In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that’s voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic Party.

Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.

Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.

“This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.”

As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are delivering messages aimed at younger voters who could prove decisive in some of the most hotly contested states.

Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.

“We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, highlighting her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and action to combat climate change.

Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta, and she praised young voters across the country for their response to the vice president’s elevation to likely nominee.

“As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, citing new voter registrations, small donations from young voters and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.

Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, derided Harris as an “incompetent” and a “far left” vice president. He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.

“With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square and I will also protect other religions.”

John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”

In many ways, it was the first time many young people felt heard and felt like their actions could have an impact on politics, he and several young leaders said.

“It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”

About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter of the group saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.

That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and from CNN that were conducted after Biden dropped out, suggest that Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.

Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.

Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations such as the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.

College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and to change course on the war in Gaza and have “worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer. But they received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.

A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, Muralitharan said, adding that she may also be able to change course and distance herself from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.

“The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”

Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.

“Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”

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Gauff, the reigning U.S. Open champion, is set to make her Olympic debut at the Paris Games and will be the first tennis athlete to carry the U.S. flag. She and James were chosen by Team USA athletes.

“I mean, for me, the Olympics is a top priority. I would say equal to the Grand Slams. I wouldn’t put it above or below, just because I’ve never played before. This is my first time,” Gauff said earlier this year. “Obviously, I always want to do well, try to get a medal.”

Gauff and James, the 39-year-old leading scorer in NBA history, both compete in sports that are outside the traditional Olympic world and get attention year-round, not just every four years.

The 20-year-old Gauff made the American team for the Tokyo Games three years ago as a teenager but had to sit out those Olympics because she tested positive for COVID-19 right before she was supposed to fly to Japan.

Now Gauff, who is based in Florida, is a Grand Slam title winner in singles and doubles. She won her first major championship in New York in September, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the singles final of the U.S. Open, then added her first Grand Slam doubles trophy at the French Open this June alongside Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic.

The same clay courts at Roland Garros used for the French Open will be where matches are going to be held for the Paris Olympics. The draw to set the brackets is Thursday, and play begins on Saturday.

Gauff is seeded No. 2 in singles, matching her current WTA ranking behind No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland, and will be among the medal favorites.

She and her usual doubles partner, Jessica Pegula, are seeded No. 1 in women’s doubles. It’s possible Gauff could also be entered in mixed doubles, but those pairings have not been announced yet.

“I’m not putting too much pressure on it, because I really want to fully indulge in the experience,” Gauff said about her Olympics debut. “Hopefully I can have the experience multiple times in my lifetime, (but) I’ll treat it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

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Here are some takeaways from the historic day.

Democrats who had been in disarray are falling in line
Since Biden’s disastrous debate in June, the Democratic party has been in disarray. Drip by drip, high-level party officials reversed course and started to send signals that the president needed to step aside.

Before Sunday, seeing Biden step aside did not necessarily mean making room for Harris. The vice president’s approval ratings were as grim as Biden’s, and there’s widespread skepticism on the left about her electability after her disappointing performance in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

But on Sunday, Democrats started lining up behind Harris. Dozens of members of Congress and senators endorsed her. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro — himself a dream nominee for many Democrats who have hoped Biden would step aside — also came out in favor of Harris, as did California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Two big names — former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama — notably withheld endorsements. But with less than two months before early voting begins in the presidential election, Democrats may be deciding they don’t have time for further turmoil.

It’s also a reminder of the stark difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Trump took over the Republican Party on the strength of his personality and loyal following of party voters. Harris has been assiduously working the phones to key Democratic members of Congress to assemble a durable coalition. Democrats are still trying to balance multiple power centers.

The GOP only has one power center now.

Will the election be about Trump, or Harris, or someone else?
Normally, a president’s reelection campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. For months, Biden tried to make it about Trump.

When pushed in interviews about his own poor debate performance, Biden tried to counter it by highlighting Donald Trump’s deceptions. He made the perceived threat of another Trump presidency his big pitch to donors, saying that the Republican would end U.S. democracy. But after the debate, the framing quickly turned to Biden, and whether he had the capacity to serve another four years.

