--:-- Shemita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, October 15th. I'm Shemita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shemita Basu: On today's show, how domestic furniture makers are feeling about new tariffs, why one Powerball winner is snatching up real estate burned by the LA fires, and how the world's worst men's soccer team could make it to the World Cup. But first, to the man President Trump calls his favorite president. Argentinian leader Javier Millet is perhaps most known internationally as the libertarian who literally takes a chainsaw to spending.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Well, yesterday he was at the White House to thank the Trump administration for a $20 billion bailout. For Millet, this financial package could be an economic lifeboat that saves the peso from a currency crisis and a political lifeboat.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And Trump has said that financial infusion is necessary to stabilize Argentina's economy and prevent effects from spilling over into the region, all while applauding Millet's record of slashing government spending, cutting regulations and reducing the federal workforce.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But critics say it's mostly a political play, a way for Trump to publicly praise a like-minded leader and bolster Milley and his party on the heels of an upcoming election in Argentina.
--:-- Shemita Basu: The Wall Street Journal's editorial board described it this way. Argentina is in need of monetary reform, but this deal risks throwing, quote, good dollars after bad pesos.
--:-- Shemita Basu: At their face-to-face meeting yesterday, Trump explicitly linked the agreement to Milley's political future.
--:-- Shemita Basu: We think he's going to win. He should win. And if he does win, we're going to be very helpful. And if he doesn't win, we're not going to waste our time because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Milley was elected at the end of 2023 in the midst of an economic crisis. Voters were looking for change and were willing to take a chance on him as a political outsider, an economist and TV personality.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist who's been covering Milley's political career.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: He's definitely delivered on a lot of what he promised in the first year. He cut, I think, some 30 percent of real public spending. The government has fired thousands of public sector workers. It's cut deeply into subsidies. And he has made some progress on some important indicators.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: Most notably, the one that we often hear about is inflation. It's now monthly at less than 2 percent, around 2 percent.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: All this has made him something of a hero and a model to the political right in the U.S. and beyond.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: But his popularity at home has begun to wane. He's cut back subsidies for a whole range of services, made moves that have driven the cost of other expenses for Argentines up, which means that when you're on the street, it still feels like Argentines are still struggling.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: The loss of subsidies, I told you, has meant higher prices for gas and food and shuttered factories, all of which have prompted protests and social unrest.
--:-- Natalie Alcoba: And after promising to stamp out corruption, Millet has been tied to a number of scandals involving his sister and close allies, which have dented his polling numbers.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Against this backdrop, Millet's party now faces possible backlash in upcoming national midterms, which have put him firmly back in his unconventional campaign mode.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Last week he took to the stage delighting his base with a performance of rock covers. While Millet sings, investors' nerves at least temporarily have been calmed by the U bailout.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But as Alcoba points out, the $20 billion bailout package isn't a sure thing, as far as we know.
--:-- Shemita Basu: The whole point of this package was to create certainty, But if it's tied to a certain political outcome, then which cannot be guaranteed, of course, then that would raise a whole bunch of questions about what kind of certainty is actually behind it.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Now to the latest tariff rollout that could change your next home renovation project or prevent you from buying a house altogether.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Yesterday, new duties ranging from 10 to 25 percent came into effect for lumber, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered furniture.
--:-- Shemita Basu: President Trump justified the new taxes, saying they would support national security and revitalize the domestic furniture industry in places like North Carolina.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Matt Egan is a senior reporter with CNN.
--:-- Matt Egan: And on the jobs front, the president has a point. I mean, North Carolina once had a booming furniture industry. In 1999, there were about 80,000 furniture manufacturing jobs in North Carolina alone. But today, there's just 28,000.
--:-- Matt Egan: Egan and a colleague spoke to people in different parts of the industry, and he told us their reaction was mixed.
--:-- Matt Egan: They're hopeful that the tariffs are going to help when it comes to domestic manufacturing. But there's also some worry and some fear.
--:-- Matt Egan: There's concern that all of this is just going to increase already high levels of uncertainty and that the tariffs could actually undermine what is an intricate ecosystem in the furniture industry.
--:-- Matt Egan: And because profit margins in this industry are thin, some are worried about a short-term shakeup spelling disaster for these kinds of businesses.
--:-- Shemita Basu: We spoke to Alex Shuford. He's the CEO of this 78-year-old North Carolina furniture company.
--:-- Alex Shuford: They get about 80% of their sales from furniture that they make in factories in the United States. But even he was worried about this tariff plan.
--:-- Alex Shuford: And he said that his fear is that they don't want the medicine that's intended to help them end up causing so much harm that in the end, it ends up really hurting them.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Shuford has another problem, finding talent. His company has 50 to 75 job openings for skilled workers like technicians and woodworkers.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But there's a shortage that makes filling those roles hard.
--:-- Shemita Basu: There just doesn't seem to be the skilled workforce to do that. And even if there was, it might require their labor costs to go so significantly higher that it would end up causing some real sticker shock for consumers.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Costs have been going up already. Items for living rooms and kitchens rose by 9.5 percent in August over the same month a year earlier.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And betting prices were up 4.7 percent.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Prices shot up on just about everything, including furniture during COVID.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But then what you saw was actually in 2023, 2024, furniture prices were actually falling. It was getting cheaper to buy furniture.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And now we're seeing the opposite with prices going up significantly.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And it's hard to see how this imposition of new tariffs on furniture is going to help things. In fact, it looks like it's going to only increase the cost of furniture even more.
--:-- Shemita Basu: The tariffs brought in this week are just the beginning. In the new year, levies for these same goods will rise again.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs economists published new analysis suggesting that consumers, not foreign exporters, will shoulder the majority of the tariff costs this year.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Now to Southern California and an ongoing recovery effort from the major wildfires that leveled entire neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area earlier this year.
