Somewhere Right Now: 07:00 in Dillingham AK 🇺🇸 — KDLG 670 AM

0:21 متحدث 2 You're listening to KDLG Dillingham, also heard on KNSA Uniclete. Good morning. Another Democratic primary in a Midwest state ends with the thinnest of margins in a test of progressive power. This time in Wisconsin's governor's race, the more moderate candidate won. It's morning.

0:48 Hundreds of U.S. sailors and their families were evacuated from Bahrain at the start of the war with Iran. I'm Leila Faldin.

0:55 متحدث 1 And I'm Michelle Martin. Months later, they're still waiting for the Navy to figure out a plan.

1:03 So what kind of financial questions is AI good at answering? And comedian Jeff Arcuri talks about working in the crowd in his latest special. It is Wednesday, August 12th. On this day in 1990, fossil collector Sue Hendrickson found one of the best preserved T. rex skeletons. It went on display in Chicago as a dino named Sue.

1:27 متحدث 2 Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. President Trump took a secret flight out of Turkey last month after Israel warned the U.S. of an Iranian threat of attack. NPR's Daniel Estrin reports that's according to a person familiar with the matter.

1:44 متحدث 6 Israel had intelligence of a possible threat of Iranian missiles toward Air Force One and shared that intelligence with the U.S., according to a person briefed on the matter, not authorized to speak publicly.

1:56 متحدث 2 The warning prompted Trump to be secretly flown out of Turkey on a different plane.

2:01 متحدث 6 Air Force One flew separately.

2:04 متحدث 5 That news was first reported by The Washington Post.

2:07 متحدث 2 When asked about it late Tuesday, Trump said he was following instructions from the Secret Service.

2:12 متحدث 3 This comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran, with no progress toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

2:19 متحدث 6 Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

2:22 متحدث 2 President Trump imposed 50% tariffs on a slew of Canadian goods last month. They'll take effect next week unless the countries strike a deal. Richard Howler from North Country Public Radio reports.

2:36 متحدث 3 A few miles south of the Canadian border in Rensselaer Falls, New York, James Putman owns a building supply business that sells plywood. He says that if these tariffs really do move forward, they are in trouble. That's going to affect us tremendously. I mean, if things bump up 50 percent, that means we have to add on 50 percent. Amy Magnus is a customs broker based in Vermont and helps businesses calculate tariffs when shipping across the border. She says she's never seen anything like this before in her 40 years of experience.

3:05 متحدث 1 You do have, let's say, all these shipments of ice cakes that you want to bring into the United States. Bring them in right now, because right now the 50 percent duty isn't in effect.

3:15 متحدث 3 sure. Magnus says she's worried these new tariffs will create a colder relationship between Canada and the U.S. For NPR News, I'm Richard Haller in Canton, New York. Wildfires have burned more than

3:27 متحدث 2 six million acres across the country this year, most of them in the west. NPR's Kirk Sigler reports the traditional summer fire season is only about halfway over. Half of the some 100 out-of-control

3:39 متحدث 4 wildfires in the U.S. right now are burning in the northwest. The top priority for firefighters are two 100,000 acre plus fires in Oregon and Washington. Washington's public lands commissioner Dave Upthegrove says crews are making progress in Spokane where whole neighborhoods were leveled

3:56 متحدث 5 last week. We have a long way to go. That's why I need your help. Don't be the spark that starts the next fire. Please follow the burn bans. Please be extra careful with anything that could cause a spark. The wildfires in the Northwest are believed to have largely been ignited by

4:14 متحدث 4 lightning, except authorities have arrested a man suspected of arson in connection with Spokane's

4:19 متحدث 2 most destructive wildfire. Kirk Sigler, NPR News. This is NPR. You're listening to statewide news

4:29 متحدث 4 from Alaska Public Media. I'm Ava White. The Alaska Division of Elections might have violated a 1993 federal law when it struck more than 3,000 people from its active voter rolls last month on suspicion that they are not citizens. In a 10-page memo, Attorney Andrew Dunmire at the Alaska Legislature's Division of Legal Services described state and federal laws that appear to prohibit the action that Election Director Carol Beecher took. Democratic Representative Andrew Andrew Gray of Anchorage, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has studied the memo

5:03 متحدث 5 carefully. I believe the upshot is that she did not have the authority to remove

5:09 متحدث 4 folks from the active voter roll. Separately, the Alaska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union announced Tuesday that it has written the state alleging its list pruning action violates federal law. The delisting included a lot of U.S. citizens born in other countries who got driver's licenses before they naturalized and later registered to vote. The legislative legal memo says that part of the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from conducting systematic list maintenance to remove the names of ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election. The Division of Elections didn't answer questions about the memo. Gray says the elections director may have violated federal civil rights law by treating naturalized citizens differently than other citizens.

5:53 متحدث 5 I can't speak to their motive. Like, is it because they believe that all of these naturalized citizens would not vote for, I don't know, Carol Beecher's chosen candidates? Maybe. I don't know, but I'm left to feel that that is part of what's going on here.

6:09 متحدث 4 Voters not on the active list can still vote, but only if they fill out additional forms.

6:16 NSTAR Natural Gas is working to repair a break in a gas pipeline feeding into communities near Whittier. year. NSTAR officials say a boater on the 20-mile river smelled gas and reported the leak Sunday. Utility spokeswoman Harley Hedlund says a crew investigated the pipeline on Monday.

6:32 متحدث 2 They confirmed that the break is in a submerged portion of the pipeline near the 20-mile river.

6:38 متحدث 4 As of Tuesday, there had not been an interruption to gas service, but Hedlund says that could change.

6:44 متحدث 2 That service may be interrupted periodically as our NSTAR teams are repairing the line over Over that repair period of 30 to 45 days, I believe, is the expectation as of now.

