Surveillance law and tournament news

Good morning Consumers are feeling the pinch as inflation ticks up. Bars explains what could come next. What we're looking at right now, I think, is this idea of whether or not this is going to be a short term pain, or if we're going to see a lot of this oil shock start to bleed into the real economy President Trump signs a bill paying for much of his immigration agenda through the rest of his term And after the whistle host, Rebecca Low explains how this World Cup could push soccer even further into the mainstream of American culture. This country is starting to realize why the rest of the world loves this sport. It's Thursday, june eleventh. I'm Gidian Resnik in Fhita Basu. This is Apple News today Inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in May according to figures that were released yesterday The war in Iran has disrupted oil flows in the Strait of Hormuz and driven fuel costs significantly higher. Tariffs and drought conditions combined with that have made grocery shopping pricier And Americans have been increasingly dipping into savings accounts and falling behind on credit card bills. So this is kind of scary, I think, for a lot of people when they start to look at this. Meghan Lenhart is a senior economics writer at Baron's. There's some pain points here, and a lot of it is stemming from the oil shock that we are currently experiencing Prices have also risen faster than wages for months, which is making Americans feel squeezed and contributing to negative views on the economy Inflation was also lifted last month by higher rents, airfare, and personal services, like haircuts. As an everyday consumer, probably feeling pinch these days. We're still seeing you know a decent amount of inflation coming from a lot of different goods areas. and that means higher prices when you go to the store, when you go to the drug store, things like that. These are all kind of very concerning things. Leonard said that policymakers will be keenly interested in whether these are temporary spikes or if they become more entrenched This is sort of what we experienced in previous inflation bouts, especially when inflation starts to get very high. You start off with something like oil, for example, oil prices are high. That leads to higher prices at the pump. But then that starts to bleed into other things. So transportation costs go up. That means airfares go up. That means the cost of transporting your food and getting food to the grocery store from the farms or the production facilities Those costs go up, that means you're ending up paying a lot more. Now it does seem as though May's inflation rate could represent a peak, and gas prices have fallen this month, even as they remain high There was some optimism within the data for shoppers as well. grocery inflation softened a little bit over the month. That's great news. I think anyone can cheer when they don't have to spend as much at the grocery store. But when it came to dining out, the cost of dining out, that actually firmed up a little bit. So unfortunately, while you know food inflation is not crazy overwhelming at this point. It is something worth watching. Some economists have also pointed to the fact that core prices, basically stripping out more volatile food and energy categories, have risen much more modestly That could be what drove President Trump to say, quote, I love the inflation yesterday, expressing optimism that things would ease up when the war in Iran ends Though after a new round of airirstrikes from the US, that end date remains unclear These inflation numbers are also going to be front and center next week when the new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh presides over his first policy meeting. Even as he's signaled openness to potential interest rate cuts before his nomination, the likelihood now is that Fed officials will probably keep rates unchanged. That's the communication that they've been telegraphing. But there are a number of Fed officials who are sort of stepping up and saying, hey We're going to keep watching this for now and we're not going to make any big changes, but we're getting increasingly concerned about this broadening out about the potential for entrenchment. In fact, if inflation does remain a challenge, at least one Fed governor has said that they could no longer rule out raising rates later this year Yesterday, President Trump ended a months long stalemate over immigration enforcement funding by signing a Republican backed bill that gives roughly seventy billion dollars to IC and border patrol. I'm thrilled to sign the Secure America Act to immediately and fully fund The Department of Homeland Security through the end of my term The fact that this funding will last through the rest of Trump's term is quite unusual Charelle Dillard, a congressional economicy reporter for the Washington Post told us why. Appropriations are normally done in a bipartisan manner in that provroides some oversight and some checks and balances as well, right? And these agencies are normally only funded for a year. But doing this through the reconciliation process, Republicans decided to fund those agencies for the next three years, which will go through fiscal year twenty twenty nine. and that kind of eliminates that oversight that would normally be there In other words, Republicans use this special process called reconciliation to sidestep their Democratic colleagues entirely The bill passed narrowly in the House on Tuesday along party lines And in the Senate, just one Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, joined Democrats in trying to block the measure Democrats did not