Category: News

Gas prices in the United States fell below $4 a gallon on Thursday, retreating to their lowest level since March, a drop that has brought relief to Americans struggling with the skyrocketing cost of everything from groceries to rent.

The national average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline now stands at $3.99, according to AAA. That’s higher than it was a year ago but still well below a peak of nearly $5.02 in mid-June. Energy costs feed into broad measures of inflation, so the drop is also good news for policymakers who have struggled to contain the price increases and for President Biden, who has pledged to lower gas costs.

The national average includes a wide range of prices, from nearly $5 a gallon in Oregon and Nevada to about $3.50 in Texas and Oklahoma. But, broadly speaking, the drop reflects a number of factors: weaker demand, because high costs have kept some drivers off the roads; a sharp decline in global oil prices in recent months; and the fact that a handful of states have suspended taxes on gasoline.

Regardless of the causes, the lower prices are a welcome change for drivers for whom the added expense — often $10 to $15 extra for a tank of gas — had become yet another hurdle as they sought to get their lives back to normal after the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have new rising diseases and inflation, and people expect a recession,” said Zindy Contreras, a student and part-time waitress in Los Angeles, where gas prices are close to $5.40 a gallon. “If I just had to not worry about my gas tank taking up $70 that’d be a huge relief, for once.”

Ms. Contreras has been filling up her 2008 Mazda 3 only halfway as a result of the higher prices, which has been costing her $25 to $30 each visit to the pump, and she had found opportunities to car-pool with friends. These days, Ms. Contreras usually gets gas twice a week, driving 15 miles to and from work each week and an additional 10 to 50 miles a week, depending on her plans.

“The affordability squeeze is becoming very real when you see these high prices at the gas pump,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the U.S. chief economist at S&P Global. “So, in that sense, it’s a positive sign certainly for those folks that are struggling.”

That cushion — cash not spent on gasoline that can go elsewhere — extends to businesses, too, particularly as the price of diesel fuel also drops. Diesel, which is used to fuel, for instance, farm equipment, construction machinery and long-haul trucks, has also fallen from a June record, though at a slower pace than gasoline prices.

The drop in the price of gas is also good news for the economy, as businesses face less pressure to pass energy costs on to their customers — a move that would add to the country’s inflation problem.

The government reported this week that consumer price inflation slowed in July to an annual rate of 8.5 percent, down from 9.1 percent in June, thanks largely to the drop in gasoline prices. If it persists, the slowdown in inflation could allow the Federal Reserve to ease up on its campaign to raise interest rates.

It would also serve as a victory of sorts for Mr. Biden, who has spent recent weeks trumpeting the drop in gasoline prices, even as he says he expects to do more to bring costs down. Mr. Biden has criticized oil companies for their record profits from high oil and gas prices, and this year he released some of the nation’s stockpile of oil in an effort to keep prices from jumping too fast.

“I’m going to keep doing what I can to bring down the price of gas at the pump,” he said at a briefing in late July.

Even as they watch prices fall, economists and consumers say they wonder if this is a temporary reversal.

“I’m not ready for it to go a little higher again and then I’m over here struggling to fill up my tank,” said Christina Beliard, a 27-year-old fashion influencer in Bridgeport, Conn.

Ms. Beliard bought a Jeep Wrangler last year but now regrets the purchase because the vehicle is not as fuel-efficient as the Toyota Camry she drove before. For work, she sometimes needs to drive to locations for her accounts on TikTok and Instagram, platforms on which she promotes brands, and to attend events in New York City, which is about 60 miles from her home.

Connecticut is one of the states that suspended their tax on gasoline through November. And Ms. Beliard, who had been spending from $95 to $100 a week to fuel up her Jeep, is now paying $74 to $80. Still, she is weary of the high tab.

“I’m trying to figure out, how long is this going to last?” she said.

That’s a difficult question to answer. More than half the cost of gasoline at the pump is determined by global oil prices, and those are volatile and subject to myriad forces, many of which are hard to predict.

Oil prices have tumbled to their lowest point since the war in Ukraine began in February, a drop that reflects the growing concern of a global recession that will hit demand for crude. There are several reasons that prices could rise again: The course of the war could further hamper global oil supplies, energy investors’ views on the economy could change and hurricanes later this year could damage Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines, choking off supplies.

For now, though, the steady drop offers a reprieve to Americans who are concerned about their finances as the economy slows.

“If gasoline prices stay at or near the levels they have reached, that would mean much more cushion for households,” Ms. Bovino said.

NAIROBI, Kenya — It was a sight to behold. Scores of young people, excited and expectant, gathered in Nairobi, chanting slogans and waving banners. But it was no entertainment: They were there for a campaign rally. In the months leading up to Kenya’s elections on Tuesday, the scene was repeated across the country. Here, it seemed, were the future custodians of the country taking a lively interest in the political process.

But appearances can be deceptive. Some, it turned out, attended only on the promise of payment; others were paid to gather crowds from nearby. The actual enthusiasm of the country’s young, in contrast to the contrived air of engagement, is rather cooler. While those age 18 to 35 make up 75 percent of the population, only about 40 percent of people from that cohort have registered to vote.

