About 13,000 U.S. auto workers stopped making vehicles and went on strike Friday after their leaders couldn’t bridge a giant gap between union demands in contract talks and what Detroit’s three automakers are willing to pay.

Members of the United Auto Workers union began picketing at a General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, a Ford factory in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit, and a Stellantis Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio.

It was the first time in the union’s 88-year history that it walked out on all three companies simultaneously as four-year contracts with the companies expired at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

The strikes will likely chart the future of the union and of America’s homegrown auto industry at a time when U.S. labor is flexing its might and the companies face a historic transition from building internal combustion automobiles to making electric vehicles.

If they last a long time, dealers could run short of vehicles and prices could rise. The walkout could even be a factor in next year’s presidential election by testing Joe Biden’s proud claim to be the most union-friendly president in American history.

“Workers all over the world are watching this,” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, a federation of 60 unions with 12.5 million members.

The strike is far different from those during previous UAW negotiations. Instead of going after one company, the union, led by its pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, is striking at all three. But not all of the 146,000 UAW members at company plants are walking picket lines, at least not yet.

Instead, the UAW targeted a handful of factories to prod company negotiators to raise their offers, which were far lower than union demands of 36% wage increases over four years. GM and Ford offered 20% and Stellantis, formerly Fiat Chrysler, offered 17.5%.

Even Fain has called the union’s demands audacious, but he maintains the automakers are raking in billions and can afford them. He scoffed at company statements that costly settlements would force them to raise vehicle prices, saying labor accounts for only 4% to 5% of vehicle costs.

“They could double our raises and not raise car prices and still make millions of dollars in profits,” Fain said. “We’re not the problem. Corporate greed is the problem.”

In addition to general wage increases, the union is seeking restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, pension increases for retirees and other items.

Starting in 2007, workers gave up cost-of-living raises and defined benefit pensions for new hires. Wage tiers were created as the UAW tried to help the companies avoid financial trouble ahead of and during the Great Recession. Even so, only Ford avoided government-funded bankruptcy protection.

Many say it’s time to get the concessions back because the companies are making huge profits and CEOs are raking in millions. They also want to make sure the union represents workers at joint-venture electric vehicle battery factories that the companies are building so workers have jobs making vehicles of the future.

Top-scale assembly plant workers make about $32 per hour, plus large annual profit-sharing checks. Ford said average annual pay including overtime and bonuses was $78,000 last year.

Outside the Ford plant in suburban Detroit, worker Britney Johnson, 35, has worked for the company about 3 1/2 years and has yet to reach top union wages. “I like the job. It’s just that we deserve more,” she said.

She’s after higher pay, the return of pensions, cost of living raises and an end to different tiers of wages.

Johnson said this is her first strike, but she’s been preparing for it for months and putting away money. “It’s not fun. There are a lot of people who are not going to get paid,” she said. She guesses that the strike will last a couple of weeks.

“We’re the ones for the last 20 years who have been kind of hoping things would change and we would get back some of the stuff that we lost with the bankruptcy,” said Tommy Wolikow, who delivers parts to an assembly line at GM’s pickup truck plant in Flint, Michigan, which is still making vehicles. “And every contract, it just seemed like we didn’t get what we deserved.”

Wolikow called this year’s talks huge, and said meeting the company in the middle isn’t good enough. “I think it needs to be a little bit closer to the top of what were asking for,” he said.

The automakers, however, say they’re facing unprecedented demands on capital as they develop and build new electric vehicles while at the same time making gas-powered cars, SUVs and trucks to pay the bills. They’re worried that labor costs will rise so much that they’ll have to price their cars above those sold by foreign automakers with U.S. factories.

GM CEO Mary Barra told workers in a letter Thursday that the company is offering historic wage increases and new vehicle commitments at U.S. factories. GM’s offer, she wrote, “addresses what you’ve told us is most important to you, in spite of the heated rhetoric from UAW leadership.”

The limited strikes will help to preserve the union’s $825 million strike fund, which would run dry in about 11 weeks if all 146,000 workers went on strike.

