(MILWAUKEE) — The first senatorial debate in the battleground state of Wisconsin is happening Friday evening, with incumbent Republican Ron Johnson facing off against the state’s Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who, if elected, would be the state’s first Black senator.
The debate will be broadcast live from PBS studios in Milwaukee at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. local time and is presented by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Foundation.
Democrats view the Senate seat in the state as one of the easiest ones to flip, but Republicans’ focus on the issue of crime, along with attack ads on the topic targeting their opponent, have helped tightened the race there, although some Democratic operatives say Republicans’ focus on crime is a distraction from other big issues on voters’ minds, including abortion rights.
A source close to the Barnes campaign said the debates, like the election, will be a referendum on Johnson. Issues that voters can expect to hear Barnes take Johnson to task on will be the Republican senator’s restrictive stance on abortion, past suggestions to end Social Security and Medicare, and Johnson’s ties with his wealthy donors, according to the source.
When asked by ABC News about the first senate debate this Friday, Alec Zimmerman, the communications director for Johnson, wrote in an emailed statement that Barnes is a “dangerous Democrat who has supported radical leftist causes like defunding the police and abolishing ICE.”
Zimmerman adds, “The debate will show what’s at stake in this race: safer communities and an affordable economy — two issues where Mandela Barnes is completely out of touch with Wisconsin families.”
The source close to the Barnes campaign said voters should expect to hear Barnes share his story as the son of a public school teacher and a third-shift auto worker, and how he’ll fight for the middle class.
(NEW YORK) — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Belarusian human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski and two groups, Memorial, a human rights organization from Russia and the Center for Civil Liberties, which is based in Ukraine.
The prizes were awarded for contributions to civil society, according to the committee.
Bialiatski “devoted his life to promoting democracy and peaceful development in his home country,” founding the organization Viasna to counter the dictatorial powers granted to the Belarusian president, according to an announcement for the prize.
As a result of his work, Bialiatski was jailed from 2011 to 2014 and arrested again in 2020. Currently he is being detained without trial, the committee said.
Memorial, founded in 1987 under the former Soviet Union, grew to become the biggest human rights organization in Russia. It “became the most authoritative source of information on political prisoners in Russian detention facilities,” according to the announcement. Perils attached to the work — in 2009, the head of the group’s branch in Chechnya was killed.
And the Center for Civil Liberties, founded in 2007, has dedicated itself to making Ukraine a “full-fledged democracy.” Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, it has “engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population.”
Last year, the prize was given to two journalists, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, for their work in the Philippines and Russia respectively.
Ressa co-founded an investigative journalism company and worked to shine a spotlight on former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal anti-drug campaign, according to the prize announcement. Muratov was credited with founding the “most independent” newspaper in Russia today, Novaya Gazeta, which has garnered “harassment, threats, violence and murder,” including the killings of six of its journalists, the announcement said.
Past Nobel Peace Prize winners have included former Presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandel, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. Since the program’s inception in 1901. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been awarded the prize three times.
(DEARBORN, Mich.) — A suspect has been taken into custody following a deadly shooting and hourslong negotiations with authorities at a Hampton Inn in Dearborn, Michigan, the Michigan State Police said.
“The barricaded gunman has been taken into custody without incident,” police said Thursday night. “Michigan Ave. is still closed and will be as the investigation continues. This will be our final update.”
Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin said Thursday night there was one fatality, a 55-year-old clerk from Riverview “just trying to do his job.”
Police said the suspect — a 38-year-old man with a history of mental illness and drug abuse — was armed with a rifle and threatened officers many times.
Dearborn police said they had been in contact with the suspect’s family to get him to surrender peacefully.
According to police, the incident was a confrontation over a bill.
Officers evacuated hotel employees and guests, police said.
Authorities were urging people to stay away from downtown Dearborn.
ABC News’ Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
Authorities in Central California’s Merced County released surveillance video video showing the armed suspect outside the business where a family of four was kidnapped on Oct. 3, 2022. – Merced County Sheriff’s Office
(MERCED COUNTY, Calif.) — All four family members who were mysteriously kidnapped in Northern California have been found dead in a rural almond orchard, the Merced County sheriff said.
Eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri and her parents — 27-year-old mother Jasleen Kaur and 36-year-old father Jasdeep Singh — were taken against their will from a business on Monday, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said. The baby’s uncle, 39-year-old Amandeep Singh, was also kidnapped, the sheriff said.
The suspected kidnapper, 48-year-old Jesus Manuel Salgado, was taken into custody on Tuesday and later booked into the Merced County Jail on Thursday, the sheriff’s office said.
Salgado was arrested on four counts of murder and four counts of kidnapping, according to the sheriff’s office.
