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Inflation surged in June and workers’ average wages accelerated in the spring — signs that Americans won’t likely feel any relief from rising prices anytime soon and that the Federal Reserve will feel compelled to further raise borrowing costs. An inflation gauge closely tracked by the Fed jumped 6.8% in June from a year ago, the government said Friday, the biggest such jump in four decades. Much of the increase was driven by energy and food. On a month-to-month basis, too, prices surged 1% in June, the biggest such rise since 2005. Even excluding the volatile food and energy categories, prices climbed 0.6% from May to June. Employees’ wages, excluding government workers, jumped 1.6% in the April-June quarter, matching a record high reached last fall. Higher wages tend to fuel inflation if companies pass their higher labor costs on to their customers, as they often do. Friday’s figures underscored the persistence of the inflation that is eroding Americans’ purchasing power, dimming their confidence in the economy and threatening Democrats in Congress in the run-up to the November midterm elections. Some signs indicate that certain categories of inflation may moderate in the coming months, though not by very much: Gas prices have fallen since mid-June from an average national peak of $5 to $4.26, according to AAA. Likewise, other commodity prices, for items such as wheat and copper, have plunged. But more persistent drivers of inflation show little, if any, evidence of slowing. The wage data released Friday — a measure known as the employment cost index — indicated that paychecks were still growing at a robust pace. That’s good for workers, but it could raise concerns at the Fed about its effect on prices. Chair Jerome Powell specifically cited this measure during a news conference Wednesday as a source of concern for the the central bank’s policymakers. “This is a (report) that’s going to keep Fed officials up at night,” said Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights. The government also reported Friday that consumer spending managed to just outpace inflation last month, rising 0.1% from May to June. Spending actually jumped, but most of the gain was wiped out by higher prices. Read: US inflation surges again in June, raising risks for economy Rising consumer demand for services, such as airline tickets, hotel rooms and restaurant meals, is still helping fuel inflation. Many retail and consumer goods chains, though, say inflation is squeezing shoppers and limiting how far their money goes — a sign that consumer spending could further weaken. This week, Walmart said its profits would fall because its customers are spending more on pricier food and gas, leaving them less able to buy clothes and other discretionary items. Likewise, Best Buy downgraded its sales and profit forecasts because surging inflation has forced consumers to reduce their purchases of electronics appliances. Inflation has been rising so fast that despite the pay raises many workers have received, most consumers are falling behind the rising cost-of-living. High inflation and interest rates are also hampering the U.S. economy, which shrank in the April-June quarter for a second straight quarter, intensifying fears that a recession is looming. Two quarters of declining growth meet an informal rule of thumb for when a recession begins, although robust hiring suggests that the economy still maintains pockets of strength and isn’t yet in a downturn. On Wednesday, the Fed raised its benchmark interest rate by three-quarters of a point for a second straight time in its most aggressive drive in more than three decades to tame high inflation. Powell signaled that the Fed’ could raise rates by smaller increments in the coming months. Still, he also stressed that the Fed’s policymakers regard the fight against inflation to be their top priority. He gave no hint that a weakening economy would cause the Fed to slow or reverse its rate hikes this year or early next year if inflation remained high. By raising borrowing rates, the Fed makes it costlier to take out a mortgage or an auto or business loan. The goal is for consumers and businesses to borrow, spend and hire less, thereby cooling the economy and slowing inflation. Globally, inflation is weighing heavily on other economies, too. This month, prices jumped 8.9% in the 19 European countries that use the euro currency from a year earlier. Europe’s economy has been hit particularly hard by higher natural gas and oil prices stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though it managed to grow slightly in the second quarter. The Fed monitors Friday’s inflation gauge, called the personal consumption expenditures price index, even more closely it does the government’s better-known consumer price index. Earlier this month, the CPI reported an acceleration in inflation, to 9.1% in June from a year earlie r, the highest in nearly 41 years. The PCE index tends to show a lower inflation level than CPI. Rents, which are rising at their fastest pace in 35 years, are given less weight in the PCE than in the CPI.   Read: Fed unleashes another big rate hike in bid to curb inflation The PCE price index also seeks to account for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps. As a result, it can capture, for example, when consumers switch from pricey national brands to cheaper store brands.

