lotz house tour times

1111 Columbia Avenue Franklin , TN 37064 United States

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The compelling story of the times, the family, and the fine antiques of the Civil War era. The Lotz House, which has been on the National Historic Register since 1976, is located in the heart of downtown historic Franklin, Tennessee, at “the epicenter” of the Battle of Franklin , which was a pivotal battle of the Civil War on November 30, 1864. Join us as we step back into Civil War history.

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Lotz House Tour

Step into a significant chapter of American history and bring the past back to life with an enlightening tour of the Lotz House historical attraction in Franklin, Tennessee. This 19th-century home, transformed today into an engaging museum, might appear unassuming at first glance, but bear witness to one momentous historical event that happened here: the Battle of Franklin during the American Civil War. Be ready to explore a treasure-trove of captivating Civil War artifacts, magnificent antiques, and powerful war-time stories that unfold throughout the visit, delivered by professional and knowledgeable tour guides.

Venturing on a guided tour of the Lotz House, you are guaranteed to understand more about America's history. The average visit lasts about an hour - a short duration yet enough to immerse oneself in a journey through the past. Tours are conducted by passionate and experienced guides who are eager to share the house's rich history. They guide you through several rooms of the house adorned with period furnishings and artifacts, many of which bear the scars and bullet holes of the violent battle.

Each room in the Lotz House resonates with stories of the past, waiting to be discovered by curious visitors. You'll walk through the parlor, where the Lotz family sought shelter during the horrific five-hour long Battle of Franklin, and see the piano that was played by Carrie McGavock, the 'Widow of the South.' No special attire is required for the tour - just dress comfortably and prepare your mind for an educational journey back in time.

Leveraging the Lotz House's role as a pivotal war-time landmark, the tour articulately highlights the events of November 30, 1864, when the Battle of Franklin proved to be one of the bloodiest days in the Civil War. The Lotz family’s insights, bravery, and survival stories breathe life into the hushed dolls, furniture, and paintings that adorn the house. Also, during your visit, be sure to marvel at the finest collection of French Victorian furniture, which provides a glimpse into the life of an upper-middle-class family during the 19th century.

Having delved into the profound history of the Lotz House and experienced the tangible memories of the turbulent past, you are expected to leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation of American history. This tour not only serves as an educational journey but also a sobering reflection on the incidents that have molded the current realm.

With its sensational history, the Lotz House provides a unique peek into America's past, making the tour an unforgettable experience. It offers an opportunity to relive history, learn about the Civil War, and appreciate the rich heritage that shaped the United States. Add the Lotz House tour to your itinerary and get ready to step back in time. After all, history is not purely about reading and hearing; it’s about experiencing and feeling. So, come and uncover the many incredible stories that the Lotz House has to tell.

• Approximately how long does the Lotz House Tour last? It lasts approximately 1 hour.
• For what ages is the tour appropriate? Great for all ages.
• Is photography / video recording allowed on the Lotz House Tour? Yes.

Lotz House: Guided Tour

⭐ Lotz House: Guided Tour offers an insightful tour of the Civil War-era Lotz House with an expert guide.

Ticket types 🎫 Adult 🎫 Senior 🎫 Children (Ages 7-13)

*Children aged 6 and under go free

Highlights 🔍 Explore the Civil War-era Lotz House with a knowledgeable guide 🏰 Marvel at genuine antiques and décor as you wander through the house 🤔 Learn about the Battle of Franklin from the Lotz family's viewpoint, who used their home as a hospital during the intense fighting of November 1864

General Info 📅 Date: select your dates directly in the ticket selector 📍 Location: Lotz House Museum (1111 Columbia Avenue, 37064, Franklin) ♿ Accessibility: this experience is wheelchair accessible ❓ For this event, all sales are final and tickets can’t be refunded, changed or modified. For more information, please refer to our T&Cs

Description Experience the incredible Lotz House and prepare to be blown away as you journey straight back to 1864! This living piece of history is bursting with excitement! With an expert guide leading the way, dive headfirst into the Civil War context and uncover mind-boggling artifacts that will transport you to the midst of the Battle of Franklin. Feel the thrill of history coming alive as you wander through authentic antiques and listen closely to the whispering walls. This is a time capsule experience you definitely don't want to miss!

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Lotz House Museum

1111 Columbia Avenue, Franklin, 37064-3616

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Uncover the Secrets of the Lotz House in Franklin, TN

A house of history and heritage, an unforgettable day, the lotz house today, a tour through time, how many questions would you like, visiting the lotz house, the future of lotz house.

Nestled in the heart of Franklin, Tennessee , the Lotz House is a testament to time. This quaint two-story frame house, built in 1858 by German immigrant Johann Albert Lotz, harbors a wealth of stories within its walls.

Lotz, a master craftsman, arrived on American soil in 1848 and eventually found his way to Franklin. His woodworking skill was unparalleled, and he built his home with intricate detailing, showcasing his artistry and craftsmanship.

From the solid black walnut handrail that graces the staircase to the beautifully designed fireplaces, each detail speaks volumes about the dedication and talent of this master craftsman.

• The exterior : Evoking the splendor of Greek Revival architecture, the Lotz House draws one in with its stunning symmetrical facade, crowned by a glorious gable roof.
• The interior : A haven of Victorian elegance, each room unfolds like a storybook, adorned with period furniture, original family artifacts, and splendid artistry.

The Lotz House was at the epicenter of the Battle of Franklin during the Civil War in 1864. One fateful morning, the Lotz family found their home surrounded by thousands of Federal troops marching before them.

As the day unfolded, Confederate troops attacked, turning the peaceful Lotz House and its surroundings into a battleground.

The Lotz family sought refuge in the basement of the Carter House across the street, witnessing a five-hour battle to be remembered as one of the bloodiest of the Civil War, with 10,000 dead or wounded.

Today, the Lotz House serves as a living museum, opening its doors to the public and offering a glimpse into the past. With cannon fire holes and battle scars, the house has seen many owners and narrowly escaped demolition in 1974.

Then, the Heritage Society of Franklin and Williamson Counties stepped in, saving this historical gem. As a result, the Lotz House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, and its restoration began.

In 2008, the Lotz House was officially opened as a historical museum operated by a privately owned non-profit foundation.

For those seeking a brush with history, the Lotz House offers a range of specialty tours that promise an engaging and immersive experience.

For example, visitors can take a guided tour of the historic house, a women’s history tour, or a walking battlefield tour.

There’s also the unique opportunity to see the historical cellar of the Lotz family home or even experience a ghost tour. With expert guides personalizing each tour, there’s an adventure waiting for everyone.

The Lotz House welcomes visitors Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm. The cost of admission for adults is $14, while seniors get a discounted rate of $12. Children aged 7-13 can enter for $6, and children aged six and under can visit for free.

Specialty tours require reservations. The house also offers free parking and a 10% discount for AAA members.

As TripAdvisor’s highest-rated attraction in Franklin, the Lotz House is a must-visit for anyone seeking a unique historical experience. From its rich Civil War history to the magnificent period furniture and decorations, this house offers a remarkable journey back in time.

So, step back in time and explore the stories etched in every corner of the Lotz House.

Amid time changes, the Lotz House embraces its past while looking toward the future. With ongoing restoration efforts to preserve its historical integrity, the Lotz House will remain an enduring landmark of Franklin, Tennessee .

In the end, the Lotz House is more than a house; it’s a symbol of resilience, a testament to the power of history, and a tribute to the enduring spirit of humanity. It is a treasure trove of stories that inspire, educate, and provoke thought.

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Guides explain the details of Battle of Franklin and the Lotz Family This was a young German immigrant family who experienced a major Civil War battle in their front yard We also go into detail about the furnishings and lifestyle of the era The best discount tickets available Best of all - Skip the wait at Lotz House Tour On this tour, our guides explain the details of the Battle of Franklin and the Lotz Family.

This was a young German immigrant family who experienced a major Civil War battle in their front yard.

We also go into detail about the furnishings and lifestyle of the era. Our home and tour experience is usually one that all folks, no matter the age or gender, really enjoy and appreciate.

What is the mission of the Lotz House Tour? The mission of the Lotz House Tour is to provide an educational and interactive experience for our guests that highlights the unique history of the Lotz House. The tour includes a guided exploration of the basement, which was used as a Civil War hospital, as well as a visit to the on-site museum. Guests will have the opportunity to learn about the hospital’s role in the Battle of Franklin and see artifacts from the battle, including a blood-stained Confederate flag.

What is the goal of the Lotz House Tour? The goal of the Lotz House Tour is to educate and engage our guests in the history of the Lotz House and the Battle of Franklin. We want our guests to walk away with a better understanding of the Civil War and its impact on Middle Tennessee. We also hope to provide a fun and memorable experience for everyone who visits the tour.

What is the history of the Lotz House Tour? The Lotz House was built in 1858 and was used as a Civil War hospital during the Battle of Franklin in 1864. After the war, the house was converted into a museum and has been open to the public for tours since 1922. The tour includes a guided exploration of the basement, which was used as a Civil War hospital, as well as a visit to the on-site museum. Guests will have the opportunity to learn about the hospital’s role in the Battle of Franklin and see artifacts from the battle, including a blood-stained Confederate flag.

What should I expect during my experience at the Lotz House Tour? During your experience at the Lotz House Tour, you will have the opportunity to explore the historic home and learn about its fascinating history. You will also be able to see some of the original furnishings and artifacts that are on display in the home. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the Civil War and how it impacted the lives of people.

Lotz House Tour

Hours of Operation Monday - Saturday: 9:00am - 5:00pm Sunday: 1:00pm - 4:00pm

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Battle of Franklin home tours make a great day trip for history buffs

If you want to understand the Civil War's Battle of Franklin and how it affected the people of then-small town Franklin, visiting Franklin's three Civil War house museums makes a lot of sense.

