Latest / Washington Post / 8.24.26
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the reading of the
- 0:02Speaker 1: Washington Post for this Monday, August twenty fourth. As you know,
- 0:07Speaker 1: RADIOI is reading service intended for people who are blind
- 0:10Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
- 0:13Speaker 1: printed material. Your reader for today is Rod Brotherton and
- 0:18Speaker 1: her head story. US Canada breakdown shows limits of Trump's
- 0:22Speaker 1: aggressive trade strategy. The shocking collapse of US Canada trade
- 0:29Speaker 1: talks is the latest sign that President Trump's bulldozer approach
- 0:34Speaker 1: to remaking the nation's trade relationships may be reaching its limits.
- 0:39Speaker 1: The President tried in recent days to use an untested
- 0:43Speaker 1: legal power to force Canada to swallow trade concessions. Instead,
- 0:49Speaker 1: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney quit the negotiations rather than
- 0:54Speaker 1: accept a lengthening list of US demands. As a result,
- 0:59Speaker 1: fifty percent US tariffs took effect early Saturday on an
- 1:03Speaker 1: array of Canadian products, including hockey sticks and Royal Crown whiskey,
- 1:09Speaker 1: as Carnie prepared to walk away, a rare example of
- 1:13Speaker 1: a foreign leader telling the president enough, Trump was retreating
- 1:18Speaker 1: on another trade front on Friday, After insisting for more
- 1:22Speaker 1: than a year that tariffs do not affect consumer prices,
- 1:26Speaker 1: he lifted tariffs on beef imports, saying the move would
- 1:30Speaker 1: lead to lower grocery prices. The two developments, coupled with
- 1:35Speaker 1: legal challenges to Trump's tariffs, leave the president's signature economic
- 1:40Speaker 1: policy in a state of flux. It's a big setback
- 1:44Speaker 1: for Trump's trade policy. We're at a juncture where other
- 1:47Speaker 1: countries may be very closely watching how this plays out,
- 1:51Speaker 1: as they also are becoming increasingly frustrated with the demands
- 1:55Speaker 1: that the US is placing on them in these largely one
- 1:58Speaker 1: sided trade agreements. Indy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator
- 2:03Speaker 1: who is now senior vice president at the Asia Policy
- 2:07Speaker 1: Society Institute, Indeed, the United States has negotiated ten percent
- 2:13Speaker 1: or ten different reciprocal trade agreements over the past year
- 2:17Speaker 1: with nations such as Malaysia, Cambodia, and Argentina, along with
- 2:22Speaker 1: other trade frameworks in the European Union, in the United
- 2:26Speaker 1: Kingdom and Japan. Hearing of the concessions that the US
- 2:31Speaker 1: offered Canada, including reductions and tariffs on industrial medals, some
- 2:36Speaker 1: trading partners may demand revisions to their deals. Cutler said
- 2:42Speaker 1: administration officials have approached each bargaining round convinced of two things.
- 2:49Speaker 1: Decades of US trade policy hollowed out the nation's manufacturing communities,
- 2:55Speaker 1: and a muscular new approach leveraging the appeal of the
- 2:59Speaker 1: thirty two trees trillion dollar US economy can force other
- 3:03Speaker 1: nations to give way and encourage the reindustrialization of the US.
- 3:08Speaker 1: For the Administration, trade negotiations are not a contest of equals.
- 3:14Speaker 1: The talks start from the premise that US negotiating partners
- 3:19Speaker 1: must make concessions, opening their markets and in some cases,
- 3:24Speaker 1: promising to invest in the United States simply to win
- 3:27Speaker 1: a reprieve from unilateral US barriers. Both Jamison Greer, the
- 3:33Speaker 1: President's chief trade negotiator, and Treasury Secretary of Scott Descent
- 3:39Speaker 1: have publicly complained that Canada and China are the only
- 3:43Speaker 1: nations that retaliated for the tariffs that Trump opposed last year.
- 3:48Speaker 1: The administration sees its actions as restoring fairness to an
- 3:53Speaker 1: imbalanced global trade system, making such retaliation unjustified. But China's
- 4:00Speaker 1: tough stance last year, which included a temporary interruption of
- 4:05Speaker 1: essential rare earth minerals, paid off. The President lowered his
- 4:10Speaker 1: triple digit tax on imports from China and reached a
- 4:14Speaker 1: trade truce in an October meeting with Chinese leader Xing Jipin,
- 4:20Speaker 1: who is due in Washington on September twenty fourth for
- 4:23Speaker 1: more talks. The Canada negotiations were aimed at averting the
- 4:29Speaker 1: new fifty percent tariffs, which Trump had threatened in July,
- 4:33Speaker 1: unless Carney dropped retaliatory measures imposed in response to earlier
- 4:39Speaker 1: US tariffs. On Tuesday, Trump delayed his initial deadline, posting
- 4:44Speaker 1: on truth Social that two sides had reached a deal
- 4:49Speaker 1: and needed three days to finalize the documents. The subsequent
- 4:53Speaker 1: breakdown spotlighted tensions in the president's strategy, including questions over
- 4:59Speaker 1: the ability of any deal reached with the US administration.
- 5:04Speaker 1: After all, the US and Canada, along with Mexico, already
- 5:09Speaker 1: have a trade deal, the United States Mexico Canada Agreement,
- 5:13Speaker 1: the USMCA of twenty twenty, which Trump hailed at the
- 5:17Speaker 1: time as the largest, fairest, most balanced, and modern trade
- 5:20Speaker 1: agreement ever reached. But this year, the President threatened to
- 5:26Speaker 1: quit the deal demanded sweeping changes to it aimed at
- 5:30Speaker 1: promoting more US manufacturing. He also imposed tariffs on Canadian
- 5:35Speaker 1: goods starting last year, a breach of the accord On Saturday,
- 5:41Speaker 1: speaking in Ottawa, Carney alluded to the difficulty of negotiating
- 5:45Speaker 1: with the mercurical president. We've recognized from the start that
- 5:50Speaker 1: America has changed, Carney said, we recognize that sometimes its
- 5:55Speaker 1: signature is written in pencil. Negotiating with the US is
- 6:00Speaker 1: also complicated by divisions within the administration. All top officials
- 6:06Speaker 1: share Trump's goal of spurring domestic manufacturing, but as Greer
- 6:11Speaker 1: haggled with the Canadians this past week, a split emerged
- 6:15Speaker 1: over the US trade representative's willingness to reduce an existing
- 6:19Speaker 1: fifty percent tariff on aluminum derivatives to twenty five percent
- 6:23Speaker 1: in return for Canadian concessions. At a White House meeting,
- 6:28Speaker 1: White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik,
- 6:34Speaker 1: whose department administers the National Security tariffs, clashed with Greer,
- 6:39Speaker 1: representing industry views that the higher aluminum teriffs were needed
- 6:43Speaker 1: to encourage domestic manufacturing. Navarro and Lutnik were both yelling
- 6:48Speaker 1: at Ger, saying, what are you doing. This is stupid.