When a 10-year-old Ohio girl traveled to Indiana last month to end a pregnancy forced onto her by a rapist, several conservative politicians and TV pundits called the report a hoax. After horrific details confirmed the case was real, some tried a new tack: claiming, without evidence, that the child could have still legally obtained an abortion in Ohio under a near-total abortion ban that exempts only mothers whose lives or major bodily functions are at risk once fetal cardiac activity is detected. Catherine Glenn Foster, president of the anti-abortion Americans United for Life, added another defense for young rape victims: She told the House Judiciary Committee that a 10-year-old’s pregnancy “would probably impact her life and so, therefore, it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion.” In televised statements and interviews, anti-abortion advocates have used misleading rhetoric about abortion access to downplay fallout and complications from restrictive abortion laws as doctors, struggling to interpret laws that have largely been untested in courts, turn away pregnant patients for care. Those efforts have had an immediate impact, casting a narrative about a post-Roe v. Wade world that overlooks how abortion laws enacted in recent weeks have complicated the way doctors treat rape victims, miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. More than half a dozen doctors interviewed by The Associated Press said they feel compromised and uncertain operating in an abortion landscape fundamentally changed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected nearly 50 years of precedent that abortion was a protected constitutional right. “It’s a horrible position for health care providers to be in, to be unsure about what’s legal and what’s not legal, and to be questioning the care that they know that they should provide,” said Dr. Jennifer Kerns, an associate professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who initially questioned reporting of the 10-year-old girl’s rape case, said in a Fox News Channel interview that she did not have to leave Ohio for abortion treatment, citing the state’s exemptions. Last week, Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis repeated the claim during a public forum: “She could have had that abortion here.” The law’s Republican sponsor said the same in a newspaper column published Thursday. But it’s not as clear cut as they’ve suggested. The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission confirmed in an analysis that the age of a mother, alone, would not allow a girl to legally access the procedure in the state. Doctors in Ohio are required to document a medical condition and rationale if they administer an abortion to provide life-saving treatment. Yost’s office did not return a request for additional comment. Gonidakis laid out “different scenarios” to the AP under which the girl might have been able to access the abortion in Ohio, such as if a doctor agreed her life was at risk because of her age, while noting that he had not reviewed her medical records. Read: Overturning of Roe v Wade abortion law huge blow to women's rights: Bachelet Across social media, some conservatives have also minimized concerns about access to treatment for ectopic pregnancies, calling it “still legal in every state.” An ectopic pregnancy is defined as one in which a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus, where it has no chance of survival. Earlier this month, abortion opponent Erin Morrow Hawley told the House Reform and Oversight Committee that ectopic pregnancies had become the subject of “misinformation.” “There have been social media posts suggesting that women won’t get treated for an ectopic pregnancy because doctors might be afraid of performing the procedure, but that’s absolutely false,” said Hawley, an attorney at the religious nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom. “Treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is not, in fact, an abortion.” State abortion laws, however, have fueled confusion. Doctors generally agree that the procedure to an end an ectopic pregnancy, which typically includes medication or surgery to remove the pregnancy, is not the same as an abortion. But women reportedly have been declined care in states that have severely restricted abortion access, like Ohio, where an abortion is banned once fetal cardiac activity is detected. Fetal heartbeats can still be present in ectopic pregnancies. In one case, a central Texas hospital told a physician not to treat an ectopic pregnancy until it ruptured, per a letter from the Texas Medical Association. In an email to the AP, Hawley said that doctors who have turned away ectopic pregnancy patients because of abortion bans are misinterpreting the laws. Still, before Roe v. Wade was even overturned by the Supreme Court in June, some religious hospitals had policies against treating women for ectopic pregnancies. And many states have not specified in their newly enacted abortion bans that an ectopic pregnancy can be treated as an exception. That’s left doctors in some states leery of ending the pregnancy, said Dr. Kate White, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine. Lawmakers in West Virginia, for example, are considering an abortion ban that would carve out an exception for ectopic pregnancies.   Read: Judges rule on state abortion restrictions, shape Roe impact “Clinicians may be afraid to treat it if the abortion law in their state does not explicitly carve out ectopic pregnancy. You can see their worry, ‘Hey, growing pregnancy, can’t interrupt it ever,’” White said. “They are afraid that the law is too broad.”

