Transcript

7.27.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the reading of the
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Speaker 1: Washington Post for this Monday, July twenty seventh. As you know,
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Speaker 1: RADIOI is a reading service intended for people who are
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Speaker 1: blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
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Speaker 1: read printed material. Your reader for today is Rod Brotherton.
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Speaker 1: Our first story this week is the shrinking world of
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Speaker 1: former President Biden. Joe Biden's world has grown smaller. Eighteen
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Speaker 1: months after leaving the Lighthouse, the eighty three year old
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Speaker 1: former president moves within a narrowed circle of relatives, old friends,
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Speaker 1: and longtime aids as he undergoes treatment for metastatic cancer.
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Speaker 1: The treatment appears to be working, according to five former
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Speaker 1: aids and others close to Biden, many of whom spoke
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Speaker 1: on that condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his health
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Speaker 1: in private life, But the disease and the toll of
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Speaker 1: treating it has left him visibly frail. Those around Biden
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Speaker 1: describe a post presidency constrained by illness, with his days
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Speaker 1: increasingly organized around treatment, family, and efforts to shape his legacy.
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Speaker 1: Unlike some recent predecessors, Biden has maintained a limited public schedule,
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Speaker 1: has yet to build a sprawling philanthropic or policy operation,
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Speaker 1: and has struggled to raise money for a presidential library,
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Speaker 1: leaving him with fewer avenues to influence how his presidency
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Speaker 1: is remembered. That frailty is likely become harder to keep
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Speaker 1: his private this fall, when Biden begins to promote a
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Speaker 1: memoir schedule for publication on November seventeenth, two weeks after
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Speaker 1: the midterm elections. The timing has unsettled some friends and
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Speaker 1: former advisors, who worry not only about Biden's well being,
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Speaker 1: but also about how much his visible strength, struggle, and
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Speaker 1: health could revive the bitter arguments of the twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: four just as Democrats are trying to make the election
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Speaker 1: a referendum on President Trump. Trump has repeatedly mocked Biden's
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Speaker 1: age and acuity, and replaced his portrait along a White
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Speaker 1: House colonnade with an image of an autopin a visual
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Speaker 1: taunt built on the unsupported allegation that AIDS used the
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Speaker 1: device to exercise presidential authority for a debilitated commander in chief.
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Speaker 1: Those close to Biden bristle at the way his illness
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Speaker 1: and physical decline have become part of his critics case
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Speaker 1: against him and the party haunter. Biden gave voice to
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Speaker 1: the family's frustration last month after a critic attacked his
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Speaker 1: father's cancer diagnosis on social media. Listen, man, I understand
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Speaker 1: if you don't like my dad's policies and you hate
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Speaker 1: me because everything you here on Fox has been told you. Now,
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Speaker 1: I'm fine with that, But my dad has cancer. How
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Speaker 1: is that an issue you want to attack? What sickness
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Speaker 1: is it in you that makes that fair game? The
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Speaker 1: Biden health debate may soon be reignited. On Tuesday, a
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Speaker 1: federal appeals court cleared the way for the Heritage Foundation,
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Speaker 1: a conservative think tank, to obtain redacted transcripts and audio
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Speaker 1: recordings that were among the evidence a special prosecutor used
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Speaker 1: to portray Biden as an elderly man with a poor memory.
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Speaker 1: Questions about Biden's age, stamina, and mental acuity shadowed much
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Speaker 1: of his presidency and eventually overwhelmed his campaign for a
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Speaker 1: second term. Health concerns begin became an acute political crisis
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Speaker 1: after Biden's June twenty seventh, twenty twenty four debate against
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Speaker 1: President Trump. Speaking in a weak, hoarse voice, Iden repeatedly
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Speaker 1: lost his train of thought. Struggled to complete answers, and
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Speaker 1: times appeared unable to press a forceful case against his opponent.
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Speaker 1: Biden's performance intensified doubts among Democratic lawmakers, donors, and voters
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Speaker 1: about both his ability to campaign and his capacity to serve.
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Speaker 1: Through January of twenty twenty nine, Biden initially rejected calls
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Speaker 1: to withdraw, attributing the performance to a cold, exhaustion and
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Speaker 1: a bad night, but after more than three weeks of
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Speaker 1: mounting pressure, he ended his re election bid on July
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Speaker 1: twenty first. Biden's plan returned to the spotlight presents an
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Speaker 1: awkward political challenge for Democrats, and he remained personally fond
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Speaker 1: of Biden, grateful for the accomplishments of his presidency, and
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Speaker 1: sympathetic to a man battling a serious illness. They're also
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Speaker 1: trying to themselves from a twenty twenty four campaign in
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Speaker 1: which questions about his age, health, and decision to seek
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Speaker 1: reelection damaged public trust and divided the party. President Biden
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Speaker 1: has every right to tell his story, but Democratic candidates
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Speaker 1: are already working their tails off to overcome the political
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Speaker 1: damage he left behind, said Sawyer Hackett, a Democratic strategist
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Speaker 1: who worked on presidential campaigns for Obama and Hillary Clinton.
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Speaker 1: The best thing Biden could do to help that effort
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Speaker 1: is to get as far away from the spotlight as possible.