Under the UAW strategy, workers who go on strike would live on $500 per week in strike pay from the union, while others would stay on the job at full pay. It’s unlikely the companies would lock the remaining workers out of their factories because they want to keep building vehicles.

But Fain has said the union would increase the number of plants on strike if it doesn’t get fair offers from the companies.

It’s tough to say just how long it will take for the strikes to cut inventories at dealers and start hurting the companies’ bottom lines.

Jeff Schuster, head of automotive for the Global Data research firm, said Stellantis has the most inventory and could hold out longer. The company has enough vehicles at or en route to dealers to last for 75 days. Ford has a 62-day supply and GM has 51. All have been building as many highly profitable pickup trucks and big SUVS as they can.

Still, Schuster predicted the strikes could last longer than previous work stoppages such as a 2019 strike against GM that lasted 40 days.

“This one feels like there’s a lot more at risk here on both sides,” he said.
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U.S. lawmakers this week marked the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody, and they are divided about how to hold Iran accountable for human rights abuses. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson reports.
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Commercial casinos in the U.S. had their best July ever this year, winning nearly $5.4 billion from gamblers, according to figures released Thursday by a national gambling industry group.

The American Gaming Association said the casinos’ winnings were up nearly 6% from July 2022.

The association also said the casinos remain on pace to have their best year ever in 2023, with winnings from in-person casino games, sports betting and internet gambling at nearly $38 billion over the first seven months of this year, 11% ahead of what they won during the same period in 2022.

The association, the national trade group for the gambling industry, also revealed that revenue from traditional in-person casino games in July was $4.4 billion, a monthly record. It said those figures were aided by seasonal travel trends and the addition of several new physical casino properties around the country, including in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Sports betting generated nearly $498 million in revenue in July, up more than 28% from a year ago. Internet gambling in Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia generated $481.5 million, up nearly 23% from a year ago.

The group said 21 of 31 commercial gambling states that were operational a year ago and have complete data available posted year-over-year revenue growth in July.

Only five states reported their casinos won less over the first seven months of this year than they did a year earlier: Florida (-0.8%); Indiana (-0.5%); Iowa (-0.1%); Louisiana (-0.1%), and Mississippi (-3.8%).

The figures do not include money won at tribal-run casinos, which report their revenue separately.

Combined revenue from online sports betting and internet gambling increased 25.2% year-over-year in July. The rate of revenue growth from land-based casinos, which includes money won from gamblers at slot machines, table games and retail sports betting, remained steady at 2.5% in both June and July. It had been flat for the three months before then.

Through July, year-to-date commercial sports betting revenue reached $5.46 billion, exceeding the same period in the previous year by more than 63%.

Over that same period, internet gambling revenue was $3.45 billion, up 22.6% from a year earlier.
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All About America explores American culture, politics, trends, history, ideals and places of interest.

While the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically transformed the way Americans work, with millions of people now working a hybrid schedule, the office itself remains stuck in pre-pandemic times.

“The offices that we have have largely been designed as a place that people need to come. Many of them are cube farms that are really boring, unexciting, and nobody wants to be there,” says Aditya Sanghvi, senior partner at McKinsey & Company, who leads the management consulting firm’s real estate practice. “The office has suddenly become a choice. It’s an option. And the office has to be better for someone than working from home and enduring the commute to come into the office.”

More Americans than ever have a hybrid schedule, splitting time between working from home and going into the office. A spring 2022 survey of 25,000 Americans by McKinsey & Company found that 58% of respondents were able to work from home at least one day a week. The U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than one-third of Americans, 34%, worked from home at least some of the time in 2022.

Despite these changes in how Americans work, the workplace has largely remained the same.

“If you’re going to be working in a cubicle, you might as well be working from home. You won’t have to engage in the commute, which is a productivity killer,” says Ryan Luby, an associate partner at McKinsey & Company who co-authored the report. “And then when you get to the office, if you’re not engaging with anyone else, you might as well not be there.”

