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By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge accelerated slightly in August from a year earlier.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that its personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index was up 2.7% in August from a year earlier, a tick higher from a 2.6% year-over-year increase in July and most since February.

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Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core PCE inflation showed a 2.9% increase in prices from August 2024, same as in July. The increases were what forecasters had expected.

Prices rose 0.3% from July, compared to a 0.2% increase the month before. Core prices rose 0.2%, same as in July.

Separately, the report showed that consumer spending rose 0.4% from July, largely on a 0.7% increase in spending for goods; spending on services such as travel and dining out rose just 0.2%.

Incomes rose 0.4%, same as the month before. Income for the self-employed and business owners rose 0.9% for the second straight month. Wages and salaries rose 0.3% from July, dipping from a 0.5% increase the month before.

Inflation has come down since rising prices prompted the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. But annual price gains remain stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target.

Last week, the Fed went ahead and reduced the rate for the first time this year, lowering borrowing costs to help a deteriorating U.S. job market. But it’s been cautious about cutting, waiting to see what impact President Donald Trump’s sweeping taxes on imports have on inflation and the broader economy.

For months, Trump has relentlessly pushed the Fed to lower rates more aggressively, calling Fed Chair Jerome Powell “Too Late” and a “moron” and arguing that there is “no inflation.”

Last month, Trump sought to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Fed’s governing board, in an effort to gain greater control over the central bank. She has challenged her dismissal in court, and the Supreme Court will decide whether she can stay on the job while the case goes through the judicial system.

The Fed tends to favor the PCE inflation gauge that the government issued Friday over the better-known consumer price index. The PCE index tries to account for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps. It can capture, for example, when consumers switch from pricier national brands to cheaper store brands.

By JENNIFER PELTZ and ADAM GELLER, Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Facing international isolation, accusations of war crimes and growing pressure to end a conflict he has continued to escalate, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets his chance to push back Friday on the international community’s biggest platform.

Netanyahu’s annual speech to the U.N. General Assembly is always closely watched, often protested, reliably emphatic and sometimes a venue for dramatic allegations. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever for the Israeli leader.

In recent days, Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and others announced their recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

The European Union is considering tariffs and sanctions on Israel. The assembly this month passed a nonbinding resolution urging Israel to commit to an independent Palestinian nation, which Netanyahu has said is a non-starter.

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant accusing Netanyahu of crimes against humanity, which he denies. And the U.N’s highest court is weighing South Africa’s allegation that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, which it vehemently refutes.

Against that backdrop, Netanyahu sounded resolute Thursday as he boarded a plane in Israel to head for the U.N.’s annual meeting of top-level leaders in New York.

“I will tell our truth,” Netanyahu said. “I will condemn those leaders who, instead of condemning the murderers, rapists and burners of children, want to give them a state in the heart of Israel.”

Opposition to Netanyahu’s approach is growing

At a special session of the assembly this week, nation after nation expressed horror at the 2023 attack by Hamas militants that killed about 1,200 people in Israel, saw 251 taken hostage and triggered the war. Many of the representatives went on to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and influx of aid.

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Israel’s sweeping offensive has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza and displaced 90 percent of its population, with an increasing number now starving.

While more than 150 countries now recognize a Palestinian state, the United States has not, providing Israel with vociferous support. But President Donald Trump pointedly signaled Thursday there are limits, telling reporters in Washington that he wouldn’t let Israel annex the occupied West Bank.

Israel hasn’t announced such a move, but several leading members in Netanyahu’s government have advocated doing so. And officials recently approved a controversial settlement project that would effectively cut the West Bank in two, a move that critics say could doom chances for a Palestinian state. Trump and Netanyahu are scheduled to meet during his visit.

Back in the Mideast, Israel said Friday it planned to broadcast Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s U.N. General Assembly speech from southern Israel into Gaza, carrying his remarks across the border to Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

His office “instructed civilian groups in cooperation with the army to place loudspeakers on trucks on the Israeli side of the border,” it said in a statement, noting that the broadcasts would be arranged so they would not endanger soldiers.

Palestinians had their UN say the day before

Netanyahu was preceded Thursday by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the General Assembly via video, since the U.S. denied him a visa. He welcomed the announcements of recognition but said the world needs to do more to make statehood happen.

“The time has come for the international community to do right by the Palestinian people” and help them realize “their legitimate rights to be rid of the occupation and to not remain a hostage to the temperament of Israeli politics,” he said.

Abbas leads the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers portions of the West Bank. Hamas won legislative elections in Gaza in 2006 before seizing control from Abbas’ forces the following year.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war, then withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians want all three territories to form their envisioned state, part of a “two-state solution” that the international community has embraced for decades.

Netanyahu opposes it robustly, maintaining that creating a Palestinian state would reward Hamas.

“This will not happen,” he said at the airport Thursday.

Sam Metz contributed to this report from Rabat, Morocco. Geller reported from New York.

By BEN FINLEY, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and REGINA GARCIA CANO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has dispatched a fleet of American warships into the waters off Venezuela, bragged about fatal strikes on alleged drug boats and claimed Venezuela will pay an “incalculable” price if it won’t accept more people deported from the U.S.