- 6:52Speaker 1: You know we're not giving these things away, said one
- 6:56Speaker 1: industry representative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
- 6:59Speaker 1: describe of the confidential talks. Late in the talks, the
- 7:04Speaker 1: US sought to exclude from tariff reductions heavy trucks produced
- 7:08Speaker 1: in Ontario, such as the Ford F three fifty and
- 7:12Speaker 1: four to fifty and the GM Silverado. Over time, that
- 7:17Speaker 1: would have made it more economic for the automakers to
- 7:21Speaker 1: keep making the vehicles in Canada, Carney said. The administration
- 7:25Speaker 1: also sought to restrict Canada's right to sign a trade
- 7:28Speaker 1: deal with other countries, a key part of Carnee's strategy
- 7:33Speaker 1: to reduce dependence on its increasingly unreliable southern neighbor. The
- 7:38Speaker 1: White House did not respond Saturday to a request for comment,
- 7:42Speaker 1: and on Sunday, after the story was published, the administrative
- 7:46Speaker 1: disputed portions of Carney's account. There was no language that
- 7:52Speaker 1: would prevent Canada from making trade agreements with other countries,
- 7:56Speaker 1: said a USTR official, speaking on the condition of anonymity
- 8:01Speaker 1: per department policy to discuss negotiations. We did express concerns
- 8:07Speaker 1: verbally regarding trade agreements that would allow a flood of
- 8:10Speaker 1: subsidized or dumped steel or aluminum for other countries, and
- 8:15Speaker 1: flag this as an area for continued dialogue. Trump's undiplomatic
- 8:22Speaker 1: style including saying that Canada should surrender its sovereignty to
- 8:26Speaker 1: become the fifty first US state, made it all harder
- 8:29Speaker 1: politically for Canadian leaders to accept the deal. Public opinion
- 8:34Speaker 1: in Canada has turned fiercely anti American. A one hundred
- 8:39Speaker 1: and sixty year trading relationship has found its red lines
- 8:43Speaker 1: at Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association
- 8:49Speaker 1: in Toronto, demanding that your closest trading partner mirror your
- 8:54Speaker 1: trade policy with third countries is akin to asking them
- 8:58Speaker 1: to surrender agency over foreign policy. This episode shows that
- 9:03Speaker 1: doesn't work no matter the disproportionate market leverage of the
- 9:08Speaker 1: United States of America. Trump has also had a general
- 9:13Speaker 1: disregard for the three point four trillion dollars worth of
- 9:16Speaker 1: merchandise that the US imports annually. Speaking in June about
- 9:21Speaker 1: as North American neighbors, the presidential reporters in the Oval Office,
- 9:26Speaker 1: we don't need anything that Canada has. We don't need
- 9:30Speaker 1: anything that Mexico has, but they need everything that we have.
- 9:36Speaker 1: We don't need their cars, we don't need their lumber,
- 9:39Speaker 1: we don't need their energy, we don't need anything that
- 9:42Speaker 1: they have. In fact, US farmers rely on Canada. Canadian
- 9:47Speaker 1: resources for an Italy eighty percent of the potash fertilizer
- 9:51Speaker 1: they use each year. According to the US Geological Survey,
- 9:55Speaker 1: Northern border states including New York, Michigan, Vermont, Minnesota, and
- 9:59Speaker 1: Maine run on electricity produced by Canadian hydro power, and
- 10:05Speaker 1: Midwestern refineries are optimized to process heavy sour crude oil
- 10:11Speaker 1: from Canada, helping keep gas prices lower than they otherwise
- 10:16Speaker 1: would be. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City,
- 10:21Speaker 1: total US Canada trade each year exceeds seven hundred billion dollars.
- 10:28Speaker 1: The talks failure leaves businesses on both sides of the
- 10:31Speaker 1: border burdened by a sudden jump in costs. Small businesses
- 10:36Speaker 1: in the US will face an especially sharp cash crunch,
- 10:40Speaker 1: as they must pay tariffs before their customers pay them
- 10:43Speaker 1: thirty or sixty days later, said Jason Miller, a professor
- 10:48Speaker 1: of supply chain management at Michigan State University. I expect
- 10:53Speaker 1: a significant drop off in a lot of these different
- 10:55Speaker 1: import categories because importers simply can't afford to bring them in.
- 11:01Speaker 1: That may mean certain products may not be on the
- 11:04Speaker 1: store shelves, said Miller. In other cases, companies will struggle
- 11:10Speaker 1: to find a domestic alternative to Canadian goods, especially for
- 11:14Speaker 1: intermediate products such as packaging material, so they will continue
- 11:19Speaker 1: importing and passing along some of the fifty percent costs
- 11:22Speaker 1: shocked to their customers. On Saturday, Carney said Canada will
- 11:27Speaker 1: retaliate on September eighth for the new tariffs with its
- 11:31Speaker 1: own trade measures. By delaying his response is leaving time
- 11:36Speaker 1: for cooler heads to prevail. Analysts said, then the parties
- 11:40Speaker 1: come back to the table. North America is too integrated
- 11:44Speaker 1: for it to unravel on the basis of a deal
- 11:47Speaker 1: that was put together over fourteen days, said Dan oots School,
- 11:53Speaker 1: a trade lawyer from Columbus, Ohio. If a deal had
- 11:57Speaker 1: been reached this weekend, I would have paved the way
- 11:59Speaker 1: for the official start of negotiations between the two nations
- 12:04Speaker 1: over the proposed USMCA changes. Instead, the administration now must
- 12:10Speaker 1: manage a cycle of retaliation and counter retaliation, while perhaps
- 12:15Speaker 1: facing a new courtroom fight over the legality of Trump's
- 12:18Speaker 1: fifty percent tariffs, which were imposed under a never before
- 12:22Speaker 1: used nineteen thirty trade law. Meanwhile, Trump's fifty percent tariffs
- 12:27Speaker 1: on goods ranging from hockey sticks to alcohol are expected
- 12:32Speaker 1: to raise prices for American consumers less than three months
- 12:35Speaker 1: before the nume of the third mid term elections, which
- 12:39Speaker 1: have the potential to give Democrats control of Congress. Those
- 12:44Speaker 1: election polls a show are expected to turn on voters
- 12:48Speaker 1: frustrations with the rising costs of living. The next story,
- 12:55Speaker 1: The United States debt is set to hit forty trillion
- 12:59Speaker 1: dollars months earlier than expected as bond yields rise. The
- 13:06Speaker 1: US national debt is likely to surpass forty trillion dollars
- 13:11Speaker 1: this week, months earlier than forecasters previously expected, in part
- 13:16Speaker 1: because of billions of dollars in lost revenue from President
- 13:20Speaker 1: Trump's invalidated tariffs. The lost revenue has forced the Treasury
- 13:25Speaker 1: Department to borrow more rapidly to cover the nation's bills.
- 13:29Speaker 1: Six months ago, the non partisan Congressional Budget Office, or
- 13:33Speaker 1: CBO projected the total borrowing would top out at three
- 13:37Speaker 1: hundred thirty nine point four trillion dollars this fiscal year,
- 13:42Speaker 1: But on Monday, Treasury reported that debt stood at thirty
- 13:45Speaker 1: nine point nine trillion and counting. The faster accumulation of
- 13:50Speaker 1: debt comes at perilous moment an array of concerns, including flation,
- 13:56Speaker 1: the warn Iran and rising debt levels around the world
- 14:00Speaker 1: world our driving investors to dump government bonds. On Tuesday,
- 14:05Speaker 1: the interest rates that investors demand on thirty year US
- 14:09Speaker 1: Treasury bonds spiked to their highest level in nearly two decades.
- 14:14Speaker 1: This year, annual interest payments on the debt are projected
- 14:18Speaker 1: top one trillion dollars, according to the CBO, about the
- 14:22Speaker 1: size of the Pentagon's budget. More rapid borrowing also means
- 14:27Speaker 1: the next deadline for raising the legal debt limit is
- 14:30Speaker 1: likely to arrive ahead of schedule. Just last year, Congress
- 14:35Speaker 1: set the debt limit at forty one point one trillion.
