National

Hunter Biden on Thursday was indicted for three counts related to his alleged illegal possession of a firearm. And on Capitol Hill, time is running out for Congress to avert a looming government shutdown. 

Plus, lab-grown meat goes kosher and halal.

And, for our last daily show, we answer some of your burning questions.

Guests: Axios' Mike Allen, Margaret Talev and Jennifer Kingson. 

Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Alexandra Botti, Fonda Mwangi and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at podcasts@axios.com. You can send questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.

Hunter Biden’s indictment and a government shutdown on the horizon

Hunter Biden

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Axios Today

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White mainline Protestants are some of the country's largest religious groups. A new study shows their clergy tend to be more progressive than their churchgoers. We take a look at what that tells us about religion and political divisions in America today.

Plus, Senator Mitt Romney underscores our aging political landscape.

And, inflation eats away at American incomes.

Guests: Axios' Russell Contreras, Emily Peck and Joann Muller.

  NIALA BOODHOO: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today. It's Thursday, September 14. I'm Niala Boodhoo. Today: Senator Mitt Romney underscores our aging political leadership. Plus, inflation eats away at American incomes.  But first, today's One Big Thing: the political gap between some clergy and their congregations.  White mainline Protestants are some of the country's largest religious groups…but a new study shows their clergy tend to be more progressive than their churchgoers. For example about half of the clergy identify with the Democratic party - but the majority of church members tend to identify as Republican or Independent.   Axios' Russell Contreras explains what that tells us about religion and political divisions in America today…Russ, mainline Protestant churches are like Presbyterian or Lutheran or Episcopalian, we're not talking about Catholic or Evangelicals here. When we say these clergy are clearly more progressive…this isn't just about party affiliation is it?  RUSSELL CONTRERAS: That's right. According to the survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, about 90% of the clergy that were in this survey said that we should have laws protecting gay and lesbian and transgender people. Churchgoers however, only 77% percent say the same thing. So you see deep divisions among... clergy and churchgoers, not necessarily the opposite, but there are divisions that are noticeable.

NIALA: Let's focus on abortion. What does support or opposition to Roe versus Wade look like?  

RUSS: Around 73% of the clergy say they oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. For churchgoers, it's slightly lower, 67%. It looks like clergy are either slightly more progressive or way more progressive on certain issues that are really divisive in the national public right now, but they lean more toward, abortion rights than their churchgoers, even if it's slightly, it is telling though.

NIALA: What do we know in general about how political churchgoers want their clergy to be?

RUSS: Well, now around two thirds of American churches delivered overtly political sermons or messages in the run up to the 2020 election. However, according to another survey done by PRRI, said that, in general, most churchgoers don't think their churches are very political. They believe that their pastors walk a fine line between faith and religion. But in general, many churches say there's a good balance.

NIALA: Russ, this survey was dealing with one specific group, as we said, white mainline Protestant groups. Are there broader takeaways here when we think about religious affiliation and politics in America? 

RUSS: The most telling thing I got from this survey is they asked clergy if they believed America was losing its identity. Only 37% of clergy said so, they said. But 64% of churchgoers from mainline Protestant churches believe that America is losing its identity. 

If you think back about 60 years ago, when President Kennedy, or then candidate Kennedy, was trying to assure Protestants that he was a Catholic, that he wouldn't be ruled by the Pope. It seems sort of ridiculous now. But when he gave those speeches, he was talking to mainline Protestant church goers and church faith leaders.

Right now, the growing group that are the most influential group are Christian Evangelicals. Their numbers are growing in terms of the political spectrum, but even then, their numbers are declining. Church attendance is declining among Evangelicals. Overall, church attendance is going down across all religious groups. The fastest growing segment of the American public, though, are people who aren't going to any church who believe they're either spiritual, not religious, or not investing in any faith at all.

NIALA: Russell Contreras is Axios race and justice reporter. Thanks, Russ.

RUSS: Thank you.  NIALA: Senator Mitt Romney announced Wednesday that he will not seek a second term representing Utah in the U.S. senate — marking the end of a decades-long political career. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, ran for president in 2008 and again in 2012 when he became the nominee and then lost to former President Obama. More recently, the 76-year-old has been one of the most high-profile Republican critics of President Trump. Here's Romney in a statement released yesterday.  MITT ROMNEY: I've spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another. At the end of another term, I'd be in my mid eighties. Frankly, it's time for a new generation of leaders.

 NIALA: As Axios' Andrew Solender and Erin Doherty write, that statement comes at an inflection point over the advanced age of some of Washington's most powerful leaders. You can find their piece with more on Romney's retirement in our show notes.

