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Minnesota congressional candidate Eric Pratt’s campaign appeared to have clear instructions for its website: Keep President Donald Trump out of it.
That guidance accidentally became public this week as the Republican’s website featured the line: “The President is not popular, so all messaging should be focused on local politics and needs.” It appeared on a page laying out Pratt’s platform, which is focused on affordability, government accountability and public safety. Screenshots of the page spread on social media before the campaign removed the line about Trump.
The line came from an internal staff note and was accidentally published to Pratt’s website, his campaign said Wednesday.
Beneath the mistake is a reflection of the political terrain for Republicans this year. The party in power already tends to face an uphill climb during midterms, and this year some GOP candidates have been forced to balance their loyalty to Trump with Americans’ disapproval of him. Across the country, a number of Republican candidates have deleted references to the president from their websites.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates Pratt’s race in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District as “Likely Democratic.” Pratt, a state senator, is facing former state senator Matt Little, a progressive Democrat. The seat was vacated by Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, who lost the primary race for Minnesota’s open Senate seat.
The D.C. man accused of shooting a Georgia National Guard member responding to a fight outside a hookah bar in Southeast Washington late Sunday evening will face several federal charges, prosecutors said.
The U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. said Wednesday it is charging Jerrell Jackson, 41, with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence or dangerous offense.
Jackson is accused of firing a 9mm handgun while fleeing from several National Guard members who responded to an altercation around 11 p.m. Sunday outside Cafe 8, a popular late-night destination that has come under frequent scrutiny from D.C. officials. The city has since ordered an emergency closure of the bar.
Prosecutors wrote in their complaint that Jackson first fired into a neighboring smoke shop as he fled, then ran into an alleyway. D.C. police said Jackson refused commands from the Guard members to drop his weapon. Jackson then turned around and fired at the National Guard members pursuing him, prosecutors said.
A National Guard member was struck in the leg, authorities said. A spokesman for the Guard said Monday he had been released from the hospital.
President Donald Trump’s approval ratings hit new lows in a pair of polls released Wednesday, highlighting the political challenge for Republicans two weeks before the midterm elections.
Just 36 percent of likely voters said that they approved of Trump’s performance in a new national pollfrom the New York Times and Siena University released on Wednesday. Trump fared even worse in a CNN poll, where 32 percent of U.S. adults said they approved of his handling of the presidency.
The surveys are consistent with a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released on Sunday, which found that Trump’s approval ratings hit a new low amid voter backlash to inflation.
The poor results across the board spell trouble for Republicans. The news outlets use different methods to conduct their polls, yet all found the same conclusion.
The New York Times and CNN polls found that Democrats stand to benefit in this political environment. In the New York Times poll, likely voters said that they preferred the Democratic candidate over the Republican in their congressional districts by 11 percentage points. In the CNN poll, the Democrats had a 10 point advantage.
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The Justice Department’s inspector general told attorneys for a former Olympian previously accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that the office won’t investigate allegations of misconduct in the since-dismissed case, the attorneys said.
Lawyers for David Hearn sent a letter asking the inspector general’s office to reconsider the decision.
Earlier this month, Hearn’s legal team sent a letter to the inspectors general for the Justice and Interior departments asking for a joint investigation into the handling of the case against their client. They alleged that the federal government rushed to complete the pool’s renovation despite warnings of installation failures, and charged and publicly shamed Hearn even as information showed another cause for the damage.
Hearn’s attorneys said in the new letter that the Justice Department’s inspector general told them the alleged misconduct was outside the office’s jurisdiction and said such an investigation would instead fall under the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates misconduct committed by attorneys.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Hearn’s attorneys wrote in the letter that, without involvement by the Justice inspector general’s office, an “investigation will simply not take place,” arguing that the Office of Professional Responsibility doesn’t have the resources to conduct one.
The administration has teed up more political appointees to review and potentially approve President Donald Trump’s planned triumphal arch at a key federal hearing next month.
The political appointees replace career officials who have served as alternate members of the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews federal construction projects and is scheduled to meet Nov. 5 to discuss the planned 250-foot-tall arch.
Ricky Buria and Patrick Weaver, top aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were added as alternate commissioners if Hegseth cannot attend next month’s hearing, according to a change made to the commission’s website. Only one of the two men would attend the meeting in Hegseth’s place.
Kevin Lilly and Aaron Calkins, who help lead the Interior Department’s fish, wildlife and parks division, were similarly added as alternates for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Spokespeople for the commission, the Pentagon and the Interior Department did not immediately respond to questions about the staffing change.
The commission’s 12 standing members include the heads of the Pentagon, Interior Department and the General Services Administration, who traditionally send deputies as alternate commissioners in their place. Tammy Stidham, a senior National Park Service official who was among the career officials replaced on the panel, had served as the interior secretary’s alternate commissioner for several years and had voted on numerous past projects.
The vote on Trump’s arch is expected to be controversial, in part because of its location near Arlington National Cemetery. Veterans groups, local advocacy organizations and historic preservationists have called for the administration to shrink the size of the planned 250-foot arch or pick a different place to build it.
Buria and Lilly, two of the newly added alternate commissioners, are military veterans.
Trump previously packed the long-standing commission with allies who have approved his past projects, including the new White House ballroom.
Mark Paoletta, a Trump White House official who chairs the commission, has said that he plans to approve the arch next month.
“The empty Memorial Traffic Circle built in 1940 does not complete the grand design authorized and envisioned by the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission and by Congress as enacted in the 1925 law,” Paoletta wrote on X this week. “It is a disgrace to our nation and her noble veterans.”
Super Typhoon Champi is a pageant of power, a Category 5-equivalent beast that as of Wednesday morning Eastern was swirling with sustained eyewall winds up to 170 mph and gusts topping 200 mph.
The storm, located a little more than 500 miles east of the northern Philippines, has been taking advantage of ideal conditions for tropical cyclone sustenance and strengthening. Those include hot water temperatures of 86 to 88 degrees, as well as weak upper-level winds that allow the storm to develop without being knocked off-kilter.
On Sunday, the system skirted the south side of Guam at high-end Category 5 strength. Its giant, buzz-saw eyewall narrowly missed the island by barely 20 miles, sparing a catastrophic impact.
Then on Monday into Tuesday, it rapidly intensified again, peaking at the same strength as Hurricane Melissa last October. Sustained winds reached 185 mph, with gusts nearing 215 mph!
That made it the equivalent of a 50-mile-wide EF4 tornado. Its violent winds surrounded its eye.
There were even mesovortices visible on satellite — smaller eddies and whirls that cram the system’s eye. They help the atmosphere transition from the extreme ferocity of eyewall winds to the calm center.
Champi will maintain strength through Friday before weakening on approach to northern Taiwan. A more direct hit, perhaps near Category 4-equivalent strength, is likely on Taketomi Island in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.
Tropical storm impacts are possible in mainland Japan this weekend.
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