want to support additional funding for these agencies after federal officers killed two protesters in Minneapolis earlier this year They wanted the bill to include changes to immigration enforcement tactics, like requiring judicial warrants to enter homes and banning face masks for officers None of that made it into this bill neeither did bipartisan proposals like requiring immigration agents to wear body cameras Now, the federal agencies responsible for immigration enforcement will have money to enact Trump's policies with few stipulations on how it's spent That's even if the makeup of the House and Senate were to change after the midterm elections Bill markarks the second time within a year that billions of dollars have been granted to federal immigration enforcement agencies through Republican votes alone Dillard spoke to at least one member of the party who felt squeamish about the way this latest bill was passed. I spoke to Representative Tom Cole, who is the lead Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. He said that he was very reluctant to have to fund INCBP this way, but he felt like they had no choice, but he doesn't believe that this would happen again in the future or become normalized. And if it did, he said he wouldn't support it James Walinhaw of Virginia, a Democrat in the House, told NPR that he expects to see Democrats respond by being more aggressive in committee hearings, where IC and border patrol leaders testify done that on the Homeland Security Committee. You'll continue to see us use tools and mechanisms like the Government accountability Office and IGs, independent inspector genereneral to the extent that Trump hasn't fired them to request investigations into specific enforcement programs. We'll have document requests. We'll highlight the most egregious cases. But beyond that, getting any changes through the appropriation process appears limited at best now att least until twenty twenty nine. Nxt six weeks, one hundred and four matches of the world's best soccer will be happening across the US, Mexico, and Canada as the largest World Cup tournament in history gets underway. Join me now to set the stakes is Rebecca Low. She's been covering the Premier League for NBC sports for over a decade. She'll be covering the tournament this year for Fox sports, and she is the co host of the Apple News World Cup podcast After the Whistle. Rebecca, hello, welcome. Gian, thank you, so lovely to be here with you. Thank you so much for joining us. So Rebecca, as we said, this is going to be a massive tournament We have forty eight teams total. That's a stark departure from how the tournament has been structured for the last almost thirty years where the men's World Cup had thirty two teams that were involved. that change in format impacts the way this tournament plays out. In lots of different ways. Firstly, we're going to see a lot of teams who Would never have thought they'd ever get anywhere near a World Cup. We've got four first timers, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan, Jordan, and Kuracau. In one way, Gideon, that could be a great thing. We're going see new cultures, new colors, new vibrancy, new sets of fans who are living their dream. The flip side of that is we could see some very lopsided scorelines We could see a lot of goals against those teams because you really are mismatching, say a Cusu with the Germany, for example. And that isn't always a great look when you have maybe an eight nil or a nine nil. it may not happen It could well happen because a differentiation between the best and the not so good will now be a lot bigger. thirty two teams are going to go through to the knockout round, which means that there's a lot more hope for a lot of teams that are so used to going out at the group stage. Maybe a middle ranking team, somebody like a Sweden or an Ecuador or Ghana in this World Cup, they have a really good chance of going through to the knockout rounds where anything can happen. so it's going to affect it in a multitude of ways. And this is only the second time in World Cup history that the US has hosted the men's tournament. And again, it's sharing that role with Canada and Mexico. But I want to ask you about what it could mean for soccer standing here in the US. The sport has come quite a long way since the Men's World Cup was here in nineteen ninety four. It's booming in popularity, more popular than major Lague baseball, according to at least One survey released earlier this year So how might this World Cup accelerate that trend? Oh, I think it's going to have a huge impact. I mean, if you think back to nineteen ninety four, there was no domestic league in the United States, and from the World Cup of ' ninety four birthed major League soccer in nineteen ninety six, which is now thriving thirty years later Soccer is no longer the niche, if you know, you know sport. Soccer is mainstream. I think this is going to take it forward hugely It's a really exciting prospect. And later this week we're going to hear from your after the whistle co host, Brendon Hunt, all about Team USA, their prospects, how they might be looking in this tournament. So I want to take this moment to ask you instead about everybody else that is vying for this world title who are Let's say three or so teams that you're keeping a close eye on that could potentially make a deep run here Your favorites, Gide in of France and Spain. France have a squad where they fielded two teams, if they were allowed to, they could probably win the World Cup with either of them, which means that their first eleven that starts a game, when they then make their substitutions, which normally happ some