 After the break: American incomes are falling.    NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today! I'm Niala Boodhoo.  Americans' incomes fell last year by about 2% after adjusting for inflation. That's according to new data from the Census Bureau. Axios' Emily Peck has more.  EMILY PECK: The median income in the U.S. in 2022 was $74,580, but the year before, the number was $76,330. That drop helps explain something that has been puzzling economists and others in 2022.  Why were people in the U.S. so bummed out about the economy when, according to many measures, like the low unemployment rate, things were going great? Now we have a good answer. Record high inflation in 2022 eroded our paychecks, and that really helps explain it. It also helps explain why the White House's efforts to sell its record on the economy to the American people, its Bidenomics agenda, has so far fallen flat.  There was one bright spot in the data: Americans with no high school diploma saw their real incomes actually increase by 6.4%. And next year, the income picture is looking brighter. As inflation is eased, Americans are finally starting to see a real rise in wages and incomes.   NIALA: That's Axios Markets Correspondent Emily Peck.   And one other economic headline we've been following: U.S. inflation rose in August as gas prices surged. The Labor Department reported yesterday that the consumer price index rose 0.6% – the fastest pace in more than a year.   The Federal Reserve is preparing to make a decision on interest rates next week.   NIALA: The United Auto Workers contracts with GM, Ford, and Stellantis are set to expire at 11:59 tonight, and if there's no agreement by then, autoworkers are expected to walk off the job…potentially striking at all three companies at once, which would be a first. I asked Axios' Joann Muller to break this down for us by the numbers.  JOANN MULLER: One economist we spoke to figures that a 10 day strike could cost as much as $5.6 billion and even trigger a Midwest recession. A lot of the conflict is tied to the ongoing shift to electric vehicles, with unionized auto workers fearing there will be fewer jobs making EVs. Tesla, which is non-union, already has a huge labor cost advantage over GM, Ford, and Stellantis.  It produces cars for around 45 to 50 an hour, compared to labor costs of about $64 to $67 per hour for the Detroit 3.  Automakers say they can't produce affordable EVs if that cost gap gets even wider. Tesla is already using that advantage to drive down the price of its cars, and it shows in their sales growth. In 2017, GM's sales volume was 85 times larger than Tesla's by 2022 that had shrunk to less than a fivefold advantage. Momentum is clearly on Tesla's side.  All eyes are gonna be on Detroit tonight.  NIALA: That's Axios' Joann Muller, coming to you from the Detroit Auto Show.  And one last thing today before we go: We told you earlier this week that the FDA approved updated COVID-19 boosters. Now, the CDC is recommending the boosters to anyone 6 months and older. Pfizer and Moderna conducted trials on all the shots before gaining approval, and both the FDA and the CDC had expert panels make the recommendations.  But meanwhile in Florida yesterday, that state's surgeon general discouraged COVID-19 boosters for people 65 and under. The DeSantis administration said it's the first state in the country to recommend against shots for those under 65 – contradicting the CDC's guidance.   The new boosters are expected to start circulating nationwide by the end of the week.  That's it for us today. I'm Niala Boodhoo. Thanks for listening, stay safe, and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.     

The political gap between Protestant clergy and their congregations

The political gap between some clergy and their congregations

Religion

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, on Tuesday. The move could result in months of divisive hearings in Congress as both President Biden and former President Trump, who was impeached twice, campaign for the presidency.

Plus, the United Auto Workers union gears up for a strike. 

And, the pluses and perils of homeownership in America today.

Guests: Axios' Alex Thompson and Felix Salmon.

Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Alexandra Botti, Fonda Mwangi, Lydia McMullen-Laird, Robin Linn and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at podcasts@axios.com. You can send questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.

NIALA: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today!

Today: The United Auto Workers union gears up for a strike. And, the pluses and perils of homeownership in America today.

But first, McCarthy goes after Biden. That's today's One Big Thing.

NIALA: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy opened an impeachment inquiry yesterday into President Biden. The move could result in months of divisive hearings in Congress as both President Biden and former President Trump, who, of course, was impeached twice, campaigned for the presidency. Axios' national political correspondent Alex Thompson is here with the big picture. Hi, Alex.

NIALA: What's the reason Republicans are giving for impeaching Biden now?

ALEX: Kevin McCarthy said at the top of his announcement that President Biden, as he put it, lied during the 2020 presidential campaign about how much he knew about Hunter's business dealings. Now, what we have seen from sworn testimony from both Hunter and from his business associate Devon Archer over the last month and a half is we have sworn testimony that does contradict some things that Joe Biden said on the campaign trail in 2020. Joe Biden said in the second presidential debate that his son never received money from China. Hunter confirmed in court that he did receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from associates and firms in China. Joe Biden's campaign said on the record that he had never met with one of the business associates of Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma. In fact, Joe Biden did have dinner with him. It was a group dinner, but these contradictions have not been fully explained by the White House, and that is what Republicans have really, you know, held onto in order to justify this impeachment push.

Now, I think it's important to say that, I don't know if, you know, misstating, or false statements during a presidential campaign is an impeachable offense, especially since it came before Joe Biden was president.

NIALA: Is this possibly also a non-starter, given that Democrats control the Senate?

ALEX: It is very unlikely that Joe Biden will be thrown out of office for this. It would be stunning to, to me, and I actually still am skeptical that they're even going to be able to impeach Biden. I think, you know, if you're looking at the political part of this, part of this is also just creates a huge muddle. You know, you have Trump who has I think over 90 counts, criminal counts against him right now, is very much, has always had a communication strategy of, you just gotta muddy the waters. It's like, "yes, I may have done bad things, but he's also done bad things".

NIALA: So Congress is back in town as of this week. Is this impeachment proceedings expected to derail the other conversation about the government possibly being shut down?

ALEX: Such an interesting question, because some Republicans, Margorie Taylor Green, in particular, have basically said that the impeachment inquiry was one of the prices for her vote to keep the government open. So, in some ways, doing the impeachment inquiry was a way to try to keep the government open. Now, I still think it's very possible that you could see a government shutdown, but I think there's reason to believe this announcement makes it a little bit less likely that there will be a government shutdown, as weird as that is

NIALA: Alex Thompson is Axios national political correspondent. Thanks Alex.

