The Price is Wrong: Why Inflation’s Accelerating

On October 19th, 2025, the Louvre became the backdrop of something straight out of a heist movie. In this series, I'll take you inside the events of that day through the eyes of the people who live them. Then, I'll join the International Hunt for the Louvre Jewels. Heist at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app. Or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. It's Thursday, October 15th. No, it's not your imagination. Prices are really rising even faster. You start here. The final inflation report before Election Day sends shock waves through Wall Street and Washington. Prices are going up. People's wages are not keeping up. What's causing it and how it's affecting voters. Cornell's not the only school angry about alleged assaults at frat parties. Three to five males standing outside the bathroom door cheering. These new accusations also go beyond one alleged abuser. And Ukraine says Elon Musk's satellites stopped working when they needed them most. And what they suddenly found was that those speeds were no longer available. In this war, they say a slowdown might as well be sabotage. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milky. Once a month, the federal government puts out a report on prices. Maybe you're these big surveys around the country trying to find the average price of a gallon of milk, a gallon of gas, everything else in between. If those prices have gone up, you know what that means, it's called inflation. Yesterday, they put out their monthly numbers looking back on costs in September. Now, it's just one month, but this was highly anticipated. For one, we're now more than 7 months into a conflict with Iran that we were told would last a matter of weeks. The war's going to end very soon and when it ends, it's going to end. You're going to see the oil drop like a rock. Not only is there no real sign of that ending soon, but we're starting to see just how widespread the economic damage can go. We are seeing a rise in people requesting assistance anywhere from healthcare assistance to food stamps. Perhaps even more pressing to policymakers in Washington, though, was this was the final inflation report before the midterm elections. Next one's mid-November. And as these numbers came out, it became clear that inflation is not getting better. It's actually gotten worse. Two years ago, just about every Republican ran on a message of improving the economy, but now they're going to have to spend the final three weeks of their campaigns explaining to voters why inflation is higher under them than it was during Joe Biden's final months in office. So let's start today with ABC's Elizabeth Sholesy who covers economics, Elizabeth. Walk me through these numbers. Brad, this inflation report shows prices are going in the opposite direction that we want them to. In fact, price hikes are accelerating. In other words, what this shows, the annual inflation rate sounds complicated, but it's 3.7%. That means prices are up 3.7% compared to this time last year. And that number, 3.7, is the highest number that we've seen since May. In other words, we had seen, you know, prices going up, but maybe not as fast. Well, now they're going up faster again. And that is not a good sign because what that means is that prices are going up. People's wages are not keeping up and you're paying more really across the economy for day-to-day goods. Specifically, I mean, are there specific areas where we are, I mean, it feels like you said, everything's more expensive, but are there particular areas that are the most concerning? No question about it. The biggest driver here is gas. And if you look at kind of the monthly increase in prices, half of it came from gasoline. Over the last year, gas prices are up 34%. So that is an obvious place. I watch my gas and I don't let it go past half a tank, or the quarter of a tank if I can get up it. You see the ripple effects of those higher oil and gas prices. You see, for example, Brad Airfarers are up 22% over the past year. That's because of jet fuel costs because of higher oil. Delivery fees are up double digits shipping. So there's a lot of this that is an oil story. I was predicting probably close to $5,000 to heat my home. This went there in the fact that we are seeing those high gas prices and record diesel prices ripple into other sectors of the economy. You know, it's been weeks where it's went up $800 per fill out because it's just two dollars a gallon and stuff. And that's hard for truckers to recuperate. Grocery prices are up not as much in the past month. They actually dipped a little bit over on the past month, but in the past year they're up. But one thing that's notable in this report, Brad, is that it's not all about oil that we are seeing price increases in the economy. There are also other sectors that are a huge portion of American's budgets where prices are going in the wrong direction. For example, rent, child care, tuition, services that you're paying for. That's a concern for the underlying economy because part of the idea had