Enter the U.S. federal government. Even though the government is often perceived as an unwieldy bureaucracy where little changes, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the agency that oversees federal buildings, is among those taking the lead to determine what the office of the future will look like.

“What we’re trying to do is create a workplace and an environment that allows you to be as productive as you can be without getting in the way. And that means a variety of spaces for a variety of the people that work for us,” says Chuck Hardy, GSA’s chief architect.

Hardy is overseeing GSA’s Workplace Innovation Lab, a 25,000-square-foot space, located inside the organization’s Washington headquarters, where federal workers can try out the latest in workplace furnishings and technology, supplied by private vendors. During the yearlong experiment, federal workers from across the government can sign up to work in the lab, testing out the different layouts and latest innovations. In return, they are asked to provide feedback on their experience.

“The office should be a magnet not a mandate. We’re looking to have an office that brings people back to it purposefully,” Hardy says. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. And in certain agencies and certain offices, it can be multiple solutions. And so, we’re looking at what is that mix of a solution?”

Some spaces in the lab feature comfortable chairs and sofas. Others look more like traditional workspaces. Almost everything can be moved around. The air quality is monitored, and sustainable technology solutions are being tested. Hardy says the office of the future also needs to have advanced acoustics and technology.

Sanghvi foresees more seamless meeting spaces.

“There needs to be immersive conference rooms where it almost feels like there’s no difference between whether or not someone’s sitting with you in the office or somebody’s by video,” he says. “And I assume over the next 10 years, we’ll get a great evolution in that.”

The office needs to change because the role of the workplace has changed, according to Luby.

“The office should be a place where you’re doing group work, where you’re doing community-oriented collaborative activities,” Luby says. “That space should be suited for collaboration, community gathering and facilitating those moments that matter. It’s going to be much more group oriented. It’s going to be a more flexible space, more modular.”

The office of the future might even help workers with their errands.

“One of the reasons that a lot of people work from home is that they have to pick up the kids or do dry cleaning. They have to take care of the dog,” Sanghvi says. “And so, what if there were pet care in the building? What if there was child care in the building?”

Sanghvi believes landlords have to take a more active role in transforming workspaces for the new post-pandemic reality.

“We all trust our hotels to help us with services when we stay in a hotel,” he says. “Many retailers trust the shopping mall owners with doing marketing on behalf of everyone and driving traffic. So, it’s just a different motion for offices, but it’s pretty well-established elsewhere.”

Office planners of the future will likely try to address three main criteria, according to Hardy at the GSA.

“It has to be quality, has to be serving a purpose, but it still has to be beautiful,” he says. “And so, that’s what we’re looking for here — you don’t want to go into a building that looks like you’re in a basement. … You’re seeing office settings that have similarities to a living room setting or have similarities to a den. You’re seeing furniture that’s a little more comfortable.”

Which means the office of the future could feel a little bit more like home.
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Poverty in the United States surged dramatically in 2022, particularly among children, after social support programs put in place during the worst of the coronavirus pandemic were allowed to expire, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau. 

Across the U.S, 12.4% of Americans were living in poverty in 2022, up from just 7.8% in 2021. The increase was even more pronounced among children, with 12.4% living in poverty last year, compared to 5.2% in 2021. 

“This is devastating,” said Aileen Carr, interim executive director of Georgetown Law School’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. “This is the worst [increase] we’ve ever seen, especially with child poverty. It is hard to overstate the human suffering that these numbers represent.” 

The data was released as part of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which the government calculates separately from the official poverty figures. The SPM considers both the amount of money families receive from government benefit programs and the variations in the cost of living across different communities in the U.S. 

The official poverty level income rate for a family with two adults and two children was $29,678 in 2022. The SPM, meant to provide a more nuanced picture, set the rate for that same family of four, assuming that they lived in rental housing, at $34,518. 

Pandemic programs expire

In many ways, the low poverty numbers from 2021 were an aberration. At the time, the federal government was supporting the income of millions of Americans with a variety of pandemic-related relief programs. One of the most effective was the Child Tax Credit, which for one year provided lower-income parents with a monthly payment based on the number of children in their household. 