For some, this lackluster showing was evidence of worrisome apathy among the country’s youth. And sure enough, the early signs from Tuesday’s vote, where turnout across the board was low, at around 60 percent, suggest that the young stayed home in large numbers. But the charge of apathy misses the point. For many young Kenyans, refusing to vote is not a result of disinterest or indifference or even ignorance. It is instead — as Mumbi Kanyago, a 26-year-old communications consultant, told me — a “political choice.”

You can see why. The two leading candidates in Kenya’s election, William Ruto and Raila Odinga, who are neck and neck in the early count, are both established members of the political class. They sit at the apex of a system that has failed to counter endemic youth unemployment, skyrocketing debt and a rising cost of living. In the eyes of many young people, expecting change from such stalwarts of the status quo is a fool’s errand. If the choice is a false one, they reason, better to refuse it altogether than collude in a fiction.

On the surface, the two candidates seem pretty different. Mr. Ruto has branded himself a “hustler,” sharing stories about how he sold chicken by the roadside before his rise through the ranks to businessman and political leader — a back story that has earned him support from members of the working class, despite allegations of corruption. Mr. Odinga, by contrast, is political royalty. This is his fifth attempt to win the presidency, and his years of experience and exposure have earned him a kind of star power few can match.

But the differences obscure the underlying similarities. Mr. Ruto, the newer candidate, has been deputy president for nearly a decade. Mr. Odinga is not only the country’s most famous opposition leader but has also been backed by the current president. Both candidates profess — often when animatedly addressing crowds — to care deeply about the electorate and its troubles. Yet in the eyes of many young voters, both belong to the same flawed system. They have no faith that either could seriously change things for the better.

With good reason. In the dozens of conversations I had with young Kenyans, one refrain kept coming up: Politicians are out for themselves, not the country. In their view, self-interest and financial advancement are why politicians seek office. There’s something to it, certainly. The country regularly ranks poorly in corruption scores, and the two leading parties have members accused of graft and corruption in their ranks. The candidates like to talk about tackling corruption: Mr. Ruto has said he would deal with the problem “firmly and decisively,” and Mr. Odinga has branded corruption one of the “four enemies” of the country. But given their tolerance of dubious behavior, these promises fall flat.

Kenya can ill afford such self-serving leadership. Parts of the country are experiencing what the United Nations has described as “the worst drought in 40 years” in the Horn of Africa, with some 4.1 million people in Kenya suffering from severe food insecurity. The cost of food and fuel, thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has risen sharply. If that were not bad enough, the country — in part because of the government’s borrowing spree over the past decade — is heavily laden with debt, and inflation is at a five-year high. But in response to this troubling situation, the candidates have offered little more than bickering and bragging.

In the absence of substantial policy, there could at least be symbolic representation of the young. But there too things are lacking. In 2017, Kenyans age 18 to 34 made up roughly 24 percent of all candidates. Less than a tenth of them won office, under 3 percent of the total. With such a tiny number of young people making the cut in electoral politics, who could blame the young, without representation or recourse to a more responsive state, for turning away?

Still, young people in the country have found other ways to engage in political work — in community projects, mutual aid programs and social centers. One example is the Mathare Social Justice Center in Nairobi, which aims to promote social justice for the community living in Mathare, an area historically subject to police brutality, extrajudicial killings and land grabs.

In this way, Kenyans are in step with other developments on the continent, where young people have sought alternative means to make their voices heard. For instance, young Sudanese have been bravely organizing and leading protests since October last year, demanding a return to civilian rule. In Nigeria, the young are at the forefront of a movement against police brutality that erupted with the enormous #EndSARS protests in 2020. And young people in Guinea played a huge part in the 2019-20 mass protests against the president’s attempt to run for a third term.

Of course, the right to vote and participate in elections is a hard-won privilege, which many around the world are denied. But demanding that people vote, no matter how limited the candidates, is akin to exhorting people to joyously crown their oppressors. Citizens, after all, have the right to choose. And democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box.

Mayor Eric Adams has appointed a former New York City police official and close confidant as a paid senior adviser — while allowing him to keep his job as an executive at the Resorts World New York City casino in Queens, according to city officials and a person close to Resorts World.

Since May 31, the adviser, Timothy Pearson, a retired police inspector, has served as both a city official and the vice president responsible for overseeing security at the casino, which is seeking state approval to expand its gambling offerings in Queens. City support for its bid could prove pivotal.

On top of what he earns from the casino job, Mr. Pearson receives a city-funded salary through the nonprofit New York City Economic Development Corporation under an unusual arrangement that allows him to continue collecting his $124,000 annual Police Department pension.

State law prohibits city officials from simultaneously receiving a salary and a pension from the city. Mr. Pearson is able to do so because he is being paid by the development corporation, a nonprofit controlled by the mayor.

Initially, Mr. Pearson had worked on Mr. Adams’s behalf without pay during his mayoral transition last fall, and for the first five months of his administration before he was put on the public payroll as a senior adviser to the mayor for public safety and Covid recovery, said Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Adams.

Mr. Adams’s administration has declined to answer other questions about the arrangement, including how much the city is paying Mr. Pearson. According to Mr. Levy, the Economic Development Corporation reached out to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board on Mr. Pearson’s behalf. He said Mr. Pearson is following all applicable laws.