Not only do you hear the historical account of this important and incredibly bloody battle from different tour guides, but you also hear the personal side of how the battle affected three families whose homes loomed large in the 1864 story.

A group of friends and I made a day trip out of visiting the three Franklin homes on a crisp, sunny March day and came away with a much better understanding of how the Battle of Franklin affected Franklin in the 1860s and the role it played in the Civil War as a whole.

It was a long day to take in three full tours (it took us from 9 a.m. until after 3 p.m. with a break for lunch at Meridee's Bread Basket), but it was well worth it to get the whole story about this devastating battle that left 10,000 soldiers dead, wounded, captured or missing. 

Plus, it is cheaper to buy a combo Value Ticket to all three homes than to purchase admission separately.

All three tours show how much life changed in November 1864, when the Confederate army of Tennessee attacked the Union army at the southern edge of Franklin.  

Funny thing was that on our ride back to Nashville, my friends and I had a hard time choosing a favorite of the war-torn homes. We were all glad to have toured them all.

We loved the Lotz  House for a lot of reasons, including our guide J.T. Thompson, who brought the Lotz family to life with his enthusiastic and well researched narrative of their life before, during and after the war.

He told us that Johann Lotz, a German immigrant and master carpenter and woodworker, built his home in Franklin from 1855 to 1858 as a "show house" for his woodworking skills.

Thompson's use of poignant details about the family and the times made his tour one of the most engaging I have ever experienced. He interspersed nuggets of interesting period and family information, presented against the backdrop of his account of the harrowing Battle of Franklin. 

One minute he was telling us about the daughter, Matilda Lotz, a 6-year-old at the time of the battle, who became an internationally acclaimed artist. Moments later, he showed us how the subtle use of gold in the pre-electricity home was used to create light. He demonstrated how a "chaperone sofa" worked to keep young suitors at arm's length, and he made sure we saw the blood stains that remain on the floors from the battle's aftermath. 

Thompson made sure that we didn’t miss — or underappreciate — the beauty of the lovingly carved mantles, the curved black walnut handrail on the staircase, the exquisitely made pieces of the Lotz furniture and the original art, some of which is Matilda Lotz's. 

About the Lotz House:   Over the years, the Lotz House served as a law office, Subway sandwich shop, florist and haunted house. It was slated to serve as headquarters for a Mexican restaurant that planned to call itself Lotza Taco before Thompson, with his passion for history, stepped in. He and his wife bought the house in 2003 and created a nonprofit to bring it back to life and operate it as a house museum to help tell the story of the Battle of Franklin. Lotz House been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, but only open as a house museum since 2008. 

Address : 1111 Columbia Ave., Franklin

Hours : 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1-4 p.m. Sunday, or by appointment

Admission : $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 65 and older, $6 for children 7-13 and free for ages 6 and under. Discounts include 10 percent off for AAA members. Mention the website for 10 percent off, and ask about group discounts. 

Annual attendance : 52,000

Details : 615-790-7190 or  https://www.lotzhouse.com  

Carter House

Carter House , which was the epicenter of the Battle of Franklin, is located just across Columbia Avenue from the Lotz House.

Our guide, Shelia Mullican, was informative, funny and knowledgeable about the fierce fighting that took place on the Carter lawn as the Confederates made their attack. The sturdy brick house was pummeled with cannon balls and bullets, leaving holes and strike marks in the brick walls and on the floors of the almost fortress-like structure. 

We toured both floors of the house, but the most powerful stop was the cellar, where the Carters, some of their servants and the five-member Lotz family huddled for nine to 10 hours while the battle raged. 

Mullican's telling was heartrending. She helped us imagine what this group of 27 men, women and children, crammed into one room, would have heard, smelled, and feared from their dark underground hideaway in the heat of this violent battle, which is described as the five bloodiest hours of the Civil War. 

When the fighting stopped and the U.S. Army evacuated in the middle of the night, the families emerged from their makeshift safe-room to find a war-torn wasteland, with the lawn strewn with hundreds of dead and dying Union and Confederate bodies. 

The final stop on the official Carter House tour was a "wow" moment to most everyone in our group. We went inside the wood-frame farm office outbuilding, which was riddled with bullet holes, strike marks and ricocheted bullets  that hit as the Confederate soldiers moved in from the south and made their assault on the Union army. Mullican told us the gunfire hit the building from both directions as the battle raged. 

Our after-tour look around the lovely Carter House grounds enabled us to explore the original smokehouse, kitchen building and an authentic slave cabin, giving us a look at daily life in the 1860s, in addition to the narrative of the gruesome war days we had just heard about. 

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Another plus for the Carter House was that there were a couple of opportunities for members of our tour group to sit down along the way to hear some of the narrative. Taking a seat for a few minutes was welcome after standing so much on the first tour.

About Carter House:  The Carter House State Historic Site is set on 25 acres. Carter House was built around 1830 by Fountain Branch Carter. It was purchased by the State of Tennessee in 1951, and it was first opened to the public in 1953. Today it is managed by The Battle of Franklin Trust. 

Address : 1140 Columbia Ave., Franklin.

Admission : $18 for adults, $8 for children ages 6-15

Details : The classic tour includes a 60-minute guided tour of the home and access to the grounds.

Hours : 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday 

Annual attendance : 40,000

Details : 615-791-1861 or  https://boft.org/

Our third stop was Carnton , with its gorgeous brick home with a huge white porch, spectacular grounds and the powerful cemetery where 1,500 Confederate soldiers are buried.

Our tour guide Lyle Ihde provided details about the home and the McGavock family and shared mind-boggling stories of the home serving as the largest field hospital in the area. The surgeries, mostly amputations, took place in virtually every room of the house, and he showed us the blood stains to prove it.

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The Confederate cemetery, which is the self-guided part of the tour, was incredibly poignant, with row after row of small, initialed headstones arranged by the soldier's state of origin. The average age of the soldiers who fell in the battle was 22-23 years old, and most were originally buried in shallow graves where they fell near Carter House. In 1866, the bodies were moved to Carnton, after the McGavock family donated two acres near the house for their reburial.     

The cemetery at Carnton is the largest privately owned Confederate cemetery in the country.

About Carnton : Carnton was built in 1826 by former Nashville Mayor Randal McGavock and was the home of John and Carrie McGavock at the time of the Civil War. The home and 48 acres is privately owned and is managed by the Battle of Franklin Trust.

Address : 1345 Eastern Flank Cir., Franklin

The ticket includes a 60-minute guided tour of the home and access to the grounds and cemetery.

Hours : 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday 

Annual attendance : 60,000  

Details : 615-794-0903  https://boft.org  

Value Ticket is the best deal

The $35 Value Ticket, which is available at all three sites, is a discounted ticket to the Classic House Tours at Carter House and Carnton and the house tour at Lotz House. If purchased separately, you would pay $48 for adult admission to all three historic homes.

You do not need to visit the houses in any particular order, but plan at least 5 hours to see them all.

The Value Ticket does not expire, so you could tour one property and come back days or weeks later to tour the others. All three homes have free parking. 

Reach Ms. Cheap at 615-259-8282 or [email protected] . Follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/mscheap , and at Tennessean.com/mscheap , and on Twitter @Ms_Cheap, and catch her every Thursday at 11 a.m. on WTVF-Channel 5’s “Talk of the Town.”

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Walz in the National Guard: A Steady Rise Ending With a Hard Decision

In a military career that spanned three decades, Tim Walz achieved one of the highest enlisted ranks in the Army. Some peers took issue with the timing of his retirement.

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By Thomas Gibbons-Neff John Ismay and Kate Selig

In the 1980s, the U.S. military was in the middle of a transformation. The Vietnam War was over, and a force once staffed with drafted troops who had fought and died in the jungles of Southeast Asia was transitioning to ranks filled solely with volunteers.

In Nebraska, Tim Walz was one of those volunteers.

Mr. Walz, now Minnesota governor and the presumptive Democratic candidate for vice president, raised his hand to join the Army National Guard just two days past his 17th birthday on April 8, 1981. In a career in the military that spanned three decades, he battled floods, managed an artillery unit and achieved one of the highest enlisted ranks in the Army. He also navigated a full-time job teaching social studies alongside his part-time military occupation as an enlisted combat arms soldier, a role that trained him for war.

Mr. Walz never went to war. Most of his service covered a period when America was bruised from foreign entanglements and wary of sending troops into combat overseas for long stretches. And it ended when Mr. Walz was 41, as the military ramped up for war after Sept. 11.

Since being picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate this week, he has found himself facing allegations previously aired by Minnesota Republicans and newly amplified by JD Vance, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate.

Those criticisms center on Mr. Walz’s decision to retire from the Army in 2005, the year before his artillery battalion deployed to Iraq. He was thinking seriously about a run for Congress and spoke with other soldiers about being torn between his loyalty to his fellow troops and his desire to move on with his life. At the time, there were vague expectations that the unit might deploy, but actual orders came several months later.

The unit deployed to Iraq for more than one year beginning in 2006. During that time, soldiers in the unit provided security for transportation convoys and other tasks common in a combat zone.

Supporters say he served honorably for 24 years and had long since earned the right to retire from the Guard when he chose.

“In talking with him, it was a hard decision,” said Joseph Eustice, a soldier who served under Mr. Walz until his departure. “The guy I knew in the Guard, I’d walk through a wall for.”

But Thomas Behrends, a retired command sergeant major in his Guard unit, took Mr. Walz’s place for the Iraq deployment and said Mr. Walz was a “sell out” to his unit. “Whatever reason he had, he’s never explained it,” said Mr. Behrends, who wrote an editorial in 2018 speaking out against Mr. Walz during his campaign for governor.

In 2006, when Mr. Walz first ran for Congress, one critic who served in the Minnesota National Guard claimed that he was misleading people into thinking his record included a combat deployment. Mr. Walz pushed back strongly.

