chairman of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell/photo credit:Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. hiring surged in November, bouncing back from a dismal performance in the previous month and returning to strong growth.
Employers added 227,000 workers last month, exceeding economist expectations of 214,000 additional jobs, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, which remains historically low.
The fresh data offered a key clue about the health of the economy as the nation hurtles toward end-of-the-year holidays and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. The findings could also help determine whether the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates when officials meet later this month.
U.S. hiring has defied doomsayers for years. Stubborn inflation, high interest rates and a contentious presidential campaign have proven no match for a resilient labor market.
A weaker-than-expected reading may have raised alarm and caused observers to revisit disappointing results in October, which many economists have attributed to one-off disruptions of data collection.
The labor market hit a rare speed bump in October as the economy added 12,000 jobs, its weakest performance since December 2020.
The data appeared to offer little more than a blurry snapshot due to data-gathering disruptions, however. A combination of hurricanes and work stoppages likely caused an undercount of hiring that month, experts told ABC News.
Despite an overall slowdown this year, the labor market has continued to grow. Hiring has persisted at a solid pace; meanwhile, the unemployment rate has climbed but remains near a 50-year low.
Overall, inflation has eased and the economy has expanded, giving rise to hope that the U.S. could achieve a soft landing.
U.S. GDP grew at a 2.8% annualized rate over three months ending in September, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data last month showed. That figure fell slightly below economists’ expectations, but demonstrated brisk growth that was propelled by resilient consumer spending.
Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of more than 9% in June 2022, but price increases remain slightly higher than the Fed’s target of 2%.
The jobs report marks one of the last pieces of significant economic data before the Fed announces its next interest rate decision on Dec. 18.
The Fed is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
(NEW YORK) — The unidentified man suspected of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel remains at large after Wednesday’s attack, which was described by police as “brazen, targeted” and “premeditated.”
The killer entered New York City by bus on Nov. 24, when a surveillance camera at Port Authority Bus Terminal caught his arrival at 9 p.m., law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The inbound bus originated in Atlanta but it was not immediately clear where the suspected boarded.
Police are investigating whether the suspect left New York City by bus on Wednesday after the murder.
The 10-day period he was in New York City before the shooting is the focus of investigative efforts.
Police have collected video of the suspect all over the city, including in the subway, in cabs and in a McDonald’s, sources told ABC News. In each place, he paid with cash and he made sure to keep his mask on, which indicates to detectives he knew he was coming to New York City to commit the murder, sources said.
Police were able to find a surveillance image of the suspect without his face mask on because he was flirting with the woman who checked him into the hostel, police sources said.
As he stood at the check-in desk, the sources said the woman asked to see his smile. The shooter obliged, pulling down his mask long enough for the surveillance camera to capture his face.
Police have determined the suspect checked into the hostel using a New Jersey license that wasn’t his own, police sources told ABC News.
The masked gunman shot Thompson at point-blank range at 6:44 a.m. Wednesday outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where Thompson was heading for his company’s investors conference.
“The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “It appears that the gun malfunctions, as he clears the jam and begins to fire again.”
Written on the shell casings were the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” according to police sources.
The words on the bullets echo the title of the 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.” Police are aware of the similarity, and are investigating whether one possible motive is anger at the insurance industry, sources said.
The suspect fled on foot into an alley, where a phone believed to be linked to the suspect was later recovered, police sources said.
He then fled north on a bike and rode into Central Park, police said.
A person appearing to be the suspect was seen just before 7 a.m. on the Upper West Side, riding a bicycle away from Central Park. He has not been spotted since.
UnitedHealth Group said in a statement that its “hearts are broken” and that they have been “touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support.”
“So many patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve,” UnitedHealth Group, parent company of UnitedHealthcare, said. “Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice.”
“We, at UnitedHealth Group, will continue to be there for those who depend upon us for their health care,” the statement continued. “We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, brother and friend.”
(NEW YORK) — The father of Thomas Matthew Crooks, Donald Trump’s would-be assassin, called police out of concern for his missing son hours after the July 13 shooting occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, newly obtained audio revealed.