As of Tuesday, the board had issued no waivers of the conflicts of interest law to Mr. Pearson, records show.

“New Yorkers are lucky to have such a knowledgeable and experienced individual agree to serve and bring his expertise to the greatest city in the world, especially after he did the job without being paid a single dollar for months,” Mr. Levy said in a statement.

Mr. Levy said Mr. Pearson’s municipal job responsibilities had no overlap with casino policy, and instead included working with law enforcement to help improve the city’s public safety, the centerpiece of Mr. Adams’s mayoral agenda. Mr. Levy also said Mr. Pearson would recuse himself should any interaction between the casino and the development corporation arise.

Mr. Pearson is also responsible for coming up with and executing a plan to keep city schools open and interfacing with the business community, Mr. Levy said.

A representative of Resorts World, which is owned by Genting, a Malaysian gambling conglomerate, declined to comment.

Mr. Pearson, 62, has known the mayor for decades, having served as his police supervisor when Mr. Adams, himself a retired Police Department captain, was on the force. The two men are so close that Mr. Pearson stood behind the mayor and among a handful of friends and family on the small Times Square stage where he was sworn in on New Year’s Day.

Mr. Pearson retired from the Police Department in 2011. Today, when he is not working at Resorts World, he can be found sporadically in attendance at public safety meetings, often with instructions that he says come directly from the mayor, according to a City Hall official.

To other staff, it has not been immediately clear what his brief is, several officials have said. Mr. Pearson has an office in a downtown building at 375 Pearl Street, as does the mayor, according to Politico, and the deputy mayor for public safety.

Mr. Pearson played a significant role in the mayor’s selection of his police commissioner, interviewing candidates, according to several senior city officials.

Mr. Levy, the mayor’s spokesman, referred questions about Mr. Pearson’s city-funded salary to the Economic Development Corporation. A spokeswoman for that nonprofit provided Mr. Pearson’s hiring date in a text message but declined to release his salary or answer other questions from The Times.

In April, New York State approved the issuance of three new licenses for full-scale casinos. Mr. Pearson’s other employer, Resorts World, which right now only offers electronic games, is considered a front-runner to receive one of the licenses. Having one would allow the casino to also offer table games like roulette.

The lengthy and complicated license application process will require several layers of approval, including the support of four of six members on a community advisory committee. The mayor will have one representative on that board. But his influence, as the mayor of New York City, is expected to be larger.

“The mayor is the mayor, he’s very powerful,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany, a government watchdog group. “It’s very unlikely that the state would proceed with locations that were strongly opposed by the mayor.”

The mayor’s hiring of Mr. Pearson while allowing him to keep his private sector job, and his administration’s reticence in responding to questions about Mr. Pearson’s role, underscore Mr. Adams’s tendency to prize loyalty, even at the expense of transparency and long-accepted ethical norms.

“You can’t serve two bosses, and there’s a direct conflict of interest here,” Mr. Kaehny said, adding: “Mr. Pearson has to decide who he wants to be and which job he wants to have.”

Past administrations have also put staff members on the payroll of the economic development nonprofit, as a way to hire outside the confines of the City Hall budget. They have included Terence Monahan, who retired as chief of department for the New York Police Department during the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mr. Monahan, who held a similar title at the nonprofit as Mr. Pearson holds, received an annual salary of $242,592 while also collecting his police pension. Today, 10 employees from other parts of the Adams administration are on the Economic Development Corporation’s payroll, according to the nonprofit’s spokeswoman. It is not clear how many were hired since Mr. Adams took office.

Mr. Adams’s relationship with the gambling industry dates to his days in the State Senate, where he served as chairman of the Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee. In that role, he and other senators became enmeshed in a scandal over the awarding of a video-lottery contract at Aqueduct Racetrack — the same site now operated by Resorts World New York City’s parent company, Genting.

The state inspector general found that Mr. Adams and other Senate Democrats had used “exceedingly poor judgment” by fraternizing with lobbyists for the winning bidder — a different company — and by accepting significant campaign contributions from people affiliated with the contenders. Mr. Adams disavowed responsibility, and the company’s award was later rescinded.

While committee chairman, Mr. Adams raised nearly $74,000 in 2010 from racing and gambling interests, according to an analysis by a professor at Albany Law School. Mr. Adams has also raised money from casino executives and would-be casino landlords as mayor.

Mr. Levy said that Mr. Pearson’s casino job would not interfere with his job as adviser to the mayor.

“They’ve known each other for approximately 30 years, since they were both in the N.Y.P.D. together, putting their lives on the line and serving the people of New York City as officers during some of the most dangerous times in New York City history,” Mr. Levy said. “Tim was even in one of the towers that collapsed on 9/11 and continued to aid in the rescue of New Yorkers that day after making his way out of the rubble.

“As an officer, and in the years since he left the force, Tim has shown himself to be a knowledgeable and experienced public servant who has worked to make this city and its people safer.”

Inflation cooled notably in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and a positive development for economic policymakers in Washington — though not yet a conclusive sign that price increases have turned a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, a slower pace than economists expected and considerably less than the 9.1 percent increase in the year through June. After stripping out food and fuel costs to better understand underlying cost pressures, prices climbed 5.9 percent, matching the previous reading.