The Biden administration said Friday it has reached an agreement with Moderna to buy 66 million doses of the company’s next generation of COVID-19 vaccine that targets the highly transmissible omicron variant, enough supply this winter for all who want the upgraded booster. The order of the bivalent shot follows the announcement last month that the federal government had secured 105 million doses of a similar vaccine from rival drugmaker Pfizer. Both orders are scheduled for delivery in the fall and winter, assuming regulators sign off on their effectiveness. The omicron strain has been dominant in the U.S. since December, with the BA.5 subvariant now causing a massive wave of infections across the country, even infecting President Joe Biden. Read: Moderna seeks to be 1st with COVID shots for littlest kids “We must stay vigilant in our fight against COVID-19 and continue to expand Americans’ access to the best vaccines and treatments,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “As we look to the fall and winter, we’re doing just that — ensuring Americans have the tools they need to stay safe and help keep our nation moving forward.” The U.S. orders with Pfizer and Moderna include options to purchase 300 million doses each, but reaching that total will require more funding from Congress, the Biden administration said. About 261 million Americans have received at least one COVID-19 shot, but only 108 million have received a booster.

The mayor of San Francisco announced a state of emergency Thursday over the growing number of monkeypox cases, allowing officials to cut through red tape and fight a public health crisis reminiscent of the AIDS epidemic that began devastating the city in the 1980s. “We are at a very scary place. And we don’t want to be ignored by the federal government in our need. So many leaders of the LGBT community have also, weeks ago, asked for additional help and support and assistance,” said Mayor London Breed. The city is in “desperate need of vaccines,” she said. The declaration, which takes effect Monday, was welcomed by gay advocates who have grown increasingly frustrated by what they called San Francisco’s lackluster response to a virus that so far has affected primarily men who have sex with men, although anyone can get infected. “San Francisco was at the forefront of the public health responses to HIV and COVID-19, and we will be at the forefront when it comes to monkeypox,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat who represents the city. “We can’t and won’t leave the LGBTQ community out to dry.” The city has 281 cases, out of about 800 in California and 4,600 nationwide, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. A national shortage of vaccine has resulted in people waiting in line for hours for scarce doses, often to be turned away when the shots run out. Members of the LGBTQ community expressed anger and frustration at a city hearing last week, saying they were relying on social media because the San Francisco public health department had not dispensed basic information on testing or vaccine availability.  Read: Oldest Magellanic penguin at San Francisco Zoo dies at 40 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman excoriated the department, saying it was unclear why it could not staff phone lines, especially after telling people to call those phone numbers for information, while the San Francisco AIDS Foundation was able to quickly staff a monkeypox information hotline. The organization also has started a wait list for people wanting the vaccine, unlike the public health department forcing people to wait in line. “It’s a bad look for San Francisco,” he said. After attending the San Francisco Pride weekend in late June, Tom Temprano, 36, got a notification that at least one other attendee had tested positive for monkeypox. He called four numbers that local health officials provided in an effort to get vaccinated, but no one picked up. He left voicemails. “I waited and I waited and I waited,” said Temprano, “And there was just sort of — I think for myself and many people — just growing concern, really, about our safety, given that we were further and further out from an exposure.” Finally, on July 8, two weeks after being potentially exposed to the virus at the pride event, and monitoring gay social media networks all the while, he learned through an Instagram post that a vaccine drop-in clinic was being held at San Francisco General Hospital. The poster said drop everything and go now. Temprano texted a half-dozen people and rushed over. He waited with hundreds of other people in a line that snaked out into the street and halfway down a block. After waiting for 3 1/2 hours, Temprano, who is the political director of San Francisco-based Equality California, got his first dose of the vaccine. One of his friends stood in line four times before he was able to get the shot. Temprano was scheduled to get his second dose next week but that was canceled — with vaccine in short supply, city officials have opted to prioritize getting first doses to people. He is frustrated that authorities have taken so long to respond, and noted they did so after LGBTQ politicians in his community raised their voices. “I think the saddest thing is there are people who are getting monkeypox now who tried to get that vaccine over the last month-and-a-half and couldn’t get one, who are sick and are in pain and are going to be out of work potentially for two to six weeks,” he said. Wiener had urged local and state officials to declare a health emergency, which he said would give the city and counties greater flexibility to respond to the growing outbreak. For example, it would streamline getting test results to people and allow a broader array of providers to perform vaccinations. Wiener, who is gay, also noted the parallels to the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. “I feel like this is like deja vu — that once again, gay men are getting attacked and demonized and blamed as we get sick, and that we can never tolerate that,” he said. In the early 1980s, the U.S. government was slow to react as the AIDS epidemic ravaged gay communities in San Francisco and elsewhere. Groups like ACT UP emerged to push for action to fight AIDS. That struggle has echoes today. Despite the problems with vaccine supply, federal officials said Thursday that the country’s monkeypox outbreak can still be stopped, amid worries that the U.S. has missed the window to contain the virus. The monkeypox virus spreads through prolonged skin-to-skin contact, which includes sex, kissing, breathing at close range, and sharing bedding and clothing, the public health department said. Health officials are asking people who could be at risk to cover exposed skin when out in crowds and to watch out for symptoms, such as fever, blisters and rashes. The World Health Organization over the weekend declared the monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries a global emergency.

