The foreign influence campaigns, which include the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate divisive content, are expected to intensify as Election Day nears—and persist after polls close through Inauguration Day in January, according to an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) security update and a National Intelligence Council declassified memo, both announced on Oct. 22.

“Foreign actors—particularly Russia, Iran, and China—remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests, even as their tactics continue to evolve,” reads the security update.

Social media posts, some of which are likely to be enhanced or entirely generated by AI, were identified as the most common type of election-related influence operation by foreign adversaries.

As an example, the ODNI pointed to Russian influence actors manufacturing and amplifying inauthentic content claiming that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was engaged in illegal activity during his earlier career. While the report did not go into specifics, it could relate to claims circulating on social media that Walz sexually assaulted a student while he was a high school teacher.

“Breaking: Tim Walz’s former student, Matthew Metro, drops a shocking allegation-claims Walz s*xually assaulted him in 1997 while Walz was his teacher at Mankato West High School. Metro was a senior at the time. If this is true, it’s a political earthquake,” reads an Oct. 16 post on X, which shared a since-deleted video of a man making the sexual assault allegations. The real Matthew Metro told The Washington Post that the speaker in the video was not him and that no such interaction with Walz had taken place. Further, the man’s brother, Micheal Metro, told AFP that the circulating video was “definitely not him.”

Darren Linvill, co-director at Clemson University’s media forensics hub, told WIRED that the video appeared to be a deepfake bearing the hallmarks of Storm-1516, a group that Microsoft described as a “Kremlin-aligned troll farm” that has put out various deepfakes, including one about Vice President Kamala Harris’s supposed involvement in a hit-and-run accident.

Microsoft’s threat assessment team issued an Oct. 23 report that dovetails with the ODNI update but provides more details about disinformation campaigns from China, Iran, and Russia, including an AI-enhanced deepfake video linked to Storm-1516 that accuses Harris of illegal poaching in Africa.

Despite the heightened influence efforts, the ODNI security update stressed that there is no evidence that foreign actors have attempted to interfere with vote tabulation or election administration processes.

“Even if they decided to try, foreign actors almost certainly would not be able to manipulate election processes at a scale that would materially impact the outcome of the Presidential election without detection,” states the security update.

This message is consistent with earlier remarks made by Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), who said at the beginning of October that U.S. election systems are so secure that foreign adversaries won’t be able to manipulate the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in a “material” way.

Further, the intelligence community assessed that foreign actors will at minimum conduct information operations after Election Day through Inauguration Day, according to both the ODNI security update and the National Intelligence Council declassified memo.

“They might also consider stoking unrest and conducting localized cyber operations to disrupt election infrastructure,” the memo states. “However, we judge that operations that could affect voting or official counts are less likely because they are more difficult and bring a greater risk of US retaliation.”

Foreign adversaries, which the memo says are “better prepared” than in previous election cycles to undertake influence operations after Election Day, are expected to “almost certainly” conduct such operations after polls close.

Their overarching aim is to sow doubt about the integrity of the November election, and create confusion and friction more generally around democratic processes in the United States. Other aims include acquiring voter registration data and nonpublic information on local election officials, which they could exploit in future cyber or influence operations.

“US adversaries’ longstanding interest in undermining American democracy suggests it will be difficult to dissuade them from engaging during the post-election period,” the memo reads.

The warnings contained in the ODNI security update and National Intelligence Council memo echo those made by the FBI and CISA on Oct. 18, which raised the alarm on AI-assisted influence operations targeting U.S. elections.

The Fed’s Beige Book, released on Oct. 18, revealed a broad contraction in manufacturing across the United States, reflecting weaker demand and sluggish production.

Most of the Fed’s 12 districts reported declining manufacturing activity, exacerbated by difficulties in finding qualified workers and, in some cases, persistently weak sales.

The Fed’s data on the manufacturing slump was echoed by the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) report, released on Oct. 21, which recorded a 0.5 percent drop in September—an acceleration from August’s 0.3 percent decline. A significant factor in September’s decline was a sharp decrease in new factory orders, contributing to a 2.6 percent decrease in the index over the past six months.

The LEI, which is designed to forecast economic turning points, points to weak economic growth heading into 2025.

“Weakness in factory new orders continued to be a major drag on the US LEI in September as the global manufacturing slump persists,” Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, a senior manager at the Conference Board, said in a statement. “Overall, the LEI continued to signal uncertainty for economic activity ahead and is consistent with The Conference Board expectation for moderate growth at the close of 2024 and into early 2025.”