The marked deceleration in overall inflation — on a monthly basis, prices barely moved at all — is another sign of economic improvement that could boost President Biden at a time when rapid price increases have been burdening consumers and eroding voter confidence. The new data came on the heels of an unexpectedly strong jobs report last week that underscored the economy’s momentum.

The slowdown in overall inflation stemmed from falling prices for gas, airfares, used cars and hotel rooms, which canceled out increases in critical areas like food and rent. Because the categories in which prices fell can be volatile, and some of the goods and services that are rapidly increasing in price tend to be more slow-moving, the report’s underlying details suggested that inflation pressures remain unusually hot under the surface.

Even so, as some everyday purchases become cheaper at least temporarily and the job market stays strong, Americans may begin to feel better about their personal financial situations.

“It underscores the kind of economy we’ve been building,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday. “We’re seeing a stronger labor market for jobs are booming and Americans are working and we’re seeing some signs that inflation may be getting to moderate.”

The slower price increases are also likely to reassure the Federal Reserve, which has been waiting for any sign that inflation is starting to moderate. But central bankers are likely to see this as a first step in the right direction rather than a definite victory, because the cost of many goods and services continued to pick up rapidly even as gas and travel-related price declines pulled overall inflation lower.

“On the surface, this is good news for the Fed,” said Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights. “This is the first baby step toward the moderation they want to see on a regular basis.”

Fed officials remain committed to wrestling America’s rapid inflation lower, and they have raised interest rates at the quickest pace since the 1980s this year to try to slow the economy and bring supply and demand into balance — making two supersized rate moves of three quarters of a percentage point at each of their past two meetings. Another big adjustment is up for debate at their Sept. 20-21 meeting, policymakers have said.

But investors interpreted the unexpectedly pronounced inflation slowdown in July as a sign that policymakers could take a gentler route, raising rates by half a point next month. Stocks soared by more than 2 percent on Wednesday, as Wall Street bet that the Fed might become less aggressive, which would decrease the chances that it will plunge the economy into a recession.

Still, officials who spoke on Wednesday remained cautious about inflation: Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, called the report the “first hint” of a move in the right direction, while Chicago Fed president Charles Evans said it was “positive,” but that price increases remain “unacceptably high.”

Policymakers have been hoping for more than a year that price increases will begin to cool, only to have those expectations repeatedly dashed. Supply chain issues have made goods more expensive, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent commodity prices soaring, a shortage of workers pushed wages and service prices higher, and a dearth of housing has fueled rising rents.

There have been recent signs of progress on at least two of these fronts, with gas prices falling and supply chain strains showing some improvement. Wednesday’s report also suggested that prices on hotel rooms and plane tickets have begun to ease, after surging this summer as people took long-delayed vacations. The question now is how durable the changes will prove.

A range of commodity prices have dropped in recent months, and gas in particular is becoming cheaper. The average cost of a gallon began to fall back toward $4 in July after peaking at $5 in June, based on data from AAA, which helped overall inflation to cool last month. That trend has continued into August, which should help inflation to continue to moderate.

But it is unclear what will happen next. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects that fuel costs will continue to come down, but geopolitical instability and the speed of U.S. oil and gas production during hurricane season, which can take refineries offline, are wild cards in that outlook.

Likewise, supply chains that became roiled early in the pandemic — thanks first to a surge in consumer demand for couches, cars and other goods and later to the conflict in Ukraine — have recently shown signs of untangling. That trend should translate into less pricing pressure on goods in the months to come, but it’s hard to tell how big the effect might be.

An index of global supply chain pressures created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also shows that pressures have trended down since December. Importers are now paying about $6,632 on the spot market to move a 40-foot container from China to the West Coast of the United States, compared with $18,346 at this time last year, according to data from Freightos Group. Average monthly delivery times on the same route are currently about 74 days, down from a peak of 99 days in January.

“It’s a massive traffic jam that is now unclogging,” said Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, a freight-logistics company.

Some small part of the nascent slowdown in consumer prices could also tie back to the Fed’s rapid interest rate increases this year, which are meant to cool down consumer demand and slow business expansions. Central bankers have been raising interest rates since March and lifted them by three-quarters of a percentage point at each of their last two meetings, an unusually rapid pace of increase that has made for the fastest Fed campaign to constrain the economy since the 1980s.

Prices for used cars declined in July, which may be happening partly because borrowing costs are rising. Mortgage rates have shot higher this year and appear to be weighing on the housing market, which could be helping to drive prices for appliances lower.

But a Fed-induced cooldown is not yet the main story. Job gains remain robust, even as companies including Amazon and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, warily eye the economic outlook and slow hiring. Wages are still rising rapidly, and as that happens, so are prices on many services. Rents, which make up a big chunk of overall inflation and are closely linked to wage growth, continue to climb rapidly — which is concerning, because they tend to change course only slowly.

Rent of primary residence climbed 0.7 percent in July from the prior month, and is up 6.3 percent over the past year. Before the pandemic, that measure typically climbed about 3.5 percent annually.

Those forces could keep inflation undesirably rapid even if supply chains unsnarl and fuel prices continue to fall. The Fed aims for 2 percent inflation over time, based on a different but related inflation measure.

