In addition to the top of the Democratic ticket, the party's congressional delegation is all but settled following recent cycles of upheaval. None of the nine members of Massachusetts' all-Democratic US House delegation are facing a primary challenger this year.

So, much of the intrigue Tuesday came from a pair of primaries that might not have been close -- or even contested, in one case -- had Baker sought a third term.

On the Republican side, Diehl emerged from a contentious contest with Doughty, who had argued that he represented the GOP's best chance to defeat Healey in November. (Diehl had the state party's endorsement, but Doughty secured enough delegates at its May convention to make the ballot.)

Doughty -- who has said he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Trump in 2020 -- got a late boost from influential conservative radio host Howie Carr, who, echoing the candidate's electability argument, backed Doughty over Diehl.

*

NHTSA has also cited its powers to protect the public from motor vehicle risks that it received when created in 1970.

"Given the rapid evolution of these technologies and testing of new technologies and features on publicly accessible roads, it is critical for NHTSA to exercise its robust oversight over potential safety defects," it said.

NHTSA has even taken steps toward standards for one driver-assist feature, automatic emergency braking. But the first major regulatory impact may be from that unlikely candidate, the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

But in reality, only workers in two industries -- leisure and hospitality and retail trade -- are actually coming out ahead, once inflation is taken into account.

Overall, wages and salaries for private industry workers rose by 4.2% between December 2019 and this past June, before rising prices are considered, according to an analysis of Employment Cost Index quarterly data by Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard University.

*

However**,** once inflation is factored in, paychecks actually shrank by 1.2% over that time period, the analysis found.

*

US consumer prices jumped by 9.1% year-over-year in June, the highest level in more than 40 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Workers have had more bargaining power to get larger wages, but firms have also had power to set higher prices," said Furman, also a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration. "And the prices are beating the wages."

US consumer prices surged to a new pandemic-era peak in June, jumping by 9.1% year-over-year, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's higher than the previous reading, when prices rose by 8.6% for the year ending in May.

Accordingly, money is tight in many US households: New data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows Americans are saving much less than they did a year ago. In May, Americans saved just 5.4% of disposable personal income, down from 12.4% year-over-year.

To counter white-hot inflation, the Federal Reserve has approved a series of supersized interest rate hikes this year. Higher rates keep prices in check by slowing the economy down. But the Fed is walking a narrow line. In the 11 times the Fed raised rates, the Fed has successfully avoided recession only three times. During each of those cycles, inflation was lower than it is today. That has made some analysts and market participants nervous about a potential recession.

*

The US economy has shrunk in size each of the last two quarters, which is a popular shorthand for a recession. Although economists are debating whether or not the economy is already in a recession, or if one lies ahead, many consumers feel like we're already in an economic downturn. High gas prices are one of the reasons they feel that way.

Shares of ExxonMobil (XOM) rose 4% and Chevron (CVX) rose 8% in midday trading on the better-than-expected earnings. ExxonMobil shares are up more than 50% this year through Thursday's close, while Chevron shares have gained more than 30%, making them among the best performers in the Dow Jones industrial average.

Investors are expecting the Fed will raise the high end of its target range to at least 3.75% by the end of the year, up from 1.75% today.

For context, the Fed raised rates to 2.37% during the peak of the last rate-hiking cycle in late 2018. Before the Great Recession of 2007-2009, Fed rates got as high as 5.25%.

And in the 1980s, the Paul Volcker-led Fed jacked up interest rates to unprecedented levels to fight runaway inflation. By the peak in July 1981, the effective Fed funds rate topped 22%. (Borrowing costs now won't be anywhere near those levels and there is little expectation that they will go up that sharply.)

Still, the impact to borrowing costs in coming months will depend chiefly on the -- as yet undetermined -- pace of the Fed's rate hikes.

While Europe's fears were well founded — Russia has severed its gas supply to several European countries and energy companies in recent months — Gazprom restarted flows without a hitch, though still at just 40% of the pipeline's capacity.

Earlier this month, the Canadian government said the Siemens-made turbine could return to Germany under a sanctions waiver. But, on Monday, Gazprom said paperwork received by Siemens to repatriate the turbine had not resolved certain problems, again raising the specter of another cut to Europe's gas deliveries.

