Thought of the Day
You can’t change someone who doesn’t see an issue in their actions. You can only change how you react to them.
July 29th 2025
Former Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper will run for Senate in 2026
By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will run for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, giving Democrats a proven statewide winner in an open-seat race that is expected to be one of the most competitive 2026 contests.
Cooper made the announcement Monday with a video released on social media and his campaign website. The former two-term governor will immediately become the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley plans to run for the GOP nomination, with President Donald Trump’s blessing, according to two people familiar with his thinking who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly before an official announcement.
Whatley, the former North Carolina GOP chairman, received Trump’s endorsement after the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, passed on the seat.
Cooper’s candidacy is a big recruiting win for Democrats, who see the seat as a top pick-up opportunity in what will be a challenging year. To retake the majority in 2026, Democrats need to net four seats, and most of the contests are in states that Trump easily won last year. Trump won North Carolina by about 3 percentage points, one of his closest margins of victory.
Trump endorsed Whatley on his Truth Social platform Thursday night, posting that should he run, “Mike would make an unbelievable Senator from North Carolina.”
Video focuses on the middle class
Cooper’s video announcement emphasized the middle class, which he said is in danger of being eliminated in America with unfavorable election outcomes next year. With no mention of Trump, Cooper said “politicians in D.C.” are “running up our debt, ripping away our health care” and “cutting help for the poor,” even as they “give tax breaks to billionaires.”
“That’s wrong. And I’ve had enough,” Cooper added.
Ex-U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel already has been campaigning for the Democratic nomination for months. Reached by phone, Nickel said he would release on Tuesday a statement about his political future. Party primaries would be March 3.
State Democrats anticipating Nickel would stand aside quickly rallied around Cooper.
Cooper “is one of the best champions North Carolina has ever had, and we are confident he will flip this seat in 2026,” state Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said in a release. Current Democratic Gov. Josh Stein also endorsed Cooper on Monday.
Cooper’s political history goes back to 1980s
Cooper, 68, has been on statewide ballots going back a quarter-century — serving 16 years previously as attorney general before being first elected governor in 2016.
With a political career going back nearly 40 years, Cooper has had a knack for winning in a state where the legislature and appeals courts are now dominated by Republicans. State law barred Cooper from seeking a third consecutive gubernatorial term. He spent the spring on a teaching gig at Harvard.
“I never really wanted to go to Washington. I just wanted to serve the people of North Carolina right here, where I’ve lived all my life,” Cooper said in the video. “But these are not ordinary times.”
State and national Democrats were longing for Cooper to join the race well before Tillis announced June 29 that he would not seek a third term. That news came after Trump threatened to back a primary candidate against him as Tillis opposed Medicaid reductions in the president’s tax break and spending cut package,
North Carolina Democrats on Senate losing streak
Democrats haven’t won a Senate race since 2008 in North Carolina, where independent voters tend to vote Republican in federal elections. Statewide races can be financially exorbitant because there are so many television markets — hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be spent in the race.
As governor, Cooper steered the state through the coronavirus pandemic, Hurricanes Helene and Florence and a law that became an early flashpoint in the culture wars over access to public restrooms by transgender people. That “bathroom bill” was rolled back early in Cooper’s first term, and the state’s economy soared during Cooper’s tenure.
While Cooper also managed to work with Republican lawmakers to get Medicaid expansion approved and a landmark greenhouse gases law enacted, he fell short in stopping legislation that widely expanded private school vouchers and narrowed abortion rights.
Cooper’s perceived accomplishments raised his national profile in 2024, making him a potential running mate for Kamala Harris until he said it “just wasn’t the right time” for him and for North Carolina.
Republicans panning Cooper’s long record
Republicans on Monday immediately jumped on Cooper’s vast political record in an attempt to paint him as having radical views.
The Senate Leadership Fund, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans, released a social media video blasting in part Cooper’s gubernatorial vetoes of legislation that barred transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in schools and that directed sheriffs to comply with federal immigration agents’ requests to detain certain jail inmates. The bills ultimately became law after veto overrides.
