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The United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations is expressing frustration with the Israeli military following strikes that killed multiple UN-aligned personnel in the region.

Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke out at the U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, where she lamented the ‘preventable’ loss of life caused by the conflict.

‘We will continue to raise the need for Israel to facilitate humanitarian operations, and protect humanitarian workers and facilities, such as the UNRWA school targeted by the IDF last week in Nusseirat,’ Thomas-Greenfield said.

UNRWA refers to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. 

She continued, ‘We have also been unequivocal in communicating to Israel that there is no basis – absolutely none – for its forces to be opening fire on clearly marked UN vehicles, as recently occurred on numerous occasions.’

A former school converted into a UNRWA civilian shelter was struck last week by the Israeli Defense Forces, killing 18 people. Six of those killed were UNRWA personnel.

The Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, previously rebuked criticism of the strike on the UNRWA shelter, asserting that the entire agency has become overrun with terrorists and terrorist sympathizers — including personnel at the destroyed shelter.

‘How long will the U.N. continue to bury its head in the sand and ignore the fact that Hamas terrorists have taken over UNRWA?’ Danon asked this week. ‘Those who were killed yesterday (Wednesday) in the IDF strike were nine terrorists with blood on their hands, and some of them participated in the barbaric massacre on October 7.’

Danon provided a list of names ostensibly connecting known Hamas terrorists to the civilian shelter.

When approached by Fox News Digital, Juliette Touma, a UNRWA spokesperson, claimed that ‘Israeli authorities have not requested UNRWA officially to provide them with the list of staff killed in yesterday’s attack on the UNRWA school.’ She added, ‘The names that appear on today’s statement from the Israeli Army have not been flagged to us before by the Israeli authorities in previous occasions prior to today.’

The U.S. ambassador did note on Monday the ongoing threat of Hamas embedding its members within civilian agencies.

‘At the same time, we continue to see Hamas hiding in, and taking over, and otherwise using civilian sites to conduct operations and pose an ongoing threat,’ said Thomas-Greenfield. ‘There’s no clearer evidence of Hamas’ total indifference to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. For their sake, and the sake of innocent people on all sides of this conflict – this must stop.’

Nine individuals were fired by UNRWA last month after it was found they likely participated in the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans, on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

‘For nine people, the evidence was sufficient to conclude that they may have been involved in the 7th of October attacks,’ Farhan Haq, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary general said during a press briefing.

Fox News Digital’s Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

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Only a handful of voters say that last week’s presidential debate caused them to reconsider their support for either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump, according to a new national poll.

A slew of political pundits and media analysts said that Harris bested Trump in the debate – their first and potentially only face-to-face encounter ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5.

However, only 3% of debate watchers said the showdown in Philadelphia caused them to reconsider whom they may support as president, according to a Monmouth University national poll released on Tuesday.

Just more than seven in 10 respondents said that the debate between the Democratic and Republican Party presidential nominees did not raise any doubts about the candidate they were already supporting in the White House race. Eight percent of those surveyed said some doubts were raised but that the debate did not change their minds on their support. Additionally, 17% offered that they did not see or hear any part of the debate.

‘How much this election is shifting is measured in inches rather than yards right now,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said.

‘We are basically at the point where turning out 10,000 extra voters in a key swing state could determine the outcome. Polling tells us the broad contours of the race, but it cannot measure these types of micro-shifts,’ Murray emphasized.

Trump, in social media posts and in a couple of Fox News Channel interviews following the debate, said that he won the showdown with Harris.

‘That was my best Debate, EVER,’ he wrote in a social media post.

During a ‘Fox and Friends’ interview, he argued that ‘we had a great night, we won the debate.’

However, Harris, in her first rally last week after the debate, charged that Trump’s performance ‘was the same old show, that same tired playbook that we’ve heard for years… with no plans for how he would address the needs of the American people because, you know, it’s all about him, it’s not about you.’

