Axios Homepage

A tornado watch was issued for parts of Florida Tuesday night as Hurricane Elsa neared the state's west coast — where it's expected to bring heavy rain, strong winds and flooding.

State of play: The Category 1 storm regained hurricane strength, packing maximum sustained winds of 75 mph as it churned about 100 miles south, southwest of Tampa, Florida, the National Hurricane Center said in its 8 p.m. ET advisory. The storm is expected to make landfall along the north Florida Gulf coast by late Wednesday morning.

A Virginia man charged over the deadly U.S. Capitol riot told an undercover FBI agent he belonged to a militia-style group that had explosives and surveilled the building a month after the insurrection, per a court filing unsealed Tuesday.

The big picture: Fi Duong, 27, who allegedly told the agent the group referred to their meetings as "Bible study," is one of more than 535 defendants arrested in nearly 50 states, the Department of Justice said in a statement marking six months since the Capitol was stormed.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor on Tuesday evening, AP reports.

The big picture Adams, a retired police captain, was the perceived front-runner in the race. If he wins the general election, he will become New York City's second-ever Black mayor.

Reddit traders drove AMC's stock to meteoric heights. Now they're one reason why the theater chain tabled its latest plan to cash in on that hype.

What's new: AMC said Tuesday it's putting off a vote that could have let the company sell up to 25 million more shares next year.

Sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson, who was suspended last week for a positive marijuana test, was left off the U.S relay team and won't compete in this year's Olympics, USA Track & Field said Tuesday.

Why it matters: While Richardson had accepted a one-month suspension, there was still a chance she could return in time to race in the women's 4x100-meter relay in Tokyo on Aug. 6. But USATF declined to add her to the team, saying it wouldn't be fair to the other athletes.

A hacker group associated with the Russian government breached the computer systems of the Republican National Committee last week in a massive ransomware attack, Bloomberg first reported.

The big picture: The attack follows a separate Russia-based criminal group unleashing an attack that compromised the computer systems of at least 1,000 businesses. No connection has been established between the attacks.

It's not just the structural soundness of high rises that's being scrutinized after the Surfside calamity. The amateurish way many condos are governed is also being challenged.

What they're saying: "Some economists argue that the U.S. and other countries made a mistake by going too heavily into condos ... in the decades after World War II," Peter Coy of Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

President Biden on Tuesday announced the White House's latest plan to get more Americans vaccinated as inoculation numbers slow across the U.S.

Why it matters: Biden said the highly transmissible Delta variant, first detected in India, is responsible for half of the coronavirus cases in the country, and is continuing to grow among the unvaccinated population.

The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it was canceling the massive cloud contract awarded to Microsoft in 2019, saying it "no longer meets its needs."

Why it matters: The JEDI contract was the largest-ever of its kind, with an estimated value of roughly $10 billion over a 10-year stretch. The deal, initially intended to modernize the Pentagon's IT operations, was the subject of a drawn-out legal battle with Amazon and Microsoft.

More than 90% of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan has been completed, U.S. Central Command estimated in an update published Tuesday.

Why it matters: The milestone, a full two months before President Biden's goal of withdrawing all U.S. forces by Sept. 11, comes amid concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, as the Taliban seizes vast swathes of territory on the battlefield.

Four more bodies have been pulled from the rubble of the collapsed condo in Surfside, Florida, bringing the death toll to 36, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press briefing Tuesday afternoon.

The latest: 29 of the 36 individuals who died have been identified. While 191 individuals have been accounted for, as many as 109 people remain "potentially unaccounted for," Levine Cava said.

U.S. tech companies for years have grumbled about how the Chinese government favored its homegrown heroes, largely shielding them from global competition. Now, though, China is turning on its own Big Tech companies, reminding them who's boss.

Why it matters: This complicates U.S. IPO plans for dozens of Chinese companies, and potentially revalues even more Chinese unicorns.

Businesses around the globe are dealing with another big ransomware attack, linked to the Russia-connected REvil group that previously hacked meat processor JBS.

Catch up quick: The new attack exploits a flaw in software that middleware provider Kaseya supplied to customers, who are themselves companies that provide managed services to other businesses.

Nintendo is releasing a new Switch with a bigger, better screen on Oct. 8 for $349.99.

Between the lines: A newer Switch model has been expected for months, though fans and insiders originally expected a more powerful machine.

Six months after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, The U.S Capitol Police (USCP) is highlighting its work to support officers, enhance security around the Capitol Complex and pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency.

