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CNN
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The FBI is expected to search former Vice President Mike Pence’s house in Indiana and office in Washington for additional classified materials soon, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Pence’s representatives have been in talks with the Justice Department over the searches and have expressed that they want to completely cooperate.

The Pence team does not believe there are classified documents either at his home or at his office as they have done what they considered an extensive search themselves, a source said.

CNN reported last month that earlier in January, a lawyer for Pence found about a dozen documents marked as classified at the former vice president’s home. The former vice president had directed his lawyer, Matt Morgan, who has experience handling classified material, to conduct the search.

A source who was briefed on some of the Pence documents previously told CNN that the government papers recovered from his home were “lower level” classification, without any “sensitive compartmented information” or “special access programs” markings.

On Wednesday, the FBI completed a search of President Joe Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home and found no documents with classified markings, according to Biden’s personal lawyer.

In the wake of the classified document discoveries at Pence, Biden and former President Donald Trump’s homes, the National Archives formally asked former presidents and vice presidents to re-check their personal records for any classified documents or other presidential records, CNN has reported.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the developments of the planned FBI search.

This story has been updated with additional details.

On Thursday, the Bank suggested interest rates may be nearing a peak, indicating it will only raise rates further if it sees signs that inflation will remain high. Some economists believe the Bank will hold interest rates at 4.5% for some time before contemplating a cut.

Andrew Smith Jr. said he felt a “weird anticipation” to see the video of Memphis police beating Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop, which led to Nichols’ death three days later. He said he “didn’t want to see it, but needed to see it.”

As a younger man, Smith, 38, had encounters with New York police officers that turned physical and scary, and he said over the years he has questioned his response to their aggression.

“In a way, I wanted to see the video to see if it was like my situation with cops in New York,” Smith, who works in New York for a technology firm, said. “One situation was degrading and a little physical — made me and my friends sit on the curb.”

He said another situation “got heated. And I wanted to run. I didn’t because I couldn’t.”

After watching Nichols flee officers during the Jan. 7 traffic stop near his home as they shouted an array of commands at him, doused him with pepper-spray and fired at him with a Taser, Smith said he understood why the 29-year-old father of a young child would run. Several Black people who experienced aggressive stops by police or in some cases met with force by officers told NBC News they shared similar instincts.

“What was he supposed to do? Stay there and take the abuse?” Smith said. “I hate how it turned out for him, but I would have run, too. Who wouldn’t? He was pulled out of his car. He complied and got on the ground … and they still were screaming and yelling, roughing him up. I know — he was scared. And when you’re scared, try to get away.”

The five officers who have since been fired and arrested on second-degree murder charges shouted a flood of orders — 71 commands at Nichols in 13 minutes, according to a New York Times analysis — adding to the chaotic scene.

In some social media circles, people have said that Nichols should not have run, that he should have obeyed the officers’ commands. But Yale psychiatrist Terrell Holloway said Nichols’ reaction was natural.

“I don’t see why anyone would be outside of their rights to want to live and by doing so, running,” Holloway said. “It’s not as though you’re thinking rationally anyway. So, it’s a lot of blaming the victim, when in fact, in this state — him having seen Black men killed on television before — this fight or flight response was to try to save his life. … If it were me, I would have run, too.”

Smith said watching the video of Nichols reminded him of an incident he had with police officers in Brooklyn when he was 22. Smith said he was stopped “for no reason” as he walked home one night in Crown Heights. 

“Two officers pulled up beside me,” he recalled. “‘Where you going?’ I said, ‘Home. Why?’ And that was it. They jumped out of the car, shoved me to the ground and used their clubs, feet, fists. Everything. They were yelling to ‘get on the ground’ and ‘don’t resist.’ I was just covering up to protect myself. I wanted to run, but I was afraid they’d shoot me. And I couldn’t get on my feet. Finally, after about a minute, they stopped and just left me there. One Black officer, one white. I relived it watching what they did to Tyre.”

He added that the intensity of the moment — the screaming of commands and blows coming at the same time — created a panic that manifests itself in a loss of time and place. 

“It’s like it’s happening, but it’s not happening because it doesn’t seem real,” Smith said. “All the noise, the yelling by them. You can’t process it all. It’s just, like Tyre said, too much. … I don’t like talking about it because it’s not a good memory at all.”