NIALA: Here are some other stories we're following:

The United Auto Workers union says it will strike against the Detroit Three automakers – GM, Ford and Chrysler-owner Stellantis – if an agreement isn't reached before midnight on Friday. UAW has around 150,000 members, and among other things, they're asking for an immediate raise, a shift back to pensions, and a 32-hour workweek.

A landmark antitrust case against Google began yesterday. The Justice Department is accusing the tech giant of pushing out the competition by making deals with phone makers and browsers to be their go-to search engine. The trial is being compared to the government's challenge of Microsoft in the '90s.

And finally, thousands have been killed in catastrophic floods along Libya's east coast, after the country was hit by Mediterranean Storm Daniel. Officials said as of late Tuesday local time that as many as 5,200 people could be dead. More than 10,000 people remain missing. The city of Derna has been the most affected, after water overtook two dams and washed entire buildings into the sea.

After the break, the value of American home ownership today.

NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today. I'm Niala Boodhoo. Home prices continue to rise, and according to one new report, it costs the average American around $625,000 to own a home over the average property lifetime. We recently asked you to send in your thoughts about whether owning a home matters to you. And many of you said that's no longer a goal.

ERIC: Hello Niala, this is Eric in Centennial, Colorado. My wife Mary and I have rented since we've lived in the state. We initially had the thought to buy a house and live here long term, because that has been the American dream for many people for decades. However, we realized that is not our dream. We work from home and have the ability to really work from anywhere. So I feel like a benefit to renting that is not discussed often enough is that it gives one freedom to be able to move around and not be locked into a 15 or 30-year mortgage.

SHERI: This is Sheri in Northern California, about home ownership, which I think is very important. I know it's difficult nowadays. However, it's one way for somebody who identifies as a Black woman to build generational wealth. And I'm hoping that my two daughters will be in position to purchase their own homes and keep it going for their children.

ROGER: My name is Roger, and I live in the Chicagoland area. I believe that home ownership is still important, because not only does it give you a sense of pride of ownership, but the equity in your home is usually a major portion of your net worth. I'm heading into retirement now with my home paid off, and I have much more disposable income available to me.

STEPHANIE: Hi, my name is Stephanie. I'm a 29-year-old single woman living in Rhode Island. Home ownership is not even a twinkle in my eye at this point. I have a good job. I make a decent amount of money, but I just cannot afford to buy a home and to pay a mortgage on a single income, it's just not feasible. And at this point it just makes so much more sense to just stay renting than put myself in a lifetime of debt, because I never want to get married, and I value my independence.

NIALA: I asked Axios' chief financial correspondent, Felix Salmon, to join me to talk about this. Hey, Felix.

NIALA: Thoughts on what you just heard from our listener?

FELIX: Love Stephanie. She knows what she wants. You go. It is absolutely true. Eric is absolutely right that renting gives you an enormous amount of freedom and people don't value renting highly enough. If you buy a place, given the costs of buying a house, and given the costs of selling a house, you really need to be pretty sure you're going to be in that place for seven to ten years, otherwise it just doesn't make sense to buy it. If you're like Eric, and you work from home, and you can work any way you like, and you like traveling, you like seeing new places, it makes sense to rent. And all of that freedom, all of that ability to move to where you want, and live how you want, is economically valuable. And so the more renters there are in America, the more economic activity we have in America.

NIALA: But Felix, the conventional wisdom is that homeownership is a way to build not just wealth for yourself, but for your family, generational wealth. We also heard that.

FELIX: Yes, and that is absolutely true, as well, especially if you look at Black families and to a lesser extent Hispanic families in America, a very, very large proportion of their wealth is tied up in real estate. And the mortgage, as a financial product, is a very effective, what I call, forced savings device. It can be a very effective way of forcing people to save money and build wealth.

NIALA: When we look at the fact that mortgage rates are at a 22-year high, how much does that factor into what we talked about at the beginning, that it's an average of $625,000 to just get into homeownership these days?

FELIX: With high mortgage rates, you wind up paying much more in interest when you buy a home, and that interest just goes to the bank. It doesn't go to building equity. It's money that you will never see again. And that's one of the reasons why it's not just mortgage rates that are at 22-year highs, it's also housing affordability is at 22-year lows. Almost not in living memory has there been a point at which buying a new house is as expensive as it is right now.

NIALA: How does housing affordability affect the overall economy?

FELIX: In general, if housing is abundant and cheap, then the economy can fire on all cylinders in a way that it can't when people are hobbled by having to pay huge amounts of money just for shelter.

NIALA: So how do you think about homeownership then?

FELIX: I think of homeownership as something that has really skewed democracy in a bad way. One of the things we know is that homeowners are much more likely to vote than non-homeowners. And as a result, politicians tend to do things that homeowners like and are less likely to do things that renters like. And I think that democratically speaking we have this problem, and it's a real problem, where basically, the entire government has been captured by homeowners. There are hundreds of billions of dollars a year going to subsidies for homeowners, and they just get all of the goodies in fiscal policy. They are, after all, richer than non-homeowners. Why do they deserve all the money?

NIALA: Isn't that then an argument for becoming a homeowner? Isn't that why everyone wants to be one?

FELIX: Oh, absolutely. And just because homeownership itself is bad does not mean that you individually should not become a homeowner. Like, there are many situations in which it is rational to become a homeowner, although I would say there are fewer than you might think.

NIALA: Felix Salmon is Axios' chief financial correspondent. Thanks, Felix.

