Trump bashes migration, green energy and failures to end wars in U.N. speech

The United Nations has concluded its one-day investigation into the mysterious halting of Trump’s escalator as he arrived today at the U.N. General Assembly.

The accidental culprit? A White House videographer who most likely tripped a safety mechanism.

U.N. secretary general spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a note to reporters that a technician found it was the White House videographer who was unintentionally behind the now-international incident that was caught on video.

“The escalator had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator,” Dujarric said. “The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing. The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function described above.”

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Polls have closed in the special election in Arizona, where voters in the 7th Congressional District are choosing a new House member to succeed Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.

Democrat Adelita Grijalva, the former congressman's daughter, and Republican Daniel Butierez are facing off for the seat in a heavily Democratic district.

Though polls have closed, results in Arizona typically don't start posting until an hour later.

See live results here.

The Justice Department today released copies of the affidavit for a search warrant for former national security adviser John Bolton’s office, along with its proposed redactions, following an order from a federal judge.

The warrant-related records are heavily redacted but list property that federal law enforcement seized, including multiple computers and several documents described as “classified,” “confidential” or “secret.”

Some of the documents seized were described as “Weapons of Mass Destruction Classified Documents,” “U.S. Government Strategic Communications Plan — Confidential documents,” “Travel Memo documents with pages labeled secret” and “Confidential Documents with [redacted] heading.”

The FBI, according to the affidavit, interviewed Bolton eight times from October 2020 to June at his office. 

NBC News reported last month that the FBI had searched Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland, as well as his office, for classified records based on alleged intelligence that he mishandled classified material during Trump's first term after he was ousted in 2019 amid disagreements over foreign policy and emerged as a prominent Trump critic.

A former Tennessee House speaker was sentenced today to three years in prison after he was convicted in a scheme with a onetime aide to win taxpayer-funded mail business from lawmakers after scandals drove the two out of their top leadership roles.

U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson in Nashville handed down the sentence for Republican former Rep. Glen Casada, a court document shows. Casada’s former chief of staff, Cade Cothren, was also convicted and was sentenced to 2½ years last week.

A jury found Casada guilty of 17 of 19 charges in May, and Cothren was found guilty of all 19 counts in a public corruption trial that began in late April.

The judge this month acquitted the pair of three counts while leaving in place the convictions on the rest of the charges, including use of a fictitious name to carry out fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

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Razom for Ukraine, which translates to Together for Ukraine, heaped praise on Trump today after he appeared to monumentally shift his position on the war, for the first time saying Ukraine could regain all territory it has lost to Russia since the 2022 invasion.

After Trump’s post on Truth Social, Razom for Ukraine, a group that has worked to shore up U.S. support for the war-torn country, called his comments some of his strongest yet.

“This is the kind of leadership that wins Nobel Peace Prizes,” the group’s director of advocacy said in a statement. “Putin only respects strength, and that’s exactly what we saw from President Trump today.”

Harris’ return to the public eye has kicked off a new phase of the nascent 2028 presidential race.

In excerpts published ahead of the release of her new book, Harris outlined her internal thinking (and a few mea culpas around key decisions and developments that vexed her 2024 presidential campaign). She also offered some blunt thoughts about a handful of other prominent Democrats, including up-and-comers whom she considered to be her running mate, like former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Now, Harris’ book has opened up the first big moment of confrontation among potential 2028 rivals. Democrats are eager to skip ahead to their turn to attempt a political comeback in Washington after Harris’ loss last year, even if it’s still far from clear who wants to seek the nomination.

While potential candidates are traveling to different key states and building their profiles, Harris’ memoir has them engaging with her — and sometimes criticizing her judgment — particularly early in a presidential campaign that could eventually have them squaring up against one another.

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said today at an economics conference in Rhode Island that policymakers at the central bank are "looking at what's the best thing for the people we serve" and not for what would be best politically.

His comments, the most explicit response so far to months of blistering Fed criticism from the Trump administration, came just days after the Fed cut interest rates. Many administration officials want the Fed to go further.

"Truth is, most of the people who are calling us political, it’s just a cheap shot," Powell said. "And also, we don’t engage. ... We don't get into the back-and-forth with external people. We just do our jobs."

The Trump administration today proposed overhauling the visa’s lottery selection process to prioritize higher-paid and higher-skilled foreign employees.

The proposed policy changes could reignite the debate over U.S. employers’ use of foreign labor.

Trump has taken aim at H-1B visas, a program Big Tech and outsourcing companies widely use to hire foreign workers. He announced Friday that companies would be required to pay $100,000 fees with new applications submitted after Sept. 21.

The administration targeted H-1B visa allocation today, proposing a “weighted selection process” for when annual demand for the visas tops the 85,000 limit set by Congress, which it says has happened every year for more than a decade.

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GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany said today he will run for governor of Wisconsin, joining a race for the open seat in the crucial swing state that has drawn crowded primaries on both sides.

Tiffany, 67, has represented Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District — a rural and solidly Republican area comprising most of the northern part of the state — since 2020.

“Madison politics may smell like the barn, but I know how to clean up the bull,” Tiffany says in a video launching his campaign. “I will roll up my sleeves and deliver results for every Wisconsinite.”

Tiffany’s entrance into the race, which had been widely expected, further expands the field of candidates in both parties running to succeed Democrat Tony Evers, who announced in July that he wouldn’t run for a third term.

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