The big question: What does this mean for Volkswagen's ambitions? UBS analysts note that under Diess, Volkswagen was the fastest-moving legacy car company to pivot "towards an all-electric future, often drawing comparisons with Tesla and other disruptors."

VW has said it will dole out €89 billion ($91 billion) over the next five years on developing EVs, accounting for about half of planned spending during that period. It's aiming for EVs to represent a quarter of sales by the end of 2026.

The team at UBS expect the company will stay the course, seeing a clear direction of travel in terms of customer demand. But investors don't love the uncertainty. Shares fell in early trading on Monday.

They've shed 25% year-to-date, and rose only about 10% since Diess was named CEO in 2018.

On the radar: The company's luxury Porsche unit had been on track to go public later this year in a highly-anticipated listing, though volatile markets have posed a risk. The leadership shake-up adds to doubts about the timing.

Indeed, real pay — workers' wages that take inflation into account — suffered its biggest drop in more than two decades between March and May, official data showed this week.

To tax or not to tax

Truss is hoping to offer workers and businesses a lifeline, promising to slash income taxes and scrap a planned tax hike on businesses next year. But increased spending could exacerbate inflation and undermine the Bank of England's efforts to slow down the economy to tame runaway price increases.

Sunak has also promised to cut taxes but only once inflation is brought under control.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that Truss' total tax cuts would amount to £30 billion ($36 billion). She has not laid out any plans to rein in public spending to compensate for a drop in tax receipts.

Over 65% of its users are under the age of 35, according to a recent company report, and it has seen a "700% increase in the number of participants from smaller cities like Guwahati, Karnal, Bareilly, thereby signaling the growing interest from rural and semi-urban areas."

Pritish Kumawat, a crypto trader from a small town in the western state of Rajasthan, said that he now finds conversations about cryptocurrencies in almost every tea shop in his area. Often, the most engaged participants are college students, he said, adding that bitcoin's massive spike last year has fueled the frenzy in India.

In November, bitcoin was trading at a record high of $68,990, but it has since fallen to around $43,000. In addition to bitcoin, meme currencies such as dogecoin and shiba inu are also popular among Indians, the WazirX report added.

Apart from investors from smaller towns, both companies saw an increase of more than 1000% in the number of women users on their platforms, albeit on a small base.

Gupta said that participation of crypto by Indian women has seen "a massive upside" in the past 18 months and is "fairly high, fairly healthy, relative to equity markets."

The company's data shows that 15% of their overall users are women — which is the global trend as well.

"That's exactly what they need to do to differentiate themselves," he said.

In its early days, Cadillac's motto was "the standard of the world," a market position it hopes to regain with this car, GM executives have said. Cars like Celestiq serve as a point of pride for GM, setting the standard for what's possible, according to Jominy.

"This is their beacon," said Jominy, "It's the beacon for their employees, for their engineers to rally around. It's the beacon for the dealers to show 'We do things right. This is the pinnacle of what we can do.'"

Instead of a GM factory, each Celestiq will be built at GM's Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. The Technical Center houses GM engineers and designers, and it has various test areas and wind tunnels. There are cars that are typically built there, but they are usually ones intended for testing or display purposes, not ones sold to the public.

When the House select committee held its first prime time hearing, back in June, Fox News stuck with its usual talk shows in a dramatic break with other major networks. It was Fox's way of siding with its Trump-supporting audience. But on that night, Carlson and Hannity's shows plastered live pictures of the hearing on screen, then proceeded to talk over it. The approach on Thursday night was noticeably different: Fox avoided any live pictures of the hearing.

Newsmax, a much smaller right-wing channel, also took a different tack on Thursday. Newsmax aired much of the first prime time hearing live, while criticizing it the rest of the time. But Newsmax largely ignored the follow-up prime time hearing and focused on other topics instead.

And yet, despite those best efforts, Thursday's revelations will still seep through to at least some GOP media viewers and readers. For example, Fox's midnight Eastern time program -- although not nearly as popular as the prime time talk shows -- did provide analysis of the hearing's main findings...