NIALA: That's all we've got for you today!

I'm Niala Boodhoo - thanks for listening - stay safe and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.

McCarthy goes after Biden

Impeachment

What's it like to fly into the eye of a hurricane? Niala joins a team of NOAA Hurricane hunters tracking Hurricane Lee to understand the science gathered on these missions, and how it helps create the forecasts that millions depend upon. 

And, the FDA approves updated COVID-19 vaccines.

Guests: Axios' Russell Contreras and Adriel Bettelheim; NOAA's Alan Hough, Jack Parrish and Kevin Doremus.

Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Alexandra Botti, Fonda Mwangi, Robin Linn and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at podcasts@axios.com. You can send questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.

NIALA BOODHOO: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today!  It's Tuesday, September 12th. I'm Niala Boodhoo.   Here's what you need to know today: monitoring AI for hate speech. Plus, the FDA approves updated COVID-19 vaccines.  But first, inside the eye of a hurricane. That's today's One Big Thing.  

FLIGHT CREW: "That looks pretty clear ahead. Still looking more like a 2 9 0 out. Standby. 25 knots."  

NIALA: This is some of what you hear onboard a NOAA Hurricane Hunter flight where scientists and crews fly into a storm to collect huge amounts of data…and over the weekend, I flew with them – on a plane nicknamed Kermit – into Hurricane Lee. I have lived through, and covered many, many hurricanes in my lifetime - but this was a rare chance to experience a storm in the air.  Over about eight hours the dozen or more scientists on Kermit use instrumentation on board to collect not just the basics, like rainfall, wind speed and barometric pressure, but also so much other data. The plane for example has a radar that measures the size of the wave heights underneath a hurricane.  

ALAN HOUGH: "Our mission is to learn as much as we can about the storm systems that are a threat mostly to the United States and in the Caribbean islands a lot of times.   

FLIGHT CREW: You ready? Here. Can you call for it?"   

NIALA: That's NOAA Corp Lieutenant Commander Alan Hough, after he gave me my safety briefing. I was the only non-NOAA person on this flight.  Our plan was to get as close as possible to the actual center of the eye of the storm. The eyewall around that - has the most intense winds - and weather. We set out to do six passes in and out of the eye. Jack Parrish has been flying through storms for NOAA for more than 40 years. He was this mission's flight director.  

JACK PARRISH: The tail cone that you saw on the airplane before we took off, that's a, uh, a tail Doppler radar. It's essentially doing CAT scans, in the vertical, on all sides of the airplane  

NIALA: The pilots let me stay up in the cockpit for the first half of the flight. It's really loud on these planes, so I recorded us talking through our headsets. This is intense flying; the pilot team rotates seats often to stay fresh. Here's Lt. Commander Kevin Doremus.  

KEVIN DOREMUS: "So, this particular storm is challenging because every time we've been flying through the eye, it's different and it changes…and specifically, it makes it challenging because the eye has been very, very small."   

NIALA: I'm not going to lie - I stole barf bags from my earlier commercial flight because I was worried about how much of a roller coaster this was going to be. As it turns out - they have even better barf bags on board Kermit - but thankfully I didn't need them. The flight did have much more turbulent when I moved out of the cockpit and towards the back, where all the scientists were busy, including deploying weather devices that go through the storm called dropsondes.   

FLIGHT CREW: I had about inner eye at about 20 miles, Okay, here comes the inner edge. Yep.

NIALA: We're on the inner edge of the eyeball. Now that I'm back at the back of the plane, it's a lot bumpier than it was up in front.  

NIALA: And then… as we headed into our 5th pass into the eye - something went wrong.   

JACK: We were going off to the northeast and doing a U-turn to come back into the center. And in the middle of the turn, in the middle of a fairly moderate precipitation and light turbulence, we had two different crew members who heard something underneath the airplane that was an unusual sound.  

NIALA: That's Flight Director Jack Parrish again.  

JACK: And anytime you hear anything that's unusual, you immediately take action to, uh, either minimize whatever might be going wrong or secure whatever might be coming loose in order to get the airplane out of that hurricane environment and safely back to, back to base.   

NIALA: I asked Jack about the funding for these missions…and if he felt these crews needed more up-to-date equipment.  

JACK:This airplane, we acquired it in 1976. So you get the idea of how long this airplane's been pounding through that kind of an environment, and we always take it out in the worst storms we can find because that's where the most valuable research is done.  There are plans in the works in NOAA to replace these airplanes with up to four new C-130s. The biggest problem with the P-3 isn't really the age of this airplane. It's that the number of people who trained on P-3's that we can hire, and the number of spare parts to fix things that break on the airplane, those are becoming more and more limited every year.  

NIALA: Last year, the government authorized $318 million to buy one more of a new type of Hurricane Hunter.  Here's why all this matters: the information gathered on flights like Kermit's is central to our hurricane forecasts that millions of people, especially along our coastlines, depend on. And the U.S. is the only country in the world that does such extensive scientific research from flights into hurricanes.   NOAA operates multiple hurricane flights a day…so we'll keep learning more about the trajectory of hurricane lee over the course of this week. And of course, we'll have the latest updates on Lee at axios.com.  Coming up: a new effort to monitor how AI affects civil rights.   