Now Democrats hope Harris, at 59, can cast a spotlight on Trump, who is just three years younger than Biden.

The GOP made no secret that it preferred to run against Biden, but it’s pivoting to attack Harris in similar ways. Republicans are already criticizing Harris for defending Biden’s ability to do his job over the past several years. They’re tying her to the least popular aspects of Biden’s presidency, like border policy and immigration. During last week’s GOP convention, speaker after speaker called Harris the “border czar” — which has never been her title, but was shorthand for how Biden tasked her with handling immigration early in his term.

Voters: Are you happy now?
The one constant since Trump announced in November of 2022 has been voters pleading, begging for a different matchup.

The desire is clear in both polls and conversations with regular voters. In late 2023, an AP-NORC poll found that 58% would be unhappy with Trump as the GOP nominee and 56% with Biden. Democrats were more likely to be dissatisfied with Biden then Republicans with Trump.

The problem for the replace-Biden movement is no single candidate captured the imagination of Democratic voters. Running essentially unopposed, Biden cleaned up in the Democratic primary. It wasn’t until the June 27 debate that Democratic powerbrokers began to listen to voters’ unease.

Now there’s a different election. But the question remains — will voters be happy about a fresher face? Or will they treat Harris like they did Biden, either because they see her as tightly connected to him or because their unhappiness wasn’t just about the re-run of the 2020 race, but other factors in American life?

A new battle over a diverse electorate?
The main contours of the presidential race were set with Trump’s announcement in November of 2022. Now, if Democrats choose Harris, those battle lines come into much sharper focus. Harris, as the nation’s first Black woman vice president, and first of South Asian descent, has the potential to generate an overperformance among women, particularly women of color, while Trump will try to do the same among white men.

But Trump isn’t putting all his eggs in a single demographic basket. After performing better than expected with Latinos in 2020 his campaign has been trying to boost his numbers with that ethnicity even more and also targeting Black voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s hold on older white voters — who are more likely to cast ballots — kept him competitive.

Will Harris be able to blunt Trump’s potential gains among more diverse parts of the electorate? Will she be able to replicate her boss’ strength in Rust Belt states where white voters are disproportionately powerful? Can she put in play states like Georgia and North Carolina that have a higher share of Black voters?

Any changes between Harris’ coalition and Biden’s are likely to be small, but this election is likely to be close and turn on tiny shifts in the electorate.

Will Harris be able to make a second first impression?
Harris has long been an electoral mystery. She has the resume of a top-of-the-line electoral juggernaut — female career prosecutor of racially mixed descent, quick and charismatic. But she’s underperformed in the races she ran in California. Though she won her statewide contests, she usually didn’t get as many votes as other Democrats running statewide.

The nadir came in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Harris ended up dropping out before voting began to preserve her viability after doing so poorly in the initial stretch of the race.

Harris’ checkered electoral history may have been a factor on Democratic disquiet about Biden, because they didn’t trust his heir apparent to beat Trump. They now may have no choice but to believe in her and have been encouraged by her sharper, clearer attacks on the Republican nominee recently.

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The decision by the Democrat came after building pressure from lawmakers, donors, activists and voters within his own party who had concerns about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump in November’s election. The letter ended weeks of speculation after the 81-year old’s troubling performance at the June 27 presidential debate. Below is the text of the letter that Biden sent on his personal stationery:

My Fellow Americans,

Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.

Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most important climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved our Democracy. And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do — when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.

—

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A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Justice Department alleges employees of Southwest Key Programs Inc. sexually abused and harassed children in their care for at least eight years. During that time, the nonprofit organization amassed billions of dollars in government contracts and continued to house thousands of unaccompanied migrant children entering the U.S.

It remained unclear Friday how many children are currently in Southwest Key shelters, and federal officials did not respond to questions about whether any actions would be taken in response to the lawsuit. Critics say it reflects a system that has lacked accountability for years.

