Tag Archives : Build House

Biden pays tribute to Gorbachev: 'A man of remarkable vision'

President Biden on Tuesday night paid tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at age 91 earlier that day, referring to the former Russian leader as “a man of remarkable vision.” 

“Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of remarkable vision,” Biden said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Gorbachev’s role in bringing an end to the Soviet Union.

Biden served as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during Gorbachev’s time as leader in Moscow.

“After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms,” Biden said. “He believed in glasnost and perestroika – openness and restructuring – not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation.” 

“These were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people,” he added. 

Biden also said in his statement that Gorbachev continued his work on helping to reduce both countries’ nuclear stockpiles, noting that he understood why the former Soviet leader was highly regarded. 

“Even years after leaving office, he was still deeply engaged. When Mr. Gorbachev visited the White House in 2009, he and I spoke for a long time about our countries’ ongoing work to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles. It was easy to see why so many worldwide held him in such high esteem,” Biden concluded. 

“We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends, and to people everywhere who benefited from his belief in a better world.” 

Gorbachev served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, playing an instrumental role in retooling relations with the U.S.

Source: TEST FEED1

New photos show Phantom Galaxy, around 32 million light-years away

New photos released Monday by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) provide an in-depth look at the Phantom Galaxy, more formally known as M74, located around 32 million light-years away from Earth.

The photos, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope, provide different views of the galaxy, known for its well-defined spiral formation. While the Hubble telescope excels in giving insights into ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, the Webb telescope works best in analyzing infrared wavelengths.

Combining data from the two telescopes created three images, one from each telescope and a combination of the two, that provide deeper insight into the galaxy.

“New images of the spectacular Phantom Galaxy, M74, showcase the power of space observatories working together in multiple wavelengths,” the ESA wrote.

The Hubble telescope’s optical vision photos show older stars focused toward the center of the spiral and younger, blue stars in the outer region of the spiral, while the Webb telescope’s infrared vision showcases a ring star formation near the center of the galaxy and gas and dust in its arm regions.

“Now we have a broader (and even more beautiful!) understanding of the galaxy M74!” NASA tweeted Tuesday about the images.

The specific spiral structure of the Phantom Galaxy “makes it a favourite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals,” the ESA noted.

The new photos are among several that have been made public since the initial images from the $10 billion James Webb telescope were released in July.

Source: TEST FEED1

Indiana abortion clinics sue to block ban set to take effect

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana abortion clinic operators filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the state’s ban on abortions before it takes effect in about two weeks. .

The lawsuit filed in a Monroe County court claims the ban, which includes limited exceptions, “strips away the fundamental rights of people seeking abortion care” in violation of the Indiana Constitution. It asks for a judge to block the law from going into effect on Sept. 15, arguing the ban “will infringe on Hoosiers’ right to privacy, violate Indiana’s guarantee of equal privileges and immunities, and includes unconstitutionally vague language.”

Indiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature approved the tighter abortion restrictions during a two-week special legislative session that ended Aug. 5, making it the first state to do so since the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated federal abortion protections for abortions by overturning Roe v. Wade in June.

The Indiana law includes exceptions, allowing abortions in cases of rape and incest, before 10 weeks post-fertilization; to protect the life and physical health of the mother; and if a fetus is diagnosed with a lethal anomaly.

The legal question of whether the Indiana Constitution protects abortion rights is unclear, said Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which filed the lawsuit.

Falk pointed to a 2004 state appeals court decision that said privacy was a core value under the state constitution that extended to all residents, including women seeking an abortion. But the Indiana Supreme Court later upheld a law mandating an 18-hour waiting period before a woman could undergo an abortion while not deciding whether the state constitution included a right to privacy or abortion.

The leader of Indiana’s most prominent anti-abortion group argued the state constitution protects life as among the “inalienable rights.”