“There’s a code of honor among those who’ve served, and normally this type of partisan political attack comes only from one who’s never worn a uniform,” Mr. Walz wrote that year in a letter to the editor of The Winona Daily News, a newspaper in the district.

Even his most vocal opponents in the Guard agree that Mr. Walz was a respected soldier — someone who did his job dependably and could be counted on to take care of his troops.

Mr. Walz was drawn to the military the same way many Americans are: It was a family business. His father was a veteran, and his older sister had joined the military three years before him. His father died of lung cancer soon after Mr. Walz enlisted.

“I think it was instilled in us. It was just something that I think was more of an expectation,” Mr. Walz said in a 2009 Library of Congress interview. “I never really thought of a time when I wouldn’t join some branch.”

On the day he enlisted, the 17-year-old Walz was picked up after a high school track practice. After going to a nearby town, passing cornfields and flat roads, he met a lieutenant in charge of the local Guard unit. From there, he said in the 2009 interview, his 24 years of military service began.

Mr. Walz’s first job in the Nebraska Guard was in the infantry. In the 1980s, that meant Private Walz quickly learned how to fire an M16 and shoot, move and communicate in small units as he completed his training between junior and senior year of high school at Fort Benning in Georgia.

With the threat of war with the Soviet Union still present, Army recruiting commercials highlighted a modernizing American military: Newly formed Ranger units descended from Black Hawk helicopters and Apache gunships buzzed the ground, all with the Army’s famous motto “Be all you can be” blaring in the background.

As Mr. Walz climbed through the lower enlisted ranks, he bounced around the Midwest and the South, taking jobs in Texas and Arkansas before settling on his career path as a teacher. He figured that teaching left ample room in his schedule to train with the Guard. Those requirements frequently called on those in the Guard to show up for one weekend a month and a few weeks a year (sometimes in the summer months and sometimes for longer stretches of time).

“For many of us in the National Guard, there was an awful lot of teachers,” Mr. Walz said in the Library of Congress interview. “It was a very compatible profession. It felt like there was a lot of crossover and skill sets that worked there.”

Throughout the 1990s Mr. Walz performed the standard duties called upon by National Guard units — flood cleanup and recoveries from forest fires and tornadoes. In 1996 he changed jobs from the infantry to artillery and joined 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery in the Minnesota National Guard after he married and moved to Mankato, Minn. A year later he was in Norway on a training exercise.

“He was a good soldier,” said Bill Kautt who was Mr. Walz’s battalion commander during the short deployment to Norway. “I think he was a respected member of the Guard and he did his job.”

Mr. Walz was the chief of one of the unit’s howitzer batteries and joined the exercise as the battalion’s operations sergeant in the command group and worked closely with Mr. Kautt. In their downtime, he recalled connecting with Sergeant Walz as both were social studies teachers at the time. And, they both coached school athletic teams.

“I was very impressed with him,” Mr. Kautt said. “I would consider him energetic. He was dependable and he was willing to do whatever we asked him to do.”

But his time in an artillery unit came at a cost to his health, despite not seeing combat. The deafening booms and shock waves from howitzer barrels and their projectiles, which sound like freight trains as they fly overhead, left Mr. Walz with hearing loss and tinnitus in both ears, according to a 2018 report from Minnesota Public Radio . In 2005 he underwent corrective surgery to alleviate the problem, the report said.

As Mr. Walz navigated the duties, training and health issues common in any military unit, especially those in combat arms like field artillery, he managed to keep his dual roles — soldier and teacher — separate.

“He was a coach and a teacher first,” said Noah Hobbs, a student of Mr. Walz in 2005 at Mankato West High School. He added that Mr. Walz did not boast about his military service, nor bring it up frequently in the classroom.

But the fact that Mr. Walz was in the military was common knowledge among the student body.

Mr. Walz’s relatively peaceful time in uniform — having never been deployed as part of operations in Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989 or the Gulf War in 1990 — changed on Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorist group Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania during a brazen strike on American soil.

Emily Falenczykowski-Scott, 41, saw the attack unfold on a television in the lobby of Mankato West High School and remembers Mr. Walz running by. He stopped when he saw her. “Emily, thousands of people have already died. This is war,” she recalled him saying.

In the twilight of his time in the Guard, before he retired in 2005 to run for Congress, Mr. Walz deployed to Vicenza, Italy in 2003. His artillery battalion was charged with guarding entry control points at Air Force bases that were supporting the war in Afghanistan as U.S. forces sought to capture or kill Al Qaeda’s leadership there.

After that deployment ended in 2004, Mr. Walz made the decision to leave the Guard as he considered the run for Congress and as rumors swirled about a potential deployment to Iraq. He had been promoted to command sergeant major — a rank few soldiers reach.

But in the end, he retired as a master sergeant because he never completed the coursework — which would have taken 664 hours online and 86 hours in person to complete — required to keep the rank of sergeant major.

Republicans have accused Mr. Walz of inflating his credentials, reviving a dispute from his past political campaigns over which designations Mr. Walz should be entitled to use as his exit rank.

On the Harris campaign site, he is described as a “master sergeant.” But on his governor’s page bio , he has kept the mention of “Command Sergeant Major.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of people killed on Sept. 11 in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. It was nearly 3,000, not more than 3,000. The article also misspelled the last name of a retired command sergeant major who served in Tim Walz’s Guard unit. He is Thomas Behrends, not Behrands.

How we handle corrections

Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. More about Thomas Gibbons-Neff

John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy. More about John Ismay

Kate Selig is a Times national reporter and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their career. More about Kate Selig

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Port Huron Fire Department holds open house for new station

Hundreds of people got their first look at Port Huron Fire Department's new station on 10th Street during an open house Thursday afternoon.

City officials held a "hose uncoupling" to celebrate the opening of the 18,915-square-foot station that had been under construction since December 2022.

"We will be dead and gone before they have to replace this building. It's that well built," Port Huron City Manager James Freed said at the open house.

Freed lauded the new facilities which modernize the fire department. The new station was built to replace the fire station on River Street, which was originally constructed in the 1960s.

Port Huron Mayor Pauline Repp said the new fire station was the biggest investment in the fire department during her career, adding that it highlights the value the community places in its firefighters.

The new fire station provides firefighters with upgraded facilities, including individual bedrooms, a decontamination room, a larger garage to hold more vehicles and the "training tower" used to practice responses involving great heights.

Freed thanked Port Huron Fire Chief Corey Nicholson, who oversaw the construction while running the department.

Nicholson told those present their tax dollars would help the department better serve the community by reducing response times and improving training.

"Without your financial support, Fire Station 1 would not be possible," Nicholson said.

Nicholson also thanked the firefighter for their work helping to move operations from the River Street station to the new one. Though construction of Station 1 was technically finished in June, the fire department spent several hours moving supplies and equipment across town to get it up and running.

Guests were allowed to tour the fire station their tax dollars paid for. Children tested out a fire house with assistance from the department's firefighters. Others checked out "Old Gert," the 100-year-old fire truck originally owned by the department. It's now owned by Terry and Rita Ernest, who allowed it to be displayed in the new fire station's garage.

Gary and Judy Lenn of Port Huron said they were glad to see the new facilities firefighters would have access to in their job.

"It seems like it's a good investment to improve the fire department," Gary Lenn said.

Marty Habalewsky, another Port Huron resident, said he has watched the building come together each day while passing it on his way to work. He noted the fire station's location on 10th Street meant it would be able to more quickly respond to house fires.

"I've been watching it go up and it's bigger (than the previous station)," Habalewsky said. "I'm sure it's going to be better for everyone."

Contact Johnathan Hogan at [email protected] .

Election 2024: Harris follows Trump to North Carolina; Vance continues his swing through the Rust Belt

What to watch on the campaign trail today

• Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech on lowering the cost of living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her appearance came just days after former President Donald Trump stumped in Asheville to deliver his own economic speech that ultimately veered into personal attacks on Harris .
• Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, is continuing his swing through the Midwest with a stop in Milwaukee today. Vance, an Ohio senator who made appearances in Pennsylvania and Michigan in recent days, has frequently been dispatched to the Rust Belt .
• Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Vance have agreed to participate in a debate Oct. 1 . Trump and Harris are set to participate in a Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News.

Will protesters, or police, be the problem at the Democratic National Convention?

Simone Weichselbaum

Samira Puskar

Shaquille Brewster

More than 20,000 protesters are expected to cram into a 1.4 mile-long court-approved protest route near Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, creating a potential standoff between demonstrators and a police department with a history of excessive force.

The 264 protest groups that have said will participate are primarily focused on Palestinian rights, ending the war in Gaza and reducing U.S. aid to Israel. Others represent a patchwork of left-leaning causes: climate activists, socialists, anti-racist organizations, queer and trans rights groups.

Read the full story here.

Harris to meet with Teamsters union roundtable

Kelly O'Donnell

Megan Lebowitz

Harris accepted an invitation to meet with a Teamsters union roundtable, according to the union and the Harris campaign.

"The vice president has received and gladly accepted an invitation by IBT leadership to participate in a candidate roundtable to discuss her record of fighting for Teamsters and their families and to highlight her vision for the future," the campaign said in a statement. "The campaign looks forward to scheduling the roundtable in the near future."

The union will have a presence at the Democratic National Convention, though union president Sean O'Brien will not be a speaker, according to a source familiar with DNC convention planning. O'Brien last month delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Teamsters has previously held private meetings with both Trump and Biden.

Harris accepted the invitation today, said Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz, who added that the vice president's staff would coordinate a date for the roundtable.

Pennsylvania GOP Senate nominee stresses turning out base over swaying independent voters

Emma Barnett

Pennsylvania GOP Senate nominee Dave McCormick today stressed getting Republicans out to the polls as a higher priority than persuading independents to vote for him.

When McCormick was asked about his strategy to win the November election, he said at an energy roundtable earlier today, “You can’t even start to talk about independents or Democrats until you say, ‘Our people are out to vote.’”

