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A recent poll has found that President Biden’s core supporters are now doubting whether he should stay in the 2024 presidential race.

The poll was conducted by USA TODAY/Suffolk University between Friday and Monday. Pollsters utilizing a probability-proportionate-to-size method telephoned 1,000 respondents living in all U.S. states.

The survey found that more four in ten Democrats said that the Democratic Party should intervene and replace Biden as the nominee. Overall, 54% of the voters polled were in favor of Biden dropping out.

The poll also noted that Trump’s base ‘appeared more solid immediately after the debate,’ according to a press release published by Suffolk University. Only 14% of Republicans said that the Republican Party should replace Trump as nominee, even after his recent conviction.

Pollsters also noted that Trump won the debate, by a margin of nearly five to one, or 50% to 11%. Among Biden supporters, only 28% said that the sitting president won.

‘Most voters cited mental sharpness as a factor in their opinion on the debate performance of both candidates,’ the release noted. ‘Those criticizing the 81-year-old Biden’s performance used words like ‘confused’ and ‘incoherent.” 

‘Supporters of Trump, who is 78, praised their candidate with words like ‘coherent/articulate’ and ‘cognizant/present.’

Biden’s weak debate performance continues to rattle the Democratic Party. On Monday, one of Biden’s longtime Senate colleagues called for a new nominee.

Speaking to Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin called Thursday’s debate ‘a disaster from which Biden cannot recover.’

‘Of course, Trump’s answers were meandering, gobbledygook, and full of lies, BUT they were said with force and directness,’ he said. ‘I also think all incumbent Democratic Senators should write to Biden asking him to release his delegates and step aside so the convention can choose a new candidate.’

‘A couple of governors may need to do the same.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden and Trump campaigns, but did not immediately hear back.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

President Biden slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States, saying it means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do, in a speedy address Monday evening.

The president spoke for less than five minutes – four minutes and 40 seconds to be exact – before turning his back to the press and walking away. 

‘This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States,’ Biden said.

The Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Biden continued his address, saying that the American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on democracy on January 6th makes him ‘unfit’ for public office and the highest office in the land.

‘The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,’ Biden said.

Biden also spoke about the character of the nation’s first president, George Washington, and how he believed power was limited, not absolute.

Biden wrapped his speech and dodged questions from reporters as he left abruptly. 

Reporters shouted questions at Biden, asking him if he plans to drop out of the presidential race following his debate with Trump. 

Biden has not taken questions from the press and has used teleprompters at his events, including a fundraiser in the Hamptons, following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week.

‘Today’s Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes – The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James’ shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf’s ‘case.’ PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!,’ Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social. 

The former president was charged in August 2023 by Special Counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Trump has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

Trump shared his reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on his presidential immunity case, saying it’s a ‘big win for our constitution and democracy,’ according to his Truth Social page. 

‘THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS A MUCH MORE POWERFUL ONE THAN SOME HAD EXPECTED IT TO BE. IT IS BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND CLEARS THE STENCH FROM THE BIDEN TRIALS AND HOAXES, ALL OF THEM, THAT HAVE BEEN USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR, OR WITHER INTO OBSCURITY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!’ Trump posted. 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

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As calls for President Joe Biden to retire have increased in the Democratic Party following Thursday night’s presidential debate against former President Donald Trump, replacing him could prove to be an uphill legal hurdle, albeit one that some political groups are already preparing for. Biden’s troubles come amid a recent series of progressive figures in Congress and the courts who have refused to retire despite pressure from liberal activists.

‘The leverage is pretty much all with President Biden,’ Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Oversight Project – a conservative watchdog group – told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

‘It is much more difficult to forcefully replace him than it would be for him to voluntarily withdraw, and so I expect that is the nature of the conversations. I think the only people right now that are fighting to keep President Biden on the ballot are President Biden, Jill Biden and, interestingly enough, me, because we will sue to make sure his name stays on the ballot.’

Howell added it’s ‘not easy’ to fill a replacement for a presidential candidate, which would create a ‘massive legal and logistical nightmare for the replacement candidate.’