“We are confident the state will prevail and pray the new law is not blocked from going into effect on September 15, knowing that any delay will mean the indiscriminate killing of unborn children will continue at abortion clinics across Indiana,” Indiana Right to Life CEO Mike Fichter said in a statement.

Jennifer Drobac, an Indiana University law professor, said she believed the argument that the state constitution prohibits lawmakers from stripping legal privileges from some residents that are available to others is a strong argument against the abortion ban.

“When you look at people who become pregnant, their medical care is being regulated in a way that the medical care of people who do not become pregnant is not being regulated,” she said. “Men, for example, can access the full panoply of available medical resources in a health situation.”

Under new Indiana law, abortions could be performed only in hospitals or outpatient centers owned by hospitals, meaning all abortion clinics would lose their licenses. Any doctors found to have performed an illegal abortion would be stripped of their state medical licenses and could face felony criminal charges punishable by up to six years in prison.

Indiana’s ban followed the political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy. The case gained wide attention when an Indianapolis doctor said the child came to Indiana because of Ohio’s “fetal heartbeat” ban.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of abortion-rights supporters including Planned Parenthood, which operates four of Indiana’s seven licensed abortion clinics, along with groups that operate two of the other clinics and a doctor who performs abortions.

It will be heard by a judge in southern Indiana’s Monroe County, which includes the liberal-leaning city of Bloomington and Indiana University’s main campus. All nine of the county’s nine judges are Democrats, while all other counties with abortion clinics have judges who’ve either been elected as Republicans or been appointed by Republican governors.

The ACLU’s Falk said the suit was filed in Monroe County because an abortion clinic is located there but did not respond to a question about whether the group was seeking a friendly judge.

Drobac said she believed filing in the complaint in Bloomington could be where the ban opponents “have the greatest opportunity for success.”

Republican legislative leaders said they believed the abortion restrictions would be upheld by the courts.

“We set out to pass a bill in the special session that would protect life and support mothers and babies, and that’s what we did,” Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said in a statement. “It was always our intent to draft a bill that could withstand a constitutional challenge, and I hope to see that will be the case.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Fetterman won't participate in early-September debate with Oz

Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman said Tuesday he won’t participate in a debate against his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz during the first week of September, citing his ongoing recovery from a recent stroke.

Fetterman in his announcement also called out Oz’s campaign over a mocking statement it released earlier that day in which it listed several “concessions” it would make if the Democrat agreed to a debate. Among them was payment for “additional medical personnel [Fetterman] might need to have on standby.”

The Democrat blasted Oz and his campaign over the statement, accusing them of making it “abundantly clear that they think it is funny to mock a stroke survivor.” Fetterman said he “chose not to participate in this farce.”

“I will not be participating in a debate the first week of September, but look forward to having a productive discussion about how we can move forward and have a real conversation on this once Dr. Oz and his team are ready to take this seriously,” he added.

An Oz aide mocked Fetterman’s stroke in a statement to Insider last week after Fetterman raised money off of a video of Oz shopping at a grocery store and complaining about the price of crudité. 

Fetterman had been waylaid following a stroke he suffered in May. He has since returned to the campaign trail, recently holding events in multiple rural counties.

A string of polls from Emerson College and Franklin and Marshall College show Fetterman, the state’s current lieutenant governor, with an advantage over Oz, a doctor-turned-talk show host. 

The Fetterman-Oz showdown is one of the most closely watched Senate races ahead of November’s midterm elections as one of the races that could determine the control of the Senate chamber. 

“As I recover from this stroke and improve my auditory processing and speech, I look forward to continuing to meet with the people of Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “They’ll always know where I stand.”

“We heard John Fetterman won’t debate Oz in the ‘first week of September’. Ok, so when will he debate? He won’t ever say – not even in his latest whiny statement. John Fetterman’s campaign is insulting the intelligence of Pennsylvania voters,” said Brittany Yanick, communications director for Oz, in a statement Tuesday night.

