Business

(NEW YORK) — Speaking at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said the House will vote in “the coming weeks” on legislation to raise the debt ceiling and cut federal spending as he continued to blame President Joe Biden for not negotiating and accused him of “misleading the public.”

“I want to talk to you about the debate that’s not happening in Washington but should be happening over our national debt. It’s a debate that directly affects the lives of every American,” McCarthy said.

His latest salvo in the showdown comes as the White House has warned that, if House Republicans fail to pass a debt ceiling increase by this summer with no budget cuts attached, it would create financial chaos in world markets.

McCarthy said a $31 trillion debt is “too high” and the “problem is getting worse, not better.”

“Without exaggeration, America’s debt is a ticking time bomb that will detonate unless we take serious, responsible action. Yet how has President Biden reacted to this issue? He’s done nothing. So, in my view, he’s been irresponsible,” McCarthy said.

Biden and McCarthy met 75 days ago on Feb. 1, but the two leaders have not met or spoken about the debt ceiling since — beyond trading claims to reporters.

The president has not budged on his refusal to negotiate over the debt limit and has dismissed GOP efforts to combine a debt ceiling vote to a deal on the budget.

“Mr. President, with all due respect, enough is enough. This is not how the leader of the free world should act. Your partisan political games are provoking the very crisis you claim you want to avoid greater dependency on China, increasing inflation, and threatening Medicare and Social Security,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy says defaulting on our debt is “not an option” but blames the Biden administration for not engaging in negotiations with House Republicans.

“Make no mistake: The longer President Biden waits to be sensible, to find agreement, the more likely it becomes that his administration will bumble into the first default in our nation’s history,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy says a “no strings attached” debt limit increase will not pass.

“In the coming weeks, the House will vote on a bill to lift the debt ceiling into next year, save taxpayers trillions of dollars, make us less dependent on China, and curb high inflation — all without touching Social Security or Medicare,” McCarthy said.

He claimed the bill will limit federal spending, economic dependence on China, and the growth of spending over the next 10 years to 1% annual growth. The bill will also “claw back” billions of dollars in unused COVID-19 related spending, he said.

“Our proposal will also include restoring work requirements that ensure able-bodied adults without dependents earn a paycheck and learn new skills. That will grow our economy and help the supply chain,” McCarthy said.

This bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate. McCarthy is hoping this will bring Biden to the negotiating table.

Ahead of McCarthy’s speech on Monday, the White House accused him of “holding the economy and full faith and credit of the United States hostage.”

“Speaker McCarthy is holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, threatening our economy and hardworking Americans’ retirement,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a written statement. “A speech isn’t a plan, but it’s clear that extreme MAGA Republicans’ wish lists will impose devastating cuts on hardworking families, send manufacturing overseas, take health care and food assistance away from millions of people, and increase energy costs — all while adding trillions to the debt with tax cuts skewed to the super-wealthy and corporations.”

Bates drew attention to when former Presidents Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan spoke out against debt-ceiling brinksmanship. And he noted that reporting on what McCarthy might call for in his speech “has shown no consensus within the Republican conference.”

“MAGA House Republicans can’t even agree what they are holding the debt limit hostage over,” Bates wrote. “Their proposals are all over the map, but they all have one thing in common: devastating cuts to programs that working families rely on to lower costs and make ends meet.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was also slated to respond to McCarthy’s New York Stock Exchange speech, with his office saying that on Monday he’ll call on McCarthy “to stop the partisan games and show us his plan to avoid defaulting on our national debt and provoking global financial catastrophe.”

McCarthy closed out his speech on Monday saying, “Well, if there’s one thing I hope America has learned about me in these first 100 days since I was elected speaker, it’s this: I will never give up.”

He said he has “full confidence that if we limit” federal spending, the U.S. will end dependence on China, curb inflation and protect Social Security and Medicare for the next generation.