- 14:38Speaker 1: Budget analysts now say borrowing could hit that threshold by
- 14:43Speaker 1: early next year, forcing lawmakers either to suspend it or
- 14:48Speaker 1: raise it again to avoid the risk of an economy
- 14:51Speaker 1: shaking default. CRUPP has already focused on the debt limit,
- 14:56Speaker 1: which has been repeatedly plunging Washington into a debt dangerous
- 15:00Speaker 1: game of legislative chicken. Late last month, the President urged
- 15:05Speaker 1: the Senate to address the ever looming debt sealing disaster
- 15:08Speaker 1: before leaving town for its August recess. Senate leaders did
- 15:13Speaker 1: not comply. But Majority leader John Thune, the Republican of
- 15:18Speaker 1: South Dakota, told reporters at the time that we'll have
- 15:22Speaker 1: to be dealing with it. He added, forty trillion dollars
- 15:26Speaker 1: in debt seems to me that should get our attention.
- 15:32Speaker 1: For the past quarter century, the national debt has grown
- 15:36Speaker 1: under both parties, through the tax cuts of the George W.
- 15:40Speaker 1: Bush era, the wars in Iran and Afghanistan, the Great Recession,
- 15:45Speaker 1: the twenty seventeen Trump Task cuts, and the nearly two
- 15:49Speaker 1: trillion dollars Biden administration initiative to prop up the economy
- 15:54Speaker 1: during the coronavirus pandemic. CRUP pledged during his first campaign
- 15:59Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen to eliminate the debt within eight years. Instead,
- 16:03Speaker 1: it's double since he first took office. This year. The
- 16:07Speaker 1: gap between spending and revenue was already expected to approach
- 16:11Speaker 1: two trillion dollars, the CBO reported in February. Days later,
- 16:17Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court struck down Trump's Liberation Day tariffs,
- 16:21Speaker 1: cutting federal revenue by as an estimated two hundred and
- 16:24Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars. The Treasury has also increased borrowing lately
- 16:30Speaker 1: to build up its cash reserves. Military spending tied to
- 16:35Speaker 1: the conflict in Iran could add more to the debts
- 16:38Speaker 1: and months ahead. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a
- 16:42Speaker 1: non partisan Washington think tank that tracks federal spending, our
- 16:47Speaker 1: current fiscal trajectory is plainly unsustainable, and that's the best
- 16:51Speaker 1: case scenario. BPC president and CEO Margaret Spelling said in
- 16:56Speaker 1: a statement, AI disruption, a recession, global war, or any
- 17:04Speaker 1: number of other events could quickly push us over the
- 17:07Speaker 1: edge from a challenge into a full blown crisis. Even
- 17:12Speaker 1: the rosiest scenarios, we're speeding toward a cliff and refusing
- 17:18Speaker 1: to turn the wheel. In an email, White House spokesman
- 17:23Speaker 1: Pushed De Sigh said that the Trump administration remains focused
- 17:28Speaker 1: on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government
- 17:33Speaker 1: while accelerating economic growth policies that will get america debt
- 17:37Speaker 1: to GDP ratio trending in the right direction. So far,
- 17:44Speaker 1: Washington lawmakers have raised or suspended the debt limit every
- 17:49Speaker 1: time it has been reached, but often after dramatic deadline
- 17:53Speaker 1: pushing partisan battles. Even these near misses have rattled markets
- 17:59Speaker 1: and price standard and poors. Fitch and Moody's have each
- 18:06Speaker 1: downgraded the credit rating of US government debts since twenty eleven,
- 18:11Speaker 1: moves tied at least partly to debt ceiling brinkmanship. Congress
- 18:17Speaker 1: last raised the debt limit in a quieter fashion, adding
- 18:21Speaker 1: five trillion dollars to the debt ceilings, part of the
- 18:24Speaker 1: One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Republican's marquee tax and
- 18:28Speaker 1: spending law. Measures to raise the debt ceiling often include
- 18:32Speaker 1: spending cuts aimed at reducing the annual budget deficit, but
- 18:37Speaker 1: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed in
- 18:40Speaker 1: July twenty twenty five, did the opposite. That law added
- 18:43Speaker 1: four point seven trillion dollars to projected deficits over the
- 18:47Speaker 1: next decade, according to the CBO estimates. According to preliminary
- 18:52Speaker 1: projections by the BPC, Washington is on track to hit
- 18:57Speaker 1: the next debt limit ceiling between in late winter and
- 19:01Speaker 1: Midsummer of twenty twenty seven. Based on the latest borrowing figures,
- 19:06Speaker 1: The Center's estimate is trending toward the earlier end of
- 19:10Speaker 1: that range. Shy Abacus, the Center's vice president of Economic policy,
- 19:16Speaker 1: set in a statement, hitting the debt ceiling would not
- 19:20Speaker 1: by itself trigger it a fault. Once the borrowing limit
- 19:24Speaker 1: is reached, Treasury can pay bills by drawing on its
- 19:27Speaker 1: cash reserves and using stop gap accounting measures known as
- 19:31Speaker 1: extraordinary measures, which typically by another six to nine months,
- 19:36Speaker 1: according to the BPC. Only after that runs out does
- 19:41Speaker 1: the government reach what's known as the X date, with
- 19:44Speaker 1: the Treasury risks running out of cash and faulting on
- 19:48Speaker 1: its obligations. If Republicans lose one or both chambers of
- 19:53Speaker 1: Congress and the November third mid term elections, they could
- 19:57Speaker 1: attempt to raise the debt limit in the lame duck
- 19:59Speaker 1: period during November and December before the new Congress is
- 20:03Speaker 1: seated in January. Otherwise, they could be forced to make
- 20:07Speaker 1: policy concessions to Democrats that Republicans and the White House
- 20:11Speaker 1: would prefer not to make. But raising the debt ceiling
- 20:16Speaker 1: could provide challenging even under total GOP control, especially in
- 20:21Speaker 1: the House where the GOP holds a slim majority. Party
- 20:26Speaker 1: leaders would be forced to win over their fiscal hawks,
- 20:30Speaker 1: who have previously revolted when a debt ceiling increase was
- 20:33Speaker 1: not accompanied by an agreement to cut spending. You have
- 20:37Speaker 1: to raise the debt limit just the same way you
- 20:41Speaker 1: have to pay your credit card bills, and Mark Goldween,
- 20:44Speaker 1: Senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,
- 20:49Speaker 1: a nonpartisan group focused on deficit reduction. It reflects spending
- 20:54Speaker 1: choices you've already made, he said. But if you keep
- 20:57Speaker 1: getting credit card bills that are more than you can forward,
- 21:01Speaker 1: it's probably a good time to reassess how much you're spending,
- 21:05Speaker 1: or get a second job. Right. Annual interest payments on
- 21:10Speaker 1: the debt now consume about nineteen percent of federal revenue,
- 21:15Speaker 1: according to Peter G. Peterson's Foundation, a non partisan group
- 21:20Speaker 1: that tracts the debt and advocates for fiscal discipline, and
- 21:23Speaker 1: are projected to climb to twenty six percent by twenty
- 21:28Speaker 1: thirty six. Interest costs are paying for your past, not
- 21:34Speaker 1: paying for your future, said Peterson Foundation Chief executive Michael Peterson,
- 21:40Speaker 1: and unfairly burden future generations. It's immoral to year after year,
- 21:47Speaker 1: trillion after trillion, just keep borrowing the money, not paying
- 21:53Speaker 1: your bills for immediate consumption, and deferring not only the
- 21:57Speaker 1: principal balance but the interest cost to our kids and grandkids,
- 22:03Speaker 1: he said. Peterson pointed to Social Security as a preview
- 22:08Speaker 1: of what can happen when Washington puts off big problems.