At the time, supporters of the credit predicted it would dramatically reduce the number of children living below the poverty line, and the data from the program bore those predictions out.  

Supporters also argued that the benefits of the program to both children and society at large would greatly outweigh the costs, because reduced childhood poverty is closely related to better outcomes in the areas of health, education and future participation in the workforce. 

An extension of the Child Tax Credit was originally considered as part of the Build Back Better Act, a bill that contained many of President Joe Biden’s policy priorities, but the scaled-down version that eventually passed as the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 did not extend the program. 

While Republicans in Congress have supported some versions of a child tax credit in the past, and some are currently advocating for a more measured expansion, others have expressed resistance to Democrats’ plan to bring back the pandemic-era scope of assistance. Among their concerns is that the credit might serve as a disincentive to employment, keeping parents out of the workforce.  

When the issue was debated in 2021, one estimate suggested that permanent implementation of the credit would reduce the U.S. workforce by 1.5 million. The price tag of the measure, estimated at $1.6 trillion over 10 years, would add significantly to the nation’s budget deficit unless measures were put in place to offset the costs, and the Democrats’ plan to balance the outlay with increased tax revenues runs counter to Republicans’ resistance to tax increases. 

Families struggle

The fact that poverty increased beginning in 2022 was not news to people who see the effects of economic deprivation in the United States every day. 

Judy Estey, executive director of The Platform of Hope, a Washington-based organization that she says “works with primarily Black and brown families who have been historically economically disadvantaged.” 

Estey told VOA that the withdrawal of pandemic-era support programs, and particularly the Child Tax Credit, has made some of her clients’ already difficult circumstances even worse.  

“We have been watching families who already were facing a lot of barriers and challenges struggle even more,” she said. 

While pandemic aid was still available, Estey said, her organization tracked significant improvement in its clients’ financial condition, often out of proportion to the amount of aid they were receiving.  

While pandemic aid increased household income by about 12%, she said, The Platform of Hope saw a 24% improvement in clients’ debt levels, and a 21% increase in their savings. 

Advocates frustrated 

Advocates of increased spending on social programs, such as Carr of Georgetown Law, are particularly frustrated by the end of the Child Tax Credit because it was so measurably successful. 

“This is one policy fix that is so clear, and so straightforward, and it works,” she said. “And we made a choice. Now there are 5.2 million more children — 5.2 million children — that are now poor, that weren’t last year.” 

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy executive director for policy at the Center for Law and Social Policy, described the figures released this week as “not surprising, but deeply disappointing.” 

She stressed that the poverty levels in the U.S. are very much dependent on policy choices made in Washington.  

During the pandemic, “we made a decision that we were going to take poverty, and particularly child poverty, seriously, and make sure that people have what they need,” she told VOA. “That’s cash assistance, but also food benefits and health care. Now, we’re really rolling back that support, and with child poverty, we’re back where we were.” 

That poverty levels are rising at a time when unemployment in the U.S. is near record low levels and wage growth has been strong demonstrates the continued need for government programs to aid low-income families, Lower-Basch said.  

“Having working parents — even full-time, year-round working parents — is not enough to keep kids out of poverty,” she said. 

Lawmakers promise action

After the Census Bureau released its data this week, there was a flurry of activity on Capitol Hill as Democratic lawmakers pledged to bring back the tax credit at the first opportunity.  

Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, said he would make certain that a year-end tax package includes an expansion of the Child Tax Credit. 

Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a press conference Wednesday that the tax credit should be restored, adding that it “pays for itself.” 

However, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives appears unlikely to reintroduce the tax credit. 

White House comment 

At the White House on Wednesday, Jared Bernstein, chair of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said that the Biden administration supports the reintroduction of the Child Tax Credit and plans to fight for it.  

“We intend to continue to not only fight for the enhanced Child Tax Credit, but to do so in a fiscally responsible way,” he said during a press conference.

