Israel is seeing the largest mass protests since the war and Gaza began after six more hostages were found to have been killed. Protesters blame the Prime Minister for failing to bring them home alive. Will the action force a ceasefire in hostage exchange deal? I'm Michelle Martin, that's Lila Fuddle, and this is Up First from NPR News. Labor Unions are more active than ever this election cycle.
Union members will be at the center of their communities, bringing their friends and family and their neighbors to the polls. Vice President Kamala Harris is campaigning with President Biden and Pittsburgh today. Will Union support be enough to win swing states like Pennsylvania? And both presidential candidates have put America's housing issues on their agenda, but they are very different and vague plans to fix them. Stay with us, we'll give you the news. We need to start your day.
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Performance is not guaranteed. This message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify, the global commerce platform that helps you sell and show up exactly the way you want to. Use your online store to your style, sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash up first. In Israel, a nationwide general strike is underway crippling much of the country. And last night protests broke out in several Israeli cities in one of the largest anti-war demonstrations to date.
This is all part of a nationwide outpoint of grief and frustration after the bodies of six hostages were recovered from Gaza over the weekend. They demanded an end to the war and a deal to bring remaining hostages home. Official autopsies by Israel showed that all six had been shot in recent days that according to a statement from the Israeli Ministry of Health. For more, we're joined by NPR's Cat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Good morning, Cat. Hey, Leila.
So, let's start with this general strike today. How is that playing out? Yeah, so a lot of things are closed. Many schools, government buildings, the airport even closed for a few hours this morning. And a lot of private businesses have closed in solidarity as well. It's pretty quiet in my neighborhood, for example. The nation's largest labor union here said that quote, only a strike will shock and went on to call for a ceasefire deal immediately.
This is the first time this has happened since the war began last October. But I should also say not all areas of Israel are abiding by the strike. That's showing the deep divisions that are present in this country right now. I was looking at these incredible images of just people as far as you could see in this protest in Tel Aviv. You were there. What were you seeing in hearing? Yeah, so like you said, the streets in downtown Tel Aviv were packed with people stretching for blocks and blocks.
They were shutting down intersections. People were climbing on top of bus stops. And they were waving Israeli flags, chanting to bring the remaining hostages home, holding signs calling for an end of the war and other signs calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a murderer and a criminal. Like you said, the autopsies showed that these six hostages were all killed just days ago. And many people think that if Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire deal earlier, they would still be alive.
People are really, really angry. Here's Tel Aviv resident, Ori Elman. He calls Netanyahu by his nickname, BB. BB needs to decide that he wants to sign the deal. BB is the Prime Minister, he holds the key for the deal. He can keep on putting more and more obstacles and demands, but that's not relevant. Every single person I talked to last night blamed the death of these hostages on Netanyahu, saying that they believed he was the one obstructing the ceasefire deal.
So we do think stand with that deal that people are calling for. It's really hard to know exactly. There are negotiating teams still working through the technical parts of a possible deal, but even just yesterday, Netanyahu dug in saying that he won't give up Israeli military control of a strip of land between Egypt and Gaza, called the Philadelphia corridor. He said that this is vital to his goal of eliminating Hamas and the militant groups access to this muggling tunnels there.
This has been one of the main sticking points in the deal, and Netanyahu is not budging. Meanwhile hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza in the past few weeks as the ceasefire deal has been in negotiations. So the war is still very much continuing there. Yeah, and it's about to enter its 12 month, tens of thousands of media killed mostly women and children, according to health officials there over that time. What is the situation today?
Well, over the weekend in Israel and Hamas agreed to a very limited pause in fighting in certain areas of Gaza as UN officials, UN health workers began very ambitious in challenging vaccination campaign against polio. They were able to vaccinate more than 72,000 children yesterday, according to health officials there, which is good, but it's well below the 600,000 goal that they have for this three day campaign. That's NPR's Cat Lownstorfe in Tel Aviv.
Thanks, Cat. Thanks, Leyla. When Democrats gathered in Chicago for their national convention, unions were front and center. We know that when unions succeed, all workers win and protected the pensions of millions of union workers in real class, Bill America, and unions built the middle class. And today Vice President Kamala Harris will mark Labor Day with President Biden and Pittsburgh, a city with a strong union history.
And Perez-Den Gagne joins us now to talk about the labor movement's active role in this election. Hey, Don. So, unions have been an important constituency for Democrats for a long time. But it feels like they're getting some extra attention this campaign season. Why is that? I mean, the stakes are just so high this election, by all accounts, is shaping up to be very close. It'll come down to just a few states.