‘There are precedents of candidates dying and other state and local races before, but this is unchartered territory, because it’s presidential and so what you have are basically 50 different steps, sets of rules, laws, procedures and political environments that they have to navigate through,’ Howell said. ‘And so ultimately, whatever they do, it will be so fact dependent that certain states will become more important than others.’

And Biden isn’t the first Democrat politician or liberal political figure to disappoint progressives by refusing such calls to retire.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020 after 27 years in her seat. She was 87 years old when she died during President Trump’s term in office. Amy Coney Barrett was nominated and successfully confirmed to replace her on the bench.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., died in September at age 90. Just hours before her death, she cast her last Senate vote. The seat is now one of this election’s hotly contested seats, with Republican candidate and ex-MLB star Steve Garvey and Rep. Adam Schiff vying for the job. 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., 84, also a former speaker of the House, has faced calls to retire. Instead, Pelosi has doubled down and vowed to seek re-election this year to extend her 36-year House tenure. Pelosi has long been a lightning rod who generates Republican passions and is a boon for conservative fundraising and get-out-the-vote drives.

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – the longest serving Senate party leader in history – also faced growing calls from his party to retire last year. McConnell announced he would step down from his leadership position in November. 

‘There’s not a comparison between him and Biden because Republicans called on McConnell to step down, and McConnell is stepping down,’ Howell added. ‘So, that is an apples to oranges thing.’

The president’s mental acuity became the center of political discourse last month after a bombshell Washington Journal report, which the White House dismissed, revealed that many lawmakers on Capitol Hill had questions about Biden’s mental acuity after many said his aging was apparent in private meetings.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

A highly anticipated ruling by the Supreme Court that former presidents enjoy wide-ranging immunity for their official acts while in the White House was repeatedly praised by former President Trump in the hours after the high court’s blockbuster opinion.

‘BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE,’ Trump wrote in a social media post about the ruling, which likely dealt a major blow to the ongoing prosecution of Trump on charges he aimed to subvert his 2020 election loss to President Biden.

‘THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS A MUCH MORE POWERFUL ONE THAN SOME HAD EXPECTED IT TO BE,’ Trump spotlighted.

The move on Monday by the conservative-dominated court – including three justices nominated by Trump – means that the trial judge in the lower court case against Trump will now have to hold hearings on whether the charges against Trump were based on official acts by the then-president or unofficial ones. 

That process will take time, and it’s extremely unlikely Trump will go on trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election before voters cast ballots in the 2024 rematch between the former president and his Democratic successor.

Trump called it a ‘big win for our Constitution and for democracy’ during an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Brooke Singman.

But Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks, in a conference call with reporters, charged that ‘this decision will give Donald Trump cover to do exactly what he’s been saying he wants to do for months, which is enact revenge and retribution against his political enemies.’

‘This is a pivotal moment for our country. The conservative justices on the court, three of whom are only there because of Donald Trump, just made it easier for him to pursue a path to a dictatorship,’ Fulks argued.

A major question going forward is what kind of impact the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity will have on the Biden-Trump rematch with just over four months to go until the November election.

The president has long charged that Trump is a threat to democracy and his argument is a central tenant of his campaign for a second term in the White House.

And in an address Monday night, Biden hammered home the point.

‘The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,’ the president emphasized.

Some Biden supporters see a silver lining in the move by the Supreme Court.

Longtime Democratic strategist and presidential campaign veteran Maria Carodona said the ‘ruling is a shot in the arm to voters who care about our democracy, our Constitution, and the rule of law. It is a shot in the arm for them to work their butts off to elect President Biden because the Supreme Court ruling was a victory for one person, Donald Trump, and it was a huge loss for the country, and our democracy.’

Voters need to understand that presidents matter when it comes to the make up of the court. Today’s dangerous decision that came out of the Trump-molded MAGA court is proof of that,’ Cardona, a committee member on the Democratic National Committee, argued.

Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo, another veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, emphasized that voters will remember the ruling when they cast their ballot in the autumn.

