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National

The Justice Department is investigating a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, which left three Black people dead as a "hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism," Attorney General Merrick Garland said Sunday.

The big picture: Sheriff T.K. Waters said at a news conference Sunday the 21-year-old white shooter wore a tactical vest and used an AR-15-style rifle featuring swastikas and a Glock handgun in Saturday's attack at a Dollar General store near Edward Waters University before fatally shooting himself.

"This shooting was racially motivated, and he hated Black people," said Waters, who noted the firearms were purchased legally earlier this year. He said officers found racist manifestos that "detailed the shooter's disgusting ideology of hate."

Waters identified the victims as 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 29-year-old A.J. Laguerre and 19-year-old Jerrald De'Shaun Gallion. Waters identified the suspect as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, from nearby Clay County.

What they're saying: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a statement the "people of Florida stand united in condemning the horrific, racially motivated murder."

 President Biden in an online statement noted that the attack happened near a historically Black university as "our nation marked the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington."

He said that "we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America."

Biden decries Jacksonville shooting: "White supremacy has no place" in U.S.

The DOJ is investigating the attack that left 3 Black people dead as a hate crime.

This video grab shows police cars on the site of a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, August 26, 2023. 

This video grab shows police cars on the site of a shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, on Saturday. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

White supremacy

Politics & Policy

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Sunday he would have certified the 2020 election results, though in a different capacity than then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Driving the news: Ramaswamy was the only candidate during last week's GOP primary debate who was not asked if he felt Pence did the right thing in certifying the 2020 election results. 

Each of the other seven GOP candidates on the debate stage either praised or agreed with Pence's actions on January 6, 2021. 

What they're saying: "I would have done it very differently," Ramaswamy said during an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press" Sunday. 

"I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to reunite this country in that window," Ramaswamy said. 

"What I would have said is, 'This is a moment for a true national consensus,' where there's two elements of what's required for a functioning democracy in America," he said. "One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power." 

Ramaswamy added that he would have asked for single-day voting, paper ballots and government-issued IDs to verify a voter's identity. 

Once those reforms were in place, Ramaswamy said, he would have "certified the election results, served it up to the president" and "declared the reelection campaign pursuant to a free and fair election."

Worth noting: Chuck Todd, NBC News' Political Director and "Meet the Press" moderator, challenged Ramaswamy on previous comments written in his September 2022 book "Nation of Victims" where he seemingly "mocked the entire January 6th aspect." 

"You absolutely criticize Donald Trump for being a sore loser. You write about it in a way of making your point that you think we've become a nation of victims. And right now, on TV, you're doing the exact opposite," Todd said. 

Ramaswamy disputed the claim, telling Todd he would have made different choices compared to Trump in 2020, but "there is a difference between a bad judgment and a crime." 

"Did Donald Trump make all the right judgments? No. I said so then. I say so now. Was that illegal, and should we criminalize it? Absolutely not. But I want to lead this nation forward. That is my goal. Not to look in the rear view mirror," he said. 

Of note: Pence's campaign press secretary, David James, called Ramaswamy's statement "shocking and concerning in its lack of understanding of how our system of government works," in a statement given to NBC News. 

 "In one breathe [sic] he joins Nancy Pelosi and radical progressives in wanting to nationalize our election system, and in another he claims that the Vice President has unilateral authority to decide when to certify elections."

Ramaswamy says he would've handled Jan. 6 differently than Pence

"I think that there was a historic opportunity that he missed to reunite this country in that window," Ramaswamy said.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 White House hopeful, stands in the spin room following Wednesday's Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Vivek Ramaswamy

Elections 2024

This Week With George Stephanopoulos-9 10 47 Am - 9 12 07 Am-2023-08-27

Ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie expressed surprise Sunday over some of his fellow Republican candidates advocating for former President Trump as the party's nominee — even if he's convicted of crimes. 

Driving the news: "The most amazing part of the debate to me, was the idea that, you know, the majority of my competitors believe that you can have a convicted felon as our nominee for president and that they support that and that he could win," Christie said during an interview on ABC's "This Week." 

Christie and ex-Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson were the lone candidates on stage who did not raise their hands to signal support for Trump when asked by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the debate moderators. 

Christie and Hutchinson are among some of the most vocal opponents of Trump, and both have argued that he isn't fit to run for president given his legal troubles. 