“I’m here to tell you I want a responsible, sensible debt ceiling that puts us on an economic path to make America stronger. That works for every American. But that cannot happen if the president continues to ignore the problem and he can’t continue any longer. The day is coming. I do not want to see this president bumble into a default. I want to sit down and solve the problem together,” McCarthy said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Monday plans to announce a new round public and private commitments aimed at accelerating electric vehicle use throughout United States.

The commitments to be rolled out on Monday, which include investment pledges from Uber, Zipcar and other tech companies, build on the White House’s February announcement that Tesla plans to open thousands of its charging stations to the public.

“These commitments are part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to spur domestic manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, boost U.S. competitiveness and create good-paying jobs,” the administration said on Monday.

The administration set a goal of having 50% of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030. It also plans to add more than 100,000 public EV chargers to the more than 135,000 now available throughout the country.

City officials in Madison, Wisconsin, have committed to converting its entire fleet of about 900 vehicles to EVs by 2030, the White House said on Monday.

And private companies have also made commitments to the White House to boost electric vehicle use in the years ahead.

Zipcar, a vehicle-sharing company, said it would “allocate 25% of its electric vehicles to disadvantaged communities in 2023,” the administration said in a release.

And the White House said on Monday that Uber, the ride-hailing company, had agreed to commit to driving 400 million EV miles on its platform by the end of 2023.

Uber will also “help hundreds of thousands of drivers transition to EVs and through its partnerships with automakers, rental companies, and charging companies,” officials said.

Bowie, Maryland-based Blink Charging committed to investing $49 million to increase its manufacturing capacity, growing it from 10,000 to 40,000 chargers per year by 2024.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Michael Critchley’s job is to persuade his longtime Ford customers to swap their gas-guzzling pickups for the F-150 Lightning.

Ford started production of the all-electric Lightning in late 2021 and the Dearborn automaker still cannot keep up with demand. Critchley says he has so many requests for the electric truck that he’s forced to turn away wannabe owners.

“People are offering me a lot of money over MSRP. I’ve been offered $20K above sticker price,” Critchley, the sales manager of Romeo Ford in Kingston, New York, told ABC News. “A lot of pickup guys are coming to the Lightning.”

Higher material costs and ongoing chip shortages have hampered production of the $60,000 pickup, which gets at least 230 miles on a full charge, forcing eager buyers to wait months or longer for theirs to arrive. The Dearborn automaker sold 15,600 F-150 Lightning units in 2022.

Critchley says he has been seeing customers trade out of a Tesla or a hybrid SUV for a Lightning. Some of his upstate New York customers are so fed up with the long wait they’re going to competing dealerships and paying more.

“I have about 25 customers waiting for one … the higher prices haven’t deterred customers,” Critchley said. “My dad has one and loves it. He’s never getting rid of it.”

Ford has raised the price of the Lightning multiple times since its launch. Customers who choose the entry-level Pro model now pay at least $20,000 more than the original $40,000 price.

Ivan Drury, senior manager of insights at Edmunds, said Ford could charge even more and customers would pay up. The average transaction price of a Lightning this year costs $84,192 versus $64,331 for the standard F-150 truck, Drury pointed out.

“The Lightning is a home run for Ford,” he told ABC News. “The company has hundreds of thousands of reservations — it’s sold out through 2024. There is no cooling down in this market.”

The F-150 Lightning may be wildly popular with Americans but competition in the burgeoning electric market is just heating up. Rivian’s compact R1T electric pickup has already won accolades with the automotive community. GMC has seen unprecedented interest in its $110,000 Hummer EV pickup. The brand’s $107,000 Sierra EV Denali goes on sale in early 2024.

Stellantis recently unveiled the Ram 1500 REV, a battery-electric light-duty pickup.

Common complaints of trucks — noisiness, hefty fuel costs — no longer apply with electric models.

“They’re getting consumers to think about EVs. The adoption rate is going up,” said Drury. “Electric trucks are removing all barriers to entry … I see them as the holy grail of EVs.”

Drury also noted that electric trucks post performance numbers not found in standard gas-powered pickups. The R1T and Hummer EV can sprint from 0-60 mph in 3 seconds; the Lightning completes the task in less than 4 seconds.