At 10:56 p.m., nearly five hours after Trump was shot, Matthew Crooks called 911, worried because his son had gone radio silent since mid-afternoon, he explained.
“Hi, yes. Uh, my name is Matthew Crooks – I was calling in regards to my son, Thomas. Uh, he belongs to the Clairton Sportsman Club.”
“The reason I’m calling is he left the house here at about a quarter to two this afternoon, and we’ve gotten no contact from him, no text messages, nothing’s been returned, and he’s not home yet. That’s totally not like him. So we’re kind of worried, not really sure what we should do,” Crooks Sr. said, his voice steady but sounding slightly tense.
The recording of the call was obtained by ABC News via a records request from Allegheny County, where the Crooks family home is located.
Matthew Crooks also mentioned his son is 20 years old.
The call audio cuts off in the dispatcher’s mid-sentence as she confirmed the timeframe when the family last heard from their son.
Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly fired as many as eight rounds from a rooftop 200-300 yards away, shooting Trump in the ear, killing one spectator and injuring two others. According to an intelligence bulletin from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, Crooks bought 50 rounds of ammunition from a local gun store on the day of the shooting. Two improvised explosive devices were found in his car and another in his home, according to the bulletin.
From the time he fired his first shot to the gunman being killed was just 26 seconds, according to law enforcement officials. Eleven seconds after the first shot, Secret Service counter snipers acquired their target — and 15 seconds after that, Crooks was shot dead.
(NEW YORK) — Public health officials are continuing to monitor an outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu, as it spreads across the U.S.
The strain, known as H5N1, sickened several mammals this year before infecting dozens of Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There is no evidence of person-to-person transmission of bird flu, and the risk to the general public is low, the CDC said.
But public health experts have also said it’s important to be alert during the respiratory virus season and to be aware of risks that could come from exposure to infected animals and from drinking raw milk.
Here’s the latest information on the outbreak in the United States:
What is the status of the bird flu outbreak? Avian influenza, or bird flu, is an infectious viral disease that primarily spreads among birds and is caused by infection with Avian Influenza A viruses.
These viruses typically spread among wild aquatic birds but can infect domestic poultry and other bird and animal species, according to the CDC. In the U.S., the virus infected dairy cows.
“What’s made this year’s outbreak interesting is the association with dairy cows, which is not an association that’s been seen before,” Michael Ben-Aderet, an infectious disease physician and associate director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told ABC News.
“H5N1 has been known for many, many years. It’s not a new strain of bird flu, but we haven’t seen it cross over into dairy cows and have this association with dairy cows and dairy workers,” he continued.
As of Thursday, 58 human cases have been confirmed in seven states, according to CDC data. California has the highest number of cases with 32.
Almost all confirmed cases have had direct contact with infected cattle or infected livestock.
So far, all bird flu cases in the U.S. have been mild, and patients have all recovered after receiving antiviral medication.
“There has been another strain in Canada that caused really severe disease in a teenager who ended up in critical condition in the hospital,” Dr. Meghan Davis, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News. “So yes, these [strains] are highly related, but not quite the same.”
What are the risks associated with raw milk? In April reports emerged of bird flu fragments found in samples of pasteurized milk.
However, the fragments are inactive remnants of the virus; they cannot cause infection because the commercial milk supply undergoes pasteurization.
“The good news is that pasteurization inactivates [the virus], and so, when you do that test to look at fragments of the virus, although we find it in milk, the pasteurization process ensures that live virus is not transmitted,” Albert Ko, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News.
However, the Food and Drug Administration has previously warned of the possible dangers associated with drinking raw, unpasteurized milk due to elevated risks of foodborne illness.
On Tuesday, all of Raw Farm’s raw whole milk and cream products that were still on store shelves in California were being voluntarily recalled by the company, following multiple detections of bird flu virus in its milk and dairy supply within the past week, according to public health officials.
The CDC said it considers exposure to raw milk without personal protective equipment a “high-risk exposure event.”
“Raw milk consumers need to be aware that even handling the product itself could be a kind of exposure,” Davis said. “So, if you’re pouring it, you spill a little milk, get that on your hands, touch your eyes. You could get the same kind of exposure as someone who works in a dairy farm.”