According to the Monmouth poll, 49% of registered voters nationwide said they would either definitely (39%) or probably (10%) vote for Harris. In a separate question, just over four in 10 said they would definitely (34%) or probably (10%) cast a ballot for Trump.

Nearly every national poll conducted after last week’s debate indicates Harris with a lower to mid-single digital advantage over Trump in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House. 

However, it remains a margin-of-error race in the seven key battleground states that will likely determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

Pointing to those surveyed who said they are extremely motivated to vote, Murray spotlighted that ‘Trump right now is doing better with motivated voters than he is with the overall electorate. This includes a good number of voters who may have sat out the 2020 contest. Perhaps they were exhausted by the Trump era when they stayed home four years ago, but that feeling has faded, and now they are more upset with the Biden presidency.’

‘To counter that, Democrats will be trying to light a fire under voters who already have concerns about Trump but aren’t fully engaged in the election,’ he added.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted Sept. 11-15, with 803 registered voters nationwide questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) opened an investigation into former Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allegedly decapitating a dead whale 20 years ago, Fox News Digital confirmed.

The controversy arose in August after Kennedy’s daughter, Kick Kennedy, shared in a resurfaced 2012 Town and Country interview that her father once beheaded a washed up whale with a chainsaw. According to an interview with the outlet, he reportedly attached the whale’s head to his car and drove it to New York. 

However, Kick Kennedy described the event as just an average day for her family.

‘Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,’ she told the outlet. ‘We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.’

When asked about the incident, the agency told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that it is ‘long-standing NOAA practice not to comment on open investigations.’

Kennedy made the initial assertion that he was under federal investigation for the decades-old incident during a campaign event for former President Donald Trump on Saturday.

The former presidential candidate-turned-Trump ally told rally goers that the investigation was a ‘weaponization of our government against political opponents.’

The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund called on the NOAA to investigate the events described by Kennedy’s daughter just days after he suspended his presidential bid to join forces with Trump in August.

The group, which endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024, claimed that Kennedy violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, as whales remain protected under those laws.

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Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, told Fox News Digital Monday that she would ‘be honored to serve’ in a potential Trump administration.

If tapped, Gabbard expressed her desire to work in a position where she can make the greatest impact, particularly in areas related to foreign policy or national security. Gabbard is an active-duty military veteran who completed two tours in the Middle East, and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. 

‘I feel I can make the most impact in these areas of national security and foreign policy, and work to bring about the changes that President Trump talks about,’ Gabbard said Monday evening from a campaign fundraising event in Atlanta, Georgia. Gabbard added that bringing an end ‘to the influence of the military industrial complex,’ working to prevent World War III and bringing the U.S. back ‘from the brink of nuclear war’ would be among her priorities. War should be a ‘last resort,’ Gabbard said. She has also supported former President Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine.

Gabbard spent time as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee between 2013 and 2016, and previously supported candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and President Biden. However, blaming a shift within her former party that she has not agreed with, Gabbard became increasingly friendly with the GOP before leaving the party and eventually joining Trump’s transition team last month. 

‘There are a lot of people who I meet in a lot of different places every day who are former Democrats, or people who are leaving the Democratic Party,’ Gabbard said Monday. ‘People who recognize the same things that I have and experienced the same things that I have and realize that the Democratic Party of today doesn’t stand for them, doesn’t stand for freedom, it doesn’t stand for civil liberties… doesn’t stand for peace.’  

The former Democratic congresswoman has been outspoken against what a Harris administration could do to peace around the world and, on Monday, she slammed Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris – for what she described as their refusal to engage in diplomacy with U.S. adversaries. 

‘President Trump did in his last administration what President Obama refused to do, what President Biden refused to do, what Kamala Harris has made clear she refuses to do – which is to go out and do that tough work that a president and commander in chief has to do in diplomacy,’ Gabbard said. ‘Not just hanging out with your friends, and your allies, and your partners, but actually going out and talking to your adversaries.’