NIALA: Welcome back to Axios Today. I'm Niala Boodhoo.  Tomorrow on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are privately meeting with some of the biggest names in tech, like Mark Zuckerburg, Elon Musk and Bill Gates, to gain insight about Artificial Intelligence. It's part of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's push to lay groundwork for AI regulation.  But, generative AI is already expanding fast without any regulation, and it's fueling concerns – especially around bias. So some organizations are taking matters into their own hands.  Axios' Russell Contreras is here with the big picture.   Russ, the "Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights" is launching a center to monitor how AI affects civil rights. What's the goal with the center?   

RUSSELL CONTRERAS:  The center wants to assess how AI could affect civil rights and human rights, how it could either perpetuate or fight racism, and monitor what this new technology is doing in the growing concerns around antisemitism. The center was founded by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. This is a coalition that's been around since the 1950s. Today, it has such members like the NAACP, Asian American, and LGBTQ plus organizations. They want this center to really dig in and monitor AI and come up with solutions and possible policies on how AI should be either created or looked at in the future. 

NIALA: So big AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft say that they've aimed to filter out the most egregious hate speech. How much do you think technology companies would say there was a need for a center like this? 

RUSS: Well, that's really the important question. I don't think we know yet. This center, though, wants to start that conversation. And it may be just not about hate speech. It may be just reflecting our own biases as humans. 

NIALA: Given the fact that regulation of AI In any way seems to be slow coming across at least a federal landscape. How much does this center think it can help speed that up? 

RUSS: Well, the center wants to engage in all these policymakers and with lawmakers to say, look, here are some things that we need to consider. That of course is what's going to be division is how much do we regulate it? Various organizations like the Anti-Defamation League say, tech companies need to be open and transparent about their data sets and algorithms, because it is so young right now. What these groups don't want to happen, especially the center, is that AI gets so far down the road that there'll be no way to either regulate it, rein it in, and It'll be just a place like social media where it becomes a place of hate. 

NIALA: Russ, as you talk to different organizations, whether it's the ADL or the NAACP, how are they thinking about technology and AI?  

RUSS: Well, they're thinking about it in a number of ways. Of course, they're gonna call out the racism and homophobia and the bigotry they see. But there's also another side. They believe that AI could be used as an important tool to fight racism, to actually pose questions about our country's past. I recently visited the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, where they were using holograms of people acting out real words of enslaved people, and in this place where there were people that were bought and sold, these holograms brought to life the legacy of slavery. Other museums are using AI to talk about the Holocaust. There are many ways that AI can be used, according to these organizations, for the cause of good, and not necessarily something that we should be scared of. 

NIALA: Russell Contreras is Axios race and justice reporter. Thanks, Russ. 

NIALA: The FDA yesterday approved updated COVID-19 vaccines – a key step in getting the new shots to Americans as early as this week. Axios' Adriel Bettelheim has more.  

ADRIEL BETTELHEIM: The Biden administration had been facing increasing calls to make reformulated vaccines available faster, as infections and hospitalizations have ticked up since late July. Health officials have actually urged people concerned about protecting themselves against the late summer surge to wait until these new boosters are available.  So what the FDA did was they gave the green light to shots from Pfizer and Moderna that are targeted against the variant that was the dominant strain circulating in the U.S. earlier this summer. Scientists believe the shots will be protected against the current dominant strain which is called EG.5 and another new strain called FL.1.5.1, which are both sub-variants of Omicron.  There's a third, new COVID vaccine that the FDA is still reviewing. That is from Novavax. Health officials expect these shots will continually be updated every fall to account for new circulating COVID strains. And that's similar to the schedule for annual flu shots.   

NIALA: That's Axios' Senior Healthcare Editor Adriel Bettelheim.  That's all we've got for you today!   I'm Niala Boodhoo. Thanks for listening. Stay safe and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.       

Inside the eye of a hurricane

hurricanes

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco late Friday night near Marrakech. More than 2,100 people were killed and over 2,400 injured, as of Sunday. The death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to search through the rubble for survivors.

Plus, how local governments are handling the humanitarian crisis for migrants across U.S. cities. 

And, what to know about the weekend's G20 summit in India.

Guests: Axios' Hans Nichols and Stef Kight.

NIALA BOODHOO: Good morning! Welcome to Axios Today! It's Monday, September 11th.  I'm Niala Boodhoo. Today: local governments respond to a migrant influx in U.S. cities. Plus, the weekend's G20 summit. But first: an earthquake in Morocco kills thousands. That's today's One Big Thing.

NIALA: A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Morocco over the weekend – more than 2,100 people were killed and over 2,400 injured as of Sunday night. That death toll is expected to rise as rescuers continue to search through the rubble for survivors.   The earthquake struck late Friday night near Marrakech, the strongest quake to hit the area in more than a century. Historic sites, homes, buildings and whole villages were damaged or destroyed.  More than 300,000 people were affected by the quake. That's according to The World Health Organization.  King Mohammed VI declared three days of national mourning. Several countries and the U.N. offered their support to Morocco. Here's U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking with ABC News.

ANTONY BLINKEN: We're tracking this very carefully, and our hearts go out to the people of Morocco who suffered this devastating earthquake. And we stand ready to help in any way that we can.  And some other stories we're following:  Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. And New York City officials announced they have just identified two more victims. According to the mayor's office, the man and woman identified are the 1,648th and 1,649th victims identified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner through advanced DNA testing. They are the first identifications in two years — and more than 1000 human remains from 9/11 have yet to be identified.  And: leaders of the world's biggest economies gathered at the annual G20 summit in India this weekend. Axios' Hans Nichols has the takeaways.  