Are we at risk of a bird flu pandemic? Experts said the U.S. is currently not experiencing a bird flu pandemic, nor is the country presently at risk of a bird flu pandemic.
However, they said with each new human case, it offers a chance for the virus to mutate, theoretically enabling human-to-human transmission to occur at a point in the future.
“I think the warning sign is just, because there’s so much transmission in birds and there’s transmission now in our cattle, particularly we really are concerned about the possibility that there may be a mutation that enables person to person or human-to-human transmission,” Ko said.
Ben-Aderet said there is also concern as the U.S. heads into the winter respiratory virus season that the seasonal flu — which has the ability to exchange parts of its genome with other influenza viruses — could do the same with bird flu.
Health officials are taking proactive measures to prevent such a situation from occurring.
The World Health Organization announced in July that it has launched an initiative to help accelerate the development of a human bird flu vaccine using messenger RNA technology.
In October, federal health officials announced they are providing $72 million to vaccine manufacturers to help ensure available non-mRNA bird flu vaccines are ready-to-use, if needed.
There are currently no recommendations for anyone in the U.S. to be vaccinated against bird flu.
ABC News’ Youri Bendjaoud contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Police appear to be closing in on the identity of the man suspected of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan, sources told ABC News.
Authorities on Thursday released images of the suspect taken from a surveillance camera at the HI New York City Hostel at West 103rd Street on the Upper West Side, where it appears the suspect shared a room with two other men, according to police sources.
Detectives canvassed other hostels in the area and showed people the suspect’s picture, sources said. Police have determined the suspect checked into an Upper West Side hostel using a New Jersey license that isn’t his, police sources told ABC News.
The gunman shot Thompson at close range on Wednesday morning outside a Hilton Hotel where he was attending a conference.
The “brazen, targeted attack” was “premeditated,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Bullet casings found at the scene had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them, police sources said.
The motive remains unknown, police said.
The gun used in the shooting hasn’t been recovered, sources said.
Police believe the shooter used a B&T Station Six, known in Great Britain as a Welrod pistol, according to police sources. The gun doesn’t have a silencer but does have a long barrel that enables the 9 mm to fire a nearly silent shot. The gun requires manually cycling ammunition from the magazine.
The weapon is not easily attainable so investigators have been running down all recent purchases, according to police sources. NYPD detectives arrived Thursday at a gun shop in Connecticut that sold a weapon of the same type, sources said.
Thompson, 50, was in New York City for the UnitedHealthcare investors conference, which was scheduled to start at 8 a.m. His schedule was widely known, police sources said.
Surveillance footage reviewed by police shows someone who appears to be the suspect leaving a 57th Street subway station near the crime scene just before the shooting, polices sources told ABC News.
The suspect appeared to lie in wait near the Hilton Hotel. After Thompson exited his hotel and walked across the street to the Hilton, the masked gunman shot him at about 6:40 a.m., police said.
“The shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “It appears that the gun malfunctions, as he clears the jam and begins to fire again.”
The shooter fled on foot into an alley, where a phone believed to be linked to the suspect was later recovered, police sources said.
The suspect then fled on a bike and rode into Central Park, police said.
The shooter was caught on surveillance video at 5 a.m. Wednesday outside the Frederick Douglass Houses, a public housing project on the Upper West Side, sources told ABC News. That footage showed the suspect carrying what appeared to be an e-bike battery.
Police are working to determine if the suspect prepositioned the bike and took the subway to the shooting scene, sources said.
Police have recovered a water bottle and candy wrapper from the crime scene which they believe are linked to the gunman. Fingerprint and DNA tests on the items are ongoing, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson, said in a statement that she is “shattered” by the “senseless killing.”
“Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives,” she said. “Most importantly, Brian was an incredibly loving father to our two sons and will be greatly missed.”
Police urge the public to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS with any information.
ABC News’ Mark Crudele and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(GEORGIA) — Three people have been indicted over an alleged drunk driving crash in Georgia that killed a high school student in February — including parents accused of letting the teens drink before the crash.