Gabbard argued that peace will remain elusive until the leaders in the White House are willing to do this sort of diplomacy. She also slammed Harris for escalating the war in Ukraine and being ‘flippant’ about the chances of a nuclear disaster.

‘The longer this war goes on and the more that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the neocons of Washington continue to escalate this war, the greater risk we are of a potential nuclear war, World War III,’ Gabbard said on Monday. ‘It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Kamala Harris and others who are continuing to escalate [the war in Ukraine] are so flippant about the reality of nuclear war.’

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Top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu landed in Iran on Tuesday for talks with his counterpart just one day after reports surfaced suggesting the U.S. and the U.K. are increasingly concerned over an alleged nuclear deal between Tehran and Moscow. 

Details of Shoigu’s meeting in Iran remain scarce, but U.S. officials have increasingly begun sounding the alarm that the burgeoning relationship between Iran and Russia amid the war in Ukraine may have reached concerning new levels. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken first referenced these concerns last week during a visit to the U.K., where he confirmed reports that Iran had supplied Russia with short-range ballistic missiles to aid its continued war effort against Kyiv. 

But in comments that largely fell under the radar given the confirmation that ballistic missiles had been given to Moscow, Blinken also said, ‘Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information.’

A report by The Guardian on Monday suggested that President Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer allegedly discussed the potential of a secret deal having been forged in which Russia has agreed to provide Iran with the technological know-how it needs to develop a nuclear weapon. 

Nuclear experts, including the U.N.’s own watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have warned that Tehran has continued to develop its nuclear program unchecked for the last three and half years.

Iran is said to have increased its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium to levels of 60% purity – just shy of weapons-grade uranium, which is achieved with 90% purity levels.  

While information surrounding Shoigu’s meeting Tuesday remains unknown, his trip came just days after he traveled to fellow nuclear-armed nation, North Korea, and met with leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang.

Details of that trip also remain murky, but reports suggested Shoigu’s trip was an opportunity to deepen the Russia-North Korea partnership following the signing of a mutual defense treaty in June earlier this year.

Western nations have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with arms to aid its war effort in Ukraine, and concerns have mounted that Pyongyang could escalate its military deliverables to Moscow. 

The U.S. and its Western allies have pledged to hold nations accountable for aiding Russia in its illegal war in Ukraine, but Shoigu’s trips with the top adversarial nations coincided with threats leveled by Putin at Washington last week.

Neither the U.S. nor the U.K. have lifted their strike bans on Ukrainian supplied long-range weapons in order to permit Kyiv to strike deep into Russia – a move it argues is critical for ending the war with Moscow. 

But Putin last week said any move by the U.S. and its NATO allies to reverse these strike bans will be seen as its direct involvement in the conflict and would mean they are ‘at war’ with Russia – possibly extending the threat of a Russian strike outside of Ukraine. 

Putin has made these threats against the West before, though no strike ban reversals were announced during the top meetings last week between Biden and Starmer. 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

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The Biden administration is moving to reinstate a Trump-era rule that lifted endangered species protections on gray wolves in the U.S.

Wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) under President Trump in 2020, returning management of gray wolf populations to state and tribal wildlife professionals, according to a press release from the Department of Interior.

However, a federal judge reversed Trump’s decision in 2022 after environmental groups sued the Department of the Interior over the delisting, reinstating protection for the species.

Gray wolves are currently protected under the ESA as ‘threatened’ in Minnesota and ‘endangered’ in the remaining states, except for those in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. However, a new filing by the Biden administration suggests that the Trump-era ruling should be reinstated.

Attorneys with the Justice Department filed a motion with the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals on Friday to reverse the court’s decision on the Trump-era delisting and lift ESA protections on gray wolves.

The filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claimed that the court was wrong in overturning the Trump-era ruling on the species. 

‘The district court misunderstood the ESA’s clear mandate and compounded that error by imposing its own views of the science,’ court documents read. ‘Its decision invalidating the rule should be reversed.’