Torrential rains unleashed devastating floods in Appalachia on Thursday, as fast-rising water killed at least eight people in Kentucky and sent people scurrying to rooftops to be rescued. Water gushed from hillsides and flooded out of streambeds, inundating homes, businesses and roads throughout eastern Kentucky. Parts of western Virginia and southern West Virginia also saw extensive flooding. Rescue crews used helicopters and boats to pick up people trapped by floodwaters. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear tweeted Thursday evening that the state’s death toll from flooding had risen to eight. He asked for continued prayers for the region, which was bracing for more rain. “In a word, this event is devastating,” Beshear said earlier in the day. “And I do believe it will end up being one of the most significant, deadly floods that we have had in Kentucky in at least a very long time.” In Breathitt County in Kentucky, Krystal Holbrook’s family raced against surging floodwaters in the early morning hours to move possessions to higher ground. Their ordeal began around 4 a.m. Thursday, as they scurried in the dark to move vehicles, campers, trailers and farm equipment. But as the water kept rising throughout the day, the concern was that “higher ground is getting a little bit difficult,” she said. “It looks like a huge lake back here,” she said. Beshear warned that property damage in Kentucky would be widespread. The governor said officials were setting up a site for donations that would go to residents affected by the flooding. Dangerous conditions and continued rainfall hampered rescue efforts Thursday, the governor said. “We’ve got a lot of people that need help that we can’t get to at the moment,” Beshear said. “We will.” Flash flooding and mudslides were reported across the mountainous region of eastern Kentucky, western Virginia and southern West Virginia, where thunderstorms dumped several inches of rain over the past few days. With more rain expected in the area, the National Weather Service said additional flooding was possible into Friday in much of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia. Forecasters said the highest threat of flash flooding was expected to shift farther east into West Virginia. Read: US economy shrinks for a 2nd quarter, raising recession fear Poweroutage.us reported more than 31,000 customers without electricity in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, with the bulk of the outages in Kentucky. “There are a lot of people in eastern Kentucky on top of roofs waiting to be rescued,” Beshear said earlier Thursday. “There are a number of people that are unaccounted for and I’m nearly certain this is a situation where we are going to lose some of them.” Rescue crews worked throughout the night helping people stranded by the rising waters in eastern Kentucky’s Perry County, where Emergency Management Director Jerry Stacy called it a “catastrophic event.” We’re just in the rescue mode right now,” Stacy said, speaking with The Associated Press by phone as he struggled to reach his office in Hazard. “Extreme flash flooding and mudslides are just everywhere.” The storms hit an Appalachian mountain region where communities and homes are perched on steep hillsides or set deep in the hollows between them, where creeks and streams can rise in a hurry. But this one is far worse than a typical flood, said Stacy, 54.  “I’ve lived here in Perry County all my life and this is by the far the worst event I’ve ever seen,” he said. Roads in many areas weren’t passable after as much as 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain had fallen in some areas by Thursday, and 1-3 more inches (7.5 centimeters) could fall, the National Weather Service said. Beshear said he has deployed National Guard soldiers to the hardest-hit areas, and three parks in the region were opened as shelters for displaced people. Breathitt County’s courthouse was opened overnight in Kentucky, and Emergency Management Director Chris Friley said the Old Montessori School would provide more permanent shelter once crews can staff it. Perry County dispatchers told WKYT-TV that floodwaters washed out roads and bridges and knocked homes off foundations. The city of Hazard said rescue crews were out all night, urging people on Facebook to stay off roads and “pray for a break in the rain.”  In West Virginia’s Greenbrier County, firefighters pulled people from flooded homes, and five campers who got stranded by high water in Nicholas County were rescued by the Keslers Cross Lanes Volunteer Fire Department, WCHS-TV reported. Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for six counties in West Virginia after severe thunderstorms this week caused significant local flooding, downed trees, power outages and blocked roads. Communities in southwest Virginia also were flooding, and the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, Virginia, warned of more showers and storms on Thursday.