- 22:13Speaker 1: Unless Congress acts, The program's trust fund is projected to
- 22:17Speaker 1: become insolvent in twenty thirty two, triggering an automatic twenty
- 22:24Speaker 1: two percent cuts in benefits. Can a democracy that's run
- 22:30Speaker 1: by all of us collectively make tough decisions to sacrifice
- 22:34Speaker 1: in the short term for longer term benefit, Peterson said
- 22:38Speaker 1: the political system hasn't risen to this challenge in recent decades.
- 22:45Speaker 1: And next, a billionaire bets on a luxury mall to
- 22:49Speaker 1: restore community after a devastating fire from Los Angeles. Fresh
- 22:55Speaker 1: flowers at the farmers Market, ice cream dripping down the
- 22:59Speaker 1: side of a cone, the hum of traffic on sunset,
- 23:04Speaker 1: nineteen months after the Palisades fire leveled much of the
- 23:08Speaker 1: seaside community. Scars of the fire are increasingly overshadowed by
- 23:13Speaker 1: signs of progress. A luxury shopping mall recently reopened in
- 23:18Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades, surrounded by a sea of plywood homes and
- 23:23Speaker 1: the melody of saws and jackhammers. Many residents are rebuilding,
- 23:27Speaker 1: but most have not been able to move back yet. Still,
- 23:31Speaker 1: many in the Palisades say that lately there is a
- 23:34Speaker 1: new momentum toward recovery with the reopening of the Palisades
- 23:39Speaker 1: Village and the new return of the Farmer's Market. The
- 23:42Speaker 1: fabric of community, they say, is slowly being rewoven. The
- 23:48Speaker 1: village has always played an important role in tying the
- 23:51Speaker 1: community together, said Kim Kindeshian, the owner of the K Bakery.
- 23:57Speaker 1: Kandeshian is one of the few people both living and
- 23:59Speaker 1: worked in the Palisades. Pallasadians and attendees from nearby packed
- 24:05Speaker 1: North Swathmore Avenue last Saturday as billionaire developer Rick Caruso
- 24:11Speaker 1: cut the ribbon to reopen officially the Palisades Village. Old
- 24:16Speaker 1: friends greeted each other with hugs, and the many dogs
- 24:19Speaker 1: and attendants gave each other friendly sniffs. The line for
- 24:23Speaker 1: coffee was long. It's like Disneyland, said one person waiting
- 24:27Speaker 1: in line for ice cream. The Sutherland family sit in
- 24:31Speaker 1: front of the coffee shop, Alfred. They didn't lose their
- 24:34Speaker 1: home in the fire, but it burned their dormat and
- 24:37Speaker 1: smoke coated the inside of their house with heavy metals.
- 24:40Speaker 1: Hi zero as your mom here, a man to Sutherland
- 24:43Speaker 1: that said to a young girl passing by, tell her,
- 24:46Speaker 1: we said, Hi the Sutherlands, who bought a home in
- 24:49Speaker 1: the nearby Brentwood neighborhood while they fight their insurance company,
- 24:54Speaker 1: frequented the village before the fire and are happy to
- 24:57Speaker 1: see it return. Walking around, they ran into friends, most
- 25:01Speaker 1: of whom are still living somewhere else. A lot of
- 25:04Speaker 1: us still can't live here, Amanda said, So this is
- 25:07Speaker 1: as close as we can get. Many see the village
- 25:11Speaker 1: as a third space away from home and work, where
- 25:13Speaker 1: people can gather. I hope it's actually their living room.
- 25:18Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a third space, a second space,
- 25:21Speaker 1: or a space at all. But as long as they
- 25:23Speaker 1: feel at home here, then we're doing our job, Crusoe said.
- 25:28Speaker 1: Crusoe's family lost three homes in the fire. The shopping mall,
- 25:33Speaker 1: which was protected by a private firefighting force, sustained damage,
- 25:37Speaker 1: and Caruso invested one hundred million dollars toward remediation. He
- 25:42Speaker 1: sees reopening the village as a responsibility to the community,
- 25:46Speaker 1: one he hopes will inspire other businesses to open back up.
- 25:50Speaker 1: I think that when you're a community, you have the means,
- 25:53Speaker 1: you have the ability to take the lead and be
- 25:55Speaker 1: a catalyst. While there was nearly unanimous enthusiasm for the
- 26:00Speaker 1: return that could bring to the community. Not everyone sees
- 26:03Speaker 1: themselves shopping at its luxury stores. Some of the village
- 26:07Speaker 1: owners in our local businesses. Kadeshi and the owner of
- 26:12Speaker 1: K Bakery, lost her home and the fire damaged her
- 26:14Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades location, forcing it to close. She now lives
- 26:19Speaker 1: in a condo and reopened her bakery in the village
- 26:21Speaker 1: last Saturday. The Pioneer, she said, referring to those who
- 26:26Speaker 1: moved back without retail or community have to accept the
- 26:30Speaker 1: fact that there's nowhere to shop. Now that this is here,
- 26:36Speaker 1: it will stir more people. After the Palisades fire killed
- 26:41Speaker 1: twelve people and wiped out six thousand, eight hundred and
- 26:45Speaker 1: forty five structures, forcing people to move away, many were
- 26:50Speaker 1: hungry for community connection. Some found solace through meetups in
- 26:54Speaker 1: Santa Monica, whether there's the pilates classes or the few
- 26:58Speaker 1: restaurants that opened. Did you burn? Are you still standing?
- 27:02Speaker 1: Became a new greeting among those from Palisades, said, haul
- 27:06Speaker 1: this topel. It's the kind it's the kindness, it's the
- 27:10Speaker 1: familiarity with what we all have to do with one another.
- 27:14Speaker 1: Topple who's eighty three, he lost her home of fifty
- 27:17Speaker 1: two years. Her lot overlooks the Queen's Necklace, a portion
- 27:22Speaker 1: of the coast that curves from Santa Monica up through Malibu.
- 27:27Speaker 1: At night, city lights make it look like a string
- 27:30Speaker 1: of pearls. She sees the empty lots in her neighborhood
- 27:34Speaker 1: as a foundation, a perspective she says was shaped growing
- 27:38Speaker 1: up in postwar Munich. Little by little the blocks were cleared,
- 27:43Speaker 1: she said, Little by little they were rebuilt. But more
- 27:48Speaker 1: than rebuilding homes and businesses, it is the social infrastructure
- 27:52Speaker 1: that needs to be rebuilt. Chance meetings at the gas
- 27:55Speaker 1: station or grocery store, US soccer games, churches and schools.
- 28:00Speaker 1: The Palisades is made up of its people, Copple said.
- 28:04Speaker 1: Five bam bing Port said as she placed a tile
- 28:08Speaker 1: on the table during a majong game in the Palisades
- 28:11Speaker 1: village on Monday. The clacking of tiles was drowned out
- 28:14Speaker 1: by the sounds of construction at a nearby Nancy Silverton restaurant.
- 28:19Speaker 1: Maje said her friend Mark Port, as he turned his
- 28:23Speaker 1: tiles over to win the game, the table collectively moaned,
- 28:27Speaker 1: oh no. The two men while playing pick a ball,
- 28:32Speaker 1: but when Mark was injured, he learned Majong. He returned
- 28:36Speaker 1: home in December and is happy to see the community returning.
- 28:41Speaker 1: Each house is like a flower coming up in the spring.
- 28:45Speaker 1: At another table, Evadvak and Darien Jennings discovered that Dovak's
- 28:50Speaker 1: in laws live next door to Jennings. During the fire,
- 28:53Speaker 1: Jennings husband and son filled buckets of water from their
- 28:56Speaker 1: pool and he used a garden host fenned off the flame.