“Our detectives, alongside investigators from assisting agencies, will continue to follow up on any leads of additional people who may have been involved in this horrific incident,” the sheriff’s office said.
Warnke announced Wednesday night that a farm worker came across the victims’ bodies, which were found relatively close together.
No motive is known, Warnke said.
The sheriff called it “horribly senseless.”
Salgado attempted to take his own life “prior to law enforcement involvement” and was receiving medical attention, which delayed investigators’ ability to talk to him, the sheriff’s office said.
Warnke said Wednesday night that investigators have now spoken with Salgado, but the sheriff didn’t provide details.
“Salgado is still being medically treated and investigators are still interviewing him,” the sheriff’s office said Thursday.
Salgado was arrested in 2005 for robbery, burglary, and criminal threats against a man and his family, according to the police report.
The sheriff added that he believes at least one other person is involved.
On Wednesday, sheriff’s officials revealed surveillance video showing the family’s movements outside the business — a trucking company — on the day of the kidnapping.
At 8:30 a.m. Monday, Jasdeep Singh arrived at the business in a minivan, and minutes later, his brother Amandeep Singh arrived there in his pickup truck, the sheriff’s office said.
Someone was seen walking along the highway near the business that morning, officials said. Jasdeep Singh then made contact with the suspect and the two walked back toward the building, officials said.
The suspect — identified by sheriff’s officials Thursday as Salgado — was seen on video pulling out a gun and entering the business, officials said.
At 9:11 a.m., video showed the back door opening and the armed suspect exiting, officials said.
Jasdeep and Amandeep Singh were seen exiting the building, apparently with their hands zip-tied behind their backs, and were put in the back seat of the pickup truck, officials said.
The truck left for a few minutes and then returned, and the suspect got out of the truck and went into the business, officials said.
Less than one minute later, Jasleen Kaur and her 8-month-old baby exited the business, officials said.
The final surveillance video image showed the truck leaving the business, officials said.
The four family members were the only people in the business at the time, the sheriff said.
The sheriff’s office announced on Tuesday that Amandeep Singh’s truck had been found on fire shortly before noon on Monday.
Police went to Amandeep Singh’s Merced home around 12:35 p.m. Monday; while they couldn’t locate him, they spoke to another relative, the sheriff’s office said. When the relative couldn’t reach Jasleen Kaur, Jasdeep Singh or Amandeep Singh, the relative reported them missing, the sheriff’s office said.
Sheriff’s officials then responded to the business, and “during the primary investigation, detectives determined that the individuals were kidnapped,” the sheriff’s office said Tuesday.
There were two bank transactions from the family’s accounts, the sheriff said.
Editor’s note: The sheriff’s office initially said a subject captured in surveillance footage making a transaction at a bank matched the appearance of the suspect seen in surveillance footage at the kidnapping scene. The sheriff’s office later said the photo of the person at the ATM was not the suspect in custody.
ABC News’ Melissa Gaffney and Marilyn Heck contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Wall Street will closely watch the release of new jobs data on Friday that will reveal whether U.S. hiring has cooled as the Federal Reserve aims to slow the economy in its fight against inflation.
Economists are predicting a gain of 250,000 jobs in September. That figure would mark the lowest number of jobs added in any month since December 2020.
The September jobs data arrives less than two weeks after the Federal Reserve imposed a 0.75% hike in interest rates, the same hike percentage at its previous two meetings.
The Fed has instituted a series of aggressive borrowing cost increases in recent months as it tries to slash near-historic inflation by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into an economic downturn and putting millions out of work.
So far this year, however, the U.S. labor market has defied expectations of a slowdown.
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U.S. hiring has slowed from its breakneck pace but remained robust in August, with the economy adding 315,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rising to 3.7%.
The hiring marked a significant drop from the 528,000 jobs added over the previous month, suggesting that the Fed’s rate hikes may have begun to cool off the labor market.
“This is an inflection point,” Erica Groshen, an economist at Cornell University, told ABC News. “I expect we’re going to see some signs of loosening in the labor market. Do I think we’re going to drop off a cliff? Probably not.”
Data released this week buttressed predictions of a hiring slowdown.
Job openings plummeted by over 1 million in August, marking a 10% drop from 11.1 million openings recorded in July, according to a government report released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, unemployment insurance claims jumped by 29,000 to 219,000 in the week ending Oct. 1, Labor Department data on Thursday showed.
After announcing the rate hike last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reasserted the central bank’s commitment to bring inflation down to a target rate of 2%, saying the Fed expects to put forward “ongoing increases” to its benchmark interest rate.
The Fed forecasted that its rate hikes would raise the unemployment rate to 4.4% by the end of 2023.
“I am confident that the labor market won’t be as tight in the coming months,” said Groshen. “The question is how much will the unemployment rate go up and how quickly?”
