The News

Former first lady Melania Trump said she "stands proudly behind her nude modeling work," in a video posted Wednesday on social media promoting her upcoming memoir.

The 45-second clip, posted on X (formerly Twitter), opens with a voice-over by Trump defending the modeling. She then asks, "Why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?"

She continued, "Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body?"

The video does not feature her modeling photos but instead shows well-known nude statues and artworks.

Trump had a modeling career dating back to her teen years. She was discovered by a Slovenian photographer at 16 and signed with a modeling agency in Milan a couple of years later.

She modeled in Paris and Milan for some years before moving to New York in 1996. Over the years, she has appeared on several major magazine covers, including posing nude for the cover of GQ in 2000.

We should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self-expression," Trump said in the video, which then cuts to an image of her forthcoming memoir, Melania. The video ends with a link to purchase the book.

The memoir, which Trump's website says will include "stories and images never before shared with the public," is scheduled to be released October 8. It will cover important childhood moments, meeting Donald Trump and her time as first lady.

 One of America's most influential labour unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, has declined to issue a US presidential endorsement for the first time since 1996.

The union, which boasts some 1.3 million members across the US and Canada, said it had received "few commitments on top Teamsters issues" from either Democratic nominee Kamala Harris or Republican nominee Donald Trump.

It also claimed that polling of its rank-and-file members found "no definitive support" for either candidate, though two of its recent polls indicated lopsided support for Trump.

The move is a major blow to the Harris campaign's efforts to win over working-class voters with less than 50 days before election night.

An endorsement had the potential to mobilise thousands of Teamsters who live, work and vote in the crucial battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Shortly after the announcement, some Teamsters regional councils representing more than half a million members in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and California, said they would be endorsing Harris.

In a statement, the Harris campaign touted its support from "the overwhelming majority of organised labour" and noted that many Teamsters locals have gotten behind her candidacy.

"While Donald Trump says striking workers should be fired, Vice-President Harris has literally walked the picket line and stood strong with organized labour for her entire career," campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said.

The union's rank-and-file - a coalition of members that includes freight drivers, warehouse workers and airline pilots - has long been considered politically diverse.

General President Sean O'Brien has sought to build inroads with Republicans since he took over leadership of the executive board in 2022.

He has reached out to more populist figures within the party, such as US senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and JD Vance of Ohio, who is now Trump's running mate.

Mr O'Brien also met privately with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in January, shortly before the former president attended a roundtable with the union's board at its headquarters in Washington DC.

Following that meeting, Trump said he believed he had a "good shot" at receiving the union's endorsement.

The board also met with President Joe Biden before he stepped aside as the Democratic nominee, as well as third-party candidates Robert F Kennedy Jr and Cornel West.

But the union alarmed Democrats when it made its first financial contribution to their opponents in years, donating $45,000 (£34,000) - the maximum allowed contribution - each to both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in February.

Mr O'Brien also became the first Teamsters boss ever to address the Republican National Convention (RNC).

Invited to deliver a prime-time address at the event in Milwaukee, the union head praised Trump as "one tough SOB" but declined to endorse him.

He also later criticised Trump and top campaign surrogate and billionaire businessman Elon Musk over comments in which the two discussed firing workers who threaten to go on strike.

After his decision to speak at the RNC, Mr O'Brien did not receive an invitation from Democrats to address their party convention last month.

The party instead invited rank-and-file members to represent the organisation and to speak from the convention stage.

Some members of the Teamsters have expressed anger with Mr O'Brien over his right-wing outreach.

Last month, the Teamsters National Black Caucus and six union locals defied national leadership by endorsing Harris on their own and urging members to get behind her.

On Monday, Harris met with the Teamsters board in a long-delayed roundtable that lasted an hour and a half.

A New York Times report described the sit-down as "sometimes tense", but a Teamsters spokesperson disputed this characterisation when asked by the BBC.

During their meeting, the Times added, Harris told Teamsters leaders: “I’m confident I’m going to win this. I want your endorsement, but if I don’t get it, I will treat you exactly as if I had gotten your endorsement."

Speaking to reporters after Harris had made her pitch, Mr O'Brien noted that "there wasn’t a whole lot of difference" between the answers she and her predecessor, Biden, had provided.

Biden has routinely touted himself as "the most pro-labour president ever", pointing to policies that have made it easier for US workers to organise and that have prioritised union labour for federal government projects.

Last September, he made history as the first US president to walk a picket line, when he joined the United Autoworkers in Michigan in a strike against the Big Three US auto companies: General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.