--:-- Shemita Basu: In the aftermath, community members had lots of questions. Could they rebuild? What would it cost? How much will insurance pay? Or is it time to consider moving somewhere outside of a state that's contending with the worst of the housing affordability crisis?
--:-- Shemita Basu: In the immediate wake of the wildfires, any homeowner I spoke with compared it to some kind of apocalyptic zone.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Rebecca Puchota with The Wall Street Journal told us about Edwin Castro, a native of Altadena, one of the hardest hit areas in the L.A. fires, who's now one of the biggest buyers of burned-down lots in his hometown.
--:-- Rebecca Puchota: He wants to build single-family homes for families and kind of save at least more than a dozen lots from what he sees are corporate interests who might be interested in turning them into rentals or something else.
--:-- Rebecca Puchota: The reason that he's able to even be a big player here is back in 2022, Castro bought the winning ticket in the $2 billion Powerball lottery.
--:-- Rebecca Puchota: So far, he has spent $10 million on real estate in the neighborhood.
--:-- Rebecca Puchota: And so he's really interested in preserving the neighborhood that he grew up in, at least on the 15 lots that he bought, which is definitely a small share of the overall lots that were burned.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But to him, this is kind of a way to lead by example.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Before the fires, Altadena was known for its small-town feel with tree-lined streets, craftsman bungalows, and Spanish revival homes.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Many of its 42,000 residents had lived there for decades. It was relatively affordable compared to the rest of L.A. and a racially diverse place.
--:-- Shemita Basu: In the mid-20th century, Altadena was a refuge from redlining for a lot of Black families, and that allowed them to build wealth through homeownership in ways that they couldn't elsewhere.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And so that's a really important part of the character of Altadena.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And there is a fear that the rebuild could accelerate some of the gentrification that kind of was already taking place before the wildfires.
--:-- Shemita Basu: California recently passed a series of laws that make it easier to build duplexes and apartments in areas that typically have single-family homes, a point of contention in the battle over affordable housing.
--:-- Shemita Basu: A petition to prevent investors from buying lots in the area has collected almost 1,500 signatures.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Residents supporting the petition refer to the influx of investors interested in development as a second wave of disaster.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Castro says this isn't a giveaway. He wants to sell the homes at market value, but he specifically wants to sell to families who want to stay.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Pachotto told us in a neighborhood where lots of locals are skeptical, some are coming around to Castro's vision.
--:-- Shemita Basu: They know this is the guy who won the lottery at a local gas station, and they know he's from there, or at least has roots in Altadena.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And so I think there is a sense that if anyone is going to invest in this land they feel a little bit more comfortable with him.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Rebuilding after wildfires in California has generally been a tedious fraught process.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And in the aftermath of this year's blazes, state officials said they would cut down on that red tape to speed up the process.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Still, of the thousands of structures and homes that were destroyed, only about 10 percent of homes have a permit to rebuild.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Just days into the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, tensions have begun to rise.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Israel has temporarily closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and the number of aid trucks allowed in will be reduced.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Israeli officials say this is because Hamas has been slow to hand over the remains of deceased hostages as part of the peace plan.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Hamas said the delay is because the bodies are difficult to locate and identify.
--:-- Shemita Basu: 300 trucks, half of what was agreed upon, will now be permitted to enter.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And Reuters reports no fuel or gas will be allowed into Gaza except for specific purposes tied to humanitarian infrastructure.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Meanwhile, Hamas has moved quickly to regain control of certain parts of Gaza where Israeli troops have partially withdrawn.
--:-- Shemita Basu: On Monday, Hamas publicly executed seven men in Gaza City Square.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And NPR reports Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians they considered a threat.
--:-- Shemita Basu: In other international news, the Trump administration says it has carried out another strike against a boat off the Venezuelan coast, killing six suspected drug smugglers.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Trump called those killed, quote, narco-terrorists.
--:-- Shemita Basu: This is the fifth boat destroyed by U.S. forces, killing a total of 27 people.
--:-- Shemita Basu: The Washington Post reports no evidence has been disclosed that any of the boats that were struck carried drugs or that the people aboard were criminals.
--:-- Shemita Basu: It's also not clear what country they came from.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Trump has justified his right to conduct the strikes because he's declared the U.S. at war with drug cartels.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Congress is the only body legally allowed to declare war.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And finally, could San Marino, the world's worst men's soccer team, be heading to the World Cup?
--:-- Shemita Basu: Mathematically, it's possible, but here's the catch. They need to keep losing.
--:-- Shemita Basu: Throughout its history, this micro-state located in the north of Italy has failed to win a single one of the 169 qualifying matches that it's played for the World Cup or the Euros.
--:-- Shemita Basu: So unsurprisingly, it's never made it to soccer's biggest stage.
--:-- Shemita Basu: But it did get a couple of wins a while back in a different league that offers a new sort of backdoor route to the World Cup.
--:-- Shemita Basu: It just needs one team above it there, Romania, to qualify through the traditional route.
--:-- Shemita Basu: That would open up a potential space for San Marino.
--:-- Shemita Basu: For that to happen, though, Romania needs a big win with lots of goals.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And it just so happens that it'll soon be facing San Marino.
--:-- Shemita Basu: So for the best possible chance of getting to the World Cup, San Marino needs to lose and lose big.
--:-- Shemita Basu: If they do, who knows? This could be Ryan Reynolds' next soccer documentary.
--:-- Shemita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shemita Basu: New York Magazine tells the story of how a Russian exile was deported to Costa Rica as part of the administration's plan to remove asylum seekers from the U.S. and send them to countries they're not from or have ever been to.
--:-- Shemita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shemita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