“The Covid reopening and revenge travel pressures have eased — and are probably going to continue easing,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior U.S. economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives. But she also struck a note of caution, adding that “under the hood, we’re still seeing pressures in rent. There’s still sticky inflation here.”

Still, several economists agreed that the new inflation report made a slowdown in rate increases more likely.

“It was as good as the markets and the Fed could have hoped for from this report,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist at Jefferies. “I do think it removes the urgency for the Fed.”

Still, inflation slowed last summer only to speed up again into the autumn, which is one reason officials have warned against reading too much into one report.

“It can’t just be a one month: Oil prices went down in July, that’ll feed through to the July inflation report, but there’s a lot of risk that oil prices will go up in the Fall,” Loretta Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, said during a recent appearance.

Ms. Mester said she “welcomes” a slowdown in some types of prices, but that it would be a mistake to “cry victory too early.”

And for many Americans who are struggling to adjust their lifestyles to rapidly climbing costs at the grocery store and dry cleaners, an annual inflation rate that is still more than four times its normal speed is unlikely to feel like a big improvement, even as lower gas prices and rising pay rates do offer some relief.

Stephanie Bailey, 54, has a solid family income in Waco, Texas. Even so, she has been cutting back on meals at local Tex-Mex restaurants and new clothes because of the climbing prices, which she sees “everywhere.” Her son, who is in his 20s, has a degree in chemistry and until recently worked at a vitamin manufacturer in Houston, has moved back in with his parents. Rent had become out of reach on his old salary. He is now teaching high school.

“It’s just so expensive, with housing,” she said. “He was having a hard time making ends meet.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday with plotting to assassinate John R. Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Donald J. Trump.

Prosecutors said the Iranian had offered $300,000 to hire someone to kill Mr. Bolton, a conservative foreign policy expert and hard-liner on Iran, in Washington or Maryland.

Officials with the department’s national security division said the planned murder of Mr. Bolton was likely in retaliation for the U.S. military’s killing in January 2020 of Qassim Suleimani, a top commander of the Revolutionary Guard, a branch of Iran’s military that is a power base for the country’s ruling military and political elites.

The man named in the criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Washington, Shahram Poursafi, 45, is not in custody and remains abroad, department officials said. If captured and convicted, he would face up to 10 years in prison for using interstate commerce facilities in the plot and another 15 years for attempting to provide material support for a transnational murder plot.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said that the case “is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on U.S. soil, and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts.”

Mr. Bolton — who bitterly opposed the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Tehran — clashed repeatedly with Mr. Trump during a stormy 17-month tenure as national security adviser. He later wrote a tell-all book detailing the former president’s impulsive and often haphazard foreign policy requests.

“While much cannot be said publicly right now, one point is indisputable: Iran’s rulers are liars, terrorists and enemies of the United States,” Mr. Bolton said in a statement released by his office about the indictment. “Their radical, anti-American objectives are unchanged; their commitments are worthless; and their global threat is growing.”

Oksana Dudyk scanned a small selection of ornamental plants lining the shelves of her new florist shop, recently opened in this city on Ukraine’s western frontier. Her eye landed on the perfect bloom for a new customer: fuchsia-colored primroses, vivid and lush, ideal for brightening an austere corner.

It was late afternoon, and the flowers were only her 10th sale of the day. But that was nothing short of a miracle for Ms. Dudyk, who started the shop with her last savings after fleeing her now-decimated hometown Mariupol under a hail of Russian rockets. Her husband, who enlisted in the Ukrainian army after the invasion, was captured by Russian forces in May and has not been heard from since.

“These flowers help me to get by,” said Ms. Dudyk, 55. A former construction engineer who before the war helped design and build schools, she said that she never imagined that she would one day sell flowers to survive. “They bring me joy, and they help customers too, by creating a positive atmosphere in this incomprehensible war.”

Ms. Dudyk is among thousands of Ukrainians who are picking up shattered lives and trying to start over, many creating small businesses that they hope will bring them and their new communities fresh purpose. Others are working jobs that are a step down from positions lost because of war, grasping lifelines to keep their families afloat.

“The Russian invasion has spurred a lot of people to pull up and start building new businesses,” said Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, which has become a locus for people fleeing the war-torn east. The government is encouraging this entrepreneurship by offering grants, zero-interest loans and other financial support for small businesses.

“Ukraine will remain unbroken,” he said, and a big part of that involves “ensuring that the economy develops and thrives.”

That would seem a daunting prospect as Russia prepares for new attacks in Ukraine’s east and south. Ukraine’s economy is projected to shrink by a third this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, and an estimated one-fifth of the nation’s small and medium-sized businesses have shuttered.

But many refugees who have fled war-torn areas are collectively forging a new front of economic resistance to Russia’s aggression.

The foundations are being laid by people like Serhii Stoian, 31, a former math professor who opened a tiny storefront selling coffee and fresh pastries in Lviv after fleeing a job in Bucha, the city now infamous for scenes of unarmed civilians killed by Russian soldiers. The cafe, named Kiit, after his cat who is missing in the war, struggled in its early days. But business is now so brisk that he is opening a second one in Lviv. A third is being planned for Kyiv.