McCormick said his strategy to push for high turnout is to be “everywhere all at the same time,” arguing the math is “pretty straightforward” when you look at the number of counties in Pennsylvania that are Republican leaning.

McCormick also acknowledged “a lot of volatility” because of the change at the top of the ticket on the Democratic side. But he remained adamant that once you have the “foundation” of big voter turnout, then you can start thinking about courting independent voters.

“Eleven percent of our voters are independent,” McCormick said. “Most of them are really unhappy with the future of the country and the future of Pennsylvania. Some of them are in supportive of President Trump, many of them are. I am hoping I can make a big push to get those folks very engaged.”

He said he believes the way to win this campaign is to make the choice between him and incumbent Sen. Bob Casey “very stark and clear.”

Pennsylvania Republican state Rep. Joe Hamm, who was part of the round table, said he has told Trump’s team members they need to be more disciplined in their messaging when they have asked him what he is hearing and seeing in the state.

“His messaging is killing us when he’s talking about how [Harris] identifies, you know, with her race. Who cares? Let’s talk about the border. Let’s talk about inflation and how, you know, hard work from Pennsylvania’s Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Let’s talk about their policies and what it’s done to our Commonwealth and this nation,” Hamm told McCormick.

McCormick responded, “When I talk about my campaign, it’s a team score. It is up and down the ballot. Hopefully my race can have an effect both up the ticket and down the ticket.”

Supreme Court temporarily rejects Biden administration request that would expand Title IX protections

Lawrence Hurley

Reporting from Washington, D.C.

The  Supreme Court  on Friday barred the Biden administration from enforcing parts of a  major regulation on sex discrimination in education  that is embroiled in litigation over its protections for transgender students.

The court rejected a request from the administration to allow less contentious parts of the regulation, many of which have nothing to do with gender identity, to go into effect in states where it has been challenged while lower courts wrangle over the contentious transgender issues.

Gov. Roy Cooper: 'I have that 2008 feeling'

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who pulled out of consideration to be Harris' running mate , said in a CNN interview that he has "that 2008 feeling," referring to the last time his state voted for a Democratic presidential nominee.

"I said earlier today, 'I have that 2008 feeling,' and people in North Carolina know what that means. That's the last time we voted for a Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama," he said. "I have that same feeling now. I'm getting that vibe from voters that they want to make history again."

Trump campaign adviser says former president's schedule to 'increase'

Isabelle Schmeler

Corey Lewandowski, a newly appointed Trump senior campaign adviser, said in a Fox News interview that the former president's schedule will pick up.

"You’re going to see him on the road all week long, and you’re going to see the president’s schedule continue to increase, because I believe that the president’s best when he’s talking directly to the American people," Lewandowski said.

When asked what needed to change on Trump's campaign, Lewandowski pointed to wanting Trump to be "in front of the American people."

"I want him to talk to small gatherings, big gatherings, rallies, the policy speeches," he said. "That’s where he excels, and that’s where he’s the best. And I think the more people who get to see him and hear him, the more likely it is they’re going to support him."

Walz joins TikTok or, as he puts it, 'TimTok'

Walz is officially on TikTok, announcing his move in his first video on the social media site today.

The governor filmed the 10-second video alongside his dog, Scout, at a dog park.

"Hey everybody, Tim here with Scout at the dog park along the Mississippi doing our first entry into TikTok," he said. "Or as he and I say: TimTok. Right, Scout?"

Former U.S. Secret Service director now herself under protection amid threats

Zoë Richards

Former U.S. Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle has been designated a Secret Service protectee, after resigning her position in the wake of assassination attempt on Trump last month in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Threats have been directed at Cheatle following the shooting, criticism over security failings and her appearance on Capitol Hill, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Cheatle resigned on July 23. 

She served as an agent of the Secret Service from 1995 to 2019, She then spent roughly three years in the private sector as a senior security official for Pepsi before she was named director of the Secret Service in 2022. 

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi to address the DNC on Wednesday

Bridget Bowman

Julie Tsirkin

Sahil Kapur

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will deliver a speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, of Washington, and Rep. Tom Suozzi, of New York, will also make remarks on the same day.

Suozzi is expected to discuss immigration, the issue that made him a national figure after his rightward shift on the border helped him flip George Santos’s district in a special election this year.

Republicans have leaned into immigration and border issues as a primary line of attack against Harris, aiming to tie her to the issue.

Punchbowl News first reported the Wednesday speaking slots.

Cornel West disqualified from Michigan ballot

Jane C. Timm

Cornel West has been disqualified from appearing on Michigan's presidential ballot because the independent candidate's paperwork was not properly notarized, the state's board of elections announced Friday.

West was required to include a notarized affidavit of identity when filing to appear on Michigan’s ballot, but the Colorado notary who filled out the paperwork left out key details. The notary’s stamp was also on a separate piece of paper and not included with her certificate.

In a letter detailing the decision that was shared with NBC News, Michigan Director of Elections Jonathan Brater said officials reached out to West’s team in early August but did not hear back.

A spokesperson for West's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The development is a boon for Democrats, who have worried that West might pull votes from their presidential ticket. Republicans have boosted West's efforts to get on the ballot in key battleground states.

Mark Brewer, an attorney and former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, filed a challenge in July and a lawsuit this week to keep West off the state's ballot. Brewer successfully challenged the candidacy of five Republican gubernatorial candidates in 2022 after finding fraudulent signatures in their ballot qualification paperwork.

GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson plans to do whatever it takes to help Trump win with $100 million PAC

Brian Schwartz, CNBC

Billionaire Republican megadonor  Miriam Adelson  appears to have a blank check policy when it comes to her support of former President  Donald Trump , as she aims to help get him back to the  White House .

Adelson’s political aide Andy Abboud was overheard telling attendees at a campaign event at Trump’s golf club in  Bedminster, N.J. , on Thursday that whatever Trump needs from Adelson, he’s going to get, according to Abboud and a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

This person and one other in this article were granted anonymity to speak freely about private matters.

“We’re going to do whatever it takes for him to win,” Abboud said in a brief phone interview Friday with CNBC, confirming his comments overheard at the event. “In her [Adelson’s] mind, and in the minds of those who run the political action committee [Preserve America], we are going to do whatever it takes for him to win.”

Trump's voice featured on new song with rappers Kodak Black and Fivio Foreign

Nnamdi Egwuonwu

Donald Trump's voice is featured on a new rap song with New York rapper Fivio Foreign and Florida rapper Kodak Black titled “ONBOA47RD.”

Both rappers have publicly expressed support for Trump, particularly Kodak Black, whom Trump pardoned toward the end of his first term.

“Rap music imitates reality and these artists are showing their support for President Trump, which has become a common sentiment in the Black community,” Janiyah Thomas, campaign Black media director, said.

Clips of Trump speaking are used on the song’s intro and bridge: “I’m not supposed to be here tonight. I’m here today to announce a brand-new plan to deliver more opportunity, more security, more fairness.”

Both rappers made reference to Trump during their respective verses.

“I look at the gang and I pledge the allegiance. So we’re all Donald’s secret,” Foreign said.

“The government gave me a proclamation, turn my birthday to holiday,” Kodak Black said, referring to Trump’s pardon.

Kodak Black and Fivio Foreign have 30 million combined monthly listeners on Spotify, with the former a platinum selling artists and billboard chart topper.

Vance campaign plane makes emergency landing in Milwaukee

Alec Hernández

Reporting from aboard Vance's campaign plane

Minutes after taking off en route to Ohio, Vance's campaign plane made an emergency landing in Milwaukee after experiencing a mechanical issue with one of its doors.

"The pilot advised there was a malfunction with the door seal. After declaring an emergency, Trump Force Two returned to Milwaukee. As soon as the issue was resolved, the plane returned to its originally planned flight path back to Cincinnati,” Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said in a statement.

Campaigning in Milwaukee earlier this afternoon, Vance was set to return to his home base in Cincinnati after wrapping two stops in the area. The campaign's plane first took off just after 1:06 p.m. CT and touched back down safely 16 minutes later after declaring the emergency.

Nearly an hour later at 2:18 p.m. CT, the plane took off again headed to its original destination with the issue resolved.

Harris claims Trump tried to cut Medicare in office. Not quite.

In her North Carolina speech, Kamala Harris said of Trump, “He tried to cut Medicare every year he was president.”

It’s a misleading line that Democrats have been using for years, based on Trump’s budget proposals that restricted payments to Medicare providers and suppliers. As  NBC News has reported , Trump’s budgets didn’t cut Medicare benefits. The spending cuts for health care providers and suppliers have been embraced by Democrats, including in the Affordable Care Act, which Harris touted on Friday and vowed to protect.

In response to the Harris claim, Trump campaign spokesman Brian Hughes said, “Their shameless lies about President Trump are an attempt to distract from Harris’ abject failure in the White House.”

Harris contrasts her vision for America's economic future with Trump's

Elleiana Green Elleiana Green is a Digital Politics intern with NBC News

Finishing out her speech in Raleigh, Harris contrasted her economic proposals with those of the Trump campaign.

"Donald Trump plans to devastate the middle class, punish working people and make the cost of living go up for millions of Americans," she said.

She added that her administration would "bring down costs, increase the security and stability financially of your family, and expand opportunity for working and middle-class Americans."

Harris' promise to expand the child tax credit could face congressional opposition

Alexandra Marquez

In her speech, Harris promised "to not only restore [the child] tax credit, but expand it," adding that she would provide $6,000 to parents in the first year of a child's life.

If elected, Harris' proposal would almost surely face pushback in the Senate, which voted this month to block a smaller, bipartisan plan to impose a child tax credit.

Harris says she will 'end American housing shortage' as president

Harris said that her economic plan will "end America's housing shortage by building 3 million new homes and rentals."

"I know what home ownership means. It’s more than a financial transaction. It’s so much more than that. ... It’s a symbol of the pride that comes with hard work. It’s financial security. It represents what you will be able to do for your children," she said.

