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The Hill
23 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump demands official overseeing jobs data be fired after dismal employment report
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for the firing of the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported. Trump in a post on his social media platform alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired. 'I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump said on Truth Social. 'She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.' Friday's jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated. McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants. Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from 125,000, and in June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%. 'No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,' Trump wrote. 'She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes.' The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent U.S. market indexes about 1.5% lower Friday. While the jobs numbers are often the subject of political spin, economists and Wall Street investors — with millions of dollars at stake — have always accepted U.S. government economic data as free from political manipulation.
Hamilton Spectator
23 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
El Salvador opens path for Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Why critics aren't surprised
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's Legislative Assembly pushed through a constitutional reform overnight eliminating presidential term limits, fueling concerns Friday that it paves the way for President Nayib Bukele to indefinitely stay in power. Watchdogs and critics of the self-described 'world's coolest dictator' said they've seen this coming for years, watching Bukele's administration slowly chip away at democratic institutions, attack opponents and consolidate power in the president's hands. Bukele, who regularly posts streams of tongue-in-cheek remarks on social media, remained notably silent Friday. His government didn't respond to multiple requests for comment. 'It's not surprising. But that doesn't mean it's not severe,' said Claudia Ortiz, one of the country's few remaining opposition lawmakers. 'The implication of this is more concentration of power, more risk of abuse of the rights of Salvadorans ... and the complete dismantling of all democratic checks and balances.' Here's what happened overnight in El Salvador On Thursday night, Bukele's New Ideas party and its allies approved changes to El Salvador's constitution, which were jammed through Congress by the party's supermajority. The changes will: 1. Allow for indefinite presidential reelection, wiping out an existing ban on reelection that Bukele dodged last year when he sought reelection. 2. Extend presidential terms to six years from five. 3. Eliminate the second round of elections, where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off. The vote passed with 57 in favor and three opposed. Damian Merlo, a U.S. lobbyist and consultant hired by Bukele's administration, defended the changes, noting that many European countries don't have term limits, and said the move only gives Bukele the option of reelection, not an automatic extension of his mandate. 'It's up to the people to decide who the leader will be,' Merlo said. 'It's been made very clear by the electorate they are very happy with the president and his political party — and this move represents the will of the people of El Salvador.' Why watchdogs aren't surprised Ortiz, the opposition congresswoman, called the defense 'absurd,' and said that Merlo was citing countries — Germany and France — with democratic systems of government answering to the countries' parliaments. In El Salvador, power is now entirely concentrated in the hands of Bukele, she said. Bukele, 44, was first elected president in 2019 after founding the New Ideas party, casting aside the country's traditional parties thoroughly discredited by corruption and lack of results. Bukele's highly controlled messaging of beating back the country's gangs and rooting out corruption have gained traction in El Salvador, especially as homicide rates have sharply dropped. But critics say many of the moves he has justified as tackling corruption and violence have actually whittled away at the country's democracy. Over the years, his attacks on opponents and critics have gradually escalated. In recent months, things have come to a head as Bukele has grown emboldened by his new alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump . A number of high profile arrests and a slew of other actions have forced more than 100 members of civil society — lawyers, activists and journalists — to flee their country as political exiles in the span of months. A look back at some of the actions he's taken 4. 2020: Bukele showed up to the country's Legislative Assembly with armed soldiers to pressure lawmakers to approve one of his proposals. 5. 2021: a newly elected legislature controlled by his party purged the country's courts , including the Supreme Court. The lawmakers stacked the courts with loyalists. 6. 2022: Bukele announced a 'state of emergency' to beat back El Salvador's gangs. The move suspended some constitutional rights, and has allowed the government to arrest 86,000 Salvadorans — more than 1% of the country's population — with little evidence. Detainees held in prisons have little access to due process. The government also passed an elections redistricting law that critics said would stack elections in favor of Bukele's party, which was already very popular. 7. 2023: Bukele opened a mega-prison for gangs, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Venezuelan deportees from the U.S. were detained for months this year. The prison has been the source of accusations of mass human rights abuses . 8. 2024: Bukele sought reelection, despite El Salvador's constitution clearly blocking consecutive presidential terms. In an interview with The Associated Press, the country's vice president denied last year that El Salvador had become a police state and refused to answer questions about whether he and Bukele would seek a third term. Following his landslide victory, Bukele railed against critics and press. Intensifying his crackdown in 2025 This year, watchdogs have warned that Bukele has ramped up his crackdown on dissent, emboldened by his new alliance with Trump. 