Berstein pointed out that the measure is part of President Biden’s budget proposal, and that it will be paid for by increasing the share of taxes paid by the wealthiest Americans 

“So, not only are we talking about re-achieving historically low levels of child poverty, but we were talking about doing so in the context of injecting much more fairness into the very top end of the tax code,” Bernstein said. 
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With just more than 24 hours before a strike deadline, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Wednesday that offers from the companies aren’t enough and the union is getting ready to strike.

In an online address to union members, Fain said General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have raised their initial wage offers but have rejected some of the union’s other demands.

“We do not yet have offers on the table that reflect the sacrifices and contributions our members have made to these companies,” he said. “To win we’re likely going to have to take action. We are preparing to strike these companies in a way they’ve never seen before.”

The union is threatening to strike after contracts with companies that haven’t reached an agreement by 11:59 p.m. Thursday. But the strikes would be focused on a small number of factories per company. It would be the first time in the union’s 80-plus-year history that it struck all three companies at the same time.

Talks continued Wednesday with the companies, but it appeared that both sides are still far apart.

Automakers contend that they need to make huge investments to develop and build electric vehicles while still building and engineering internal combustion vehicles. They say an expensive labor agreement could saddle them with costs that would force them to raise prices above their non-union foreign competitors. And they say they have made fair proposals to the union.

“If there is a strike, it’s not because Ford didn’t make a great offer. We have, and that’s what we can control,” said Ford CEO Jim Farley.

Fain said the final decision on which plants to strike won’t be made until Thursday night and will be announced at 10 p.m. Eastern time.

The union president said it is still possible that all 146,000 UAW members could walk out, but the union will begin by striking at a limited number of plants.

“If the companies continue to bargain in bad faith or continue to stall or continue to give us insulting offers, then our strike is going to continue to grow,” Fain said. He said the targeted strikes, with the threat of escalation, “will keep the companies guessing.”

The union will not extend contracts, so those who stay at work will do so with an expired agreement. Fain said he understands sentiment behind an all-out strike, which is still possible. But he said the targeted-strike strategy is more flexible and effective.

If there’s no deal by the end of Thursday, union officials will not bargain on Friday and instead will join workers on picket lines, he said.

The UAW started out demanding 40% raises over the life of a four-year contract, or 46% when compounded annually. Initial offers from the companies fell far short of those figures.

The UAW later lowered its demand to around 36%. In addition to general wage increases, the union is seeking restoration of cost-of-living pay raises, an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs, a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay, the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans, pension increases for retirees and other items.

Wednesday, Fain said the companies upped their wage offers, but he still called them inadequate. Ford offered 20% over 4-½ years, while GM was at 18% for four years and Stellantis was at 17.5%. The raises barely make up for what he described as minimal raises of the past. In a 2019 agreement the union got 6% pay raises over four years with lump sums in some years as well as profit sharing checks.

Top pay for an assembly plant worker is now $32 per hour.

All three companies’ offers on cost-of-living adjustments were deficient, he said, providing little or no protection against inflation, or annual lump sums that many workers won’t get.

The companies rejected pay raises for retirees who haven’t received one in over a decade, Fain said, and they’re seeking concessions in annual profit-sharing checks, which often are more than $10,000.

In a statement, Stellantis said it gave the union a third wage-and-benefit offer and is waiting for a response.

“Our focus remains on bargaining in good faith to have a tentative agreement on the table before tomorrow’s deadline,” Tobin Williams, the company’s head of human resources in North America, said in a statement. “The future for our represented employees and their families deserves nothing less.”

GM said in a statement that it continues to bargain in good faith, making “additional strong offers.”

The company reported progress including guaranteed annual wage increases and investment, investing in U.S. factories and shortening the number of years for employees to make top wages.

Farley, the Ford CEO, said in a statement that his company has made four “increasingly generous” offers since Aug. 29. “We still have not received any genuine counteroffer,” he said.

Farley said Ford has raised its wage offer, eliminated wage tiers and shortened from eight years to four years the time it would take hourly workers to reach top scale, and added more time off.