been, okay, you have this spike in prices because of oil, but also what we are seeing is there are other goods and services that are going up in price, not just because of oil. And that's a concern because the commune inflation could be sickening around for longer now. Well, here's my question, Elizabeth. What does this mean for Republicans? Because here's why I can't get over it. This is not like the pandemic, right? The tariffs and the war in Iran, these are voluntary actions. You can make the case that they were necessary voluntary actions, but you did not have to go there. So I mean, how does that all affect, you know, not just the White House, but all these Republicans who have to go in front of voters, and we're down to less than three weeks? I think the best way to get an answer to that question, Brad, is by talking to voters in the election. So that's exactly what we set out to do yesterday. We are actually in Oklahoma right now. Your farmer? Yes, ma'am. Rancher? Rancher. Yes, third generation right here on the farm. We talked to Scott Belden. He's a cattle rancher here in Oklahoma who voted for President Trump three times, and we put it to him point blank. What does it mean for you that your prices are going up so much right now? It's probably a little stressful time in my life. I've been, I'm 55 years old, I've been doing it my whole life, and there's just so many variables. The numbers are stark here, Brad. I mean, for farmers, these higher diesel prices are really a big problem when he's talking about $1,400 extra per week. How do you absorb that? Do you have to pass it on? Eventually, you'll have to. That is just money that you don't have when you're running a business on tight margins, and that expands beyond the farming industry. But Scott Belden told us the middle of America is hurting, and when I asked him, do you regret your vote for President Trump? He wouldn't go so far as to say he regretted it, but he said these policies are undoubtedly hurting him. He's made some decisions that didn't go the way he thought they'd go, and now we're weeping the consequences of some of them decisions, and so I wouldn't say regret, but I'm glad we'll get someone there next time. Then the question becomes how much does that translate Brad into the midterms in less than three weeks now? If the party in power, which is across the board Republican Party in Washington, are they blamed for these higher prices? Because this was a policy choice to have this war with Iran, to impose tariffs that despite the warnings from economists that prices might go up, and that's something a lot of Republicans are struggling to defend. I mean, now we're really seeing a lot of candidates say we see that these prices are higher. We feel your pain from the cattle rancher to the person at the grocery store looking at their bill. The problem with the economic message here is there's really nothing you can do to dispute that. These are hard numbers that people see. They're paying these prices, and Republicans can't deny that so much. All they can really continue to say is that they are going to try to keep bringing prices down. The message we hear from President Trump and his top economic visors, like Kevin Haset, who went on Fox Business yesterday. Sometimes September blips happen because of weird seasonal adjustment factors, so we really need to see the next month before we make a judgment about whether it's right for the Fed to do something about this. They say that this is a blip, that prices will drop as soon as the Iran war ends. The hoodies started attacking the Saudi pipeline and other Iranian proxies from Iraq were attacking refineries and so on. That we had a negative shock to energy again in September. I put that question directly to the rancher we spoke with to Scott Belden and said, "Are you expecting prices will come down when the war ends?" And he said he has noticed that prices go up very quickly. It takes a while for them to come back down. He is not expecting he says prices to come down anytime soon. That's the thing is President Trump has promised, "Hey, if you stick with us through November, that's when all of a sudden the war is going to turn. I do think it's tough for a lot of Americans to understand, like, wait, is November 3rd a magic day in other countries besides ours?" And by the way, we've already been given a deadline on this war that certainly hasn't come to fruition thus far. Elizabeth Shulzi, thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. Next up on start here, another elite American college, another frat party, and another series of dark allegations. We're back in a bit. This show is sponsored by NetSuite. There's no doubt about it anymore. AI is changing the way businesses get work done. So companies need software that understands that. With AI woven into the tools they already rely on, that's what you get with NetSuite Next. NetSuite Next is the new generation of the business management suite. It's trust by over 44,000 companies. It's designed to surface useful insights, connect you with AI agents to help solve problems and answer your questions in a friendly way, just like you're speaking with a colleague. 