President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping held the fifth conversation of their presidencies on Thursday, speaking for more than two hours as they chart the future of their complicated relationship at a time of simmering economic and geopolitical tensions. The call began at 8:33 a.m. EDT and ended at 10:50 a.m. EDT, according to the White House. It took place as Biden aims to find new ways to work with the rising global power as well as strategies to contain China’s influence around the world. Differing perspectives on global health, economic policy and human rights have long tested the relationship — with China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding further strain. “The two heads of state had in-depth communication and exchanges on China-U.S. relations and issues of mutual concern,” China Central Television reported on its website. The latest pressure point has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan, the island that governs itself democratically and receives informal defensive support from the U.S., but which China considers part of its territory. Beijing has said it would view such a trip as a provocation, a threat U.S. officials are taking with heightened seriousness in light of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. “If the U.S. insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters earlier this week. “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the U.S.” Pelosi would be the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to travel to Taiwan since Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was House speaker. Biden last week told reporters that U.S. military officials believed it was “not a good idea” for the speaker to visit the island at the moment. John Kirby, a U.S. national security spokesman, said Wednesday that it was important for Biden and Xi to regularly touch base. Read: Doctor: Biden’s COVID symptoms ‘almost completely resolved’ “The president wants to make sure that the lines of communication with President Xi remain open because they need to,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing. “There are issues where we can cooperate with China on, and there are issues where obviously there are friction and tension.” Biden and Xi last spoke in March, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “This is one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world today, with ramifications well beyond both individual countries,” Kirby said. The conversation comes as Biden has moved to shift U.S. reliance off Chinese manufacturing, including Senate passage Wednesday of legislation to encourage semiconductor companies to build more high-tech plants in the U.S. Biden wants to marshal global democracies to support infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income nations as an alternative to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which aims to boost China trade with other global markets. Kirby listed a number of areas of U.S,-China friction that he said would be part of the conversation, including “tensions over Taiwan, tensions over ... China’s aggressive course of behavior in the Indo-Pacific outside of Taiwan, tensions in the economic relationship” and over China’s reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden, who has kept in place Trump-era tariffs on many Chinese-manufactured goods in order to maintain leverage over Beijing, is weighing whether to ease at least some of them in a move to lessen the impact of soaring inflation on American households. U.S. officials have also criticized China’s “zero-COVID” policy of mass testing and lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19 in its territory, labeling it misguided and fretting that it will further slow global economic growth. Other points of strain include China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which the U.S. has declared a genocide, its militarization in the South China Sea, and global campaign of economic and political espionage.