“No one expects a truck to be that fast,” said Drury.

The rapidly expanding lists of electric trucks could help President Joe Biden meet his latest climate goals that call for two-thirds of new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. to be all-electric by 2032. The Biden administration says these proposed rules would cut nearly 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions and save consumers $12,000 on average over the lifetime of a vehicle.

Electric vehicle sales are rising though they still account for a small share of the U.S. auto market. Drury said electric trucks totaled a fraction — 0.20% — of total vehicle sales in 2022. Cox Automotive forecasts EV sales will surpass 1 million units this year in the U.S.

Jonny Lieberman, senior features editor at MotorTrend, took the electric plunge when he bought a Rivian R1T in June of 2022. Lieberman said the truck’s off-roading capabilities convinced him to embrace the EV lifestyle.

“The truck has four motors — that’s game-changing for off-roading,” he told ABC News. “It’s also a performance vehicle with 845 horsepower and 908 lb-ft of torque.”

Lieberman, who lives in Southern California, installed a home charger to juice the truck’s battery for his outdoor adventures. He gets 270 miles on a full charge and hasn’t experienced range anxiety yet, he says.

“I stopped thinking about worse-case scenarios like what do I do on a road trip,” he said.

He’s even become an unofficial spokesperson for the brand, preaching to friends and strangers about the benefits of owning one.

“I have convinced many people to buy a Rivian. I am an evangelist,” he said. “Imagine never having to go to a gas station again.”

Tony Caravano, senior director of customer engagement at Rivian, said 75% of R1T and R1S customers are new to EVs. Moreover, 60% of R1T customers have never owned a pickup truck before.

“People are really excited by the design, capability and performance,” Caravano told ABC News. “The vehicles are durable. Customers put baby strollers in the truck’s gear tunnel.”

He added, “We’re exposing EV technology to a lot of people.”

Owners of the $73,000 Rivian R1T truck are some of the happiest in the industry, according to a new J.D. Power survey. Many buy the R1T and the R1S, the company’s three-row SUV, for their daily commutes or to shuttle their kids to and from school, Caravano said.

The R1T may also soon act as a backup power generator, similar to what the F-150 Lightning can do. Ford customers who purchase the Lightning’s extended range battery can power up their homes for up to three days.

Rivian, like Tesla and Mercedes, is also busy building out its “Rivian Adventure Network,” where Rivian customers can exclusively charge their vehicles at various U.S. locations. Rivian currently has 113 DC fast charging sites and 34 additional locations are coming online soon, Caravano said.

“Charging infrastructure is very important as well as and education around charging,” he said.

The all-electric 2025 Ram 1500 REV, which made its debut in New York this month, has a targeted range of 350 miles with a standard 168 kilowatt-hour battery pack. That number jumps to 500 miles if owners choose the larger 229 kilowatt-hour battery.

The 1500 REV marks the first battery-electric light-duty pickup truck from Ram Trucks. The truck can add up to 110 miles of range in about 10 minutes with 800-volt DC fast charging.

“We believe in bringing the right range of powertrain solutions to our customers and will continue to redefine the pickup truck segment. Our all-new Ram 1500 REV pushes past the competition in areas customers care about most including range, towing, payload and charge time,” Ram CEO Mike Koval Jr. said.

The Silverado EV will be available next summer and GM is already accepting deposits online. The Detroit automaker said the truck will get an estimated 400 miles of range, utilize GM’s Ultium EV Platform and include the Super Cruise driver-assistance technology.

Jim Farley, the president and CEO of Ford, told ABC News in March a second electric will soon be built at Ford’s BlueOval City manufacturing campus in Stanton, Tennessee.

“Lightning is the best-selling electric pickup in the U.S. but this will be its successor,” he said.

Electric trucks’ gargantuan size and massive battery packs have not gone unnoticed. The beefy Hummer weighs more than 9,000 lbs; the Lightning tips the scale at 6,500 pounds — 2,000 to 3,000 pounds more than the internal combustion F-150. The extra weight has prompted federal officials and industry watchers to warn of their safety risks.