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Head to abcsecretsavings.com/starthere and start sleeping easier today. That's abcsecretsavings.com/starthere. The investigation into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University has rocked the nation. [CHANTING] Not just because of the accusations themselves, in which an unidentified woman says a group of seven frat brothers sexually assaulted her while she was too intoxicated to consent. They denied any wrongdoing. But that's not the only source of anger here. Many students on that campus and elsewhere have said this sort of scenario is way more common than it should be. Nothing's going to change if half of us are just quiet. This is a segment in a very large pattern that has gone on for years and years. In fact, some have started pointing to an even broader concern, Greek life on college campuses in general. Cornell mandates that for every event like a frat party, one person at a 25 needs to be on hand acting as a type of sober monitor. Seminars about sexual violence have become common for members. If these organizations were so upstanding, such a bonus to campus life critics say, you wouldn't have all the horror stories that have made these measures necessary in the first place. Some have demanded, let's just shut them all down. Well, yesterday, new accusations emerged from a completely different frat, near a completely different college that, once again, happens to be one of the most prestigious schools in the country. ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Aaron Katersky joins us. Aaron, this was near the University of Chicago, right? What happened? At the AE Pie House, just off campus of the University of Chicago Brad fraternities are not officially recognized at the elite school, but it was Saturday night into early Sunday morning when a woman says she was attending a fraternity party at the AE Pie House when she says she began feeling kind of unwell. She had been drinking three cans of some alcoholic beverage she told police, but it seemed to her friends that she was more intoxicated than that. And she ended up taking herself off the dance floor, went into the bathroom, and she says at the time she was followed by a man into the bathroom. And that's where she says she began experiencing periods of blacking out. The man who followed her inside, she says, engaged in a sex act with her after she lost consciousness. And when she regained awareness, she told police, that's when she discovered the man engaged in this sex act. And one of the friends of the alleged victims said, she saw three to five males standing outside the bathroom door, cheering and appearing to encourage the activity going on inside. Right, that's what a lot of people have responded to about this case also is sort of the circumstances around it where you have lots of people seemingly in the know about what's going on. I mean, were these fraternity brothers or I mean, what do we know about everyone else who's allegedly on hand? Well, officially we don't know who they are. In fact, AE Pie, the fraternity says that those who were said to be standing around laughing or encouraging the activity were not officially part of the fraternity. But nevertheless, when one of the alleged victims' friends tried to open the door to the bathroom, she said one of the males grabbed her by the hair to prevent her from entering. Eventually, she was able to get into the bathroom and she told police, that's when she saw a man standing over the alleged victim with his pants down. Well, and Aaron, I mean, there are a lot of people on hand who are not part of this fraternity and alpha epsilon client. It's a well-known, sort of nationally known fraternity. This chapter says they became of this aware through one of their sober monitors and they immediately moved to shut down the party that they're cooperating with investigators every step of the way. But how does the idea that not necessarily everyone here is part of the group affect an investigation? In fact, the University of Chicago says Brad that not only have police identified a person of interest, but neither that individual nor the alleged victim attends the elite University of Chicago. But nonetheless, the school will investigate and determine whether any discipline for any of its students who may have been involved, whether any of that discipline is going to be warranted. And then the local PD that I assume is involved as well? Chicago police are now investigating this after the woman reported her allegations. First, she took herself to the hospital. There was a rape kit done. And then she did report to police what she says happened to her late Saturday night early Sunday morning at the AE Pie House and Chicago police because this house's officially off campus will now conduct a criminal investigation. In our station, WLS in Chicago has been all over this. They were speaking to students on campus who immediately said, like they've been thinking about the Cornell case as they've been hearing