The agency said earlier this week that Europe must find ways to save 12 billion cubic meters of gas — equal to about 3% of its annual consumption — over the next 12 weeks to avert disaster. It laid out a number of steps countries could take, including burning more coal and oil.

"This is a big ask, but it does not exaggerate the scale of what is needed," Birol said in a Monday press statement.

*

"It is categorically not enough to just rely on gas from non-Russian sources — these supplies are simply not available in the volumes required to substitute for missing deliveries from Russia," he added.

— Mark Thompson and Nadine Schmidt contributed reporting.

The companies also reach out to consumers suffering from financial hardships and educate them about assistance programs, such as LIHEAP, Cooper said.

But repayment plans don't always relieve the financial strain on families. Minneapolis resident Scott Norcross entered one recently so his power wouldn't be shut off after he fell a few hundred dollars behind in payments, mainly from using the air conditioner over the last few months. He now has to shell out around $100 on top of his monthly bill, which he says is three times more than it used to be prior to the pandemic.

"Our electric bill had just gone higher and higher and higher," said Norcross, 55, who is disabled and is affected by the heat. "We can't really afford the extra payment, but we have to do something if we want to keep the electric on."

Norcross, whose wife is a personal care assistant and older son works in retail, applied for energy aid but was told his family's income was $800 over the limit.

So the couple and their two young adult sons sit in their car and run the air conditioner for 20 to 30 minutes to cool off a few times a day, depending on how hot it is. The temperature climbed to at least 90 degrees on Tuesday, which would be the 13th time it's hit that level this year.

For years, women have tried to find ways to create tech-enabled whisper networks that could serve to protect other women from bad experiences with men they'd encountered — with mixed success.

In the fall of 2017, with disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in the spotlight, writer Moira Donegan started a Google spreadsheet devoted to doing just that among some men in media. It was called the "Shitty Media Men List," and allowed women to anonymously post the names of men and their alleged negative experiences with them. It included misconduct allegations ranging from the more specific such as "rape accusations," and "hitting women, secretively removing condom during sex" to more vague descriptors like "workplace harassment."

The child died at her family home in Rangeville, in southern Queensland, on January 7 after allegedly being "denied medical treatment for a period of approximately six days," according to state police.

Emergency services were not contacted until about 5:30 p.m. on January 8, the day after her death, according to police.

*

It brings the total number of suspects charged with murder in the case to 14.

*

The girl's parents -- a 47-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man -- were charged in January with "murder, torture and fail to comply with necessities of life," according to Queensland police. Their most recent court appearance was in June.

Police allege that all 12 newly charged with murder were present during the period leading up to the girl's death, and failed to seek medical assistance despite being aware she had an underlying health condition.

The 14 suspects, ranging in age from 19 to 65 years old, "made the choice to deny this young girl her right to medical care," Regional Acting Superintendent Garry Watts said in the statement.

*

*

He added that the charges were the culmination of an "unprecedented" six-month police investigation.

The accused have been held in custody and are due to appear in court on July 6.

*

Select committee members have accused Trump of a "dereliction of duty" for failing to act as the Capitol was under attack -- and his vice president, Mike Pence -- was in danger. Next week's hearing is the last planned of the committee's eight public hearings as the panel has sought in each session to tie Trump to the deadly attack that unfolded on January 6.

*

"There will be a lot of information, a lot more clarity about the details of the things that happened that day, what the people who were working in the White House, working around the President and even people who were advising him to do things, actions that he was not taking based off of their reasoned advice," Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, who will help lead the next hearing, told CNN this week. "I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn't act. He did not take action to stop the violence."

*

*

Three MSF health workers living in the affected area of Brooklyn are tending to those harmed by the fighting, the group has said.

Haiti has suffered from violent instability for years. After former president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in July last year, his successor Ariel Henry vowed to improve security. Nevertheless, kidnappings and gang violence continue to plague the Caribbean nation.

The short-form video app is tweaking its viewing experience so users will now see fewer videos about topics that "may be fine as a single video but potentially problematic if viewed repeatedly," according to Cormac Keenan, head of trust and safety at the company. Keenan cited topics related to dieting, extreme fitness, and sadness as examples of such content. (TikTok rival Instagram has also previously attempted to prevent teens from seeing certain weight loss products.)