- 29:00Speaker 1: It was the craziest thing that we'd ever met, and
- 29:03Speaker 1: we just randomly set next to each other, Doviac said.
- 29:07Speaker 1: The reopening of the village coincided with the one thousandth
- 29:10Speaker 1: home to begin reconstruction. According to a tracker by the
- 29:14Speaker 1: Palisadian Post, so far only thirty seven have been completed.
- 29:20Speaker 1: If you build it, people will come, said Michelle Murphy,
- 29:25Speaker 1: who lost her home in the fire. She is the
- 29:28Speaker 1: owner of poly Trading Post, which opened on July first,
- 29:32Speaker 1: across the street from the village. Murphy has never operated
- 29:37Speaker 1: a store before, but she thought the community needed one
- 29:41Speaker 1: and Crusoe's promise to bring the village back was enough
- 29:45Speaker 1: assurance that she could open. Before the village opened, there
- 29:50Speaker 1: were a handful of restaurants, including Palisades Garden Cafe, a
- 29:54Speaker 1: local hangout for Poly High students. The library opened with
- 29:59Speaker 1: limited hours, and a park will soon be under construction.
- 30:03Speaker 1: What Pallisadians say they need most is another grocery store.
- 30:08Speaker 1: On Wednesday, the Farmer's Market returned to the Palisades for
- 30:11Speaker 1: the first time since the fire Stands selling produce, flowers, kombucha,
- 30:17Speaker 1: and jewelry filled North Swathmore Avenue. Christine Gantz popped over
- 30:22Speaker 1: before picking up her two daughters at the Palisades Charter
- 30:25Speaker 1: High School. Without a grocery store other than Vond's, which
- 30:30Speaker 1: she said lacks great produce, she has to be smart
- 30:34Speaker 1: about stops the store. The farmers Market, she said, really helps.
- 30:39Speaker 1: It's a feast for the eyes. I'm trying to figure
- 30:43Speaker 1: out what I'm going to buy first, she said. Rand's
- 30:47Speaker 1: was particularly excited to see her humless guy, but also
- 30:51Speaker 1: so many familiar faces who haven't I seen. She said,
- 30:56Speaker 1: this really is Mayberry and the next story. Secret White
- 31:03Speaker 1: House bunker undercuts Trump's ballroom law seat lawsuit ex official
- 31:09Speaker 1: say President Trump has claimed that the White House needs
- 31:14Speaker 1: a massive new ballroom because it would provide haim and
- 31:17Speaker 1: future presidents with a secure, hardened facility, but former officials
- 31:22Speaker 1: say the argument fails to acknowledge that the presidential complex
- 31:26Speaker 1: already has one. More than a decade ago, federal officials
- 31:31Speaker 1: built a highly protected bunker embedded deep underground that can
- 31:36Speaker 1: shelter the president and its top aids in a national
- 31:39Speaker 1: security emergency. According to three former officials, the facility, which
- 31:45Speaker 1: was secretly completed during the Obama administration, can house dozens
- 31:50Speaker 1: of people for up multiple weeks. To former official sit
- 31:55Speaker 1: it's buried more than sixty feet underneath the White House complex.
- 31:59Speaker 1: It's built to stand in nuclear blast. Two of the
- 32:02Speaker 1: official said, during the president and his team have a
- 32:06Speaker 1: secure command center to run the country in times of
- 32:11Speaker 1: extreme dress. The bunker's existence, the former official said, undercuts
- 32:17Speaker 1: the Trump's administration's emerging legal argument on the ongoing lawsuit
- 32:22Speaker 1: over the six hundred million dollar Ballroom's complex construction that
- 32:26Speaker 1: the facility must be completed due to its significance for
- 32:30Speaker 1: US national security. The people spoke on the condition of
- 32:35Speaker 1: anonymity to discuss elements of the secretive facility, some of
- 32:40Speaker 1: which have not been previously reported. The Washington Post is
- 32:45Speaker 1: withholding some details of the bunker and its construction in
- 32:49Speaker 1: order not to compromise sensitive White House security protocols. Ask
- 32:55Speaker 1: about Trump's assertion about the need for new military complex.
- 32:59Speaker 1: The White House funded the project and criticized past officials
- 33:03Speaker 1: for discussing existing security structures. The East Wing Modernization project
- 33:11Speaker 1: is inextricably tied to the security of the President, the
- 33:14Speaker 1: White House grounds, and the certain security infrastructure assets it's at.
- 33:19Speaker 1: White House spokesman Davis Engele in statement. Recent events such
- 33:24Speaker 1: as the foiled attack on the historic UPC Freedom to
- 33:27Speaker 1: Fifty event at the White House provides exactly and proves
- 33:31Speaker 1: why the we East Wing Modernization Project is severely needed
- 33:35Speaker 1: for large scale events, which includes drone proof structures and
- 33:41Speaker 1: drone ports, among other critical security enhancement single, said Chief
- 33:47Speaker 1: Justice John G. Roberts Junior, issued an order Friday allowing
- 33:51Speaker 1: the Trump administration to continue ballroom work in the short
- 33:55Speaker 1: term as the Supreme Court weighs an emergency appeal in
- 34:00Speaker 1: a lawsuit challenging whether the construction requires the approval of Congress.
- 34:05Speaker 1: A US district judge and a federal appeals panel have
- 34:09Speaker 1: both ordered the administration to stop building the ballroom until
- 34:14Speaker 1: lawmakers authorized the project. But the judges carved out an
- 34:19Speaker 1: exception construction on national security needs, such as a planned
- 34:23Speaker 1: military complex underneath the ballroom, can continue. In August court
- 34:29Speaker 1: filings supporting the White House's case, Trump's top national security
- 34:34Speaker 1: team urged the Supreme Court to allow the project to proceed.
- 34:39Speaker 1: The construction, they said, comes as the president faces rising
- 34:43Speaker 1: threats from foreign adversaries and terrorists. Alongside advances in commercial
- 34:49Speaker 1: drone technology, it could more effectively target White House grounds.
- 34:54Speaker 1: Trump officials argued the ballroom complex would provide essentials security
- 35:00Speaker 1: upgrades to the President's residents and helped guarantee the US
- 35:04Speaker 1: government could continue functioning during a crisis. White House Deputy
- 35:09Speaker 1: Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote in his filing that
- 35:12Speaker 1: the facility serves continuity of government interests by ensuring that
- 35:18Speaker 1: the President and senior national security staff are able to
- 35:21Speaker 1: operate from a protected facility during any attack on the
- 35:25Speaker 1: nation's capital. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has repeatedly asserted the
- 35:31Speaker 1: Ballroom's construction would help resolve an emergency in the White
- 35:35Speaker 1: House's defensive posture posed by the spread of military great drones.
- 35:41Speaker 1: Driscoll told the Supreme Court in August thirteenth filing that
- 35:47Speaker 1: completing the Ballroom complex was necessary so Trump could run
- 35:50Speaker 1: the country in a crisis. Securing this reinforced subterranean node
- 35:56Speaker 1: guarantees unerupted command and control in place. Risk wrote, calling
- 36:01Speaker 1: the project a non discretionary prerequisite to ensure the president
- 36:06Speaker 1: can maintain continuity of government uninterrupted operations, and effectively exercise
- 36:13Speaker 1: national command authority during an attack or global crisis. The
- 36:19Speaker 1: arguments echoed the Trump administration's increasing effort to rely on
- 36:23Speaker 1: national security as a way to justify the Ballroom's completion.