6:54 متحدث 4 So far, she says there is no suspected cause for the leak. Hedlund says NSTAR is working on a plan to truck in liquefied natural gas to regasify the pipeline in the event that the gas supply is cut off. She says locals should be prepared to find a warm place to stay in case temperatures dip too low and make alternate plans for those whose medical or accessibility needs could be impacted by a loss of hot water or heating. This is Alaska Public Media.

7:47 متحدث 6 world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. This is NPR.

7:57 متحدث 1 It's Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Michelle Martin.

8:00 متحدث 2 And I'm Layla Fulton. Good morning. Results from another round of primary races are in, and those results are mixed.

8:07 متحدث 1 And that's making it somewhat difficult to gauge what voters want and don't want in the upcoming midterm elections.

8:12 متحدث 2 We've got Minnesota Public Radio's Clay Masters on the line with us for more on the results.

8:17 متحدث 4 Hi, Clay.

8:18 متحدث 3 Hi there.

8:19 متحدث 2 Okay, let's start with a closely watched race in your neighboring state of Wisconsin. That was home to a competitive Democratic primary for a governor.

8:27 متحدث 3 What do we know? Yeah, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who is considered a more moderate candidate, narrowly beat out a state representative, Francesca Hong, who identifies as a Democratic socialist. That's according to an AP race call. This race was closely watched, of course, to see if it would replicate the results of another swing state nearby Michigan, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed recently won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate there. While that didn't happen, this was a very close race and shows that there's a good amount of Democratic voters who are looking for a significant change in their party. He'll face GOP Congressman Tom Tiffany, a Trump-backed Republican in this swing state.

9:07 متحدث 2 In the Senate primary in Minnesota, where you are Democrats-backed, the more progressive candidate. Tell us more about that race.

9:13 متحدث 3 Yeah, that's the state's lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan. She won. The race between her and Congresswoman Angie Craig was really centered around President Trump's immigration crackdown this past winter here. That's what you heard a lot from in the ads. There was, you know, more than 3,000 federal agents that aimed at deporting undocumented immigrants that came to the state last winter, ultimately led to the fatal shootings of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. Flanagan regularly really went after Craig during the primary for a vote she made in Congress backing a GOP-backed immigration bill. Craig said she regretted that vote, and last night, Flanagan had this to say.

9:50 متحدث 4 I know that we can fix our broken immigration system, secure the border, and create a real pathway to citizenship that aligns with our values.

10:03 متحدث 3 And noteworthy, Layla Flanagan would be the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate should she win.

10:08 متحدث 2 And who will she be facing on the Republican side of this open U.S. Senate seat?

10:12 متحدث 3 Republican Michelle Tafoya, a former sportscaster who is not closely aligned with President Trump, here's what she told me last night.

10:20 متحدث 4 I am running to call balls and strikes to say I think the president is right on this one. I think the president is wrong on this one. And I have the spine to stand up and say those things.

10:29 متحدث 3 And being able to say as a Republican you are willing to disagree with the president is important when it comes to a place like Minnesota because the state has not gone for Trump in the last three presidential elections.

10:40 متحدث 2 What about the candidates that President Trump did back last night in competitive primaries? How did they do?

10:46 متحدث 3 Here in Minnesota, Trump backed MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, and he lost the state GOP primary for governor to the state's Speaker of the House, Lisa Damuth. She was largely seen as the establishment favorite with more money despite not getting Trump's backing or even the endorsement of the state's Republican Party. Damuth will face Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in the the governor's race. Klobuchar quickly got in after current Governor Tim Walz decided not to seek a third term. And also, I just should note, in South Carolina, Senator Darlene Graham, who is serving out the remainder of her brother Lindsey Graham's term, did not secure enough votes to win Tuesday's primary outright. She was also endorsed by President Trump, and she's going to advance to a runoff later this month against Representative Ralph Norman. Clay Masters of Minnesota Public

11:33 متحدث 1 Public Radio. Thank you, Clay. My pleasure. We're going to talk about these primary results in more depth now with Kyle Kondik. He is the managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball. That's a newsletter published by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Kyle Kondik, good morning. Good morning. So let's start in Wisconsin, where the Democratic primary for governor was tight. State Representative Francesca Hong had been the polling favorite. She didn't prevail. And this made me think about that Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, where the margin for the eventual winner was smaller than projected. So what happened here in Wisconsin? Was the polling just off again, or did something else shift the dynamics of the race? I think the polling probably

12:11 متحدث 5 was off to a certain degree with the sort of progressive candidate being overstated, but this was also a crazy, topsy-turvy race. And, you know, polls, we describe them as a quote-unquote snapshot in time. Well, the snapshot in time, you know, things kept changing, and there was a clear consolidation behind david crowley the eventual the person who won the nomination uh overnight and also i think francesca hong had she was a weak candidate who had a weak finish to the campaign there was a lot of focus on some of the frankly kind of crazy things she'd said over the years you know talking about canceling thanksgiving and she tried to do some cleanup on that but wasn't particularly good at doing that and so i just think a lot of wisconsin democrats who are concerned about electability swung toward crowley and and you know that was the candidate endorsed by the sitting governor, Tony Evers, who comes out of this looking pretty good.

12:57 متحدث 1 And now you're, as a group, your group is now, what, calling this lean Democrat, or how are you looking at the general?

13:03 متحدث 5 Yeah, so we had had the Wisconsin governor's race rated as toss-up, but there are a lot of, basically, there have been a lot of elections and developments in Wisconsin since Trump got elected, again, that have been really pretty good for Democrats and bad for Republicans, and it's a Democratic-leaning year. We figured that so long as the Democrats produced a credible gubernatorial nominee, they should be favored. So we actually moved the race from toss-up to leans Democratic overnight because Hong lost, basically.

