Today's ECONOMICS story

Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seat

What happened
President Donald Trump said yesterday he will nominate Stephen Miran (pictured above), the chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, to fill the seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors left vacant by last week's unexpected resignation of board member Adriana Kugler. Trump said that Miran, a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell's interest rate policies, would serve until the end of January, when Kugler's term was due to expire.

Who said what
If confirmed, Miran would "add a near-certain vote in support of lower interest rates," joining Trump's first-term Fed picks Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, The Associated Press said. But "even with Miran on the board," many of the other 12 Fed officials who vote on rate policy "remain concerned that Trump's sweeping tariffs could push inflation higher in the coming months."

Miran last year argued against the Fed's rate cuts, saying the board was not worried enough about inflation. But since joining Trump's White House, he has argued that "inflation isn't likely to be a problem" under Trump's policies, The Wall Street Journal said. In a paper he co-wrote last year, Miran also advised "shortening board member terms and clarifying that members serve at the will of the U.S. president, as well as imposing bans on the revolving door between the executive branch and the Fed."

What next?
Kugler's resignation took effect today, but it "isn't clear how soon Miran could go through the Senate confirmation process," the Journal said. Congress is "on recess until September," and the next Fed policy meeting is Sept.16-17.

Today's CULTURE WAR Story

Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monuments

What happened
The Trump administration said it will restore and reinstall two Civil War monuments: a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike in Washington, D.C., that protesters toppled and burned in 2020, and a Confederate memorial removed from Arlington National Cemetery in 2023 (pictured above) on the advice of a bipartisan commission established by Congress. The plans are part of a "series of moves" by the administration to "restore Confederate names and symbols" discarded in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, The Washington Post said.

Who said what
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday he was "proud to announce" that the 32-foot bronze monument created in 1914 by Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel and commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy would be "rightfully returned" to Arlington. "It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings," he added. "Unlike the left, we don't believe in erasing American history — we honor it."

Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, vice chair of the congressional Naming Commission, told the Post that removing the monument was "not some woke thing" and restoring it was "just wrong." The monument is "the cruelest I've ever seen because it's a pro-slavery, pro-segregation, anti-United States monument," he said. "It's meant to say that the white South was right and the United States of America was wrong."

What next?
Returning the Confederate memorial to Arlington, from a museum in Virginia, will take two years and cost roughly $10 million, a U.S. Army official told The Associated Press.

It's not all bad

Cardiac amyloidosis, a type of heart failure, was long considered a death sentence, but new medications are giving patients hope. When amyloid proteins build up in the heart, they make the muscle stiff and pumping blood more difficult. New research shows that drugs targeting transthyretin, one of the proteins that can cause cardiac amyloidosis, stop production before it can penetrate the heart. This "freezes" patients at their stage of heart failure, making early detection still key, said The New York Times.

Under the radar

Big (Wi-Fi) Brother could be watching

Comcast's Xfinity has introduced a new feature in its internet routers called Wi-Fi Motion, which allows the use of Wi-Fi signals to detect movement within your home. This includes people, pets and other moving objects. The feature is raising privacy concerns.

Wi-Fi Motion, when enabled, "creates an oval-shaped area of Wi-Fi coverage, and anything that disrupts those signals may be detected as motion," said TechRadar. The feature can also work in tandem with three other stationary devices that use Wi-Fi, like a TV or a printer, to expand the detection range.

At first glance, Wi-Fi Motion appears to be an extra security measure for your home. But many people view the technology as a threat to their privacy. "The concept of my own home's Wi-Fi tracking the location of everybody as they move from kitchen to living room to toilet does the opposite of providing peace of mind," Matt Jancer said in Vice.

Wi-Fi already has the potential to be used as a tool for mass surveillance, and allowing an internet service provider to track movement inside a home could be a first step toward that goal. Xfinity's technology "invites a larger debate on privacy, when exactly enough is enough and how much data we're all willing to share with third parties," said TechRadar. After all, Wi-Fi is now ubiquitous in almost all spaces, both public and private.

On this day

August 8, 1786

Congress officially established the dollar as the monetary unit of the United States; American colonists had previously used mostly British pounds and Spanish dollars as currency. Despite being seen as inherently powerful, the U.S. dollar today is only the world's 10th strongest currency, according to Forbes.

TODAY'S newspaperS

'Look in the mirror'

"Worries around world as steep Trump tariffs begin for 90 countries," The New York Times says on Friday's front page. "Who will pay Trump's tariffs? Look in the mirror," says The Boston Globe. "Autos take $12 billion blow from trade war," The Wall Street Journal says. "Coffee prices take big jump" after Brazil "hit with 50% duty," The Palm Beach Post says. "ICE arrests plummet in L.A., data show," the Los Angeles Times says. "Plans to hold migrants at military bases take shape," The Washington Post says. "Trump's toxic touch" looms over New York City mayoral race, says the New York Daily News.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Accidental cry for help

Hikers in British Columbia called 911 after hearing a person they believed was in distress, but it turns out the "blissfully unaware" camper was just "singing his heart out to the trees," said the Central Okanagan Search and Rescue team. First responders found the man by his tent and quickly realized he had no idea the forest acoustics turned his "tent-side concert" into a desperate appeal. "He wasn't in trouble," the team said. "Unless you count his singing."

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.