“We came here with $500 in our pockets,” said Mr. Stoian, who now employs four people and works with a friend who became a business partner. “When we started, we promised to pay the landlord back in two months. We were able to pay him in just two weeks.”

Mr. Stoian had dreamed of opening his own cafe but never did, fearful of failure. As a side gig to teaching, he operated a YouTube cooking channel in Ukraine called Hungry Guy Recipes that has nearly 700,000 followers. “Life was pretty great,” he said.

He had just begun a part-time job at a bakery in Bucha, making pastries from his YouTube recipes, when the invasion brought everything to a halt.

“The bakery owner called at 5 a.m. and said, ‘We are being bombed. You have 10 minutes to join me if you want to escape,’ ” Mr. Stoian recalled. “My friend and I didn’t have time to think, because when you hear that Russia is invading, you can’t think,” he said. “I was worried about my cat, who was staying with neighbors. But we grabbed some clothes and documents and jumped into the car. And we drove like crazy.”

They wound up in Lviv, where they lived in a shelter jammed with other refugees from around the country. For three weeks, they helped women and children cross the border. But they needed paying jobs.

When Mr. Stoian saw a “for rent” sign on a tiny former souvenir shop, a light bulb went off. “We could rent that and sell coffee and pastry,” he recalled thinking. “We had no business experience. And we were a little worried because there is corruption in Ukraine. But my friend knew how to make coffee. And I could bake.”

They rented an espresso machine, and Mr. Stoian stayed up nights making fruit pies, rosemary cookies and cinnamon buns. But no customers came. Mr. Stoian began to despair. Then he erased the menu from the cafe’s chalkboard facing the sidewalk, and began to write out his dramatic tale.

“We moved here because of the war,” the message said. “We want to do what we do best: Make great coffee and pies. We believe in Ukraine. People have helped us and we want to help others.” He pledged to donate part of the shop’s proceeds toward the war effort. Military personnel were offered free coffee.

The next day, he said, there were lines of 20 to 30 people. After posting on Instagram, the cafe had up to 200 customers a day. It has been such a sensation that he has received inquiries about opening Kiit franchises.

Though buoyed by the success, he still grapples with the pain of the senseless killings of people he knew in Bucha, and the loss of his beloved cat, who his neighbors left behind as they fled from shelling. “Naming the cafe after Kiit helps me to go on,” he said.

On a recent day, he swept his eyes over the bare walls of his second Kiit cafe, the floor cluttered with construction equipment. “This is all still a gamble,” Mr. Stoian said. “And if we lose everything, that would be OK, because we started with nothing,” he said.

“But maybe we will also make it. Maybe we will be the next big success.”

For others, resilience means accepting a more awkward transition. Kirill Chaolin, 29, worked as a high-ranking trainer for air traffic controllers at Lviv’s international airport. His job was wiped out when Ukraine shut its airspace to commercial flights. In the last few months, Mr. Chaolin, who has a wife and 5-year-old daughter, has begun driving a taxi for Bolt, a rival to Uber, to get by.

“It’s hard to step down from a big job to do this,” he said, navigating through a crunch of traffic on a recent weekday. “But there is no choice: My family needs to eat.”

Scores of his former colleagues at Ukraine’s airports are doing the same, he added. “You must do whatever you need to survive.”

People like Ms. Dudyk are remaking their lives even as they struggle to surmount the war’s heavy toll.

She and her husband had been living a tranquil life in Mariupol, the port city that was one of Russia’s first strategic targets, and were about to visit Prague for vacation when the invasion started.

“We had decent salaries. A happy home,” said Ms. Dudyk, who has two children and four grandchildren. Her husband ran a window-making business and worked on the side as a beekeeper, tending 40 hives. As a construction engineer involved in significant building projects, Ms. Dudyk had a job that made her proud.

When Russia attacked, she and her father, aged 77, tried to hold out until a powerful blast ripped off the front of her house while they were sheltering inside, forcing them to flee under continued shelling toward Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Ms. Dudyk said her husband, 59, enlisted to fight the day Russia moved in, and joined Ukrainian forces inside the Azovstal steel factory. He was among 2,500 fighters taken by Russia as prisoners of war in May, and she has not heard from him since. Last month a blast at the prison camp left more than 50 dead, but Ms. Dudyk dreams that he will one day come home.

Today, home is a cramped shelter in a temporary modular town set up for Ukrainian refugees, where she lives with her father.

“I want to make the flower shop a success,” said Ms. Dudyk, who is expanding it with guidance from another refugee who once ran a nursery. If all goes well, her spartan storefront will be transformed with new shelves and more flowers.

Most of all, she wants to sell roses: “My husband always would bring me big bouquets,” she said with a smile. “But for roses, you need a refrigerator. And I don’t have the money.”

With her savings low, Ms. Dudyk has applied for a grant under the government’s program to support small and medium-sized businesses.

She takes nothing for granted. “When your country is being bombed, you realize that your life is threatened and everything can be taken away,” Ms. Dudyk said, a sunny woman whose blue eyes cloud with tears when the painful memories surface.

“You are planning for the future one moment, and in the next you lose everything. You start fighting for bare necessities — water, the ability to make a phone call to tell someone you’re still alive,” she said. “You wait for the nightmare to end, then you realize that the invasion is of such a huge scale, so what is the chance?”

