By PHILIP MARCELO and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that a gunman who killed four people at a Manhattan office building was trying to target the headquarters of the National Football League but took the wrong elevator.

Investigators believe Shane Tamura was trying to get to the NFL offices after shooting several people in the building’s lobby but accidentally entered the wrong set of elevator banks, Adams said in interviews on Tuesday.

A New York police officer talks with a woman as she exits a Manhattan office building where four people were killed including a police officer, Monday, July 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

Four people, including an off-duty New York City police officer, were killed. Police said Tamura had a history of mental illness, and a rambling note found on his body suggested he had a grievance against the NFL over an unsubstantiated claim that he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. He had played football in high school in California nearly two decades ago.

The note claimed he had been suffering from CTE — the degenerative brain disease that has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports like football — and said his brain should be studied after he died, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

It also specifically referenced the National Football League, the person said.

A motive has not been determined but investigators were looking into, based on the note, whether he might’ve specifically targeted the building because it is home to the NFL’s headquarters.

The shooting took place at a skyscraper that is home to the headquarters of both the NFL and Blackstone, one of the world’s largest investment firms, as well as other tenants.

A New York police officer stands watch on 52nd Street outside a Manhattan office building where at least two people were shot, including a police officer, Monday, July 28, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

A message sent to Blackstone employees, and obtained by The Associated Press, said a staff member at the private equity firm was killed in Monday’s shooting, but their identity was not immediately released.

Surveillance video showed the man exiting a double-parked BMW just before 6:30 p.m. carrying an M4 rifle, then marching across a public plaza into the building. Then, he started firing, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, killing a police officer working a corporate security detail and then hitting a woman who tried to take cover as he sprayed the lobby with gunfire.

Related Articles

Today in History: July 29, USS Forrestal accident

Gunman kills 4, including police officer, in shooting at New York City office tower

2 kids killed at Miami sailing camp after barge collides with their boat, authorities say

2 customs officers plead guilty to allowing drugs to enter the US through their inspection lanes

Suspect in Michigan Walmart stabbings is charged with a rarely used state terrorism count

The man then made his way to the elevator bank and shot a guard at a security desk and shot another man in the lobby, the commissioner said.

The man took the elevator to the 33rd floor offices of the company that owned the building, Rudin Management, and shot and killed one person on that floor. The man then shot himself, the commissioner said. The building, 345 Park Avenue, also holds offices of the financial services firm KPMG.

The officer killed was Didarul Islam, 36, an immigrant from Bangladesh who had served as a police officer in New York City for 3 1/2 years, Tisch said at a news conference.

“He was doing the job that we asked him to do. He put himself in harm’s way. He made the ultimate sacrifice,” Tisch said. “He died as he lived. A hero.”

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s become tradition. Congressional leaders from both major political parties blame each other for a potential government shutdown as the budget year draws to a close.

But this year, the posturing is starting extraordinarily early.

The finger-pointing with more than two months to go in the fiscal year indicates the threat of a stoppage is more serious than usual as a Republican-controlled Congress seeks to make good on its policy priorities, often with no support from the other political party.

Democratic leadership from both chambers and the two panels responsible for drafting spending bills met behind closed doors recently to discuss the strategy ahead. The leaders emerged demanding that Republicans work with them but were careful to avoid spelling out red lines if Republicans don’t.

“We are for a bipartisan, bicameral bill. That’s what always has been done,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. “The onus is on the Republicans to help us make that happen.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., looks over notes as Senate Republicans work to cancel $9.4 billion in previously approved spending targeted by DOGE, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

On the Republican side, lawmakers describe the Democrats as itching for a shutdown. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Schumer had threatened a shutdown should Republicans pass a bill to roll back $9 billion in public broadcasting and foreign aid funds. Republicans subsequently passed those cuts.

“It was disturbing to see the Democratic leader implicitly threatening to shut down the government in his July ‘Dear Colleague’ letter, but I’m hopeful that he does not represent the views of Senate Democrats as a whole,” Thune said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., joined at left by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the GOP whip, speaks to reporters following closed-door strategy meetings, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Where things stand on government funding

The federal government is operating on a full-year continuing resolution that provided about $1.7 trillion in spending for defense and non-defense programs. The funding expires Sept. 30.