Thomas Kochan, a professor of work and employment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said both sides are going to have to make big compromises quickly in order to settle the disputes before the Thursday deadline.

“It’ll go down to the wire, and there won’t be an agreement until the final moment, if there is one at all,” he said.

The union, he said, knows its initial proposals weren’t realistic for any of the companies, but the companies know they’re going to have to make a very expensive settlement, including addressing tiered wages for people doing the same jobs.

With Fain in charge of the union, the negotiations have been the most public in U.S. history, he said, putting pressure on both sides to reach an agreement.
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A federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. 

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The judge’s ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, sending the program’s fate before the high court for a third time. 

Hanen barred the government from approving any new applications but left the program intact for existing recipients during the expected appeals. Hanen said his order did not require the federal government to take any actions against DACA recipients. 

The states have argued the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to create the program in 2012 because it circumvented Congress. 

In 2021, Hanen declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act. 

The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen’s concerns with a new version of DACA that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process. 

But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of DACA was still illegal. He had previously said DACA was unconstitutional and it would be up to Congress to enact legislation shielding people under the program, often known as “Dreamers.” 

Hanen also had previously ruled the states had standing to file their lawsuit because they had been harmed by the program. 

The states have claimed they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The states that sued are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi. 

Those defending the program — the federal government, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the state of New Jersey — had argued the states failed to present evidence that any of the costs they allege they have incurred have been tied to DACA recipients. They also argued Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security the legal authority to set immigration enforcement policies. 

Despite previously declaring the DACA program illegal, Hanen had left the program intact for those already benefiting from it. But he had ruled there could be no new applicants while appeals were pending. 

There were 578,680 people enrolled in DACA at the end of March, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

The program has faced a roller coaster of court challenges over the years. 

In 2016, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded DACA and a version of the program for parents of DACA recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration had improperly ended DACA, which allowed it to stay in place. 

In 2022, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s earlier ruling declaring DACA illegal but sent the case back to him to review changes made to the program by the Biden administration. 

President Joe Biden and advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass permanent protections for “Dreamers.” Congress has failed multiple times to pass proposals called the DREAM Act to protect DACA recipients.
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U.S. consumer prices jumped by the most in more than a year in August, mostly riding higher on an increase in gasoline prices, the government said Wednesday. However, analysts say underlying price pressures were tame enough that the country’s central bank may not see the need to increase its benchmark interest rate at next week’s meeting.

The country’s consumer price index edged higher last month by 3.7% on an annualized basis, after a 3.2% increase in July, the Labor Department said. Prices were up six-tenths of a percentage point in August over July after increasing by 0.2% for two straight months.

Even with the higher prices, analysts said policymakers at the central bank, the Federal Reserve, could refrain from increasing their benchmark interest borrowing rate at next week’s meeting as they wait for further evidence of the country’s inflation track.

The Fed has raised the rate 11 times in the last year and a half to curb borrowing and spending to tame inflation, which reached a recent peak of 9.1% in June 2022. The Fed’s key borrowing rate courses through the U.S. economy, helping establish interest rates for business and consumer loans.

Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said in a statement, “The Federal Reserve is poised to hold interest rates steady at their meeting next week but there are still some concerns within this [consumer price] report — gasoline prices, motor vehicle insurance, maintenance and repair — that the Fed won’t dispel the idea of an additional interest rate hike before year-end.”

The key culprit in the August inflation increase was the rising price of gasoline for motorists at service stations, where prices peaked at nearly $4 a gallon (3.8 liters) in the third week of the month.

U.S. President Joe Biden, campaigning for reelection in 2024, took note of the economic trends in a statement, “Overall inflation has also fallen substantially over the last year, but I know last month’s increase in gas prices put a strain on family budgets.”

In national polling, Americans who are particularly conscious of their household expenses have given Biden poor marks for his handling of the economy. Biden in turn noted in his statement, “Unemployment has remained below 4% for 19 months in a row, the share of working-age Americans with a job is the highest in 20 years, and real wages are higher now than they were before the pandemic.”