“This is the pain that the Federal Reserve has reluctantly felt it has to cause,” she added.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.5% from 3.7%.
Economists were predicting a gain of 250,000 jobs last month.
Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality and in health care, according to the Department of Labor.
The number of long-term unemployed (those who are jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.1 million in September, the department said. The labor force participation rate was 62.3%.
Monthly job growth has averaged 420,000 so far this year versus 562,000 per month in 2021, according to the Department of Labor.
The new jobs data arrives less than two weeks after the Federal Reserve imposed a 0.75% hike in interest rates, the same hike percentage at its previous two meetings.
The Fed has instituted a series of aggressive borrowing cost increases in recent months as it tries to slash near-historic inflation by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into an economic downturn and putting millions out of work.
So far this year, however, the U.S. labor market has defied expectations of a slowdown.
U.S. hiring has slowed from its breakneck pace but remained robust in August, with the economy adding 315,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rising to 3.7%.
The hiring marked a significant drop from the 528,000 jobs added over the previous month, suggesting that the Fed’s rate hikes may have begun to cool off the labor market.
“This is an inflection point,” Erica Groshen, an economist at Cornell University, told ABC News. “I expect we’re going to see some signs of loosening in the labor market. Do I think we’re going to drop off a cliff? Probably not.”
Data released this week buttressed predictions of a hiring slowdown.
Job openings plummeted by over 1 million in August, marking a 10% drop from 11.1 million openings recorded in July, according to a government report released on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, unemployment insurance claims jumped by 29,000 to 219,000 in the week ending Oct. 1, Labor Department data on Thursday showed.
After announcing the rate hike last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reasserted the central bank’s commitment to bring inflation down to a target rate of 2%, saying the Fed expects to put forward “ongoing increases” to its benchmark interest rate.
The Fed forecasted that its rate hikes would raise the unemployment rate to 4.4% by the end of 2023.
“I am confident that the labor market won’t be as tight in the coming months,” said Groshen. “The question is how much will the unemployment rate go up and how quickly?”
“This is the pain that the Federal Reserve has reluctantly felt it has to cause,” she added.
(DEARBORN, Mich.) — A suspect has been taken into custody following a shooting and hourslong negotiations with authorities at a Hampton Inn in Dearborn, Michigan, the Michigan State Police said.
“The barricaded gunman has been taken into custody without incident,” police said Thursday night. “Michigan Ave. is still closed and will be as the investigation continues. This will be our final update.”
One victim has been hospitalized, according to Dearborn police. Authorities said they did not have an update on the victim’s condition.
Police said the suspect was firing shots with a long gun from inside the hotel.
Dearborn police said they had been in contact with the suspect’s family to get him to surrender peacefully.
According to police, the suspect was in a dispute with hotel staff over money.
Officers evacuated hotel employees and guests, police said.
Authorities are urging people to stay away from downtown Dearborn.
(LAS VEGAS) — Two people are dead and three are in critical condition from a series of stabbings outside a Las Vegas casino on Thursday, according to police.
There are eight victims total from the incident, which started around 11:40 a.m. local time, Las Vegas police said. They include both locals and tourists, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said during a press briefing Thursday.
The initial stabbing, which occurred on the sidewalk along Las Vegas Boulevard, appears to have been unprovoked, Deputy Chief James LaRochelle told reporters.
The suspect then proceeded south and stabbed five more victims, and then an additional victim on Sands Avenue, he said. It’s unclear when or where the eighth victim was stabbed.
One victim was pronounced dead at the scene, and a second died after being transported to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, police said. Three patients are hospitalized in stable condition, police said.
The suspect was taken into custody within a “matter of minutes” by a security guard and police officer after fleeing the scene, police said.
LaRochelle said the suspect is a man in his 30s who recently arrived in Las Vegas. Police are working to confirm his identity, he said.
A large kitchen knife used in the incident has been recovered from the scene, police said.
A motive is unknown, according to police.
“[It’s] hard to comprehend, hard to understand murder investigation,” LaRochelle said.
The victims will be identified pending family notification, the sheriff said.
Authorities stressed there is no known threat to the public at this time, with Lombardo describing the scene of the attacks as “static.”
(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk accused Twitter on Thursday of failing to accept his restored offer to purchase the social media platform at the original price of $54.20 per share.
The billionaire entrepreneur also asked the Delaware Chancery Court to halt a trial that’s scheduled to begin later this month. Musk and Twitter have been embroiled in a legal battle since he made an offer to buy the platform and then decided to back out after the company allegedly did not provide him with the information he requested about bot accounts.
“Twitter will not take yes for an answer. Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders’ interests,” Musk’s attorneys said in a new court filing.
“Twitter offered Mr. Musk billions off the transaction price. Mr. Musk refused because Twitter attempted to put certain self-serving conditions on the deal. Any statement to the contrary is a lie,” Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, said in a statement.