Republicans also have cited a gubernatorial administration they say was slow to respond to Helene and executive orders that restricted businesses and school instruction too long during the pandemic. As for the roaring state economy, Republicans credit themselves through lower taxes and deregulation.
“There are people you trust in the driver’s seat. Roy Cooper isn’t one of them,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee said in its own video. “Roy Cooper isn’t just off course — he’s a wreck.”
Tillis’ retirement announcement heartened far-right Republicans and strong Trump supporters who have been unhappy for years with his willingness to challenge Trump’s actions and his Cabinet agency choices.
Republicans had deferred to Lara Trump, who is a North Carolina native, North Carolina State University graduate and a popular former RNC co-chair with Whatley during the 2024 election campaign. She posted on the social media platform X on Thursday that she would not seek the Senate seat. Another potential candidate, first-term Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., said over the weekend he would seek reelection instead.
Wall Street coasts for now ahead of a week packed with potential flashpoints
By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes drifted through a quiet Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than President Donald Trump had earlier threatened. Many details of the trade deal are still to be worked out, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets.
The S&P 500 was nearly flat and edged up by less than 0.1% to set an all-time high for a sixth straight day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 64 points, or 0.1%, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.3% to its own record.
Tesla rose 3% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8%.
Other companies in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries were strong, continuing their run from last week after Alphabet said it was increasing its spending on AI chips and other investments to $85 billion this year. Chip company Advanced Micro Devices rose 4.3%, and server-maker Super Micro Computer climbed 10.2%.
But an 8.3% drop for Revvity helped to keep the market in check. The company in the life sciences and diagnostics businesses reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than Wall Street expected, but its forecast for full year profit disappointed analysts.
Companies are broadly under pressure to deliver solid growth in profits following big jumps in their stock prices the last few months. Much of the gain was due to hopes that Trump would walk back some of his stiff proposed tariffs, and critics say the U.S. stock market looks expensive unless companies produce bigger profits.
All told, the S&P 500 added 1.13 to 6,389.77 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 64.36 to 44,837.56, and the Nasdaq composite rose 70.27 to 21,178.58.
More fireworks may be ahead this week. “This is about as busy as a week can get in the markets,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
Hundreds of U.S. companies are lined up to report how much profit they made during the spring, with nearly a third of the businesses in the S&P 500 index scheduled to deliver updates. That includes market heavyweights Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Those companies have grown so huge that their stock movements can almost dictate what the overall S&P 500 index does. Microsoft alone is worth $3.8 trillion.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates.
Trump has been angrily calling for the Fed to cut interest rates, a move that could give the economy a boost. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell insists that he wants more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. Lower interest rates can fuel inflation, and the economy only recently came out of its scarring run where inflation briefly topped 9%.
The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that Fed officials will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump’s appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024.
This week will also feature several potentially market-moving updates about the economy. On Tuesday will come reports on how confident U.S. consumers are feeling and how many jobs openings U.S. employers were advertising. Wednesday will show the first estimate of how quickly the U.S. economy grew during the spring, and economists expect to see a slowdown from the first three months of the year.
On Thursday, the latest measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use will arrive. A modest reading could give the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates in the short term, while a hotter-than-expected figure could make it more cautious.
And Friday will bring an update on how many more workers U.S. employers hired during June than they fired.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of all that action. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.41% from 4.40% late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, rose to 3.92% from 3.91%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following the announcement of the trade deal’s framework.
Chinese stocks rose as officials from the world’s second-largest economy prepared to meet with a U.S. delegation in Sweden for trade talks. Stocks climbed 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai.
Indexes were mixed across the rest of Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% for one of the world’s bigger losses.
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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Football season looms with no clear guidance in athlete battles to win more eligibility from NCAA
By TERESA M. WALKER AP Sports Writer
The stream of lawsuits across the country from college athletes trying to grab another season of eligibility appears ready to fizzle out for a bit.
With fall football practice cranking up this week, players still hoping for a judge allowing them to take the field may be left waiting for a ruling that likely won’t help them compete again.
“We’re at a point in the summer where I think any athlete out there is going to know that it’s probably too late to file a case and be able to get relief on it,” said Sam Ehrlich, a professor of legal studies at Boise State studying the 2021 Alston ruling’s effect on college athletics.
