WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told lawmakers Tuesday she has encouraged the agency's inspector general to review whether an employee was acting alone when directing workers helping hurricane victims not to go to homes with yards signs supporting President-elect Donald Trump.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said a critical function of the agency is to go door-to-door and meet with survivors to make them aware of federal resources available. The employee, she said, wrote to about 11 staffers under her supervision that they should “avoid homes advertising Trump.”
Criswell said her senior leadership team provided her with evidence and recommended that the employee be terminated. She concurred.
“I do not believe that this employee's actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at FEMA,” Criswell said. Still, she said she would support an independent investigation into the matter.
"The IG has not yet stated they want to investigate this, but I highly encourage them to take on this case and look and see if this was a widespread issue or if this was just a single incident,” Criswell said.
Criswell appeared before a House subcommittee investigating the federal government's response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. She did so one day following President Joe Biden's request for nearly $100 billion in emergency disaster aid, with about $40 billion of that money slated for FEMA programs.
It was clear that, while lawmakers were conducting an oversight hearing looking at the overall response by FEMA to the devastating storms, they were particularly focused on reports about the agency avoiding helping some Americans based on their political beliefs.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., acknowledged that while the employee was quickly terminated, it was clear from an interview with that worker that she believed she was carrying out directions from the agency.
“It seems this particular worker believes she is being treated like the scapegoat, and if that is the case, more people at FEMA must be held accountable," said Perry, who chairs the panel that held Tuesday's hearing.
Criswell said she is committed to ensuring “nothing like this ever happens again.” In the meantime, a different team was sent into the field to contact all the homes that had been skipped over at the employee's direction.
Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., whose district was devastated by Helene, said the agency's response was bound to be a bit clunky because mountains are not a traditional location for such flooding. Still, he cited numerous breakdowns. He said the storm was essentially over on Sept. 27, and that in the aftermath, there were about 1 million people without power and 25 water systems destroyed. But he said it took three days before there was any real visibility from FEMA.
“For it to take three days before the visibility from FEMA is just not acceptable," Edwards said. “There were folks in their homes not only without power, they couldn't flush toilet, they had no drinking water. We were shut off from the rest of the world.”
Criswell said FEMA was on the ground before the hurricanes hit and she was proud of the work that some 22,000 workers provided across six states. She said workers persevered through the challenges presented by the storms and also misinformation on social media.
“We help all survivors, all people, obtain all the assistance that they are qualified for under the law, and misinformation is making that work much more difficult,” she said.
Some 7,500 FEMA workers were still deployed as of last week in states hit by Helene and Milton. Criswell asked lawmakers to ensure that FEMA and its partners have adequate resources in the following months, saying “the road ahead is long.”
She also testified before a second panel in the afternoon, with Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, asking why lawmakers should believe that the employee who was fired had acted alone.
“I understand your concern and share your concern,” Criswell said. “I want to ensure the American people know that FEMA is there to support all people, which is why we are conducting an investigation and why we have asked the IG to look into this further.”
FILE - Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Nvidia helped pulled U.S. stock indexes higher on Tuesday after they stumbled in the morning on worries about escalations in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The S&P 500 rose 0.4% after erasing an early drop of 0.7%. The Nasdaq composite also shook off an early loss to turn 1% higher, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 120 points, or 0.3%.
Nvidia’s 4.9% climb accounted for the vast majority of the index’s gain. The chip company’s stock rallied ahead of its profit report for the latest quarter, which is coming on Wednesday, and vaulted its gain for the year to nearly 197% thanks to the craze around artificial-intelligence technology.
Activity in the options market suggests Nvidia’s profit report may be the most anticipated event on Wall Street for the rest of the year, beating out the upcoming jobs report and even the next meeting of the Federal Reserve on interest rates, according to strategists at Barclays Capital.
It’s “a testament to the outsized impact of AI, and the apparent resurgence of upside chasing by” smaller-pocketed, everyday investors known as retail traders, according to Barclays’ Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.
Nvidia’s rise helped calm the stock market, even as indexes sank across Europe after Russia said Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS missiles at it. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally lowered the threshold for Russia’s use of its nuclear weapons. Both France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX fell 0.7%.
The worries also sent investors into U.S. Treasury bonds, which are seen as some of the world’s safest investments. The rise in their prices in turn lowered their yields, and the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.39% from 4.41% late Monday.
Gold also rose 0.6% and recovered some of the losses it sustained following Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, as investors herded into places traditionally considered safer during times of trouble.
Early in the day, such cautiousness overshadowed optimism coming from reports by big U.S. retailers showing fatter profits for the summer than analysts expected.
Walmart climbed 3% after topping forecasts for both profit and revenue. The nation’s biggest retailer said it saw broad-based strength across its categories, including sales made both online and in stores. It also said it served more upper-income households, while raising its forecasts for sales and profit for the full year.
Lowe’s likewise delivered bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, but its stock nevertheless dropped 4.6%. A report in the morning said construction crews broke ground on fewer new homes last month than economists expected, and rival Home Depot slipped 0.9%.
Other big companies set to report their latest quarterly results this week include Target on Wednesday and Deere on Thursday.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, Super Micro Computer jumped 31.2% after it filed a plan to keep its stock listed on Nasdaq’s exchange. It hired an independent auditor, BDO USA, which can help it file financial statements needed in order to comply with Nasdaq’s listing requirements.
The company’s stock has been on a wild ride. It more than quadrupled in the first two and a half months of this year because the company makes servers used in AI. But it gave up all that and more, with losses accelerating after Ernst & Young resigned as its public accounting firm. A special committee of the company’s board later said that a three-month investigation found “no evidence of fraud or misconduct on the part of management or the Board of Directors.”
Berry Global Group fell 1.3% after Amcor said it would buy the maker of prescription vials, bags and other products in an all-stock deal. Amcor dropped 2.6%.
Incyte sank 8.3% after the biopharmaceutical company said it’s pausing enrollment in its ongoing study of a potential treatment for hives in chronic spontaneous urticaria. It also said data from another study evaluating a potential treatment for cholestatic pruritus does not support further development.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 23.36 points to 5,916.98. The Dow dropped 120.66 to 43,268.94, and the Nasdaq composite rose 195.66 to 18,987.47.
In stock markets abroad, indexes in Asia were more stable than in Europe. They rose 0.7% in Shanghai and 0.4% in Hong Kong, rebounding from early losses.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
FILE - The morning sun shines on Wall Street in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
FILE - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on Nov. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
Currency traders pass by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader reacts near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