HANS NICHOLS: This was a moderately successful G20. It's testament to India's leadership that it was pulled off in a way it was, and there were some accomplishments around the margins. namely, the U.S., uh, working with the Indians and the Emiratis and other Middle Eastern countries, have this new rail link.  And I think that's gonna be one of the potential lasting consequences out of this G20. The other, of course, is they've included the African Union now as a permanent member. That was always a goal. But in some ways, this was a more forgettable G20, right? President Xi didn't come, that was a kind of hung over a lot of the conversation. There are a lot of theories about why he didn't come. And then on the war in Ukraine and Russia's aggression there. The G20 actually toned down its statement and that caused some consternation and that there was an idea going into that maybe you'd have another strong statement, not necessarily from the G20, because of course that includes, you know, Russia and Ukraine, but from the other countries. So, you know, in general, I think you know, we'll look back at this G20, if anything, it will be somewhat forgettable. I do think that the main lasting consequences will be, you know, the rail link, inclusion of African Union, and just the larger, I hesitate to use the word pivot, but I'm going to use it, and that is the pivot towards India. Remember in the Obama administration, there's lots of conversation about pivoting towards Asia. This is more of a pivot to the Indo Pacific, but there's such a priority from top to bottom inside the Biden administration on solidifying ties with India, culturally, economically, and militarily. And that was one of the goals that the White House had coming into this. And on that front, they certainly achieved it. 

NIALA: That's Axios' Politics Reporter Hans Nichols After the break, U.S. cities struggle to manage an influx of migrants.

NIALA: Welcome back to Axios. Today I'm Niala Boodhoo. Cities around the country are experiencing a major influx of new immigrants, one that most can't accommodate, and the result is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis. Axios' Stef Kight has been reporting on this in depth. Hi Stef. 

NIALA: So, what cities are we seeing the highest numbers of people arriving? 

STEF: We're seeing lots of migrants and asylum seekers arriving in cities all across the U.S. Of course, New York City has been a focus, with Mayor Adams being very outspoken about the concerns that he has about the number of people arriving there. But we're also seeing people flock to Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and we're seeing a lot of localities struggle to really meet the need that they're seeing there. Whether it's the shelter spaces running out of space or other nonprofits struggling to make sure migrants who are showing up with very little provisions are actually cared for. 

NIALA: Everyone has seen, probably, these headlines of governors busing migrants from the southern border to other states. Do we know in aggregate how many people we're talking about here? 

STEF: All in all, since Texas began busing people to these various Democratic-run cities, they have sent tens of thousands of migrants on these buses. They've sent more than 11,000 migrants to Washington D.C. They've sent more than 13,000 migrants now to New York City. They've also sent migrants to Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles. 

NIALA: And how local leaders are responding…You mentioned New York City. Here's Mayor Eric Adams at a town hall last week. 

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS: This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City. We're getting 10,000 migrants a month.  

NIALA: Steph, is that sentiment shared by other big city mayors like in Washington or Chicago, which I should add, they're all Democrats. 

STEF: We're certainly hearing frustration from leaders in many of these cities. Of course, Mayor Adams has certainly been the most outspoken, but we're hearing from leaders in all of these cities really asking the federal government to do more. They're asking for more resources.  One big ask has been for the Biden administration to find a way to expedite migrants' ability to legally work in the U.S.. A lot of people on the ground has said that has been an issue where people are waiting for weeks or months to get their work permits in order to be able to work and move out of these shelters. So while Adams has maybe been the most politically outspoken, we have certainly been hearing serious concern and pointed fingers at the Biden administration from leaders in various cities. 

NIALA: How has the Biden administration responded to all of that? 

STEF: The Biden administration clearly sees this as an issue. They sent the Department of Homeland Security into New York to kind of do an analysis. But they have also, behind closed doors, they see a lot of these, pointed fingers as just political posturing. For example, when it comes to work permits for asylum seekers in particular, there is a legally required 180 day wait, and that's something the administration says they can't change. They need Congress to change. 

NIALA: And so as these people are coming into, especially these large American cities, what are they experiencing? 

STEF: Well, we're seeing, you know, many of them, thousands of them waiting in homeless shelters and migrant shelters for long periods of time trying to figure out their next steps. Of course, these are their destinations of choice, and I think that's an important point to remember. It's not necessarily that Texas and other Republican states are choosing these destinations for migrants who have recently arrived. In many cases, these are the cities that have long welcomed immigrants. And that's one of the reasons why it's a little bit surprising to now see these Democratic leaders feel overwhelmed by the number of people arriving.  And I think it's important to remember that it's not just the current surge over the past two months. It's also the fact that now for years we have seen higher than normal numbers of people coming across the border, whether they're seeking asylum or seeking parole processes, and we already have an immigration system that's severely outdated and severely backlogged.  So one trend that I'm looking at really carefully is the fact that we've seen a significant spike in Mexican family members coming across the U.S.-Mexico, which is very unusual. While Mexican migration has, you know, long been a common occurrence at the U.S.-Mexico border, the fact that we're seeing a rise in families is very significant. 

NIALA: That's Axios' Stef Kite. We'll include a link to her reporting in our show notes. Thanks Stef. 

NIALA: Finally today, a peek ahead to tomorrow's show.  We've been watching the path of Hurricane Lee, a powerful storm over the Atlantic. And as forecasters track the storm I had a chance to watch it unfold in real time. I just returned from a flight this weekend on a Hurricane Hunter, flying with a NOAA team into Hurricane Lee.  Jack Parrish was the flight director, and I spoke with him on board.

