On Wednesday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination and gave the American people more insight into who he is.
"I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order," he said. Pence shared that his grandfather was an immigrant, he was raised in southern Indiana with a cornfield in his backyard, and the heroes of his youth were John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "We were raised to believe in hard work, in faith, and in family," he said, before introducing his mother, Nancy; wife of 31 years Karen; and children Charlotte, Audrey, and Michael.
Pence got in digs against Hillary Clinton, saying she should be disqualified from being president and would be a "third term of Obama," but spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump. "He is a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers, and when he does his talking he doesn't tiptoe around the thousand new rules of political correctness," Pence said. "He's his own man, distinctly American, and where else would an independent spirit like this find a following than in the land of the free and the home of the brave." On the world stage, Trump will "lead from strength," Pence added, and he will "rebuild the military and stand with our allies, confront radical Islamic terrorism at its source, and destroy the enemies of our freedom." At the end of Pence's speech, Trump came out to shake his hand, the nominee's third appearance at the convention. Catherine Garcia
A divisive final season didn't prevent Game of Thrones from setting a new Emmys record.
The hit HBO series scored a total of 32 Emmy nominations on Tuesday, including for Outstanding Drama Series and acting nominations for stars Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Alfie Allen, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Lena Headey, and Gwendoline Christie. Game of Thrones received not only the most nominations of any show this year but the most nominations that any show has ever received in one year, according to The Associated Press. The previous record was set when NYPD Blue in 1994 earned 27 nominations.
Also making up the Outstanding Drama Series category was Better Call Saul, Bodyguard, Killing Eve, Ozark, Pose, Succession, and This Is Us. The 2017 winner, The Handmaid's Tale, wasn't eligible because it didn't air a full season within the nominating window. The Outstanding Comedy Series category consisted of Barry, Fleabag, The Good Place, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Russian Doll, Schitt's Creek, and Veep.
Some notable surprises from the announcement included the comedy series nod for Schitt's Creek, which also received nominations for stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara, and the absence of Bodyguard's Richard Madden from the lead actor in a drama series category.
Thanks both to Game of Thrones and Veep, as well as other nominees like Chernobyl, HBO received the most nominations of any network with 137, with this coming after Netflix stole its thunder by claiming that title last year, The New York Times reports. Netflix, which released Emmy nominees like When They See Us and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, picked up 117 nominations. Thrones and Veep, both of which recently aired their final seasons, are widely expected to take home the top prizes in September, unless Thrones does unexpectedly get dinged for its controversial last set of episodes.
The 2019 Emmys, which don't currently have a host, will take place on Sept. 22. Read the full list of nominees here. Brendan Morrow
Ever heard the one about infrastructure week?
As politicians make calls to rectify the decline of U.S. infrastructure investment, a new study from Leah Brooks of George Washington University and Zachary of Liscow of Yale University provides "suggestive evidence" as to how and why infrastructure costs could have changed over time.
After digitizing annual state-level data on interstate highway construction — one of the largest projects in American history — they found that per-mile construction costs increased dramatically over time, tripling between the early 1960s and the 1980s. But why?
Brooks and Liscow ruled out some old theories such as the idea that highway planners procrastinated and left the most geographically challenging routes for last, or that costs for labor and materials changed. Instead, one possible explanation they found is that as incomes and home values rose, so did demand for more expensive interstates. For example, the doubling in real median per capita income between the '60s and '80s accounts for about half the increase in construction costs per mile. States were also building more bridges and ramps as incomes increased. The study suggests all this could have occurred simply because the more money people had, the more willing they were to spend it.
One other factor that the study finds consistent with the data is the rise of the "citizen voice" in the late '60s and early '70s. That includes the growth of environmental activism, the civil rights movement, and homeowners organizing as lobbyists. Basically, more power to the people possibly meant more expensive highway construction. The timing checks out, at least.
The findings, the paper says, are suggestive, but not causal. Still, it looks like a good start in bettering our understanding of infrastructure investment over time. Read the full study here. Tim O'Donnell
The New York Police Department officer accused of strangling Eric Garner will not face federal charges.
NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo will not be charged in the chokehold death of Garner, whose repeated last words of "I can't breathe" became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. That decision reportedly comes after the DOJ's civil rights division recommended charges, but Attorney General William Barr overruled that suggestion, a senior DOJ official tells ABC News' Alex Mallin.
Garner's July 17, 2014 death was caught on camera after NYPD officers stopped him for allegedly selling cigarettes on a Staten Island street corner. Federal prosecutors then had five years to press charges against Pantaleo, who appeared to use an illegal chokehold on Garner to restrain him and could've been accused of violating Garner's civil rights. But with the statute of limitations on Garner's death expiring Wednesday, prosecutors declined to press charges.
That decision, officials tell ABC News and NBC News, comes against the wishes of lawyers in the DOJ's civil rights division. But it's in line with what the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York recommended, those officials continued.
Pantaleo did face disciplinary action from the NYPD and has been on desk duty without a gun since Garner's death, The New York Times notes. The NYPD also wrapped a disciplinary trial against Pantaleo in June to determine if he should face further punishment. Kathryn Krawczyk
Former Republican congressman Mark Sanford, who lost his primary in 2018 to a Republican opponent Trump endorsed, says he's considering challenging Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination.
Sanford told The Post and Courier on Tuesday that he plans to weigh a possible 2020 run over the next month, saying that "I feel convicted" and that "the Republican Party has lost its way on debt, spending and financial matters." Should he decide not to challenge Trump, Sanford, who specified he would run as a Republican, said he might instead set up a deficit-focused think tank.
Sanford, who as governor of South Carolina disappeared for six days while secretly having an affair even as his staff claimed he was hiking, often criticized Trump while in Congress, in 2017 telling Politico Trump has "fanned the flames of intolerance." Trump in 2018 went after Sanford on Twitter on the day of his Republican primary as "very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA," endorsing his Republican challenger, Katie Arrington. Sanford was ultimately defeated by Arrington, who lost in the general election. After Sanford's primary loss, Trump reportedly described him in a meeting as a "nasty guy." Brendan Morrow