By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

Two women died Sunday at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, in a shooting rampage that began when a state trooper was wounded after making a traffic stop, police said. The suspect in both shootings was also killed.

The suspect carjacked a vehicle after the traffic stop near Lexington’s airport and fled to Richmond Road Baptist Church, where he opened fire, city Police Chief Lawrence Weathers said. Killed in the shootings at the church were a 72-year-old woman and a 32-year-old woman, the local coroner said.

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Two other people were wounded at the church and taken to a local hospital, the police chief said. One victim sustained critical injuries and the other was in stable condition, Weathers said.

The suspect was shot by police and died at the scene, he said. The suspect was not immediately identified pending notification of family, he said.

“Preliminary information indicates that the suspect may have had a connection to the individuals at the church,” the police chief said at a news conference.

The trooper stopped the vehicle after receiving a “license plate reader alert” and was shot about 11:30 a.m., Weathers said. The trooper was in stable condition, he said.

Police tracked the carjacked vehicle to the Baptist church, the police chief said. The church is about 16 miles 26 kilometers) from where the trooper was shot.

The shootings remain under investigation, Weathers said.

Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers speaks during a media conference at Lexington Police headquarters in downtown Lexington, Ky., Sunday, July 13, 2025. (Ryan C. Hermens/Lexington Herald-Leader via AP)

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn said the church is home to a small, tight-knit congregation.

“Please pray for everyone affected by these senseless acts of violence, and let’s give thanks for the swift response by the Lexington Police Department and Kentucky State Police,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said in a social media post.

State Attorney General Russell Coleman said detectives with his office were ready to support local and state agencies. “Today, violence invaded the Lord’s House,” Coleman said in a statement. “The attack on law enforcement and people of faith in Lexington shocked the entire Commonwealth.”

By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on much, but they share a conviction that the government should help American manufacturers, one way or another.

Democratic President Joe Biden handed out subsidies to chipmakers and electric vehicle manufacturers. Republican President Donald Trump is building a wall of import taxes — tariffs — around the U.S. economy to protect domestic industry from foreign competition.

Yet American manufacturing has been stuck in a rut for nearly three years. And it remains to be seen whether the trend will reverse itself.

The U.S. Labor Department reports that American factories shed 7,000 jobs in June for the second month in a row. Manufacturing employment is on track to drop for the third straight year.

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The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported that manufacturing activity in the United States shrank in June for the fourth straight month. In fact, U.S. factories have been in decline for 30 of the 32 months since October 2022, according to ISM.

“The past three years have been a real slog for manufacturing,’’ said Eric Hagopian, CEO of Pilot Precision Products, a maker of industrial cutting tools in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. “We didn’t get destroyed like we did in the recession of 2008. But we’ve been in this stagnant, sort of stationary environment.’’

Big economic factors contributed to the slowdown: A surge in inflation, arising from the unexpectedly strong economic recovery from COVID-19, raised factory expenses and prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023. The higher borrowing costs added to the strain.

Government policy was meant to help.

Biden’s tax incentives for semiconductor and clean energy production triggered a factory-building boom – investment in manufacturing facilities more than tripled from April 2021 through October 2024 – that seemed to herald a coming surge in factory production and hiring. Eventually anyway.

But the factory investment spree has faded as the incoming Trump administration launched trade wars and, working with Congress, ended Biden’s subsidies for green energy. Now, predicts Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, “manufacturing production will continue to flatline.”

“If production is flat, that suggests manufacturing employment will continue to slide,” Zandi said. “Manufacturing is likely to suffer a recession in the coming year.’’

Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to protect U.S. manufacturers — and to coax factories to relocate and produce in America — by imposing tariffs on goods made overseas. He slapped 50% taxes on steel and aluminum, 25% on autos and auto parts, 10% on many other imports.

In some ways, Trump’s tariffs can give U.S. factories an edge. Chris Zuzick, vice president at Waukesha Metal Products, said the Sussex, Wisconsin-based manufacturer is facing stiff competition for a big contract in Texas. A foreign company offers much lower prices. But “when you throw the tariff on, it gets us closer,’’ Zuzick said. “So that’s definitely a situation where it’s beneficial.’’

But American factories import and use foreign products, too – machinery, chemicals, raw materials like steel and aluminum. Taxing those inputs can drive up costs and make U.S producers less competitive in world markets.

Consider steel. Trump’s tariffs don’t just make imported steel more expensive. By putting the foreign competition at a disadvantage, the tariffs allow U.S. steelmakers to raise prices – and they have. U.S.-made steel was priced at $960 per metric ton as of June 23, more than double the world export price of $440 per ton, according to industry monitor SteelBenchmarker.

In fact, U.S. steel prices are so high that Pilot Precision Products has continued to buy the steel it needs from suppliers in Austria and France — and pay Trump’s tariff.

Trump has also created considerable uncertainty by repeatedly tweaking and rescheduling his tariffs. Just before new import taxes were set to take effect on dozens of countries on July 9, for example, the president pushed the deadline back to Aug. 1 to allow more time for negotiation with U.S. trading partners.

The flipflops have left factories, suppliers and customers bewildered about where things stand. Manufacturers voiced their complaints in the ISM survey: “Customers do not want to make commitments in the wake of massive tariff uncertainty,’’ a fabricated metal products company said.

“Tariffs continue to cause confusion and uncertainty for long-term procurement decisions,’’ added a computer and electronics firm. “The situation remains too volatile to firmly put such plans into place.’’

Some may argue that things aren’t necessarily bad for U.S. manufacturing; they’ve just returned to normal after a pandemic-related bust and boom.