Fred Gore teared up in talking about an instance when he was 27 and his older brother by two years was confronted by police outside a corner store on Easter in Trenton, New Jersey.

“He was wearing my grandfather’s suit,” Gore, now a residential builder, recalled. The officers “harassed him, egged him on,” until they got into a scuffle.

“Five cops got on him in a heartbeat,” Gore, 62, said. “And they called some more. They beat him so badly and then took him away to jail. When my mother and I saw him the next morning, it was the worst thing I’d ever seen. But he would have been wrong for running? No, you can’t put that on someone when you’re outnumbered and they are aggressive with clubs and everything else. How can you sit as someone who hasn’t been in that situation and say someone should just stay there and take it?”

Davette Daggett, who lives in Houston, recalled driving a friend’s Mercedes Benz in her hometown of Washington, D.C., to visit her cancer-stricken mother in the hospital when she was pulled over by police. 

“I didn’t run a light. I wasn’t speeding,” said Daggett, a financial analyst. “I was driving a nice car. That’s it.”

A Black female officer began aggressively questioning if it was Daggett’s vehicle. When she told her it was a friend’s, the officer called for backup. 

“It seemed like 10 cars showed up,” Daggett said. “It was crazy. And my response was to freeze. I was like a deer in headlights. They ended up taking the car; the woman officer drove off in it like it was hers. And I was left standing on the street in a bad part of town.

“All those officers for me? They didn’t get physical, but I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t run. I just froze. But having been in that position, I understand why people run. It’s scary because we’ve seen what they do to Black people.”

Holloway, 39, one of chief psychiatric residents at Yale, who is opening a trauma and stress-focused practice this summer, said the concern for those who face these confrontations, whether they run or freeze, is the lingering impact of the encounter. He said when he worked in New York he would chart a route home that would give him the least chance of being stopped and frisked by police. 

“What is it like to be a person that’s exposed to that danger all the time with people who are supposed to be helping you — police officers?” he said. “Who’s to say similar thoughts were not running through Tyre Nichols’ mind? They probably were.”

He called the reaction to run in the face of so much peril and chaos “a trauma response. If trauma can be transmitted indirectly — think of 9/11 broadcast on television — the trauma of Black men’s death by cops has been broadcast for years. So, when faced with a trigger of a similar threat when interacting with police, a response of running is not unheard of or bizarre.”

CNN
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President Joe Biden announced Thursday that his National Economic Council Director Brian Deese plans to step down from his role, a long-awaited confirmation of an expected departure.

Biden’s statement did not provide any details on a successor or timing of Deese’s departure, but praised his top economist’s work during a difficult time for the US economy.

“Brian has a unique ability to translate complex policy challenges into concrete actions that improve the lives of American people. He has helped steer my economic vision into reality, and managed the transition of our historic economic recovery to steady and stable growth,” Biden said in the statement, touting Deese’s “critical” role in the passage of key legislation including the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Covid-19 relief bill, the CHIPs and Science Act and the health care and climate package.

Biden is expected to campaign on the implementation and successes of those key bills through an expected reelection announcement.

“I am grateful to his wife Kara and his children Adeline and Clark for letting us borrow Brian. I know well what it must have been like to say goodbye to him for the regular long commute to Washington, and I know they’re excited to welcome him home,” Biden said.

After two years defined by stability, Biden is in the process of remaking the White House economic team at a moment the US economy has shown a level of durability in job gains and growth that has surprised analysts – and even some inside the West Wing.

Cecilia Rouse, the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has long planned to return to Princeton University next month. Her likely replacement in the role will be Jared Bernstein, a current CEA member and longtime Biden economic adviser, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Biden also hasn’t selected NEC replacement, to a critical role made even more so by Deese, who spearheaded Biden’s economic team while also playing a central role in the legislative negotiations that cleared the way for trillions in new spending designed to transform entire sectors of the economy.

Lael Brainard, the Federal Reserve vice chair, remains the front-runner for to be tapped for the position, two people familiar with the matter said, though they cautioned Biden has not weighed in with his decision yet and likely would not until after the State of the Union address. Other candidates include current White House official Gene Sperling, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Sylvia Matthews Burwell, a former cabinet official in the Obama administration.