The Biden administration also shored up the Teamsters pension fund to the tune of $36bn, which it says prevented cuts to the retirement incomes of over 600,000 members.

Mr O'Brien and other leaders have also acknowledged on several occasions that Biden has been "great for unions".

But before he dropped out in July, some reports suggested that the Teamsters did not plan to endorse Biden's bid for re-election.

Correction: An earlier version of this story was updated to reflect that the Teamsters are the fourth largest, not the largest, US union.

SOURCE 

 For all the hype that goes into them, Federal Reserve meetings are usually pretty predictable affairs. Policymakers telegraph their intentions ahead of time, markets react, and everyone has at least a general idea of what’s going to happen.

Not this time.

This week’s gathering of the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee carries an uncommon air of mystery. While markets have made up their collective mind that the Fed is going to lower interest rates, there’s a vigorous debate over how far policymakers will go.

Will it be the traditional quarter-percentage-point, or 25-basis-point, rate reduction, or will the Fed take an aggressive first step and go 50, or half a point?

Fed watchers are unsure, setting up the potential for an FOMC meeting that could be even more impactful than usual. The meeting wraps up Wednesday afternoon, with the release of the Fed’s rate decision coming at 2 p.m. ET.

“I hope they cut 50 basis points, but I suspect they’ll cut 25. My hope is 50, because I think rates are just too high,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “They have achieved their mandate for full employment and inflation back at target, and that’s not consistent with a five and a half percent-ish funds rate target. So I think they need to normalize rates quickly and have a lot of room to do so.”

Pricing in the derivatives market around what the Fed will do has been volatile.

Until late last week, traders had locked in on a 25-basis-point cut. Then on Friday, sentiment suddenly shifted, putting a half point on the table. As of Wednesday afternoon, fed funds futures traders were pricing in about a 63% chance of the bigger move, a comparatively low level of conviction against previous meetings. One basis point equals 0.01%.

Many on Wall Street continued to predict the Fed’s first step would be a more cautious one.

“The experience of tightening, although it seemed to work, didn’t work exactly how they thought it was going to, so easing should be viewed with just as much uncertainty,” said Tom Simons, U.S. economist at Jefferies. “Thus, if you’re uncertain, you shouldn’t rush.”

“They should move quickly here,” Zandi said, expressing the more dovish view. “Otherwise they run the risk of something breaking.”

The debate inside the FOMC meeting room should be interesting, and with an unusual division among officials who generally have voted in unison.

My guess is they’re split,” former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told CNBC on Tuesday. “There’ll be some around the table who feel as I do, that they’re a little bit late, and they’d like to get on their front foot and would prefer not to spend the fall chasing the economy. There’ll be others that, from a risk management point of view, just want to be more careful.”

Beyond the 25 vs. 50 debate, this will be an action-packed Fed meeting. Here’s a breakdown of what’s on tap:

The rate wait

The FOMC has been holding its benchmark fed funds rate in a range between 5.25%-5.5% since it last hiked in July 2023.

That’s the highest it’s been in 23 years and has held there despite the Fed’s preferred inflation measure falling from 3.3% to 2.5% and the unemployment rate rising from 3.5% to 4.2% during that time.

In recent weeks, Chair Jerome Powell and his fellow policymakers have left no doubt that a cut is coming at this meeting. Deciding by how much will involve a calculus between fighting inflation while staying mindful that the labor market has slowed considerably in the past several months.

For the Fed, it comes down to deciding which is a more significant risk — reigniting inflation pressures if they cut by 50 bps, or threatening recession if they cut by just 25 bps,” Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said in written commentary. “Having already been criticized for responding to the inflation crisis too slowly, the Fed will likely be wary of being reactive, rather than proactive, to the risk of recession.”

The ‘dot plot’

Perhaps just as important as the rate cut will be the signals meeting participants send about where they expect rates to go from here.

That will happen via the “dot plot,” a grid in which each official will signal how they see things unfolding over the next several years. The September plot will offer the first outlook for 2027.

In June, FOMC members penciled in just one rate cut through the end of the year. That almost surely will accelerate, with markets pricing in the equivalent of up to five, or 1.25 percentage points, worth of cuts (assuming 25 basis point moves) with only three meetings left.

In all, traders see the Fed hacking away at rates next year, taking off 2.5 percentage points from the current overnight borrowing rate before stopping, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge of futures contracts.

That feels overly aggressive, unless you know the economy is going to start to weaken more significantly,” Zandi said of the market’s outlook. Moody’s expects quarter-point cuts at each of the three remaining meetings this year, including this week’s.

