Economic Pressures and Global News Updates

Live from NPR news, I'm Lakshmi Singh . President Trump says that the United States will launch heavier attacks on Iran tonight . He made the claim on social media this morning the U. S. and Iran have been trading military strikes since the downing of a U. S. Apache helicopter Monday. President Trump blamed that on Iran, and Perse Daniel Kurtzlaben has the latest . The president has continually made threats and pronouncements about the war on social media and this latest post amps up his rhetoric. He wrote that the U. S. will be quote hitting Iran, adding later in all caps , very hard tonight. Trump also threatened to attack Carg Island, which is central to Iran's oil exports. However, Trump told Fox News this morning that the U. S. and Iran are still in talks. He added that he doesn't want to have boots on the ground, but that if he wants, he could send in, quote, a small group of sold iers . President Trump has said many times that an end to the war could come imminently. Earlier this week, he said an agreement to end the war could be coming within days. Danielle Kurtzlieban and PR News, the White House . The rising price of doing business is likely to put even more pressure on U. S. consumers and add to voter frustration this midterm election year. A new Labor Department report shows a producer price index in May rose six and a half percent from a year ago . The Iran war is contributing to a fuel price surge that's largely driving inflationary pressures. And Pierre Scott Horseley is tracking the impact on the average consumer. Because of those high gas prices, a lot of people are having to cut corners elsewhere. Emily Inlo is a mother of two in Nicholasville, Kentucky. She says cost and driving distance have forced her to skip sending her eleven year old son to summer camp this year. It feels awful as a parent not being able to like give these experiences to my kids that I had growing up . And it just feels like I'm not doing great as a parent, but we got to do what we got to do. Inla's five year old daughter is in daycare and nationwide daycare prices are also about three and a half percent. And PR Scott Hoarsley riots continued overnight in Northern Ireland after stabbing in the capital Belfast earlier this week. The suspect in the attack is a refugee from Sudan. And PR's Lauren Ferris says calls of violence have been amplified online by far right social media accounts. Masked men with hit lists and Molotov cocktails have been going door to door in parts of East Belfast, hunting for foreigners or people of color in what the United Kingdom's Minister for Northern Ireland calls racist thuggery. Billionaire ex owner Elon Musk is one of those sharing anti immigrant material online. Belfast police chief Constable John Boucher urged people to ignore such posts. Stop listening to these idiots. We will be going after them the incitement that they've been doing. Charred homes and torched cars are reminiscent of what rival paramilit aries did to Belfast a generation ago, during three decades of Catholic Protestant conflict known as the Troubles. Lauren Freyer NPR News, London. It's NPR Elon Musk stands to become the world's first trillionaire . Stock in his company SpaceX is expected, that is, to start trading publicly tomorrow under the ticker SPCX . The company said in its June filing with the SEC it planned to sell more than five hundred fifty five million shares at a price of one hundred thirty five dollars and raise seventy five billion dollars World Cup Soccer tournament kicks off with an opening ceremony in Mexico City. The head of FIFA is defending high ticket prices and Pierre's Becky Sullivan says this is the most expensive edition of the soccer tournament ever staged. Chief President Johnny Fanto argued that World Cup ticket prices are in line with playoff games in North American sports. He pointed to the New York Knicks, whose NBA finals tickets have soared into the thousands of dollars. The World Cup will be watched by six billion people. So in terms of importance, the World Cup is much, much more important . Fans have accused FIFA of deceptive sales practices, such as selling tickets with a desirable category one designation, then assigning those buyers to seats it would later advertise as being in a less appealing tier. On Tuesday, Texas became the latest state, along with California, New Jersey, and New York to open an investigation into those sales tactics. Infantino says lawyers vetted FIFA's practices and will make their case as needed. Becky Sullivan in PR News. Mortgage rates have risen again. The finance giant Freddie Mac finding the average thirty year fixed rate rose to six point five two percent higher than last week, but still below where it was a year ago . The rate on a fifteen year loan is also higher, averaging five point eight four percent. This is NPR News