13:29 متحدث 1 So a moderate victory in Wisconsin, a progressive one in Michigan last week and also in Minnesota last night where, as we just heard, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan won the primary for U.S. Senate where she beat Congresswoman Angie Craig. Do you draw any conclusions overall when you're looking at these results in the Midwest?

13:45 متحدث 5 I think there is probably a battle for the party going on ideologically right now, But it's not one that necessarily you could say that either side is winning. I don't I think the quote unquote establishment in the Democratic Party is weaker than it's been in recent years, certainly. But the fact that Crowley was able to win in Wisconsin and what is really such an important race shows that I think the establishment and the sort of electability concerns do still have some juice on the Democratic side.

14:14 متحدث 1 I'm thinking about the Republican side now, where, you know, President Trump endorsed Mike Lindell, my pillow founder, and the Republican primary for governor of Minnesota, he lost. Trump backed Senator Darlene Graham, the special South Carolina primary, to fill her late brother's seat. She was the top vote getter, but she still has to go to a runoff because the margin was too thin. Just looking at those data points, not many, but those are two data points. Does it say something to you about the state of Trump's influence in the party right now?

14:42 متحدث 5 Certainly, Republicans are still going to feel like they want to have Trump's endorsement if they can get it. But he has taken some losses in some of these endorsement races recently. And we're going to have this runoff in the South Carolina Senate race in a couple of weeks. You know, Graham did finish in first, but she's, you know, 33 percent. You need 50 percent to, you know, to advance without a runoff. So we'll have to see how that goes. But particularly in some in some governor's races, again, as we saw in Minnesota last night, you know, the president is not necessarily getting getting what he wants. And the Democrats are still a huge favorite with Amy Klobuchar in the Minnesota governor's race. But, you know, Lindell would have been a particularly weak nominee.

15:19 متحدث 1 So let's go to the Northeast now. And I want to flag this race where the Democratic Congressman John Larson of Connecticut lost a bit to keep his seat. Now, he's been in office for quite some time, I think 15 terms or something like that. Now, the former mayor of Hartford, Luke Brunnen, ran on a message that Larson is just too entrenched in the status quo. Don't think there was politically that big of a difference between them. So what does this result tell you?

15:42 متحدث 5 It does seem like there's a desire for new blood on the Democratic side. And I think a lot of that is probably based on seeing what happened with Joe Biden and how that that kind of messed up Democrats in the 2024 campaign cycle. And so we've also seen just a lot of House incumbents in general losing. The number is up to 10 or 11, basically, depending on how you count total on both sides, which historically is quite a lot. And redistricting has a little bit to do with that. But there are also lots of other bigger things going on, including, I think, some desire for generational change on the Democratic side, which is what John Larson losing, I think, represented.

16:20 متحدث 1 All right. Lots to talk about. You fit a lot in. So thanks for that. Matt, that's Kyle Kondik of UVA's Center for Politics. Kyle, thanks. Thank you.

16:27 متحدث 2 Russia has released a former U.S. Marine after holding him in prison for more than four years. President Trump says that Robert Gilman was freed on humanitarian grounds. His supporters say he was near death in a catatonic state and needs medical attention. NPR's Michelle Kellerman has his story. President Trump announced Gilman's return, saying it came after discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump says Russia asked for no one in return.

16:55 متحدث 6 The 32-year-old looked sickly in the photograph posted online.

16:59 متحدث 2 Trump says he talked to Gilman, whose one request was for a cheeseburger. The Massachusetts man will be treated in a medical facility in Texas. He needs a lot of support, says Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, who says Gilman was tortured and forcibly medicated in Russia.

17:17 متحدث 5 It is a tragedy that it took Roberts' near-death condition for this case to receive the attention which it required.

17:27 متحدث 2 The State Department only recently declared that he was being unjustly detained. A Russian businessman close to the Kremlin, Kirill Dmitriev, called it a humanitarian release, but did not comment on the U.S. allegations of mistreatment. According to his supporters, Gilman was transiting through Russia in 2022 on his way to Moldova to teach English, and he fell ill on a train.

17:51 متحدث 3 When the Russian police come upon him, they think he's drunk, and they claim he assaults them when, in fact, the opposite was true.

17:58 متحدث 2 That's Kieran Ramsey, a former FBI official, now the chief investigator for Global Reach, a nonprofit organization which advocated for Gilman's release. He says Gilman suffered a lot in Russia.

18:10 متحدث 3 WITH RIDICULOUS PRESSURE TACTICS, LIKE BEING TOLD THE ONLY WAY YOU'RE GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS IS IF YOU VOLUNTEER TO FIGHT FOR THE RUSSIAN ARMY AGAINST UKRAINE. YOU CAN IMAGINE THE CONDITIONS IN A RUSSIAN GULAG THESE DAYS, ESPECIALLY BEING AN AMERICAN. HE WENT THROUGH A LIVING HELL.

18:28 متحدث 2 THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SAYS IT WILL CONTINUE TO WORK FOR THE RELEASE OF ALL AMERICANS UNJUSTLY DETAINED IN RUSSIA, INCLUDING STEVEN HUBBARD, WHO'S IN HIS 70S AND WAS CAPTURED IN Ukraine. Senator Markey says the U.S. needs to hold Russia to account for its treatment of American detainees.

18:45 متحدث 5 We cannot reduce the pressure that we apply on the Russians. There are other Americans

18:49 متحدث 2 there. Global Reach is working on five other cases in Russia. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the

18:56 متحدث 3 State Department.

20:57 متحدث 2 On the next Fresh Air, when it comes to the production of drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, and solar cells, China is ahead of the U.S. China may also be benefiting from the war in Iran and President Trump's tariffs. Is America's global dominance over? We talk with Evan Osnos about his latest New Yorker article.