The U.S. economy shrank from April through June for a second straight quarter, contracting at a 0.9% annual pace and raising fears that the nation may be approaching a recession. The decline that the Commerce Department reported Thursday in the gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of the economy — followed a 1.6% annual drop from January through March. Consecutive quarters of falling GDP constitute one informal, though not definitive, indicator of a recession. The GDP report for last quarter pointed to weakness across the economy. Consumer spending slowed as Americans bought fewer goods. Business investment fell. Inventories tumbled as businesses slowed their restocking of shelves, shaving 2 percentage points from GDP. Higher borrowing rates, a consequence of the Federal Reserve’s series of rate hikes, clobbered home construction, which shrank at a 14% annual rate. Government spending dropped, too. The report comes at a critical time. Consumers and businesses have been struggling under the weight of punishing inflation and higher loan costs. On Wednesday, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a sizable three-quarters of a point for a second straight time in its push to conquer the worst inflation outbreak in four decades. The Fed is hoping to achieve a notoriously difficult “soft landing”: An economic slowdown that manages to rein in rocketing prices without triggering a recession. Apart from the United States, the global economy as a whole is also grappling with high inflation and weakening growth, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy and food prices soaring. Europe, highly dependent on Russian natural gas, appears especially vulnerable to a recession. In the United States, the inflation surge and fear of a recession have eroded consumer confidence and stirred anxiety about the economy, which is sending frustratingly mixed signals. And with the November midterm elections nearing, Americans’ discontent has diminished President Joe Biden’s public approval ratings and could increase the likelihood that the Democrats will lose control of the House and Senate. Read: US economy grew at solid 3.1% rate in first quarter Fed Chair Jerome Powell and many economists have said that while the economy is showing some weakening, they doubt it’s in recession. Many of them point, in particular, to a still-robust labor market, with 11 million job openings and an uncommonly low 3.6% unemployment rate, to suggest that a recession, if one does occur, isn’t here yet. “The back-to-back contraction of GDP will feed the debate about whether the U.S. is in, or soon headed for, a recession,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. “The fact that the economy created 2.7 million payrolls in the first half of the year would seem to argue against an official recession call for now.” Still, Guatieri said, “the economy has quickly lost steam in the face of four-decade high inflation, rapidly rising borrowing costs and a general tightening in financial conditions.” In the meantime, Congress may be moving toward approving action to fight inflation under an agreement announced Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat. Among other things, the measure would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, and the new revenue would be used to lower costs for seniors on medications. In the wake of Thursday’s second straight negative GDP report, Biden downplayed the news, pointing to continued low unemployment and strong hiring. “Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth — and regaining all the private-sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis — it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation,” the president said in a statement. “But even as we face historic global challenges, we are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure.” The government’s first of three estimates of GDP for the April-June quarter marked a drastic weakening from the 5.7% growth the economy achieved last year. That was the fastest calendar-year expansion since 1984, reflecting how vigorously the economy roared back from the brief but brutal pandemic recession of 2020. But since then, the combination of mounting prices and higher borrowing costs have taken a toll. The Labor Department’s consumer price index skyrocketed 9.1% in June from a year earlier, a pace not matched since 1981. And despite widespread pay raises, prices are surging faster than wages. In June, average hourly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, slid 3.6% from a year earlier, the 15th straight year-over-year drop. Americans are still spending, though more tepidly. Thursday’s report showed that consumer spending rose at a 1% annual pace from April through June, down from 1.8% in the first quarter and 2.5% in the final three months of 2021.

