• Fitch Ratings has downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. from AAA to AA+, saying the country’s growing debt and repeated standoffs over the borrowing limit make it less trustworthy than before.
  
  

• COVID-19 hospital admissions rose by 12.1 percent in the past week, while the number of patients currently hospitalized rose by 7 percent.
  
  

• New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver has died after being hospitalized Monday for an undisclosed medical issue.

A journalist and a former state lawmaker in Georgia said that they were subpoenaed in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis‘s (D) investigation into former President Trump‘s effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election results. A decision on charges is expected this month.

Independent journalist “George Chidi has been asked to testify to a grand jury this month about Georgia Republicans’ plans to form an alternate slate of Electoral College voters,” The Hill’s Nick Robertson wrote. Chidi said he witnessed a group of Republicans discussing the plan. The journalist was called to testify about the incident last year, too.

CNN reported that former state Sen. Jen Jordan (D), who was at a state Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing where Trump allies made claims about irregularities and fraud, also said she was subpoenaed. Like Chidi, Jordan previously testified. Read more here.

While job openings have ticked down to 9.58 million from 10.96 million in June 2022, there are still 1.6 open jobs for each job seeker, and the unemployment rate is at a near-record-low 3.6 percent.

The latest Labor Department data adds to other recent figures showing a strong economy.

“The steady stream of strong economic data is good news for President Biden heading into the 2024 election as GOP messaging has consistently taken aim at Biden’s handling of the economy,” The Hill’s Tobias Burns wrote. Read the full report here.

X Corp, the parent company of the website formerly known as Twitter, filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate alleging the group improperly gained access to data on the platform. 

Data from the March of Dimes found that 36 percent of U.S. counties are “maternity care deserts,” defined as “any county without a hospital or birth center offering obstetric care and without any obstetric providers.” That’s a 4 percent increase since the organization’s first report in 2018. Read more here.

A massive fire burning in California and Nevada was about 23 percent contained as of Tuesday morning, the Mojave National Preserve said. Fire crews this weekend were fighting “fire whirls,” or a “vortex of flames and smoke that forms when intense heat and turbulent winds combine, creating a spinning column of fire,” they said. Read more here.

“Neither Trump nor Biden can be trusted with America’s national security” — Joseph Bosco, China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. (Read here)

“Erratic, irrational and unconstrained: What a second Trump term would mean for America’s foreign policy” — John Bolton, national security adviser to former President Trump from 2018 to 2019 and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006. (Read here)