“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” Jennifer Homendy, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in January. “We have to be careful that we aren’t also creating unintended consequences: More death on our roads. Safety, especially when it comes to new transportation policies and new technologies, cannot be overlooked.”

Another criticism of electric trucks: Range drops precipitously when towing. MotorTrend found the F-150 Lightning’s range fell from 300 to 115 miles when towing a 3,140-pound camper. The magazine’s testing also discovered the truck’s max range was 100 miles when pulling a 5,260-pound camper. The R1T’s estimated 314-mile range gets slashed by half when hauling a heavy load, according to reports.

Critchley of Romeo Ford said “die-hard diesel and gas guys” who live in rural, upstate New York may be the last holdouts in the electric truck revolution. If these trucks can reliably tow, pull and travel long distances, Critchley’s customers — farmers, construction workers and locals needing a reliable winter ride — may forgo diesel and gasoline for battery power.

“The Lightning is the best pickup I’ve driven,” he said.

Drury has already put down a deposit on the Ram 1500 REV, his first electric vehicle. The long wait may be the toughest part of owning one.

“You can have everything with these trucks,” he said. “I would choose an electric truck over anything.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Parler, a social media platform popular among conservatives, will temporarily shut down after being acquired by the hedge fund Starboard, the company said on Friday.

The acquisition comes months after the failure of a bid for the app’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, undertaken by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

Starboard pulled down the app as part of a “strategic assessment” but plans to relaunch the platform, the company said in a statement.

“No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,” Starboard said.

“We at Starboard see tremendous opportunities across multiple sectors to continue to serve marginalized or even outright censored communities,” the company added.

New York-based Starboard, founded in 2018, did not disclose how much it paid to acquire Parlement Technologies.

In the middle of last year, Parler counted 700,000 monthly average users compared with 2.8 million on rival rightwing platform Truth Social, according to data from the firm Data.ai, which was analyzed by the New York Times.

Starboard also owns right-leaning sites American Wire and BizPac Review.

“Parler’s large user base and additional strategic assets represent an enormous opportunity for Starboard to continue to build aggressively in our media and publishing business,” Ryan Coyne, CEO of Starboard, said in a statement.

“The team at Parler has built an exceptional audience and we look forward to integrating that audience across all of our existing platforms,” he added.

Parler was removed from iPhone and Android app stores after the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The platform was later reinstated to those app stores.

Launched five years ago, Parler characterized itself as a platform where a user could “speak freely and express yourself openly without fear of being ‘deplatformed’ for your views,” according to the homepage on its previous website.

Parler is among a host of alternative content platforms — including Truth Social, Rumble and Gab — considered to have less stringent content moderation policies than apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Parler is the most well-known of those alternative platforms, according to a Pew Research survey conducted last May.

Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults said they had heard of Parler, as opposed to 27% of adults familiar with Truth Social and 20% who knew of Rumble, the study showed.

The acquisition of Parler arrives amid tumult in the social media landscape.

Facebook-parent Meta, which has laid off more than 20,000 workers since the fall, has suffered declines in its revenue and stock price.

Meanwhile, Twitter has slashed roughly 75% of its workforce and overhauled its subscription offering since entrepreneur Elon Musk completed a $44 billion deal for the service in October.

China-based TikTok, which boasts more than 150 million U.S. users, faces bipartisan calls on Capitol Hill for a ban.

In the press announcement on Friday, Starboard referred to Parler as “the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Airlines are already booking up for getaways abroad this summer and as Americans finalize travel plans, there are some important things to keep in mind.

With 75% of seats already sold on their aircrafts, Delta revealed that it has had to increase its number of international flights.

As search interest soars for summer travel, Expedia travel expert Melanie Fish told ABC News’ Good Morning America that their app has already seen “a 25% jump in flight searches over the summer” for popular domestic destinations alone, such as Los Angeles, Seattle and New York City.