The Federal Reserve attempts to adopt policies that keep the increase in U.S. consumer prices at an annualized rate of 2%.

With the rate currently higher than that, U.S. economic fortunes are certain to be a key factor in next year’s presidential contest, with Biden’s Republican opponents blaming him for higher inflation because of increased government spending that he supported. Biden said the money for infrastructure repairs helped create thousands of new jobs and was needed to fix deteriorating roads and bridges.
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Donald Trump skipped the first Republican debate in Wisconsin last month, and the GOP frontrunner has indicated he will not join his party’s second debate in California on Sept. 27.

Republican primary voters are split over whether this strategy will help or hurt the former president in his quest to win the GOP’s nomination to unseat Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election.

“I have zero issue with him not debating,” said Marilyn Moses, a registered nurse and self-identified Trump supporter from Zionsville, Indiana. “When you’re that far ahead in the polls, why should he even have to? I mean, Biden isn’t debating on the Democratic side, and no one’s saying a word about that.” 

Historically, expectations are different for sitting presidents. According to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, no sitting president has participated in a primary debate, even those who faced significant primary challenges.

“Plus, as I’m sure you’re aware, Trump’s got a lot going on right now,” she told VOA, referencing the multiple criminal indictments he is facing.

The former president reinforced his debate-skipping strategy on his social media site Truth Social writing, “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had. I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

It is an approach Trump explained in a June interview with Fox News host Bret Baier in which he wondered aloud, “Why would I allow people at 1 or 2% and 0% to be hitting me with questions all night?”

Despite big leads over all his Republican rivals, there are still some party members who are unhappy with Trump’s strategy.

“I’m disappointed in his decision not to debate,” William Keene, a former police officer from Pismo Beach, California, told VOA. “His decision might be smart for him, but not for the country. We deserve to see him battle over ideas with the other candidates. There’s no way I’d vote for anyone who is afraid to debate.”

Strategy or fear?

“I wouldn’t say he’s afraid,” said Robert Collins, professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Dillard University in New Orleans. “We’ve seen him debate many times and he did well.”

Rather than skipping the debates out of fear, Collins told VOA it was likely a strategic decision.

“When you’re as far ahead in the polls as he is, the prevailing political advice among campaign strategists and political consultants is to advise their candidates not to debate,” he said. “The reason is because the moment you get on stage with your opponents, you’re giving them credibility they didn’t earn themselves, and you’re giving them an opportunity for free publicity by attacking you.”

It’s a strategy that appears to be working. Morning Consult conducted a poll of potential Republican primary voters one day after last month’s first GOP primary debate. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they backed Trump for the presidential nomination. 

That number, and the large lead Trump held over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, remained unchanged from before the debate.

“I don’t think that should surprise anyone,” Collins laughed. “Indictments, impeachments, insurrections, and everything else — his polling numbers don’t change.” 

“That’s because he’s a polarizing figure,” Collins continued. “Voters know him so well from his first term as president, and if they support him, they’ll support him through anything. If they don’t, nothing is likely to change their mind. So, what could he say on a primary debate stage that is likely to help him?”

Frank Fogel, a Republican voter from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, agrees with Collins. He believes that given Trump’s lead, attending a debate can only hurt the former president.

“These other candidates like Chris Christie and DeSantis know they can’t win,” he told VOA. “The only reason they’re in the debate is to try to stop Trump.”

“And the debate was on Fox News,” Fogel continued, echoing complaints by the Republican frontrunner, himself. “Why on Earth would Trump go to a debate run by what’s basically the Ron DeSantis Network. Their whole mission is to take him down, but thankfully they won’t be able to.”

Shifting circumstances

Some of the former president’s supporters, however, are worried he could be making a grave mistake.

“I think he’s making a horrible decision by not showing up for the debates,” Joseph Johnson, an engineer from Los Angeles, told VOA. “He could very well lose the nomination if he keeps standing on the sideline while his policy gets ripped apart by other candidates.”