The announcement of Deese’s impending exit comes a day after the White House held an emotional event to mark the departure of Biden’s first chief of staff, Ron Klain.

The departures of two of Biden’s top advisers could be a sign of upcoming shifts across the White House and the administration, as staff and Cabinet officials mull a potential change midway through Biden’s first term.

The prospect of exits is not something that’s lost on the White House.

Ahead of the November midterm elections last fall, the White House announced a talent search project to prepare for potential vacancies across Cabinet and senior administration posts. Biden’s former Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients was brought on to lead the way on identifying potential replacements for roles. He will be succeeding Klain as Biden’s chief of staff.

This story has been updated with more reporting.

Temperatures are forecast to plunge across the Philadelphia region over the next few days, and Punxsutawney Phil expects more of the same for the next six weeks.

The nation’s most popular marmot saw his shadow Thursday morning after leaving his burrow at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney. That means the country can expect below-average temperatures for the next six weeks, if you subscribe to the legend of Phil’s weather-predicting abilities.

Tens of thousands of groundhog enthusiasts gathered in the small Western Pennsylvania town in the early morning hours to watch the annual ceremony, hosted by the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. Among those on hand to take in the festivities was newly elected Gov. Josh Shapiro.

How accurate has Punxsutawney Phil been over the years?

Last year, Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter by seeing his shadow. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration didn’t weigh in on the forecast’s accuracy, but according to an analysis of weather data by The Inquirer, the contiguous United States saw slightly above-average temperatures in February and early March, meaning Phil missed the mark.

Philadelphia actually experienced temperatures way above normal last year after Phil saw his shadow — average temperatures were up 3.8 degrees in February and 4.2 degrees in March.

Incorporating data from NOAA, that would mean Phil has been accurate just 40% of the time over the past 10 years, nailing his predictions in 2020, 2016, 2014, and 2013.

Since 1887, Phil and his predecessors have predicted more winter 105 times and called for 20 early springs, according to Stormfax Almanac (no records exist for nine years). Live Science did an analysis of the data last year and concluded Phil’s six-week predictions have been correct just 39% of the time.

» READ MORE: Punxsutawney Phil is clueless, say meteorologists and computers — not to mention the trends

What about rival groundhogs in Staten Island and across the U.S.?

While Phil gets nearly all the attention each year, media outlets in New York continue to promote competing forecasts from their own meteorological marmot, Staten Island Chuck.

Chuck, who also goes by Charles G. Hogg, resides at the Staten Island Zoo. He and his predecessors have been making weather predictions since 1981, and he differed from Phil last year by correctly forecasting an early spring.

While Chuck doesn’t get near the acclaim, he’s had to deal with more harrowing conditions than his Pennsylvania counterpart. In 2009, Chuck bit then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and was secretly replaced by his granddaughter, Charlotte, for the 2014 ceremony. Unfortunately, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio dropped Charlotte on the ground, and the groundhog died several days later.

So far, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has had a better working relationship with the buck-toothed prognosticator.

Chuck and Phil have disagreed on the forecast eight times since 2008, and during that run the Staten Island rodent was wrong only twice, according to the Staten Island Advance. In fact, since 1981, Chuck had an accuracy rate of 80%.

There are a number of lesser-known groundhogs across the country people turn to for forecasts. Woodstock Willie presides in Woodstock, Ill., where the movie Groundhog Day was filmed. There’s also Buckeye Chuck, who’s been dolling out predictions in Marion, Ohio since 1970. North of the border, Canadians in Nova Scotia turn to Shubenacadie Sam.

New Jersey town still looking for a replacement groundhog

For the second straight year, residents in Middlesex County in New Jersey didn’t have a groundhog to guide them this winter.

Officials in Milltown are still looking for a replacement for Milltown Mel, a lesser-known weather-predicting marmot who died last year just days before Groundhog Day.

In the past, officials didn’t have much trouble replacing Mel. But they struggled this year to find a new groundhog — even just a temporary stand-in from a nearby zoo — and were forced to call off their 2023 ceremony.

“You can’t just say, ‘oh, I got one in my backyard,’” Milltown Wrangler Russ Einbinder told The Inquirer. “You try handling one that you haven’t handled since birth and you’re gonna get your hand bit off.”