JACK PARRISH: So many people live in harm's way and with rising sea levels that just adds and exacerbates the problem. But there's still a lot that's not known. And so, I certainly can hope that the technology on the airplane keeps up with the need to warn those populated areas. 

NIALA: That's Hurricane Hunter Jack Parrish. And I'll share much more of this adventure with you tomorrow, including what I learned about U.S. efforts to track extreme weather and our changing climate. 

That's it for us today! I'm Niala Boodhoo. Thanks for listening, stay safe and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.    

Morocco earthquake kills thousands

Earthquakes

It's been about a month since the Lahaina wildfire broke out on Maui, and now the local community is facing another hardship: a severe economic downturn. 

The big picture: Most of Hawai'i's residents depend on tourism to pay the bills. With the drop in travel to Maui, locals and government officials are now urging people back.

And, the latest from Ukraine and Blinken's surprise visit to Kyiv.

Axios Today staff reading recommendations:

Guests: Axios' Sara Kehaulani Goo and Alex Fitzpatrick.

Today: a new era for Airbnb. Plus, the latest from Ukraine - including Blinken's surprise visit to Kyiv.

And, our One Big Thing: Maui's new message to tourists.

NIALA: At least 17 people were killed and dozens injured yesterday by a Russian missile at a Ukrainian market in the eastern part of the country.

It's the deadliest attack in Ukraine in months.

And it all happened the same day U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to Kyiv.

BLINKEN:  We will continue to stand by Ukraine's side, and today we're announcing new assistance totaling more than $1 billion in this common effort.

That's Blinken at a joint news conference yesterday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Blinken says the new aid will support the military's long term needs and help fund equipment to clear Russian land mines. Ukraine is now the world's most heavily mined country – with about 30% of its land contaminated.

Blinken also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday. This is his fourth visit to Ukraine since the war began.

NIALA: It's been about a month since the Lahaina wildfire broke out on Maui, and now the local community is facing another hardship, a severe economic downturn. Most of Hawaii's residents depend on tourism to pay the bills, but there's been a drop in travel costing the entire state $9 million a day. That's according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.

So now, the local government has a new message for tourists. Axios' Sara Goo is here with what they have to say. Hi Sara.

NIALA: Sarah. What's Hawaii's new message to tourists?

SARA: Come back or come visit Maui, come visit Hawaii. It's I think a bit of a unique message that they're trying to pivot to. Because as you remember, when the fires broke out, it was a real emergency, and they needed to get tourists home. They needed to get people out of a dangerous situation. They needed to grieve. They needed to find victims of the fire. And that's, of course, taken weeks to do.

But at the same time that they're dealing with this, I think they're realizing that they are incredibly dependent on tourism for their economy, so it's really hard to be grieving and trying to find housing, while also not then having a job, right, because either the businesses are slowing down, there's not enough people in the restaurants, in the hotels, at the airport, so that tends to affect nearly everyone on the island who has some connection either directly or indirectly from the tourism economy.

NIALA: And speaking of connections, you have a deep connection to Hawaii. How is your family?

SARA: Oh, thanks for asking. I do. I have a lot of family there. My grandmother's from there. My cousins live there. Thankfully, they're safe, and their homes were safe, although it looked very dodgy for a while. But, some of them work in the tourism business. Everyone knows someone who did die in the fire. They've been going to funerals lately, so they're really reeling from all of this in many ways at the same time.

NIALA: Given all of that, what are ways people can be respectful tourists in Maui?

SARA: Right, and that's the other message is come visit, but be respectful. They don't want tourists to go to the affected areas. They don't want people taking selfies in front of the ashes. How terrible would that be? And a lot of people who are displaced by the fire are living in some hotels in the Lahaina area, so they're able to repurpose the shelter that they do have from the tourism industry in that part of the island, so they've literally printed a map and said, come to this area, but not this area of the island on Maui.

So the bottom line is, the west side of Maui is closed, and the rest of Maui is open and they would love to have tourists who are respectful. And chatter I've seen on Facebook, in particular, where there's people looking to go visit Maui have asked locals, Where should I go? Where can I buy goods from a local business? Where can I volunteer? And a lot of people are doing that. You see videos of them going to Costco and dropping off a donation right off of getting off the plane before they had to, you know, their vacation spot. And I think that's really welcome.

And I think that this is yet another major disaster, I would put the pandemic first and that most recently that have, you know, given rise to these conversations about, as we rebuild, how do we want to do that, that honors both our history, our traditions, supports truly local people, and also finds a balance in welcoming people.

NIALA: Sara Kehaulani Goo is Axios Editor in Chief. Thanks, Sara.

NIALA: In a moment: why new Airbnb rules could go beyond New York City.

Welcome back to Axios Today. I'm Niala Boodhoo.

New York City is cracking down on short-term rentals like Airbnb and Vrbo and since the announcement earlier this week some are calling this essentially the end of Airbnb as we know it.

Under these new rules, short-term stays must be registered with the city, or face up to $5,000 in fines. Can these types of rentals survive in New York? And will we start seeing this across the country?

Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick has been covering this. Hi Alex.

ALEX FITZPATRICK: Hey, thanks for having me.

NIALA: Why is New York City making this move?