The persistent downturn in U.S. manufacturing has become a focal point in the 2024 presidential race.

Meanwhile, economic sentiment has taken a downward turn recently.

Even though inflation has eased since the June 2022 recent peak of 9 percent, the Fed’s Beige Book indicates that many districts reported increasing price sensitivity among inflation-weary consumers. Input costs rose faster than selling prices in September, compressing profit margins and further pressuring U.S. businesses, including manufacturers.

Data from the Federal Reserve, released on Oct. 17, showed a 0.3 percent decline in industrial output, following a downwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in August. Analysts had predicted a smaller drop of 0.2 percent for the month.

According to the Fed, the larger-than-expected decline was due in part to disruptions from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, along with the ongoing Boeing machinists’ strike. The aerospace sector, in particular, took a significant hit, with production of aerospace and miscellaneous transportation equipment falling by 8.3 percent, dragging down the overall index.

The broader picture also looks bleak, with industrial output for the third quarter down 0.6 percent. This aligns with other recent indicators pointing to ongoing challenges in the U.S. manufacturing sector.

The latest S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing PMI, a key survey-based measure, showed the sharpest contraction in factory activity in over a year for September. Factory output and new orders dropped sharply, driven by weakened demand.

“The September PMI survey brings a whole slew of disappointing economic indicators regarding the health of the U.S. economy,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement. “Factories reported the largest monthly drop in production in 15 months in response to a slump in new orders, in turn driving further reductions in employment and input buying as producers scaled back operating capacity.”

The deepening decline in U.S. manufacturing, highlighted by the S&P Global report, was reinforced by the Fed’s latest industrial production data. It showed a 0.4 percent month-over-month fall in manufacturing output for September and a 0.5 percent drop compared with the previous year.

Similarly, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported a contraction in U.S. manufacturing for September, marking the sixth straight monthly decline and the 22nd contraction in the past 23 months. Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM’s Manufacturing Business Committee, noted that demand remains sluggish, with companies hesitant to invest in capital and inventory.

The ongoing slump in U.S. manufacturing has become a key issue on the presidential campaign trail, with both major candidates offering plans to revive the sector.

Speaking in Michigan in late September, former President Donald Trump vowed to “reclaim America’s manufacturing power,” promising tariffs on foreign imports and pledging to provide domestic manufacturers with lower energy costs, taxes, and regulatory burdens.

The IMF’s latest Fiscal Monitor report, released on Oct. 15, projects that global public debt will exceed $100 trillion—equal to about 93 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP)—in 2024, and that it could approach 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. The United States, in particular, faces significant risks if fiscal policies are not adjusted urgently.

The report emphasizes that countries, including the United States, need to address debt risks with carefully crafted fiscal strategies. It warns that debt levels could be worse than anticipated because of large spending pressures, sizeable unidentified debt, and overly optimistic debt projections.

Unidentified debt, which refers to liabilities that do not appear explicitly in budget documents—such as contingent liabilities, losses at federally owned enterprises such as the U.S. Postal Service, and other off-balance-sheet obligations—poses a significant risk to debt sustainability, according to the IMF.

“There are good reasons to believe that future debt levels could be higher than currently projected,” the report’s executive summary states, highlighting that actual debt-to-GDP ratios three years ahead tend to be about 6 percentage points higher than originally forecasted, on average.

The IMF attributes the potential underestimation of debt levels to several factors, including a political climate increasingly favoring higher government spending. This spending is being driven by concerns around security, an aging population, and the push to invest in green transitions.

“Rebuilding fiscal buffers in a growth-friendly manner and containing debt is essential to ensure sustainable public finances and financial stability,” the report urges.

In a related blog post titled “Global Public Debt Is Probably Worse Than It Looks,” IMF economists assert that current efforts to curb debt growth are insufficient. Delays in fiscal actions, they argue, will lead to even higher costs and greater risks.

“Experience shows that high debt and lack of credible fiscal plans can trigger adverse market reaction, constraining room to maneuver in the face of turbulence,” the economists wrote, emphasizing the need for proactive measures such as paring back spending.

The IMF’s analysis shows that planned fiscal adjustments—such as reducing spending by 1 percent of GDP over six years—are insufficient to stabilize debt. Instead, a cumulative tightening of 3.8 percent of GDP is needed to significantly cut debt levels, the economists contend, with the effort required in the United States being “substantially greater.”

Without substantial fiscal adjustments, U.S. debt will continue on an unsustainable path, the report warns. The country faces mounting spending demands, largely because of health care costs, an aging population, and defense needs, all of which are exacerbated by growing geopolitical tensions.