‘The stakes of the election continue to grow as this activist court has attacked reproductive rights, environmental protection and now the integrity of the ability to hold elected officials accountable for their actions. Voters will remember this in November,’ Caiazzo said.

But longtime Republican consultant and communicator Ryan Williams, who served on a handful of GOP presidential campaigns, spotlighted that the ruling ‘makes it less likely Trump will be in courtrooms before the election. That’s a win for Trump.’

‘The general consensus was that the more serious charges were in the federal cases and by moving them to after the election, they are removed as a distraction during the campaign,’ Ryan added. ‘Trump can now continue to campaign and focus on the election rather than preparing for trial prior to Election Day. That’s a win for him.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

The House Judiciary Committee is suing Attorney General Merrick Garland to obtain recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

The committee, as part of the lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stressed the importance of the ‘verbal and nonverbal context’ of Biden’s answers that could be provided by the audio recordings – especially considering that Hur opted against charging Biden after the interview, in part, because he was viewed as ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

The lawsuit comes amid chaos in the Democratic Party as leaders consider whether Biden should continue with his re-election campaign after the president’s widely panned debate performance last week.

The committee, in its lawsuit, says the president’s invocation of executive privilege over the materials ‘lacks any merit,’ and it asks the court to overrule that assertion of privilege. 

‘This dispute is about a frivolous assertion of executive privilege,’ the lawsuit states. 

As part of the House impeachment inquiry against the president, the committee issued a subpoena to Garland to obtain records related to Hur’s investigation of Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified records. The committee sought materials related to Hur’s interviews with Biden and Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of Biden’s 2017 memoir. 

The Justice Department has provided the committee with transcripts of those interviews, but Garland ‘has refused to produce the audio recordings of the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer.’ 

‘Instead, Attorney General Garland asked that President Biden assert executive privilege over those recordings, and President Biden complied with that request,’ the lawsuit states. 

The committee argues that audio recordings ‘are better evidence than transcripts of what happened during the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer.’ 

‘For example, they contain verbal and nonverbal context that is missing from a cold transcript,’ the committee states. ‘That verbal and nonverbal context is quite important here because the Special Counsel relied on the way that President Biden presented himself during their interview – ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ – when ultimately recommending that President Biden should not be prosecuted for unlawfully retaining and disclosing classified information.’

The committee argued that the audio recordings – not merely the transcripts of them – are ‘the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview.’ 

‘The Committee thus needs those recordings to assess the Special Counsel’s characterization of the President, which he and White House lawyers have forcefully disputed, and ultimate recommendation that President Biden should not be prosecuted,’ the suit states. 

The committee said Biden’s ‘self-serving attempt to shield the audio recording’ of his interview from the public ‘represents an astonishing effort to expand the scope of executive privilege from a constitutional privilege safeguarding certain substantive communications to an amorphous privilege that can be molded to protect things like voice, inflection, tone and pace of speech.’ 

The committee also noted that the transcript of the interview was made public, which essentially ‘waived’ executive privilege.’ 

‘Additionally, the heart of the privilege claim – that Executive Branch employees will be less likely to cooperate with DOJ investigations if they know that audio recordings of their interviews may be released to Congress after DOJ has made transcripts of those same interviews publicly available – is at odds with common sense,’ the lawsuit states. 

‘If the potential for disclosure would chill cooperation, it would be the disclosure of a transcript, which DOJ voluntarily disclosed here, not the disclosure of audio recordings after the transcripts are widely available,’ the lawsuit states. 

The committee argued that because of this, Biden’s invocation of executive privilege ‘lacks any merit.’ 

‘The Committee therefore asks this court to overrule the assertion of executive privilege and order that Attorney General Garland produce the audio recordings of the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer to the committee,’ the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit comes just weeks after the House of Representatives voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress, referring him for criminal charges over defying the congressional subpoenas for the audio recordings.

The Justice Department, though, said it would not prosecute Garland. 

‘Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,’ Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte told House Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter last month. 

Hur, who released his report to the public in February after months of investigation, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents, and he stated that he would not bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. 

Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated ‘sensitive intelligence sources and methods.’