Sumanth and Anindita Rao, who are 50 and 49 respectively, face charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct and maintaining a disorderly house, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announced in a press conference Wednesday.
The car’s driver, 18-year-old Hannah Hackemeyer, faces numerous charges, including vehicular homicide and driving under the influence of alcohol under the age of 21.
On Feb. 24, Hackemeyer crashed a car after drinking alcohol at the Raos’ home, police said. She and the Raos’ teen daughter, Ananya, were able to crawl out of the flipped vehicle, but a third passenger, 18-year-old Sophia Lekiachvili, was trapped in the front passenger seat.
Lekiachvili was transported to the hospital, where she died of her injuries, according to police.
Hackemeyer had allegedly been driving more than 60 miles per hour over the speed limit when she crashed, and had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.046, more than twice the legal limit for a person under 21, police said.
According to Boston, the three teenagers had spent the evening leading up to the crash at the Raos’ home, where they drank wine, allegedly “in plain view of Ananya’s parents.”
Shortly before midnight, they allegedly told Sumanth Rao they wanted to go for a drive, Boston said.
“Ananya’s parents knew the girls had been drinking, but they still let them get into a car and leave the house with an open bottle of wine in the front seat,” Boston said. “Less than 30 minutes later, a little more than a half mile away, that decision would prove deadly.”
Boston alleged that allowing the teens to drink was “not an anomaly” at the home of the Raos, who she said had a “long-standing, repeated pattern of allowing teenagers to drink in their home.”
“The Raos’ home was the party house where teens could freely consume alcohol without interference from the adults who lived there — the adults who should have accepted responsibility,” Boston said. “It is a miracle that nothing happened prior to Feb. 24.”
Lekiachvili’s death was a “foreseeable consequence” of the Raos’ alleged permissiveness with teen drinking in their home, Boston said.
“As a prosecutor and a mother of two teenage daughters, I have never seen a more egregious disregard for safety and well-being of young people as I have in this case,” Boston said.
Attorney information for Hackemeyer and the Raos was not immediately available.
(PETROLIA, Calif) — A 7.0 magnitude earthquake was reported off the coast of Northern California on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The epicenter is off the coast near Petrolia, in Humboldt County, the USGS said.
Also, a tsunami warning that had been issued for coastal areas in California and Oregon, including San Francisco, was canceled just before noon local time.
“The tsunami Warning is canceled for the coastal areas of California and Oregon,” the National Tsunami Warning Center wrote on X. “No tsunami danger presently exists for this area.”
The warning had been in effect from Davenport, California, to Douglas/Lane Line Oregon, the National Tsunami Warning Center said.
Police in Berkeley, California, had issued an evacuation order for parts of the city “due to a tsunami coming to West Berkeley.”
“People in the Tsunami Zone are in IMMEDIATE DANGER and MUST EVACUATE NOW,” the police department said. “Stay east of 7th St. This is a lawful order to leave now.”
The earthquake was reported at 10:44 a.m. local time, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center.
Subsequent earthquakes were reported in the region, including a 4.2 magnitude earthquake near Petrolia, according to the USGS.
Shake alerts in the USGS’s earthquake early warning system were delivered as far north as Lincoln City, Oregon, and as far south as Salinas, California, the agency said.
“System was activated and performed as designed. Still trying to ascertain how much warning people received,” the USGS said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said officials with the state’s Office of Emergency Services are “actively responding to the earthquakes this morning in Northern California.”
“Californians should follow guidance from local emergency responders,” he said on social media.
Regarding aftershocks, there is currently a 5% chance of a magnitude 6 or larger earthquake occurring in the next week, and a 34% chance of a magnitude 5 quake occurring in that time frame, the USGS said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The House is expected to vote Thursday night on whether to force the Ethics Committee to release the report from its investigation of former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Democratic Rep. Sean Casten‘s privileged resolution requires the Ethics Committee to release its report on Gaetz. Casten introduced an updated privileged resolution Tuesday which included several previous examples of the committee releasing reports on former members of Congress. Another from Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen requires the committee to preserve all documents related to Gaetz.