“The whole point of this complaint is that there’s this pattern and practice,” said Leecia Welch, deputy legal director at Children’s Rights. “If they’re bringing this complaint that they saw a pattern and practice of sexual harassment and violating these kids while still placing kids at Southwest Key during the same time period, that’s why I have such a disconnect.”

Southwest Key, which operates under grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, has 29 child migrant shelters — 17 in Texas, 10 in Arizona and two in California — with room for more than 6,300 children.

The department did not respond to emailed requests for comment asking whether children will continue to be placed there. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment beyond the lawsuit announcement Thursday. Southwest Key did not respond to an additional emailed request for comment Friday.

“ORR continued to contract with Southwest Key despite knowing of some of these issues, so right now there isn’t in another place to put all these kids,” said Diane de Gramont, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law. “And we would be extremely concerned if kids then ended up in border patrol facilities for longer periods of time because ORR didn’t have enough beds for them.”

The Border Patrol must transfer custody of unaccompanied children within 72 hours of arrest to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which releases most to parents or close relatives after short stays at Southwest Key or shelters operated by other contracted providers.

The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, a nonprofit organization that advocates for immigrant children, called for children in custody to be immediately reunited with family members and have access to attorneys as well as “independent courts who will hear their claims of harm.”

Previous abuse at some Southwest Key shelters led to their closure, including two large facilities in Arizona in 2018. The state revoked their licenses for not properly conducting background checks on their employees, and further investigation revealed several cases of physical and sexual abuse, including accusations from the government of El Salvador.

The abuse reflects the important role of state oversight, something that is now lacking in states like Texas and Florida, where Republican governors revoked state licensing of facilities that house migrant children.

Critics say there exists no equivalent system to report and investigate child abuse and neglect through the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the housing of migrant children.

“If there is an incident of abuse, when the state is there, there’s a clear hotline for anybody to call,” de Gramont said. “There’s a mandatory investigation … there’s a strict series of events that’s supposed to happen there.”

Some experts also wondered why the complaint was filed as a civil lawsuit where no one would be held criminally liable.

Daniel Hatoum, a Texas Civil Rights Project attorney whose experience includes defending children subject to the work of immigration contractors, said a criminal lawsuit could come later.

“Corporate liability can be a lot harder for the Department of Justice than civil liability and especially individual criminal liability,” he said. The civil lawsuit is seeking a jury trial and requesting monetary damages for the victims of the alleged abuse.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit comes less than three weeks after a federal judge granted its request to lift special court oversight of the Health and Human Services Department’s care of unaccompanied migrant children, known as the Flores agreement. This gave attorneys representing child migrants broad authority to visit custody facilities and conduct interviews with staff and other migrants, as well as register complaints with the court.

President Joe Biden’s administration argued that new federal safeguards rendered special oversight unnecessary 27 years after it began. In one court document, Health and Human Services Department official Toby Biswas painted a rosy picture of the new regulations’ numerous protections for unaccompanied children as well as independent accountability for their custody conditions.

Advocates instead saw a void in oversight.

Carrie Van der Hoek, deputy program director for the Young Center’s Child Advocate Program in Texas, said in an affidavit opposing the termination of the Flores agreement that her staff reported approximately 10 instances of alleged abuse and neglect to the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services since Texas revoked its licensing in 2021.

“When we have made these reports, in some cases, DFPS officials told us that they would not investigate the complaint because DFPS did not have jurisdiction over ORR facilities,” Van der Hoek said. “In other cases, we received no response and were not aware of any actions taken by DFPS or any other state agency to investigate the report.”

Van der Hoek also said that if a child called preprogrammed telephones in the Office of Refugee Resettlement, facilities that allow them to reach the state child abuse and neglect hotline, they would get the same response.

Biswas said they began conducting “in-depth reviews” of abuse allegations at Texas facilities beginning March 2022 and will begin its own investigations of alleged child abuse and neglect in Texas “or in any other state if it ceases to perform such investigations” as of July of this year.