21:27 Support for NPR comes from this station, and from Odoo, a platform dedicated to being flexible and bringing every part of business together, from CRM to inventory.

21:37 متحدث 4 Learn more about Odoo at odoo.com slash NPR. From the Pew Charitable Trusts, sharing real stories with supporting data through its podcast, After the Fact, exploring how people find solutions to some of today's biggest issues.

21:53 متحدث 1 From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.

22:03 متحدث 4 Learn more at rwjf.org. And from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation at macfound.org.

22:17 متحدث 1 This is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Michelle Martin.

22:20 متحدث 2 I'm Layla Faldin.

22:21 متحدث 3 And to me, Martinez, one of the hottest trends in stand-up comedy is crowd work. That's when the comedian makes the audience part of the act, asking questions and having conversations with members of the crowd. Jeff Arcuri built an entire Netflix comedy special around crowd work. It's called Nice to Meet You.

22:40 متحدث 6 Like, how old are you guys? How old are you, man? You seem about my age. 42. 42. Do you feel your age? I do. You do? How so? When?

22:48 متحدث 4 My knees. Your knees? Uh-huh.

22:54 متحدث 6 I like to consider myself a comedian first or a standup comedian first. And then I incorporate crowd work to just kind of add a little flair to my shows. There was a epidemic of it for a while where it was just a lot of people were posting and trying because they were seeing success with it. The way I do it is, is different than that. I don't just point at an audience member and ask them to work for me. Like I don't just walk up and say, what's your story to fill time. I kind of use them as a pivot point or a catalyst to talk about what I want to talk about and kind of bring the audience on the same level as me, where we're going to make this funny together. I want them to take half the credit for how the show goes. Dude, I feel like we had this – you're 42. I'm 38. We had the same childhood for the most part, right? You had, like, Furby.

23:42 You wanted one. Aw. Well, guess what? Look under your seat, buddy.

23:49 متحدث 2 dude that'd be the cutest thing in the world he's like oh my god how did you get interested in in

23:56 متحدث 6 making that part of what you do yeah at no point was i like would i even think i'd be somebody who'd want to talk to the crowd i was just nervous reciting the words i economized into you know the sentence it really started when i started doing cruise ships and i would do so many shows in the cruise ships and they would allow me to repeat shows because i can't have like six hours hours worth of material but the problem is people would come and see me again yeah i would basically cut my sets in half and then supplement it with crowd work and just kind of ask the audience about a premise before i get into it and i was finding that there was a lot of fun to be found in premises from the audience's perspective ryan nice to meet you ryan you guys are married or just together what engaged oh amazing hell yeah dude how old are you buddy 27 cool were you nervous to propose man No?

24:48 I don't even think you got on one knee. You're probably like, catch.

24:52 Was I nervous? No, she knows what she's got.

24:57 What are the risky parts of interacting with a crowd of people that you don't know?

25:01 متحدث 5 Yeah.

25:01 متحدث 6 For a few months, when I was on the road, I would start the show by saying, this is kind of how it works. Like, I'm going to engage with you guys. I don't want you randomly yelling out. I was giving this little speech before shows. it just felt very condescending to tell them how to listen to me so i just figured i just stopped doing that and i started kind of adjusting on the fly so if somebody was yelling out i just kind of take them i separate them from the rest of the crowd and i say this is kind of what not to do that you can kind of see that in my special in the beginning that first yeah right at the start yeah okay i'm gonna stop the show just for a second did you hear what he said earlier about yelling out during the show yeah i did okay that made the show worse just now you feel it i know and And you apologized. But I just want you to know, I have jokes to get through. I want to get to know you guys. Never you ever again. But like the rest of you guys, you could die tomorrow. I wouldn't care. But the rest of you guys. When somebody is being a jerk or whatever, I like to find an avenue for them to become someone that we clap for. Like I'll have a moment where I'll be like, hey, you know, you're doing so good, but you haven't yelled out in 20 minutes. I'm so proud of you. And then the audience goes, oh, wow. And then now that guy's got attention in a positive light. Right. I was thinking like if Seinfeld or like Eddie Murphy were coming up just now, would they be doing crowd work? I don't think so. There's a lot of purity in what they do. And I respect the heck out of it. And I think you don't need to post crowd work to succeed. I just think this is perfect for me. And I just love doing it so much.

26:30 And it was never a forced thing for me. So speaking of comics that won't do it, here's Anthony Jeselnik. He was on the Dan Levitar show.

26:38 متحدث 3 show you ask someone what they do for a living and then you make a joke on that you know you

26:42 متحدث 6 ask someone how long they've been in a relationship and i think that's garbage so i just don't do it i respect that he doesn't want to do it but at the same time there are people that do if we're ever on the same show where everyone's there to see him or me it may be a little bit of a different audience but i'm gonna talk to you guys all right now your your wife was a contestant

27:05 متحدث 5 on The Bachelor than she was The Bachelorette. You got married five days before she started

27:11 متحدث 6 cancer treatment, right? So first off, how is she? She's doing well. You know, it's a constant give and take. Some weeks it's good news, some weeks it's not as good news. So we're doing great,

27:22 متحدث 3 yeah. Okay, good. So now that I know that she's doing well, how soon did you try to find humor in it? Because comedians, I think, try to find humor in things just to kind of cope with them.