ALEX: Well, the rules themselves aren't really new, it's the registration that's new, and it's to enforce long standing rules that were just never really enforced across New York City about short-term housing. And those rules include: you're not really supposed to list a rental for fewer than 30 days, there's a maximum of two guests and, the host should be sort of on the property. You know and one other noteworthy thing is that the hosts and visitors have to leave the doors unlocked so people can access the entire place while you're there. And people just don't want that. Most people don't want their host, when they're staying at an Airbnb, to be able to wander in and out of their, you know, property or the bedroom where they're staying, right?

NIALA: So this move, or this enforcement, is expected to dramatically reduce the list of available shortterm rentals in New York City?

ALEX: Yeah, that's right. Airbnb has said that they've got nearly 15,000 hosts across New York City, But as of the end of August, the city's only approved 257 permits out of about 3,250 applications. So, you're gonna see a lot fewer Airbnb listings in New York City basically immediately.

NIALA: Alex, are there people who are happy about this move because they've been unhappy about Airbnb's effect on the housing industry across New York?

ALEX: Yeah, critics of short term rentals say that because landlords are essentially renting or listing their rooms and apartments on Airbnb and other platforms instead of renting them out to locals. It's effectively decreasing the supply of housing for locals and increasing the price.

NIALA: And do we expect that other cities will follow New York City's lead on this?

ALEX: They certainly could. I think many will wait and see what happens to New York City's tourism industry. Airbnb has warned that this move stands to curtail the city's tourism income. Whether that happens is a little bit questionable. So I think many are sort of waiting to see.

A lot of cities have, in recent years, tried to take new steps to regulate Airbnb. Just a few months ago, New Orleans issued a bunch of new restrictions, uh, of its own. And it's not just Airbnb, it's, you know, Vrbo and Booking and all sorts of other platforms as well.

NIALA: Alex Fitzpatrick edits Axios' What's Next newsletter. Thanks, Alex.

NIALA: Before we go today as promised, our team is sharing our summer reading recommendations, as we hang on to summer for a bit longer.

NIALA: Before we go today, as promised, our team is sharing our summer reading recommendations, as we hang on to summer for a bit longer.

ALEX SUGIURA: Hey, this is Alex Sugiura. I'm the sound engineer and producer here on Axios Today. A couple books I'd like to recommend for our listeners are Bob Dylan's, "The Philosophy of Modern Song" and Lydia Sling's "Mobility." While not great beach reads, since they're both hard covers, I think they give two different ways of looking into the kind of dizzying nuance required to live in these times, so check 'em out.

ROBIN LINN: Hi, I'm one of the producers, Robin Linn. This summer I read the latest in the "Thursday Murder Club Series." So his main characters live in a peaceful English retirement village and instead of a weekly book club, they get together to talk about historic unsolved murders, and then of course, they actually have to solve a murder. It's a cute concept, but really it's the funny writing and totally spot on dialogue that makes this such a good read.

ALEX BOTTI: Hi, this is Alexandra Botti. I'm the supervising producer of Axios Today, and I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook of "The Verifiers" by Jane Pek. It follows a young woman who gets a job at, kind of, an online dating detective agency where she susses out the truth about people online. And gets caught up in a missing person's case.  I really loved following that main character on her bike rides around New York as she investigated. And there's a really lovely and sometimes hilarious immigrant family story at the heart of the book as well

LYDIA MCMULLEN-LAIRD: My name is Lydia McMullen-Laird, and I'm a producer for Axios Today. This summer I've been really enjoying reading short stories. The last short story I read is called "The Great Silence" by Ted Chiang. It's a really poignant, funny, and heartbreaking story about outer space and human language told from the point of view of a parrot, of all things. I really think short stories are the underrated, smart, brevity novel, and I recommend them to anyone, especially if you don't have a lot of time to read.

NIALA: My last summer read is something that Rebecca Makkai just recommended, "Romantic Comedy," by Curtis Sittenfeld, and I've loved all of her books. This one is such a great summer read because it's a love story, but it's also a really messy love story, which I find kind of inspiring. I am going to be starting my fall reading with "The Covenant of Water," which was an Oprah Book Club selection, but I am really interested in this because it is set in Kerala, which is where my ancestors are from, and it's an epic that spans from 1900 to 1977. Happy reading!

Maui’s new message to tourists

Hawaii

It's been a rocky start to the school year when it comes to COVID. A late summer surge has already led to class cancellations in places like Kentucky and Texas. We dig deeper on how schools are dealing with this latest COVID wave.

Plus, women are closing the labor force gap with men. 

And, the fallout continues from Spanish soccer's "MeToo" moment.

Guests: Axios' Adriel Bettelheim and Emily Peck; Power Plays' Lindsay Gibbs.

Today on the show: women are closing the labor force gap with men. Plus, the fallout continues from Spanish soccer's MeToo moment.

But first, schools grapple with Covid safety as cases rise. That's today's One Big Thing.

NIALA: It's been a rocky start to the school year when it comes to COVID. A late summer surge has already led to class cancellations in places like Kentucky and Texas. Axios' Adriel Bettelheim is here to help us dig deeper on how schools are dealing with COVID this year. Adriel, how is this back to school different than it's been over the past couple of years when it comes to COVID?

ADRIEL: Well, I mean, first of all, the waves of disease aren't resulting in nearly as many hospitalizations and deaths. And obviously we're at that point post pandemic where widespread closings or mask mandates are almost out of the question. But there are steps that some districts are taking to reinstate safety measures, particularly in areas where respiratory diseases, including but not exclusively COVID, are, are really getting out of hand.

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