What they're saying: "The truth is that, you know, [the GOP] can't have a convicted felon as our nominee for president and expect we're going to win," Christie told ABC News' Martha Raddatz. 

"And I think what it'll mean for folks across the country is four more years of Joe Biden, and for Republican primary voters, they have to think about what that'll mean — potentially a packed Supreme Court, potentially the elimination of the filibuster and a lot more," Christie said.

In a separate interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," Christie also said Trump's claim of a stolen election was "the greatest threat to our country and the greatest threat to our democracy." 

Of note: Despite facing 91 federal and state charges in four separate indictments, he remains the GOP frontrunner and dominates the polls. 

Trump spent 20 minutes inside Georgia's Fulton County jail on Thursday being booked on charges there and is the first former president to have a mugshot. 

"Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States," Christie said during the debate Wednesday.

Christie: Fellow GOP candidates' Trump support "most amazing part" of debate

"The majority of my competitors believe that you can have a convicted felon as our nominee for president and that they support that."

Chris Christie

Labor shortages are plaguing high-stakes sectors like law enforcement, health care and aviation. 

Why it matters: Understaffing in some industries can have dire consequences for public health and safety — for example, a shortage of air traffic controllers has led to increase in near-miss airplane collisions, the New York Times recently reported.

 At the same time, a lack of available workers in AI and manufacturing threatens to slow productivity and growth in areas where the U.S. is otherwise poised for huge leaps forward. 

That's a problem not just for companies in those sectors, but for the broader economy.

Zoom in: Parents are feeling the labor squeeze from multiple fronts as they try to take care of their kids.

Schools across the country are understaffed, without enough teachers, bus drivers, or social workers.

The child care industry is also dealing with a shortage of available workers. Parents often either can't find care or can't afford it, which can cause them to stay on the sidelines of the labor force — making the worker shortage that much worse.

Police departments are also struggling to hire. 

So are prisons — 21% of correctional officer positions were unstaffed in federal prisons, according to a March report. A staffing shortage throughout the Bureau of Prisons is increasing incidents of violence and leading to more health issues for prisoners.

How it works: Americans are getting older, and there are fewer younger people of working age. Add to that a tight labor market — unemployment in the U.S. is very low — and there simply aren't enough workers in the U.S. to meet demand.

Some of these high-stakes shortages are about wages. Government jobs, like teaching and law enforcement, typically can't raise pay high enough to compete with better-paying private sector jobs.

Some of them are about working conditions: Employers trying to fill in-person, high-stress roles are competing with jobs that offer more flexibility, including remote options.

And some of them are about skills: There are only so many people with a ton of expertise creating AI programs, for example. That's the problem in nursing, too.

What we're watching: For workers, this isn't a crisis. A tight labor market means higher pay, better benefits and more congenial employers.

UPS likely wouldn't have given such a generous contract to its unionized workforce — with some drivers earning $170,000 a year — if not for the tight labor market.

Plenty of employers have figured out ways to adjust to this new normal — particularly in industries like retail and restaurants.

They've raised pay significantly, are relying more on automation (think self-checkouts gaining popularity), or cut their hours, or have made it work with some combination of those tactics.

But not every sector can take these steps. A lot of employers can raise wages and attract what workers are available, but the sectors facing these high-stakes shortages don't necessarily have that option.

The bottom line: Absent a surge in immigration, a surprise flood of sidelined women into the workforce, or a recession that drives down demand for employees, demographic changes mean that labor shortages will likely stick around.

Labor shortages plague high-stakes industries

Some high-stakes industries haven't adapted to the tight labor market.

Labor

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

Economy

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Fully remote workers are especially disconnected from their workplaces' "mission and purpose," according to a new Gallup survey released Thursday.

Why it matters: The results adds to a slew of signs in the post-pandemic era — including viral trends like "quiet quitting" to "bare minimum Mondays" — that highlight the growing distance between workers and their employers.

Despite a push by some employers to get workers back in the office, a recent Flex Index report found that the portion of U.S. companies requiring full-time in-office work has been decreasing in 2023.

State of play As of mid-2023, 34% of U.S. workers overall feel engaged at work, up two percentage points from last year, the survey found.