Republican leadership is expected to introduce a motion to table and effectively kill the measures, but it wasn’t clear Thursday afternoon if that effort would be successful — it would take only a handful of Republicans to cross party lines and vote with Democrats to force the committee to release the report.
The Ethics Committee was investigating allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift.
If the motion to table the effort fails, the chamber will take a vote on whether to release the Gaetz report.
The floor vote will come after the bipartisan Ethics Committee meets Thursday afternoon, when the 10-member panel will discuss the report. During the last meeting in November, Republican committee members blocked the release of the Gaetz report.
Johnson has consistently said the Gaetz ethics report should not be released to the public, citing a longstanding tradition of dropping investigations after a member leaves Congress. Gaetz resigned abruptly last month after President-elect Donald Trump announced him as his selection for attorney general. He later withdrew from consideration after it became clear he was facing an uphill climb from both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, which would vote whether to confirm his nomination.
Democrats pushed for the report’s release after Trump’s announcement, saying it was relevant to the Senate’s consideration of him for attorney general. Even though Gaetz withdrew, Democrats decided to continue their effort.
Gaetz was reelected to the 119th Congress before Trump picked him for AG, but he announced after his withdrawal that he would not serve another term. He pledged that he remains “fully committed” to assisting the president-elect.
Gaetz has since been selling private videos on Cameo, a website where users can purchase a personalized video message from from celebrities.
(WASHINGTON) — Work-from-home policies came under fire from X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, as he and Republican businessman Vivek Ramaswamy took their plans to reduce government waste to the floors of Congress Thursday.
The businessmen, who President-elect Donald Trump selected to lead an outside advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), attended several closed-door meetings with GOP senators and House members to sell their plans to cut as much as $2 trillion from the federal budget of what they called waste.
“I think we should make sure we spend the public’s money well,” Musk told reporters between the meetings.
Musk posted on his social media platform X from inside the Capitol about what he and Ramaswamy say is a key issue for DOGE: The number of federal employees working from home.
The Federal Office of Management and Budget released a report in August that found “as of May 2024, approximately 50% of federal workers worked every day in roles that are not eligible for telework, including those who work onsite providing healthcare to our veterans, inspecting our food supply, and managing Federal natural resources.”
Musk shared a new report from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate DOGE caucus, which claimed only 6% of federal workers show up in person to work on a full-time basis. Many others work from home part-time, and roughly one-third work from home full-time, according to the report.
“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%! Almost no one,” Musk posted in response to the report.
Ernst’s report includes several anecdotes and alleged social media posts about federal employees who worked from home, including a Department of Veterans Affairs manager who posted a photo of himself working from a bathtub. Ernst’s team included the photo in their report.
The OMB report found that “telework-eligible personnel spent approximately 60% of regular, working hours inperson, at agency-assigned job sites.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he agreed with Musk’s stance on work-from-home policies for federal workers and floated a claim, without any citation, that only 1% of federal workers were in their office.
“You will see a demand…that federal workers return to their desks. That’s just common sense,” he said at a news conference in between the meetings.
Musk, who brought his son X to the proceedings, and Ramaswamy walked past reporters before the news conference began with Musk carrying his son on his shoulders.
Musk has been a staunch opponent of work-from-home policies and removed such policies from his businesses, including X. He threatened layoffs for X employees who did not comply with his policy, which instructed any special requests for remote work needed to be reviewed by him before approval.
(PETROLIA, Calif) — A 7.0 magnitude earthquake was reported in Northern California on Thursday, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The epicenter is near Petrolia, in Humboldt County, the USGS said.
Also, a tsunami warning has been issued for coastal areas in California and Oregon, including San Francisco. The warning will remain in effect from Davenport, California, to Douglas/Lane Line Oregon, until further notice, the National Tsunami Warning Center said.
The earthquake was reported at 10:44 a.m. local time, according to the National Tsunami Warning Center.
Subsequent earthquakes were reported in the region, including a 4.2 magnitude earthquake near Petrolia, according to the USGS.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said officials with the state’s Office of Emergency Services are “actively responding to the earthquakes this morning in Northern California.”
“Californians should follow guidance from local emergency responders,” he said on social media.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