The Biden administration claimed in its 87-page filing that gray wolves no longer meet ESA standards of protection in that they are no longer considered ‘endangered’ or ‘threatened.’

Court documents referenced the 2020 ruling from Trump’s Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service that delisted the wolf species.

‘After that thorough analysis, the Service concluded that no configuration of gray wolves was threatened or endangered in all or a significant portion of its range. That analysis was well-reasoned and well-supported by the administrative record,’ the brief reads.

The move comes just months after a group of 20 House Republicans sent a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Martha Williams, urging the Biden administration to remove protections for the gray wolf, citing sometimes life-threatening conflicts with ranchers and farmers.

In February, FWS rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protection for gray wolves across the Northern Rocky Mountain region. 

Most recently, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers passed legislation in April to end federal protection for gray wolves and remove them from the endangered species list. 

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Vice President Harris spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, about a month after former President Trump spoke to the same group and made waves when he questioned Harris’ race.

The event marks Harris’ first solo interview with the national media. It was held at NPR’s Philadelphia station, WHYY, and was moderated by three Black journalists, including Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook, WHYY’s Tonya Mosely and TheGrio’s Gerren Keith Gaynor. The stop marked Harris’ 13th visit to the Keystone State this year.

During his July interview with the NABJ in Chicago, Trump drummed up a firestorm of criticism when he said, ‘I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know. Is she Indian or Black?’

Harris was not asked to respond to those remarks from Trump on Tuesday, but she did slam the former president for what the moderators described as racially charged rhetoric about Haitian migrants in a small Ohio town eating people’s pets.

‘It’s harmful, and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for,’ Harris said of the rumors being circulated by Trump. ‘We’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.’

When asked by one of the moderators if this case of ‘irredeemable racism’ deserved some sort of federal response to help the community heal, Harris sidestepped the question.

Meanwhile, Harris also sidestepped whether she would sign or veto a bill establishing a federal committee to study reparations for the Black community. Harris said she ‘thinks’ a federal reparations commission will be taken up by Congress and, therefore, she won’t need to use her power as president to study the matter at the federal level.

Harris also spoke about the Black vote on Tuesday and took a far different approach than President Biden did in 2020. 

‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,’ Biden said while campaigning for the presidency in 2020. Harris, however, said Tuesday that she expects to have to ‘earn’ the Black vote, particularly Black men. ‘I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket.’

Beyond race-focused topics, the interview included remarks from Harris about her economic plan, abortion, support for Israel – which she said has the right to defend itself – and gun control.

‘The United Sates of America absolutely has a role’ in aiding Israel’s right to self-determination, Harris said during Tuesday’s interview. 

On gun control, Harris was resolute that she and her running mate, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are both gun owners – something that came as news to voters during last week’s presidential debate. ‘We’re not trying to take anybody’s guns away from them, but we do need an assault weapons ban,’ she said. Previously, as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris said she thought a mandatory gun buyback program run by the federal government was ‘a good idea.’ However, Harris’ campaign has said she no longer supports such a program.

Harris added that she does support universal background checks for those seeking to legally obtain a firearm. When one of the moderators pointed out that most handguns are purchased illegally, Harris pointed to the need to eradicate ‘gun show loophole[s].’

‘We need to address each entry point in the issue,’ Harris insisted.

Later, the moderators turned to the second assassination attempt made on Trump’s life over the weekend. Harris indicated that she spoke to Trump after the close call to check on him.

‘I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence,’ Harris said. ‘We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.’

Harris was asked a follow-up question about her confidence in the Secret Service to protect her, with Harris responding in the affirmative.

‘Not everybody has Secret Service. And there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe,’ she said. ‘I mean, I look at Project 2025, and I look at, you know, the Don’t Say Gay laws coming out of Florida. Members of the LGBTQ community don’t feel safe right now, immigrants or people with an immigrant background don’t feel safe right now. Women don’t feel safe right now. And so, yes, I feel safe. I have Secret Service protection, but that doesn’t change my perspective on the importance of fighting for the safety of everybody in our country.’

