How Jerome Powell’s decision to remain on the Federal Reserve’s board could impact likely next chair Kevin Warsh. The redistricting fights most likely to play out over the next few years following a Supreme Court ruling. And the Church of Scientology takes action against the TikTokers sprinting through its Hollywood building as part of a viral trend.
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Kevin Warsh’s job at the Federal Reserve just got a lot harder
The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest steady, a decision that analysts had expected to happen heading into Wednesday’s meeting. But the decision was notably 8 to 4, the highest number of dissenting votes since October 1992 — and a glimpse of the fractured board that Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, is set to take over.
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And that job could get more difficult. Jerome Powell said yesterday that he will remain on the Fed board as a governor once his term as chair ends next month. That means Fed Governor Stephen Miran, a Trump appointee who supported an interest rate cut, will be booted from the board to make way for Powell. The decision “shifts the [Federal Open Market Committee’s] composition to a more hawkish direction,” research firm Capital Economics said.
Ordinarily, serving as the chair of the Federal Reserve isn’t an easy job. But with a split board and outside pressure from Trump to cut rates, the job will be especially challenging. To further complicate things, the economy is at a critical juncture, characterized by slowing job gains and inflation concerns, and the war with Iran has pushed up energy costs that threaten to bleed beyond the gas pump.
Read the full analysis here.
New details about the correspondents’ dinner shooting suspect
Investigators believe that Cole Tomas Allen, the man charged with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, shot a Secret Service officer who was wearing a ballistic vest, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with the case. Investigators determined that the Secret Service Uniformed Division officer was not struck by friendly fire from another member of law enforcement, the sources said. More details about the officer here.
Meanwhile, a new court filing reveals Allen snapped a selfie before the attack, donned in black with ammunition strapped to his body, the images show. Minutes after the photo was taken, Allen allegedly rushed past a metal detector and began shooting. Read more details from the court filing here.
Trump has depicted Allen as an extremist who harbored hate for Christians, but those who knew the 31-year-old when he was a student at Caltech say they saw the opposite: a faithful Christian who pushed a strict interpretation of the Bible. In this subscriber exclusive story, NBC News spoke to members of the Caltech Christian fellowship group Allen was a member of, a pastor at a church that Allen regularly attended and a neighbor about their impressions of his faith. Read the full story here.
The long-term impact of the Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a congressional map drawn in Louisiana was a racial gerrymander even though it was drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act, the landmark law aimed at protecting minority voters. In a 6-3 ruling with the court’s conservatives in the majority, justices told states that they can almost never consider race when they draw maps.
The decision means that Louisiana will need to redraw its map, though its primary is just two weeks away. Elsewhere, state and federal Republicans in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and other states said they were reviewing the ruling, with some calling on their states to redraw lines before their primaries. Across the aisle, Maryland and New York’s Democratic governors have called on their state’s lawmakers to respond in kind. In 2027 and beyond, dozens of red and blue states could set off redistricting pushes of their own.
“If you thought the gerrymandering wars were bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” one expert said.
How redistricting fights could play out over the next few years.
More politics news:
- The House voted to renew a powerful foreign surveillance program and passed a measure that would jump-start the process to fund ICE and the Border Patrol for the rest of Trump’s term, capping one of the more tumultuous days in the chamber in recent memory.
- A federal appeals court shot down Trump’s request to rehear his appeal of the $83 million defamation case.
- “86 it”: Restaurant workers say the term at the center of James Comey’s indictment is “everyday lingo.”
Church of Scientology decries ‘speed running’ trend
A Church of Scientology building in the heart of Hollywood removed its door handles and restricted public entry this week after a bizarre social media trend prompted young people to rush inside and race through its halls. The church slammed participants, accusing them of “trespassing, harassment and disruption of religious facilities.”
Los Angeles police said they are conducting extra patrols in and around the area to deter further incidents. So far, no one has been arrested, but officials said a couple of cases have been documented as hate-crime investigations.
Videos of the trend feature participants recording themselves “speed running” through Church of Scientology buildings. They are often seen dodging screaming church members and security guards until they are ultimately escorted out.
Why the self-proclaimed creator of the trend wants people to stop.
Read All About It
- The war in Iran has cost the U.S. an estimated $25 billion so far, a Pentagon official said. Gas prices in the U.S. rose to an average of $4.30 a gallon on Thursday, the highest level in nearly four years, as Iran warned the U.S. naval blockade was “doomed to fail.”
- The singer D4vd is accused of killing 14-year-old Celeste Riva Hernandez after she threatened to reveal information that could “end his career and destroy his life,” according to new court documents.
- A controversial shoe from Chanel that covers just the heel is garnering a mix of shock and confusion online. “That’s not even a shoe. It’s a sh,” one person wrote.
- For subscribers: The blockbuster trial in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman may hinge on a simple question: Did Musk wait too long to sue?
- David Allan Coe, who wrote “Take This Job and Shove It” and other country hits, has died. He was at 86.
Staff Pick: King uses humor and history to steady the U.S.-U.K. alliance
When King Charles departs Joint Base Andrews today having completed his four-day state visit to the U.S., he might reflect on a job well done. As reporter Freddie Clayton outlines in his look at the British monarch’s speeches to Congress and at a state dinner on the trip, Charles struck a balance between delivering some soft-edged rebuttals to Trump viewpoints — skepticism over the role of NATO and West’s backing for “defense of Ukraine” — while extolling America’s standing in the world. He also threw in some funny one-liners about the two nations’ shared language and history, which probably helped.
The trip came at a time when U.S.-U.K. relations are arguably at their lowest point in decades over the Iran war, among other issues.
Acts of statesmanship, such as gifting the president a bell from a British World War II submarine named HMS Trump, alongside Charles’ unique global position, allowed him to indirectly criticize his host, Michael Bociurkiw, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, says. “Charles is the only world figure that could come at this very turbulent time, into the White House, and politely say what needs to be said in a way that doesn’t offend,” Bociurkiw told NBC News.
As the king departs, whether his message will stick is another matter — Trump will be back dealing with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose own position is looking more imperiled than ever. — David Hickey, London-based platforms editor
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