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Some 54,300 previously occupied U.S. homes were purchased by non-U.S. citizens in the 12 months ended in March, according to a report this week by the National Association of Realtors.

That’s the fewest homes sold to foreign nationals in data going back to 2009. Sales were down about 36% compared to the same period a year earlier.

Those transactions from April 2023 through March of this year totaled $42 billion, a 21.2% decline from the prior-year period, NAR said.

“International buyers face the same difficult market challenges as domestic buyers — lack of inventory, higher mortgage rates, the affordability condition,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “On top of that, for many international buyers the stronger dollar was not in their favor.”

The U.S. housing market has been stuck in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Existing home sales sank to a nearly 30-year low last year as the average rate on a 30-year mortgage surged to a 23-year high of 7.79%, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac.

The average rate has mostly hovered around 7%, limiting home shoppers’ purchasing power. At the same time, the supply of homes for sale, though rising in recent months, remains close to historic lows. That’s kept the market competitive enough to lift home prices to new highs.

On top of those affordability challenges, foreign buyers have to factor in the potential for additional costs when the U.S. dollar is stronger than their currency. The U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the value of the greenback relative to a basket of foreign currencies, has risen 3.9% over the past 12 months.

“The strong U.S. dollar makes international travel cheaper for Americans but makes U.S. homes much more expensive for foreigners,” said Yun. “Therefore, it’s not surprising to see a pullback in U.S. home sales from foreign buyers.”

All-cash sales accounted for half the international buyer transactions, compared to just 28% of all existing-home buyers, NAR said.

The report defined international buyers as non-U.S. citizens with permanent residences outside the country and immigrants who had been in the U.S. less than two years when they bought a home. It also included purchases by non-immigrants living in the U.S. for more than six months under professional or educational visas, among others.

The number of existing U.S. homes purchased by international buyers peaked in the 12 months ended March 2017 at 284,500 properties, according to NAR. That was fueled in part by a surge in Chinese nationals snapping up homes.

Among the foreign nationals who bought a U.S. home in the 12 months ended in March of this year, buyers from China accounted for 11% of purchases, matching Mexico, NAR said. Home shoppers from Canada topped the list with 13%.

Where did most of the international home shoppers end up buying a home? Florida drew the most at 20% of all sales to foreign buyers, followed by Texas (13%), California (11%) and Arizona (5%). Georgia, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina each accounted for 4%, NAR said.

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When Hurricane Idalia tore through Florida in late August, Bregenzer lost everything in the northwest fishing village of Horseshoe Beach. For months, she and her husband slept where they could with friends, neighbors and family: in Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, eastern Florida.

For nearly 11 months, Bregenzer felt she was no better off than after the storm.

“I’m spent. I’m tired. I’m weak. And I’m weary,” Bregenzer said in May inside a temporary, state-issued camper she lives in several miles away. “Everyday I am reminded of the storm.”

Almost a year later, many people in Horseshoe are asking themselves: Do I sell and move? Should I buy a recreational vehicle to live in on my property? Do I have the means to rebuild on stilts, as code requires? As they ask these questions, U.S. officials predict this year’s hurricane season in Florida will be busier than usual.

Coastal climate impacts
In the U.S., more than 128 million people – nearly 40% of the nation’s population – live in coastal counties along the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans, as well as the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. These seaside communities produce $10 trillion in goods and services annually, employ 54.6 million people, and pay $4 trillion in wages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To live along the coast in a time of climate change is to contend with increasing vulnerabilities. Seas are rising and warming up, eroding coastlines, intensifying storms and making floods a more frequent occurrence.

In Horseshoe, those who lost homes to Idalia have few options. They can either rebuild on pricey stilts — up to 19 feet (5.8 meters) above sea level as required for buildings closest to water — or live in RVs they can move from a hurricane’s path.