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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is forging ahead with a vote on his plan to avert a government shutdown and force tighter U.S. election measures through Congress on Wednesday.

Johnson was forced to cancel a vote on the measure last week after it hemorrhaged GOP support for days after being unveiled.

Multiple sources who spoke with Fox News Digital on Tuesday said the House GOP leadership’s efforts to persuade Republican opponents of the bill were largely unsuccessful over the weekend.

At least a dozen Republican lawmakers are expected to vote against the bill. With just a four-seat majority and widespread Democrat opposition anticipated, expectations within the GOP are low.

‘I mean. It buys us a week of arguing over illegal immigrants,’ one House Republican told Fox News Digital via text message. Asked if it was worth the news cycle if it failed, they replied, ‘At this point… I suppose.’

Another GOP lawmaker said, ‘They’re basically at the point where they need to say they ran the play – call folks RINOs, let the Freedom Caucus folks say ‘shut it all down’ and then just wait for Senate to jam us.’

‘Didn’t have the votes last week and can’t imagine that changing this week,’ they said.

Johnson himself said in a statement, ‘Congress has an immediate obligation to do two things: responsibly fund the federal government, and ensure the security of our elections. Because we owe this to our constituents, we will move forward on Wednesday with a vote on the 6-month CR with the SAVE Act attached.’

The speaker does, however, have a wide cross-section of support from within the conference. 

House Freedom Caucus policy chair Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, led the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which is being attached to the spending bill. 

He wrote on X on Tuesday that ‘some Republican nihilists would rather set up the failure they then get to complain about’ than pass an imperfect bill with conservative policies.

Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., a top leadership ally, told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, ‘I support Speaker Johnson. He’s absolutely right, and the American people are with us on this.’

Congress is faced with a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government for fiscal 2025 or see a partial government shutdown weeks before Election Day. The House has passed less than half of the 12 required appropriations bills while the Senate has not passed any.

Both Democrats and Republicans agree that a short-term extension of this year’s funding, known as a continuing resolution (CR), is needed to give negotiators more time.

But the SAVE Act, which would impose a proof of citizenship requirement on the voter registration process, has been called a nonstarter in the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House. President Biden has already threatened to veto Johnson’s plan.

Meanwhile, national security hawks and senior lawmakers within the GOP have called for a shorter CR through December, citing potential strains on military readiness if funding levels are consistent through March.

Another issue for House GOP leaders is that a large swath of Republicans, including the bill’s opponents, are against CRs on principle, arguing they are an extension of bloated federal spending levels.

Others have expressed frustration at being made to vote on a ‘messaging’ bill that would not pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

‘Speaker Johnson is fake fighting by attaching a bright shiny object (that he will later abandon) to a bill that continues our path of destructive spending. I won’t be any part of this insulting charade,’ Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote on X.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wrote, ‘The only way to make the SAVE Act a law would be to refuse to pass a CR until the Senate agrees to pass the SAVE Act and Biden agrees to sign it into law.’

‘This would force a Gov shutdown on Oct 1… Johnson will NOT commit to standing up against the Democrats in a shutdown fight and will allow passage of a clean CR in order to fund the government because he believes a gov shutdown will be blamed on Republicans and will hurt their elections.’

Making matters more difficult for Johnson is former President Trump, with whom he met  over the weekend after an assassination attempt on the ex-president.

Trump has publicly endorsed the SAVE Act on his Truth Social platform but urged congressional Republicans to push for a government shutdown if they did not get ‘absolute assurances on election security.’

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Amazon is requiring its workers to return to the office full time.

In a note published Monday by the e-commerce giant, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who took over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2020, said the move to end the company’s hybrid model was designed toward ‘being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business.’

He noted that the company’s three-day-a-week policy, instituted in 2023, had only reinforced the view that a full return was necessary.

‘When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,’ Jassy said.

