Cue the sad trombone music for people in the markets this week.

Yep. Investors haven't been willing to sing along with wild stock market prices lately. We'll talk about why there's been so many swings.

SIMON: I'm Scott Simon. This is UP FIRST from NPR News.

SIMON: Investors aren't pleased that costs eat into profits at places that include Target and Walmart.

RASCOE: President Biden is meeting with leaders in South Korea and Japan about jobs, tech and China.

SIMON: And funerals for those killed in that Buffalo grocery store - families speaking out, including a mother mourning that her son no longer has a father.

TIRZAH PATTERSON: The God we serve is his father, but a natural father he does not have.

RASCOE: Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

RASCOE: President Biden continues his Asian trip this weekend. He held a summit meeting with the new South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who's just 11 days into the job, promising a tougher line on North Korea.

SIMON: Seoul and Washington, D.C., have expressed concern that North Korea might test a nuclear weapon or missile while the president is visiting. NPR's Anthony Kuhn joins us from Seoul. Anthony, thanks so much for being with us.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Nice to join you, Scott.

SIMON: What kind of harder line on North Korea did the presidents outline?

KUHN: Well, in recent years, joint military exercises between the allies intended to deter North Korea were scaled back in order to make way for diplomacy. But no diplomacy has been happening since 2019. So those exercises are likely to expand. They're also going to consider moving more U.S. military hardware, such as planes and ships, possibly nuclear-capable, to or near the Korean peninsula. And they're going to cooperate on cyber threats from North Korea. They also say they're going to focus on the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And it looks like this could be a recipe for a period of increased tensions and diplomatic stalemates because both sides expect the other side to make the first move and make concessions, which neither side has been willing to do.

SIMON: And additionally, North Korea is in the grip of what it claims is its first COVID-19 outbreak. Did that come up?

KUHN: Yes. After denying that it had any COVID cases for the past two years, North Korea now admits to having more than 2 million, although they don't have enough testing, and so it's hard to know the extent of it. But South Korea and China have offered vaccines and assistance. President Biden said the U.S. has also offered assistance but received no response. A reporter asked Biden if he'd be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un, and here's what he said.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: With regard to whether I would meet with the leader of North Korea, that would be - depend on whether he was sincere and whether he was serious.

KUHN: As you may remember, Biden was critical of his predecessor President Trump's summitry with Kim Jong Un as, essentially, high-stakes poker, which ended in 2019 without a deal.

SIMON: Anthony, U.S. policy in Asia, of course, has been focused on competition with China. Has that formed a subtext to the visit so far?

KUHN: Yes, subtext. There were no explicit references to China in either the statement issued by the presidents or their press briefing. There were coded reference to preserving the international order, the rule of law, and to flashpoints such as the South China Sea and Taiwan. But there's been no movement past these sort of ways of speaking, no language aimed at antagonizing China. It's interesting that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol talked about how the U.S. and South Korea share values of freedom, democracy and human rights. But he added that he didn't want to exclude countries that don't share those values, suggesting that he's not ready to offend China, which is South Korea's biggest trade partner.

SIMON: And isn't U.S. competition with China largely economic? Are America and South Korea trying to tighten economic ties now?

KUHN: Yes, they are. And the buzzword of this is economic security, which means securing supply chains, protecting intellectual property, developing high-tech products. And two governments are going to set up a dialogue on how to cooperate more. And President Biden's first stop in South Korea on Friday was a Samsung semiconductor factory. He touted the fact that Samsung is investing in a big new semiconductor plant in Texas. It's important to remember, though, that South Korea and Samsung are doing this because they feel they're getting the right labor costs and infrastructure and incentives. But the technology belongs to South Korea, and if they don't get those conditions, I think they'll probably continue to make them on their own turf.

SIMON: NPR's Anthony Kuhn joining us from Seoul. Anthony, thanks so much.

SIMON: A week ago today, a gunman killed 10 Black people and injured three other people at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. And now funerals for the victims. The first was yesterday.

RASCOE: The 18-year-old white suspect charged with murder remains in jail and is expected to face more charges. NPR's Cheryl Corley is in Buffalo and joins us to discuss what she's hearing from the victims' families. Thanks for being with us, Cheryl.

CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Oh, you're welcome.

RASCOE: So, I mean, clearly just a horrific week for Buffalo. Most relatives of the victims are not speaking out publicly. The first funeral was private, closed to the media. But some family members did speak out. What did they say?

CORLEY: Well, it's been a very trying time for them. They were relatives of four of the victims. They lined up on the steps of a church. And as they talked about the people they loved and lost, their grief was just really palpable. Tirzah Patterson spoke. She's the ex-wife of 67-year-old Heyward Patterson. And while she talked, their 12-year-old son Jake cried and covered his face with his hands.

PATTERSON: His heart is broken. He half-sleeps. He half-eats. And as a mother, what am I supposed to do to help him get through this? I need a village to help me.

CORLEY: Heyward Patterson's funeral was yesterday, the first to be held. The four children of 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield said the violence must stop. Marcus Talley said he never thought his mother, 62-year-old Geraldine Talley, would die from the bullet of a white supremacist. And Veronica White said her nephew, Andre Mackneil, had simply gone to the store to buy a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son.

RASCOE: Yeah. My goodness. The Tops supermarket where all this happened remains fenced off. But this was the only grocery store in the area. Like, is the store going to reopen?

