Today’s Big Story

What a Debate

The vice president had a strong debate by keeping Trump on his heels and making it all about him

Did you watch? A presidential debate isn’t always appointment viewing, but this was a highly-anticipated match between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. In their first official meeting, Trump discovered he’s got a much tougher rival on his hands now. Several media outlets, as varied as CNBC and Fox News agreed: Harris was the winner, delivering aggressive attacks and coherent rebuttals.

As the Washington Post says, “she made sure the debate was overwhelmingly about Trump and his less-appealing traits.” She also baited him by talking about his often-confusing rambling at rallies and his crowd sizes, as well as citing a negative review of his economic policies from his alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Vox says she beat the former president by demonstrating superior knowledge not only of policy, but also of her opponent’s psychology. Harris figured out exactly how to get Trump angry, how to trick him into veering off course, and how to keep the debate on favorable terrain. For example, when pressed on President Joe Biden’s unpopular immigration record, she answered the question quickly and then took a seemingly unrelated shot at Trump’s campaign rallies. This gave Trump a choice; either prosecute Harris on immigration, an issue where she’s weak, or go on a rant in defense of his crowd sizes. “Let me respond as to the rallies,” Trump said.

This was a very different debate for Trump than the one that effectively knocked President Biden out of the race. During that first one, he remained relatively cool and collected. But this performance seems unlikely to pull in many wavering moderate voters. When pressed on January 6th, Trump denied any culpability and referred to the police who defended the Capitol and lawmakers as “the other side.”

That wasn’t the only unexpected line from the night. Like Harris flexing that she had “the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and Congress member Liz Cheney.” Or that “Tim Walz and I are both gun owners.” But the biggest head scratch was when Trump referred to a debunked social media rumor that immigrants were eating pets in an Ohio town and was fact-checked in real time by ABC moderator David Muir.

U.S. Incomes Climbed Last Year

The Census Bureau said median household income rose for the first time since the pandemic

Household incomes rose last year for the first time since the pandemic began, reflecting the effects of easing inflation and a strong job market. The new data from the U.S. Census Bureau signaled an improvement in 2023, overcoming the biggest price spike in four decades to restore most Americans’ purchasing power, reports Fast Company.

Inflation-adjusted median household income was $80,610 in 2023, up 4% from the 2022 estimate of $77,540, the bureau said in its annual report card on households’ financial well-being. This move returned incomes to about where they were in 2019, the peak that was hit just before the pandemic. According to the Wall Street Journal, the proportion of Americans living in poverty also fell slightly last year, to 11.1%, from 11.5% in 2022. But the ratio of women’s median earnings to men’s widened for the first time in more than two decades as men’s income rose more than women’s in 2023.

The proportion of Americans in the so-called prime age group of 25-to-54-year-olds with jobs averaged 80.7% last year, the highest level in 23 years. Economists often focus on prime-age workers because they exclude younger people, who are often still in school, and older workers, who are more likely to retire or reduce their hours. By racial groups, median household income rose 5.4% for whites to $84,630, increased 2.8% for Black Americans to $56,490 and was unchanged for Hispanics at $65,540. Asian incomes also were largely unchanged at $112,800.

Remembering 9/11

An anniversary tradition is handed down to a new generation

It’s been 23 years since the nation watched in horror as the Twin Towers fell on live TV. Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes and crashed into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and an area outside of Shanksville, Penn. The act killed 2,977 people, and shook America to its core.

The National Archives safeguards nearly all of the official records related to the September 11th attacks, from the 9/11 Commission, the 9/11 Federal Aviation Administration records, and the records of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. It’s something that will need to be preserved, because while many of us remember where we were and how life changed that day, a new and poignant phrase echoes when 9/11 victims’ relatives gather each year to remember the loved ones they lost in the terror attacks: “I never got to meet you.”

The Associated Press says there’s now a generational shift at ground zero, where relatives read out victims’ names on every anniversary of the attacks. Some names are read out by children or young adults who were born after the strikes. They’re the children of victims whose partners were pregnant. More of the young readers are victims’ nieces, nephews or grandchildren. They have inherited stories, photos, and a sense of solemn responsibility to carry on the story and commemorate the attacks, long after the first-hand memory of them are gone.

Sony Announces PS5 Pro

It’s got a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, AI upscaling and a price to match

The PS5 Pro is official. After months of leaks, Sony just announced a more powerful PS5 console during a special technical presentation. Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5 console, says the PS5 Pro improves on the original console in three key ways: a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing and custom AI-driven upscaling.

It looks similar to the slim version of the PS5—just like recent leaks suggested it would. But the price isn’t slim. It’ll cost you 700 bucks. As Mashable points out, it’s almost as expensive as the base iPhone 16, putting this in line with other moves amid Sony's recent push for higher pricing, from being one of the first companies to charge $70 for games, to hiking the price of DualSense controllers. “It’s no surprise that the news has sparked reactions across X and Reddit, where users are already calling Sony out for what many see as a blatant cash grab.”

But then again, it does seem impressive. Cnet tried it out firsthand and was blown away playing ‘Gran Turismo 7’. “Everything is crisper, more fluid or both … and I’m wowed by a new 4K ray-tracing mode that casts car reflections on other racers. It feels almost like I'm in VR without the headset.” The updated hardware will come complete with 2TB of solid-state storage (up from 1TB on the original PS5), but without an Ultra HD Blu-Ray disc drive. Of course, if you have the money, you can purchase it as an add-on accessory for $80.

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