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The unusual naval buildup off South America has stoked fears of invasion in Venezuela and speculation that Trump could try to topple its authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, who has lost support in his own country and faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

At the same time, experts say the flotilla isn’t big enough for a land offensive against a country twice the size of California. It all raises questions about U.S. intentions.

“Although the armada in the Caribbean is significant, it’s not what you would need to actually invade,” said Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and a former State Department lawyer. He didn’t see Trump having “the stomach” for that big of a step, saying the president “likes performative military action, particularly strikes on supposed terrorists.”

The deadly boat strikes and naval buildup have raised questions in Congress and some countries about Trump’s goals in the region and whether they stretch beyond what he says is stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the U.S. Some lawmakers and rights groups have questioned the legality of using deadly military attacks against alleged drug traffickers, while voicing concerns over how much force Trump may choose to deploy without congressional approval.

“We’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolás Maduro,” Trump said at the U.N. this week. “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence.”

Legal authorization for further force isn’t clear

If Trump decided to order missile strikes into Venezuela or small raids, which experts say would likely target drug cartels instead of the Maduro government itself, that would still be a major provocation.

“A quick strike against the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense or something just doesn’t really help you very much,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine colonel. “It’s not going to overturn the regime. It’s not going to energize the opposition. And it just stirs up the hornet’s nest.”

Senators from both parties view the strikes as potential presidential overreach, while Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced War Powers Resolutions that would require a halt to military actions without further approvals.

Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat, said Trump “cannot be allowed to drag the United States into another endless war with his reckless actions.”

The Trump administration has claimed self-defense as a justification, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing the drug cartels “pose an immediate threat” to the nation.

The administration has declared several drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, while congressional authorization for military force remains in effect for the so-called Global War on Terror. The administration could try to rely on that authorization, but it would most certainly face objections in Congress.

“Sinking the odd boat is a big deal, but it’s fairly consistent with the types of actions we’ve taken against terrorists without too much controversy,” said Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at RAND and a retired Navy captain.

“Start attacking camps, and pretty soon we’re at a level of force where there’s no legal underpinning for it,” Martin said. “Even with a large-scale raid, we’re starting to get past the point of self-defense.”

US forces in the Caribbean

The U.S. Navy has eight warships with over 5,000 sailors and Marines in the region: three destroyers, three amphibious assault ships, a cruiser and a smaller ship designed for combat in shallow waters, U.S. defense officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing situation in greater detail.

Destroyers and cruisers typically deploy with Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can strike targets hundreds of miles away. A U.S. Navy submarine, the USS Newport News, also is operating in the broader area of South America and is capable of launching the cruise missile, the officials said.

The amphibious assault ships are carrying nearly 2,000 Marines and a variety of Marine helicopters, Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and Harrier jets. The military planned to send 10 advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico, with some arriving last week, officials said.

Trump warns Venezuela

The White House has so far announced three fatal strikes against vessels it says were smuggling drugs bound for American communities. It claimed two came from Venezuela.

After posting a video of the latest strike last week, Trump shifted the conversation to the removal of Venezuelan nationals from the U.S.

Deportation flights to Venezuela have continued despite the American warships. Facing pressure from the White House, Maduro did away this year with his longstanding policy of not accepting deportees from the U.S.

Still, Trump told the Venezuelan government in a post Sunday to immediately accept prisoners and “people from mental institutions.”

“GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT NOW, OR THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL BE INCALCULABLE!” he wrote.

Asked by a reporter what he meant, Trump said, “You’re gonna have to figure that out.”

Some administration officials likely hope the U.S. military’s presence will cause Maduro to step aside or embolden his opponents, but it “isn’t likely to play out that way,” said Finucane of the International Crisis Group.

But Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, insisted that Maduro is down to three options:

“Get out, rot in jail for the rest of his life like Noriega, or end up like Soleimani (in ashes and in a plastic bag),” the lawmaker, an outspoken supporter of Venezuela’s political opposition, said in an interview he posted on social media.

Manuel Noriega was a Panamanian dictator ousted by the U.S. military in a 1989 invasion who spent in the following decades in prisons before his death. Qassem Soleimani was an Iranian general killed in a 2020 drone strike in Iraq ordered by Trump.

Maduro ‘activates’ militia

Maduro and other government officials have rejected claims that Venezuela is a crucial link in the drug trade. They also said the U.S. military’s operation is an attack on their sovereignty and part of an overthrow attempt.

FILE – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro points at a map of the Americas during a new conference in Caracas, Venezuela, Sept 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jesus Vargas), File

A key component of Venezuela’s defense is a civilian militia, with Maduro claiming 6 million of its members have been “activated.”

That figure could not be verified, but public support for the government has plummeted further after credible evidence showed Maduro lost last year’s presidential election.

The nation’s military gathered with Venezuelans in plazas, streets, ports and beaches recently as part of an effort that Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said was meant to train the militia.

FILE – Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez speaks during military exercises in Caracas, Venezuela, Sept. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

In the state of La Guaira, which includes the country’s main airport, Gov. José Alejandro Terán said exercises included training on an anti-aircraft defense system.

“We have identified all the approach routes and built a roadblock defense system backed by a heavy artillery system,” he told state television.

Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia, and Garcia Cano from Caracas, Venezuela. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.