Trump's trade war with Canada adds a challenge in Senate races

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's trade war with Canada could intensify the headwinds Republicans are navigating ahead of the November midterms, with its effects poised to reverberate in northern battleground states with crucial Senate races.

With the election less than six weeks away, Republicans are facing an increasingly bleak outlook, as new polls this week showed voters favoring Democrats by as much as 12 points amid widespread cost-of-living anxiety and low approval for Trump.

The escalating beef with Canada — Trump attacked the country anew on social media Wednesday — stands to heighten voters' economic worries and add to the GOP's political challenge in dead-heat races, analysts said.

"It doesn't make things easier. It's not helping," said Rusty Hills, a University of Michigan public policy professor and onetime chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

—Los Angeles Times

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell resigns after investigation found sexual harassment and other wrongdoing

New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell has resigned after investigators found “credible evidence” of sexual harassment and other wrongdoing.

The governor, who was inaugurated with Caldwell by her side in January, announced his resignation at a news conference Friday afternoon, after pushing for it following the release of the investigator’s findings Thursday.

“His decision will allow us to move forward with important work serving the people of our state,” Sherrill said.

“I will move swiftly and thoughtfully in choosing a new lieutenant governor who will represent my administration and the people of New Jersey with honor and integrity.”

—Philadelphia Inquirer

Nor’easter’s expected impact on NYC intensifies as storm nears

NEW YORK — New Yorkers are battening down for a brutal weekend, filled with heavy rainfall and intense winds, as a powerful early-season nor’easter threatens to wallop much of the East Coast.

The storm’s track was initially unclear at the start of the week, as was its intensity and its potential impacts. Now, as it barrels ever closer, meteorologist warn that the storm is likely to be even worse than early forecast models suggested.

By late Thursday morning it seemed slated to skirt past New York City, curving slightly toward New England, but it started to shift by the afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. That means the winds will be stronger, rainfall totals will likely be more, and the risk of flooding much higher than initially anticipated.

“The storm’s expected path has shifted closer to our city, bringing heavier rain and stronger winds,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday.

—New York Daily News

Backlash as German council decides to ban memorials to Nazi victims

BERLIN — A decision by a German council to ban "stumbling stone" memorials to Holocaust victims sparked widespread criticism on Friday, including from the Israeli ambassador.

Known as "Stolpersteine" in German, the small brass plaques are a familiar sight on streets across the country. Embedded in pavements, usually outside a victim's last known residence, they bear the names and fates of Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime and have become one of Germany's most visible forms of Holocaust remembrance.

The local council in Heidenau, a town just outside Dresden, voted on Thursday evening to ban the memorial plaques from the town's public roads and pavements in future.

The cross-party motion was brought by councilors from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Chancellor Friedrich Merz's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU).

—dpa

Ukraine says its strikes set fire to 2 Russian oil plants

Ukraine said it hit two more Russian oil refineries as the warring countries continue strikes against each other despite both sides earlier this week holding talks with the U.S., which wants targeting of energy assets to halt.

Lukoil PJSC’s facility in the Perm region and a smaller oil-processing plant in Novoshakhtinsk, in the southern Russian Rostov region, caught fire after the attacks, Ukraine’s General Staff said Friday in a Telegram statement.

Lukoil didn’t respond to a Bloomberg request for a comment, while Rostov governor Yury Slyusar said earlier on Friday that the Novoshakhtinsk refinery had halted operations after a swarm of drones attacked the region. Satellite imagery from NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System showed heat anomalies — potentially indicating fires — in an industrial area of Perm, including the refinery site.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held separate meetings with representatives of the Trump Administration on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The U.S. has pushed both sides to agree to an energy-assets truce as global diesel prices surge, though as yet a deal remains elusive.

—Bloomberg News