these details. When it's like a frat on your campus that you either have been to or walked past or you know people who've been to the parties and stuff, it's kind of scary and like, you know, it could be any of us. And this sense, especially from women on campus, it's so many colleges saying, like, no, I don't feel safe. Even when I'm around other students or people affiliated with fraternities, that is going to be so concerning for so many different colleges. Amber Kutorski, thank you. Thank you, Brett. We told you earlier this week about the so-called energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Designed to keep them from firing on each other's energy infrastructure out of their cold, cold winters. I say so-called, because this appeared to be less of an agreement reached by Ukraine's diplomats and more of a plan sprung on them by President Trump. Despite Trump's assurances, Russia has not stopped its attacks. Some even speculated that President Trump's patience for this war is worn so thin he might try to undermine Ukraine just to end it. Well, yesterday, Ukrainian officials said they were astonished to learn that some of their most important communication equipment on the war front provided by the US. It suddenly stopped working in a crucial moment. ABC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Ian Panell is with us. Ian, let's break this down step by step 'cause things are moving so quickly. It's a war zone on the battle front. Is it fair to say Russia is still attacking Ukraine's energy supply? Yes, it is. We think at least three strikes have taken place since President Trump announced, as it seems, unilaterally, that there had been a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Don't attack us, don't kill our children. We will stop attack your diesel. And of course, that feeds into his growing concerns about the price of diesel, encouraging Russia to release more diesel lifting sanctions. All of these things are kind of interrelated. And yet again, Ukrainian thermal power plants, energy facilities have again been targeted by Russia. As far as we know, Ukraine has not hit any Russian energy facilities since that announcement by President Trump. Around 600,000 people lost all of their power yesterday. And of course, Ukraine, you know, authority is struggling to put the lights back on and get the heating going. Once so, as these attacks are unfolding, I mean, Ukraine has been using satellite technology to communicate and also to control some of its own weaponry. That technology is provided to them by the US through Elon Musk's company SpaceX. There's that group Starlink. This is like the military version, Star Shield. Suddenly it stopped working. Like, can you explain what happened here? Yeah, I mean, Starlink has been absolutely pivotal in the conduct of this war. I mean, back in the early days, people were of course using the regular mobile GPS system. But those were easily intercepted, both sides developed technology to intercept and disrupt those. So Elon Musk's satellite system known as Starlink, these are kind of close or near orbit satellites. In other words, they're not way, way out in space. Sometimes people can see them at night flying overhead. It was using those to basically intercept Russian attacks and to conduct its own attacks on Russian positions inside Ukraine. But relies on a certain speed to be able to fly those drones to conduct that business. For example, an intercept drone has to fly at a certain speed. Without notice, this is what President Zelensky is saying. They weren't told the speeds were restricted, that of course then limits Ukraine's ability to defend itself and to launch counterattacks against Russian positions. Now there was a post later on by an ex-defense minister yesterday who said, "Oh, those speeds have been lifted back up again, but they're not at the level that they were before." And that raises further concerns about whether there's some kind of bigger force at play here to try and punish Ukraine. That's my question, Ian, is this about Elon Musk? Is this about sort of the U.S. position towards Ukraine, is the U.S. government trying to hinder them? Why is this happening? Well, Elon Musk took to social media to say, "Look, it's not me, it's the Department of Defense of Mesa decision, ultimately the president." Have we stopped sharing intel with Ukraine? No, we haven't, we helped them, but we're really helping them get to a final answer. We want the war ended. At the same time, Ukraine is saying, "Well, the intelligence sharing that you were giving us before has also dried up or is not coming in the same level that it was before." Now, it's not pointing the finger directly at the U.S., which talks about our partners. Well, it's only really the U.S. that has that kind of capability. Why does that matter? Well, beforehand, you would get noticed that Russia had fired a missile towards Ukraine. Oh, like the U.S. has the ability to be like, "Hey, birds in the air right now, guys." Exactly. This is taking off. You need to activate your air aid sirens and your emergency alert systems on