“People are going back to cities, but we’re also seeing people interested in these more far-flung destinations,” Fish said.

June will likely mark peak prices for domestic travel and July for international destinations.

Hayley Berg, an economist for the travel booking app Hopper, told GMA that for anyone planning to travel domestically, “book now if you’re going to be traveling in May, June or July.”

“If you’re planning to travel at the end of the summer, think August, early September and Labor Day,” Berg said. “You have a few more weeks to find the best deals.”

London, Paris, New Zealand, Japan and Vietnam are among the most popular international destinations. But Berg suggested finding cheaper destinations or nearby arrival cities for less.

“Most travelers headed to a bucket list vacation in Europe are going to consider the big cities Rome, Paris, London,” she said. “But Portugal is typically very inexpensive to fly in and out of.”

Bianca Signez plans to take her first international trip since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. But she told GMA that increased airfare alone for peak summer travel has already left her “really disappointed.”

“I hear that July is a great time to go to Italy, which I’m excited about, but it’s also very pricey,” Signez said. “The flight alone will cost me a little over $1,000 — I think that’s the most I’ve ever spent on a flight before.”

As airfare prices trend upwards, another option to get more bang for the buck could be to head for the high seas instead.

Cruise Critic shows that you can travel to Alaska between May and August for less than $115 per night per person, with some ships selling spots as low as $37. Meanwhile, average fares for cruises to Mexico are less than $100 per night for most of the summer.

When it comes time to plan domestic travel, experts suggested booking airfare 21 to 60 days out and at least three months in advance for international airfare.

Last year, average ticket prices were around 8% lower during these same time frames, compared to 60 to 90 days out.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Fresh calls to boycott Bud Light volley across social media nearly two weeks after a product endorsement from Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, set off backlash among some prominent conservatives.

Far-right House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Wednesday reposted a video for her 700,000 Twitter followers that featured a rapper in a pro-Trump hoodie burning empty Bud Light boxes. Celebrities Kid Rock and Ted Nugent previously voiced similar messages.

The boycott, which coincides with a conservative push in state legislatures nationwide to restrict LGBTQ rights, is the latest in a string of efforts among advocates on the left and right to damage the bottom line of companies deemed anathema to a given group’s views.

However, the campaigns rarely succeed in hurting a company’s sales or influencing its decision making, experts told ABC News, adding that they expect the calls to boycott Bud Light to ultimately fade away with little consequence for the brand’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev.

“The vast majority of boycott calls fail,” Maurice Schweitzer, a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business who studies consumer movements, told ABC News.

“They fail because you need people to have a sustained and coordinated response,” he added. “Most people fall back on what is convenient and inexpensive.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Since April 1, when Mulvaney posted an Instagram video promoting Bud Light, the price of Anheuser-Busch InBev stock has fallen about 3%.

It is difficult, however, to assess the financial impact of the boycott campaign, since many factors influence a company’s performance, said Allyson P. Brantley, a history professor at the University of La Verne and author of Brewing a Boycott, told ABC News.

“With consumer boycotts, it’s really hard to figure out if they’re making an impact on a company’s bottom line,” Brantley said. “Generally, consumer boycotts don’t really work.”

Budweiser has promoted itself as an LGBTQ-friendly brand for decades, Brantley said, adding that the brand had previously drawn ire from prominent conservatives in response to such marketing.

“The company has spent a lot of money and time trying to win that market,” she said. “It’s probably something they anticipated because they’ve faced this kind of backlash before.”

Politically motivated consumer boycotts typically pass with little consequence because participants become distracted by a different cause and revert back to old consumption habits, according to Schweitzer.

“Boycotts for different things displace the old calls for boycotts,” he said. “The news cycle keeps spinning so quickly.”

The boycott against Bud Light faces a further challenge because it follows an LGBTQ-friendly ad that may encourage sympathetic consumers to buy more of the product, offsetting or even exceeding the protest, the experts said.

“The benefits of appealing to one audience may outweigh the costs of another audience,” Schweitzer said.