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

In this edition of StockCharts TV‘s The Final Bar, available to watch below, Dave lays out the strong seasonal pattern for the S&P 500 in July, highlights the breakouts in AAPL and TSLA, shares the painful breakdowns in MGM, WM and CCL, and addresses the sudden rise in interest rates.

This video originally premiered on July 1, 2024. Watch on our dedicated Final Bar page on StockCharts TV!

New episodes of The Final Bar premiere every weekday afternoon. You can view all previously recorded episodes at this link.

Today’s DP Trading Room was jam packed! The lead story is definitely the fact that deflation is another possibility that many are not talking about. We don’t know if it will be the final outcome, but we have a link that discusses this possibility: https://hoisington.com/economic_overview.html

Carl also covered the market in general and then showed us how to use the PMO Sort with StockCharts’ Candleglance. It organizes the components and compares their PMO values listing the strongest at the top and the weakest at the bottom. The PMO can be compared among all indexes, stocks and ETFs.

Carl exhibits our new Russell 2000 (IWM) “Under the Hood” chart and explains how we use the SP600 participation readings to understand what the internals might be for IWM.

Both Carl and Erin discussed the new found strength in the Energy sector. Erin points out that Coal is looking particularly strong right now. She shares some symbols from this area with viewers: ARLP, CEIX, HNRG and SXC.

Finally Erin finishes with a look at viewer symbol requests with eye toward the weekly charts and setting entries and exits.

01:15 DecisionPoint Signal Tables

04:09 Market Overview

09:52 Magnificent Seven

14:42 Russell 2000 (IWM)

15:52 Deflation Discussion

19:48 PMO Sort Examples

22:41 Energy Sector Discussion

24:25 Bitcoin

25:38 Gold Miners

26:53 Sector Rotation + Industry Groups to Watch (Coal, Regional Banks)

33:00 Symbol Requests

Watch the latest episode of the DecisionPointTrading Room on DP’s YouTube channel here!

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Use coupon code: DPTRIAL2 at checkout!

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Good morning and welcome to this week’s Flight Path. “Go” bars were the order of the week again for U.S. equities and the end of the week saw a return to strong blue bars. Treasury bond prices also were able to maintain “Go” bars but ended the week showing weakness. U.S. commodity index painted a full week of weaker aqua “Go” bars while the dollar continued to show strength with strong blue bars.

$SPY Remains in “Go” Trend but Struggles with New Highs

Price hit an intra week high again this week but we saw Friday close lower. GoNoGo Trend painted strong blue bars at the end of the week and so we know the trend remains strong. GoNoGo Oscillator has fallen from overbought territory and volume is light as it crashes toward the zero line. So, we have momentum waning but price holding on to trend. We will watch to see what happens as the oscillator gets to zero and we will look for it to find support if the trend is to remain healthy.

Price crept higher this week and we saw another strong blue “Go” bar which makes it 8 in a row. GoNoGo Oscillator has peaked but is still overbought at a value of 5. We will look to see if momentum continues to wane and if so we’ll see a Go Countertrend Correction Icon (red arrow) that will indicate a likely pause and a struggle for prices to go higher in the short term.

Treasury Rates Still in “NoGo” Trend but Paints Weaker Pink Bars

Treasury rates climbed this week after last week’s low and we see that GoNoGo Trend paints a few weaker pink bars. The weight of the evidence still points to a “NoGo” trend but we will watch to see if it holds this week. GoNoGo Oscillator has rallied and is testing the zero level from below. If it is rejected here, we will likely see a new leg down in price.

Dollar Sees Continued Strength as Price Makes New Highs

Price hit new highs this week and GoNoGo Trend painted a week of uninterrupted strong blue “Go” bars. We will look for price to consolidate at these levels using support from prior highs in May. GoNoGo Oscillator has flatlined at a value of 3 and so is in positive territory but not yet overbought. Volume is heavy.

Shares of Nike plunged Friday after the retailer cut its full-year guidance and said it expects sales to drop 10% during its current quarter as it warned of soft sales in China and “uneven” consumer trends across the globe.

