Up First from NPR - Haiti's Prime Minister To Resign, Georgia Primary Day, February Inflation

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Haiti's armed gangs have gotten their wish: The prime Minister says he plans to resign. On this primary day in Georgia, we hear from a Democrat skeptical about Joe Biden and a Republican fed up with Donald Trump. And a temperature check on inflation, as gas prices begin their usual spring surge.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Megan Pratz, Kelsey Snell, Rafael Nam, Lisa Thomson and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Lindsay Totty. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis, and our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Armed gangs in Haiti sowed chaos to force the Prime Minister out. It's worked. Ariel Henry says he plans to resign. Will this pull Haiti back from what many already say is a low-level civil war? I'm Leila Faldin, that's A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News. Georgia's presidential primary is today. It's a key swing state for anyone who wants to be president. We hear from a skeptical Democrat. Me being Palestinian, if I go tomorrow and I tell my community to vote for Joe Biden

before we've seen a serious change in policy, they are absolutely going to turn against me too. And a Republican fed up with Donald Trump. What do these doubts mean come November? And a temperature check on inflation. Is it one step forward, two steps back? We're getting to that time of year where March Madness also hits gas prices. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. Now, Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities

at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. Facing a revolt by gangs at home and increasing calls for him to leave his post from the international community, Haiti's de facto prime minister says he intends to resign. In his speech, Ariel Henry thanked the Haitian people for the opportunity to serve his country with, quote, integrity, wisdom and honor. For more than two weeks now, gangs have brought the country's capital to its knees. They've attacked the airport, police stations, and jails, letting free thousands of inmates.

Meanwhile, Ariel Henry has been stranded outside the country. Now he says he will resign once a transitional council is formed. NPR's Eder Peralta is making his way to Haiti, joins us now to explain what's happening from the neighboring Dominican Republic. So let's start first with what happened. What caused this resignation? So yesterday, CARICOM, which is the Association of Caribbean Nations, called an emergency meeting that included the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Jamaica.

And then very late at night, the leaders from the Caribbean nations said they had brokered a way forward in Haiti. They said that Ariel Henry had agreed to resign and that it would happen after a nine-member transitional council appointed a new interim prime minister. We hadn't seen Henry for more than a week. He hasn't been able to get back into Haiti because of the violence and we presume he's still in Puerto Rico. But we finally saw him in a video he released confirming the news last night. He said that watching all of the violence taking place in Haiti was revolting and that the government he led could not be insensitive to what was happening. He hasn't been prime minister that long. What's

made him so unpopular? So Henri became prime minister in 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. he was appointed, not elected, and he has been controversial from the get-go. Haitian prosecutors have implicated him in the assassination of the president, a charge that he denies. And Henri had also promised to move Haiti toward elections, and that hasn't happened. Haiti hasn't had elections in so long that the terms of all the country's politicians have expired. And at the same time, gangs have taken control of something like 80% of the capital.

And this latest crisis was sparked by an announcement by Henri that he would delay elections until next year. That's when the gangs really got involved in politics. They used to fight each other. Now they're united. They've launched coordinated attacks in an effort, they say, to topple the government. Wow. All right. So gangs now getting into politics. I mean, so does this deal then now put an end to the chaos and violence in Haiti? I think that's the hope of the international community, that at least it brings down the

temperature. But I think the chances of that are not great. The gangs were not consulted in this deal. And whether anyone likes it or not, they are an important constituency in Haiti. We haven't heard from them, but in the past, they've said that they will not support a government imposed from abroad. Also, Haiti is a fractured country. There's something like 100 political parties, but this CARICOM deal only takes into account seven of them. And that feeds a common criticism I've heard in Haiti about all this, which is that the international community is making decisions for Haiti without consulting many Haitians. And finally, at the center of this deal is a peacekeeping mission led by the Kenyans. That's still what the international community thinks will bring

order to Haiti, but it's still unclear when that deployment can happen. That's NPR's Eder Peralta on his way to Haiti. Eder, thanks. Thank you, Abe. President Biden and former President Donald Trump don't agree on much, but they do agree that Georgia is a key state to win the White House. With your vote, we are going to win the state of Georgia in an epic landslide. Because you really want to do it again, because you are going to win this primary for us on Tuesday, and because we're going to win in November. The state also highlights some of the obstacles the candidates will face in the general election,

and it's where they both campaigned this weekend. NPR's Stephen Fowler joins us now from Atlanta on this primary day. So Georgians got to hear from both candidates over the weekend, effectively kicking off the general election campaign. Stephen, what message do these dueling rallies send? Well, A, that Georgia is on the mind for both the Trump and Biden campaigns. And no wonder, because as you may remember, it was decided by about 12,000 votes in 2020. Yeah, 11,780,

Stephen. How can anyone forget that? Exactly. So it's expected to be close again. I mean, look, Trump spent the last three years insisting he didn't lose the state. It's been on the front lines of the fight over the direction of the Republican Party and how Trumpy it should be. Biden won in Georgia by stitching together this disparate coalition that he needs to replicate this year, from young people to Black, Hispanic, and Asian American voters to moderate suburban types that backed his campaign in 2020. So I'm sure at the campaign events, voters expressed optimism that their particular candidate would prevail in Georgia. But what about people with concerns about each of them winning the state? Yeah, so I had two pretty clear-eyed conversations with both a Republican and a Democrat about the pitfalls the presidential candidates face in the Peach State.