» READ MORE: Groundhog Day ceremony canceled in Milltown, N.J., as search for new Mel continues

How did this whole marmot-predicting-the-weather thing start?

According to the Pennsylvania Tourism Office, Romans took the early Christian holiday Candlemas to Germany, where it was said that if there was enough sun on Candlemas Day for a badger to cast a shadow, there would be six more weeks of bad weather.

German immigrants brought this tradition to Pennsylvania, and in 1886 the editor of Punxsutawney’s newspaper teamed up with a group of groundhog hunters to begin the legend of Punxsutawney Phil’s weather prowess. So in the United States and Canada, we celebrate Groundhog Day on the same date Christians across the globe celebrate Candlemas.

It’s the 30-year anniversary of ‘Groundhog Day’

While Groundhog Day itself has been celebrated for more than a century, its namesake movie is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

Director Harold Ramis considered many actors for the lead role of a jaded meteorologist trapped reliving the same day over and over, including Tom Hanks and Pennsylvania native Michael Keaton. But they both turn Ramis down, who ultimately settled on his Caddyshack and Ghostbusters collaborator, Bill Murray.

Ramis told the Hollywood Reporter shooting the film with Murray was “difficult,” because a rift had formed between the duo that lasted two decades. They only reunited months before Ramis’ death in 2014, according to Variety.

But that struggle on the set was nothing compared to the terror inflicted on Murray by his hairy co-star, Scooter.

“A co-star that bites you once, well, I can accept that. But a co-star that bites you twice, well now, that’s a problem,” Murray said in a 1993 interview with The Inquirer, adding that the crew was banned from using the real Punxsutawney Phil while making the movie because it was filmed in Woodstock, Ill. for logistical reasons.

“Phil was fabulous,” Murray recalled. “He’s treated like royalty and is very well-behaved. A true professional. And so when they couldn’t get him — a creature who has been hand-raised since birth and is very tame — what did they do? They went out into the wood and caught this Scooter, a groundhog who hated my guts from day one.”

So where can you stream Groundhog Day?

The film is only available directly on AMC+, a subscription service that’ll set you back $8.99 a month (though they do have a seven-day free trial).

Groundhog Day is also airing all day on AMC beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern, so set your DVR.

Staff writer Anthony R. Wood contributed to this report.

CNN
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A 30-year-old councilwoman in the borough of Sayreville, New Jersey, was found shot to death in her car on Wednesday, according to authorities.

County officials said police responded to reports of shots fired after 7 p.m. and discovered a woman in her vehicle who sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead on the scene.

The woman was identified as Eunice Dwumfour, a Republican councilwoman, the officials said.

Sayreville Mayor Victoria Kilpatrick said she was “shocked and saddened” to learn of Dwumfour’s death, saying she was “taken from us by a despicable criminal act.” She and Dwumfour worked closely together on the council, she wrote.

“Beyond her dedication to our community, I can share that she was a woman of deep faith and worked hard to integrate her strong Christian beliefs into her daily life as a person and a community leader,” the mayor said. “On a personal note, I can’t adequately express my feeling of sorrow at the loss of a friend.”

Officials said the investigation is ongoing and they do not have a motive at this time. CNN has reached out to the prosecutors and police for more details.

Dwumfour was elected to a three-year term on the six-member borough council in November 2021, according to election results. She also served as a member of the Human Relations Commission, according to the Sayreville website.

Sayreville, located in central New Jersey, has a population of about 45,000 people, according to the US Census.

On the Sayreville GOP website from 2021, Dwumfour asked the public to support her run for the council.

“Like you, Sayreville is my home, I love and cherish this town and it is my desire to help improve the lives of its residents,” she wrote. “In the past few years, we have seen many changes including a worldwide pandemic, but despite all, Sayreville still stands strong because of residents like you.”

“I am fully dedicated to building a better, stronger Sayreville, and with your support, we can create a brighter future for our wonderful town.”

Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement he was “stunned” by the news of her killing.

“Her career of public service was just beginning, and by all accounts she had already built a reputation as a committed member of the Borough Council who took her responsibility with the utmost diligence and seriousness,” he said. “I send my condolences to Councilwoman Dwumfour’s family and friends, her governing body colleagues, and the entire Sayreville community.”