The expected 10% first-quarter slump is far below the 3.2% drop that analysts had expected, according to LSEG.

The sneaker giant now expects fiscal 2025 sales to be down mid-single digits, compared to analyst estimates of a 0.9% increase. Nike previously expected sales to grow. The company said Thursday it expects sales in the first half to be down in the high single digits, compared to previous guidance of declines in the low single digits.

“A comeback at this scale takes time,” the retailer’s finance chief Matthew Friend said on a call with analysts. “Although the next few quarters will be challenging, we are confident that we are repositioning Nike to be more competitive with a more balanced portfolio to drive sustainable, profitable, long-term growth.”

The company cut its guidance as it contends with slower online sales, planned declines in classic footwear franchises, “increased macro uncertainty” in the Greater China region and “uneven consumer trends” across Nike’s markets, Friend said. It also expects sales into wholesalers to be slower as it scales new innovations and pulls back on classic franchises.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, the company handily beat earnings estimates as its cost-cutting efforts continue to bear fruit, but Nike fell short on revenue.

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended May 31 was $1.5 billion, or 99 cents per share, compared with $1.03 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier. 

Sales dropped to $12.61 billion, down about 2% from $12.83 billion a year earlier.

In fiscal 2024, Nike posted sales of $51.36 billion, which is flat compared to the prior year. It’s the slowest pace of annual sales growth the company has seen since 2010, excluding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nike executives attributed the sales miss to a range of factors. They said its lifestyle business declined during the quarter and that momentum in its performance business, such as its basketball and running shoes, wasn’t enough to offset it.

Online performance was soft because Nike had a higher share of lifestyle products, more promotions and fewer sales of classic franchises, such as its Air Force 1. It also saw traffic in China decline across all channels beginning in April due to macro conditions in the region.

Despite the traffic decline in China, sales in the region exceeded Wall Street expectations, according to StreetAccount, coming in at $1.86 billion, compared with estimates of $1.79 billion. It was the only geographical segment to top estimates for the period.

Sales in North America, its largest market, came in at $5.28 billion, below StreetAccount expectations of $5.45 billion. 

In Europe, Middle East and Africa, Nike posted revenue of $3.29 billion, compared to estimates of $3.32 billion. In Asia Pacific and Latin America, Nike saw $1.71 billion in sales, compared to estimates of $1.77 billion. 

Still, Friend later warned of the “softer outlook” in China and said had it not been for Chinese marketplace Tmall’s early start to the region’s 618 shopping holiday, sales in the country would’ve fallen short of Nike’s internal expectations.

“The China marketplace remains highly promotional, and we continue to manage both Nike and partners’ inventory carefully,” said Friend. “While our outlook for the near term has softened, we remain confident in Nike’s competitive position in China in the long term.”

Nike’s Converse brand was once again a significant underperformer in the overall results. The division saw revenue plunge 18% to $480 million, largely due to declines in North America and Western Europe.

Over the last few months, the longtime leader of the sneaker and athletic apparel category has found itself in a rough patch, working to stay ahead of a slew of upstart competitors. Its revenue growth has slowed, it’s been criticized for falling behind on innovation and it’s in the process of walking back its direct-sales strategy, which failed to produce the results the company had anticipated. 

Under the strategy shift, Nike had been working to drive sales through its own website and stores rather than through wholesalers like Foot Locker, but it recently began walking back that initiative, telling CNBC in April that it went too far when it moved away from wholesalers.

The strategy can be more profitable and gives companies better control over their brands and customer data, but it can also create logistical headaches and come with unexpected — and costly — hiccups. 

During the quarter, Nike direct revenues came in at $5.1 billion, down 8% compared to the prior year period. Meanwhile, wholesale revenue was up 5% to $7.1 billion, reflecting Nike’s change of heart on direct selling.

According to some analysts, the company’s focus on building out its direct sales strategy led Nike to take its eyes off of innovation — the main attribute that had long made the company stand out. 

As the retailer churned out more and more old favorites, such as the Air Force 1, upstarts like On Running and Hoka wowed runners with brand new designs — and snatched them up as customers. 