Located 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Gainesville, Horseshoe is a quiet town in Dixie County. Residents zip around in golf carts and move with the days’ rhythms — lounging when it’s hottest, fishing when the tide is right, watching sunsets, beers in hand. Less than 200 full-time residents, both recent retirees and long-timers, as well as weekenders and seasonal tourists, are spread over an area about three-quarters of a mile long and wide. There is one church, one firehouse and one restaurant. There is no gas station or grocery store, and only one road goes in and out.

Horseshoe residents say they are proud of strong community bonds and sunsets that paint the sky brilliant hues. Homes approaching $1 million are interspersed with some as low as $50,000. Historically, it’s a place where a blue collar worker could live by the sea.

Many residents are still reeling from last summer’s Category 3 storm that pummeled homes, businesses and other infrastructure, leaving debris and rubble in its wake. Recovery for some has been long and slow. Elevated homes withstood severe damage. Homes with little elevation were destroyed. Many weren’t insured, and those who did have flood insurance were not covered for repairs from wind-driven water. Scientists have said that Gulf waters warmed by climate change helped Idalia rapidly intensify

Today, the signs of destruction remain. A house lies flat like a pancake. Abandoned homes with shattered windows – some boarded up with wood – stand askew. Inside, washers and driers are turned on their sides. A tattered American flag flaps where a house was swept away and flags reading “Horseshoe Strong” hang from balconies, made after Idalia by a local who lost her business.

Storms reshape Horseshoe
People talk about keeping Horseshoe unchanged, but before Idalia storms had begun reshaping the town’s character and landscape.

Hurricane Hermine in 2016, and before that, the so-called Storm of the Century in 1993, caused widespread damage. People sold their properties. Some houses went up on stilts. In 1993, Tina Brotherton lost her marina and the cafe next door, and had to replace the floors and beds at her inn. Most of the damaged buildings were on the waterfront, she recalled.

Idalia dealt another blow.

Brotherton, 88, said she doesn’t plan to rebuild this time. Her business, Tina’s Dockside Inn, was completely destroyed, as was her home that she planned to put on the market days before the storm. She says she is tired and it’s expensive to rebuild.

“Once I got all my cats out, I don’t care to go back,” she said inside her home a couple of miles away, where she lives with her son and more than a dozen cats. “There’s nothing there for me anymore.”

Long road to recovery
By midcentury, more than 48,000 properties could be below the high tide lines, mostly in Louisiana, Florida and Texas, according to a 2022 study by Climate Central.

While Horseshoe residents say they know storms and flooding will continue, it’s hard to think about that when trying to survive the present.

Eileen Lilley, 75, is living in a camper after 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water damaged her home. On a recent day, she spoke of her late husband and missing the screened porch where she liked to paint. Despite the longing, she feels safe knowing her mobile home can be moved when another hurricane strikes.

“It’s better for me at my age to get somebody who can pull me out of here and move me to another area,” she said, while at her side snoozed Katy the cat and Kelly the dog laid at her feet.

Some residents are waiting to know if they qualify for state or federal loans and grants to help them rebuild. Mayor Jeff Williams said insuring new property will also be cost prohibitive for many. “In a town when you’re in a flood zone, you pay the highest rate,” he said. “And the rate of insurance over the last two to three years has just skyrocketed.”

All this added to Bregenzer’s anxiety. To rebuild they needed financial help. Her husband had a stroke and back surgery years ago, and medical bills and income loss sapped their savings. She’s grateful to have a roof over her head.

“It’s humbling,” she said.

They want to be homeowners again, she said while sitting inside her camper, tears in her eyes. To have a house to show for their lives’ work. For nearly a year, she didn’t know if that would happen or when. And she wondered: is it even worth it?

Then just last week, Bregenzer finally found hope. Her family was approved for a program that will help them build a new home. If all goes as planned, they’ll move into an stilted two-bedroom house on their lot by year’s end.

“After 11 months of what seemingly felt and appeared to be a nightmare, I just,” she said over the phone in July, her voice trailing off. “I lack words.”