27:34 متحدث 6 oh i started pole starting that engine the second we got the news for those first few weeks i just needed her to laugh and i didn't realize this but that was more for me than it was for her and the jokes she makes like we i i this is maybe not as funny to you guys but uh you're on a cruise recently with my parents and my dad called my wife i'm gonna call katie an angel and he and he she just goes don't call me that i ain't dead yet steve and the look on both my parents faces like you can't say that and i'm like you can though that's like why i love her is that she's not gonna hide from it and we make fun of it now we we took the power back from cancer and now we make fun of it and that was huge but for a while i was trying too hard and i i realized i need to not do

28:24 متحدث 3 do that you know yeah yeah i really think that the special being called nice to meet you is perfect because it truly feels like when you are dealing with people in these situations that you really

28:34 متحدث 6 really are happy to meet them i mean do you think you'll always be that way comedy wise i truly hope so i love doing what i do i i love performing for people i love changing people's evenings i love the messages i get from people saying like you know you got me through things or your comedy or like we look forward to this every year coming to see you like those things will never go away from me i don't see it could ever i've been doing this 15 years and i've been lived in basements i've slept next to rats and i was happy to do it because i got comedy at the end of the day you know jeff

29:05 متحدث 3 arcuri's netflix comedy specialist called nice to meet you jeff nice to meet you jeff yeah thank you

29:11 متحدث 6 it was great talking to you

29:24 This is NPR News.

29:29 متحدث 2 Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank at a record pace, according to the U.N. But for thousands of Palestinians, their only income source is working for Israelis.

29:40 متحدث 6 There is no minimum wage, no social insurance, medical insurance and other social benefits.

29:47 متحدث 2 That story on all things considered from NPR News.

30:27 Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright.

30:31 متحدث 4 Consumer prices rose only a fraction in recent weeks, but things are still expensive.

30:37 متحدث 2 NPR's Scott Horsley has more on today's inflation report from the Labor Department.

30:42 متحدث 6 Prices rose just a tenth of a percent between June and July. Rising rents and airfares during the month were partially offset by falling prices for gasoline and groceries. Gasoline prices are still much higher than they were a year ago.

30:56 متحدث 3 Electricity prices are also climbing faster than overall inflation. Easing inflation will be welcome news for the Federal Reserve.

31:03 متحدث 4 The central bank has promised to bring price hikes under control.

31:06 متحدث 2 AAA says regular gas is averaging $4.04 a gallon. That's about 90 cents higher than a year ago. NPR has learned President Trump took a secret flight out of Turkey last month after Israel warned the U.S. of an Iranian threat against Air Force One. NPR's Tamara Keith reports.

31:26 متحدث 4 There were White House staff, military personnel, Secret Service agents and members of the press on the plane. The journalists thought they were flying with the president and were firmly instructed by the Secret Service to keep their window shades down, which is an unusual ask. I mean, the only time I've ever experienced that was on a secret Christmas night trip to Iraq with President Trump in 2018.

31:49 متحدث 2 The news was first reported by The Washington Post. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Student athletes across the country are getting ready for the start of the season in extreme heat. Bianca Seward from Houston Public Media reports Texas has new safety requirements.

32:10 متحدث 4 This year before teams take the field, they'll need to consult the wet bulb globe temperature reading. It's a comprehensive assessment of the heat risk. It takes into account air temperature, humidity, wind speed, and cloud cover. Texas now joins 17 other states that mandate teams consult the readings and follow correlating guidance, which can dictate how long a team can practice outside or if it's even safe at all. Dr. Jamie Harrison is the executive director of the University Interscholastic League, which governs high school sports here in Texas.

32:40 متحدث 6 He says, bottom line is this is the national gold standard for keeping kids safe when working in the heat.

32:47 متحدث 4 and that's our ultimate goal. However, the readings are required for practices only and not game days when the heat can be just as brutal. For NPR News, I'm

32:55 متحدث 6 Bianca Seward in Houston. Drug maker Eli Lilly has filed multiple lawsuits

33:00 متحدث 2 against companies it says are illegally selling black market versions of its experimental obesity drug, Rettatrutide. Lilly says the drug is still in clinical trials and hasn't been approved by regulators for human use. Compounding

33:16 متحدث 4 BUILDING PHARMACIES, MEDI-SPAS AND ONLINE SELLERS ARE NAMED IN THE LAWSUITS. I'M KRISTEN WRIGHT, NPR NEWS, FROM WASHINGTON.

34:27 متحدث 2 Support for NPR comes from the station and from DuckDuckGo, who believes AI should be optional and who've been building privacy tools for 15 years.

34:36 متحدث 3 They now offer Duck.AI, where users can chat privately with AI.

34:40 متحدث 4 Duck.AI. And from Subaru, as part of the Subaru Loves Learning initiative, Subaru and its retailers are partnering with Adopt-A-Classroom.org to provide funding to high-need schools and local communities.

34:54 متحدث 1 Subaru, more than a car company.

34:57 متحدث 2 And from the Public Welfare Foundation, it's Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Laila Fadil.

35:06 متحدث 1 And I'm Michelle Martin. Good morning. During the early weeks of the war with Iran, hundreds of U.S. sailors and their families were rushed out of Bahrain with only a duffel bag. As the war continues, many of these families are still living out of suitcases back in the U.S. The Navy is trying to figure out what's next for them. Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk has this

35:25 متحدث 3 report. Shortly after the war with Iran started in late February, one Navy spouse was about to go back to Bahrain with her husband. Then they got word from the Navy.