“Silence in situations like this looks like weakness,” Johnson continued, “like he’s not willing or able to defend himself.”

Another Republican voter, attorney Cory Johnson from Boston, believes a shift in circumstances could cause Trump to change his mind.

“I think it’s a smart strategic decision for now, but if one of the other candidates truly breaks out and has a big moment, then Trump might have to switch tactics,” said Johnson, who supports the Florida governor.

“And I hope it happens,” he added. “I want Governor DeSantis to have an opportunity to directly challenge Trump in front of a larger audience.”

Still, Johnson said he found the Trump-less debate refreshing and appreciated the policy discussions that he believes could not have taken place if the Republican frontrunner “was sucking all the oxygen out of the room with his antics.”

A poll by The Economist/YouGov from Aug. 26-29 suggests that even though most Republicans (61%) agree with Trump’s decision to skip the debate, the majority hope he will attend the second one. Fifty-seven percent of Republican voters said they think Trump should participate in the event, while just 17% said they did not. Twenty-six percent said they were not sure.

“As much as people might want it, I think it would be unlikely to happen,” explained Collins, the university professor from New Orleans. “Maybe after the anti-Trump vote coalesces around a single candidate later in the race and everyone else has dropped out — if that challenger has 35% or 40% of the vote — maybe then Trump will decide it would benefit him to debate.”
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U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced Tuesday that lawmakers will launch an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, advancing an investigation concerning allegations Biden benefited from his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.
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For at least the second time this year, U.S. cyber forces have come to the aid of a Baltic ally, as concerns linger about potential cyberattacks from Russia and other Western adversaries.

U.S. Cyber Command Tuesday announced the completion of a two-month-long, so-called “defensive hunt” operation in Lithuania, alongside Lithuanian cyber teams.

The focus of the operation, according to a spokesperson with the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force, was to look for malicious cyber activity on networks belonging to Lithuania’s Interior Ministry.

Neither U.S. nor Lithuanian officials were willing to specify the exact nature of the threat, but just last year Vilnius was hit with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), claimed by the Russian hacking group known as Killnet.

“We need to develop competences and be more resilient to cyberattacks,” Lithuanian Vice Minister of the Interior Arnoldas Abramavičius, said in the joint statement.

“The war in Ukraine has shown that cyberattacks are a powerful tool of modern warfare, so it is extremely important to be prepared and to ensure the security of our networks,” said Abramavičius. “I believe that the results of this mission [with the United States] will be mutually beneficial.”

The U.S. Cyber National Mission Force spokesperson, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss limited details of the operation, said the effort involved about 20 U.S. cyber troops, hunting for malicious activity and potential vulnerabilities under guidelines set by Vilnius.

This is at least the second time U.S. cyber forces have deployed to Lithuania. U.S. Cyber Command said its forces conducted similar operations in the country last May.

And both Vilnius and Washington have also been working on a continuous basis through Lithuania’s Regional Cyber Defense Center, set up in 2021, to further coordinate efforts with Ukraine, Georgia and Poland.

Word of the completion of the latest U.S-Latvian cyber operation comes just days after a top U.S. intelligence official warned the cyber threat from Moscow has not waned as Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on.

“The Russians are increasing their capability and their efforts in the cyber domain,” CIA Deputy Director David Cohen told a cybersecurity summit in Washington on Thursday.

“There are no laurels to be rested on here,” he said. “There is this is a pitched battle every day.”

Concerns about possible Russian cyber activity also prompted what U.S. officials described as a “hunt forward” operation in Latvia earlier this year that also involved Latvian and Canadian cyber forces.

Since 2018, U.S. cyber teams have deployed 50 times, conducting operations on more than 75 networks in more than 23 countries, according to information provided by the U.S. Cyber National Mission Force.

Some information from Reuters was used in this report.
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The giant pandas that have been living at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington for 23 years will return to China by the end of this year. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias takes a look at the diplomatic moves that brought them to the United States and how politics and new conservation strategies could impact the species’ future.
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