Economic projections

The dot plot is part of the FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections, which provides unofficial forecasts for unemployment, gross domestic product and inflation as well.

The biggest adjustment for the SEP likely will come with unemployment, which the committee almost certainly will ratchet up from the 4.0% end-year forecast in June. The jobless rate currently stands at 4.2%.

Core inflation, pegged in June at 2.8% for the full year, likely will be revised lower, as it last stood at 2.6% in July.

Inflation appears on track to undershoot the FOMC’s June projections, and the higher prints at the start of the year increasingly look more like residual seasonality than reacceleration. A key theme of the meeting will therefore be a shift in focus to labor market risks,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a note.

The statement and the Powell presser

In addition to adjustments to the dot plot and SEP, the committee’s post-meeting statement will have to change to reflect the expected rate cut along with any additional forward guidance the committee will add.

Released at 2 p.m. ET, the statement and the SEP are the first things to which the market will react, followed by the Powell press conference at 2:30.

Goldman expects the FOMC “will likely revise its statement to sound more confident on inflation, describe the risks to inflation and employment as more balanced, and re-emphasize its commitment to maintaining maximum employment.”

I don’t think that they’re going to be particularly specific about any kind of forward guidance,” said Simons, the Jefferies economist. “Forward guidance at this point in the cycle is of little use when the Fed doesn’t actually know what they’re going to do.”

SOURCES 

John David “JD” Souther, known for his collaborations with artists such as the Eagles, James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, has died. He was 78.

Per a release obtained by PEOPLE, Souther died on Tuesday, Sept. 17, "peacefully in his New Mexico home." No cause of death was listed.

The 2013 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee — who was born in Detroit, Michigan, but raised in Amarillo, Texas — previously had a band called Longbranch Pennywhistle with the Eagles’ Glenn Frey, after they met in Los Angeles in the late '60s. 

Amid his longtime partnership with Frey, Souther went on to work on some of the Eagles’ biggest hits including “Best of My Love,” “James Dean,” “New Kid in Town” and “Doolin-Dalton,” as well as co-writing “Heartache Tonight” with Bob Seger, Frey and Don Henley.

Souther's many collaborations through the years also included working on Bonnie Raitt's “Run Like a Thief,” as well as multiple songs for his ex Ronstadt, 78, including “Faithless Love” and “White Rhythm and Blues.”

Souther and Ronstadt teamed up for duets such as “Prisoner in Disguise,” “Sometimes You Can’t Win” and “Hearts Against the Wind" as well, with the latter being featured on the soundtrack for the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy starring John Travolta and Debra Winger. Souther also teamed up with Taylor, 76, on his 1970 hit “Her Town Too.” 

In addition to his collaborations, Souther had a solo career, releasing songs such as “You’re Only Lonely” from the 1979 album of the same name. He also formed the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band in the '70s with former Byrds member Chris Hillman and Poco’s Richie Furay.

Music aside, Souther starred in shows including Nashville, Thirtysomething and Purgatory, as well as the films Postcards from the Edge, My Girl 2 and Deadline.

Rita Wilson was among those paying tribute to Souther on social media, sharing a lengthy caption on Instagram alongside multiple snaps of the pair.

"This one hurts. My dear friend, songwriter and artist, JD Souther, has passed away. JD gave us so much in his music," Wilson's message included, listing some of the musician's hits through the years and noting his "massive" influence on her.

"I cut two of his songs for my first album, Am/Fm, 'Faithless Love' (Harmony by Vince Gill) and 'Prisoner in Disguise,' which was a bonus track, and on which he sang the harmony," Wilson, 67, went on. "At Joe’s Pub @joespub he came in and sang with me for my first ever show in NYC."

"You can imagine what that feels like to sing with one of your hero’s on a song he wrote. One time, he came over for dinner before a show in LA, and lost his wallet, which delayed him for the show. We eventually found it the next day. It made for an exciting start to the show, though!" she continued, revealing that the last time she saw him was at the Jimmy Buffet tribute concert in April.

"He will be greatly missed. But, his music lives on. Rest in Peace and music, sweet JD," Wilson wrote.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. 

Singer Richard Marx commented on the actress's post, "Damn it. What a gift he was. 💔," as John Stamos added, "Oh man. Sorry Rita."

Souther "is survived by his two sisters, his former wife and her daughter, his beloved dogs Layla and Bob, and by countless friends and colleagues within the music community and beyond," a release confirmed.

SOURCE