Relief on a larger question surrounding eligibility may be a while coming, too: In cases from California to Wisconsin, judges have provided inconsistent results for players seeking legal help for another season, and it may very well be a topic settled for good by a higher court.
Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia is perhaps the highest-profile athlete to win his court fight. The New Mexico State transfer sued the NCAA last fall, arguing that his junior college years should not count against his eligibility, citing the potential losses in earnings from name, image and likeness deals. U.S. District Judge William Campbell Jr. in Tennessee granted a preliminary injunction, ordering the NCAA to allow Pavia to play.
The NCAA is appealing Campbell’s decision but granted a blanket waiver that will allow an extra year of eligibility for Pavia and other athletes who played at non-NCAA Division I schools before enrollment if they were going to exhaust their eligibility this year.
Pavia won. Others, such as Wisconsin cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean, have lost or are in limbo.
Practice starts Wednesday for Southeastern Conference members Vanderbilt and Tennessee. Chris Bellamy and Targhee Lambson are among four football players waiting on the same federal judge who gave Pavia another season of football last December.
Some schools have helped by filing waivers. Others wait and hold a spot, letting the athlete fight the legal battle.
“They’re just kind of in limbo in the transfer portal because schools don’t really know whether they’re going to have eligibility,” Ehrlich said. “It’s a really weird situation right now.”
The NCAA would like Congress to grant limited liability protection to help address all the lawsuits over eligibility. NCAA President Charlie Baker noted in June that athletes had five years to play four seasons for about a century, a situation that changed recently. Baker told The Associated Press then that the NCAA has won more of these cases than the association lost.
“But the uncertainty it creates, the consequences of this for the next generation of young people if you play this thing out, are enormous,” Baker said. “Moving away from an academic calendar to sort of no calendar for college sports is hugely problematic.”
Duke coach Manny Diaz thought such eligibility issues would be addressed after the House settlement, which took effect July 1.
“All I have been told is once they got House out of the way they are going to double back on a lot of these oddities and make sure eligibility is tied into a college career,” Diaz said at ACC media days. “We don’t want nine-year guys playing the sport.”
Thanks to the extra season added to careers for the coronavirus pandemic, the college eligibility calendar has been scrambled a bit. Pavia will be playing his sixth season after starting with two at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior college, then two more at New Mexico State.
Fullback Hayden Large played three NAIA seasons at Dordt before transferring to Iowa, where he will be playing his sixth season this fall after being granted another year.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz sees a simple solution in giving players five years to play five seasons. He’s also in favor of players who start in junior college having an extra year, even as he sees the need for a limit even if he doesn’t know what that should be.
“If a guy during his first year ends up being able to play five or six games, why not let him play?” Ferentz said. “It’s all about creating opportunity, in my mind. I’ve never understood the rationale for not doing that.”
Ehrlich is attempting to track all lawsuits against the NCAA, ranging from the House settlement;name, image and likeness litigation; college athletes as employees; and Title IX lawsuits, along with other cases. Ehrlich has tracked more than a dozen lawsuits involving eligibility, and common factors are hard to come by.
He saw three very different rulings from judges appointed by President Donald Trump. Standards of evidence for a preliminary injunction also have varied from judge to judge. Three cases have been appealed, with other motions helping delay some waiver requests.
Ehrlich said there remains the chance a case lands before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I don’t see these cases drying up anytime soon,” Ehrlich said.
Super Simple Shrimp Tacos
Preparation Time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 8 minutes
Serving Size: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 16 frozen shrimp
- 4 flour tortillas
- 1 lime
- 1 avocado
- 1 tbsp. avocado oil or cooking oil of choice
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cracked black pepper
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- optional: hot sauce and other toppings of your choice
Directions
- Thaw shrimp in a bowl of cold water for 1 hour or in the fridge overnight.
- Slice avocado and set aside.
- In a bowl with a lid, combine shrimp with spices and shake until shrimp are coated evenly.
- Sauté shrimp in a saucepan on medium heat with avocado oil or cooking oil of your choice for 3 minutes on each side or until it reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees f.