Fully remote workers reported higher levels of engagement than their in-office colleagues, but Gallup said its "most worrying finding" was a drop in the connection that fully remote workers feel to their workplace's mission and purpose.

Only 28% of fully remote workers strongly agreed that they felt connected to their workplace's mission and purpose — a record low.

By comparison, 35% of hybrid and 33% of on-site workers felt their companies' missions made them feel their work is important.

Between the lines: The contrast between remote workers being more engaged at work but less connected to the workplace mission is a "difference between teams and managers and executive leadership," Brian Elliott, an executive advisor on the future of work, told Axios.

Remote workers can feel very connected with their teams, with whom they have regular meetings, without the same level of engagement with the broader company mission, Elliott said.

It makes a difference whether the remote workers are employed at companies that are mandating returns to the office, he noted.

The big picture: "If the mission and purpose of your organization is making the world better in some way, shape, or form," Elliott said, but the company has mandated a return-to-office, "what you're really doing is you're signaling to remote workers that they are second-class citizens."

Workers who are parents or caregivers, have disabilities, or are people of color often want or need more workplace flexibility. So, return-to-office mandates can signal that executives will award opportunities and promotions to other workers who comply, Elliott said.

Yet regardless of whether workers are hybrid, remote or in office, "we're talking about numbers that are sitting below 40%," Elliott said.

Companies should be more focused on increasing employee engagement overall. "The starting point is trust, autonomy. That's actually what's going to drive their engagement to your purpose," he added.

The bottom line: Employers who, spooked by talk of "quiet quitting," push workers to return to office, risk creating a "doom loop" since those policies signal a lack of trust in workers, Elliott said.

"If you don't trust them, they actually are going to work less hard for you, because a lack of trust is not something that creates a lot of loyalty or a lot of inspiration to go the extra mile," Elliott said.

Remote workers' connection to companies' missions hits record low

The results adds to a slew of signs that highlight the growing distance between workers and their employers.

Remote work

Labor Market

Latino

Axios Latino

Museums that focus on racial violence and antisemitism have begun using holograms, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to allow visitors to have simulated "conversations" with Holocaust survivors and hear the words of enslaved people.

Why it matters: The use of technology such as generative AI to create immersive displays is aimed at fighting bigotry — and comes amid rising concern that AI also can fuel racism by amplifying bias from human-generated content on the internet.

Zoom in: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Skokie, Ill., and The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery, Ala., are among the institutions aggressively deploying new technology to vividly tell harrowing aspects of history.

How it works: At the Illinois museum, holograms of actual Holocaust survivors and witnesses can respond to questions from visitors.

A museum employee feeds the questions into a computer, which then uses a tailored AI system that develops an answer, generates audio sounding like the survivor's voice, and creates a video of them image "speaking." 

The holograms can answer questions ranging from whether they believe in God to what they think about genocide, said Kelley Szany, the museum's senior VP of education and exhibitions.

If a visitor asks a question the system can't answer, it might have the hologram acknowledge that it doesn't know — but then eventually it "learns" an answer after gathering more information from the cloud.

"The system gets smarter with each question," Szany said. "If they might not have an answer at the moment, they're going to find it."

A period barbershop comes to life with holographic barbers at the Greenwood Rising History Center, a museum dedicated to telling the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

A period barbershop comes to life with holographic barbers at the Greenwood Rising History Center, a museum dedicated to telling the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Photo: Russell Contreras/Axios

Alabama's Legacy Museum — located on a site where enslaved people once were sold — takes a different approach.

It features holograms of actors portraying enslaved people, using their words from saved writings or testimonies in oral histories.

The holograms are activated when visitors get close to a reconstructed holding cell.

AI, holograms help museums tackle Holocaust, slavery

New technology helps sheds light on horrors of racism and bigotry.

Axios

Sunday's top stories

Biden decries Jacksonville shooting: "White supremacy has no place" in U.S.

Ramaswamy says he would've handled Jan. 6 differently than Pence

Christie: Fellow GOP candidates' Trump support "most amazing part" of debate

Labor shortages plague high-stakes industries

Remote workers' connection to companies' missions hits record low

AI, holograms help museums tackle Holocaust, slavery

Trump scores huge mug shot windfall

China's slow-moving economic disaster

Charted: The financial aid divide

Trump allies face ruinous cash squeeze after Georgia indictment