The change will take effect starting in January 2025. The company will still respect extenuating circumstances, like caring for a sick child, and pre-approved work-from-home or hybrid arrangements.

Amazon joins a growing list of major U.S. firms returning to a five-days-a-week office policy, including Boeing, JP Morgan Chase and UPS.

However, according to data from FlexIndex, a firm that tracks company office policies, a majority of U.S. firms still offer hybrid arrangements.

The data does show bigger companies leading the way in pushing for more in-office full-time policies.

But notably, Jassy said he wants Amazon to operate as if it were ‘the world’s largest startup’ — a sentiment Bezos, Amazon’s founder, often stressed.

“That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers,’ Jassy said, ‘strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it’s a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply-connected collaboration (you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other.”

Jassy also announced a move to reduce ‘bureaucracy’ within the firm, hinting at unintended consequences from Amazon’s aggressive hiring following pandemic reopenings — and possibly opening the door for layoffs. Jassy asked employee units to ‘increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers’ by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025.

‘As we have grown our teams as quickly and substantially as we have the last many years, we have understandably added a lot of managers,’ Jassy said. ‘In that process, we have also added more layers than we had before. It’s created artifacts that we’d like to change.’

An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up request for comment.

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In a federal courtroom on Monday, storied fashion designer Michael Kors spoke about the steep challenge of staying relevant in a world where brands can rise and fall based on viral TikTok videos and photos of handbags on the arms of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

Kors kicked off the week of testimony in the antitrust trial in Manhattan as a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit seeks to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri. The deal, if approved, would put six fashion brands under a single company: Tapestry’s Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, with Capri’s Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors. 

The FTC on Monday called Kors, who founded his namesake brand in 1981 at age 22 and still serves as its chief creative director, to testify. Yet, in his remarks, Kors described how even legacy brands like his own can struggle and lose shoppers’ interest.

“Sometimes you’ll be the hottest thing on the block,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll be lukewarm. Sometimes you’ll be cold.”

He acknowledged that his namesake label has fallen from favor and needs a refresh.

“I think we’ve reached the point of brand fatigue,” he said.

The FTC has argued that the combined companies, particularly with Coach and Michael Kors under the same owner, would create a bag behemoth with the power to hike prices for customers while offering them the same or worse products.

Attorneys for Tapestry and Capri, on the other hand, have questioned the FTC’s depictions of a consolidated handbag market. They have said competition has grown as customers consider both pricier luxury brands and lower-priced fast-fashion names, and can shop from online-only platforms and secondhand marketplaces.

The trial comes as consumers balk at high prices and when the outcome of the closely watched U.S. presidential election could change the federal agency’s strategy.

Shares of Capri, which includes Michael Kors, reflect the tougher stretch that the designer Kors described. As of Monday afternoon, the company’s stock has fallen about 24% so far this year. That trails far behind the roughly 18% gains of the S&P 500 and the approximately 17% rise of Tapestry.

In its most-recent fiscal quarter that ended in late June, Michael Kors’ revenue dropped 14.2% on a reported basis or 13.3% on a constant currency basis compared to the year-ago period.

Kors said he remains a student of the fashion industry and draws inspiration from spending time on store floors, talking to customers or people-watching at places such as airports. Even as an industry veteran, he said he must move nimbly.

For instance, he said he learned about Aupen, a handbag industry newcomer, when he saw a photo of Taylor Swift carrying one of the company’s handbags. When he went to the company’s website, it crashed, he said.

“It shows you the power of women like this,” he said.

In another testimony on Monday, former Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said retailers also feel it when brands lose some of their shine. Gennette, who retired early this year, said the department store’s sales got hit because it leaned too heavily on Michael Kors’ brand. He said the markdown of Michael Kors’ handbags contributed to “a bad spiral Macy’s was living through when I was there.”

The antitrust trial is expected to conclude on Tuesday with testimony by economists, including one for the FTC and one for the companies.

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