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The Republican presidential ticket came together on Monday when Donald Trump named JD Vance as his running mate. In turning to the 39-year-old Ohio senator, the Republican nominee injected new energy into a campaign that has centered in recent weeks on questions of age following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance.

The Republican National Convention opened less than 48 hours after Trump was the subject of a shocking assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. The shooting, which left Trump injured and one man dead, loomed over the convention with speakers expressing gratitude for the former president’s survival and resolved to win back the White House in November.

Here are some takeaways from the first day of the convention.

Trump made a powerful entrance
Just two days after a gunman tried to kill him, Trump walked into the convention hall with a bandage over his injured right ear as the singer Lee Greewood performed “God Bless the USA,” a regular feature of the former president’s rallies. Trump waved to the crowd and pumped his fist in the air, a regular gesture that has taken on new meaning after he made a similar motion from the stage as Secret Service agents whisked him to safety on Saturday.

The crowd stood and cheered with delight at the sight of their nominee. Trump, who is rarely left without words, made no formal comments. But the sight of him said plenty, offering a palpable reminder of the former president’s narrow miss from tragedy.

He then greeted his family before taking a seat between Vance and commentator Tucker Carlson.

The GOP’s Trump-era evolution was on full display

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is arguably responsible for the GOP’s biggest policy accomplishments, particularly in installing conservative judges at all levels of the judiciary. But that didn’t matter much to the Trump-friendly crowd at the RNC, which greeted the Kentucky Republican with boos — a tangible rejection of someone demonized as an establishment Republican who has insufficiently supported the former president.

Just a short while later, Vance enjoyed a much different reception. The second-youngest U.S. senator — and the first millennial to appear on a major party ticket — received raucous applause when he walked onto the convention floor for the first time as Trump’s running mate.

The dueling moments offered a window into the changes that have swept the GOP under Trump — bookending an era in which McConnell has gone from one of his party’s most powerful leaders and incisive tacticians to getting jeered on the convention floor by his own party’s activists.

Stylistically, McConnell and Vance couldn’t be much more different. Vance, an outspoken MAGA warrior, is one of Trump’s chief acolytes. McConnell, meanwhile, has an understated demeanor while his political sensibilities are rooted in the GOP of Ronald Reagan.

Without McConnell, however, the 39-year-old Vance’s political rise might not have been possible.

Two years ago, Vance was struggling to raise money and up against a well-funded Democratic opponent. McConnell’s super PAC swept in with more than $30 million in advertising spending.

Vance won and began his climb to prominence. McConnell, now in the twilight of his political career, will step down as the GOP’s Senate leader in November.

Unions are the GOP’s new friend?
For decades, Democrats have been the party of labor unions, while Republicans have been outwardly hostile to them.

But on the opening night of the RNC, Trump threw the doors of the convention open to International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who delivered the final speech of the night and singled out both major political parties for not doing enough for working people.

If it seems unusual for a president of a major labor union to address a major gathering of Republicans, that’s because it is. For decades the party has pushed anti-labor laws intended to curtail the ability of unions to organize.

But in his speech, which wasn’t always warmly received by Republicans in attendance, O’Brien said workers are being taken for granted and sold out to big banks, big tech, the corporate elite, as well as both parties in Washington.

His speech amounted to criticism of Biden, who often likes to boast that he’s “the most pro-union president in history.”

As Trump continues to scramble American politics and position himself as a champion of working people, O’Brien appeared to be making clear that Democrats shouldn’t take labor for granted.

“We are not beholden to anyone or any party,” O’Brien said.

Republicans spoke of unity — but leaned into hot-button social issues
The first night of the RNC was supposed to be about the economy, with the goal of uniting voters of all ideological persuasions who are frustrated by high prices. But some of the biggest applause lines came from harsh criticisms of transgender people.

It’s a reminder that cultural issues motivate the GOP base as much as financial ones. A trio of speakers unabashedly went after Democrats who have sought greater acceptance for transgender people. Of particular outrage to Republicans this year was Biden marking Transgender Day of Visibility. It happened to overlap with Easter in 2024, a byproduct of the Christian holiday being based off the lunar calendar.

