Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said Monday that he plans to run for West Virginia governor, becoming the first — and so far only — Democratic candidate in the field eight months before the primary election.

Williams announced his bid for governor during the United Mine Workers of America 84th Annual Labor Day Celebration in Racine, news outlets reported.

Seven Republicans have filed pre-candidacy papers, and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has announced he’ll seek the governor’s office.

Filing pre-candidacy papers allows campaigns to start fundraising and requires them to file campaign finance reports. A candidate isn’t officially in the race until they file a separate certificate of announcement and pay a $1,500 filing fee. The official filing period is next January.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice is prohibited by law from seeking a third consecutive term.

Ben Salango, a Democrat and Kanawha County commissioner who lost to Justice in the 2020 general election, recently announced that he won’t seek the governor’s office again.

If no other candidates enter the race, it would mark the fewest Democrats running for governor in at least 75 years, although it’s not unprecedented for a gubernatorial candidate to run unopposed. Bill Cole was the lone candidate when he won the Republican primary in 2016 before losing in the general election to Democrat Jim Justice, who then switched to the GOP seven months after taking office.

Williams was first elected in 2012 and is the first three-term mayor in Huntington history.

In 2018, he withdrew his candidacy from a U.S. House race, citing the need to focus full-time on his job as mayor to tackle the Ohio River city’s opioid crisis along with drug-related violence.

Huntington was once ground zero for the addiction epidemic in the state until a quick response program that formed in 2017 drove the overdose rate down. But the COVID-19 pandemic undid much of the progress.

The two countries aim to bring annual turnover to $100 billion

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has underscored the importance of switching to national currencies in bilateral trade with Russia. He made these comments during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Monday.

“I believe that the fact that the heads of our central banks will meet here today is important from the point of view of a step towards the transition to national currencies in bilateral relations between us,” the Turkish president stated.

Putin, in turn, noted that the pace of trade development between the two nations remains positive and that economic cooperation is diversifying beyond the traditional sectors such as agriculture and energy.

“We are very pleased that the volume of our bilateral trade is currently $62 billion, and we are moving towards our goal of $100 billion,” Erdogan replied.
 
Despite geopolitical differences, Moscow and Ankara have been trying to deepen economic ties. In April, Putin and Erdogan agreed to encourage mutual investments and help Russian and Turkish businesses enter each other’s markets.

READ MORE: Russian-Turkish trade booming – official data

Last year, Türkiye and Russia signed a roadmap for economic cooperation that envisages bringing bilateral trade turnover to $100 billion annually. The two nations have also agreed to introduce the Russian ruble as a settlement currency in bilateral trade, including payment for Russian natural gas supplies.

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The TurkStream and Blue Stream routes have been targeted by drones, according to the president

Russian pipelines transporting natural gas to Türkiye have faced constant attack by submarine drones launched from Ukrainian ports, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

The Russian leader made the accusation during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi.

“Our ships guard these pipeline systems, and they are constantly under attack, including with the help of drones that are directed to these attacks from Ukrainian Black Sea ports,” Putin claimed, referring to the Blue Stream and TurkStream gas pipelines. 

The Russian Defense Ministry announced in May that it had repelled a Ukrainian attack on the Ivan Khurs, a vessel which guards the two pipelines. The incident involved three unmanned speedboats, which were destroyed 90 miles (145km) northeast of Türkiye’s Bosporus Strait, the ministry said.

Last month, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic expressed hope that the TurkStream pipeline, which transports Russian natural gas to his country via the Black Sea, would be safe and secure, and that it would not suffer the same fate as the sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines.

READ MORE: European country issues gas-pipeline warning

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban previously warned that both Budapest and Belgrade would consider any attacks on Russian gas-supply routes to the region as a reason for war.

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Consumer price growth has accelerated at the fastest rate this year

Inflation in Türkiye spiked to 58.9% in annual terms in August, its fastest pace this year, from around 48% in July, according to data released on Monday by the Turkish Statistical Institute.

The month-on-month increase was 9.1%, mostly driven by rising energy and food costs. Transport costs jumped 16.6% month-on-month, while food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 8.5% from July and 72.9% from last year. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices and is seen as a bellwether for future inflation developments, posted an annual gain of 64.9%.

Analysts attribute the spike in inflation to the steep fall in the lira exchange rate and recent tax increases. The Turkish currency has lost about 30% of its value so far this year.

After years of interest rate cuts, which helped trigger a currency crisis in late 2021 and sent inflation to a 24-year peak of 85.51% last October, the Turkish central bank turned back toward more traditional economic policies earlier this year. It has so far hiked the key rate three times to the current 25%, although experts say that more tightening is in order, despite the slight gains in the lira since the latest rate increase in August.

“The recent lira appreciation is unlikely to trigger price discounts, in our view, but it may contribute to a slower pace of price gains through the rest of the year. We maintain our call for a year-end inflation rate of 57%, but recognize risks have emerged on both sides,” economist Selva Bahar Baziki told Bloomberg, commenting on the situation.

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Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has warned that the battle against inflation may be a long one.

“We are absolutely determined to fight inflation. We know that the fight against inflation will take some time. We are in the transition period. We will do whatever is necessary – monetary tightening, credit policy and income policies – to bring inflation under control and then lower it,” Simsek wrote on his X (formerly Twitter) account after the data release.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section