Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The White House is pressing a renewed focus on the U.S. economy with an eye toward the midterm elections. President Trump took his message to a battleground congressional district of Pennsylvania last night.
Chapter 2: What recent economic strategies is the White House focusing on?
NPR's Domenico Montanaro reports on efforts to change the public's view of how Trump is handling the economy.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the importance of cost of living as a factor in people's lives. He's called affordability a con job cooked up by Democrats. But people know what they're paying, and most people think that Trump is making things worse. Polling averages have found majorities disapproving of Trump's handling of the economy. a big turnaround from his first term.
And presidents often get more credit and blame than they deserve on the economy. But people are saying that Trump's policies, particularly his tariffs, have made prices and the cost of doing business higher. Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington.
At the casino and resort in Mount Pocono, Trump's speech repeatedly spun off into derogatory grievances about certain immigrant groups from Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan and other countries. Trump asked why the U.S. does not have more immigrants from places like Norway and Sweden.
Chapter 3: How is Trump addressing his economic policies in battleground states?
The Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates for the third time in as many months. Policymakers voted to lower their benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point. It'll make it slightly cheaper to borrow money to buy a car, expand a business, or carry a balance on a credit card.
In the runoff for Miami Mayor, Democrat Eileen Higgins made history as a first-ever woman and the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to be elected to that post. She defeated Trump-backed Republican rival Emilia Gonzalez. Joshua Tobias from Member Station WLRN has more.
Higgins ran on bread-and-butter issues at the local level. Affordability, transit, protecting the local environment. But she also made certain knots to more national and statewide issues like protecting the LGBTQ plus community and being a home for migrants. Gonzalez has not held elected office, so there wasn't a legislative record he could point to.
But his platform included rolling back property taxes, which is a line that local Republicans in Florida have been pushing.
That's Joshua Ceballos reporting. More than a million high schoolers have filled out this year's federal financial aid form or FAFSA. NPR's Alyssa Ned Warner reports that's despite polling that shows many Americans are souring on higher education.
Seeing so many students fill out the financial aid form matters because it's often a critical step in the college process. And it's correlated with more students enrolling in college next year. It's good to have good news about the FAFSA. Bill DeBlond is with the National College Attainment Network. He says there's two main reasons the numbers are so high this year.
First, the form is much simpler thanks to recent legislation by Congress. Second, it was made available way earlier, on September 24th. In the two years prior, the form didn't open until sometime in December. Alyssa Nadworny, NPR News, Washington.
The Dow is up more than 200 points. You're listening to NPR News. Communities across the Pacific Northwest are in for more heavy rainfall. A day after a first round of powerful storms swelled rivers and led to high-water rescues, one meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Seattle office warned of a lot of rivers rising and moving rapidly with lots of runoff with rain.
Power outages, floods, and school closures were reported in parts of Washington state and Oregon. Forecasters warn some major rivers were expected to crest later in the week. More psychologists in the United States are trying out artificial intelligence tools in their work. But as NPR's Richard Chatterjee explains, a vast majority of them are also concerned about the harms of A.I.
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