- 36:28Speaker 1: Trump has taken to calling the project a military complex
- 36:31Speaker 1: in his public comments and social media posts, and has
- 36:35Speaker 1: repeatedly posted AI renderings of drones, troops, and even fuel
- 36:41Speaker 1: tanker trucks stationed on the future East Wing roof to
- 36:45Speaker 1: press his case the Ballroom is so much a military
- 36:50Speaker 1: component with the drones and the bomb shelters, Trump told
- 36:52Speaker 1: the reporters on the South Loan on Wednesday, the White
- 36:56Speaker 1: House has been racing to complete the project before any
- 37:00Speaker 1: court ordered halt takes effect. Officials told the Supreme Court
- 37:05Speaker 1: earlier this month that construction was about sixty five percent
- 37:09Speaker 1: complete and that about two hundred and fifty workers are
- 37:12Speaker 1: working twenty hours a day, seven days a week to
- 37:14Speaker 1: quickly finish it. The structure goes five stories deep into
- 37:19Speaker 1: the ground. Much of the underground work has been completed,
- 37:23Speaker 1: The Administration said the project has already seventy feet above
- 37:28Speaker 1: ground in some places. Officials told the Supreme Court. After
- 37:33Speaker 1: asserting in court last year that the secure portion of
- 37:36Speaker 1: the project could be carried out independently of the ballroom,
- 37:40Speaker 1: the administration has reversed its argument. Major General Garrett R. Hoffman,
- 37:47Speaker 1: director of the White House Military Office, told the Supreme
- 37:50Speaker 1: Court that the above ground ballroom and below ground military
- 37:54Speaker 1: facility are inextricably intertwined elements, and that the new instruction
- 38:00Speaker 1: provides extraordinary protection to these spaces that has not been
- 38:04Speaker 1: available in the past. Officials have also stressed that the concrete, steel,
- 38:11Speaker 1: and other materials used for both parts of the project
- 38:14Speaker 1: are being chosen for national security reasons. Court filings, they
- 38:20Speaker 1: detailed how the ballroom's construction materials are intended to stop bombs, rockets, missiles,
- 38:27Speaker 1: and even nuclear blasts. It is, in a very large way,
- 38:32Speaker 1: a safe room for the presidency and the continuity of government,
- 38:38Speaker 1: wrote Joshua Fisher, a senior White House official who is
- 38:42Speaker 1: managing the project. In his Supreme Court filing, the two
- 38:47Speaker 1: former officials noted this same argument had been invoked two
- 38:51Speaker 1: decades ago to construct the White House's existing subterranean bunker
- 38:56Speaker 1: that has hardened against nuclear blasts and of the threats.
- 39:00Speaker 1: They questioned why the administration has suggested that the White
- 39:03Speaker 1: House lacks such a secure location, including one that could
- 39:07Speaker 1: help ensure a functioning government and national security crises. They
- 39:13Speaker 1: also contrasted secretive efforts to build the existing bunker to
- 39:17Speaker 1: the current project. Details about the secure White House facility
- 39:22Speaker 1: are among the most closely guarded secrets in the US government,
- 39:25Speaker 1: the former officials said, and its construction was concealed from
- 39:30Speaker 1: many lawmakers, administration officials, and the public. During the new
- 39:36Speaker 1: ballroom's construction, Trump has repeatedly revealed private aspects of the
- 39:42Speaker 1: planned East Wing military complex, such as its medical capabilities
- 39:47Speaker 1: and drone port, and the renovation has occurred in public view,
- 39:53Speaker 1: potentially allowing foreign adversaries to spy once hidden elements of
- 39:58Speaker 1: the White House complex, a threat Trump officials invoked in
- 40:02Speaker 1: their court filings to urge that construction continue. Trump has
- 40:08Speaker 1: separately accused the national Trust for Historic Preservation, the organization
- 40:13Speaker 1: that sued to halt the ballroom's construction of being treasonists.
- 40:18Speaker 1: He's claimed that the nonprofit group, which Congress charged with
- 40:22Speaker 1: helping preserve historic buildings, was asked not to file a
- 40:26Speaker 1: lawsuit for national security reasons. I said the problem with
- 40:31Speaker 1: the suit, and I told him this is that we
- 40:34Speaker 1: have many military things in this ballroom, and ideally they
- 40:39Speaker 1: shouldn't be revealed, Trump said in the Oval Office on
- 40:42Speaker 1: August seventeenth. But now they're being revealed, so the world
- 40:46Speaker 1: knows about it. The National Trust filings have not revealed
- 40:50Speaker 1: any new information about the ballroom project that Trump or
- 40:54Speaker 1: the administration did not previously disclose. Trust officials also told
- 41:02Speaker 1: the Post that they were never briefed on the bunker
- 41:05Speaker 1: and they were not asked by Trump or the White
- 41:08Speaker 1: House not to file the lawsuit, and that they sued
- 41:11Speaker 1: to halt the ballroom because they believe the president does
- 41:14Speaker 1: not have the authority to unilaterally make wholesale changes to
- 41:18Speaker 1: the historic White House grounds. Trump officials did share classified
- 41:23Speaker 1: information directly with US District Judge Richard Jay Lyon as
- 41:28Speaker 1: he weighed the National Trust's arguments. Beginning last year, Leon
- 41:33Speaker 1: ultimately ordered a halt to ballroom construction, but said the
- 41:37Speaker 1: administration could keep working on the underground military complex. The
- 41:43Speaker 1: White House's projections for presidents and protections have evolved as
- 41:47Speaker 1: threats have increased. For decades, the White House Bunker was
- 41:52Speaker 1: limited to a small facility located in the basement of
- 41:55Speaker 1: the East Wing, built during World War II to help
- 42:00Speaker 1: Franklin D. Roosevelt in case in an emergency. That site,
- 42:05Speaker 1: known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center or PEOC, is
- 42:10Speaker 1: where the Secret Service hurried Vice President Dick Cheney and
- 42:14Speaker 1: First Lady Laura Bush during the nine to eleven terrorist attacks.
- 42:18Speaker 1: The attacks of September eleventh prompted the White House to
- 42:21Speaker 1: begin work on a much more secure facility, said journalist
- 42:25Speaker 1: Ronald Kessler, who referenced construction of the bunker in his
- 42:29Speaker 1: twenty eighteen book The Trump White House, Changing the Rules
- 42:32Speaker 1: of the Game. The upgraded facility, he wrote, was completed
- 42:37Speaker 1: during the Obama administration, had a month's long food supply
- 42:41Speaker 1: and was equipped with its own self contained airflow system.
- 42:46Speaker 1: It's a serious issue. What could be more important than
- 42:50Speaker 1: maintaining continuity of government, said Kessler, who supports the Trump
- 42:54Speaker 1: administration's efforts to expand the White House's secure facilities through
- 42:59Speaker 1: the Ballroom project. Kessler and the former officials who spoke
- 43:04Speaker 1: with the Post acknowledged the necessity of providing the president
- 43:08Speaker 1: with a secure facility amid ongoing serious threats. Trump has
- 43:13Speaker 1: faced multiple assassination attempts, the latest of which from Iran
- 43:18Speaker 1: earlier this summer prompted the Secret Service to stage an
- 43:22Speaker 1: elaborate rouss that ended with the President flying back from
- 43:26Speaker 1: the NATO summit in Ankara on a separate aircraft apart
- 43:30Speaker 1: from Air Force one. Still, the two former officials questioned
- 43:35Speaker 1: the White House's public case that the existing architecture is
- 43:39Speaker 1: insufficiently hardened. The existing site, the two people said, is
- 43:44Speaker 1: buried deep into the Washington bedrock, accessible by a private elevator,
- 43:49Speaker 1: and built specifically to protect the president from a vast
- 43:52Speaker 1: array of threats, including an attack from a weapon of
- 43:56Speaker 1: mass destruction. Its specifications, the former official said, include many
- 44:02Speaker 1: of the safety protocols the White House is describing in
- 44:06Speaker 1: an attempt to justify the new Ballroom complex. The former
- 44:11Speaker 1: officials also warned that the administration's abrupt decision to demolish
- 44:15Speaker 1: the East Wing and expose what said underneath, it could
- 44:19Speaker 1: have itself created national security risks. The PEOC, two former
- 44:25Speaker 1: officials said, said only about twenty feet under the east wing.
