Price, wage increases slow further; Ford recalls 870K F-150 pickups; as e-bikes proliferate, so do deadly fires | Hot off the Wire podcast

On this version of Hot off the Wire:

» Signs that inflation pressures in the United States are steadily easing emerged Friday in reports that consumer prices rose in June at their slowest pace in more than two years and that wage growth cooled last quarter. Together, the figures provided the latest signs that the Federal Reserve’s drive to tame inflation may succeed without triggering a recession, an outcome known as a “soft landing.”

» Ford is recalling more than 870,000 F-150 pickup trucks in the U.S. because the electric parking brakes can turn on unexpectedly. The recall covers certain pickups from the 2021 through 2023 model years with single exhaust systems.

» Federal officials are considering a crackdown on defective lithium-ion batteries that power hoverboards, scooters and motorized bicycles because of a rash of deadly fires caused by exploding batteries. The effort comes as New York City implements new laws meant to reduce the number of fires, injuries and deaths in a city where e-bikes have become ubiquitous.

» Homeless kids often fell through the cracks during the tumult of the pandemic, when many schools struggled to keep track of families with unstable housing. The number of children identified as homeless by schools nationwide dropped by 21% from the 2018-2019 school year to the 2020-2021 school year, according to federal data. But the decrease, representing more than 288,000 students, likely includes many kids whose homelessness was unknown to schools.

» A new analysis shows students across the U.S. fell further behind academically last school year despite extensive efforts to help them recover from learning setbacks tied to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research comes from K-12 assessment and research organization NWEA. The analysis found that the average student will need the equivalent of 4.1 additional months of schooling to catch up in reading and 4.5 months for math.