President Donald Trump requested a comparable amount for the coming fiscal year, but the Republican proposed dramatically overhauling how that money is distributed to include more for defense and border security and significantly less for health, education, housing and foreign assistance.

So far, the House has approved two of the 12 annual spending bills. The Senate has yet to approve any, but those bills that have advanced out of the Senate Appropriations Committee are enjoying bipartisan support while the House bills are generally advancing out of committee on party line votes.

This week, the Senate is expected to consider the appropriations bill to fund military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs, generally one of the easier spending bills to pass. One or two others could get added to the package.

Congress got off to a late start on the funding process. Republicans prioritized Trump’s tax and spending cut bill. Most lawmakers agree Congress will need to pass a stop-gap measure before Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown and allow lawmakers more time to work on the full-year spending measures.

The view from Democrats

Democrats overwhelmingly opposed this year’s funding bill that expires in two months. But in the end, Schumer and nine Democratic colleagues decided a government shutdown would be even worse. They voted to allow the bill to proceed and overcome a filibuster, giving Republicans the ability to pass it on their own on a final vote.

Related Articles

States file lawsuit against Trump administration over efforts to collect SNAP recipients’ data

Court restricts who can bring voting rights challenges in a case involving voters with disabilities

Trump says he ended friendship with Epstein because he ‘stole people that worked for me’

Trump is getting the world economy he wants — but the risk to growth could spoil his victory lap

Trump seeks quick Murdoch deposition in Wall Street Journal lawsuit over Epstein story

Schumer took considerable heat from progressives for his strategy. House Democratic leadership issued a statement at the time saying “House Democrats will not be complicit.” And members of his own caucus publicly expressed disagreement.

“If we pass this continuing resolution for the next half year, we will own what the president does,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “I am not willing to take ownership of that.”

Some liberal groups threatened to hold protests at various events Schumer was planning to promote a new book, and some of those events ended up being postponed due to security concerns.

The Democratic frustrations have only grown stronger in the ensuing months.

First, the Democrats watched the Trump administration slow-walk or block hundreds of billions of dollars from going out in part through the work of its Department of Government Efficiency. Then they watched as Republicans passed Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic votes.

Finally, they watched as Republicans this month canceled $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funds when much of it had been previously agreed to on a bipartisan basis.

Meanwhile, Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, declared that the appropriations process “has to be less bipartisan.”

Democrats complain that much of the work taking place in the House has been a waste of time, since those partisan bills have no chance of getting 60 votes in the 100-member Senate.

“At this point in time, why have appropriations if they can just unilaterally through rescissions whack it all away?” said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill. “I think what you’re seeing is more frustration than I’ve ever witnessed.”

Republicans position for impasse

Republicans control all the levers of power in Washington. That could make it harder to blame Democrats for a shutdown. But in the end, any bill will need some Democratic support to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

“Our concern is that from their standpoint, they want to have a shutdown,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said of Democrats. “… The Democrats see it as a way to derail the agenda that we’re putting through.”

Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2-ranked Republican in the Senate, said Republicans were determined to hold votes on the 12 spending bills. He said that Schumer “had unilaterally shut down the appropriations process” in previous years by not holding such votes, moving instead to negotiate directly with GOP leadership in the House and then-President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration on an all-encompassing spending package.

“If Democrats walk away from this process again, simply to protect wasteful Washington spending,” Barrasso said, “they will be the ones sabotaging the Senate and shutting down the government.”

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is expected to leave its short-term interest rate unchanged on Wednesday for the fifth straight meeting, a move that will likely underscore the deep divide between how Chair Jerome Powell and his chief critic, President Donald Trump, see the economy.

The Fed itself, to be sure, is increasingly divided over its next steps, and many economists expect that two members of the Fed’s governing board — both appointed by Trump — could dissent on Wednesday in favor of cutting rates. If so, that would be the first time two governors vote against the chair since 1993.

President Donald Trump, left, reaches for a document of cost figures as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell watches during a visit to the Federal Reserve, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Even so, the gap between the views of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, chaired by Powell, and the White House is unusually large. In several areas, Trump’s views sharply contrast with that of the Fed’s leadership, setting up likely clashes for years to come, even after Powell’s term as chair ends in May 2026.