In response, Twitter said it opposes the attempt to stop the trial.
Shortly after Musk requested canceling the trial on Thursday, the judge postponed it, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The trial, which was initially scheduled to start on Oct. 17, has now been pushed to Oct. 28, according to the source — the same date by which Musk said he expects the deal with Twitter to close.
“As a result, there is no need for an expedited trial to order Defendants to do what they are already doing and this action is now moot,” Musk said in the filing.
In a statement later on Thursday, Twitter said it plans to close the deal by that date.
“We look forward to closing the transaction at $54.20 by Oct. 28,” the company said.
After a monthslong effort to terminate the agreement, Musk announced on Tuesday he had put forward a proposal to Twitter that would complete the deal at Musk’s original offer price of $54.20 a share — for a total cost of roughly $44 billion, a person familiar with the proposal told ABC News.
Twitter had said in a statement Tuesday it intends to “close the transaction at $54.20 per share.”
Musk initially reached an acquisition deal with Twitter in April, before raising concern over spam accounts on the platform and claiming Twitter had not provided him with an accurate estimate of their number. Twitter rebuked that claim, saying it had provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.
In May, Musk said the deal was on “temporary hold” over the bot concerns. Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at Wedbush, an investment firm, told ABC News at the time that the grievance could serve as a pretext for Musk to renegotiate or abandon the deal amid a market downturn that had proven especially pronounced for tech stocks.
Musk continued to threaten to pull out of the deal if Twitter didn’t provide additional information about the prevalence of bots, before moving to terminate his acquisition of Twitter in July.
Days later, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk over his effort to terminate an acquisition agreement.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday announced he’s pardoning all Americans who’ve been convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, coming closer to keeping a 2020 campaign promise to try to get the drug decriminalized a little more than a month before the midterm election.
The executive action will benefit 6,500 people with federal convictions from 1992 to 2021 and thousands of others charged under the District of Columbia’s criminal code, according to senior administration officials. Elaborating on the number of people affected, officials said “there are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana.”
“As I said when I ran for president, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden tweeted in an unusual video statement. “It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates.”
His action before the consequential midterm elections, in which Democrats are vying to maintain control of the House and Senate, could be viewed as a move to energize voters, particularly younger voters.
When asked about the timing of the executive action, administration officials only said that Biden’s been “clear that our marijuana laws are not working.”
Biden said Thursday he’s urging governors to do the same for individuals with state convictions, which administration officials said account for the vast majority of possession-related convictions.
He’s also requesting Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland expeditiously review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Currently, marijuana is classified as a “Schedule 1” drug — along with LSD, ecstasy and heroin — under the Controlled Substances Act, which Biden said Thursday “makes no sense.”
“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs,” Biden added.
Biden’s faced pressure from his own party this year to take more decisive action, as recent elections have shown Americans’ views on legalization have changed.
In the 2020 cycle alone, four states approved ballot measures to legalize the sale and possession of cannabis for adult use. An analysis from FiveThirtyEight found a majority of registered voters in all 50 states favor making marijuana legal.
This past summer, a group of lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wrote a letter to Biden, Garland and Becerra urging them to deschedule cannabis and issue pardons to all individuals convicted of nonviolent cannabis-related offenses.
Biden, while slower to embrace marijuana reform than many of his Democratic colleagues, pledged on the 2020 campaign trail to decriminalize cannabis use and expunge prior convictions.
Senate Democrats this year also finally released their long-awaited marijuana legalization proposal, which would lift the federal prohibition and allow states to determine how they want to regulate marijuana. But the legislation faces an uphill battle in the 50-50 chamber, where 10 Republicans would need to support it, and Senate leadership has yet to announce when the bill will be brought up for a vote.
“Members of Congress have been working on this issue,” Biden administration officials said Thursday. “But that effort has stalled and we’re almost at the end of the Congress. So the president has been considering his options and he’s now taking executive action to address the country’s failed approach to marijuana.”
Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson claimed Biden’s move was to score political points.
“The President, in his announced policy on marijuana, has waived the flag of surrender in the fight to save lives from drug abuse and has adopted all the talking points of the drug legalizers,” Hutchinson said. “Biden is simply playing election-year politics and sacrificing our national interest to win votes.”
Meanwhile, advocacy groups are welcoming the announcement.
“We commend this important and necessary step to begin the process of repairing the harms of prohibition and look forward to working with Congress and the administration to develop policies that would ultimately solve the underlying problems in our outdated cannabis policies,” Aaron Smith, Co-founder and CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association said in a statement.
The Drug Policy Alliance said it was “thrilled” by Biden’s decision, which they called “incredibly long overdue.”
– ABC News’ Darren Reynolds and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