Factories slashed nearly 1.4 million jobs in March and April 2020 when COVID-19 forced many businesses to shut down and Americans to stay home. Then a funny thing happened: American consumers, cooped up and flush with COVID relief checks from the government, went on a spending spree, snapping up manufactured goods like air fryers, patio furniture and exercise machines.

Suddenly, factories were scrambling to keep up. They brought back the workers they laid off – and then some. Factories added 379,000 jobs in 2021 — the most since 1994 — and then tacked on another 357,000 in 2022.

But in 2023, factory hiring stopped growing and began backtracking as the economy returned to something closer to the pre-pandemic normal.

In the end, it was a wash. Factory payrolls last month came to 12.75 million, almost exactly where they stood in February 2020 (12.74 million) just before COVID slammed the economy.

“It’s a long, strange trip to get back to where we started,’’ said Jared Bernstein, chair of Biden’s White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products said that it will take time to see if Trump’s tariffs succeed in bringing factories back to America.

“The fact is that manufacturing doesn’t turn on a dime,’’ he said. “It takes time to switch gears.’’

Hagopian at Pilot Precision is hopeful that tax breaks in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will help American manufacturing regain momentum.

“There may be light at the end of the tunnel that may not be a locomotive bearing down,’’ he said.

For now, manufacturers are likely to delay big decisions on investing or bringing on new workers until they see where Trump’s tariffs settle and what impact they have on the economy, said Ned Hill, professor emeritus in economic development at Ohio State University.

“With all this uncertainty about what the rest of the year is going to look like,’’ he said, “there’s a hesitancy to hire people just to lay them off in the near future.’’

“Everyone,” said Zuzick at Waukesha Metal Products, ”is kind of just waiting for the new normal.’’

By ILLIA NOVIKOV, Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said, as anticipation grew over a possible shift in the Trump administration’s policy on the three-year war.

Trump last week said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday. Trump made quickly stopping the war one of his diplomatic priorities, and he has increasingly expressed frustration about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unbudging stance on U.S-led peace efforts.

Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a “dictator without elections.”

But Russia’s relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump’s patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader “ has gone absolutely CRAZY!” as the bombardments continued.

“I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,” Trump said late Sunday. “He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”

The European Union can’t buy Patriot missiles

Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine’s air defenses are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said.

At the same time, Russia’s bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 620-mile front line.

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Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defense missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the “various pieces of very sophisticated” weaponry.

While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons.

Germany has offered to finance two new Patriot systems and is awaiting official talks on the possibility of more, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six.

Trump ally says war at inflection point

A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion. It’s a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.

“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He added: “One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.”

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.

“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”

NATO chief visits Washington

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. He planned to hold talks with Trump, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as members of Congress.

Talks during Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv will cover “defense, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protection of our people and enhancing cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak.

“Russia does not want a cease fire. Peace through strength is President Donald Trump’s principle, and we support this approach,” Yermak said.

Russian troops conducted a combined aerial strike at Shostka, in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, using glide bombs and drones early Monday morning, killing two people, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Four others were injured, including a 7-year-old, it said.

Overnight from Sunday to Monday, Russia fired four S-300/400 missiles and 136 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the air force said. It said that 61 drones were intercepted and 47 more were either jammed or lost from radars mid-flight.

The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses downed 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions on the border with Ukraine, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

A union organizer has entered the race for the Minnesota 8th Congressional District seat.

Chad McKenna, 43, of Duluth, announced Thursday morning he is seeking the seat, which covers much of north-central and Northeastern Minnesota, and has said he’ll seek the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party nomination.

McKenna said the district’s current representative, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, a Republican from Hermantown, “has stopped working for us — his constituents.”

“He seems more focused on appeasing party bosses in Washington than supporting the policies that matter most to people here at home,” McKenna said in a news release. “If elected, I’ll do what Representative Stauber won’t: expand healthcare access, make childcare more affordable, make real investments in our infrastructure, strengthen our unions, and fight everyday for an economy that ensures that if you work hard, you can build a good life. I won’t side with corporate interests, out-of-state billionaires, and the political forces that seek to divide us.”

McKenna works as a labor relations field manager for the Minnesota Nurses Association, a union representing health care workers.

Stauber’s campaign declined to comment on McKenna entering the race.

Although the November 2026 election is still a year and a half away, four DFL candidates have entered the 8th District race.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, John-Paul McBride has also filed to run as a DFL candidate in the 8th Congressional District. Little is known about McBride’s campaign, which is registered to a West Duluth address, according to FEC filings.

Reached by phone Thursday morning, McBride said he was at work and would get back to the News Tribune when he was available.

McKenna and McBride join two other DFL candidates who entered the race in June: Cyle Cramer, 32, of Chisago City, and Emanuel Anastos, 25, of Tower.

Cramer, who grew up in Faribault, Minnesota, and served in the Army National Guard, works as an attorney for Nichols Kaster, PLLP in Minneapolis.

Anastos grew up on New York’s Long Island and came to Minnesota to attend Carleton College in Northfield. He works as an Indian child welfare case manager for the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

Stauber, who has held the seat since 2019, has also filed for reelection, according to the FEC.

A staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, Stauber said earlier this year he would not be running for governor or Minnesota’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2026.

A Republican has not won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, but the 8th Congressional District, once a Democratic stronghold and later a battleground, has moved safely into the red category.

Stauber most recently cruised to victory over DFL challenger Jen Schultz, of Duluth, with 58% of the vote, slightly higher than his margin over the same opponent in 2022.

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