Ahead of a Tuesday meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, President Biden laid out a plan in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to fight inflation levels that are topping 8 percent annually and reaching nearly 40-year highs. Biden has said that bringing down inflation is his top economic priority.

The gist of the plan is to get out of the way while the Fed raises interest rates to bolster the purchasing power of the dollar while supporting damaged supply chains to make sure that demand for goods doesn’t outpace their supply.

The plan also talks about bringing down demand by continuing to reduce the federal deficit, which is projected to fall by $1.7 trillion this year, something the White House is happy to show off as a win.

The goal for both Biden and the Fed is a “soft landing” — meaning a drop in prices for American consumers without a drop in overall economic growth. Whether or not they can thread this needle, Biden is emphasizing aspects of the recovery from the pandemic that further his economic agenda. Here are five takeaways from his plan.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/05-30-2022/trading-woes/

President Joe Biden on Monday described inflation as his “top economic priority” and outlined a three-part plan to lower costs for Americans in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“I ran for president because I was tired of the so-called trickle-down economy. We now have a chance to build on a historic recovery with an economy that works for working families,” Biden wrote. “The most important thing we can do now to transition from rapid recovery to stable, steady growth is to bring inflation down.”

The White House’s messaging push comes as Biden’s job approval rating among registered voters rests at roughly 42 percent, according to a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, with large numbers of Americans frustrated by a record spike in inflation over the past year.

In response, Biden’s Journal op-ed marked the beginning of a monthlong economic campaign to try to “communicate on our accomplishments to date on the economy,” according to a White House official.

The state Senate on Tuesday is poised to take up a package of measures meant to change New York's election laws with the goal of expanding access to the polls.

The proposals include a state-level version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a bill named after the late congressman and civil rights leader that has stalled on the national level.

Democrats in Congress and President Joe Biden have struggled to enact any major voting changes nationwide, making state governments a more friendly environment for doing so given the control the party has in both chambers in New York.

The bill, backed by state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, would create "rights of actions" for denying or limiting the right of a protected class to vote and provide assistance to language minority groups.

As he sat in the shade of Riverside Park on a sparkling recent weekday morning in Manhattan, Representative Jerrold Nadler tried to make sense of how two powerful allies suddenly found themselves at war.

A court-ordered redrawing of New York’s congressional district lines had combined the East and West Sides of Manhattan into a single district for the first time since World War II, putting Mr. Nadler and Representative Carolyn Maloney, a longtime colleague, on a potentially disastrous collision course in the Aug. 23 Democratic primary.

Attempts to broker a peace settlement were made, but Mr. Nadler, over a chilled Diet Coke, acknowledged that they were somewhat halfhearted.

He recalled telling Ms. Maloney in a private conversation on the House floor in Washington a few days earlier that he would win, suggesting she run for a neighboring seat.

“She said basically the opposite, and so it was an impasse,” Mr. Nadler said, “and we left it at that."

Millions of Americans traveling this holiday weekend are being greeted by unprecedented prices at the gas pump.

The national average for regular gasoline rose to a fresh record of $4.62 a gallon on Monday, according to AAA. That’s up by a penny from Sunday and 44 cents more expensive than a month ago.

Gas prices are up sharply from last Memorial Day, when they averaged $3.05 a gallon, according to AAA.

Seven states are now averaging $5-a-gallon gas, with the latest being Illinois (rounded up from $4.996). New York and Arizona are just pennies away from hitting that milestone. And there are no states where gas prices average less than $4.10 a gallon.

One person died Sunday evening in an apparent shooting on the Ohio Statehouse grounds, the State Highway Patrol reported.

Around 10 p.m. on Sunday evening, Patrol officers responded to gunshots at the northwest corner of the Ohio Statehouse and located a male victim suffering from an apparent gunshot wound, Sgt. Brice Nihiser, spokesperson for the Patrol, said.

Responding officers attempted to perform life-saving measures on the victim, but the victim died shortly after, Nihiser said. The victim has not been identified at this time.

The incident is not related to any official Statehouse business, Nihiser said. The Patrol is in charge of providing security services for the Ohio Statehouse.

Attorney General Merrick Garland warned about threats to democracy in the U.S. and abroad in a commencement speech at Harvard University on Sunday.

Driving the news: Garland, who is a Harvard alumnus, pointed to efforts to undermine the right to vote, violence against particular groups of people, the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Russian invasion of Ukraine abroad as the "many ways in which democracy is under threat."

Garland also urged the students, members of the 2020 and 2021 graduating classes, to devote some part of their lives to public service.

"There is one particular reason that makes my call to public service especially urgent for your generation," he said. "It is an urgency that should move each of you, regardless of the career you choose. It is the urgent need to defend democracy."

LONDON — When Boris Johnson hit energy companies with a windfall tax last week as a way of providing more aid for struggling consumers, it was a bittersweet moment for the opposition Labour Party, which had been promoting just such a plan for months.

For once, Labour could claim to have won “the battle of ideas.” But at a stroke, Mr. Johnson had co-opted the party’s marquee policy and claimed the credit.

This might have been a moment of opportunity for Labour. Mr. Johnson’s leadership has been in jeopardy because of a scandal over illicit lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street — missteps highlighted by a civil servant’s report last week that said senior leadership “must bear responsibility” for the failure to follow the rules.

But some political analysts think Labour should focus less on the “partygate” scandal and more on outlining a clear agenda to British voters, who face rising inflation and a possible recession.

Now out of power for 12 years, Labour has lost the last four general elections, including a thrashing in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn, a left-winger and the party’s leader at the time, was crushed by Mr. Johnson’s Conservatives.