In some cases, however, boycotts succeed because advocates remain focused for a prolonged period and a target proves sensitive to the pressure, experts said.

In 2019, celebrities Ellen Degeneres and George Clooney called for a boycott of Brunei-owned hotels worldwide because the country punished gay sex and adultery with the death penalty.

Ultimately, Brunei decided not to impose the death penalty for offenders of the anti-gay law.

A successful boycott “requires people to be quite passionate about something,” Schweitzer said.

Mulvaney responded to the backlash in an interview on the podcast “Onward with Rosie O’Donnell.”

“I have tried to be the most uncontroversial person this past year, and somehow, it has made me controversial still,” Mulvaney said.

She continued, “I think it comes back to the fact that these people don’t understand me, and anything that I do or say then somehow gets taken out of context and used against me. And it’s so sad, because everything I try to put out there is positive.”

Matt Tumminello, president of LGBTQ marketing firm Target 10, says brands have been marketing to queer consumers for decades — and it’s a smart business strategy to be encouraged.

“This is what America looks like, and so from a business perspective, time and again, marketing studies prove that being culturally inclusive, culturally resonant, reflecting the true fabric of America drives business and drives sales,” Tumminello told ABC News.

“From a societal standpoint, I think we know that this is the right thing to do. Because visibility breeds isolation, and that’s a dangerous thing, especially for young people,” he added.

LGBTQ advocates applauded companies that have used their platforms to support the community despite political attacks. LGBTQ people are their customers too, they say.

“The best that brands can do is be ready to stand up and defend and to talk about why they did what, why their marketing plans are inclusive, and why that really matters,” said Eric Bloem, Human Rights Campaign senior director of Programs and Corporate Advocacy, in an interview with ABC News.

Pride events across the country have long been sponsored by corporations and brands across industries, from airlines to banks to department stores to beauty brands and so on.

“Progress like this often comes with backlash, but it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, transgender people are your friends, family members, neighbors, business owners, and simply everyday Americans,” said Ash Orr, a spokesperson for the National Center for Transgender Equality, in a statement to ABC News.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve’s staff is more worried about the U.S. economy tipping into a recession after the recent banking crisis, the minutes from the central bank’s meeting in March reveal.

Economists at the Federal Reserve said they expect a “mild” recession later this year, an escalation from their previous assessment.

“Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” according to the publicly posted minutes from the meeting, which took place over March 21-22 right after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

The comments from economists on staff within the Federal Reserve reflect a dimmer outlook than public statements from Chairman Jerome Powell, who said after that March meeting “we don’t know” whether there will be a recession.

While several economists, including the International Monetary Fund, have said the U.S. and global economies face a higher risk of recession after the recent bank failures, the Biden administration has painted a rosier picture, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying she does not anticipate a “downturn” in the U.S. economy.

“I wouldn’t overdo the negativism about the global economy,” she said Tuesday. “I think countries have proven resilient, and a number of emerging-market and lower-income countries continue to show resilient growth.”

Speaking with reporters in Dublin, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued that economic indicators say “we are not headed to a recession or pre-recession.”

“Recent economic indicators are not consistent with a recession or even a pre-recession. And you can just look at the data: Twelve-point-five million jobs have been created since he took office — twelve-point-five million jobs. We’ve gained all the jobs lost during the pandemic and created three million more jobs. And so, unemployment is a near 50-year low and black unemployment is at a record low. Annual inflation has fallen over the last nine months,” she said.

Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th largest bank, collapsed in March and was taken over by the government. Signature Bank, the 29th-largest bank in the U.S., followed suit just days later, marking the largest bank failure since the 2008 crisis.

Despite the troubling outlook from Federal Reserve staff, the central bank has aimed to curb inflation. In February, year-over-year inflation was 6%. The data released on Wednesday marked the ninth consecutive month of smaller price hikes.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The head of the government agency that oversees recalls is making an urgent plea when it comes to getting a recalled baby product off the market.