The IMF identifies the reform of mandatory spending programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, as a crucial step. These programs account for a large and inflexible share of the U.S. budget, and reforming them could help rein in expenditures. Besides spending cuts, the IMF suggests that the United States could raise revenues by raising taxes or removing tax exemptions.

The IMF’s newly developed “debt-at-risk” framework—a tool used to estimate potential debt outcomes under different economic conditions—indicates that U.S. public debt could rise sharply under adverse scenarios.

Stronger fiscal governance is also essential, according to the IMF, which describes it as “key to mitigating the buildup of unidentified debt and containing debt vulnerabilities.” Countries with better fiscal governance—marked by budget transparency and adherence to fiscal rules—tend to have lower levels of unidentified debt, even during times of financial stress.

At the heart of the issue is a labor dispute between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), representing 45,000 dockworkers, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which oversees port operations. With negotiations deadlocked and the ILA threatening to strike on Oct. 1 and close 36 ports that handle over half of America’s ocean trade, the potential fallout could be far-reaching.

From consumer goods to critical industrial components, the labor action could cripple key supply chains, according to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which warned that a potential strike would halt operations at ports that handle over 68 percent of the nation’s containerized exports and 56 percent of imports, with an estimated daily trade value exceeding $2.1 billion.

Jay Timmons, NAM president and CEO, urged the White House to take immediate action as the strike deadline looms increasingly larger.

“If workers at East and Gulf Coast ports strike on Oct. 1, manufacturing supply chains will be thrown into disarray,” Timmons said in a statement on Sept. 27. “The Biden administration must step in to ensure we can keep the ports open and avoid disruptions to billions of dollars of goods that families rely on every day.”
This sentiment is shared by a growing number of businesses, industry groups, and lawmakers, all of whom fear the wide-reaching economic damage that could ensue if the strike moves forward.

Neil Bradley, Chief Policy Officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned that a port strike would have “a devastating economic impact, crippling major supply chains and cutting off the flow of numerous goods American consumers and businesses rely on every day” while urging the Biden administration, Congress, and all relevant parties to pursue negotiations until a deal is reached.

Bradley cited the impact of a similar 2002 disruption, which was estimated to have cost the economy $1 billion per day and took six months to recover from.

Costco’s CEO Ron Vachris said on the company’s Sept. 26 fourth-quarter earnings call that the company has been preparing for the potential strike for some time in an effort to minimize disruption.

“We’ve cleared the ports, we’ve preshipped. We’ve done several different things to get holiday goods in ahead of this time frame,” Vachris explained. While acknowledging that the strike could be disruptive, he noted that Costco has “looked at alternate plans” and remains focused on mitigating the impact, though the full extent will depend on how long the strike lasts.

Ryan Petersen, the CEO of logistics company Flexport, warned that a worst-case scenario of a strike lasting more than several weeks or even months could create “massive risks” for America’s economy.

“Rerouted shipments could overwhelm West Coast ports, creating container pile-ups, chassis shortages, skyrocketing transport costs, rail congestion, and an air freight market that’s already stretched thin,” Petersen wrote last week in a series of posts on social media.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said in a statement on Sept. 27 that the strike could have catastrophic consequences for the U.S. economy, potentially crippling supply chains and leaving “store shelves bare.”

Greene noted the broader economic context, saying that soaring inflation in recent years has squeezed U.S. households and that a port strike threatens to fan the flames of inflation.

“I think this situation is serious and could be a crisis going into the election, holidays, and winter—depending on if they strike and how long it lasts,” she wrote. “Retailers have been trying to stock up in preparation, but it’s always smart to be personally prepared just in case.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 24, calling on them to use the powers available under the Taft-Hartley Act to prevent the strike. The law allows the president to request a court order to delay strikes that threaten national safety or health.

The Biden administration has been urging both parties to continue negotiations.

Top officials, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, have also urged both sides to negotiate in good faith, a White House official told Reuters on Friday.

The latest S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing PMI, a survey-based monthly overview of factory activity in the United States, fell deeper into recession territory in September, data released on Sept. 23 shows. The manufacturing index slumped to 47.0 in September, down from August’s 47.9 and the lowest in 15 months. Readings below 50 represent a contraction in activity.

The decline signals continued deterioration in business conditions within the manufacturing sector, which has been plagued by weakening demand and falling new orders. In particular, new orders in September fell at their fastest pace since December 2022, as manufacturers struggled with declining export demand and reduced domestic sales.

