An emergency alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile was blasted out to Hawaii residents on Saturday, causing chaos for 38 minutes. The false alarm caused a national security panic, and raised questions about the ease with which a mistake like this can be made.
Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa represents the first district of Hawaii. She was on her way to lunch when the alert was sent. The congresswoman says the real problem was the inability to retract the mistake. "Someone clearly wasn't watching," she said. The incident raises concerns that the state would not have been ready to handle an actual attack.
Congresswoman Hanabusa was one of many who did not receive the missile alert on her phone. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called the incident unacceptable. The Congresswoman believes his frustration lies in the time it took to retract the alert, and the fact that all residents didn't receive the alert, or the retraction.
As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, the congresswoman says this mistake is an exact example of why Hawaii needs better leadership.
A new poll finds most U.S. adults are worried about health care becoming more expensive.
The White House budget office says mass firings of federal workers have started in an attempt to exert more pressure on Democratic lawmakers as the government shutdown continues.
President Donald Trump says “there seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as part of an upcoming trip to South Korea after China restricted exports of rare earths needed for American industry. The Republican president suggested Friday he was looking at a “massive increase” of import taxes on Chinese products in response to Xi’s moves. Trump says one of the policies the U.S. is calculating is "a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States." A monthslong calm on Wall Street was shattered, with U.S. stocks falling on the news. The Chinese Embassy in Washington hasn't responded to an Associated Press request for comment.
Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, minutes from last month’s meeting showed.
From Wall Street trading floors to the Federal Reserve to economists sipping coffee in their home offices, the first Friday morning of the month typically brings a quiet hush around 8:30 a.m. eastern, as everyone awaits the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
The Supreme Court is allowing Lisa Cook to remain as a Federal Reserve governor for now.