To many in the LGBTQ+ community, it was a coincidence. But to many Republicans, it was an insult.

“They promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “And let me state this clearly, there are only two genders.”

Other Republicans sought to make the issue a matter of fairness. Their argument was that it’s wrong to ask “girls” to compete against transgender athletes. The Biden administration proposed a rule in April that would prevent schools and colleges from enacting outright bans on transgender athletes, a rule that was quickly challenged in court.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said at the convention it was all part of a “fringe agenda” that “includes biological males competing against girls.”

Rep. John James, R-Mich., tried to equate it to part of a broader critique of Democrats, saying that they promised to offer the country hope and had failed. “Our daughters were sold on hope, and now they’re being forced on the playing fields and changing rooms with biological males,” James said.

Republicans hit Biden hard on inflation
To hear Republicans tell it, inflation had crushed the U.S. economy and it’s all Biden’s fault.

The argument is a key message for voters who may have doubts about Trump’s ethics but still trust his economic judgment. None of the speeches at the convention offered much of a detailed explanation as to why prices went up. That would require acknowledging the broken supply chains after the pandemic as well as how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up food and energy costs. But Biden pushed through $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid and the GOP argued that Americans have suffered as a result by paying more for groceries and gasoline.

This was all about taking the troubling inflation data and ignoring the positives in the economy such as a strong job market and solid growth as the economy has recovered.

“So many American families have to live with so much less,” said Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. “This is too high a price to pay for an administration that has brought us to such lows.”

But how would the GOP fix inflation?

The speakers never really gave a plan, other than simply returning Trump to the White House.

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Messi appeared to sustain a non-contact injury while running and falling in the 64th minute and covered his face with his hands when he sat on the bench. Martínez later ran to that bench to hug his captain after the goal that propelled Argentina to its record 16th Copa title.

In a match that started 1 hour, 20 minutes late because of crowd trouble at Hard Rock Stadium, Argentina won its third straight major title following the 2021 Copa America and 2022 World Cup and matched Spain, which won the 2008 and 2012 European Championships around the 2010 World Cup.

Argentina also stopped Colombia’s 28-game unbeaten streak dating to a February 2022 loss to the Albiceleste.

Martínez entered in the 97th minute and scored from Giovani Lo Celso’s perfect through pass. Just inside the penalty area, to Martínez sent a right-foot shot through the upraised arms of sliding goalkeeper Camilo Vargas for his 29th international goal, his tournament-high fifth.

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“We started making this fun, and I wanted to represent the town where I’m from,” said Braña, who attended her first game the year Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny bought a team in the island’s professional men’s basketball league. It was also around that time that she began placing bets on different teams across Puerto Rico with her girlfriends.

Braña’s fervor illustrates how Puerto Rico’s professional men’s basketball league is experiencing a revival, driven by reggaeton stars like Bad Bunny, Ozuna and Anuel AA, who are stepping into the financial game, buying local teams and helping to stack up a loyal fan base the island hasn’t witnessed in over 40 years.

What were once half-empty arenas in Puerto Rico are now packed, filled with families and young fans cheering for their favorite teams, from Los Capitanes de Arecibo in northern Puerto Rico to Los Leones de Ponce in the south.

Attendance more than doubled from 2018 to 2023, skyrocketing from some 480,000 tickets sold to nearly 1 million, according to Puerto Rico’s professional men’s basketball league, whose digital presence has also soared in the past few years.

A pivotal moment in the league’s revival came in 2021, when three-time Grammy winner Bad Bunny became co-owner of Los Cangrejeros de Santurce, along with his manager, Noah Assad.

Bad Bunny’s frequent game-day visits sparked a resurgence in Puerto Rico’s basketball scene. Other artists like Anuel AA quickly followed, buying Arecibo’s Capitanes team before a new owner took over in 2023, and Ozuna acquiring Manatí’s team, renaming it Los Osos, in 2022. The league, known as BSN, currently has 12 teams playing, compared with nine just four years ago.

