Bob Woodward on Friday suggested that authoritarian thinking was a problem among both the right and left in the United States -- but his Washington Post colleague Eugene Robinson and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough strongly disagreed.

Woodward was discussing the texts between right-wing activist Ginni Thomas and Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows. The Washington Post reporter and his co-author Robert Costa obtained the texts discussing plans to overturn Trump's election loss, but Woodward met fierce pushback when he argued that left-wing activists were engaged in similar efforts to gain political power.

"You're getting a skeptical look because, yes, there are extreme voices on the left, [but] I don't think this is an equal balance," Robinson said. "What you saw was the Republican Party writ large basically losing its mind but going, becoming a Trumpist party and adopting positions that establishment Republicans were horrified by, very conservative establishment Republicans were horrified by it. I don't see something equivalent happening on the left."

Woodward agreed that was a fair point, and he conceded that Thomas -- the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- and Meadows were hardly fringe figures, but he continued to insist that the left also harbored an anti-democratic impulse, which Scarborough then batted down.

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a 52 1/2-year low last week, while unemployment rolls continued to shrink, pointing to rapidly diminishing labor market slack that will keep boosting wage inflation.

The strength in the job market reported by the Labor Department on Thursday may push the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by half a percentage point at its next policy meeting in May. Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Monday said the U.S. central bank must move “expeditiously” to raise rates and possibly “more aggressively” to keep high inflation from becoming entrenched.

The Fed last week increased its policy interest rate by 25 basis points, the first hike in more than three years.

“U.S. businesses are not laying off workers because they know the enormous challenges they’re facing in filling open positions,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

A San Marcos teenager was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in connection with a fire set at an Austin synagogue in October 2021.

Franklin Barrett Sechriest, 19, was charged with one count of damage of religious property, one count of use of fire to commit a federal crime and one count of arson.

The U.S Attorney’s Office said Sechriest set fire to the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue on Oct. 31, 2021.

He is seen on surveillance video carrying a 5-gallon container and toilet paper toward the synagogue’s sanctuary moments before cameras captured the glow of a fire starting, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release. Seconds later, Sechriest is seen jogging away from the sanctuary and toward a waiting vehicle......

Agents also found anti-Semitic and racists items in Sechriest’s home and vehicle..