For example, Trump says that because the U.S. economy is doing well, the Fed should cut rates, as if the U.S. is a blue-chip company that should pay less to borrow than a risky start-up.

But Fed officials — and nearly all economists — see it the other way: A solid economy means rates should be relatively high, to prevent overheating and a burst of inflation.

“I’d argue that our interest rates are higher because our economy’s doing fairly well, not in spite of it,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of U.S. rates strategy at TD Securities.

Trump argues that the Fed in general and Powell in particular are costing U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments by not reducing borrowing costs. Yet Fed officials don’t think it’s their job to reduce rates the government pays on Treasury notes and bonds.

Related Articles

Today in History: July 29, USS Forrestal accident

Gunman kills 4, including police officer, in shooting at New York City office tower

2 kids killed at Miami sailing camp after barge collides with their boat, authorities say

2 customs officers plead guilty to allowing drugs to enter the US through their inspection lanes

Suspect in Michigan Walmart stabbings is charged with a rarely used state terrorism count

Most economists worry that if they did, they would risk failing at one of the key jobs Congress gave them: fighting inflation.

“It’s using monetary policy to ease pressure on fiscal policymakers, and that way points to higher inflation and bigger problems down the road,” said William English, an economist at the Yale School of Management and former senior Fed staffer.

If financial markets see that the Fed is focused on keeping borrowing costs low to help the government — rather than focusing on its congressionally-mandated goals of stable prices and maximum employment — Wall Street investors, worried about future inflation, will likely demand higher interest rates to hold Treasury bonds, economists say, pushing up borrowing costs across the economy.

For his part, Trump says there is “no inflation” and so the Fed should reduce its short-term rate, currently at about 4.3%, which was ramped up in 2022 and 2023 to fight rising prices. The Fed’s rate often — but not always — influences longer-term borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, and credit cards.

Inflation has fallen sharply and as a result Fed officials have signaled they will cut rates by as much as a half-percentage point this year. Yet it has picked up a bit in the last two months and many of those policymakers, including Powell, still want to make sure that tariffs aren’t going to lift inflation much higher before they make a move.

Inflation accelerated to 2.7% in June from 2.4% in May, the government said earlier this month, above the Fed’s 2% target. Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose to 2.9% from 2.8%.

Last week, Trump and several White House officials ramped up their attacks on Powell over rates. They also criticized the ballooning costs of the Fed’s renovation of two of its buildings, raising questions over whether the president was looking to fire Powell for cause rather than policy differences.

Trump and Powell engaged in an extraordinary on-camera confrontation over the cost of the project during Trump’s visit to the building site last Thursday. On Monday, Trump was more restrained in his comments on the Fed during a joint appearance in London with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“I’m not going to say anything bad,” Trump said. “We’re doing so well, even without the rate cut.”

But he added, “a smart person would cut.”

Some economists expect that the Fed will reduce its key rate by a quarter-point in September, rather than July, and say that the two-month delay will make little difference to the economy.

Yet beyond just the timing of the first cut, there is still a huge gulf between what Trump wants and what the Fed will even consider doing: Fed officials in June penciled in just two reductions this year and one in 2026. They forecast that their key rate will still be 3.6% at the end of next year. Trump is pushing them to cut it to just 1%.

“That’s not going to happen with anything like the current people on the committee,” English said.

Wall Street investors also expect relatively few cuts: Two this year and two in 2026, according to futures pricing tracked by CME’s Fedwatch.

According to the Fed’s projections, just two officials in June supported three cuts this year, likely Trump’s appointments from his first term: governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman.

Waller gave a speech earlier this month supporting a rate reduction in July, but for a very different reason than Trump: He is worried the economy is faltering.

“The economy is still growing, but its momentum has slowed significantly, and the risks” of rising unemployment “have increased,” Waller said.

Waller has also emphasized that tariffs will create just a one-time bump in prices but won’t lead to ongoing inflation.

Yet most Fed officials see the job market as relatively healthy — with unemployment at a low 4.1% — and that as a result, they can take time to make sure that’s how everything plays out.