She added, "Sadly, right now, it is out of reach for far too many American families. ... As president, I will work in partnership with industry to build the housing we need both to rent and to buy."

Harris talks about Trump raising taxes on basic necessities

Rebecca Shabad

Harris talked about Trump raising taxes on necessities, referring to the former president saying he wants a 10% tariff on imported goods .

"It will mean higher prices on just about every one of your daily needs," she said. "A Trump tax on gas, a Trump tax on food, a Trump tax on clothing, a Trump tax on over-the-counter medication."

Trump told Fox News earlier this year that  it could be 60%  — maybe even “more than that” — on imports of Chinese goods.

Crowd applauds after Harris says she'll give cash to first-time homebuyers

"While we work on the housing shortage, my administration will provide first-time home buyers with $25,000 to help with the down payment on a new home," Harris told rallygoers in North Carolina, to big cheers.

"We can do this," she added.

Harris says she will go after 'bad actors' who raise prices

During the event to unveil her economic plan if she is elected president, Harris said she "will go after the bad actors" to protect consumers.

"Look, I know most businesses are creating jobs, contributing to our economy and playing by the rules, but some are not, and that's just not right, and we need to take action when that is the case," Harris said.

The former California attorney general said that she went after companies that illegally increased prices and won more than $1 billion for consumers. She said she'll do more as president.

Harris refers to her own middle-class upbringing

During her speech unveiling an economic policy platform, Harris told her family's story, sharing with attendees: "For most of my childhood, we were renters. My mother saved for well over a decade to buy a home."

"Later in college, I worked at McDonald's to earn spending money," Harris said, before acknowledging that "some of the people I worked with were raising families on that paycheck."

"They worked second or third jobs to pay rent or buy food. That only gets harder when the cost of living goes up," Harris added.

Harris says she would work to pass first U.S. ban on price-gauging on food

Harris said that, as president, she would work to pass the first federal ban on price-gauging on food.

"My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules, and we will support smaller food businesses that are trying to play by the rules and get ahead," Harris said.

She continued: "We will help the food industry become more competitive ... more competition means lower prices for you and your families."

Harris says she'll lay out full her economic vision 'in the weeks to come'

Harris told the audience in Raleigh that she'll lay out her full economic vision "in the weeks to come," but today she will focus exclusively on the cost of living.

"I will address in greater detail my plans to build an opportunity economy, and today, I will focus on one element that's on the minds of many Americans as they pay their bills at the kitchen table or walk the aisles of a grocery store, and that is lowering the cost of living," she said.

She continued: "Look, the bills add up: food, rent, gas, back-to-school, clothes, prescription medication. After all that, for many families, there's not much left at the end of the month."

Harris says she will cut 'red tape' and build up middle class

During her speech in Raleigh, Harris said her economic plan as president will "focus on cutting needless bureaucracy and unnecessary regulatory red tape."

She added: "As president, I will bring together labor with small businesses and major companies to invest in America. ... Key to creating this opportunity economy is building up our middle class."

Harris acknowledges economic progress but admits that 'costs are still too high'

In her speech focused on the economy, Harris said that the country has come a "long way" under the Biden administration.

"We were facing one of the worst economic crises in modern history, and today, by virtually every measure, our economy is the strongest in the world," Harris said.

The administration, she said, has created 16 million new jobs and has made historic investments in chips, manufacturing, clean energy and inflation is under under 3%.

"And as president of the United States, it will be my intention to build on the foundation of this progress," she said. "Still, we know that many Americans don't yet feel that progress in their daily lives, costs are still too high and on a deeper level for too many people, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead."

Harris said her administration would build what she calls "an opportunity economy."

Harris shouts out Gov. Cooper, who was on running mate shortlist

In her remarks, Harris mentioned North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who was once considered on her shortlist of running mates, before he withdrew from consideration .

Harris begins speech saying that she's been to North Carolina 16 times as VP

Harris began her speech in Raleigh by noting how many times she's been to North Carolina, a potential battleground state, since she became vice president: 16 times.

Arizona open primary initiative has enough signatures to make the ballot

A constitutional amendment to create open primaries in Arizona has more than enough signatures to make the ballot, a judge ruled today. The measure had 536,216 signatures, more than 150,000 over the required amount.

If the amendment is approved by voters, it would create an open primary for state, federal and county candidates. For most elections, between two and five of the top vote-getters would advance to the general election.

Supporters say opening up primaries to all voters would reduce extremism in politics and engage more Americans, while critics say the parties are entitled to nominate candidates as they choose. The measure would likely engage more of Arizona’s nearly 1.5 million unaffiliated voters in primaries; currently, they have to request a partisan ballot to participate in the primary election.

Earlier this month, the measure also survived a legal challenge that claimed it violated state law and the Arizona constitution. The case has been appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to aid in Trump's debate prep

Garrett Haake

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, will help Trump prepare for his debate against Harris, campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed.

“He does not need traditional debate prep but will continue to meet with respected policy advisors and effective communicators like Tulsi Gabbard, who successfully dominated Kamala Harris on the debate stage,” said Leavitt.

The former representative had her own exchange on the debate stage with Harris in 2019.

The news was first reported by The New York Times.

Vance says Trump wasn't 'denigrating' veterans in Medal of Honor remarks

In remarks to the Milwaukee Police Association, Vance defended Trump from criticism he's received after the former president claimed that a top presidential civilian award is "better" than the nation's highest military honor.

 "Trust me, the veteran community is very, very much behind Donald Trump," Vance told officers in Milwaukee.

"He’s a guy who loves our veterans and who honors our veterans," Vance added. "I don’t think him complimenting and saying a nice word about a person who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom is in any way denigrating those who received military honors."

Vance was referring to Trump's remarks yesterday at a campaign event where he shared a story about giving Republican donor Miriam Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom and told attendees that that award is "the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version. It’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead."

The Harris campaign and other Trump critics quickly rebuked the former president for the remarks.

New polling digs into the Jewish vote, which could be the swing Pennsylvania demographic

Allan Smith

Jewish voters recently surveyed in battleground Pennsylvania favored Harris over Trump by 12 points, 55%-43%, according to a poll conducted by the Honan Strategy Group earlier this month and shared with NBC News.

The survey is actually somewhat encouraging for Trump. It’s not a frequently polled demographic, so there is little other data to compare to in Pennsylvania. But anywhere from 60% to 70% of Jewish voters nationally backed Democrats at the presidential level in recent elections, according to past research, so the survey may show some small amount of movement toward him.

And Pennsylvania is the swing state with the most Jewish voters, so even a small swing toward the former president could make a big difference.

The pollster assembled the sample by contacting voters with common Jewish surnames, and respondents then self-identified when asked. The group polled 400 Jewish voters from July 26 to Aug. 1, with a margin or error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The survey was conducted on behalf of the TEACH Coalition/Orthodox Union, Jewish advocacy groups that have gotten involved in recent elections, including the successful primary campaign against Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., earlier this year.

“What was surprising was how close the numbers were between Harris and Trump,” said Maury Litwack, founder of the TEACH coalition. “If you look at the Jewish vote in presidential elections, the Democratic candidate usually wins in the 60s, sometimes in the low 70s, but you don’t see it tracking as closely as you do here.”

The survey found Harris’ net favorability among those surveyed at +10, while Trump’s was -19. On Israel, 53% said they believed Harris supported the Jewish state while 39% said she did not or was actively against the country. For Trump, 44% said he was excellent or good at handling U.S./Israel relations.

Roughly two-thirds of respondents said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and a rise in antisemitism made them more likely to vote.

Interestingly, the survey found the inclusion of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, as Harris’ running mate would have made essentially no difference in her polling versus Trump.

'We're rewriting history:' Biden signs proclamation to designate 1908 Springfield Race Riot site a national monument

Joined by civil rights advocates and members of Congress in the Oval Office, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation today to designate the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot a national monument.

"We're rewriting history. We're allowing history to be written as what happened. So our children, our grandchildren and everybody understands what happened and what could still happen," Biden said.

The landmark, where mobs of white residents tore through in 1908 to attack two Black men, became the site of a deadly riot where the white mob took their anger out on the city's Black population. By the end of the riot, two innocent Black men were hanged and homes and businesses in Springfield's majority-Black neighborhoods were demolished and burned to the ground.

The proclamation comes weeks after Sonya Massey was shot and killed in her Springfield home after she called 911 for help.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who previously worked to make the site a national landmark in Congress, joined Biden in the Oval Office today to commemorate the joint effort.

"Good things can come out of bad things, as long as you don't forget what happened," Duckworth said.

'We're closer than we've ever been,' Biden says about Israel-Hamas cease-fire negotiations

The Associated Press

Biden told reporters at an Oval Office event to designate the site of the 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, as a national monument that a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is closer than ever.

"One of the reasons why I was late for you all was I was dealing with the cease-fire effort in the Middle East, and we are closer than we've ever been," he said. "I don't want to jinx anything, but as my grandfather used to say, with the grace of God ... and a lot of luck."

"We may have something, but we’re not there yet," the president added, saying an agreement was "much, much closer than it was three days ago. So keep your fingers crossed."

Mediators wrapped up two days of talks today with a final so-called bridging proposal aimed at shoring up the remaining disagreements and bringing about a quick end to the conflict and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Both sides agreed to a blueprint Biden  outlined on May 31 , but talks dragged on as Hamas and Israel accused each other of trying to kill the deal with various demands.

A new Harvard study shows that celebrity endorsements make a difference in presidential elections as well as in political and civic engagement.

Vance is traveling with a special guest: the family dog

Vance, on his way to Wisconsin for midday remarks, is traveling with a special guest today: his family dog.

Atlas, a 9-month-old German shepherd, traveled in the senator's motorcade from the Vances' Cincinnati home to the airport for the quick one-hour flight to Milwaukee.

He lurched up the steps onto the plane a few strides ahead of the senator who held his leash in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Vance's wife, Usha Vance, is also joining today's campaign trip.

