ECON 101: The federal reserve yesterday cut interest rates by half a point … that’s big for them … in the first rate cut since 2020 as the Fed eases its battle against inflation.

  The cut lowers rates to about 4.9 percent, down from a more than twenty-year high. Fed chair Jerome Powell said during a news conference that, “The upside risks to inflation have diminished, and the downside risks to unemployment have increased.”

  The Fed’s decision is a response to dropping inflation while also shoring up the job market. The rate cut will lower mortgage rates, which have already been coming down, although the big problem in housing is that it’s getting too expensive.

  The Fed holds out the promise of another rate cut this fall. “We’re going to take it meeting by meeting,” Powell said. “We made a good, strong start to this, and that is frankly a sign of our confidence, inflation is coming down.”

SHOT DOWN BEFORE SHUTDOWN: The House yesterday voted down Speaker Mike Johnson’s $1.6 trillion stopgap spending bill that would also have imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration. Some Republicans have been fighting the non-existent problem of non-Americans voting.

  The government once again faces shutdown at the end of the month but certainly the Republican majority is unlikely to let that happen weeks before the election.

IT’S POLITICAL: In a blow to Vice President Kamala Harris, the leadership of the 1.3-million-member Teamsters union announced that they will not endorse a presidential candidate.

  The statement issued by the union’s board said, “Unfortunately neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business.”

  On the plus side for Harris, more than 100 former national security officials under Republican administrations and former Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing her saying Donald Trump, is “unfit to serve again as president.”

  “As president,” the letter said, “he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests and betrayed our values, democracy and this country’s founding documents.”

  The 111 signatories include two former defense secretaries, Chuck Hagel and William S. Cohen; Robert B. Zoellick, a former president of the World Bank; the former C.I.A. directors Michael V. Hayden and William H. Webster; a former director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte; and former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts.

  Also on board against Trump are former House members Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dan Miller of Florida and Bill Paxon of New York.

  Meanwhile at a rally on Long Island, Trump predicted that he would be the first Republican candidate to win New York State in 40 years.

BY THE NUMBERS: New polling by The NY Times has Donald Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked nationally at 47 percent, but that same poll has Harris leading in critical Pennsylvania by four.

  Casting doubt on the credibility of polling, The Washington Post has Harris leading in Pennsylvania by just one point.

  The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Harris leading nationally by 1.9 percent. RCP also has Harris leading in four of the seven battleground states.

BAD BOY: A federal judge yesterday declined the appeal by music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs to be released on bail pending his trial on a variety of charges including racketeering and sex trafficking. Prosecutors had argued that they feared Combs would attempt to obstruct the case if he was free.

  The Brooklyn jail where Combs s being held has been described as “Hell on Earth.” Combs’ lawyers had offered $50 million bail using his Florida mansion as collateral in exchange for home detention with GPS monitoring and limits on visitation.  

TROJAN HORSE:  A second wave of electronic devices, including walkie-talkies, blew up yesterday in the suburbs of Lebanon a day after similar explosions killed 12 people and wounded nearly 3,000. Another 20 people were killed yesterday and 450 injured.

  Fires broke out as a result of the explosions, burning some homes.

  Hezbollah uses wireless devices other than cellphones for more secure communications. You have to wonder why they didn’t ditch all their devices after the Tuesday operation.

  Despite the attacks that wounded so many people over two days and undermined the group’s communication system, Hezbollah said it would not cease its rocket attacks on Israel.

THE WAR ROOM: Ukrainian drones hitting 300 miles inside Russia destroyed a depot laden with heavy weapons including tactical and anti-aircraft missiles, artillery shells, and glide bombs creating a massive fireball.  A Ukraine security official told The NY Times that military intelligence and special forces carried out the attack, which “literally wiped off the face of the Earth” the ammunition warehouse.

  The attack was reported to have involved more than 100 drones. Now that they are carrying the war inside Russian territory, Ukraine is lobbying to be allowed to use long-range western weapons to destroy the same kind of Russian weapons being used against them.

THE SPIN RACK: The Justice Department filed a $100 million lawsuit against the owners and operators of the container ship that collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge last March, killing six workers and shutting the Port of Baltimore for weeks. The lawsuit claims that actions leading to the disaster were “outrageous, grossly negligent, willful, wanton, and reckless.” — A body has been found believed to be that of a suspect gunman who went on a highway shooting spree wounding five people in Kentucky almost two weeks ago.

BELOW THE FOLD: A 27-year-old Hong Kong man has been sentenced to 14 months in prison for wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”. Under Chinese law, that’s an act of sedition.