And union members play a big role in battleground states, especially places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. The extra attention is also due to some new leadership within the movement. Take the United Auto Workers Union. Sean Fain, he's become a force nationally since taking over as President of that union last year. He led a national strike, a successful strike. Now he's got the standing to really take an aggressive approach to getting friends of labor elected.
Just give a listen to Fain at the Democratic Convention. Kamala Harris is one of us. He's a fighter for the working class. And Donald Trump is a scab. That is classic Sean Fain in your face using very, very strong language. Okay, that's why Democrats are courting these voters. What are union leaders themselves doing to organize? It's a lot more visible than it's been in past years. And I've covered this for a long time.
We're always out there at labor, working phone banks, canvassing, all of that. But this year it seems to be at another level. The AFL CIO's president Liz Schuller stresses though that it is still really about that person to person contact at union halls in the break room wherever. Union members will be the ones who will be at the center of their communities, educating voters, bringing their friends and family and their neighbors and co-workers to the polls.
That old-fashioned person to person getting people to the polls is what the labor movements bread and butter is. And so we're going to continue to do that. It does though, Laila, also this year include a growing presence on social media. Unions are all over. Facebook Live, TikTok, Twitter, X. So it's not replacing personal contact, but that's an important piece of it. Okay, but Republicans are still trying to go after these voters as well. What kind of picture are they making and is it working?
They're talking about the economy, job security, inflation, how they say climate change legislation will hurt auto companies, forcing them to transition to electric cars. All of that stuff is playing out. Trump too has been courting unions in the battlegrounds really since he first appeared on the scene. And he's had some success. He's not carrying the union vote, but he's managed to cut into the Democrats' traditional margin. And in a close, close race, that could be enough.
It is not unusual to find Trump supporters who are also, say, wearing a UAW or a teamsters t-shirt at one of his rallies. And Piers, Don Gagne, thank you, Don. My pleasure. The cost of living is a big issue for voters, and the cost of housing is a big part of that. And both presidential candidates have plans to address that high cost of housing, but there are few details and lots of questions. And Piers, Jennifer, Ludden is here to help us sort through them. Good morning.
Hello. So let's start with Vice President Kamal Harris. Just put out an ad on her housing ideas and has been talking about this. What's her plan? Well, the main part of the biggest part of it is to boost our supply of housing. And that really is the core problem. I mean, this country has a severe shortage of especially affordable housing that has pushed up prices. Harris says she would build three million new housing units in four years, theoretically, not impossible, but certainly ambitious.
The first reality check here is to pay for it, Congress would need to approve that. And even if it did, there's another big challenge to building lots of housing. It's restrictive zoning. Zheng Choi with the Nonpartisan Urban Institute says those rules are controlled by states and cities, not the federal government. So unless they kind of cut down more restrictive land use and zoning regulations, then it would probably be more difficult to attain that free million goal.
On top of that, Choi says you need enough workers and materials on hand to really ramp up construction that much that fast. Okay. So three million new apartments at home is doable, but not easy. But what else is Harris proposing? Two ideas they get mixed reviews from housing experts. She wants to give $25,000 to help first time home buyers. Now Choi thinks helping more people own is good, but she says it's Econ 101.
If you boost a man by giving people more money when there's such limited housing supply, it could just drive up prices. Also Harris wants to reign in tax breaks for big investors who buy up single family homes and rent them out. They can price out people who want to buy. But Choi says those companies are a small slice of the market. All right. Let's turn to former President Trump. Of course he has a record from his first term and officer, his only term and office so far.
You know about his plans if he were to win another term. We don't have that many details on what Trump is thinking about housing, even though of course he started out as a real estate developer. But for years, and again, this campaign, he has spoken out strongly against low income housing. He says it brings down property values. He calls it an attack on the suburbs. Sheamus Roller at the National Housing Law Project supports tenants, right?
He says when Trump was in office, he also was no fan of public housing programs. There were significant cuts to the federal housing programs proposed under Trump. I would expect to see similar cuts proposed. It really depends on what Congress looks like as well. Beyond that, Trump says that deporting immigrants would free up more housing. Housing experts aren't sure how big a dent that would make. But they do say it could hurt new construction, which depends on immigrant labor.
Trump also wants to build more housing on federal land, which the Biden-Harris administration is also supported. And he basically says he'd make it cheaper to buy a house because he'd bring down interest rates. But of course, Michelle, that power lies with the federal reserve and not the president. Yeah, complicated and a long-term project to be sure. That is NPR's Jennifer Leiden, Jennifer, thank you. Thank you. And that's it for Monday, September 2nd. I'm Leyla Faldon. And I'm Michelle Martin.
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