CORLEY: Well, there's really no timeline for that yet. There's been an outpouring of support for the community, though, and you could see that on Jefferson Avenue. It's one of the places where people can line up and get donated food and supplies. Yesterday, when I visited, it was like a marketplace. There was fresh fruit, pizza, diapers, cereal, water. As you mentioned, Tops is the only grocery store in the area. And the supermarket has set up transportation, a shuttle bus to take people to other Tops stores. There has been lots of discussion about whether the store should reopen. Community activist Deacon Jerome Wright says it should not.

JEROME WRIGHT: Sending family members and workers back into that same place where people, their families was massacred is the height of insensitivity to me.

CORLEY: And Wright and other activists say a long-term solution is just having more than one store.

RASCOE: The 18-year-old suspect remains in Buffalo jail. He was in court this week for the second time. Are we expecting that he's going to face additional charges?

CORLEY: Well, the grand jury investigation continues, so we won't know for certain what new charges may be added to the first-degree murder charge that he faces. The U.S. federal Department of Justice is also investigating the shooting as a hate crime and racially motivated violent extremism. The suspect's apparent writings online say he planned the killings after he became infatuated with other online writings that promoted white supremacy and past mass shootings. So, you know, at some point, there may be federal charges, as well. Also, the New York attorney general is investigating whether social media companies the suspect used are liable for providing a platform to plan and promote violence.

RASCOE: When is he due back in court?

CORLEY: Well, he's scheduled to be back in court next month, June 9, and that's when we'll likely learn more about the grand jury investigation.

RASCOE: NPR's Cheryl Corley in Buffalo. Cheryl, thank you so much for joining us.

RASCOE: Americans are still shopping, but what they're shopping for is changing. And some big retail chains are having trouble keeping up.

SIMON: Walmart and Target both reported lower-than-expected profits this week, and that contributed to a huge sell-off in the stock market. NPR chief economic correspondent Scott Horsley joins us now. Scott, thanks so much for being with us.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.

SIMON: Another rough week for the stock market, but let's talk about the retail markets, closer to home for many Americans, Walmart and Target. These are mainstream businesses woven into American cities. What does it say when their profits take this kind of hit?

HORSLEY: Well, for one thing, it says their costs are going up, and that is eating into profits. We've all seen what's happened to the price of gasoline and diesel fuel. Just think of all the trucks it takes to fill a big-box store. Target says it expects its transportation costs to jump by about a billion dollars this year. We are also seeing some shifts in consumers' behavior, which is important in a consumer-driven economy like ours. People are gearing up to travel more. Maybe they're spending less time at home. Target CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC this week that's affecting what people are putting in their shopping carts.

BRIAN CORNELL: A year ago during the pandemic, we were buying lots of TVs for our homes, as many Americans for really the last two years have been working and educating their families from home. Well, they're shifting from buying TVs to buying luggage, and our luggage business was up over 50%.

HORSLEY: So that's good for the luggage buyer and maybe the travel industry. But Target also ended up with too many TVs and had to mark some of them down. Investors didn't like that. Target shares plunged 29% this week. Walmart also says some of its grocery customers have been cutting corners in response to higher prices. In some cases, they're buying smaller bottles of milk, for instance, or switching to less expensive store brands. You know, grocery sales overall were down last month, but restaurant sales were up, and consumer spending overall continues to outpace inflation.

SIMON: Scott, we also learned this week that home prices are outpacing inflation and hitting record highs, but home sales are down. How do we reconcile that?

HORSLEY: Yeah. Sales have been coming down for the last three months, not because people don't want houses but because in many cases they can't afford them. And the average price of a home last month was $391,000. That's up almost 15% from a year ago. And because interest rates are rising, the mortgage payment on that house is now about $400 a month higher than it would have been last year. So some people, especially would-be first-time buyers, are just getting priced out of this market.

SIMON: Mortgage rates are climbing because certainly, the Federal Reserve is trying to make it more expensive to borrow money to try and bring down inflation. Is there concern that the Fed could hit the brakes so hard, the economy goes into recession?

HORSLEY: There is certainly some concern about that. A growing number of forecasters are skeptical that the Fed can engineer what's called a soft landing - that is, bring down inflation without going into recession. At a Wall Street Journal event this week, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said he and his colleagues are determined to get control over prices, even if there are some bumps along the way.

JEROME POWELL: There are a number of plausible paths to having a soft or, as I've said, softish (ph) landing. Restoring price stability is an unconditional need. It's something we have to do because, really, the economy doesn't work for workers or for businesses or for anybody without price stability.

HORSLEY: Right now inflation's running three to four times the Fed's price stability target, so keep those seat belts fastened. You know, the stock market has lost some altitude. The S&P 500 slipped briefly into bear market territory yesterday, down 20% from its recent peak. It bounced back a little bit late in the day but still ended down 3% for the week. And that's the seventh week in a row the index has lost ground. That's the longest losing streak since 2001.

SIMON: NPR's Scott Horsley, thanks so much.

RASCOE: And that's UP FIRST for May 21, 2022. I'm Ayesha Rascoe.

SIMON: And I'm Scott Simon. On Sunday's UP FIRST, how people cope with loss following 1 million COVID deaths in the U.S. You can follow us on social media. We're @UpFirst on Twitter.

RASCOE: And for more news and interviews, books and music, tune in to Weekend Edition on the radio every Saturday and Sunday morning. Find your NPR station at stations.npr.org.

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