White House plans staff moves as aides switch to Harris campaign

Monica Alba

Two White House staffers are expected to depart the Biden administration soon to join Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, as the operation expands in the final 80-day sprint to election day, according to two administration officials and one campaign official familiar with the moves who were granted anonymity to discuss internal decisions.

With the departures, the White House is promoting deputy communications director Herbie Ziskend to an elevated role to help handle messaging around   President Joe Biden’s legacy, as he nears his final months in office, one of the officials said.

Kristen Orthman, White House principal deputy communications director, will be leaving her post to join the Harris campaign in a planning role that will coordinate across several departments, these people said.

Ian Sams, the White House counsel spokesman for oversight, will move over to the campaign as a senior spokesperson. His departure was first reported by The Washington Post.

The Harris campaign plans to announce more new staff roles as early as today, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Speaker Johnson to fundraise with GOP candidate who backed Jan. 6 arrestees

Sarah Mimms

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will fundraise for Trump-endorsed candidate Joe Kent tomorrow as Kent takes another swing at capturing a western Washington congressional district this fall.

Kent, a veteran and Trump loyalist, drew criticism during his 2022 campaign, suggesting that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol may have been an “ intelligence operation ” aimed at entrapping Trump supporters. He was one of two congressional candidates who spoke at a September 2021 rally in support of Jan. 6 arrestees, casting them as “ political prisoners ,” eight months after the Capitol riot.

Trump endorsed Kent in 2022 and again this year. Kent is facing a rematch with Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., who defeated him last cycle and flipped a Republican-held district that voted for Trump in 2020. Washington's 3rd District is a top GOP target and is expected to be highly competitive again this year.

Harris campaign blasts Trump's Medal of Honor comments

Harris' campaign ripped Trump today over his comments yesterday calling the Presidential Medal of Freedom a "much better" award than the Congressional Medal of Honor, claiming those who receive the latter award have often been killed or badly injured.

"Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself," Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said today in a statement. "For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again,"

Speaking at a campaign event yesterday, Trump lauded Miriam Adelson, whom he awarded the Medal of Freedom during his presidency, saying, "That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor."

“But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead," Trump added, drawing condemnation from Democrats.

New Jersey governor appoints former aide to fill Sen. Bob Menendez’s seat

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced he is appointing his former chief of staff George Helmy to temporarily replace Bob Menendez when the disgraced Democratic senator resigns next week following his  conviction on corruption charges .

Helmy first served as Murphy’s chief of staff in 2019. He  left the post  last year and has been working for a  major health care company in New Jersey .

Before he worked in the governor’s office, Helmy spent several years working   for Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in various roles, including  state director . Helmy also spent time in the private sector and was an aide to the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg,  according to the governor’s office .

Read the full story here .

Health care workers tout key Biden-era law in open letter backing Harris, critiquing Trump

A coalition of 500 health care professionals have signed an open letter repudiating efforts by Republicans to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, citing attacks on the law by Trump and a call to repeal it in the Heritage Foundation’s "Project 2025" materials.

In the letter , first obtained by NBC News, the signatories call Harris and Walz "the only candidates in this race who will fight for our patients and lower health care costs."

"At a time when too many families struggle to afford medical care, we have to take steps to increase affordability and lower costs. We can’t go back to a time when seniors rationed their insulin because they couldn’t afford it," the letter reads. "The IRA must stay, and be strengthened."

The law instituted a $35 cap on the cost of insulin, a popular achievement that has been all over Democratic campaign ads. It also lowered some prescription drug costs and enabled Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs with pharmaceutical companies, which Biden and Harris touted during a joint event in Largo, Maryland, yesterday.

The release of the letter coincides with the two-year anniversary of the law and comes as Harris proposes other measures to reduce health costs during a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina, this afternoon.

Harris campaign to hold bus tour across western Pennsylvania

The Harris campaign says it's set to hold a bus tour across western Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, on Sunday.

The tour will include appearances by Harris, her running mate Gov. Tim Walz, her husband Doug Emhoff, and Walz's wife, Gwen Walz. They will focus on meeting voters, and the stops will include phone banks and canvassing, among other things, the campaign said.

The tour will start in Pittsburgh and continue with stops through Allegheny and Beaver counties.

"The Vice President and Governor Walz will expand upon the 2020 coalition in Pennsylvania, in part by highlighting their efforts to strengthen organized labor and the more than 500,000 Pennsylvania jobs created under the Biden-Harris administration through historic programs like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act," the campaign said.

Trump says presidential civilian award is ‘better’ than top military honor whose recipients are ‘dead’ or ‘hit’ by bullets

Jake Traylor

Ginger Gibson Senior Washington Editor

Trump lauded a wealthy donor on whom  he bestowed  the Presidential Medal of Freedom as having gotten the “better” award compared to the top military honor, the Medal of Honor, because those recipients are often deceased or injured.

Speaking at a campaign event intended to discuss antisemitism, Trump was introduced by Miriam Adelson, a wealthy Republican donor and widow of Sheldon Adelson, who pumped millions of dollars of his own money into electing Republican candidates.  He died in 2021 .

“That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said, referring to the highest military honor bestowed for valor in combat. The Medal of Honor is often mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

“But civilian version, it’s actually much better because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead,” Trump concluded.

Trump staffs his presidential transition team with advisers and family

In a press release, Trump announced that his presidential transition team would be led by Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnick, Sen. JD Vance, and two of his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

McMahon  was the Small Business Administration administrator in the Trump administration and currently serves as the board chair for the America First Policies Institute, a conservative group.

Lutnick is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.

The launch of this transition team comes later than in previous presidential campaign cycles. In 2016, Trump's campaign announced his transition leadership in May. In 2020, Biden launched his in April. 

Harris looks to sharpen economic message with a focus on cutting costs

Shannon Pettypiece

For much of his presidency, Joe Biden struggled to convince Americans their financial condition was better than they perceived. Now, Vice President Kamala Harris will try to shake those negative perceptions as voters continue to fret about the trajectory of the economy. 

Harris will lay out more details on her economic policy agenda during a speech in North Carolina today where she is expected to focus on lowering prices, including a plan to prevent price gouging by major food producers and grocers, the campaign said. Harris will also propose a crackdown on acquisitions among food companies if those deals could lead to higher grocery prices. 

The economy and concerns around rising costs have been among the top issues for voters, who have consistently given Biden low marks. While Biden sought to emphasize the positives, like relatively low unemployment and strong economic growth, he was unable to improve voters’ sentiments amid decades-high inflation. Former President Donald Trump has sought to tie Harris to the view on Biden, frequently asserting that she bears responsibility for all of the current administration’s policies.

Officials explore equipping election workers with ‘panic buttons’ to combat rising threats

Lisa Cavazuti

Officials in a key county in battleground Georgia are taking a new step to ensure election workers’ safety amid rising threats, equipping them with so-called panic buttons that would allow them to quickly contact authorities in emergencies.

The Board of Commissioners in Cobb County, a suburban area northwest of Atlanta, this week approved $47,250 in funding to purchase around 200 devices for election workers ahead of another heated presidential election this fall.

The panic buttons are being sold by Runbeck Election Services, an Arizona-based company that prints ballots and sells election equipment, including printers, to counties across the country, through a partnership with the Ohio-based security company Response Technologies. The devices are roughly the size of a credit card and can be worn on lanyards or tucked in pockets. They pair with users’ cellphones to dispatch GPS locations to the authorities when activated.

Trump owns more than $1M in crypto and made $300K on branded Bibles, financial disclosure shows

Trump owns more than $1 million in cryptocurrency and made $300,000 on  branded Bibles , a personal financial disclosure form released yesterday shows.

The branded Bible, listed in the disclosure as “ The Greenwood Bible ,” sells for $59.99 and includes a handwritten chorus to the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” by country singer Lee Greenwood, according to the branded Bible’s website. A limited edition copy bearing Trump’s signature is also available on the website for $1,000.

The disclosure included details about a cryptocurrency wallet and “virtual ethereum key” holdings that he valued at $1 million to $5 million.

Trump’s public positions on crypto have shifted since he first took office, when he said the  digital currency was a scam .

Harris campaign to hold a 'weekend of action' ahead of the convention

The Harris campaign says it's holding a "weekend of action" ahead of the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

The campaign is expected to hold 2,800 events in battleground states including phone banks, canvassing, meet-ups, organizing booths and even "Project 2025 message trainings," the campaign said.

More than 10,000 people have volunteered to participate in the events, the campaign said, adding that Democratic leaders and surrogates will also take part. They include Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who was the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, as well as a number of House Democrats, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, and celebrities such as actress Emmy Rossum and singer Ben Folds.

Harris to endorse protections for renters and removal of key tax benefits for Wall Street investors buying homes

Yamiche Alcindor

Harris’ campaign rolled out some of her housing policy proposals yesterday, including her support for efforts aimed at lowering the cost of rent and helping renters who are struggling financially, according to details obtained by NBC News from a campaign official.

Harris is proposing plans to stop data firms from driving up lease rates and plans aimed at stopping Wall Street investors from buying up and reselling homes in bulk at a higher price, according to the proposal.

Jill Biden to honor her husband at convention Monday — an appearance that once was going to be much different

First lady Jill Biden will have a role at the Democratic National Convention on Monday as part of a larger tribute to her husband, President Joe Biden, as both will appear in different capacities than was planned just a few weeks ago when he was still the party’s presidential nominee. 

It is expected to be a particularly poignant moment for a first lady who has often been his fiercest defender, marking a public transition for the couple after they navigated the most challenging political chapter of their lives. 

The first lady has privately expressed dismay at some Democrats who were quietly supportive but publicly did not stand by her husband while he was weighing whether to stay in the presidential race, according to two people familiar with her thinking.

She now wants to ensure that his legacy of decades of public service is protected, these people said.  