Slumping employment also made a significant negative contribution to the downbeat manufacturing figures, with job losses accelerating at a pace not seen since June 2020.

“Excluding the pandemic, the decline in factory jobs was the steepest since January 2010 as an increasing number of firms reported the need to reduce operating capacity in line with weak sales,” the S&P Global report states.

Cracks in the labor market were behind the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to deliver a large, 50-basis point interest rate cut, with one Fed official saying on Sept. 23 that he was surprised by the pace of deterioration in employment conditions.

“Progress on inflation and the cooling of the labor market have emerged much more quickly than I imagined at the beginning of the summer,“ Atlanta Federal Reserve President Raphael Bostic, a voting member of the Fed’s interest-rate-setting council, said in comments to the European Economics and Financial Centre. ”In this moment, I envision normalizing monetary policy sooner than I thought would be appropriate even a few months ago.”

The central bank’s rate-setting body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of which Bostic is a voting member this year, decided last week to lower rates to within a range of 4.75–5.0 percent.

Markets are fully pricing in another rate cut when the policymaking panel meets again on Nov. 7, with the odds split roughly evenly between a smaller quarter-point cut or another jumbo half-point reduction.

But while central bank officials celebrate inflation falling closer to the Fed’s 2 percent target, Monday’s S&P Global data suggests it may be too soon to declare victory in the fight against high prices.

Inflationary pressures picked up across both goods and services, per the S&P Global report, with the increase driven mostly by rising input costs. Prices charged for goods and services rose at their fastest pace in six months, with service sector costs surging due to wage growth. Input costs in services grew at their highest rate in a year, reflecting increased labor expenses, while manufacturing input cost growth cooled slightly, aided by lower energy prices and fewer supply chain snags.

“The survey’s price gauges meanwhile serve as a warning that, despite the PMI indicating a further deterioration of the hiring trend in September, the FOMC may need to move cautiously in implementing further rate cuts,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global, said in a statement.

In contrast to a deepening slump in manufacturing, service sector activity grew at a solid pace in September, per the S&P Global report. The services business activity index came in at 55.4, a slight decline from August’s 55.7. Relatively robust growth in services helped lift the composite PMI measure—which combines both manufacturing and services—to 54.4 in September, a slight decline from the prior month.

“The early survey indicators for September point to an economy that continues to grow at a solid pace, albeit with a weakened manufacturing sector and intensifying political uncertainty acting as substantial headwinds,” Williamson wrote, while partly blaming election-related uncertainty for a sharp slump in optimism about business output in the year ahead.

The deterioration in output-related confidence sent the sentiment gauge to its lowest level since October 2022 and the second-lowest since the pandemic.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said in a Sept. 6 news release that a data breach at Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corp. (WPS), one of its contractors, may have exposed the personal information of 946,801 Medicare beneficiaries. The exposed information includes not only names and Social Security numbers but also taxpayer identification numbers, Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers, dates of birth, addresses, and hospital account numbers.

The breach occurred between May 27 and May 31, 2023, due to a vulnerability in MOVEit, a third-party software developed by Progress Software, which WPS used to transfer files as part of the Medicare claims process.

The breach was first disclosed publicly by Progress Software on May 31, 2023, and a patch to address the vulnerability was released soon after. However, a subsequent investigation by WPS in May 2024 uncovered new evidence that unauthorized third parties had accessed and copied files containing sensitive information before the patch was applied.

On July 8, 2024, WPS notified CMS that some of the affected files contained personal information including Social Security numbers, which can be damaging if exploited, as it opens the door to identity theft and fraud.

“At this time, we are not aware of any reports of identity fraud or improper use of your information as a direct result of this incident,” CMS and WPS stated in a notification letter to those affected.

CMS said it’s working with law enforcement and cybersecurity consultants to safeguard the personal information of Medicare beneficiaries.

The agency also emphasized that beneficiaries’ Medicare coverage or benefits have not been impacted by the breach. New Medicare cards with updated Medicare Beneficiary Identifiers will be issued to those whose identifiers have been compromised. CMS advised beneficiaries to continue using their current cards until they receive new ones in the mail.

WPS, in coordination with CMS and law enforcement, is continuing to investigate the breach. The contractor has offered affected individuals 12 months of free credit monitoring and identity protection services, according to the agency.

The MOVEit vulnerability, first discovered in May 2023, has had widespread impacts, affecting both government and private organizations. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reported on June 15 that multiple federal agencies were compromised due to this vulnerability in the widely used file transfer software.

The online extortion group Cl0p claimed responsibility for the breach reported by CISA but stated they would not use the stolen data from government agencies.