To the naked eye, the Mako Compressor Station outside the dusty West Texas crossroads of Lenorah appears unremarkable, similar to tens of thousands of oil and gas operations scattered throughout the oil-rich Permian Basin. What’s not visible through the chain-link fence is the plume of invisible gas, primarily methane, billowing from the gleaming white storage tanks up into the cloudless blue sky. The Mako station, owned by a subsidiary of West Texas Gas Inc., was observed releasing an estimated 870 kilograms of methane – an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas — into the atmosphere each hour. That’s the equivalent of burning seven tanker trucks full of gasoline every day. But Mako’s outsized emissions aren’t illegal, or even regulated. And it was only one of 533 methane “super emitters” detected during a 2021 aerial survey of the Permian conducted by Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASA. The group documented massive amounts of methane venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations across the Permian, a 250-mile-wide bone-dry expanse along the Texas-New Mexico border. Hundreds of those sites were seen spewing the gas over and over again. Ongoing leaks, gushers, going unfixed. “We see the same sites active from year to year. It’s not just month to month or season to season,” said Riley Duren, a research scientist at the University of Arizona who leads Carbon Mapper. Methane’s earth-warming power is some 83 times stronger over 20 years than the carbon dioxide that comes from car tailpipes and power plant smokestacks. Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency have largely failed to regulate the invisible gas. That leaves it up to oil and gas producers — in some cases the very companies who have been fighting regulations — to cut methane emissions on their own. The Associated Press took the coordinates of the 533 “super-emitting” sites identified by Carbon Mapper and cross-referenced the locations with public records to piece together the corporations most likely responsible. Just 10 companies owned at least 164 of those sites, according to an AP analysis of Carbon Mapper’s data. West Texas Gas owned 11. The methane released by these companies will be disrupting the climate for decades, contributing to more heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and floods. There’s now nearly three times as much methane in the air than there was before industrial times. The year 2021 saw the worst single increase ever. Last October, AP journalists visited more than two dozen sites flagged as persistent methane super emitters by Carbon Mapper with a FLIR infrared camera and recorded video of large plumes of hydrocarbon gas containing methane escaping from pipeline compressors, tank batteries, flare stacks and other production infrastructure. In addition to West Texas Gas’s Mako site, AP observed a large plume of gas escaping from tanks at a WTG compressor station about 15 miles away in the Sale Ranch oil field. Carbon Mapper estimated that emissions from that site averaged about 410 kilos of methane an hour. In a statement, Midland-based West Texas Gas said it routinely conducts its own overflights with gas detection equipment and within the last six months had either “repaired or upgraded” nine of the super emitting sites that AP asked about, including Mako. The company was “actively addressing” another site, though it declined to provide specifics. WTG said it inspected the last site and found no leak. Read: Mideast nations wake up to damage from climate change AP found Targa Resources, a Houston-based natural gas storage, processing and distribution company, was the closest operator to 30 sites that were emitting a combined 3,000 kilograms of methane per hour. Targa did not respond to a detailed list of questions from the AP. “Reducing air emissions from the oil and natural gas sector is a top priority for the administration and for EPA,” said Tomás Carbonell, EPA’s deputy assistant administrator for stationary sources. Methane, he added, is “helping drive impacts that communities across the country are already seeing every day, including heat waves and wildfires and sea level rise.” But proposed rules to address emissions most oil and gas sites are still under review, and if implemented will likely face legal challenges. To track emissions, the U.S. government keeps an inventory of methane released into the atmosphere. Those figures are used by policy makers and scientists to help calculate how much the planet will warm. AP found the government database often fails to account for the true rate of emissions observed in the Permian. For example, Devon Energy reported releasing methane equivalent to 42,000 metric tons of CO2 for a year of operations in the Permian Basin. AP’s analysis, using the detected emissions, shows they would emit that much in just 46 days. A spokesperson for Devon said the company is committed to reducing its methane emissions and being transparent about its progress. The EPA could not provide AP with a single example of a polluter being fined or cited for failing to report, or underreporting emissions. At an international climate summit in November, the United States and more than 100 other countries signed on to a Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. To meet that deadline, the American oil and gas industry would have to reduce emissions at a rate far beyond anything currently seen. The industry says it is working toward that goal. “To be able to capture more methane emissions makes sense from a business perspective,” said Frank Macchiarola, a senior vice president at the American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group. "It's the product that we ultimately want to bring to market.” But climate scientists and environmentalists warn the industry’s incremental efforts are nowhere near enough to avoid dire consequences for humanity. “Methane is responsible for 25% of today’s global warming, and we can’t limit future warming to 2 degrees Celsius if we don’t drastically cut those emissions,” said Ilissa Ocko, a senior climate scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a group that campaigns for climate action. “We have the tools to cut methane in half and the faster we do that, the better off our climate and communities will be.”