Basketball games have transformed into premier rendezvous events, attracting celebrities like NBA legend LeBron James, former boxer Floyd Mayweather and reggaeton artists including Arcangel and Rauw Alejandro, capturing audiences of all ages hoping to get a glimpse of them.

“When Noah and Bad Bunny came along, we generated a lot of noise,” said Ricardo Dalmau, president of BSN. “It was an explosion of attention.”

Dalmau said local TV ratings also saw an upward tick after they began broadcasting some games in 2021, with the biggest surprise being their largest viewership block: women ages 18 to 49, a new audience that was also reflected in the bleachers.

“You never know what artist you’re going to find in the (league),” he said.

Before its recent surge in popularity, the league was under financial strain. Although Dalmau did not provide specific numbers, he said there used to be a lot of uncertainty about whether certain teams would participate or whether the league could fulfill players’ contracts. “We don’t have those problems anymore,” he said.

Javier Sabath, a popular basketball commentator on the island, said he is witnessing what his father — a sports commentator himself decades ago — describes as the environment in the 1980s, the heyday of the league.

“New generations have never seen this before,” Sabath said. “The boom with urban artists revived the Puerto Rican sports history that had been forgotten.”

Sabath said the momentum created by artists has fueled fans’ excitement beyond just seeing reggaeton stars. “Indirectly, these artists are attracting enough attention to make people interested in our league,” he said. “It’s a domino effect.”

A bittersweet moment took place recently, when Puerto Rico national men’s basketball team, composed of several of the league’s star players, qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The victory over Lithuania broke a 20-year drought for the team that last competed in 2004, beating the USA team in the Athens Olympics. It is also a loss for the league’s teams playing later in the summer.

The league’s renaissance comes after its peak over 40 years ago. Teams in Bayamón, Quebradillas, Ponce and other towns had produced renowned players, including Butch Lee, the first Puerto Rican player to enter the National Basketball Association; Raymond Dalmau, whose son currently presides over the league; and Rubén Rodríguez, who played for Los Vaqueros in Bayamón.

As part of the current frenzy, ex-NBA players have moved to Puerto Rico in recent years to join the league. Will Barton and Jared Sullinger play for San Juan’s team, while other ex-NBA players like DeMarcus Cousins, Lance Stephenson and Brandon Knight also joined before moving on to other stints.

Still, some problems remain beyond the league’s control, including severe budget cuts, with the government slashing the island’s sports and recreation department budget by more than half over the past decade. A lack of investment and maintenance in sports arenas across the island has caused leaks, leading to game suspensions after heavy rains.

“Despite the lack of economic resources, we’ve been able to sort it out,” said Ray Quiñones, secretary of sports and recreation of Puerto Rico, whose infrastructure budget was cut from about $15,300 in 2014 to barely $7,500 in 2024.

Sports arenas face the additional problem of chronic power outages across Puerto Rico, which is still rebuilding its electric grid after Hurricane María, a Category 4 storm that razed the island in September 2017.

In June, a game in Carolina between the home team, Los Gigantes, and Los Indios of Mayagüez was suspended after a widespread power outage left more than 340,000 customers without electricity. A month earlier, a game in San Juan’s main arena was also suspended due to a power outage.

Despite the challenges, younger generations are finding refuge outside their homes — which also contend with frequent power outages — and a new sense of pride by attending the games.

For fans like Annais Ramírez, basketball arenas feel like safe spaces, especially for women looking to engage in historically male-dominated areas.

“There are so many artists coming to the games, and you wonder if you’ll run into one,” the 27-year-old said as she stood next to her friend, who sported a necklace with a diamond-encrusted “C” for the town of Carolina.

Her love for Carolina’s team has grown beyond her expectation to run into a celebrity. During her free time, Ramírez goes on social media to catch up on the games she couldn’t attend in person, checking out highlights, halftime performances and crowd reactions.

“Those motivate you to be part of the movement,” she said. “On weekdays, this helps me unwind.”

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