- 44:29Speaker 1: It may have been destroyed or damaged in the construction process. Fisher,
- 44:35Speaker 1: the White House official managing the project, said that he
- 44:38Speaker 1: was worried that halting construction could now unwind nearly a
- 44:42Speaker 1: year of work. Pausing work now, as the District Court
- 44:47Speaker 1: has ordered, will jeopardize everything we have done so far,
- 44:52Speaker 1: Fisher told the Supreme Court. Depending on how long that
- 44:56Speaker 1: freeze persists, it might force us to tear down everything
- 45:00Speaker 1: we have done as a degraded mass to allow for
- 45:04Speaker 1: whatever comes next, something that would be disruptive and extremely dangerous.
- 45:11Speaker 1: Similar arguments have not swayed lower court judges. Leon, the
- 45:16Speaker 1: district judge who first ordered the administration in March to
- 45:20Speaker 1: halt its ballroom construction, chastise Trump officials for arguing that
- 45:25Speaker 1: they needed to complete the project for safety and security reasons.
- 45:29Speaker 1: Here's the bottom line, Leon wrote, and a follow follow
- 45:33Speaker 1: up ruling in April, defendants themselves forged ahead and created
- 45:40Speaker 1: this coordinated and managed safety hazard on White House grounds.
- 45:47Speaker 1: Now looking at your health five abdominal pain symptoms that
- 45:51Speaker 1: mean you should go to the er right now. Many
- 45:57Speaker 1: patients call their physician's office overnight to get a gut
- 46:00Speaker 1: check on a worrisome symptom, and they leave with the
- 46:04Speaker 1: same answer, win it out, just go to the emergency room.
- 46:09Speaker 1: It's rarely the answer someone wants. If they're calling instead
- 46:13Speaker 1: of already driving over. It's often because they're hoping to
- 46:16Speaker 1: hear reassurance that they don't need to go to the
- 46:18Speaker 1: hospital at two am. Believe me, as a physician and
- 46:23Speaker 1: as a patient, I've been on both sides of that conversation.
- 46:27Speaker 1: The problem is it can be impossible to tell someone
- 46:32Speaker 1: definitively that they're fine without actually checking their vitals, performing
- 46:38Speaker 1: a physical exam, and potentially running some tests. Most people
- 46:43Speaker 1: recognize that when their paint is a ten out of ten,
- 46:46Speaker 1: or when they see their toilet bowl filling up with
- 46:49Speaker 1: bright red blood, they need help. But over years of
- 46:53Speaker 1: taking patients calls overnight, I've heard many symptoms that immediately
- 46:58Speaker 1: raise red flags even when they don't seem alarming to
- 47:02Speaker 1: someone without medical training. While not men as individualized medical advice,
- 47:09Speaker 1: here are a few warning signs, and some are surprising.
- 47:13Speaker 1: That your abdominal pain may need urgent attention. One pain
- 47:20Speaker 1: that's worse when you cough. If your belly pain feels
- 47:25Speaker 1: worse when you cough, jump, or you're in a car
- 47:28Speaker 1: and you roll over a bump, then that may signal
- 47:33Speaker 1: an emergency condition called peritonitis. Paradonitis refers to inflammation of
- 47:39Speaker 1: the lining of your abdominal cavity, the space beneath your
- 47:43Speaker 1: chest where abdominal organs hang out together. That space becomes
- 47:48Speaker 1: flames if something bursts open a perforated bow appendix, or cyst.
- 47:55Speaker 1: To help make the diagnosis, a physician may order imaging
- 47:59Speaker 1: stuff or checked for rebound tenderness, pain that's worse not
- 48:05Speaker 1: when they press down on your abdomen, but when they
- 48:08Speaker 1: release the pressure. If a doctor confirms that you have peritonitis,
- 48:13Speaker 1: it could mean you'll need surgery, so don't wait to
- 48:17Speaker 1: get evaluated. If this sounds like you two you stopped
- 48:22Speaker 1: having flatulence, this is no laughing matter. If you're experiencing
- 48:28Speaker 1: abdominal pain and you haven't been having bowel movements are
- 48:32Speaker 1: passing flatus, it could be a sign of a bowel obstruction,
- 48:36Speaker 1: and that's an emergency. Depending on the obstruction's location may
- 48:42Speaker 1: also experience severe vomiting, feel like you can't keep any
- 48:46Speaker 1: food or liquid down, which alone is an important reason
- 48:51Speaker 1: to go to the er. In some cases a bowel obstruction,
- 48:55Speaker 1: people may find their vomit is a darker green color,
- 48:58Speaker 1: and this suggests bile, which normally empties into the small
- 49:02Speaker 1: intestine and is actually working its way back upwards. Then
- 49:08Speaker 1: fever and yellowing of the skin or eyes. Abdominal pain,
- 49:13Speaker 1: especially on the right side of the body, accompanied by fever,
- 49:16Speaker 1: is already a problem. It could be a sign of
- 49:19Speaker 1: appendicitis or other intestinal infection, but you should also watch
- 49:25Speaker 1: out for this symptom yellowing of the skin, which medical
- 49:30Speaker 1: professionals call jaundice, or yellowing of the whites of the eyes.
- 49:35Speaker 1: This could mean you have an infection of the bile ducts.
- 49:40Speaker 1: Bile duct infections, sometimes caused by a blockage, are emergencies
- 49:45Speaker 1: we must act on fast. These infections have a high
- 49:50Speaker 1: risk of developing into full blown sepsis where the bacteria
- 49:55Speaker 1: enters the blood stream. You may need a special procedure
- 49:59Speaker 1: to clear and drain the bile ducts, as well as
- 50:01Speaker 1: intravenous antibodies. Next, a stool that's black and shining like
- 50:08Speaker 1: your smartphone. When we think of blood, we picture shiny
- 50:13Speaker 1: and red, but that's not always the case. Black stool
- 50:18Speaker 1: can also be a sign of blood. When blood mixes
- 50:22Speaker 1: with our stomach acid, it can turn black and tari
- 50:27Speaker 1: and no, really really dark brown stool, isn't it. I
- 50:33Speaker 1: usually ask my patients if it was black like the
- 50:36Speaker 1: color of their smartphone screens. And if you're throwing up,
- 50:40Speaker 1: that mixture of acid and blood can look like coffee grounds.
- 50:44Speaker 1: If that describes what you're seeing, you may need an
- 50:48Speaker 1: emergency procedure called it an esophogastrodudenescope or EGED, to find
- 50:55Speaker 1: and treat the source of the bleeding. However, odd colored
- 51:00Speaker 1: and the absence of other symptoms isn't always a medical emergency.
- 51:04Speaker 1: Taking iron pills or medications like peptobismol can cause black stools,
- 51:11Speaker 1: and artificial dyes in foods like beets can also cause
- 51:15Speaker 1: unusual colors that are nothing to be concerned about. But
- 51:20Speaker 1: then there's dizzying or feeling like you'll faint. Any Time
- 51:25Speaker 1: you have abdominal dizziness and pain, it's an emergency until
- 51:30Speaker 1: proved otherwise. That's because it could be a sign of
- 51:34Speaker 1: internal bleeding leading to low blood pressure. Sometimes the cause
- 51:38Speaker 1: is painful, such as a peptic ulcer. Sometimes it isn't.