Former President Donald Trump will return to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office, delivering a policy speech before an allied think tank that has been crafting an agenda for a possible second term. Trump will address the America First Policy Institute’s two-day America First Agenda Summit as some advisers urge him to spend more time talking about his vision for the future and less time relitigating the 2020 election as he prepares to announce an expected 2024 White House campaign. “I believe it will be a very policy-focused, forward-leaning speech, very much like a State of the Union 5.0,” said Brooke Rollins, AFPI’s president. Composed of former Trump administration officials and allies, the nonprofit is widely seen as an “administration in waiting” that could quickly move to the West Wing if Trump were to run again and win. Trump’s appearance in Washington — his first trip back since Jan. 20, 2021, when President Joe Biden was sworn into office — comes as his potential 2024 rivals have been taking increasingly overt steps to challenge his status as the party’s standard-bearer. They include former Vice President Mike Pence, who has been touting his own “Freedom Agenda” in speeches that serve as an implicit contrast with Trump. Read: Jan. 6 panel deepens probe to Trump Cabinet, awaits Thomas “Some people may choose to focus on the past, but I believe conservatives must focus on the future. If we do, we won’t just win the next election, we will change the course of American history for generations,” Pence had planned to say in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on the eve of Trump’s visit. Pence’s appearance was postponed because of bad weather, but he will be delivering his own speech Tuesday morning before the Young America’s Foundation not far from the AFPI meeting. Trump has spent much of his time since leaving office fixated on the 2020 election and spreading lies about his loss to sow doubt about Biden’s victory. Indeed, even as the Jan. 6 committee was laying bare his desperate and potentially illegal attempts to remain in power and his refusal to call off a violent mob of his supporters as they tried to halt the peaceful transition of power, Trump continued to try to pressure officials to overturn Biden’s win, despite there being no legal means to decertify the past election. On Tuesday, he plans to focus on public safety. “President Trump sees a nation in decline that is driven, in part, by rising crime and communities becoming less safe under Democrat policies,” said his spokesman, Taylor Budowich. “His remarks will highlight the policy failures of Democrats, while laying out an America First vision for public safety that will surely be a defining issue during the midterms and beyond.” Beyond the summit, staff at the America First Policy Institute have been laying their own groundwork for the future, “making sure we do have the policies, personnel and process nailed down for every key agency when we do take the White House back,” Rollins said. The nonprofit developed, she said, from efforts to avoid the chaotic early days of Trump’s first term, when he arrived at the White House unprepared, with no clear plans ready to put in place. As Trump was running for reelection, Rollins, then the head of Trump’s Domestic Policy Council, began to sketch out a second-term agenda with fellow administration officials, including top economic policy adviser Larry Kudlow and national security adviser Robert O’Brien. When it became clear Trump would be leaving the White House, she said, AFPI was created to continue that work ”organized around that second term agenda that we never released.” The organization, once dismissed as a landing zone for ex-Trump administration officials shut out of more lucrative jobs, has grown into a behemoth, with an operating budget of around $25 million and 150 staff, including 17 former senior White Houses officials and nine former Cabinet members. Read: Ivana Trump, first wife of former president, dies at 73 The group also has more than 20 policy centers and has tried to extend its reach beyond Washington with efforts to influence local legislatures and school boards. An “American leadership initiative,” led by the former head of the Office of Personnel Management, Michael Rigas, launched several weeks ago to identify future staff loyal to Trump and his “America First” approach who could be hired as part of a larger effort to replace large swaths of the civil service, as Axios recently reported. The group is one of several Trump-allied organizations that have continued to push his polices in his absence, including America First Legal, dedicated to fighting Biden’s agenda through the court system, the Center for Renewing America and the Conservative Partnership Institute. The summit is intended to highlight AFPI’s “America First Agenda,” centered around 10 key policy areas including the economy, health care and election security. It includes many of Trump’s signature issues, like continuing to build a wall along the southern border and a plan to “dismantle the administrative state.” In a speech Monday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose “Contract with America” has been credited with helping Republicans sweep the 1994 midterm elections, praised the effort as key to future GOP victory. “The American people want solutions,” he said.

Two people were killed and at least five others were injured after gunfire erupted Sunday at a Los Angeles park where a car show was being held. The LA Police Department said the shooting occurred around 3:50 p.m. at Peck Park in LA’s San Pedro neighborhood. The LAPD tweeted it wasn’t an active shooter situation but provided no more information. LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz said during a news conference that the casualties were reported at the baseball diamond. Police have not identified the victims. Read:Chief: 3 dead in Indiana mall shooting; witness kills gunman “The original call came out as having multiple shooting victims on the baseball diamond at Peck Park. As we speak here, this is an ongoing, active crime scene, and we are continuing to clear the park for evidence and potentially additional victims,” Muniz said. “We don’t know exactly how many shooters we have at this point.” The LA Fire Department said the incident occurred at or near the car show and that at least three people suffered gunshot wounds and two of them were in critical condition. Seven people overall, four men and three women, were injured and taken to hospitals, according to the fire department. Police have not offered a motive. No arrests have been made. Peck Park is about 20 miles (32.19 kilometers) south of downtown Los Angeles.