Alexander Hoehn-Saric, chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, sent letters Wednesday to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Mattel, the maker of the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play sleeper, calling on the companies to do more to make sure the sleeper, recalled since 2019, is not used by consumers.

In the letters, Hoehn-Saric said his agency has found that hundreds of recalled Rock ‘n Play sleepers are sold every month on Facebook Marketplace and other secondhand sites.

The CPSC issued an initial recall of Rock ‘n Play sleepers in 2019 after 30 children were reported to have died after they were placed in a sleeper and “rolled from their back to their stomach or side while unrestrained, or under other circumstances,” according to the agency.

The recall applied to approximately 4.7 million sleeper products, many of which were sold between 2009 and 2019 at major retailers such as Target and Walmart and online on e-commerce sites like Amazon.

Hoehn-Saric noted in his letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the majority of secondhand listings for Rock ‘n Play sleepers are found on Facebook Marketplace.

“While CPSC staff informs me that Facebook Marketplace is responsive and moves quickly to remove listings that CPSC flags for Meta, CPSC should not be finding many illegal offers of life-threatening products on your platform,” Hoehn-Saric wrote. “Moreover, at best, CPSC is catching these unlawful products after they have been listed for sale and made available to the public; we do not know how many illegal sales occurred that we did not identify.”

He continued, “Facebook is uniquely positioned to identify recalled and violative products like the Rock ‘n Play and stop their sale before they are listed. This would guarantee that these dangerous products are not sold, and further tragedies are averted.”

In the letter to Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz , Hoehn-Saric called on the company to reannounce the recall and offer consumers more of an incentive to stop using the sleepers.

“Fisher Price clearly has not done enough to incentivize consumers to act upon the recall. Nor have the company’s actions deterred a secondary market for this product,” Hoehn-Saric wrote. “It is incumbent on Fisher Price to motivate consumers to stop using the Rock ‘n Play and to destroy unused Rock ‘n Plays that may be in their homes. A refund of the full purchase price of all Rock ‘n Plays would be a good start in achieving these outcomes.”

In January, the CPSC re-announced the recall of the Rock ‘n Play sleeper, noting that at least eight additional infant deaths had been associated with the product following the original 2019 recall.

The CPSC also confirmed at the time that at least 70 more infant deaths had been reported in connection to the sleeper, bringing the total to over 100.

In January, the CPSC instructed consumers to “stop using the Rock ‘n Play immediately and contact Fisher-Price for a refund or voucher.” The agency also noted in the reannouncement of the recall, “It is illegal to sell or distribute the recalled sleepers.”

In response to the letter from Hoehn-Saric, a spokesperson for Fisher-Price told ABC News the company “has worked diligently” to remove recalled sleepers from the market.

“Following the April 12, 2019 voluntary recall, Fisher-Price immediately stopped sales of Rock ‘n Play Sleepers,” the spokeperson said in a statement. “Since then, the company has worked diligently to remove all recalled product from the market, highlighted most recently by a widespread re-announcement of the original product recall, made jointly with the CPSC on January 9, 2023.”

The Fisher-Price spokesperson also noted the company is considering increasing the refund amount for consumers.

“We have recently made clear to the CPSC our willingness to increase the proportional cash refund available to consumers who participate in the recall,” the spokesperson said. “Fisher-Price and CPSC share a common goal: to remove this recalled product from the market. We look forward to collaborating with the CPSC to explore ways to promote participation in the recall. We urge both consumers and resellers that they should not use, sell, or donate the recalled Rock ‘n Play. If consumers have a recalled product, they should go to https://service.mattel.com/ to the ‘Recall and Safety Alert’ tab and follow the instructions on how to participate in the recall. We reaffirm our commitment to parents that we will always put their children’s safety first.”

A spokesperson for Meta told ABC News that selling recalled goods on Facebook Marketplace is a violation of the company’s policies. In addition, the company works on its own to remove recalled goods from Facebook Marketplace, and encourages consumers to report items that may violate the site’s policies, according to the spokesperson.