your phones. Wow. But there were something in the region of five missiles fired towards Kiev. This was overnight Tuesday into Wednesday that were not insensitive because there was no early warning. I worry about my family. We try to respond to the alerts, but as you saw yourself just now, the alarm went off and the explosions followed instantly. Again, Ukraine is saying that's because their partners, when they say their partners, they mean the U.S., did not share the same kind of intelligence that they would normally get. Now, it's also worth pointing out that Ukraine doesn't have many air defenses to stop missiles anymore because it relies on, for example, the Patriot anti-missile batteries, and as we know, the missiles for those batteries are in very short supply, partly because of the war with Iran. Most crucially, what it does is it tells Ukrainian civilians to take cover. Right. And if you don't get the warning, you don't take cover, and people die. It's that simple. Well, and that's the thing is Ukraine knows what it doesn't have. It knows that it doesn't have Patriot missiles, it knows it doesn't have a lot of air defenses right now. It said it was shocked to learn that they all of a sudden didn't have the intelligence they needed, and that they didn't have the drones flying at the speeds they would need to do some of these sort of counter moves. All right, Ian Pannell. Thank you so much. Thanks, Brad. Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, a whole industry is about to ride into the sunset. One less thing is next. The most incredible survival thriller of the year. Now playing in theaters to survive the unthinkable, do the impossible. You're going to become so dangerous that the predators can't help but let you go. Austin A. The more we grow into cats, the more eyes that we have on us. We want to do everything for the fans. Our icons are what make cats iconic. And one last thing. Some races are sprints, some are more of a canter, but no one could have guessed how many furlongs this battle would go. For as long as Central Park has existed in New York City, tourists have been taking horse-drawn carriages. I'm not kidding, they were introduced at the park's debut back in the 1860s. You can still see these carriages now. Riders lined up on the south side of the park, a top hat on their head, their horse eating a bucket of oats while they await their next fare. Carrie Bradshaw considered it an essential part of a romantic night out. But for decades now, activists have been saying nay. For all the old-world charm of the carriage ride, animal rights groups say these horses live substandard lives. Every day they have to make the commute from their stables in a big warehouse on the west side of Manhattan, over to Central Park Drive, their feet rarely if ever touch grass. When they're done, they head right back through the streets, this time with cars speeding past them. I've seen it, it's kind of scary looking. For years, the debate went back and forth, activists argued to end the practice altogether. Carriage operators, who by the way are unionized, have medallion similar to a taxi system, said the horses were well taken care of, and supported an essential New York profession. This year, though, there were two big changes. One was a tragedy in Central Park, a teenage tourist is dead after a horse got loose and just took off. A horse apparently spooked, toppled its carriage, killing a teenage tourist, protests took on a new life. For 40 years, I've been told that this band would be happening. And there is something in the air now, where it seems to me that it actually is going to make it over the finish line. The other new variable was Zorn Mamdani. Good morning, everyone. This week, the new progressive mayor of New York announced his office has reached a deal with local stakeholders to end the Central Park carriage industry once and for all. It'll come in a bill later this month that is now expected to pass. But key to this, he said, was that rides will continue for two full years during which the city has a mandate to help carriage owners transition out of the industry. I think that we have a civic responsibility to ensure that we are not leaving anybody out to dry. Advocates have long proposed other options here. A nice, horseless carriages that still give an old, tiny vibe, pettycads, bicycle rides have become huge business in Central Park, but those alternatives still leave a lot of carriage owners unimpressed. Meanwhile, for carriage abolitionists, it may have happened later than they'd like. But you know what they say, don't look gift legislation in the mouth. I also got to imagine that all the joggers in Central Park will just be happy about the smell. More and all these stories on ABC News Live, in fact, I will be on there later this morning talking about our favorite stories of the week. I'm Brad Milky, see you tomorrow. Last October's brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was shocking. Now, nearly a year out, there are still critical questions to be answered. Where did they go? And second, where did they come from?