- 51:43Speaker 1: For instance, diverticular bleeding famously produces painless, blight red blood
- 51:50Speaker 1: and a lot of it into the toilet bowl. This
- 51:53Speaker 1: happens when a vessel in a small pocket of the colon,
- 51:57Speaker 1: called a diverticular luck bursts. One dangerous exception that won't
- 52:05Speaker 1: show up in the toilet is a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
- 52:11Speaker 1: This is a life threatening emergency where the main artery
- 52:16Speaker 1: of your body's blood supply bursts inside the abdominal cavity.
- 52:21Speaker 1: People often feel a sudden, severe pain in their belly, backs,
- 52:25Speaker 1: and even legs that can quickly lead to shock if
- 52:30Speaker 1: enough blood is lost. And this is what I want
- 52:33Speaker 1: my patients to know, this says the physician. The average
- 52:37Speaker 1: person survives a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm less than fifty
- 52:42Speaker 1: percent of the time, even with immediate surgery. They are
- 52:47Speaker 1: in uncommon in young people, but the risk rises with age.
- 52:52Speaker 1: About one point four percent of people ages fifty to
- 52:55Speaker 1: eighty four have one. What most of my patients don't
- 52:59Speaker 1: know is that we're supposed to screen for abdominal aortic
- 53:03Speaker 1: aneurysms in all men aged sixty five to seventy five
- 53:08Speaker 1: who have ever smoked cigarettes at least one hundred over
- 53:11Speaker 1: the course of their lifetime. And while some people who
- 53:15Speaker 1: have them may notice a pulsating mass in their abdomen,
- 53:19Speaker 1: these anneurysms are often totally asymptomatic four years until they burst.
- 53:24Speaker 1: That's why anyone who suddenly feels dizzy and feels pain
- 53:29Speaker 1: in their belly, even without seeing blood in the toilet,
- 53:32Speaker 1: should get help and fast. Screening involves a one time,
- 53:38Speaker 1: quick outpatient ultrasound to see if you have an aneurysm,
- 53:43Speaker 1: and depending on its size and growth, we may offer
- 53:46Speaker 1: surgery to fix it before it ever becomes an emergency.
- 53:51Speaker 1: We typically screen just once in a person's lifetime, but
- 53:55Speaker 1: if an aneurysm is detected, your physician may follow up
- 53:59Speaker 1: with repeat surveillance ultrasounds in the future. The problem is
- 54:04Speaker 1: that we're doing an abysmal job with screening. Only four
- 54:09Speaker 1: four percent of elger Men in the United States have
- 54:12Speaker 1: been screened, despite the strong recommendation by the US Preventative
- 54:18Speaker 1: Services Task Force that means many deaths could be prevented
- 54:23Speaker 1: if more people knew about it. So if this is
- 54:27Speaker 1: news to you or to a father, brother, or husband
- 54:31Speaker 1: who should be screened, have this conversation and get the
- 54:36Speaker 1: ultrasound done. And now, finally, three minutes of this activity
- 54:41Speaker 1: may cut the risk of thirteen cancers, the study finds.
- 54:46Speaker 1: To reduce your risks for at least thirteen types of cancer,
- 54:50Speaker 1: jog up and down to the near steps for three
- 54:52Speaker 1: minutes or stand up from your desk or couch for
- 54:56Speaker 1: thirty Either strategy might help drop your li risks of
- 55:00Speaker 1: certain cancers by as much as seven percent, according to
- 55:03Speaker 1: the new study of how the ways we move and
- 55:06Speaker 1: don't move during the day affect our chances of malignancies.
- 55:11Speaker 1: The study, published in July by BMC Medicine, is one
- 55:14Speaker 1: of the first to examine in detail how replacing sitting
- 55:18Speaker 1: time with almost any kind of activity alters cancer risk.
- 55:23Speaker 1: Relying on extensive activity data from nearly sixty thousand men
- 55:27Speaker 1: and women, it used statistical models to determine which movements,
- 55:32Speaker 1: from standing to strolling to rushing around the block seem
- 55:36Speaker 1: most strongly associated with fewer cancer cases, including breast correctal
- 55:41Speaker 1: and lung cancers. The reassuring finding is that every movement contributed,
- 55:47Speaker 1: so John J. Mitchell, senior research fellow with the University
- 55:50Speaker 1: of London's Institute it was for health, exercise and the
- 55:55Speaker 1: lead studies author, but they didn't contribute equally. Some choice,
- 56:00Speaker 1: as he said, prove more beneficial than others. On average,
- 56:04Speaker 1: American adults sit for nearly ten hours a day. Study
- 56:09Speaker 1: show being so sedentary is not good for us. Substantial
- 56:13Speaker 1: evidence links in an uninterrupted setting with heightened risk for
- 56:18Speaker 1: heart disease, type two diabetes, obesity, and other conditions. Sitting
- 56:24Speaker 1: also makes us more vulnerable to many cancer study show.
- 56:28Speaker 1: Ideally we should reduce the amount of time we spend
- 56:32Speaker 1: seated every day and be more physically active instead. But
- 56:37Speaker 1: how does standing up count? Do we need to move around?
- 56:41Speaker 1: Is it enough to meander slowly down the hallway, or
- 56:45Speaker 1: should we raise our heart rates and break a sweat?
- 56:48Speaker 1: These questions matter because many of us are tied to
- 56:51Speaker 1: our desks and schedules. In that case, what are the
- 56:55Speaker 1: most realistic and efficient options for setting less? Standing was
- 57:00Speaker 1: only about as half as potent is moving in general,
- 57:03Speaker 1: Moving in any way, even short gentle strolls for about
- 57:06Speaker 1: fifteen minutes dropped cancer risk to the same extent as
- 57:10Speaker 1: half an hour of standing. The games were even more
- 57:13Speaker 1: striking when researchers focused on different intensities of movement. Again,
- 57:18Speaker 1: standing was better than sitting, and light activity was better
- 57:22Speaker 1: than standing, but vigorous movement such as hurrying up and
- 57:25Speaker 1: down the stairs or rushing to the subway station, was
- 57:28Speaker 1: by far the most effective. Three minutes of daily vigorous
- 57:34Speaker 1: activity dropped cancer risk to the same extent as ninety
- 57:38Speaker 1: minutes of light intensity movement. The study was observational and
- 57:43Speaker 1: shows links between more activity and lower cancer risk, but
- 57:46Speaker 1: doesn't prove the additional movement directly caused that effect. It
- 57:50Speaker 1: also doesn't explain how moving instead of sitting changes the
- 57:53Speaker 1: likelihood of cancer. Though muscles release a slew of biochemicals
- 57:58Speaker 1: when they contract, some of them likely jumpstart physiological processes
- 58:03Speaker 1: the damp in the development or progression of cancer. The
- 58:06Speaker 1: study doesn't say either whether we should lump our movements
- 58:09Speaker 1: time into a single session or spread those three minutes
- 58:12Speaker 1: of speedily or ninety minutes of laid back activity throughout
- 58:15Speaker 1: the day. More studies needed, but for now the takeaway
- 58:20Speaker 1: is to rise from your chair whenever you can. Even
- 58:23Speaker 1: if it's just a stand, any movement counts. And this
- 58:28Speaker 1: concludes the reading of the Washington Post for today, Monday,
- 58:31Speaker 1: August twenty fourth. Your reader has been Rod Brotherton. Thank
- 58:35Speaker 1: you for listening, and now please stay tuned for continued
- 58:38Speaker 1: programming right here on Radio LI