9. In May, police violently repressed a peaceful protest near Bukele's house asking the president for help in stopping the eviction of their rural community. 10. Shortly after, the government announced it was passing a 'foreign agents' law, similar to those used by governments in Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Belarus to silence dissent by exerting pressure on organizations that rely on overseas funding. 11. Police have arrested a number of high profile critics. Among them was Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer for a top human rights organization. At a court appearance in June, a shackled López escorted by police shouted: 'They're not going to silence me, I want a public trial. ... I'm a political prisoner.' The government also arrested prominent constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya after he called Bukele a 'dictator' and a 'despot' on live TV. 12. In July, López's organization Cristosal announced it was evacuating all staff from El Salvador in the face of intensifying repression. It comes amid a flight of critics and other civil society leaders. What critics saying The recent constitutional reform has fueled a new wave of criticism by civil society in the Central American nation, with leaders saying that Bukele's government has finally done away with one of its last democratic norms. Roxana Cardona, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the Movement of Social Justice and Citizen Control, said 'a democratic state has been transformed into an autocracy.' Cardona was among those to provide legal representation for Venezuelans detained in El Salvador and other Salvadoran youth accused of being gang members. 'Today, democracy has died. A technocracy has been born. Today, we live in a dictatorship,' she said. Others, like human rights lawyer Jayme Magaña, said the idea of alternating power, crucial in a country that still has decades of civil war and dictatorships of the past simmering in its recent memory, has been broken. Magaña said she worried for the future. 'The more changes are made to the system of government, the more we see the state's repression of the Salvadoran population intensifying,' she said. —— Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
A landmark of combat journalism, ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka' is a pummeling dispatch from Ukraine's frontline
We know from headlines that small-scale technologies such as drones have transformed war, most urgently affecting Ukraine's ability to stay in a bruising battle for its existence against Russia. But it's done the same for covering war too, especially the kind of fleet, up-close dispatch of which we can now say Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov is a master. The Associated Press correspondent's follow-up to his harrowing, Oscar-winning '20 Days in Mariupol,' which rendered the first weeks of Russia's invasion inside a city under siege, is another intimate perspective on his country's devastation. But this time it's from the frontlines of Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive, specifically one brigade's nightmarish trek to liberate a Russian-occupied town. In its heart-stopping intimacy — courtesy of helmet-cams, drones and the foxhole connection between citizen soldier and countryman journalist — '2000 Meters to Andriivka' is a war chronicle like no other. Right away, Chernov introduces us to war's chaos with bodycam footage from a Ukrainian soldier named Piro. It's a dugout POV capturing how a lull marked by jokes and cigarettes can quickly become enemy fire, screaming and artillery shells flying. A retreat is abandoned when the platoon's armored carrier gets stuck. In the ensuing scramble, comrades are hit and we hear a resigned, 'That's it for me.' Suddenly this view feels less like one from a trench but a grave. No wonder Chernov's measured narration sounds bleaker. His speculative dread from 'Mariupol' has been replaced by a fact-driven weariness. He and AP colleague Alex Babenko press on, embedding themselves in a battalion tasked with a one-mile push to retake the town of Andriivka near a Russian stronghold. The path, however, is a thin ribbon of forest hiding Russians in trenches, fortified on each side by open minefields. Also, the designation 'forest' seems generous: The gnarled and stripped trees look broken, suggesting an open wasteland instead of a battleground that could provide cover. They've clearly already seen plenty of destruction, and by the end of the film, they'll have seen more. Chernov tells us that one soldier described this unrecognizable homeland to him as like 'landing on a planet where everything is trying to kill you.' The first-person footage as the group advances is breathless and dense with gunfire, yelling and the sense that each inch will be hard-won on the way to planting that Ukrainian flag in Andriivka, which, from drone shots, already looks decimated. (The film is broken into chapters indicating meters gained.) 'I came to fight, not to serve,' says this brigade's war dog of a leader, a former warehouse worker named Fedya who at one point is shot but makes his way back to the mission after being evacuated for treatment. Still, during long foxhole waits, when the only visible smoke is from a cigarette, Chernov's gentle off-camera queries to Fedya's men (ranging from the hopelessly young to a 40-something new grandfather) elicit touching optimism for a return to normal life: a shower, a job, friendly rivalries over trivial matters, the chance to smoke less, to fix a toilet back home, to rebuild. Then Chernov's voiceover comes in for the softly spoken hammer-blow peek into the future: which of these guys will die in later battles or perhaps never be found. This is gutting stuff. There's never been as immersive a war documentary as '2000 Meters in Andriivka,' cleaving as it does to the swings between peril and blessed boredom, mixing overhead shots (including a suicide drone's vantage) and underground views like a dystopian saga. War is hell, but Ukraine's survival is paramount. The senselessness, however, seems a constant. 'Why are you here?' a Ukrainian soldier barks at a captured Russian, who mutters back, 'I don't know why we're here.'
