Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lynda Kenyan.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is clear to critical hurdle in his bid to be confirmed
to the post. A Senate committee has voted along party lines to advance his nomination to the full Senate. Two republicans senators John Cornan and Tom Tillis held up his nomination in part over President Trump's anti-weaponization fund. Senator Cornan spoke with MS now after the vote.
Well, the organization fund is dead. We pointed out that the Department of Justice has represented that to numerous courts. And, you know, as to the idea that it could be revived in the future,
“I think it's highly unlikely that that could happen without the cooperation of the Department of Justice.”
Mr. Blanche gave us the assurances that it was dead and would not be revived in this case. We have no alternative but to take his word for that.
The fund would have allowed compensation to those alleging mis-treatment by the government,
including January 6 protestors convicted of assaulting police officers. Senate Democrats are out with a new report suggesting that big U.S. banks had concerns for years about money moves made by accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. NPR Scott Horstlight reports that the banks are accused of keeping those worries to themselves until after Epstein was arrested.
The report from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee says more than it does in bankers at J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank raised red flags about the money that Epstein was moving around the world, but in most cases, bankers failed to alert the Treasury Department until Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019. Under the Bank's secrecy act, bankers are supposed to notify the government whenever
“they suspect a client is moving funds to long-term money or carry out other illegal activities.”
Democrats want the Justice Department to investigate why suspicious activity reports were not filed about Epstein in a more timely manner, they also want to tighten reporting requirements in the future. Scott Horstlight, in PR News, Washington. Nearly three years after an Israeli air strike wiped out much of one extended family and
Gaza City, relatives gathered for a mass funeral on a spot of reports. What laying on the structures were not freshly wrapped bodies, but mostly, skeletal remains. Each was covered with a Palestinian flag, sprinkled with pride, bank, boog and vile epitals, and marked with a photograph of the person inside. Thousands of mourners and relatives stood shoulder to shoulder as one hundred and twelve
members of the Abu-Shariah family were carried on shoulders to be laid to rest. They were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023. Their remains were recovered only after two weeks of digging through layers of crushed concrete, nearly three years later.
“For the Abu-Shariah family, the funeral brought a painful kind of closure.”
Across Gaza, thousands of other families are still waiting for someone to build their loved ones from beneath the rubble, and a small one and per news, Gaza. You're listening to NPR News. McDonald says it's sales in the US have slowed down much more than the company expected in the latest quarter.
The fast food restaurant is often viewed as an economic bill weather, and its sales are often seen as indicative of family budgets across the country. But this time, McDonald says the problems were internal. Here's NPR is a Lena Seljuk. McDonald says it's sales in the US grew less than 1% between April and June.
At the same time, other chains like KFC and Chipotle saw a strong demand. And McDonald says it had overwhelmed its stores with too many complicated launches. There was marketing around Kpop Demon Hunters, then the World Cup, a new lineup of drinks like Kraft Sodas, and big changes in the value meals, removing old deals for buy one get one free, and introducing new ones with items under three or four dollars.
All this was too much all at once for stores and shoppers, including the most loyal ones who also saw popular digital offerings go away in their apps. And so visits to McDonald's declined in the US, and the company is now working on corrections. Ali Nassilu and Pierre News. Amazon says it will increase this year's capital spending on technology.
Mostly artificial intelligence, by an additional 10%, then aspen comes after the tech and
e-commerce giant delivered strong profits and net sales during the second quarter.
Sales in its cloud computing unit, AWS, were up 37%, outpacing the 28% sales in the previous quarter. Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR. I'm Linda Kenyan, and for your news in Washington. The midterms are coming, and that means the new cycle, which is already intense, is about
to get more intense this fall. So this summer is a perfect time to make sure your news diet is calibrated. I'm Leila Faldzill, on up first, we unpack the three biggest stories every morning, so you can stay informed and get on with your day in less than 15 minutes.