Source: TEST FEED1

How safe is your drinking water?

When it comes to cybersecurity of our essential infrastructure in the United States, things may not be as bad as you think. The truth is that they are far worse.

On Aug. 15, a water department plant in the UK that provides water to 200,000 consumers was the victim of a ransomware cyberattack in which the hackers indicated that they also had obtained access to the computer software that controls the chemicals in the water. In its ransom demand, the hackers said “if you are shocked it is good” and in that they are correct.  

And while we are shocked by the cyberattack, we shouldn’t be. It is only the latest in a series of attacks that have already been made against water plants in the United States and around the world. Just last year the water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Fla., was hacked allowing a  temporary increase of the level of sodium hydroxide in the water from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million. While sodium hydroxide helps manage the PH level of potable water, with higher levels it becomes poisonous.

Compounding the problem is the sheer number of utilities supplying water to Americans, estimated to be 70,000, some of them quite small and vulnerable to cyberattacks due to a lack of funding and expertise.

Congress’ Cyberspace Solarium Commission issued a report in 2020 concluding that “water utilities remain largely ill-prepared to defend their networks from cyber-enabled disruption.”

At the heart of the problem, operational technology systems connected to the Internet are always going to be vulnerable to attacks by sophisticated cybercriminals and presently there are no cybersecurity requirements for Water Departments. Maximum security would best be achieved if such operational technology systems were not connected to the Internet and remotely accessible. However, particularly with budget cuts to cybersecurity budgets and more remote access by workers since the start of the pandemic, the problems have gotten worse. The federal government requires every automobile to have a seat belt, but the water you drink is unregulated in regard to cybersecurity.

The Biden administration has authorized the Environmental Protection Agency, as a part of its regular sanitary reviews of water systems, to extend those reviews to include evaluations of cybersecurity for water facilities. But the lack of regulations that drags on requires more urgency. The new reviews will be structured more as a collaboration between water facilities and the federal government, rather than as a mandate. This would be fine if both were willing participants, but thus far, the water facilities have resisted changes and requirements to protect our systems. As such, a hand-holding approach needs to switch to strong-arming. 

In addition, the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure law required the EPA to send Congress a new technical cybersecurity support plan in which it describes what its plans are for cyber support to vital water systems and a list of the systems which are anticipated to be receiving that support. The plan is required by Congress to describe the methodology for identifying key water systems and provide specific timelines for supplying assistance as well as list the types of assistance that will be provided.

But all of these efforts will take time. They also will take money and presently it has been estimated that the EPA’s total spending on cybersecurity at its Office of Water is only $7 million, which, pardon the pun, is just a drop in the bucket. For Americans who appreciate the ability to fill up a cool glass of water without giving it a second thought, it’s obvious this issue demands more immediate action that is long overdue.

Steve Weisman is a Senior Lecturer in Law, Taxation and Financial Planning at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. He is also the author and creator of www.scamicide.com. 

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NASA will launch Artemis rocket on Saturday

NASA’s Artemis team will take a second shot at a launch on Saturday after the first attempt on Monday was scrubbed.

Team leaders at a media briefing Tuesday said the two-hour launch window for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will begin around 2:17 p.m. ET on Saturday. Weather for Saturday indicates some rainy weather but conditions favorable enough for the team to work with, according to NASA.

The launch team reviewed data from Monday’s launch and settled on a game plan to resolve several issues, including an engine that failed to cool down and led to the launch delay.

John Honeycutt, the manager for the SLS program, said he was confident in the Artemis team’s ability ahead of the second launch attempt.

“We’ve got a path forward,” he said. “We’re in the mode now of processing the data that we got and updating our approach prior to the next launch attempt. I’m confident where the team’s headed.”

If Saturday’s launch at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center is successful, the SLS will rocket into space and plummet back to Earth after shooting the unmanned Orion spacecraft on a six-week journey more than 40,000 miles past the moon.

