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The Jan. 6 committee has plunged deeper into Donald Trump’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election. Testimony on Thursday showed even Trump aides and allies warning him against the plan to have Vice President Mike Pence reject the electoral count before Congress certified it.

Gripping new evidence also detailed how the mob that stormed the Capitol that day came within 40 feet of where Pence and his team were sheltering, highlighting the danger Trump had put him in.

Thursday’s witnesses, including Pence’s counsel, dissected a strategy Trump embraced from conservative law professor John Eastman to have Pence refuse to certify Joe Biden’s election victory in a Jan. 6 joint session of Congress.”

Wall Street tumbled Thursday as worries roared back to the fore that the world’s fragile economy may buckle under higher interest rates. The S&P 500 fell 3.3% to more than reverse its brief rally from a day before.

Analysts had warned of more big swings given deep uncertainties about whether other central banks can tiptoe the narrow path of hiking interest rates enough to get inflation under control but not so much that they cause a recession.

Wall Street fell with stocks across Europe after central banks there followed up on the Federal Reserve’s big interest-rate hike on Wednesday with more of their own.

Authorities across much of the Muslim world have barred Disney’s latest animated film “Lightyear” from being played at cinemas after the inclusion of a brief kiss between a lesbian couple. That’s according to The Walt Disney Co., which is premiering the film on Thursday and Friday across the world.

Thirteen nations and the Palestinian territory barred the Pixar film that has actor Chris Evans voicing the inspiration for the astronaut hero Buzz Lightyear from the “Toy Story” movies. The nations involved in the ban include: Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.

California won’t be listing the iconic western Joshua tree as a threatened species for now. The California Fish and Game Commission voted 2-2 Thursday on whether to list the tree under state Endangered Species Act.

The tie vote doesn’t mean the tree won’t be listed. Instead the commission will hear the issue again in October.

President Joe Biden says the American people are “really, really down” after a tumultuous two years with the coronavirus pandemic, volatility in the economy and now surging gasoline prices that are hitting family budgets.

But in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Biden stressed that a recession was “not inevitable” and held out hope of giving the country a greater sense of confidence.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has pledged to do whatever it takes to curb inflation, now raging at a four-decade high and defying the Fed’s efforts so far to tame it. Increasingly, it seems, doing so might require the one painful thing the Fed has sought to avoid: A recession.

A worse-than-expected inflation report for May helped spur the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of point Wednesday and to signal that more large rate hikes are likely coming.

Economic history suggests that aggressive, growth-killing rate hikes could be necessary to finally control inflation. And typically, that is a prescription for a recession.

Severe weather has forced Abbott Nutrition to pause production at a Michigan baby formula factory that had just restarted. The company said late Wednesday that production for its EleCare specialty formula has stopped, but it has enough supply to meet needs until more formula can be made.

Abbott says it needs to assess damage and re-sanitize the factory after severe thunderstorms and heavy rains swept through southwestern Michigan Monday evening. The company didn’t indicate how much damage the factory sustained. Abbott had restarted the Sturgis, Michigan, factory on June 4 after it had been closed since February due to contamination.

McDonald’s France and related companies have agreed to pay $1.3 billion to the French state to settle a case in which the fast-food giant was accused of vast tax evasion. French prosecutors say a Paris court approved the settlement Thursday.

That means a tax fraud investigation targeting the company will be closed. It had been opened after a legal complaint by unions in 2016. The company was accused of hiding French profits in lower-tax Luxembourg and reporting artificially low profits in France. McDonald’s has said it is working with French tax authorities.

A planned New York City concert by would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley Jr. has been canceled even as Hinckley was freed from federal court oversight. The Market Hotel in Brooklyn cited “very real and worsening threats and hate” in its announcement on social media Wednesday that it was canceling the July 8 concert. Hinckley sings and plays guitar.

The now 67-year-old Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting of President Ronald Reagan in Washington in 1981. Hinckley spent decades in a psychiatric hospital and was later released to live with his mother. He was freed Wednesday from court oversight.

—The Associated Press