Nike has said that it would reduce the amount of products it had on the market in favor of new innovations and is betting that a suite of new styles, along with the 2024 Paris Olympics, can get the company back on solid footing. 

During the company’s conference call, CEO John Donahoe said Nike was accelerating its plans to reduce supply of classic franchises because the brands had performed poorly online, which is expected to affect fiscal 2025 revenue.

“We are taking our near-term challenges head-on, while making continued progress in the areas that matter most to NIKE’s future — serving the athlete through performance innovation, moving at the pace of the consumer and growing the complete marketplace,” Donahoe said in a release. “I’m confident that our teams are lining up our competitive advantages to create greater impact for our business.”

Some of Nike’s challenges are also outside of its control. It has contended with a rough macroeconomic environment that’s seen consumers pull back on sneakers purchases, and it also may be finding itself on the wrong side of trends. Some analysts expect the overall athletic category to face a slowdown this year as denim makes a comeback with consumers and shoppers look to dress up after years of dressing down. 

In the meantime, Nike has focused on cutting costs so it can at least deliver strong profits against unsteady sales. 

In December, it announced a broad restructuring plan to reduce costs by about $2 billion over the next three years. Two months later, Nike said it was shedding 2% of its workforce, or more than 1,500 jobs, so it could invest in its growth areas, such as running, the women’s category and the Jordan brand.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — The United States is producing less than 1% of the wind power it wants to generate by 2030. But an enormous boat promising to change that is about 89% built, and when it’s done next year, the real race to catch up begins.

The ship, named the Charybdis after a mythological Greek sea monster, won’t set sail until next year, potentially after one of the most pro-green energy administrations in history has left the White House. And as Eric Hines, the director of Tufts University’s offshore wind energy graduate program, puts it, “We’re going to need somewhere on the order of five of these installation vessels in just a few years.”

The Biden administration wants the U.S. to generate 30,000 megawatts from wind power within the next five and a half years. As of last year, that figure stood at just 42 megawatts, putting the nation far behind Europe — which added 18,300 megawatts of new wind energy capacity in 2023 alone, according to WindEurope.

The Charybdis under construction at a Brownsville, Texas, shipyard.Dominion

In recent years, constructing massive offshore windmills has come with headwinds from supply chain snags to higher interest rates. But the U.S. faces an added logistical puzzle from a 100-year-old maritime law that, along with those other factors, has contributed to project delays and even cancellations.

The outcome of November’s election isn’t likely to affect the Charybdis, whose operator plans to take advantage of green energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. But the prospect of a new administration much less keen on renewables could hamper additional projects.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed at a New Jersey rally in May that offshore wind installations harm whales, saying, “We are going to make sure that ends on day one. I am going to write it out in an executive order.” (“There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said.)

The first major parts of the boat were laid down in 2020, kicking off a $625 million project between Dominion Energy and Seatrium AmFELS, which is building the massive vessel in its Brownsville, Texas, shipyard. At over 30,000 tons and with 58,000 square feet of deck space, the Charybdis will be able to transport 12 blades at a time, each measuring 357 feet and weighing 60 tons.

We’re going to need somewhere on the order of five of these installation vessels in just a few years.

Tufts University Prof. Eric Hines

Just as important as its technical specs, the boat will also be able to meet the requirements of the Jones Act, a 1920 merchant marine law that says cargo shipped from one point to another within the U.S. must be carried by an American vessel. And so far, there’s no American vessel capable of carrying wind turbine parts directly from shore to installation sites miles off the coast.

The Charybdis’ first project will be Dominion’s offshore wind farm under development 24 miles east of Virginia Beach. Once completed, its 176 turbines are expected to deliver 2,600 megawatts of energy, enough to power over 900,000 homes. But to install its first two pilot turbines, it had to stage the parts in Canada to comply with the Jones Act, adding long travel times and related costs.

“Obviously, you don’t want to install a large project like that,” said Mark Mitchell, the Dominion Energy senior vice president overseeing the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project — which, at $9.8 billion, is currently the largest and priciest in the country.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS