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0:42 Speaker 4 more queens.org slash neurosurgery good morning president trump says the u.s and iran have agreed to the outlines of a peace deal we'll hear from an expert on what the off-ramps to this war might look like and frozen yogurt is making a comeback but this time it's all about gut health and protein plus country music star shibuzi is back with a new album focused on the wild west the

1:08 Speaker 5 The cowboy image, you know, we tend to think that was just a white man, you know, on a horse with a cowboy hat. But one in every four cowboys were black.

1:17 Speaker 4 It's Sunday, August 2nd. News and headlines are next.

1:23 Speaker 2 Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. Over the next two weeks, two Democratic primaries in Midwest swing states could determine Democrats' chances in November. NPR's Mara Liason reports. On Tuesday, Michigan voters will decide between a left-wing candidate, Abdul Al-Sayed, and a more moderate candidate, Haley Stevens. They agree on most economic issues, policies to make housing, health care, and education more affordable, but they disagree on abolishing ICE and support for Israel. A new poll shows Al-Sayed way ahead of Stevens in the primary, but losing by similar margins to the Republican candidate in the general election. In Wisconsin, left-wing candidate Francesca Hong is pulling ahead in the Democratic primary for governor. If she's nominated, she could face Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, an election denier who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Both races could help answer the question, can left-wing Democrats win general elections in swing states? Mara Liason, NPR News. Thousands of people are still displaced in Spokane, Washington, after a tense day of wildfires. Doug Nadvornik from Spokane Public Radio reports.

2:35 Speaker 6 Three major wildfires continue burning in and around Spokane, charring several thousand acres.

2:41 Speaker 2 Go now evacuations remain in place for all the areas affected.

2:45 Speaker 6 20 to 30 mile an hour winds spread the fires quickly yesterday.

2:49 Speaker 2 Local authorities say several hundred structures burned.

2:52 Speaker 6 burned. Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall says he knows people are eager to go back and check on

2:57 Speaker 2 their homes, but he's urging patients. We understand there's consternation about your

3:01 Speaker 3 property, about your pets, that you may need medication, but we cannot allow you back into

3:06 Speaker 2 the area when it's unsafe to do so. The winds are abating a bit, but conditions remain challenging for firefighters. For NPR News, I'm Doug Nadvornik in Spokane. Years after the emergence of COVID-19, there's still no definitive answer on how it began. Early in the pandemic, U.S. officials speculated it started from natural causes in a Chinese market where live animals were sold. Another theory is that it started in a lab in China. Dr. Ashish Jha served as COVID response coordinator for President Biden. He says he's now leaning towards the lab theory, but... Here's the bottom line. No one in the United States knows for sure. The only people who know for sure, officials in China, and we still need transparency and accountability on that. He was interviewed this morning on CNN's State of the Union. President Trump says the U.S. will delay a new attack on Iran at the request of Iranian officials and other Middle Eastern countries. In a post on Truth Social last night, he said the U.S. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, but has agreed to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a deal. This is NPR News in Washington. The police chief of Twin Falls, Iowa says there is now no danger to the community. Gunfire erupted yesterday at an In-N-Out burger

4:32 restaurant. Three people were killed and seven others were injured. It's not clear if the shooter was among the dead. Twin Falls is in southern Idaho, about 75 miles north of the border with Nevada. Canada's second largest airline is on strike. Dan Karpinchuk reports more than 4,000 flight attendants as WestJet walked off the job this morning. In a statement, the airline says its latest offer to the flight attendants union is industry-leading and transformative and directly

5:02 Speaker 1 addresses the main issues behind the walkout, unpaid work. In response to the strike, WestJet issued a lockout. The union for the flight attendants says it's ready to go back to the

5:12 Speaker 4 bargaining table. It says flight attendants work about 35 hours a month without pay before and after flights. In Ottawa, jobs minister Patty Hajdu says the strike is a disappointing development

5:23 Speaker 3 and that federal mediators are available to help with negotiations. But the union has urged the government not to intervene with any back-to-work legislation. Meanwhile, thousands of travellers

5:33 Speaker 4 are scrambling to make arrangements on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year in Canada.

5:38 Speaker 3 For NPR News, I'm Dan Carpinchuck in Toronto.

5:41 Speaker 2 The Women's Professional Baseball League kicked off its inaugural season on a rainy evening at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, last night. The Los Angeles Queens beat the New York Heights 10-8 after scoring six runs in the final two innings. According to the website, this is the first professional league in the U.S. in 70 years. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.

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7:02 Speaker 4 Week in addition from NPR News, I'm Ayesha Roscoe. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Late last night, President Trump took to Truth Social to say that the U.S. and Iran had agreed to the outlines of a deal. He said the U.S. would be holding off on new attacks on Iran for now. But with the war entering its sixth month, what would it take to actually reach a deal? Arianne Tabatabayi is vice president of research for security and defense at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She also served in the state and defense departments during the Biden administration.

7:41 Speaker 3 Welcome to the program. Thanks for having me back, Arianne.

7:44 Speaker 4 So we don't have any details here about the outlines of this potential deal other than Iran totally reopening the Strait of Hormuz and an end to, quote, Iran's nuclear threat. Given those demands, and they sound, you know, kind of deja vu there, do you see a deal that could bring lasting peace?

8:08 Speaker 3 Yeah, they do sound a bit like a deja vu. This is along the same lines of the memorandum of understanding that was signed between the United States and Iran in June. And that is by design. The MOU back in June was supposed to pave the way for a deal that would sustainably end this conflict. It has not yet done so. And it is important to note that if we're still going based on this MOU, that kicked off a 60-day clock that would essentially allow the two sides to come together and to refine the details that would ultimately be in this deal. And again, we don't seem like we're further along now than we were just a couple of months ago. And we're getting quickly to the end of the 60 days without knowing exactly what a deal would achieve.

8:58 Speaker 4 Well, does Iran take President Trump's statements, which are contradictory at times, at face value, or do they see them as a negotiating strategy?

9:10 Speaker 3 strategy? I think they see the president's statements and actions as a negotiating strategy. I mean, you know, the president seemingly threatens to destroy the whole of the Iranian civilization one day, threatens to target their civilian infrastructure. And just to borrow a term that he used in his first term to bring about fire and fury. And then within hours, he typically walks it back, generally, as we see from reporting, because, you know, U.S. partners in the region pick up the phone and say, hey, President Trump, we actually don't want further escalation because this is really affecting all of those countries. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others are seeing, you know, the conflict really spill over into their countries. So, you know, there is this cycle that we have entered into for months now where we're seeing periods of escalation and escalatory rhetoric, followed by, hey, we're very close to a deal. We're going to get there and essentially walking back the threats. So, you know, I think President Trump had overestimated how much he could achieve militarily. And I think Iran might now be overestimating what it can achieve diplomatically based on the cycle that we're in. Well, I mean, what would an off ramp for this conflict look like? Well, an off ramp for this conflict would look exactly like like the kind of deal that is apparently on the table. It would essentially settle the issue of the Strait of Hormuz.

10:40 It would reopen the straits and would allow for freedom of navigation. And it would actually determine the details for the Iranian nuclear program and make sure that international inspectors are back in the country, ensuring that Iran's nuclear activities are merely peaceful. useful however there are a number of challenges on both sides here which is why i am not convinced that we're going to see a deal and those are both on the iranian domestic side of things but also on the u.s domestic side not to mention israel and iran's proxies and the region including the houthis who have now entered this conflict uh it seems in full force i want to ask you about the trump

11:23 Speaker 4 administration's nuclear deal with saudi arabia it does lack some of the oversights that would prevent or prohibit the development of nuclear weapons. Are you worried that could complicate

11:36 Speaker 3 reaching a nuclear deal with Iran? I certainly think it does set a troubling precedent in large part because it does not, and we don't know everything about the deal yet, but it does not allow for a robust role for the International Atomic Energy Agency. And that would be needed in any deal with Iran to ensure its peaceful nature.

11:57 Speaker 4 That's Arianne Tabataboyi with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.

12:04 Speaker 3 Thanks for having me.

12:09 Speaker 4 $750 billion. That's what reporters from The Information, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg say chip-making giant NVIDIA is thinking of spending on data centers to strengthen its supply chain. And it's not just the price tag that's raising eyebrows. Dina Bass is one of the reporters with the story. She covers AI infrastructure for Bloomberg News, and she joins us now. Welcome to the program.

12:37 Speaker 2 Thanks for having me.

12:38 Speaker 4 What other companies are involved in these talks, and how big are they as players in the AI sector?

12:46 Speaker 2 So let's start with NVIDIA. They are the largest by far. they have these graphics chips that years ago they used and still do for video games and things like that. They turned out to be really important for training AI models. So it's kind of the workhorse chip in the AI space. And they are kind of using their funding and their money, their investments, and their customer relationships to continue to juice demand for that. And so, you know, in the past month alone, NVIDIA has unveiled a partnership with South Korean conglomerate SK Group, which means those companies will be doing more than $500 billion in business with each other. And SK owns a company called SK Hynix, which makes the memory chips whose products are critical for NVIDIA's AI chips. And also in the last couple of days, we've reported our sources tell us that NVIDIA is in talks with OpenAI to help fund both a lease on a massive data center in Ohio and also putting the NVIDIA chips in there and, you know, possibly other data centers.

13:51 Speaker 4 So who are the people kind of calling out this kind of circular financing and explain it for the layperson why this is circular financing?

14:01 Speaker 2 Nancy. I mean, you've had, you know, Michael Burry, who's kind of famous for calling out, you know, what ended up being the sort of the mortgage crisis. You know, a lot of a lot of reporters, you know, investors are looking at this as well. And the concern here ends up being not just NVIDIA. NVIDIA's rival AMD is investing $5 billion in OpenAI's rival Anthropic. And Anthropic is then going to use AMD chips. Anthropic also has taken huge billions of dollars of investments from Google and Amazon and agreed to use billions of dollars of their chips. And in some cases, what we're literally seeing amounts to a company giving another company money to buy its product. There's also concern that with all of the interlocking relationships, any impairment to one company risks kind of spreading a contagion throughout the whole ecosystem of all of these companies. And one of the wrinkles, you have to consider that an An increasing number of financial firms, so your Apollos, your Blackstones, and many more, are now helping finance billions of dollars of these large deals for data centers and chips as well.

15:09 Speaker 4 Yeah, so then you have financial companies also exposed.

15:13 Speaker 2 Exactly. You know, in a nutshell, the question becomes, if there's a point where the music stops on the AI expansion, you know, who ends up left without a chair? Who's left holding the bag?

15:24 Speaker 4 Well, how has NVIDIA responded to this criticism?

15:28 Speaker 2 Look, Jensen Wong hates the term circular financing. I have personally, as have other reporters, asked him about it. You know, when I asked Jensen this question a couple months back, on the day he signed an investment and sales deal with AI Cloud Coreweave, he felt that, you know, they are investing, they are juicing sales, but they are not, in his view, literally funding their own sales.

15:50 Speaker 4 This isn't just a concern about shareholders or workers at these companies. It's about how important these companies are to the entire US economy. And I should note that Anthropic, Google, Amazon and Apollo are NPR funders, just to make a note of that. But if we are seeing a bubble, like the critics say, what would be the best parallel from recent memory, like the dot-com bust or the meltdown over mortgage-backed securities?

16:26 Speaker 2 I covered the dot-com bubble very early in my career at Bloomberg, and there were a lot of ideas and companies that came about in that era that ended up being right. People ended up doing exactly those things. They are now major parts of, you know, the technology that we use every day, things like grocery delivery, things like location-based services, some early mobile things. But the companies behind them did not always end up being the ones that led the way for that. that. And you end up with a similar, potentially similar situation in the AI era. People in this space will tell you AI is real. These are ideas that are happening. These are legitimate and important technologies that are going to change significant things about the way our world operates. But that doesn't necessarily translate into the notion that the companies that are currently leading each of those spaces are currently raising a lot of money to compete in each of those spaces, those may not be the companies who five and 10 years from now are, you know, the ones that end up benefiting from them.

17:33 Speaker 4 That's Dina Bass of Bloomberg News. Thank you so much for being with us.

17:37 Speaker 2 Thank you for having me.

18:19 Speaker 4 You're listening to NPR News.

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19:23 Speaker 2 I'm Nora Rahm with these headlines. President Trump says he'll delay a new attack on Iran at the request of the Iranians and other Middle Eastern countries. In a post on Truth Social last night, he said he's agreed to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a deal. Authorities in Moscow are investigating a bombing at a restaurant last night that killed three people. According to Russian media reports, several high-ranking Russian military officials were at the restaurant at the time. And the police chief of Twin Falls, Idaho, says there is now no danger to the community. Gunfire erupted yesterday afternoon at an In-N-Out burger restaurant. Three people were killed. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.

20:23 Speaker 4 Support for NPR comes from this station. And from Capital One, offering their premium travel card, VentureX. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Details at CapitalOne.com. From Progressive Insurance, now hiring for virtual and hybrid employment. Offering opportunities for professional development and career progression. Position details can be found at Careers.Progressive.com.

20:49 Speaker 2 And from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation at MacFound.org.

20:58 Speaker 4 This is Week in Edition from NPR News. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. In Michigan, Democrats have a choice this week with national implications. Primary voters are weighing two millennials for a key U.S. Senate seat. One is an epidemiologist firing up progressives. The other is a four-term congresswoman. NPR congressional reporter Sam Greenglass has more.

21:50 Speaker 6 team President Obama tasked with rescuing Detroit's Big Three automakers.

21:54 Speaker 4 We are the meat and potatoes of Michigan, period.

21:57 Speaker 6 As for what McKenzie wants from her party now?

22:00 Speaker 4 I want Democrats to get aggressive and fight fire with fire, not fire with water. What?

22:05 Speaker 6 Friends Louise Dent and Gwen Martin support Abdul El-Sayed for Senate. He's here, working the crowd.

22:12 Speaker 4 I was just talking about you yesterday. I love it.

22:14 Speaker 6 Martin says so many voters are just struggling to get by.

22:18 Speaker 4 It's a choice now between medication, or do you buy groceries, or gas. I'm ready for things to change.

22:28 Speaker 6 El-Sayed says he's committed to the kind of transformational change Martin envisions. El-Sayed is a former local health department director. He says one reason problems like health access have proved so intractable is money in politics.

22:42 Speaker 2 Problem too often with the Democratic Party is that we have an instinct to say the right thing,

22:46 Speaker 3 but we're bought off by the people who are on the side of doing the wrong thing.

22:50 Speaker 2 And so we're constantly hedging, so we say not much of anything at all.

22:54 Speaker 6 A few miles due southwest at the storied Eastern Market in Detroit, voters asked Stevens for selfies and hugs.

23:02 Speaker 1 I am Congresswoman Haley Stevens, fighting for you from Detroit to the Senate.

23:09 Speaker 6 87-year-old Charlotte Daniel voted early for Stevens. Daniel says she's not looking for a political earthquake.

23:16 Speaker 4 A little bit at a time. She's out there fighting for the people.

23:19 Speaker 6 Stevens has not embraced the more progressive policies El Sayed backs, like Medicare for All, favoring instead more gradual reforms.

23:27 Speaker 1 You know, I'm just beating MAGA four times in my congressional races, and I'm passing

23:32 Speaker 4 laws, and I'm doing damn good work. We don't need wish lists. We need action now. That's the Michigan way.

23:39 Speaker 6 That's Stevens during a stop at the Roost Coffee Shop in Detroit, where Stevens sits down with neighborhood president Jai Singletary. After several minutes, he raises a delicate topic that has split Democrats. Singletary tells Stevens he coaches youth soccer and can't help but think of the kids in Gaza. He admits he voted early for El-Sayed, in part because of his opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel and the millions being spent against El-Sayed by the pro-Israel real lobby AIPAC. Stevens stays and listens. It's such a deep pain. I mean, it's, you know, we've got to have a two-state solution. The conversation's awkward, but polite. Those six-year-olds that I coach here, they're just as precious as the six-year-olds in Palestine. Singletary says he would likely still vote for Stevens if she wins the primary, but some like-minded voters may not. And this debate could matter in Michigan, where the Arab and Jewish communities are sizable. Some voters say it's El-Sayed's position that's the non-starter. Leaving Detroit for its western suburbs, I met Irvin Cappy outside a library with his two little grandkids. Could he support El-Sayed if he's the nominee? Would you stay home or vote for the Republican? I'd vote for the Republican, which I've never done before. Driving west on I-96, the fringes of the suburbs give way to cornfields en route to Michigan's capital, Lansing, dancing smack in the middle of the state.

25:04 Speaker 1 Anybody, knocking doors tonight, super important, it's how we get it done.

25:07 Speaker 6 At a colorful community center, Al Sayed rallies volunteers.

25:17 Among the canvassers is Lucy Van Hoff, a rising senior at Michigan State. Van Hoff came of age in a tumultuous political era. But if El-Sayed wins...

25:27 Speaker 2 I will be much more optimistic about our politics going forward. I think if not, there are a lot of people that will feel betrayed by a Democratic party that doesn't speak for them.

25:39 Speaker 6 Another hour and a half west is Lake Michigan, where forested dunes taper into a pristine beach and clear fresh water as far as the eye can see.

25:49 Speaker 4 I barely got in because it's so cold.

25:51 Speaker 6 That's Madison Miles, who's wrestled with how her choice could affect Democrats this fall. Holding the seat and defeating Republican Mike Rogers is crucial to win the Senate. Down the beach, Elizabeth Schaefer is thinking about this, too. She speaks first.

26:06 Speaker 3 Who has the best chance of beating the Republican? That's going to be my biggest priority.

26:13 Speaker 2 I just kind of decided that I don't want to think that way anymore.

26:18 Speaker 4 And I just want to vote for who I think will be the best representative for me and my beliefs.

26:24 Speaker 6 About 200 miles separates Lake Michigan from the Detroit River back east. That's where at an outdoor screening of the Motown-inspired film Dreamgirls, I met preschool teacher Christian Horn. Horn knows pundits are looking at Michigan to signal where the party goes next. But as Horn weighs her vote Tuesday, she's not focused on that. She's just trying to make ends meet. I'm 30 years old and I'm back at home with my mom after serving

26:52 Speaker 4 six and a half years in the military. Contrary to what anybody else wants you to believe,

26:57 Speaker 6 people are suffering. Horn believes elected officials have not met this moment. She just hopes that whoever wins finally will. Sam Greenglass, NPR News, Detroit.

27:08 Speaker 4 Summer camp can be an amazing time in a kid's life. New friends.

27:14 Speaker 6 Finish off the taters.

27:15 Speaker 5 And then what did you say?

27:17 Speaker 6 And then what did I say? You said you were going to go fumble your sweaters.

27:20 Speaker 4 New challenges.

27:21 Speaker 6 Tomorrow morning at 0600,

27:23 Speaker 5 everyone who has not met their weight loss goal

27:25 Speaker 6 will join me on a 20-mile hike.

27:27 Speaker 4 These are things that make a great summer camp movie as well.

27:32 Speaker 6 Victor abandoned the rapture, and now the kids are about to go over Devil's Canyon Rapids!

27:37 Speaker 4 Some of our favorite summer camp movies today on All Things Considered. Tune in on your radio, smart speaker, or your phone.

27:51 Speaker 2 We just said goodbye to high calories thanks to the great taste of TCBY frozen yogurt.

27:56 Speaker 4 If you're a child of the 80s, you might remember ads like this one from TCBY.

28:07 now fro-yo is back in new york city people are waiting an hour or more for artisanal soft serve in chicago a greek fro-yo storefront had to pause operations because of overwhelming demand journalist rachel curzius recently wrote about what she calls a third wave fro-yo renaissance she joins us now here in studio thanks for being with us delighted to be here In your piece in Vox, you write, you know, every time that frozen yogurt has a moment, becomes trendy again, it says something about the diet culture of the moment. What do you mean by that?

28:51 Speaker 1 The thing about frozen yogurt is that it's seen as a, quote, permissible indulgence. If normally dessert is the kind of thing that you feel a little bad about after, frozen yogurt is intended as the exception to this. And because it's kind of coded as the better choice, the healthier choice, something that you can enjoy in the moment and then not feel bad about afterwards, it can tell us a lot about what it means to be healthy or feel good or bad about your wellness choices in that moment in time.

29:26 Speaker 4 You call this a third wave of Froyo's popularity. So it first made its mark in the 80s and then it reemerged in the 2000s. So what's the through line between these moments and then what is different this time around?

29:42 Speaker 1 In previous iterations, it was all about what fro-yo didn't have. For example, fro-yo was low fat or fat-free. Fro-yo was low calorie. Whereas this time around, the emphasis is all on what fro-yo does have, right? right? So Froyo has a lot of protein. Froyo has probiotics and even prebiotics and all kinds of live cultures. And to me, when I look at that, what I see is this changing way that we are talking about what is permissible for our bodies. It's not just about what we're depriving our bodies of. It's about what we're trying to add to our bodies to create this kind of more balanced self. What I would argue is that kind of the underlying motivation remains the same, even if we're talking about it differently. Now, it's a little almost gauche often to bring up the idea of depriving yourself. Yes. Yeah. Yet this underlying motivation remains thinness. You're thin and also you look healthy. You look like you go to the gym and also you're wearing expensive workout gear and your hair looks amazing. So it's not just about a body type, right? It's about status and class as well. And we're seeing that in this iteration of Froyo.

31:08 Speaker 4 Okay. Well, now for the most important part of this whole thing, at least while Froyo is still Still in fashion. We have some samples. So we got Yasso frozen Greek yogurt.

31:25 Speaker 1 Very protein rich. Yes.

31:27 Speaker 4 And this is fudge brownie. Okay. Wow. So this is for real, for real. Yeah.

31:33 Speaker 1 I mean, this looks straight up like chocolate ice cream. Yes. To the eye.

31:38 Speaker 4 Definitely. To the eye. It looks like chocolate ice cream. Let's see. And it does look like chocolate ice cream. It's very chocolatey. It's very chocolatey. it is this isn't giving me yogurt no this isn't giving yoga it's giving chocolate no then we got is this van luyn tart

32:01 bad it's an interesting flavor and it's really creamy like one thing that i'll say like that

32:07 Speaker 1 is the original wave of fro-yo tasted like it was healthy yes yeah and they've gotten a lot

32:15 Speaker 4 creamier over time that's journalist rachel curzius thank you for stopping by and giving

32:21 Speaker 1 us the lowdown on fro-yo thank you for having me and providing all of this fro-yo

32:29 Speaker 4 germany's equivalent of the miriam webster dictionary awards a prize every year for the best new word or phrase as judged by a jury of teenagers this year one phrase on the short list has gone viral around the world doobie scoot canoe from berlin esme nicholson reports

32:58 This is Germany's hit of the summer. The refrain, Du bist gut genug, means you are good enough.

33:05 Speaker 2 Du bist gut genug!

33:13 Speaker 3 It's performed by singer Ryan Gima and rapper Shirin David, who teamed up with music producer Trio Kitschkrieg.

33:19 Speaker 1 And it's gone viral, reaching millions beyond Germany, despite the language barrier.

33:25 Speaker 2 In fact, the language barrier has generated multiple memes, the best known of which is Doobie Scoot Canoe. But there's also this ringtone version.

33:54 The song's true sentiment gets slightly lost in mistranslation, so here's a quick explainer.

34:04 Speaker 3 The strong hook of the catchy refrain cuts to Shirin David's rap verses, which sound like a self-doubting inner voice. She sings, I never do myself justice because I'm never fair to myself.

34:16 Speaker 2 but ryan jima's falsetto pierces through the insecure rap again and again his response is always you are good enough it's an anthem for an algo rhythm driven world that seems to hold us all

34:34 Speaker 3 to impossible standards be it looks maxing or perfect parenting and it's a consummate earworm

34:42 Speaker 2 in English and in German I'm at the piano see if you can hear the difference when I sing both

34:58 maybe the earworm is intentional because it's nothing if not inspiring to hear your own kid belting it out so now you've heard enough of you're good enough maybe you believe it too

35:13 Speaker 4 for npr news i'm esme nicholson in berlin this is npr news it's been a brutal summer for wildfires so far, and the smoke is polluting people's lungs far from where wildfires burn. Scientists can't perfectly predict where the smoke will show up, and therefore don't give us much advance notice to prepare for unhealthy air. IQ Air is among the apps that monitor air quality and try to predict where pollution is headed. The North America CEO, Glory Dolphin-Hammis, joins us now. Welcome, Glory. Lori. Thanks, Aisha. IQ Air is a major source for air quality information, but predicting where wildfire smoke will travel, that's actually pretty complicated, right? Yes, it's quite complicated because there's just mixed data layers that we have to work with. And so one data layer, of course, is the intensity and height of the plume. Another is a weather-oriented data layer. And then we have the geographical and topography data layer that we combine. And this allows us to see where the air might particularly stagnate. This has to do with mountain ranges.

36:39 It has to do with air not being able to be dispersed because there is a mountain layer that's too high for that air to actually travel and deconcentrate over time. It seems like bad air surprises us every time. Like, you know, you wake up and it's like, oh, we can't go outside today. We've got to move events to the inside. We have to buy air filters and purifiers or wear a mask. Is the technology for predicting this getting better? Yes, and it occurs like that probably for the general public. But those of us that work within air quality, this is actually not a surprise. We provide a forecast up to seven days. So we, within the air quality community, kind of live and breathe this and don't have the surprises that the general public have because we have these predictive models. We can see this coming. Well, do you think then it's a matter of getting the general public to pay more attention?

37:45 Well, it's more of a paradigm shift. As we are watching the weather and we're all so interested and involved in the weather, at the same time, we should be also watching our air quality. And we should do this just in general to reduce the amount of pollution that we're breathing on a daily basis. So if we can do this, we can overall impact our health in a really major way. Okay. When wildfire smoke is blowing in, how should we prepare? Sure. So at home, you should have an air purifier. So we're hearing about air purifiers more and more, especially during the pandemic. But these particular tools will help us to breathe cleaner air indoors. Also, a mask as well. Masking up is not just for hygiene or virus purposes. It's really for pollution in general. So we're gaining more and more knowledge about air quality and also gaining better tools as well to help us. That's Glory Dauphin-Hammis, CEO of IQ Air Air North America. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much, Aisha.

39:21 This is NPR News.

39:25 Good morning, you're tuned to Weekend Edition on HBR1 Hawaii Public Radio. I'm Lillian Dong with your weekend calendar for Sunday, August 2nd. On the Garden Isle, it's the opening weekend of Hawaii Children's Theatre After Dark's production of Be More Chill. Performances run Thursdays through Sundays at 7 p.m. at Puhi Theatrical Warehouse. This PG-13 musical comedy follows high school student Jeremy here as he navigates friendship, popularity, and teenage life with the help of a mysterious supercomputer called the Squib. Tickets available at hctkawaii.org. On Oahu, Hawaii's longest-running non-competitive hula festival returns to Honolulu. The 85th Nahula Festival runs from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Kapiolani Park's bandstand.

40:18 Speaker 2 Since 1940, the festival has celebrated the artistry and legacy of hula. And on the Big Island, enjoy a showing of the documentary, The Python Hunt, at Hilo's Palace Theater.

40:31 Speaker 4 In an attempt to save the threatened ecosystem, the Florida government hosts an annual competition to remove invasive pythons from the Everglades.

40:40 Speaker 2 For 10 grueling nights, Hython Mania overtakes the glades as an eclectic group of amateur hunters contends with unforgiving terrain, aggressive nocturnal creatures, and their own desires and demons that push them into the swamp, searching for slithering glory. Go to helopalace.com for tickets.

41:01 Speaker 4 For more community events, sign up for HPR's free newsletter, HPR Social Club. Every Wednesday, the Social Club gives you a curated rundown

41:09 Speaker 3 of some of the unique and distinctly local events

41:12 Speaker 4 happening all across our islands. And it's free. Sign up at hawaiipublicradio.org.

41:23 Support for NPR comes from the station and from Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at the Schmidt dot org from Yarl and Pamela Moan, focusing on civil liberties, foster youth, public radio and the arts. And from the Walton Family Foundation, working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems. More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org.

42:25 Speaker 1 My name is Elena Burnett, and I'm a producer for All Things Considered.

42:29 Speaker 5 I got the chance to interview Andrew Sean Greer about his new book, Villa Coco, and he told me that he set out to write a book that was an utter delight,

42:38 Speaker 3 and that he hoped that once you finished it, you would just hold it to your chest

42:42 Speaker 1 and hope the phone wouldn't ping for a while.

42:45 Speaker 6 And I have to say, there is no better way to describe the sunny introspection left in the wake of this novel.

42:52 Speaker 1 It is an utter delight. I mean, who wouldn't want to follow a bewildered American man in his early 20s around a charming Tuscan country house, trying to attend to every whimsical request from his employer,

43:04 Speaker 3 who, by the way, is a boisterous 92-year-old baronessa with a propensity for light theft and for making up the ends to books she never finishes.

43:13 Speaker 6 But I have to say, the remarkable thing is Greer doesn't use humor to disguise or distort the very real confusion

43:21 Speaker 5 and despair that comes with coming of age. Instead, he proves that the funniest way of

43:27 Speaker 6 telling a story is often the most honest. Hi, my name is Rebecca Herscher, and I cover climate change here at NPR. The book I want to recommend is Vigil by George Saunders. This is a book about ghosts, although it's not particularly creepy. The story is basically about this oil executive who is on his deathbed, and he's reflecting on his life, and there are ghosts coming in, some to help him, some to haunt him. It's really a story about regret and what it means to apologize for things that you did that hurt other people, even people you don't know, and whether it's ever too late to atone. Like, can you run out of time. One thing I love about George Saunders' writing is that even when he's tackling really heavy themes, there's usually comedy, and this book is funny. I also love that this book is sort of about climate change, because that's what I report on here at NPR, and I think we need more novels that help us understand this.

44:40 Speaker 3 Hey, I'm Hafsah Fatima. I'm a producer at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.

44:44 Speaker 2 A book I really enjoyed reading this year was This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum. It's about two best friends, Benny and Joy, who run a survival-themed podcast. That podcast becomes a hit, they get a ton of fans, and life is good. Except one day, Joy and her husband go missing, and Benny becomes the prime suspect in that case.

45:08 Speaker 3 now he has to uncover what really happened and also think about what their relationship was really like this book has all the standard trappings of your

45:20 Speaker 2 usual thriller it's high stakes has lots of twists and turns but I was also

45:26 Speaker 3 really moved by its themes of friendship and found family

45:33 Hi, my name is Liz Baker. I'm a producer on The National Desk, and the book I chose is called This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews, which is not one person, it's actually a couple that writes together under one name. The main character is modern-day Normie Maggie. She wakes up one day to find she's been magically transported into the world of her favorite fiction series, but unlike other literary protagonists who are stuck in this kind of common plot device, device. Maggie lands in Fantasyland with no transferable skills, no allure, she's not extra beautiful or anything, and she has no clothes. And so she has to gamble her extensive fangirl knowledge of the original series timeline. But that timeline changes every time she uses that knowledge to get ahead and survive. So with every butterfly she steps on, Maggie has to save the kingdom that, by the way, she knows is doomed because she's read the series. But she has to to do all that without becoming a main character. It's a really fun read, but I will warn you if you're somebody who has no patience, maybe wait to pick this one up because you are going to be

46:38 Speaker 6 stuck on a cliffhanger until they put out the next book. My name is Diya Hadid and I'm an international correspondent for NPR. I cover South Asia and Afghanistan. The book I'm going

46:51 Speaker 1 going to recommend is Rebel English Academy by Pakistani writer Mohammad Hanif. The cast of this short, vibrant book include a lusty, drunk intelligence officer. There are men who seem

47:03 Speaker 6 to spontaneously combust, and in fact, they're the mystery some people in the story are trying to

47:09 Speaker 2 solve. And a gay man who lives in a mosque, who only wants to teach revolution, and maybe he'd

47:16 Speaker 6 like to fumble around in a darkened movie theatre with a stranger. Hanif is always droll, a little bit weird and a little bit wild. You don't need to be interested in Pakistan or even South Asia

47:29 Speaker 2 to read Hanif, although it helps. Just bring your curiosity, your willingness to see the

47:34 Speaker 6 multitudes contained in one person and one complicated place like Pakistan.

47:45 Speaker 4 those recommendations again rebel english academy this kingdom will not kill me this story might save your life vigil and villa coco and for more books we love you can head to npr.org

48:06 Shibuzee has a new concept album that imagines life in the Wild West.

48:12 Speaker 5 This outlaw group came into this town and took over. In the chaos of all that, they accidentally took the life of this sheriff. But what they didn't know is this sheriff had a daughter.

48:49 Speaker 4 his new album is called the outlaw sherry lee and other western tales the grammy-winning musician says he found inspiration for his title character sherry lee close to home I have a lot of women figures in my life you know some

49:04 Speaker 5 I've been in relationships with some my older sister my mother so it's kind of just like going to my sister room and take some shoes you know I mean I take something from her you know what I mean she out for vengeance she out for blood

49:27 Speaker 4 album it is a combination of songs with lyrics instrumental numbers and like these spoken word pieces by these really big

49:44 That's Jamie Foxx, I mean obviously it gives the album this theatrical feel.

49:51 Speaker 5 I've always wanted to be a filmmaker you know and it's really cool to see. I know my childhood self is probably like dang he's really doing it but I think my goal with this was to create an album that did feel like a movie and not only that and have features that felt more like an ensemble cast than just music.

50:23 You won't ever die again.

50:26 Speaker 4 Your album obviously follows Sherri Lee, a fictional character, but is any part of her story rooted in your actual life experience?

50:34 Speaker 5 I think as an artist, everything is always rooted in some sort of life experience. The beauty of this whole album is how much I'm also learning about myself. Everyone has a little outlaw and a little cowboy to them, you know, and maybe there's someone out there that wants to get vengeance against me, you know.

50:51 Speaker 4 Well, there probably is.

50:52 playing it right

50:57 Speaker 5 A hundred percent. And maybe it's my way of just coming to terms with it or playing it out.

51:07 Speaker 4 I mean, you're from Woodbridge, Virginia, a suburb in the D.C. metropolitan area, and your parents are Nigerian. What led you to fall in love with country music?

51:18 Speaker 5 I think a mix of a lot of different things. I think just being in Virginia and just trying to understand the history of music there. You know, I knew, you know, a lot of times when you think of Virginia music, you think, you know, Pharrell, Missy, Timbaland. But there's just a lot of a rich history of country music in general in Virginia. And I just wanted to figure out a way to celebrate it all, combining, obviously, the hip hop elements of, you know, what I grew up listening to, as well as the country music that I came to love later and some and what I was exposed to early on in my life.

52:18 i've been making country music way before it became what it is now right topping all the charts and everyone's playing it and everyone's wearing a cowboy hat like i well i gotta i gotta count i got my hat i got my head come on put it on yeah ain't no way way before that yeah writing songs with acoustic guitars and talking about being outside and having a couple acres you You know, I mean, I could raise my kids on and trying to help people like just connect back to nature and connect back to the simple things they have.

52:52 Speaker 4 Your last album was like a huge hit in particular, of course, a bar song. Tipsy is spent 19 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts is Cowgirl, which is on this album. Is that a follow up kind of to tipsy? I mean, it's telling everybody get to the dance floor. You know what I'm saying? It's that party song.

53:28 Speaker 5 I actually wrote cowgirl four years before I wrote a bar song. I remember exactly how it came about you know I was in my high concept world where I'm like no this this song got to make sense with this song and this song and this song and my manager he was like man we need a song for the ladies I'm listening to all this you ain't got nothing for the ladies on here you know you need a song that people can kind of dance to and have fun

54:05 Speaker 4 Like, in terms of Black Western history, are there specific people or, like, historical moments that inspired you?

54:12 Speaker 5 Yeah, I think a lot of classic, like, Western characters, like Bill Pickett, Bass Reeves, who was a historical lawman back in the West, and George Fletcher as well. There's been so many things. Ever since I started this project, I feel like my algorithm has been just showing me more and more stories that I wish I was able to read before, you know, and I wish more people saw these stories. the cowboy image you know we tend to think that was just a white man you know on a horse with a cowboy hat but one in every four cowboys were black

55:03 Speaker 4 returning to the album bullets and blades it's a beautiful piece and kehlani is on it um who wrote

55:12 Speaker 5 that man you know i would say everybody all of us collectively as people wrote it you know and that's what i love about a song like that it just feels like it connects with everybody like it's a hard song not to cry to because you know i know all of us we've all been through a lot of things and but each one of those things that we went through i wouldn't be who i was if it wasn't And for those moments that I felt pain and the things we experienced and the trauma, you know, it made us who we are. And it's beautiful, those imperfections.

55:50 Sherry Lee, obviously, she's experienced this loss. She's lost her father. Prior to that, she also lost her mother. And she's obviously going through all of these different emotions. But it's created this strong, beautiful woman that the character who I play in this falls in love with.

56:50 come to the show for the rest of that but um she um actually becomes the coyote you know i mean she's pretty much saying she's like i'm a bit of an outlaw myself like you know what i mean she's like dang like they're all this stuff like i didn't hung out with these guys like i didn't i didn't became a part of the whole world now you know now i love moonshine you know so coyote's point is actually from the perspective of sherry lee and i i didn't really realize that till i was singing the song on the microphone and i was like this whole thing is about her going from from small town prairie girl, daughter of a sheriff, to then becoming a coyote by the end of the album. That's what the whole album is about. Nothing's black and white, you know? There's experiences that happen to you, and there's how you respond to the world.

57:48 Speaker 4 shabuzy talking about his new album the outlaw sherry lee and other western tales thank you so much thank you so much you are awesome

58:18 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. They now offer Duck.ai, where users can chat privately with AI. Duck.ai. And from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort, offering small ship experiences with a shore excursion included in every port and programs designed for cultural enrichment. Learn more at viking.com. This is NPR.

58:57 Speaker 2 John Allen here. Join me every Sunday night beginning promptly at 10 p.m. when we will unleash the powers of rock and roll and all its many branches.

59:07 Speaker 6 That's B-Sides every Sunday, 10 p.m. here on HPR1.

59:25 Speaker 3 Hi, I'm Chris Vanderkoek. Join me and my band for Hawaii Public Radio's Live from the Atherton on Saturday, August 29th at 6 p.m. for Big City Blues. We'll celebrate the music of B.B. King, Ray Charles, and the post-war blues masters with an evening of soulful, high-energy blues.

59:43 Speaker 5 Get your tickets now at hprtickets.org. This event is sponsored by HMSA.