35:35 متحدث 4 A day before we were supposed to leave to be stationed in Bahrain together, we

35:40 متحدث 2 were told we need to go somewhere else for a short period of time and then here we are five months later. NPR has agreed to withhold their names. The Navy spouse

35:50 متحدث 3 is concerned about the potential impact on her husband's career. The two of them

35:55 متحدث 4 are now living out of three duffel bags. We were at one location for a while and then spur of the moment sent to another location for what ended up being 10 weeks. So it's a lot of moving with

36:07 متحدث 5 very short notice and can't really unpack or own too much because you never know when you're going

36:12 متحدث 3 to be going somewhere else. They're on what's called temporary duty status, so they aren't eligible for base housing or money for rent. American bases in the region remain targets for Iran. After a first story ran on NPR in April, the Navy conceded that at least 1,500 troops and their families had left the Navy base in Bahrain, which is home to the Navy's Fifth Fleet. When military members and their families go overseas, they have to designate a place they would return in emergency. Some evacuees remain at the place they designated. Others are still moving from base to base. Head of Fleet Forces Admiral Carl Thomas told NPR that the Navy hasn't released an overall plan but reopening Bahrain to families seems

36:57 متحدث 4 unlikely in the near future. We're really trying to take each case individually and

37:01 متحدث 1 make sure those people are taken care of and we understand what they want but

37:05 متحدث 3 with things heating back up over there right now it's not an option. Some came through Norfolk Virginia, hundreds have arrived in Tampa home of CENTCOM. There There, the organization Blue Star Families is helping make food deliveries. Families with young children are trying to enroll in schools. They may not have all of their records, says Executive Director Susie Malloy.

37:26 متحدث 2 When the kids first arrived, we gave them backpacks and school supplies because, you know, they left so quickly, they didn't think to grab all of what they needed to go back to school.

37:36 متحدث 3 Higa Michiels runs JetPet, which transports animals in and out of Bahrain, including for some military and civilian defense workers. workers. She still lives in Bahrain and remembers when the war began.

37:48 متحدث 1 MAHRAEEN AL- The early days, quite shocking, especially Bahrain is considered safe.

37:53 متحدث 2 It's a small island with friendly people.

37:55 متحدث 1 So when I woke up, I was literally blasted off my bed.

37:59 متحدث 3 JOHN YANG, People weren't prepared for the cost and paperwork involved in transporting pets out of the Middle East. Many had to leave their animals behind. Pets were left with neighbors or friends and still haven't left the country.

38:11 متحدث 1 MAHRAEEN AL- A lot of people are in panic mode.

38:12 متحدث 2 and our team as well. We are going under that same stress where alarms go off and deprived

38:18 متحدث 3 sleep and uncertainty. The country is still under periodic attack. For most clients, all she can tell them to do is wait and see. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh.

38:30 متحدث 2 Would you use artificial intelligence for financial advice? 40% of people already do, according to a new survey from the analytics company J.D. Power. NPR's Stephen Visaha reports on what users are asking chatbots and if they should trust them.

38:46 متحدث 3 David Kendrick already goes to ChatGPT

38:48 متحدث 5 for most of his other questions, so why not finances? Now when I talk about it, it's my buddy Chatty. Kendrick asked for tips on repairing his house in Dayton, Ohio, how to revive his dying tomato plant, and what to do about his home equity credit line. And I'm like, hey, should I be paying that down or should I be funding my Roth IRA? OpenAI promotes using ChatGPT for personal finance. Kendricks uploaded his budget and financial info, even acted on some of the AI's suggestions, like upping his retirement contribution.

39:18 متحدث 2 The AI also eases his stress.

39:21 متحدث 5 My fiance calls it financial anxiety. I've always kind of had that because my parents struggled, and this very much helped with that, to sit there and say, okay, you are okay. You are planning for the future. You are going to be okay. Overall, Kendricks says his finances are solid.

39:36 متحدث 6 solid. But that is not true for the biggest group of people using AI for financial advice.

39:42 متحدث 5 We call them overextended. Jim Miller is the vice president of financial services at J.D. Power, which did a survey to learn about people's financial health. Miller says people asking AI for advice have questions like how to stretch their budgets and get tips like skipping the name

39:57 متحدث 3 brand cereal for cheaper store versions. They're using AI to look for ways to save, look for ways to make their money go a little bit further.

40:05 متحدث 5 Now, there's still the big question to answer. Is AI advice any good?

40:10 متحدث 3 We find it quite surprising and positively surprising that they are actually giving you pretty decent advice.

40:16 متحدث 5 Taha Shokman is an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He recently co-authored a yet-to-be-published paper that found that AI offered the kind of big-picture financial tips you might expect from a finance professor like him.

40:29 متحدث 3 It tends to push people toward saving more, participating more in the stock market, de-risking as they get older. So it gets a lot of things right.

40:37 متحدث 5 Overall, finance experts I spoke to said AI advice seems to work best for people on two ends of the sophistication scale, for people asking finance one-on-one questions and for power users handing over lots of data and crafting detailed prompts. But a lot of questions can fall

40:54 متحدث 6 in the middle ground, where they go beyond the basics without providing a lot of detail.

40:59 متحدث 2 And in those cases, the AI can make mistakes. Recently, I wanted to see how good are these models at coming up with something a little more complex. Daniel Harrison is the founder of

41:10 متحدث 5 Harrison Financial Planning. And for her test, she told an AI model about her husband joining her firm and asked how they should structure their business. It gave an answer that it was

41:22 متحدث 2 sure about. It was like, you need to be an S corporation. That's the type of business with

41:28 متحدث 3 some tax advantages. But Harrison kept prodding the AI and giving it more info. It completely

41:34 متحدث 2 changed tunes by the end of it to where it's like, absolutely do not be an S corp. You need to be an LLC. If I had not had that background knowledge, it would have given me the wrong information.

41:49 متحدث 5 AI models can make up sources and make bad assumptions about someone's situation. David Kendrick says he knows not to take ChatGPT's advice as gospel. I know that ChatGPT can be kind of a sycophant. And every time I talk to it, it's like, oh, David, that's such a great idea. You know, and I'm like, hey, quit that. You got to be real with me and everything. In June, OpenAI updated ChatGPT so you could directly connect your financial accounts to the platform.