Trump dodged a question on his pending federal cases from NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard, who asked if Trump would ask an attorney general to dismiss his federal cases if elected as president. Trump responded that he didn’t want to speak about the cases. 

Harris to propose tax cuts in North Carolina speech

Harris will propose a range of new tax cuts during her remarks in Raleigh, North Carolina, later today, according to Harris-Walz campaign officials.

Her proposal will include cutting taxes for middle-class families with kids, restoring the American Rescue Plan’s expanded Child Tax Credit, providing up to $3,600 per child tax credit for middle-class families, and introducing a $6,000 child tax credit for families with children in the first year of life, her campaign said.

The decision to unveil a new tax platform in North Carolina mirrors Trump, who delivered a speech on his economic proposals — and a host of other subjects — in the Tar Heel State on Wednesday.

Where's Biden today?

Carly Roman

Biden will begin his day at the White House, where he will receive the president’s daily brief. Later, he will sign a proclamation to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument .

Later, Biden will depart the White House en route to Camp David.

Matthew Perry’s shocking last month on ketamine: ‘I wonder how much this moron will pay’

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Matthew Perry had tried for years to stay sober, but he was struggling.

The day he died, the “Friends” star asked his personal assistant to inject him with a dose of ketamine at 8:30 a.m. It was the first of three injections the actor would request.

Perry’s longtime assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, administered another dose roughly four hours later while the actor watched a movie. Forty minutes later, Perry wanted to get in the hot tub. But he had another request.

“Shoot me up with a big one,” Perry, 54, told Iwamasa, the assistant recalled in a signed plea agreement.

Iwamasa filled a syringe with ketamine, gave Perry another injection and then left to run errands. When he returned, his boss was dead , floating face down in the water.

When authorities responded to Perry’s Pacific Palisades home about 4 p.m., they found no signs of illegal drug use by the actor. But his autopsy revealed something mysterious.

Trace amounts of ketamine were found in his stomach, and the level in his blood was about the same as would be used during general anesthesia.

The troubling final days of Perry’s life was detailed by authorities in hundreds of pages of court filings made public this week, a culmination of a months-long investigation that centered on the source of ketamine found in Perry’s body at the time of his death.

Iwamasa, 59, was one of five people charged in a conspiracy to distribute ketamine , a powerful anesthetic, to Perry. Federal prosecutors allege that Iwamasa worked with two doctors — Mark Chavez and Salvador Plasencia — and drug dealers Jasveen Sangha and Erik Fleming to obtain thousands of dollars’ worth of ketamine for Perry in the month before his death.

Los Angeles Times could not reach attorneys for Fleming, Sangha and Iwamasa for comment. Chavez’s and Plasencia’s lawyers said that because of the ongoing case, they would not be taking questions or issuing statements.

Both Sangha and Plasencia pleaded not guilty Thursday.

With arrests in Matthew Perry death, is L.A.’s ketamine bubble about to burst?

After federal authorities announced charges against a medical professional allegedly linked to the death of actor Matthew Perry, the popular drug ketamine faces new scrutiny.

Aug. 15, 2024

Perry, who became a household name playing Chandler Bing on the sitcom “Friends,” had long been open about his challenges with drug and alcohol addiction .

“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves,” U.S. Atty. Martin Estrada said Thursday. “They knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry, but they did it anyway.”

Law enforcement officials said Perry had sought treatment for depression and anxiety and went to a local clinic, where he became addicted to intravenous ketamine.

Ketamine has been increasingly offered “off-label” at private clinics in an effort to treat depression and other mental health disorders. Experts have said some people also snort or inject the drug recreationally to experience euphoric or “dissociative” effects that cause the users to feel separated from their own bodies. At very high doses, it can make people feel immobilized and spur hallucinations. The drug can complicate breathing and increase demands on the heart, experts say.

When clinic doctors refused to increase his dosage, Perry turned to Plasencia, an internist who went by the nickname “Dr. P.” On Sept. 30, Plasencia sought the help of another doctor, Chavez, who had experience with ketamine.

In text messages with Chavez, Plasencia pondered how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, writing, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “lets find out,” according to an indictment filed in court.

Chavez said he could provide liquid vials of ketamine and ketamine lozenges, a compound of the drug that can be taken orally. Chavez later admitted to investigators that he obtained the lozenges by filling out a fraudulent prescription.

After picking up the drugs, gloves and syringes from Chavez in Costa Mesa, Plasencia drove the 56 miles to Perry’s home and injected him with two doses of ketamine. He left behind at least one vial for the actor and walked out of the home with $4,500, according to a plea agreement.

Afterward, Plasencia texted Chavez, saying that meeting Perry was “like a bad movie.”

By Oct. 1, the two discussed getting more ketamine for Perry. Through their conversations, Plasencia made it clear that he was unfamiliar with treating patients with ketamine and at one point said that Perry told him he wanted to take the powerful drug to help him quit smoking. Prosecutors allege Chavez should have known this was not a reason for ketamine use.

But the actor appeared to be an eager customer.

On Oct. 2, Iwamasa texted Plasencia to purchase more ketamine. The doctor messaged Chavez: “If today goes well, we may have repeat business.”

“Let’s do everything we can to make it happen,” Chavez wrote back, according to a plea agreement.

Two days later, Iwamasa again texted Plasencia to order more of the drug, which he referred to as “dr pepper.”

“Found the sweet spot but trying different places led to running out,” Iwamasa texted the doctor. By the afternoon, the need for the drug was urgent. “I need some [ketamine] now can I come to you please?” he texted. “How many cans are you bringing? And when do you think youd be here?”

Entertainment & Arts

Column: The arrests in Matthew Perry’s death expose a system built to prey on addicts

Often an overdose is seen as a failing of the victim. But the sordid case to emerge from the “Friends” star’s death shows there are many people in the chain of blame.

Aug. 16, 2024

Iwamasa continued to buy additional vials from the doctor, but he was beginning to look for another source for the illicit drug to keep up the supply.

On Oct. 10, Plasencia told Chavez he injected Perry with ketamine in a parking lot near the aquarium in Long Beach, according to the plea agreement. Chavez called Plasencia to reprimand him for “doping people” in cars and in a public place where children were present.

Two days later, Perry received a ketamine infusion treatment from a doctor at a clinic. After the treatment, Iwamasa contacted Plasencia to buy more ketamine. They met at Perry’s home, where the doctor administered a large dose to the actor, which caused his systolic blood pressure to spike and his body to “freeze up” so severely that he couldn’t talk or move, according to court records.

“Let’s not do that again,” Plasencia told Iwamasa. He left more ketamine for Perry before he departed.

Chavez eventually told Plasencia he could not provide any additional ketamine because the Medical Board of California was investigating an allegation that he took the drug from his former clinic, according to court documents.

At one point, Plasencia suggested he and Chavez start their own ketamine clinic. But there were signs their relationship was fraying. Chavez said they could start the venture if they treated patients in the clinic.

“Oh so you don’t agree with the method i am currently doing?” Plasencia wrote in a text message, referring to their arrangement with Perry.

“It’s not what I think it’s what an entity like the California medical board would view it ... or the DEA,” Chavez wrote back.

In total, the doctors distributed 20 vials of ketamine to Perry for $55,000 in cash, charging him $2,000 for a vial that cost Chavez $12, authorities said.

By mid-October, Perry and his assistant had turned to Fleming — an acquaintance of the actor’s — who had a source that could provide the drugs at a lower cost.

On the same day the doctor injected Perry in Long Beach, another deal with Fleming was in the works. Fleming texted Perry that he had “a bunch of the K in liquid,” which he would sell at a “good price” and a “fair tip” for delivering it, according to a plea agreement.

Fleming was put in touch with Iwamasa to finalize the details. He texted the assistant a picture of a ketamine vial with a photograph of a horse on the packaging. Ketamine is used in veterinary medicine as a tranquilizer.

On Oct. 11, Fleming sent Iwamasa screenshots of his communications with Sangha, who is known by her customers as the “Ketamine Queen.” Fleming told him the woman “only deals with high end and celebs. If it were not great stuff she’d lose her business.”

Iwamasa responded that Perry was only interested in the unmarked ketamine, not the “horsey version.”

Fleming delivered a sample to Perry’s home for $180 two days later. Iwamasa told Fleming the drug “seems good” and asked for more.

The next day, Fleming arrived at Perry’s home with 25 vials, charging $5,500 and pocketing an additional $500 for coordinating the deal. While Sangha had quoted Fleming $160 per vial of ketamine, authorities say Fleming charged Perry $220 per vial.

Ten days later, Fleming delivered another 25 vials to the actor’s home along with ketamine lollipops that Sangha had thrown in as a bonus for the large order.

In the final days of Perry’s life, court records indicate there were signs the actor’s addiction was spiraling out of control. Iwamasa was injecting the actor with ketamine six to eight times a day. The aide had found Perry unconscious at his house on at least two occasions in October.

Less than a week before he died, Perry posted a photo to Instagram of himself under a moonlit sky soaking in the hot tub and looking out onto the west Los Angeles skyline. “Oh, so warm water swirling around makes you feel good? I’m Mattman,” he captioned the post, which was his last on the platform.

After Iwamasa found Perry dead in the hot tub on Oct. 28, he disposed of the ketamine bottles and syringes and “deleted everything” related to the drug deals, he later told Fleming.

Sangha immediately deleted her text messages with Fleming from Signal, an encrypted messaging app, and told him to do the same.

After speaking with Iwamasa, Fleming texted Sangha to reassure her: “I’m 90% sure everyone is protected,” he wrote. “I never dealt with Perry. Only his assistant. So the assistant was the enabler. Also they are doing a 3 month tox screening.”

He ended the text with a question: “Does K stay in your system or is it immediately flushed out?”