“Like other platforms where people can buy and sell goods, there are instances of people knowingly or unknowingly selling recalled goods on Marketplace,” the Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We take this issue seriously and when we find listings that violate our rules, we remove them.”

Safe sleep guidelines from both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics say that caregivers should always place infants to sleep on their backs on a firm, flat surface without any pillows, blankets or bumpers, and that infants should not be placed on inclined products for sleep.

Last year, legislation known as the Safe Sleep for Babies Act went into effect, banning the manufacturing and sale of inclined sleepers for babies.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(SAN FRANCISCO) — Whole Foods is temporarily closing a large store in downtown San Francisco due to concerns over employee safety, the company said on Wednesday.

The closure arrives roughly a week after the high-profile killing of Cash App Founder Bob Lee in San Francisco, which sparked crime fears among some city residents.

Overall, crime in San Francisco is down nearly 10% this year compared to last year, but homicides are up 20% and robberies are up more than 13%, San Francisco crime data shows.

The Whole Foods store, which spans nearly 65,000 square feet, opened last year at Trinity Place in the city’s Mid Market neighborhood.

A company press release announcing the store’s opening in March 2022 referred to the location as a “flagship store.”

Whole Foods opted to close the location to “ensure worker safety,” the company said, noting that all of the employees would be transferred to nearby locations.

“We have made the difficult decision to close the Trinity store for the time being,” the company said in a statement.

Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, said it would assess a reopening of the store if it feels it can protect employees at the location.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Matt Dorsey said he was “incredibly disappointed but sadly unsurprised” with the decision.

“Our neighborhood waited a long time for this supermarket, but we’re also well aware of problems they’ve experienced with drug-related retail theft, adjacent drug markets, and the many safety issues related to them,” he added.

The store cut its operating hours last year due to theft and hostility among its customers, the San Francisco Standard reported.

Whole Foods operates eight other locations in the San Francisco area.

In California, violent crime increased by 6% last year but remained well below a peak experienced in the early 1990s, according to a report from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California released in October.

The Whole Foods announcement stoked criticism from some prominent Republican figures over the threat of crime in major U.S. cities, which are typically run by Democratic mayors.

Violent crime in U.S. urban areas increased by 4.4% over the year ending in June 2022, a study from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found. However, instances of homicide and rape fell over that period, the study showed.

After the murder of Lee on April 4, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said in a statement that the city does not tolerate violent crime.

“There is no place for this kind of violent crime against anyone in our city,” Scott said.

“I want to assure everyone that our investigators are working tirelessly to make an arrest and bring justice to Mr. Lee and his loved ones, just as we try to do on every homicide that occurs in our city.”

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed reporting.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — NPR will stop sharing content on Twitter, the company announced Wednesday — a rebuke of certain labels the social media platform attached to the news outlet.

The international media non-profit said the categorization — first as “US state-affiliated media” and later “government-funded media” — prompted the outlet to stop posting “fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds,” according to a Wednesday statement.

“It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards,” NPR CEO John Lansing said in an email to staff explaining the decision.

Owned by Elon Musk, Twitter is working to undermine NPR’s credibility, the outlet said.

​​”NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” NPR said in a statement Wednesday.

Twitter labeled NPR’s main account as “US state-affiliated media” last week. The “state-affiliated media” stamp is also used to identify media outlets run or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments, like in Russia or China.

Twitter policy defines its labeling of state-affiliated media accounts as outlets where “the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”

The company later changed NPR’s label to “government-funded media,” a stamp that has since remained. At least one other public news organization, the BBC, has the same label.

Twitter defines “government-funded media” accounts as “outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”

On Wednesday, after NPR’s announcement, the GOP’s House Judiciary Twitter account appeared to weigh in on the incident, saying “Defund NPR” in a Tweet.

NPR does not receive direct federal funds, but it receives some government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments. The company said those funds account for less than 1% of their annual operating budget.

In a farewell tweet, NPR suggested people subscribe to its “Up First” newsletter, download the NPR app and enable mobile push alerts.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.