As she spoke, a stream of customers filed in, and her face brightened. A deaf couple approached and gave her a hug, making the sign language symbol for tears — and then, a heart. She showed them her latest floral lineup, and they pulled out their wallets.

“I’m not a plant expert, but I know what can cheer people,” said Ms. Dudyk, who said she derives strength from a remarkable show of solidarity and support from her new Lviv neighbors. “Thanks to them,” she said, “I know I am going to make it.”

The Biden administration is vowing to continue sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait and to conduct air operations in the region in response to Chinese military drills that U.S. officials say are evolving into a long-term strategy of heightened military pressure on the island.

Administration officials said they did not want to escalate the tense confrontation, which China maintains was provoked by last week’s visit to the island by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But in interviews and public statements, American and Taiwanese officials made clear they now believe China used Ms. Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to step up its operations to intimidate Taiwan for months or years to come, and perhaps speed the timetable of its plans to establish control over the island’s 23 million people, much as it did in Hong Kong.

Within a few weeks, officials said, the U.S. Navy is planning to run ships through the Taiwan Strait, ignoring China’s recent claim that it controls the entire waterway. Officials said they would not send the Ronald Reagan, the Japan-based aircraft carrier, because it would be too provocative.

Colin H. Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters this week that China was trying to “coerce” Taiwan and the international community.

“And all I’ll say is we’re not going to take the bait, and it’s not going to work,” he said.

He insisted the United States would conduct business as usual: “What we’ll do instead, is to continue to fly, to sail and operate wherever international law allows us to do so, and that includes in the Taiwan Strait.”

Asked about the rising tensions, President Biden said Monday he was “concerned that they’re moving as much as they are,” an apparent reference to the Pentagon’s assessment that China has dispatched 20 destroyers and frigates to the waters surrounding Taiwan.

When asked whether it was a “wise move” for Ms. Pelosi to visit the island despite China’s warnings, Mr. Biden said simply: “That was her decision.”

Interviews with a variety of administration, intelligence and military officials, and outside experts, revealed a growing sense that China’s exercises were not just a reaction to the speaker’s brief visit, but a turning point in China’s strategy. Several officials said they believe President Xi Jinping is seeking to demonstrate a greater willingness to use force to accomplish reunification, if necessary.

In a white paper the Chinese government published on Wednesday, Beijing said that it would prefer unification by peaceful means but also made clear it was keeping all options on the table. And even as the Chinese military’s Eastern Theater Command indicated that it had completed its drills, which had continued this week and included anti-submarine activity, it said it would organize regular combat patrols directed at the island.

On Tuesday, Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, said he suspected China was trying “to routinize its action in an attempt to wreck the long-term status quo across the Taiwan Strait,’’ and was using its missile tests “to deter other countries from interfering in its attempt to invade Taiwan.” Several American officials said they were designing responses to show that they would not be deterred from the defense of the island.

The exercises came only weeks after a new U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that Mr. Xi might try to move against the island in the next year and a half. The intelligence suggests Mr. Xi fears his military advantage may diminish as the United States moves to arm Taiwan more quickly, including with weapons that proved effective against Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine.

Now, Taiwan has emerged as such a central feature of Mr. Xi’s agenda — and such a flashpoint with the United States — that it threatens to overwhelm Mr. Biden’s efforts to find a series of issues in which the world’s largest and second-largest economies can work together.

The White House portrayed a two-and-a-half-hour conversation on July 28 between the two leaders as focused largely on that agenda. But on Friday, when the live-fire exercises around Taiwan were near their peak, Beijing suspended all discussions on climate change, trade and counternarcotics operations and arms control.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said China “should not hold hostage cooperation on matters of global concern because of differences between our two countries.” But other administration officials said China clearly saw climate cooperation as a point of leverage in its dealings with the United States, Western allies and even its Pacific neighbors.

Adm. Scott H. Swift, a former U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, predicted that the past week will be viewed as pivotal in the relationship. China’s position will become “much more hardened,” he said, and Beijing would turn to “a playbook to draw much more timely, and perhaps pre-emptive responses” to efforts to support Taiwan.

Several officials have begun openly comparing Mr. Xi’s actions toward Taiwan to President Vladimir V. Putin’s efforts to seize Ukraine — a link that, even a few weeks ago, they hesitated to make. Speaking at the commemoration of the battle for the Solomon Islands 80 years ago, Wendy Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, denounced leaders who “believe that coercion, pressure and violence are tools to be used with impunity.” She did not name them but went on to say that they believed “the principles and institutions the world set up after the Second World War” can now be “ignored and undermined, diminished and destroyed.”

There are early indications that China alienated other powers with its show of force. The Group of 7 and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations issued statements either condemning the action or urging China to back down, something that was missing from the last Taiwan crisis, in 1996, when the United States was largely alone in speaking out — and sending two carrier groups to the area.

Without question, the threats against Taiwan have hardened anti-China attitudes on Capitol Hill, where condemnation of Beijing is one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement. Several lawmakers have begun talking about China and Russia as common adversaries of the United States, even if there is little evidence that they are working together.

Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, termed the threats to Taiwan as “another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators Xi Jinping of China and Putin of Russia. They are increasingly isolated and dangerous, driven by historical grievances, paranoid about their democratic neighbors and willing to use military force and other aggressive actions to crush the citizens of such countries as we are seeing in the Taiwan Strait and Ukraine.”

At the Pentagon, officials said China’s exercises are much more complex than previous shows of force, demonstrating Beijing’s ability to deploy an armada of aircraft, warships and missile batteries on short notice.

How well China could sustain those kinds of operations for a campaign lasting weeks or months, like the war in Ukraine, is unclear and would be a pivotal test for Beijing’s military, the officials said. Even so, specific parts of the multiday exercises have impressed American analysts. China’s navy and air force have drawn public attention, and American analysts at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have taken particular note of China’s missile prowess.

“China has the most advanced and largest inventory of missiles in the world,” said Eric Sayers, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “They often test these capabilities, but to see them utilizing missile strikes across multiple maritime domains really speaks to how advanced their rocket force has become.”

The American reaction appeared to draw at least in part from the playbook of the 1996 crisis. At that time, President Bill Clinton ordered one carrier group to the opening of the Taiwan Strait and sent another steaming to the region from the Persian Gulf.

In the latest case, the Pentagon — after lengthy consultation with the White House — ordered the Ronald Reagan and its strike group to remain in the region, near the Philippines.

American officials said the exercises had given U.S. intelligence analysts an unusual opportunity to glean insights into the strengths and potential vulnerabilities of China’s ability to mobilize and deploy its forces. At the same time, analysts said, the exercises are for the first time testing China’s ability to carry out complicated military maneuvers in the midst of commercial air and maritime traffic, and ensure the accuracy and safety of missile launches near heavily populated areas.

“It’s clear from all the air and maritime platforms Seventh Fleet has in the area that they are closely monitoring this exercise to ensure it doesn’t become kinetic,” Mr. Sayers said.

In Japan, the surprise was that five Chinese missiles landed in what the Japanese consider its exclusive economic zone — launches that were widely considered a message to both Tokyo and Washington. The missiles were not far from American bases in Okinawa.

Still, Kunihiko Miyake, a former diplomat and research director at The Canon Institute for Global Studies, said China showed some restraint. “The immediate Chinese reaction is controlled,” Mr. Miyake said. “It’s reserved.”

He added that Mr. Xi “really wants to survive. He wants to be elected again for a third term. So he really doesn’t want to go to war against the U.S. at this moment.”

But the missile attacks only bolstered the moves in Japan to spend more on defense and loosen some of the constitutional interpretations that have kept Japanese forces close to their shores. “I think China might have sent the wrong message to the Japanese people,” Mr. Miyake said.

“For those who really wish to enhance Japan’s deterrent capability or defense capability, it’s a golden opportunity.”

KAUKAUNA, Wis. — Tim Michels, a millionaire construction magnate endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, won Wisconsin’s Republican primary for governor, according to The Associated Press.

He beat former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Tim Ramthun, a state assemblyman, in a campaign often dominated by voting issues and the 2020 election.

Mr. Michels entertained the prospect of trying to overturn that year’s result once he is in office, and Mr. Ramthun centered his bid on a proposal to decertify the state’s 2020 presidential election results — a legal impossibility that nonetheless has become a popular cause among Wisconsin Republicans.

Mr. Michels will now face Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, in a general election that will determine the fate of voting access in Wisconsin. Mr. Michels has pledged to restrict absentee voting and eliminate the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission; Mr. Evers has vetoed more than a dozen Republican-passed bills to change the state’s voting laws.

A Wisconsin native who inherited an infrastructure company from his father, Mr. Michels lost races for the State Senate in 1998 and the U.S. Senate in 2004 before relocating his family to Greenwich, Conn. He returned to the state this year as he contemplated running for governor.

In the final weeks of the race, Mr. Michels, who largely self-funded his campaign, struggled with questions surrounding his loyalty to Mr. Trump.

During a televised debate in July, he said he would not make decertifying the 2020 election results a priority in his administration — a position at odds with Mr. Trump’s repeated wishes that President Biden’s victory in the state be overturned. Mr. Michels soon began saying that he would consider any legislation the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature sends to his desk.

Then, last week, Mr. Michels said during another debate that he wouldn’t endorse Mr. Trump in a 2024 presidential campaign. Less than 24 hours later, he reversed himself, telling a crowd in Kaukauna that he would back the former president on the day Mr. Trump announced his candidacy.

Still, Mr. Michels triumphed in large part thanks to his endorsement from Mr. Trump — a fact he repeated in television advertising that cost millions of dollars. Ms. Kleefisch was the choice of the state’s Republican political establishment, with endorsements from dozens of state legislators, members of Congress and former Gov. Scott Walker, with whom she served for eight years before losing to Mr. Evers in 2018.

Ms. Kleefisch began a shadow campaign for governor nearly the moment after she and Mr. Walker left office. Though broadly popular while in office, she did not consolidate party support and drew two high-profile and well-funded primary opponents: Mr. Michels and Kevin Nicholson, a businessman whose campaign was funded by the far-right billionaire Richard Uihlein.

Mr. Nicholson dropped out of the race in early July, citing low polling numbers.