- Turn down the heat and warm each tortilla for about 15 seconds on each side.
- Assemble tacos with 4 shrimp each, some sliced avocado, a squeeze of lime juice and (optional) hot sauce/other toppings of your choice.
July 28th 2025
Thought of the Day
Don’t cry over spilled milk.
US-EU deal sets a 15% tariff on most goods and averts the threat of a trade war with a global shock
By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — The United States and the European Union agreed on Sunday to a trade framework setting a 15% tariff on most goods, staving off — at least for now — far higher imports on both sides that might have sent shock waves through economies around the globe.
The sweeping announcement came after President Donald Trump and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen met briefly at Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland. Their private sit-down culminated months of bargaining, with the White House deadline Friday nearing for imposing punishing tariffs on the EU’s 27 member countries.
“It was a very interesting negotiation. I think it’s going to be great for both parties,” Trump said. The agreement, he said, was “a good deal for everybody” and “a giant deal with lots of countries.”
Von der Leyen said the deal “will bring stability, it will bring predictability, that’s very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Many facets will require more work
As with other, recent tariff agreements that Trump announced with countries including Japan and the United Kingdom, some major details remain pending in this one.
Trump said the EU had agreed to buy some $750 billion worth of U.S. energy and invest $600 billion more than it already is in America — as well as make a major military equipment purchase. He said tariffs “for automobiles and everything else will be a straight across tariff of 15%” and meant that U.S. exporters ”have the opening up of all of the European countries.”
Von der Leyen said the 15% tariffs were “across the board, all inclusive” and that “indeed, basically the European market is open.”
At a later news conference away from Turnberry, she said the $750 billion in additional U.S. energy purchases was actually over the next three years — and would help ease the dependence on natural gas from Russia among the bloc’s countries.
“When the European Union and the United States work together as partners, the benefits are tangible,” Von der Leyen said, noting that the agreement “stabilized on a single, 15% tariff rate for the vast majority of EU exports” including cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
“15% is a clear ceiling,” she said.
But von der Leyen also clarified that such a rate wouldn’t apply to everything, saying that both sides agreed on “zero for zero tariffs on a number of strategic products,” like all aircraft and component parts, certain chemicals, certain generic drugs, semiconductor equipment, some agricultural products, natural resources and critical raw materials.
It is unclear if alcohol will be included in that list.
“And we will keep working to add more products to this list,” she said, while also stressing that the “framework means the figures we have just explained to the public, but, of course, details have to be sorted out. And that will happen over the next weeks.”
Further EU approval needed
In the meantime, there will be work to do on other fronts. Von der Leyen had a mandate to negotiate because the European Commission handles trade for member countries. But the Commission must now present the deal to member states and EU lawmakers, who will ultimately decide whether or not to approve it.
Before their meeting began, Trump pledged to change what he characterized as “a very one-sided transaction, very unfair to the United States.”
“I think both sides want to see fairness,” the Republican president told reporters.
Von der Leyen said the U.S. and EU combined have the world’s largest trade volume, encompassing hundreds of millions of people and trillions of dollars and added that Trump was “known as a tough negotiator and dealmaker.”
“But fair,” Trump said.
Trump has spent months threatening most of the world with large tariffs in hopes of shrinking major U.S. trade deficits with many key trading partners. More recently, he had hinted that any deal with the EU would have to “buy down” a tariff rate of 30% that had been set to take effect.
But during his comments before the agreement was announced, the president was asked if he’d be willing to accept tariff rates lower than 15%, and he said “no.”
First golf, then trade talk
Their meeting came after Trump played golf for the second straight day at Turnberry, this time with a group that included sons Eric and Donald Jr. In addition to negotiating deals, Trump’s five-day visit to Scotland is built around golf and promoting properties bearing his name.
A small group of demonstrators at the course waved American flags and raised a sign criticizing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who plans his own Turnberry meeting with Trump on Monday.
Other voices could be heard cheering and chanting “Trump! Trump!” as he played nearby.
On Tuesday, Trump will be in Aberdeen, in northeastern Scotland, where his family has another golf course and is opening a third next month. The president and his sons plan to help cut the ribbon on the new course.