“Continued overall solid economic conditions enable the Fed to take the time to carefully assess the wide range of incoming data,” said Susan Collins, president of the Boston Federal Reserve. “Thus, in my view, an ‘actively patient’ approach to monetary policy remains appropriate at this time.”

When you cover politics as I do, you find yourself around a lot of highly ambitious people. I don’t mind it. In fact, I like ambitious people. They’re energetic, trying to achieve big things, taking a big bite out of life. Their burning drive gives them the stamina they need to pursue their dreams year after year, and stamina is a vastly undervalued superpower if you want to contribute something to the world.

But, of course, ambition is both a blessing and a curse. Ambitious people are also more likely to be ruthless, manipulative, status-obsessed and so focused on worldly success that they become hollow inside. “Macbeth” is a play about a man who becomes a slave to ambition — that insatiable, destructive beast — which hardens, isolates and destroys him.

So the million-dollar questions are: How can you marshal ambition’s energies without being consumed by its insatiable demands? How do you live a driven life, seeking to achieve great things, without becoming a jerk?

Some sages say: Don’t even try. You can’t control ambition, so you should renounce it. Die to self. Abandon selfish desires and offer the world a pure and selfless love. This advice is not as unrealistic as it may seem. I’ve known many people who live utterly generous lives — serving the poor and the weak with great love without clamoring for applause. Their lives are wondrous to behold.

Unfortunately, many of us, and I include myself here, can’t seem to achieve that. Sad to say, my altruistic desires alone are not powerful enough to drive me through the hard labor required to do anything of note. If I’m going to get through the arduous work of, say, writing a book, I need to put my egotistic desires at the service of my loftier desires. I start the book hoping it will be helpful to people, but to propel me to work on it for years, I also need my name on the cover and the ego-pleasing possibility that readers might think I’m clever. In other words, if I’m going to be really driven, I need to harness both selfless and selfish motivations. I don’t scorn mixed motives; I live by them. I think a lot of us live this way.

Abraham Lincoln is the patron saint for those of us who hope to live well even in the grip of ambition. Lincoln’s law partner reported that “his ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.” And yet one of Lincoln’s major speeches, the Lyceum Address of 1838, was about the danger of overweening ambition, and you get the impression he was very much worrying about his own.

Lincoln rode to the White House on that drive, but at every step along the way, you see him wrestling with his ambition, as if he were wrestling with a dangerous dragon. He was trying to ride his ambition to great heights without being consumed and corrupted by it. This struggle with your own ambition is a perilous enterprise — like Jacob wrestling with the angel.

I find I can better understand this struggle with the dragon of ambition if I break it down into five constituent struggles:

— The struggle between craft and reward.

In his 1941 novel, “What Makes Sammy Run?” Budd Schulberg describes a belligerently self-centered and ambitious man who makes it big as a screenwriter in Hollywood. The crucial fact about the main character, Sammy Glick, is that he doesn’t care at all about the craft of screenwriting; he only cares about the fame and money it can bring. So he plagiarizes, steals other people’s ideas, takes shortcuts, is delighted by a script that makes money even if it’s mediocre.

That’s a crucial distinction: How much are you driven by the intrinsic desire to be good at what you do? How much are you driven by the desire for extrinsic rewards like money and fame that being good can bring you? And most crucially, what is the ratio between these two motivations? I’d say if your intrinsic commitment to the craft isn’t dominant, by say 70-30, you’re on morally perilous ground. If you’re just doing it for the money and fame, you’re going to cut corners. You will lack a sense of calling and a true commitment to the vocation, and your lack of intrinsic passion will show up in your work and life.

— The struggle between gift love and need love.

In his book “The Four Loves,” C.S. Lewis observes that some of our loves emerge from a fullness and some emerge from a void. If somebody poured great love into you as a child and you want to pour great love into your neighbors, colleagues and products, that is gift love. Lewis gives the example of a character called Mrs. Fidget as an example of need love. She seems to be devoted to caring for her family. But she’s always boasting of her own sacrifices. She’s manipulative and controlling. She’s trying to fill a hole in her own heart, so her love is self-centered, not other-centered.