Through the Artemis program, NASA is trying to send astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972. Saturday’s launch, if successful, will be the first in a series of tests that will lead to NASA putting astronauts on Orion and landing them on the south pole of the moon sometime in 2025 or 2026.

Monday’s highly anticipated launch faced a number of issues, including lightning strikes near the launch pad in the days leading up, uncertain weather in the two-hour launch window and a hydrogen leak.

NASA ultimately called the launch off after the SLS’s third engine failed to fall to the correct temperature. Launch controllers condition engines by increasing pressure on stage tanks in order to bleed some cryogenic propellant and get them to a proper temperature range for startup.

On Monday, the team was unable to determine what exactly went wrong. NASA officials said Tuesday they believe there could have been a faulty sensor that indicated the engine was not chilling when the hydrogen was flowing properly.

As part of the solution they drafted, the Artemis team created some redesigns and on Saturday will begin the engine bleed earlier with the rocket’s four engines set at an ambient temperature.

Mike Sarafin, the mission manager for Artemis, said the launch team discussed other options besides launching on Saturday, including additional testing. They decided the adjustments to the SLS could be fixed at the pad and in time for a weekend launch.

Source: TEST FEED1

South Carolina House approves abortion ban with exceptions

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina House on Tuesday approved a bill that outlaws abortion except in the cases of pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

The chamber initially rejected the bill without the exceptions by eight votes. But once Republicans saw the outcome, they quickly went through a number of complex procedures and votes to bring the bill back from the brink of failure.

The exceptions were added by enough lawmakers shouting “aye” and the bill passed by a vote of 67-38.

The bill has one more routine vote before it goes to the Senate, where stricter bans on abortions have seen tougher fights.

The bill allows abortions up to 12 weeks after conception if a women tells a doctor she was raped. The doctor has to tell the woman he is going to report the rape to the county sheriff and has 24 hours after the procedure to give deputies the woman’s name and contact information. It also allows abortions to save a mother’s life.

Some of the House’s most conservative lawmakers said Monday they would not support a bill with the rape and incest exceptions, but when it came to a final vote, they changed their minds.

“But here’s the thing — at the end of the day we passed a good pro-life bill in South Carolina,” said Republican Rep. John McCravy, who shepherded the bill through the chamber.

The dizzying parliamentary maneuvers happened after Democrats joined with those conservatives to try to keep the bill as restrictive as possible.

Republicans accused Democrats of playing politics as they also voted down an amendment supporters said would allow abortions for women carrying fetuses with medical problems leaving them unlikely to be born alive.

“The ladies of South Carolina, they are gambling with your body,” Republican Rep Micah Caskey said.

Democrats said they didn’t want to debate abortion again after the General Assembly agreed to a six-week ban in 2021, but Republicans decided to call a special session after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

“It is not our bill. We’re not the ones trying to control their bodies,” Democratic Rep. Leon Stavrinakis said.

The leader of a non-profit organization that fights for women’s health and economic rights was offended that Republicans saw the debate as a game.

“We’ve got to get past the point of seeing this as a political game and start seeing the impact it has on real peoples lives. And I’m afraid that’s been lost in the Statehouse today,” said Ann Warner, CEO of the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network.

Republicans who have nearly twice as many members as Democrats, took an hour break just before the vote to get their most conservative members to agree to the exceptions.

Other changes voted down in the debate included language supporters said would protect in vitro fertilization and birth control, and proposals that would allow prosecutors to charge a women who gets an abortion with murder.

About 100 people gathered in the Statehouse lobby for the debate. They chanted phrases like “Abortion is health care” and “My body, my choice” and drew honks from passing cars. Law enforcement closed the House gallery Tuesday.

South Carolina currently has a six-week ban but the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended the law earlier this month while the justices decide on a Planned Parenthood lawsuit that says the ban is an unreasonable invasion of privacy under the state constitution. The decision leaves South Carolina’s abortion ban at 20 weeks for now.