The U.S. and EU seemed close to a deal earlier this month, but Trump instead threatened the 30% tariff rate. The deadline for the Trump administration to begin imposing tariffs has shifted in recent weeks but is now firm and coming Friday, the administration insists.
“No extensions, no more grace periods. Aug. 1, the tariffs are set, they’ll go into place, Customs will start collecting the money and off we go,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told “Fox News Sunday” before the EU deal was announced. He added, however, that even after that “people can still talk to President Trump. I mean, he’s always willing to listen.”
Without an agreement, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.
If Trump eventually followed through on his threat of tariffs against Europe, meanwhile, it could have made everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the United States.
“I think it’s great that we made a deal today, instead of playing games and maybe not making a deal at all,” Trump said. “I think it’s the biggest deal ever made.”
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim in Cincinnati and Samuel Petrequin in London contributed to this report.
Virginia Tech is reviewing claim that coach tried to lure NC Central player into transfer portal
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Virginia Tech is looking into an allegation by North Carolina Central’s coach that a Hokies assistant improperly tried to lure running back J’Mari Taylor into the transfer portal last season.
Virginia Tech released a statement on Saturday saying it was made aware of the allegation a day earlier.
ESPN reported that the allegation surfaced when N.C. Central coach Trei Oliver was asked Friday what was the most ridiculous moment he has faced in coaching. Oliver responded that he discovered a Virginia Tech assistant coach on the sideline for one of the Eagles’ games in 2024 and said that assistant was trying to contact his running back. Taylor, a star RB, eventually transferred to Virginia.
WRAL News reported that Oliver told reporters: “Virginia Tech was actually on my sideline recruiting our running back. That was pretty bold. I couldn’t believe it.”
Oliver said he was told the Virginia Tech assistant was “just down here visiting.” Added Oliver: “But I knew what it was.”
In its statement provided to The Associated Press, Virginia Tech said: “We were made aware Friday afternoon of a public comment suggesting a potential NCAA rules concern involving a member of our coaching staff. This is the first time the issue has been brought to our attention, and no concern has previously been shared with us through any formal channel.
“Virginia Tech takes all NCAA rules seriously and is committed to conducting our program with integrity. We are reviewing the matter internally and will address any findings appropriately.”
Renaming of military bases stirs debate over Confederate ties
By FERNANDA FIGUEROA Associated Press
In 2023, amid a national reckoning on issues of race in America, seven Army bases’ names were changed because they honored Confederate leaders.
Now, those same bases are reverting back to their original names, this time with different namesakes who share Confederate surnames — the Army found other service members with the same last names to honor.
The move is stirring up conversation in and outside military circles. Skeptics wonder if the true intention is to undermine efforts to move away from Confederate associations, an issue that has long split people who favor preserving an aspect of southern heritage and those who want slavery-supporting revels stripped of valor.
Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, a civil rights group, said the latest renaming is a “difference without a distinction.”
The wiping away of names that were given by the Biden administration, many of which honored service members who were women or minorities, is the latest move by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to align with Trump’s purging of all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of the Army responded to emailed requests for comment.
Confederate names return
Federal law now bars the military from returning to honoring Confederates, but the move restores names know by generations of soldiers. Following the election of President Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the expansion of slavery, 11 southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederacy, or the Confederate States of America, to preserve slavery an institution that enslaved millions of African Americans. Their secession led to the Civil War, which the Confederates ultimately lost in 1865.
By restoring the old names with soldiers or figures who were not Confederates, “they are trying to be slick,” Morial said.
For example, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which was changed to Fort Liberty by the Biden administration, was the first to have its original name restored, in June. The Army found another American service member with the same last name, a World War II soldier. Hegseth signed an order restoring the name in February.
“By instead invoking the name of World War II soldier Private Roland Bragg, Secretary Hegseth has not violated the letter of the law, but he has violated its spirit,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., wrote in a statement opposing the defense secretary’s “cynical maneuver.”
In March, Hegseth reversed the 2023 decision changing Fort Benning in Georgia to Fort Moore.
The same name restoring process applied to the additional seven bases: Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Pickett and Fort Robert E. Lee in Virginia, Fort Gordon in Georgia, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Rucker in Alabama.