Gift love is essentially delighted with the world; need love is voracious, insatiable and laced with a fear of failure. Gift love fosters human connection; need love bends a person in on himself, and leads to isolation. If you’re wrestling with your ambition, it seems important to ask: From where does my ambition flow, from a sense of abundance or a sense of hollowness? People whose ambition is fueled by resentment (Richard Nixon and Donald Trump) are fueled by need love.

— The struggle between excellence and superiority.

Some people’s longings are noncomparative. If they are good at something, that satisfaction is its own reward. Other people’s longings are primarily competitive. It’s not enough for them to be good; they need to be better than. They need to come out on top of someone else.

Since we’re such nice people we’re going to tell ourselves that our longings are noncomparative. But despite these noble assertions, I notice there’s an awful lot of competitive striving for superiority in the world.

Our entire meritocracy is built around the striving for superiority. It’s not that you’re good; what matters is you’re ranked higher, you got into a more exclusive school. The social media world is a world of vicious ranking and comparison. A survey of almost 200 sociologists found that about half expected to become one of the 10 most important sociologists of their time. Not just good, but better than.

The world of noncomparative striving can be a world of mutual respect. On the other hand, a desire for superiority is zero-sum, nasty and drenched in envy. As Yale theologian Miroslav Volf writes in “The Cost of Ambition,” “Frustrated striving for superiority often seeks relief in the form of aggressive self-deception in which the superior is cast as morally deficient, arrogant and oppressive.” It’s not enough that I be built up; others must be torn down.

— The struggle between high and low desires.

The quality of your ambition will be shaped by the goal you’re ambitious for. As philosophers down the ages have noticed, if you hunger for power you will always feel powerless and fear treachery; if you hunger for approval you will always have to be people pleasing; if you hunger for money you will never have enough; but if you hunger for understanding, your world will always be filled with wonders; and if you hunger for God, you will be hungering for perfect love itself and your hunger, I believe, will be purified by that love.

We all instinctively know that some desires are morally superior to others. The longing for true friendship is higher than the longing for popularity; the longing for community is higher than the longing for a Porsche. And yet there is a perversity in each human heart that sometimes turns us into idolaters — that induces us to worship the lesser substitutes our culture tells us to worship rather than some ultimate good itself.

We want to love and be loved, which is a noble ambition, but we think we can get them by looking good, being in the know, being popular with the in crowd. Idolatry is an ultimate longing for a finite thing. Like all addictions, this form of miswanting demands more and more of a person, while offering less and less.

Be careful what you love, St. Augustine warned, because you end up turning into what you love. Moral life, he continued, is about getting your loves in the right order and wanting what is higher.

— Finally, the struggle between ambition and aspiration.

Ambition is the desire to rise higher in the world. Aspiration is the desire to become a better person in the world. The former is about social mobility, and the latter is about inner transformation.

As you can tell, I applaud ambition, but aspiration sounds a lot more important. It takes courage to build the kind of relationships you’ve never experienced before, to cultivate the kind of virtues you’ve never possessed before. The world doesn’t applaud you as much when you devote yourself to the inner sanctification rather than to outer impressiveness.

Aspiration demands that you renounce the merit badge life. After a few wasted years in college, Walter Kirn was stripped down to a place where he was tired of trying to get ahead; all he wanted to do was learn. He writes in his book “Lost in the Meritocracy”: “Alone in my room, congested and exhausted, I forgot my obsession with self-advancement. I wanted to lose myself. I wanted to read. Instead of filling in the blanks, I wanted to be a blank and be filled in.”

As I was finishing this column on the train I got a nervous text from my wife. She’s launching a big project, and she was about to send a mass email announcing it to the world. She mentioned that her ambitions for this project were clashing with her quietist desires to be a private person out of the spotlight. That sounds like exactly the kind of healthy internal struggle I was at that exact moment trying to describe. Professional success often comes from being wholehearted, from moving unreservedly after one goal. But the people we admire are often divided against themselves, burning hot with some ambition while trying to transcend the flames.

David Brooks writes a column for the New York Times.

Related Articles

Gautam Mukunda: Beware, leaders — AI is the ultimate yes-man

Other voices: There they go again, stretching antitrust laws for political ends

Erwin Chemerinksy: The Supreme Court owes you an explanation

Daniel DePetris: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu don’t have the same goals

Sheldon H. Jacobson: Old-school manufacturing is gone and is not coming back