Earlier in August Indiana passed a near-total ban set to take effect Sept. 15 with exceptions for rape, incest and if the mother’s life is in danger. West Virginia’s House and Senate couldn’t agree on stricter abortion rules in a July session.

Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws designed to outlaw most abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the constitutional right to end a pregnancy in June.

South Carolina leaders have watched those developments carefully, as well as events several weeks ago in Kansas, where nearly 60% of voters rejected a ballot measure that would have allowed the state’s conservative Legislature to ban abortion. Republican Donald Trump received 56% of the 2020 presidential vote in Kansas. Trump won 55% in South Carolina.

The bill currently allows abortions if a mother’s life is in danger and then lists a number of different medical emergencies that would fit into that exception.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster hasn’t given his opinion on this specific bill but has said he would like to see a day where there are no abortions in the state.

“This is a good starting point for the Senate to begin its deliberations,” McMaster’s spokesman Brian Symmes said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Former NFL coach Jon Gruden says he's 'ashamed' over email controversy

Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden on Tuesday said he was “ashamed” over the email controversy that cost him his job and reputation. 

During an appearance at the Little Rock Touchdown Club in Little Rock, Ark., Gruden, who had remained out of the public eye for months, told those in attendance that he felt deep regret for his role in the controversy. 

“I’m not going to say anything but honest things here,” Gruden said. “I’m ashamed about what has come about in these emails. And I’ll make no excuses for it. It’s shameful.” 

“But, I am a good person. I believe that. I go to church. I’ve been married for 31 years. I’ve got three great boys. I still love football. I’ve made some mistakes, but I don’t think anybody in here hasn’t,” Gruden, who won a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, added. “And I just ask for forgiveness, and hopefully I get another shot.”

Gruden also called out the media, especially his former employer ESPN, during his address, telling the audience that they shouldn’t believe anything the media says. 

“There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there right now,” the 59-year-old coach said. “What you read. What you hear. What you watch on TV. Hell, I worked at ESPN for nine years. I worked hard at that job. I don’t even wanna watch the channel anymore. Because I don’t believe everything is true. And I know a lot of it is just trying to get people to watch.”

Gruden, who spent 15 years as a head coach in the league, resigned from his position with the Raiders last October after news outlets reported on his emails, which contained racist, homophobic and misogynistic language.

The leaked email chain, which spans from 2011 to 2018, occurred when Gruden was employed by ESPN as a lead broadcaster for their Monday Night Football telecasts. 

The email chain leak led the House Oversight and Reform Committee to launch an investigation into the Washington Commanders organization and its owner Dan Snyder last October. 

Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL last November, alleging that the league deliberately leaked his emails to media outlets in an effort to force him out of his job.

A Nevada judge recently denied the league’s motion to dismiss Gruden’s lawsuit against them, according to NFL.com.

The NFL declined to comment. The Hill has also reached out to ESPN.

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Hillicon Valley — Musk leans in on whistleblower complaint

Elon Musk used the Twitter whistleblower’s complaint in his latest request to back out of his deal to purchase the company for $44 billion.  

In other app news, former President Trump’s Truth Social app’s is awaiting approval for the Google Play store over content moderation concerns.

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Subscribe here.

Musk’s new approach

Elon Musk’s legal team cited allegations from a Twitter whistleblower in a new request to terminate Musk’s agreement to purchase Twitter for about $44 billion, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday.  

The filing is the latest salvo in Musk’s battle to back out of the deal as he awaits a trial set for mid-October with Twitter to resolve whether he has to go through with the purchase.  

• Musk’s argument to retreat from his purchase, agreed to in April, is based largely on allegations that Twitter failed to provide him with accurate information about the number of spam bot accounts on the platform in breach of the term agreements.
    