More to Read

Matthew Perry investigation: What we know about the people charged in his death

A dealer known as ‘Ketamine Queen’ and 2 doctors among 5 charged in death of Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry death probe ties people to ketamine procurement, but charges still unclear, sources say

June 26, 2024

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Hannah Fry covers breaking news for the Los Angeles Times. She most recently covered Orange County for The Times and has written extensively about criminal trials, housing, politics and government. In 2020, Fry was part of the team that was a Pulitzer finalist for its coverage of a boat fire that killed 34 people off the coast of Santa Barbara. Fry came to The Times from the Daily Pilot, where she covered coastal cities, education and crime. An Orange County native, Fry started her career as an intern at the Orange County Register.

Nathan Solis is a Metro reporter covering breaking news at the Los Angeles Times. He previously worked for Courthouse News Service, where he wrote both breaking news and enterprise stories ranging from criminal justice to homelessness and politics. Before that, Solis was at the Redding Record Searchlight as a multimedia journalist, where he anchored coverage of the destructive 2017 fires in Northern California. Earlier in his career, he worked for Eastsider L.A.

Richard Winton is an investigative crime writer for the Los Angeles Times and part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011. Known as @lacrimes on Twitter, during almost 30 years at The Times he also has been part of the breaking news staff that won Pulitzers in 1998, 2004 and 2016.

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A rich history of deals with the Devil

In “Devil’s Contract,” Ed Simon takes us on a tour of Faustian bargains in literature, music and politics

Fans of “The Simpsons” will remember that Homer once sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for a doughnut. Most of us would want a little more than that. For example, Dr. Faustus — best known from dramatic masterpieces by Christopher Marlowe and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — acquired immense power, wealth and knowledge. But in “Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain,” Ed Simon contends that we all “occasionally betray our principles for personal gain” and, in effect, “sign on the dotted line of a diabolical compact.” Insofar as possible, though, he argues that we should all “try and ameliorate some of the suffering that is the by-product of our appetites and consumptions and privileges.”

The idea of the archfiend’s standard agreement — relinquishing your soul for something you desperately desire — energizes works as various as the musical “Damn Yankees,” Max Beerbohm’s fantasy “Enoch Soames,” John Collier’s humorous story “The Devil, George and Rosie,” Mary MacLane’s fiery confession “I Await the Devil’s Coming” and James Hogg’s deeply unsettling Victorian-era novel “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.” So rich is this theme in literature that Simon, a cultural essayist and editor of the literary journal Belt Magazine, is able to write an entire book without discussing any of these. Still, he has more than enough to work with.

Following a preliminary chapter reflecting on the ancient magician Simon Magus and the doctrines of Gnosticism, which posits that this world was created by an evil demiurge, Simon turns to Jesus Christ’s three temptations in the desert. These culminate in Satan offering Jesus all of Earth’s kingdoms if he will just bow down and worship him. Jesus disdains this effort to enact what is, in effect, a Faustian bargain. Yet Satan’s very attempt raises the question of whether the Christian messiah, in his human aspect, might have succumbed.

From there, Simon meanders among a wide variety of stories and legends about human interaction with devils or demons. These include the medieval tale of St. Theophilus, who was saved from damnation after selling his soul by the intercession of the Virgin Mary; the folk belief in succubi and incubi; persistent rumors of diabolism associated with the learned 10th-century Pope Sylvester II; and novels such as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,” in which Ivan Karamazov imagines Christ’s sudden appearance in Seville during the Spanish Inquisition and sentencing to be burned at the stake.

Simon frequently opens his chapters with some striking or macabre anecdote. For instance, he recounts the likely political assassination in 1991 of dissident Romanian scholar Ioan Petru Culianu, a leading authority on Renaissance occultism, in a University of Chicago restroom. This leads Simon to consider several figures in the history of astrology and alchemy, such as the hermetic philosophers Roger Bacon, Agrippa and Trithemius, before proceeding to an extended discussion of the historical Dr. Faustus and Marlowe’s play about him. Later chapters segue from the European witch craze in early modern Europe to the Salem witch trials in colonial America to Anton LaVey’s satanic church in 1960s San Francisco. In another chapter, he introduces an analysis of certain German expressionist films by revealing that unknown individuals in 2015 pried opened the tomb of F.W. Murnau, director of “Nosferatu” (1922) and “Faust” (1926), performed some kind of necromantic ceremony and then carried off the filmmaker’s head.

Simon obviously casts a wide net. One chapter focuses entirely on musicians, particularly the violinists Tartini and Paganini and the blues guitarist Robert Johnson, who supposedly acquired their preternatural virtuosity by unholy means. He notes that Johnson reputedly cut his deal with the Devil late one night at the crossroads of U.S. Highways 61 and 41 in Mississippi, and was later the first in that line of pop-music superstars who died at age 27.

By the time Simon comes to analyze Thomas Mann’s “Doctor Faustus,” the political dimension of the bargain is clearly uppermost in his thought. Mann’s masterpiece — Simon calls it the greatest German-language novel of the 20th century — semi-allegorizes German Kultur and the diabolical appeal of Hitlerism. Mikhail Bulgakov’s satirical “The Master and Margarita” provides an analogous critique of Stalinist Russia. More generally, Simon proposes that our modern belief in rationality and empirical science hampers us from grasping the insidious appeal of the irrational and authoritarian.

In fact, he says, Mephistopheles — the shape-shifting demon who executes all Faust’s wishes — should be regarded as “the animating spirit of modernity,” the supreme exponent of that heartless utilitarian principle that “sees both nature and other people as tools in the furthering of the individual’s own desires.” Yet because of our arrogant rapaciousness, we ultimately end up trading our souls — however you define souls — for a mess of pottage.

Further extrapolating the Faustian bargain from the personal to the global, Simon points to our foolhardy “reduction of the earth’s resources to something that provides mere convenience for us and unimaginable wealth for a corrupt few.” As our environment deteriorates, we are losing “something of infinite value for the transient and illusory pleasures offered by Mephistopheles.” Simon consequently labels our own era the “Faustocene,” now increasingly “manifested in the growing international movement toward authoritarianism and fascism just as the biome collapses. Not just our souls, but indeed our entire planet traded for comfort and capital, a contract signed by you and me.”

These highly charged and politicized arguments about the evils of late capitalism transform “Devil’s Contract” from a work of cultural history into something close to a polemic, one with which you may or may not agree. Simon’s style, moreover, can sometimes veer into the over-emphatic — “His was a bargain, a wager, a bet, a contract,” and in the next sentence a “covenant” — or indulge in purple extravagance: Speaking of the Brothers Grimm, he writes: “Across the canon of folktales the Devil’s hoofprints make a clear path, and blood from the contracts he signed can be found smeared on the sundry pages of their anthologies.” He’s also overly fond of certain words, sometimes slightly misused, such as “infamous,” “immaculate” and “conjuration,” while occasionally resorting to nouns and verbs that older dictionaries would highlight as offensive and that still seem out of place in a work of popular scholarship. That scholarship itself displays some puzzling lacunae: In discussing the “possessed” nuns of the 17th-century convent at Loudun, Simon never mentions Aldous Huxley’s classic account, “The Devils of Loudun.” Neither does he refer to E.M. Butler’s relevant studies, “The Fortunes of Faust” and “The Myth of the Magus,” or to the many (admittedly somewhat dubious) works of Montague Summers that deal with black magic and witchcraft.

Still, these cavils aside, “Devil’s Contract” reminds us of how often we deludedly exchange something of inestimable value — our souls, our freedom, our honor, our beautiful Earth — for what is ultimately glittery trash. In Ira Levin’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” the pathetic husband allows Satan to rape his wife in return for success … as an actor. Today, political demagogues try to dupe us with golden visions and glowing promises. Don’t be misled. Those golden visions are illusions, mere smoke and mirrors, and the promises nothing but self-serving lies and deceitful trickery. Behind all their honeyed words, you can almost hear the smug and infernal laughter.

Devil’s Contract

The History of the Faustian Bargain

By Ed Simon

Melville House. 303 pp. $28.99

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• Guided tour

Old Arbat District: the Art Quarter

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Holidays are bright and colourful, we all love them because they form a ray of light amongst the grey monotony of the daily grind. Arbat is a real street-holiday, where it is always noisy and fun: people meet, walk, watch the performances of talented street artists with clowns, singers and dancers strutting their stuff. Right on the pavement, artists proudly exhibit their works.

There is a very special atmosphere here that has long attracted representatives of the creative intelligentsia. L. Tolstoy and S. Yesenin, A. Pushkin and his young wife N. Goncharov, A. Blok and B. Pasternak are fondly remembered by the hallowed paving stones along Arbat. It is of no surprise that the heroes of the famous novel ‘War and Peace’ were ‘registered’.

We would like to invite you to take a walk with us along the historic Old Arbat! We will talk about the history and architecture of the most romantic street in Moscow.

• You will hear a lot of interesting facts about the grand houses that were located here and their wealthy residents.
• You will learn how a once inexpensive inn for carriage drivers has since turned into one of the best restaurants in the capital!
• You will see the famous house where A. Pushkin and N. Goncharova spent their honeymoon and stand at the wall dedicated to the memory of post punk/new wave icon Viktor
• You will be carried away down the beautiful side streets such as: Bolshaya Afanasyevsky, Nikolopeskovsky, Filippovsky, Krivoarbatsky. In a bygone era, these streets were part of Arbat and were bustling with its spirit.

B.Okudzhava dedicated some of his lyrical poems to Arbat, his favourite street from childhood. A. Rybakov, author of the famous novel ‘Children of the Arbat’ also lived here. There is also a little corner of Bulgakov's Moscow on Arbat - the former Torgsin store (now the ‘The Seventh Continent’), where the novel ‘The Master and Margarita’ unfolded.

Every house on Arbat is a piece of history, and we will dive into this history head first.

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Arbatskaya Square

The Porokhovschikov House

"Praga" Restaurant

Alexander Pushkin memorial apartment

Vakhtangov Theatre

Old-time mansions

The Melnikov House

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