The big picture: The half-year since the riot has seen the department implement broad changes, as it continues to work with federal law enforcement to track down those involved in the attack. So far, more than 500 people have been charged, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman wrote Tuesday.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones announced Tuesday that she will not be teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall, following a national controversy over an initial decision by the school's board of trustees not to offer her tenure.

The state of play: Hannah-Jones, the creator of the New York Times' 1619 Project about the history of slavery and its lasting impact in the U.S., will be joining Howard University as the tenured Knight Chair in Race and Journalism. Award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates will also join the faculty of the historically Black university.

Employers are doing what they have to do to address persistent labor shortages: They’re offering more money.

Why it matters: The reopening of the U.S. economy is fueling demand for goods and services. But businesses have struggled to meet that demand because current pay rates aren’t attracting the qualified applicants that employers want.

Nextdoor, the neighborhood social network in more than 275,000 global communities, announced that is has agreed to go public via a SPAC sponsored by Khosla Ventures — at an implied valuation of $4.3 billion.

Why it matters: Nextdoor has managed to avoid much of the scrutiny aimed at larger networks like Facebook and Twitter.

All the battery metals we need to power a billion electric vehicles could be lying on the floor of the Pacific Ocean — but collecting them and turning them into EV batteries is a major challenge.

Why it matters: It's going to take a lot of batteries to replace the world's gasoline-powered cars with zero-emission EVs. And that will require digging more lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese out of the earth.

• Experts worry that mining's environmental threats could outweigh the benefits of increased renewable energy production.

"Boomerang workers" — those who've returned to their hometowns to do remote work — rose with the pandemic, but the phenomenon shows signs of sticking around beyond it.

The big picture: Workers typically have to move to where the jobs are, centralizing top talent in big coastal cities. But as COVID drove rapid adoption of remote work, many people who were able to opted to return to their roots to be closer to family, raise kids in familiar settings or simply escape big city life.

When Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson take flight aboard the rockets their companies built, the hopes and dreams of a burgeoning industry will be flying with them as well.

Why it matters: Accidents or errors on these high-profile flights from Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin could derail their plans — and possibly affect others' plans — for commercial space tourism and travel.

New media personalities have gained enormous traction over the past year by catering to individuals who feel disillusioned by the mainstream press.

Why it matters: A convergence of trends over the past year has made it easier for writers to launch new entities that can rival mainstream outlets and it's given these creators the freedom to criticize big media institutions.

Efforts to recall school board members are surging around the U.S. — and especially in California — amid Republican efforts to quash teaching about institutional racism.

Why it matters: Coordinated efforts by conservative groups are shaping public education, fueled by controversies over race as as well as backlash to COVID-19 closures.

The FDA's approval of Alzheimer's treatment Aduhelm puts physicians in a difficult position: They hold the prescribing power over a drug that most say is unproven. But desperate patients and families may not know or care about the lack of evidence and will want the prescription anyway.

What they're saying: "The public message has to be clear: This is not a cure, and it's not even clear this is going to make substantial changes to someone's disease course," said Sharon Brangman, an Alzheimer's expert and geriatrician at Upstate University Hospital in New York.

Conditions were deteriorating across the Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Elsa moved over the Florida Straits early Tuesday after unleashing heavy rains on Cuba, per the National Hurricane Center.

Details: The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 60 mph 60 miles south-southwest of Key West at 2a.m. on Tuesday, according to the NHC.

Former Australian Member of Parliament Julia Banks criticized Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday after accusing a current government minister of inappropriately touching her at Parliament House in Canberra in 2017.

Driving the news: Banks told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Monday night that she was "on a couch talking to another MP" when the unnamed minister sat down and "put his hand on my knee and ran it up my leg, on the upper part of my leg." Morrison's office said he hadn't been aware of the allegation.

Florida rescuers were battling strong winds during their search through the rubble of the collapsed Surfside condo as Tropical Storm Elsa neared the state overnight, after finding four more bodies at the site Monday.

What's happening: Maggie Castro, a firefighter and paramedic with the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, said: "We know that with every day that goes by, it is harder to see a miracle happening," per AP.

Tajikistan called in 20,000 military reservists on Monday to strengthen the border after 1,037 members of Afghanistan's security forces fled to the country and dozens more were taken captive by the Taliban, per Reuters.

Why it matters: The crossings, which were permitted by Tajikistan, came after the Taliban took over at least six key districts in the northern province of Badakhshan, which borders Tajikistan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday the gradual easing of pandemic restrictions at the Canada-U.S. border.

Driving the news: Trudeau told a news conference this would begin Monday with the lifting of a 14-day quarantine requirement for Canadian residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The measure has been in place since March last year.