• In former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko’s complaint, reported by The Washington Post and CNN last week, he alleged the company is susceptible to hacks by foreign governments and is not in compliance with a 2011 consent decree from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to improve security on the platform. 
• He also alleged the company does not accurately represent the number of spam bots on the account based on its count of monetizable daily active users. 

Twitter’s response: Twitter filed Tuesday in response to Musk’s latest request calling the argument “invalid and wrongful” under the terms of the agreement.  

“It is based solely on statements made by a third party that, as Twitter has previously stated, are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context,” the letter states.  

Read more here.  

Trouble for Truth Social in Google store

Content moderation concerns are holding up the approval of former President Trump’s Truth Social app on Android devices, a Google spokesperson said Tuesday. 

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes claimed last week that the Android version of the app was ready and waiting on Google’s approval. 

However, a Google spokesperson said in a statement that the platform lacks the “effective” content moderation needed to meet the Google Play app store’s terms of service.

“On August 19 we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play,” the spokesperson said. 

Axios first reported on Google’s hold up of the app. 

Read more here.

Self-harm hashtags up on Twitter

The prevalence of Twitter hashtags related to self-harm has increased about 500 percent in the past year, despite many of those posts violating the platform’s policy on the subject, according to a new report.  

The report from the Network Contagion Research Institute, an independent research organization that studies misinformation and hate on social media platforms, and Rutgers University states that users have made tens of thousands of posts per month related to self-harm since October. Many of the posters appeared to be adolescents and young adults, according to the report.  

The report states that 5Rights, a United Kingdom-based children’s digital rights charity, alerted Twitter to the hashtag #shtwt, which stands for “self-harm Twitter,” in October. 5Rights said the platform’s algorithms were promoting profiles that use this hashtag to other users who were searching “self-harm” instead of connecting them with resources to help. 

A Twitter spokesperson told The Hill that self-harm is an “extremely complex and sensitive” issue that the company takes very seriously. They said Twitter works with a group of independent experts to determine its approach to the issue. 

Read more here.  

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: We’re not prepared for our runaway space debris problem 

Lighter click: not the choice we would suggest

Notable links from around the web: Snap plans to lay off 20 percent of employees (The Verge / Alex Health) 

California Approves Bill to Punish Doctors Who Spread False Information (The New York Times / Steven Lee Myers) 

Ready or not, mass video deepfakes are coming (The Washington Post / Steven Zeitchik) 

One more thing: Union support rises

Seventy-one percent of Americans indicated support for labor unions in a Gallup poll released on Tuesday, the highest percentage since 1965. 

The latest measure is a slight uptick from the 68 percent who supported labor unions when the survey giant polled the question last year. 

Gallup has tracked union approval for decades, and support has gradually increased since 2009. 

Support fell below 50 percent for the only time in 2009, but ever since has been improving to levels now not seen in more than a half-century. 

The increased support comes as workers at many major companies have pursued union campaigns. 

In April, workers at one of Amazon’s New York City facilities voted to become the first of the e-commerce giant’s U.S. locations to unionize. 

Read more here.  

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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On The Money — Job market shakes off inflation, boosting workers

American jobseekers still have plenty of gigs to choose from and aren’t afraid of leaving their current employers for new ones. We’ll also look at rising support for labor unions and another batch of relief for defrauded student loan holders. 

But first, find out why the last surviving member of The Monkees is suing the FBI. 

Welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. For The Hill, we’re Sylvan Lane and Aris Folley. Subscribe here.

An upper hand for workers

Job openings remained near record highs in July and layoffs stayed low even as the Federal Reserve moved to cool off the labor market, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. 

The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) report showed the job market powering through rising interest rates meant to ease a labor shortage that is likely driving inflation higher. 

