Friday morning news - February 11, 2022

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Inflation highest in 40 years » Inflation continues to soar with no end in sight. The Labor Department says consumer prices jumped 7.5 percent last month compared with a year earlier.

That’s the steepest year-over-year increase in 40 years, hammering consumers and wiping out pay raises.

President Biden, speaking at a community college in Virginia on Thursday, addressed rising prices on all kinds of things, including gas.

BIDEN: When the price of gas went up, you felt it in the household. You knew what it was like. It matters.

Prices are rising across the economy, from food and furniture to apartment rents, airline fares to electricity.

BIDEN: But the fact is that, if we’re able to do the things we’re talking about here, it will bring down the cost for average families.

The president again said if Congress passed his massive spending plan, it would help to lower costs.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued big-spending Democratic policies are largely to blame for spiraling inflation.

MCCONNELL: Democratic policies have created an inflation riptide that is forcing families and small businesses to swim as fast as they can just to avoid getting sucked out to sea.

Many economists say big government spending during the pandemic was one of the drivers of inflation but shortages of supplies and workers, ultra-low interest rates and robust consumer spending have also fueled rising costs.

Unemployment drops for third straight week » The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits fell for the third straight week. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The Labor Dept. says jobless claims fell about 7 percent last week to 223,000.

The four-week average for claims, which smooths out weekly volatility, also declined slightly—less than 1 percent. But any decline at all is good news. That average had risen for five straight weeks as the omicron COVID-19 wave disrupted commerce.

Last week, the Labor Department reported a surprising burst of hiring in January, with employers adding 467,000 jobs.

In total, 1.6 million Americans collected jobless aid the week that ended Jan. 29th.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Biden administration urges Canadian govt. to end bridge blockade » The Biden administration urged the Canadian government Thursday to use its federal powers to end the truck blockade along the U.S.-Canada border.

Canadians protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, have parked cars and trucks along the Ambassador Bridge that connects Ontario to Detroit blocking traffic for several days.

The bumper-to-bumper demonstration forced auto plants on both sides of the border to shut down or scale back production.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki…

PSAKI: We are also monitoring very closely and engaged with auto companies on what the impacts could be on auto parts, which is what would come from Canada, and the impact on the United States.

She said they’re also monitoring interruptions of agricultural deliveries.

The Ambassador Bridge carries roughly 25 percent of all U.S.-Canada trade.

The White House says US officials have been in touch with Canadian leaders, urging them to help end the standoff.

UK's Johnson cites 'a dangerous moment' in Ukraine crisis » As the Russian military held joint drills with troops in Belarus, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued this warning:

JOHNSON: We stand on the edge of a precipice, and things are as dangerous as I’ve seen them in Europe for a very, very long time. And it’s up to Vladimir Putin now to disengage and to de-escalate, and the way forward is diplomacy.

Johnson's remarks came as the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss held icy talks with her Russian counterpart who said the Kremlin won’t accept lectures from the West.

NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg meantime said not only is Moscow not deescalating—it’s actually moving in the wrong direction.

STOLTENBERG: The number of Russian forces is going up. The warning time for a possible attack is going down.

Russia has massed well over 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border.

Tesla racks up recalls » Tesla has issued 15 recalls in recent weeks as federal regulators ramp up scrutiny of its electric vehicles. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched multiple investigations into the company’s safety features. That includes a probe of a possible autopilot malfunction that might have caused a dozen crashes into parked vehicles.

The latest recall targets so-called “Boombox” software on more than a half-million cars that allows drivers to play sounds while the vehicles are moving. That feature violates a federal pedestrian warning noise requirement.

Last week, Tesla recalled nearly 54,000 vehicles over reports that its “full self-driving” feature did not completely halt the car at stop signs.

And the company recalled more than 800,000 cars this month because seat belt chimes failed to activate when drivers were not buckled.

The electric carmaker has had explosive growth in recent years. In 2021, it delivered nearly a million cars, bringing in $5.5 billion dollars in revenue.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. For more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org. 

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