Jackson, Mississippi, residents are still facing a water crisis nearly a week after flooding in the Pearl River damaged the city's water system, though water pressure has been restored to most of the city, the city said in a news release Sunday.
Why it matters: The crisis has upended life for the city of nearly 150,000 people, with schools shifting to remote learning and businesses being forced to shutter or install expensive fixes like portable toilets. People have had to wait in long lines for potable water.
Mass shootings in Norfolk, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, early Sunday morning have left at least two people dead and 10 others injured.
Why it matters: A series of high-profile mass shootings this year — including in Buffalo, New York, Uvalde, Texas, and Highland Park, Illinois — have brought renewed attention on gun violence in the U.S.
The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has left his post and will retire, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow announced on Sunday.
Why it matters: The news came as an abrupt surprise as Sullivan, who has served in the role since 2019, had given no prior public indication of planning to depart from his position.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) cited former President Trump's recent calls for a new election and his claims that, if re-elected, he would issue pardons to participants in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot while discussing the "hallmarks of a fascist political party" on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.
Driving the news: In a Truth Social post last week, Trump repeated baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election and called for the "rightful winner" to be declared or have the election declared "irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!"
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday doubled down on his suggestion from last week that there would be “riots in the streets” if former President Trump were prosecuted for mishandling classified information.
What he's saying: “Here’s what I said, the raid on [former] President Trump’s home, the likely nominee for 2024, better bear some fruit here,” Graham told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick during an interview. “If it’s just about mishandling classified information, we’ve had a standard set when it came to Hillary Clinton.”
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that while he personally would not take classified documents home with him, he insisted that a "different set of rules" applied to former President Trump.
Driving the news: The FBI's discovery of troves of classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home last month has landed the former president in legal hot water and prompted intelligence officials to launch a review of the natural security risks stemming from the top secret documents found there.
Former President Trump was required to return all documents marked as classified as part of a grand jury subpoena issued in May, regardless of whether the former president believed he'd declassified the documents, the Department of Justice wrote in an Aug. 29 court filing made public Friday.
The big picture: Trump has put forth a number of reasons to justify why troves of documents, including some with "top secret" and "confidential" markings, were at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Police have arrested a suspect in connection to the kidnapping of a woman who went missing in Memphis, Tennessee, last week.
The latest: In confirming the news on Twitter early Sunday morning, Memphis police noted that the woman, Eliza Fletcher, has not been located and the investigation into her whereabouts is ongoing.
A record number of first-generation Americans are serving in state legislatures across the country, motivated in part by the anti-immigrant rhetoric and the policies of the Trump years.
Why it matters: First-generation Americans comprise 10% of the voting population in the U.S. They are among the fastest-growing portions of the electorate, yet are vastly underrepresented at all levels of elected office.
Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haleycalled President Biden "the most condescending president of my lifetime" after his prime-time speech last week.
Why it matters: Haley is a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential race, which would put her in direct competition with President Biden if he ends up running for a second term.
A rogue pilot who allegedly stole an aircraft and threatened to crash it into a Mississippi Walmart on Saturday has been arrested, according to Tupelo, Mississippi, police chief John Quaka.
Driving the news: The pilot, identified as Cory Wayne Patterson, is expected to face charges of grand larceny and making terroristic threats. The federal government may proceed with further charges, police said.
Riding through upper Michigan on his Harley Davidson this week, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) surveyed Trump country and gamed out his own party's chances in November. Democrats, he concluded, can still think bigger than holding the Senate — with a chance to expand their claim to 52 seats.
What they're saying: "The environment is rough, just given that people are exhausted after the pandemic and we've had inflation issues,” Peters, who chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told an Axios reporter trailing him (by car) past a washed-out road north of Traverse City. “And that's never good for the party in the White House.”
“That's the bad news,” Peters said. “The good news is that people don't really like Republicans."
"Our goal is to protect our incumbents and go on offense in as many races as we can," he said. "Fifty-two would be historic."
Why it matters: Peters — who won his own seat in 2020 by less than 2 percentage points — used his annual motorcycle tour to tout his party's recent legislative victories but also talk to some of the reddest parts of Michigan and supplement reams of polling data.
This year, along with a dozen other riders, Peters logged 1,000 miles — from Muskegon to the Upper Peninsula and back down to the Lansing area — on his Pan America™ 1250.
The big picture: Peters' roadside optimism stands in contrast to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has recently tempered his own party's expectations as Trump-backed nominees appear to struggle in some general election races.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is publicly criticizing Republicans for “trash-talking" his candidates, calling it "treasonous to the conservative cause" in a Washington Examiner op-ed.
Zoom in: At Chandlers Café, a roadside joint known for its homemade pizza and fresh coffee, Peters got credit just for showing up. The population of Harrietta, Michigan, is 151.
“It makes a huge difference for someone in high power to come to a small town and show a face,” said the owner, Amanda Chandler, a self-described independent who struggled to stay open during the lockdown. “From what I hear, he does a great job."
Zoom out: So far, Democrats in tight Senate races have been able to run ahead of Biden, whose own approval ratings have been inching upward.
That’s fueling hopes for retaining incumbent Democratic seats in the Senate — while working toward potential pickups in states including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Cook Political Report even says that a GOP victory in the House is no longer a "foregone conclusion."
But Senate leaders are bracing for their candidates to get roughed up by an onslaught of negative TV ads. “After Labor Day, there’s going to be an unbelievable amount of Republican money going against our candidates,” Peters said. “These are all going to be tight races.”
“I don't want to sugarcoat this too much,” Peters said. “I'm a real realist.”
Between the lines: Peters says a backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade is giving Democrats an advantage in protecting incumbents in New Hampshire, Arizona and Nevada.
He doesn’t mention Georgia, where Sen. Raphael Warnock will face voters after winning a special election in 2020 in a historically conservative state.
The other side: Republican candidates were outspent over the summer. The dynamics could change as voters tune in more seriously after Labor Day and groups like Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with McConnell, unleash some $160 million in ads.
SLF communications director Jack Pandol said that "accountability is coming."
"Democrats dutifully rubber-stamped Joe Biden's toxic agenda in Washington but exhibit Biden amnesia back home," Pandol said. "The more voters learn what they've been up to, the angrier they are at Democrats for destroying their quality of life."
“Republican and Democrat spending will be on parity in most of our target states from now until Election Day and we’re well-positioned to have big wins across the country,” said Chris Hartline, an NRSC spokesman.
What's next: As a survivor of tough races in a deeply divided state, Peters tells incumbents and challengers alike to hit the country roads. “It's important to be in rural areas that have tended to move away from Democrats,” he said. “You've got to go all over your state, but don't ever shy away from going rural.”
Peters isn’t advising every candidate to hop on a Harley.
“That may not be authentic,” he said. “The No. 1 rule of authenticity is, you actually have to be authentic.”