midway through the second half, they can put five subs on and turn this game around because the strength on their bench is so incredible. Spain, a young team, but a manager Has this team playing like a club footall team as opposed to a national football team becausecause remember a lot of these or all of these national teams, they don't spend all their time together, like you would at club soccer. But Spain looks like they do. So you've got France, you've got Spain. let's not forget Argentina, defefending champions, Leonol Messi. you look through their starting lineup and it's still really strong like it was four years ago, but people are sort of sleeping on Argentina a little bit Winning back to back World Cups has only ever happened twice and the last time was the late fifties and early sixties. So I think because of that, people are thinking, well it's so hard to win back to back, they won't do it. Don't be so sure, Argentina and for me are weirdly underestimated and then I have to say England. don't I Of They're number four in the world. They're number one in my heart and let's hope they're number one come the end of July A lot, a lot of great options there. Rebecca, before I let you go, can you just let our listeners know where they can actually find after the whistle if they want to hear You talk about all of the action, Brendon talk about all the action throughout this tournament. I mean, basically everywhere, Gideon, where you get your podcasts is where we will be on Apple podcasts, on the Apple News apppp as well, on YouTube, on Spotify, you can see us. This is season three and finally, we're in vision. We're on camera for your delight. And also we are over on all the social media platforms at A the Whistle, Apple. We've even made it to TikTok Oho, wonderful. The final frontier. Rebecca, thank you so much again Thanks, Ganian And for more from Rebecca, stick around after today's episode If you're listing in the Apple News app after the whistle, we'll play for you next and to a few other stories we're following Congress is struggling to come to a resolution to extend a warrantless surveillance law before it expires on Friday That's in large part because Democrats have said they won't support an extension of the law called FISA. But it's because they objected Trump's nomination of an ally, Bill Polty, as the director of National intelligence Poltty, a federal housing regulator has no intelligence experience and was seen as a controversial pick to fill the DNI role Congressional Republicans have lobbied Trump to nominate a permanent replacement, saying it'd be difficult to get the votes to pass the bill otherwise Trump says he's interviewing five people for the job, all with a national security background On Wednesday, he asked for a short term extension of the law so he could have time to make his pick. There are concerns that a lapse in PfIizA could hamper security efforts around the World Cup And as the World Cup kicks off tonight with its first two matches, thousands of miles away, a World Cup worthy celebration had already taken place on Wednesday I want to thank for FIFA for supporting me all the way and so many people also. So I'm very grateful for FIFA and for KAf also That's the sound of Omar Artin receiving a hero's welcome in Mogadishu and speaking to reporters after being denied entry into the US to be a referee in this year's tournament Arton would have been the first Somali official to referee a World Cup. But he was denied entry upon arriving in Miami and later cut by FIFA He had reportedly been issued a visa to travel to the US, but a US official told the AP that he was denied entry due to association with suspected members of terror organizations Arton told The New York Times that he was questioned about the militant group Al Shab. But he said he didn't know anything about them Somalia is among almost forty countries that have been subjected to new travel restrictions FiefF of President Gianni In Ffantino called the matter unfortunate, but said that his hands were tied. Maybe sometimes it's good as well to just your own Chill Relax We work on everything, We try to solve everything sometometimes to immediately start screaming and shouting has the opposite effect of finding a solution Infantino added that FIFA can't control what governments do regarding entry into the country Artin is considered one of Africa's most decorated and respected referees And it was a clash of global superstars in Spain this week when Pope Leo and Bad Bunny both made appearances on the same night in Madrid And while Leo said that he assumed people would choose Bad Bunny's concert over his prayer vigil this past Saturday, he couldn't have been more wrong About six hundred thousand people showed up to see the Pontiff compared to about sixty thousand for Bad Bunny. The global music artist actually became an attendee at a later event for the Pope and met him afterwards The Times of London reports Spanish youth were quote, going nuts over the pope Perhaps proving that his efforts at attracting more young people to the church is beginning to work And he even did the ubiquitous six seven meme with his hands as he passed by, something you really might have to see to believe You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to the news app right now, stick around. The latest episode of After the Whistle, posted by Rebecca Low and Brendan Hunt, making a Coach Beard from Ted Lasso is coming up next. That's where you can follow all the highs and lows of the World Cup this summer. If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow After the Whistle for new episodes, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.