored by a former law clerk, Janie Nitze, Gorsuch largely sets those big issues aside and turns his focus to a fisherman, a magician, Amish farmers, immigrants, a hair braider and others who risked jail time, large fines, deportation and other hardships over unyielding rules.

In 18 years as a judge, including the past seven on the Supreme Court, Gorsuch said, “There were just so many cases that came to me in which I saw ordinary Americans, just everyday, regular people trying to go about their lives, not trying to hurt anybody or do anything wrong and just getting whacked, unexpectedly, by some legal rule they didn’t know about.”

The problem, he said, is that there has been an explosion of laws and regulations, at both the federal and state levels. The sheer volume of Congress’ output for the past decade is overwhelming, he said, averaging 344 pieces of legislation totaling 2 million to 3 million words a year.

One vignette involves John Yates, a Florida fisherman who was convicted of getting rid of some undersized grouper under a federal law originally aimed at the accounting industry and the destruction of evidence in the Enron scandal. Yates’ case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won by a single vote.

“I wanted to tell the story of people whose lives were affected,” Gorsuch said.

The book expands on a theme that has run through Gorsuch’s opinions over the years, from his criticism of the Chevron decision back when he served on a federal appeals court in Denver to his statement in May 2023 in which he called emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis that killed more than 1 million Americans perhaps “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

While Gorsuch has voted with the other conservative justices in most of the court’s momentous cases, he also has joined with the liberals in notable cases, including those in which he wrote the opinion in 2020 that expanded protections against workplace discrimination to LGBTQ people. Gorsuch also has sided with the liberal justices in all the court’s cases involving Native Americans since he joined the court.

Immigration, especially when people fighting deportation have complained they were given inadequate notice about hearings, is another area where he has typically broken with his conservative colleagues.

Gorsuch recently returned from a summer teaching gig in Porto, Portugal, for the George Mason University law school. Last year, he spent two weeks in Lisbon, Portugal, with the same program for which he was paid nearly $30,000, plus meals, lodging and travel.

He will travel to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, later this week to talk about the new book.

The day he met with AP, he said, was the first time in weeks that he put on a tie. He wore a dark blue suit, cowboy boots and a Western-style belt.

He seemed at ease, offering chocolate chip cookies and coffee to visitors and joking with a reporter who talked about an upcoming trip to the New Jersey shore. “Go fly some flags up there,” Gorsuch said, a reference to the controversy over flags, similar to those carried by Jan. 6 rioters, that were flown at homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito and his wife.

Gorsuch is not the only justice rolling out a book this summer. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir, “Lovely One,” will be published next month.
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