Rua Roman is a Democratic state lawmaker and the state's only Palestinian-American elected official. We're saying, please understand there is a sizable group of people that can absolutely have your back come November, but we need you to do the right thing or else we are going to really struggle to turn out our communities. Because I promise you, me being Palestinian, if I go tomorrow and I tell my community to vote for Joe Biden before we've seen a serious change in policy, they are absolutely going to turn against me too. Roman voted a blank ballot in this primary over concerns with Biden's support for Israeli military operations that's led to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She says displeasure with a Trump-Biden rematch might lead to non-white voters in Georgia showing up less, but there's still plenty of time to fix it.

All right, so what about Republicans and what they think about Trump's chances in Georgia? Because after all, this is a state where he faces criminal charges for trying to overturn the last presidential race. The rift within the Republican Party may be a little bit harder to patch, especially given Trump's track record in states like Georgia. Here's Gabriel Sterling. He works in the Georgia Secretary of State's office and is a longtime player in Republican politics. Lost in 2018, lost in 2020. The ones who like longed on to stop the steal lost in 2022. We barely won the House. We lost the Senate again. We lost the Senate twice. We lost the Senate twice because of Trump decision-making and Trump endorsements. He says the voters to watch this

year are the well-educated suburbanites that so far are voting Nikki Haley in the GOP primary. This isn't rocket science. You can see the people who are uncomfortable with President Trump. They were the reason he won in 2016 and the reason he lost in 2020. Those are sort of the new swing voters. So if the election were held today, well, most people probably wouldn't be happy voting for either candidate. But come November, what the voters in Georgia's important demographic groups do across the political spectrum will likely play an outsized role in who wins, yes, both Georgia and also the White House. NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Stephen, thanks. Thank you.

For the second month in a row, inflation is running a little hotter than forecasters had expected. Today, the Labor Department reported that consumer prices in February were up 3.2% from a year ago. Prices rose four-tenths of a percent between January and February, led by rising rents and higher gasoline prices. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now with all the details. Scott, gas prices have jumped more than 20 cents a gallon over the last month. What's that about? Well, a two sure signs of spring are cherry blossoms and rising gasoline prices. And this year, both of those are coming early. We typically see gas prices start to climb in the spring as the days get longer and people start driving more.

This is also the time of year when refineries do maintenance and switch over to their summer blends of gas. So production tends to drop off. All that appears to be happening earlier than usual this year. Patrick DeHaan, who's with Gas Buddy, says at the beginning of the year, we had more than 30 states where the average price of gasoline was under $3 a gallon. Today, that's down to just four states. We're getting to that time of year where March Madness also hits gas prices, And we are indeed down to our last four states where the average price of gasoline is below $3 a gallon. But I do expect that that count will probably drop to zero here for the next two to three weeks. Now, gas prices are still a bit lower than they were last year at this time and a lot lower than they were back in 2022 after Russia

invaded Ukraine and sent the price of gas soaring to around $5 a gallon on average nationwide. The other good news is we're not seeing a big jump in diesel prices. As the weather warms up and demand for heating oil, which is similar to diesel drops, diesel prices could fall further. And that's important because, of course, diesel prices can affect the cost of all the other goods that get trucked around the country. So what about the price of all the other stuff, all those other goods, and to inflation more broadly? Inflation has gradually been coming down. Food prices were flat last month. Grocery prices have risen only about 1% over the last year.

A lot of other goods prices have actually been coming down. But we continue to see sticky inflation on the services side, things like air travel and car insurance and particularly housing. So it is going to take some relief on the services front to get overall inflation down much further. Yeah, Federal Reserve has been battling inflation with high interest rates. When are those rates going to start coming down? Not yet. The central bank says it wants to see more evidence that inflation is going to keep coming down. Now, the Fed is not overly concerned about gasoline prices, which normally gyrate

up and down, but it wants to be sure that other prices, especially those services prices, don't continue to climb too rapidly. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that he and his colleagues don't want to cut interest rates prematurely and run the risk of reigniting inflation. On the other hand, they don't want to wait too long and slow the economy down more than they need to. We want to keep the economy growing. We want the labor market to remain strong. We want inflation to continue to move down closer and closer to that 2% objective. That's the economy that we're trying to achieve. And I think we're on a good path so far to be able to get there. So we're on a good path, but not quite to the finish line just yet. The Fed has a meeting this month. Nobody expects it to touch rates at

that point. There is a possibility the Fed will start cutting interest rates at its May meeting, but odds makers give higher probability to a rate cut in June. All right, that's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks. You're welcome. And that's Up First for Tuesday, March 12th. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Leila Faldil. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Megan Prats, Rafael Nam, Lisa Thompson, and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, and Lindsay Toddy. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines,

and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Start your day here with us again tomorrow. And thanks for waking up with NPR. Your NPR station makes Up First possible each and every single morning. Support their work and ours at donate.npr.org slash up first.