42:14 متحدث 3 for. That's a level of AI financial trust Kendrick is not willing to make. Stephen Basaja, NPR News.

42:29 متحدث 2 Later today on All Things Considered, the CEO of the newsletter platform Substack is worried about AI slop. Now users can get an estimate of how much of what they're reading was generated by AI. The feature is polarizing the Substack community. Listen in the NPR app or on this public radio station.

44:27 We drop in on Here and Now resident chef Kathy Guns to grill with her at home in Maine. Her tips next time on Here and Now.

44:42 متحدث 1 news stories do not wait to unfold they just happen and when they do no matter where you are npr helps you stay connected listen live at this station's website or npr.org on your phone good morning i'm michelle martin pope leo wears a lot of hats in the vatican usually a skull cap often the tall pointed miter sometimes a chicago white socks hat last night the socks combined them the team gave out 40 000 white sock themed pope hats to fans players even wore them after home runs it was a pope themed day the sox made a donation to the order pope leo belonged to while in chicago unknown throughout the first pitch but it has always helped to have friends in high

45:22 متحدث 2 places the socks lost five to four it's morning edition tick tock withheld a safety feature from

45:31 متحدث 5 millions of users. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

45:42 متحدث 2 A quick note before we begin. The story includes discussion of suicide. Back in 2021, TikTok tweaked its algorithm in an effort to address dangerous filter bubbles, a sort of algorithmic

45:56 متحدث 4 spiral of recommendations for high-risk content like extreme dieting or self-harm. But internal

46:03 متحدث 2 company documents obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek show 10% of U.S. users, 15 million million Americans, were purposely excluded from this safety update, part of user testing to validate the new feature and track whether it reduced engagement with the famously sticky platform. One of those users, 16-year-old Chase Naska, subsequently died by suicide. Bloomberg Businessweek investigative reporter Olivia Carville has been on the story. After his death, his mom was trying to understand what had happened, and she looked at his social media accounts and when she found his TikTok account, she was shocked at the fact that it was just non-stop videos about really sad subjects, depressing topics. Many of those videos encouraged suicide. So inside the company, the algorithm teams and the trust and safety teams joined forces to essentially carry out an extraordinary review of Chase Naska's watch History. They watched 7,563 videos that he had seen in the weeks, days, and hours before his death trying to understand what had happened to his account and that's all laid out in this document that this story is based on. We have seen this surge of legal action around child safety and

47:26 social media in recent years. Jace's parents also filed a wrongful death lawsuit. How does what you

47:34 متحدث 4 you reported on sort of fit into the broader legal landscape going on right now?

47:39 متحدث 2 This isn't just against TikTok. The biggest social media products in the world are facing thousands of lawsuits from across the U.S. And this is all connected because through that litigation process, these companies had to go through what's called discovery, which is where you hand over internal information to the other side. And we've seen a lot of those internal documents come out in the trials that have been held previously. And what we've seen time and time again is the companies have faced a lot of criticism and scrutiny for not disclosing what they're really doing behind the scenes and how kids are being impacted, what research they're conducting internally on this, what information they hold about child safety or experiments they're conducting on teenage accounts. And that's what this document shows us. us. Has TikTok responded to your new reporting at all? They have. They've said that the company is deeply committed to the safety and well-being of its users, especially teenage users. Another interesting thing about TikTok's trust and safety team is they are huge. 40,000 people around the world are working to help safeguard TikTok and protect its community from harmful content.

48:53 It invests more than a billion dollars in this area. But this A-B experiment that it ran, this user did not have that safeguard, was held back from that safety feature intentionally or by design. And that links back into the broader claims that the companies are facing in courts right now, that they are dangerous and addictive products by design. That's Olivia Carville at Bloomberg Businessweek.

49:18 متحدث 6 Jesus Alvarado produced this episode.

49:21 متحدث 2 I'm Megan McCarty Carino, and that's Marketplace Tech.

49:25 متحدث 4 This is APM.

49:27 متحدث 5 Look on the bright side.

49:29 متحدث 3 It's less demented.

49:31 متحدث 2 This is Sandra Tsing Lo with the lowdown on science. Fifty-seven million people worldwide live with dementia.

49:38 متحدث 1 Scientists continue searching for ways to stave it off.

49:42 متحدث 6 There could be a surprisingly simple solution.

49:46 متحدث 2 Enter Sada, Stenland, and team at Harvard University. They followed the well-being of over 9,000 healthy 50-year-olds with a twist. Stenland examined baseline optimism through a questionnaire and compared it with cognitive health. The study lasted over 14 years. And optimism was associated with a 15% lower risk of developing dementia.

50:13 متحدث 1 This was seen consistently after adjusting for age, sex, education, depression, and health conditions. So stay posy and let your brain shine bright forever.

51:57 متحدث 2 This is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Leila Faldin.

52:00 متحدث 1 And I'm Michelle Martin. Good morning. The former premier of China, Zhu Rongji, has died. He was 97 years old. Zhu was renowned for economic reforms that connected China to the world economy. NPR's Emily Fang has this remembrance.

52:14 متحدث 2 The world first got a good look at Zhu Rongji's flinty personality when he helped negotiate China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Kenneth Lieberthal, a China expert and then a national security advisor for President Clinton, met Zhu multiple times over the grueling six-and-a-half-year negotiation process. The U.S. needed China to make tough concessions and open up its closed economy before giving it a preferential trading status. Zhu was under huge pressure to find compromise, and he let his views be known. Including complaining that, you know, I had to get up at 3 a.m. to brief the president.

52:50 متحدث 6 He said, 3 a.m., I'm not all that young anymore.

52:54 متحدث 5 You know, you guys are really pushing.