Other name changes
Last week, Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced that he was restoring the name of the state’s largest National Guard training site.
In a social media post announcing the name, Landry wrote that in Louisiana, “we honor courage, not cancel it.” Attached was what seemed to be an AI-generated image of a headstone with the word “Wokeism” on it.
“Let this be a lesson that we should always give reverence to history and not be quick to so easily condemn or erase the dead, lest we and our times be judged arbitrary by future generations,” Landry wrote.
Bases aren’t the only military assets being renamed. In late June, Hegseth announced that the USNS Harvey Milk would be renamed after a World War II sailor who received the Medal of Honor, stripping the ship of the name of a killed gay rights activists who served during the Korean War.
Critics express concern over Confederate associations and inefficiency
Morial said there are other ways to recognize unsung heroes instead of returning a base to a name that has long been associated with Confederate leaders.
“No county on Earth would name its military based after people that tried to overthrow the government,” Morial said. “So, why are people holding on to these names?”
Stacy Rosenberg, associate teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, said she is concerned with the inefficiency of renaming bases. She said the cost of changing signages across seven bases could be used for something else that might have more impact.
There is no immediate cost estimate for changing all the signs at the bases.
Rosenberg said it made sense to move away from Confederate heroes as namesakes but that the latest move seems like a way to appeal to Trump’s political base.
“I think what we really need to consider is does whoever the base is named after have such a service record that warrants the honor of having their name associated with that base?” Rosenberg said.
Angela Betancourt, a public relations strategist at Betancourt Group and a United States Air Force Reservist said the ongoing renaming of military bases is a form of branding for what each administration views the military should represent.
While she understands why people are upset about military bases reverting to a name associated with the Confederacy, Betancourt said that should not take away from the new namesake’s heritage and legacy.
“It doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing to do,” Betancourt said. “There’s certainly heroes, especially African American and diverse heroes, that should be honored. I think this is a good way to do it.”
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The Associated Press reporters Lolita C. Baldor, John Hanna and Sara Cline contributed to this report.
Heat advisories and warnings issued for Southeast and Midwest as temperatures and humidity soars
By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press
It’s always hot in the summer in the U.S. Southeast, but even by the standards of Florida and the Carolinas, the steamy heat wave on tap for the region Saturday into the coming week is a little extreme.
The National Weather Service issued heat advisories for a large swath of the East Coast from central Florida to Virginia through much of the weekend. Highs in the upper 90s F (mid 30s C) were forecast for central Florida, with heat indexes reaching 105 degrees F to 110 degrees F (40.6 C to 43 C). The outlook was similar up through Georgia and the Carolinas into Virginia.
Extreme heat warnings were out for much of eastern North Carolina, as far inland as Raleigh, and extending into a corner of South Carolina, including Myrtle Beach. Forecasters warned of dangerously hot conditions with temperatures approaching or exceeding 100 F (38 C) in some areas on Sunday and heat indexes up to 115 F through Sunday evening.
“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors. the weather service advised. “Take extra precautions when outside. Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothing. Try to limit strenuous activities to early morning or evening. Take action when you see symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Stay cool, stay hydrated, stay informed.”
The weather service said several major metropolitan areas in the Southeast — including Raleigh and Charlotte in North Carolina, Greenville-Spartanburg in South Carolina, and Atlanta in Georgia — were expected to face an extreme heat risk for several days, with minimal overnight relief. It said over 30 million people would likely be affected at the peak of the heat wave through midweek.
A hot, humid weekend was also in store for the Midwest. Extreme heat watches were out for eastern Nebraska, western Iowa and southern Minnesota. Heat indexes were expected to reach 96 F (36 C) on Saturday and go even higher on Sunday in Minnesota.
And an extreme heat warning was out for the St. Louis, Missouri, area through Tuesday evening, with highs around 99 F (37 C) and heat indexes around 110 F forecast for Monday and Tuesday.
Parts of Iowa were hit by storms Saturday morning that dumped between 2 and 5 inches (5 to 13 centimeters) of rain in some areas and triggered flash flood warnings.