• U.S. employers had roughly 11.2 million open jobs on the final business day of July, in line with revised figures from June. There are nearly two job openings listed for each one of the 5.7 million Americans who reported being unemployed in July, according to Labor Department data.
• The quits rate, which measures the percentage of the workforce which quit their jobs in a given month, remained at 2.7 percent, just below a record high of 2.9 percent set earlier this year.
• While millions of Americans are typically laid off from jobs every year, layoff rates have remained historically low since 2021 as businesses struggle to keep workers from taking higher paying jobs at other firms. 

“Even if economic growth slows, today’s report shows the labor market remains strong,” wrote AnnElizabeth Konkel, senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, in a Tuesday analysis. 

Sylvan breaks it down here.

LEADING THE DAY

Support for labor unions highest since 1965 

Seventy-one percent of Americans indicated support for labor unions in a Gallup poll released on Tuesday, the highest percentage since 1965. 

The latest measure is a slight uptick from the 68 percent who supported labor unions when the survey giant polled the question last year.  

• Gallup has tracked union approval for decades, and support has gradually increased since 2009. Support fell below 50 percent for the only time in 2009, but has since been improving to levels not seen in more than a half-century.
• The new poll found that 6 percent of U.S. adults report that they are a union member, and 16 percent live in a household in which at least one resident is part of a union. The results remain in line with Gallup’s range of between 14 percent and 21 percent of adults since 2001 who have said they live in a household with at least one union member.
• The increased support comes as workers at many major companies have pursued union campaigns, including Starbucks, Amazon and Chipotle. 

The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld has more details here.

STUDENT LOANS

Biden administration clears another $1.5B for defrauded college borrowers 

The Biden administration announced Tuesday it is clearing the balances for 79,000 borrowers who were defrauded by the now-defunct Westwood College.   

Education Department officials determined that the for-profit school “engaged in widespread misrepresentations about the value of its credentials for attendees’ and graduates’ employment prospects,” and will discharge the remainder of loans for students who enrolled between Jan. 1, 2002, and Nov. 17, 2015, regardless of whether they applied for relief.  

• Westwood College was found to have “routinely misled” students about their job prospects and expected earnings after graduation. Westwood’s criminal justice programs at its Illinois campuses promised job placement at police departments across the state, including the Chicago Police Department and Illinois State Police. Yet the college never had the regional accreditation to achieve their claim.
• Westwood operated 15 campuses in California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois and Virginia, along with online programs before shutting its doors in 2016. The latest forgiveness move will erase $1.5 billion in loan debt, bringing the total amount of loans discharged through the program to $14.5 billion.  

The Hill’s Adam Barnes has the info here. 

MUSK OFF

Musk cites whistleblower in new request to terminate Twitter purchase 

Elon Musk’s legal team cited allegations from a Twitter whistleblower in a new request to terminate Musk’s agreement to purchase Twitter for about $44 billion, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday.  

The filing is the latest salvo in Musk’s battle to back out of the deal as he awaits a trial set for mid-October with Twitter to resolve whether he has to go through with the purchase.  

• Musk’s argument to retreat from his purchase, agreed to in April, is based largely on allegations that Twitter failed to provide him with accurate information about the number of spam bot accounts on the platform in breach of the term agreements. 
• In former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko’s complaint, he alleged the company is susceptible to hacks by foreign governments and is not in compliance with a 2011 consent decree from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to improve security on the platform. He also alleged the company does not accurately represent the number of spam bots on the account based on its count of monetizable daily active users. 

The Hill’s Rebecca Klar has the deets here. 

Good to Know

Content moderation concerns are holding up the approval of former President Trump’s Truth Social app on Android devices, a Google spokesperson said Tuesday. 

Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes claimed last week that the Android version of the app was ready and waiting on Google’s approval. 

Here’s what else we have our eye on: 

• California legislators are pushing to make kindergarten mandatory in the state as it sees a dip in school enrollment and aims to ensure all children get critical instruction at their earliest years of learning.
• More than 9 in 10 freight railroad workers believe they should go on strike to secure better wages and working conditions, according to a new online survey.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow. 

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