52:56 متحدث 2 Eventually, in 2000, China got that preferential trading status with the U.S., and a year later, joined the World Trade Organization. And throughout, Zhu struck U.S. officials as inquisitive and flexible, asking Lieberthal, for example, why Americans distrust China and their views on Taiwan and island China claims. It was a very unusual discussion. This was not talking points. It was a lot of give and take. Born in 1928, Zhu Rongji lost both parents at an early age. Being an orphan and the need to survive helped shape his strong personality. He was thick-skinned and extremely direct. Here he is in 1987, just before becoming mayor of Shanghai.

53:40 My defining characteristic is independent thought, he declares. I say what I think. His blunt, say-it-like-it-is style got him in serious trouble. In 1958, he was briefly expelled from the party for criticizing Chairman Mao's economic policies. And then a decade later, he was purged again and sent to do manual labor for five years. Zhu was rehabilitated after Chairman Mao died in 1976, then worked his way back up the bureaucratic ladder with the same precision and pragmatism he learned as a trained electrical engineer. year. In the 1990s, Zhu took control of China's chaotic economy as it careened between capitalism and state-led socialism. He started China's first stock exchange. He centralized the tax system. That went on to create huge wealth and hugely unsustainable levels of debt. But Zhu's most controversial legacy by far remains restructuring China's bloated state-owned enterprises. He axed smaller inefficient companies, leaving an estimated 30 million state workers suddenly jobless. Massive worker protests erupted all over China, and Zhu had the willpower, or callousness, as his critics would say, to ignore them. The central government decided that the laid-off worker problem could just be ignored and forgotten. gotten. That's Dorothy Sollinger, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of California, Irvine, where she studied migrant labor. Zhu tried to offset the layoff's impacts.

55:10 He created a basic social welfare system that exists to this day and made steps to boost basic health care, which had crumbled in rural areas. But pockets of China, especially where workers were reliant on heavy industry, never fully recovered. Zhu took the criticism in stride. He was unlike most communist leaders who read off dry, carefully prepared scripts. Instead, he loved engaging with and ad-libbing to the press. He was known for his gallows humor. When he vowed to stamp out anti-corruption, he once quipped, I have prepared 100 coffins, 99 for the corrupt officials and one for myself. Decades after his retreat from public life, however, Zhu today is mostly invoked with pleasant nostalgia, especially under Chinese leader Xi Jinping, when China became more nationalistic, more beholden to the state, and more closed off to the outside world. Charlene Barshevsky was the primary U.S. negotiator while China was trying to join the WTO, and she got to know Zhu well. She explains. Zhu Rongji represented really a different time, almost a different era for China. China wanted to find its way in what it viewed at at that time, is the best possible way, which was to move toward Western-style economics,

56:28 متحدث 6 to move toward Western-style rules.

56:31 متحدث 2 Barshevsky visited Zhu in his Beijing home in the western hills of the city a few years after his retirement from the premiership. He loved Peking Opera and spent much of his days listening to music and quietly advising some of the younger technocrats running China, though not all appear to have listened to him. Emily Fang, NPR News. The Trump administration says it's giving $2 billion to faith-based groups for health and humanitarian work around the world. It's part of a new foreign assistance strategy. Last year, the administration dismantled the 60-year-old U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. NPR's Fatima Tanis reports. Most of the money is going to large Christian organizations, including World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, and Compassion International. The State Department said last week that the funds would support 2,500 faith-based hospitals and clinics in 17 countries, as well as emergency assistance for humanitarian crises and disaster response. Dean Carlin is the former chief economist of USAID. Bottom line, he says, this announcement is a good thing.

57:39 متحدث 3 I prefer to see this money get spent than not spent. And I do think World Vision will create some good.

57:43 متحدث 4 The administration calls it the largest allocation of foreign assistance to faith-based groups in 20 years. As part of its new America First global health strategy, it has favored American businesses and faith-based groups for global health funding over most other nongovernmental organizations.

58:00 متحدث 2 In a statement to NPR, the State Department said, quote, these awards reflect the administration's shift toward more efficient results driven foreign assistance, and that the award process did not prioritize religious affiliation.

58:15 متحدث 4 But Carlin says faith-based groups are not inherently more efficient than other groups, who have lost billions of dollars in funding in the last year.

58:23 متحدث 3 Is it the best we could have done? I doubt it, because there's no sign that they used

58:29 متحدث 2 evidence in any way to guide this decision.

58:31 متحدث 4 Jeremy Conendyke was a top humanitarian official at USAID under Presidents Obama and Biden.

58:37 متحدث 2 He also welcomes the global health spending, but has some reservations.

58:41 متحدث 5 This is the U.S. government putting a lot of eggs in these baskets, and I think there

58:46 متحدث 2 are real drawbacks to that approach to disaster response.

58:49 متحدث 4 AMNA NAWAZ CONAN DYKE CONAN DYKE says the old system of foreign aid seemed more efficient and agile.

58:54 متحدث 5 When a new disaster struck, we looked at who was on the ground, we looked at who was most capable, and we worked with them rather than having a sort of preset roster that may or may not be in place and relevant to the crisis.

59:05 متحدث 2 For example, Conan Dyke says in the recent relief for the earthquakes in Venezuela, the

59:10 متحدث 4 U.S. had funded Samaritan's Purse over other aid groups that already had a presence in

59:16 متحدث 5 in the country, which, he says, slowed down the response.

59:19 متحدث 2 Font Matanis, NPR News. This is Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Layla Faldin.

59:24 متحدث 1 And I'm Michelle Martin.

59:26 متحدث 5 The station received support from Trident Seafoods,

59:29 متحدث 6 welcoming the fifth class of students

59:31 متحدث 3 participating in their skilled trades training program.

59:34 متحدث 6 More at tridentseafoods.com.

59:36 متحدث 3 Weather, you're out on the water.