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Speaker 1: In May of twenty twenty five, four months after leaving
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Speaker 1: the White House, Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form
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Speaker 1: of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. He's
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Speaker 1: undergoing treatment for the disease, which can be managed but
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Speaker 1: is not considered curable. Interviews, former First Lady Jill has
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Speaker 1: described her husband's diagnoses as deeply unexpected, saying the family
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Speaker 1: was shocked to learn that the cancer has already reached
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Speaker 1: stage four and metastized to his bones. Since then, she
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Speaker 1: has offered a cautiously optimistic assessment of her husband's health,
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Speaker 1: saying his treatment is working and that he is maintaining
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Speaker 1: a regiment and schedule. Since leaving office, Biden has addressed
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Speaker 1: the issue intermittently, generally offering upbeat but limited public accounts
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Speaker 1: of his condition. He has made a handful of appearances
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Speaker 1: at Democratic Party events in South Carolina and South Dakota,
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Speaker 1: and at the dedication of Obama's Presidential library, where he
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Speaker 1: beamed alongside several other former occupants of sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Speaker 1: Given all the health diagnosis, he was energetic and in
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Speaker 1: good spirits, Former Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison said
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Speaker 1: of Biden at the South Carolina Democratic Party convention in May.
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Speaker 1: Like many Democrats, Harrison knew the seriousness of Biden's prognosis
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Speaker 1: and wondered whether he would seem like his old self instead.
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Speaker 1: The former president, also the convention's keynote speaker, moved through
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Speaker 1: a full slate of events, many of them organized to
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Speaker 1: honor him. He was fired up, Harrison said, sure as hell,
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Speaker 1: couldn't tell he was an eighty three year old man
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Speaker 1: battling cancer. Biden's post presidential office declined to answer questions
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Speaker 1: about his day to day activities, medical treatment, or ongoing prognosis.
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Speaker 1: Through a spokesman, the former president declined an interview. His
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Speaker 1: office disclosed in fall of twenty twenty five that he
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Speaker 1: was receiving radiation and hormone therapy and that he had
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Speaker 1: undergone Moe's surgery to remove cancer as skin cell. When
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Speaker 1: he announced his forthcoming memoir earlier this month, Biden offered
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Speaker 1: another brief update, saying that he was undergoing treatment and
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Speaker 1: then it was going really well. The fallout from Biden's
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four campaign also sharpened scrutiny of how his
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Speaker 1: aids and even his successor, Vice President Harris had managed
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Speaker 1: his public exposure. Subsequent reporting described a presidency increasingly structured
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Speaker 1: around shorter meetings, tightly controlled appearances, and greater resilience on
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Speaker 1: senior advisors to serve as intermediaries. The public jarring image
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Speaker 1: of his shaky debate presentation made some voters feel that
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Speaker 1: they had been misled not only by the White House,
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Speaker 1: but by a broader Democratic establishment that had defended his
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Speaker 1: re election bid and discouraged a competitive primary. Republicans have
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Speaker 1: seized on those lingering questions, portraying Biden's decline as evidence
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Speaker 1: not only the former president's failings, but of a coordinated
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Speaker 1: effort by Democratic leaders they accuse of concealing his condition.
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Speaker 1: In speeches, posts, anecdotes, and asides, Trump has repeatedly mentioned
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Speaker 1: Biden's helf, often using the nickname Sleepy Joe. According to
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Speaker 1: a Washington Post analysis, last month, he referenced it nearly
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Speaker 1: every other day, compared with about one in five days
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Speaker 1: during the previous June. According to the Post's review of
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Speaker 1: Trump's speeches, interviews, social media posts, and other public remarks.
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Speaker 1: Biden's aids and other Democrats reject the idea that a
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Speaker 1: book tour by a former president who has not shaped
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Speaker 1: policy in more than a year and is now undergoing
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Speaker 1: cancer treatment from his Delaware home will meaningfully influence It's
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Speaker 1: the midterm elections. No one is going to be thinking
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Speaker 1: about Joe Biden in November, said one former AID who
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Speaker 1: requested anonymity to speak candidly about a former boss. They're
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Speaker 1: going to be thinking about filling up their tank and
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Speaker 1: putting food on their table, and Joe Biden has nothing
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Speaker 1: to do with that. Harrison, the former DNC chair, argued
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Speaker 1: that voters have more immediate questions about the health of
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Speaker 1: the man now occupying the Oval office, who turned eighty
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Speaker 1: in June. It was amplified and was even caricaturized. But
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Speaker 1: Biden was president. But Trump falls asleep during meetings. He's
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Speaker 1: literally sleeping, Harrison said. But yet it's like a big blip.
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Speaker 1: The man has more blemishes and marks on his skin
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Speaker 1: and says something is going on. The White House is
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Speaker 1: consistently pushed back on such criticism, insisting Trump remains strong
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Speaker 1: health and dismissing questions about his physical condition. There was
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Speaker 1: made three tips to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
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Speaker 1: since April twenty twenty five, and persistent bruising on his
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Speaker 1: hands and swelling in his lower legs of drawn scrutiny.
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Speaker 1: His most recent examination involved twenty two medical specialists, an
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Speaker 1: usually large team, though his physicians pronounced him in excellent health,
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Speaker 1: attributing the swelling to chronic venous insufficiency and the bruising
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Speaker 1: to frequent handshaking complyed with aspirin use. Health inevitably shapes
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Speaker 1: what presidents can do after leaving office. Before age and
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Speaker 1: illness restricted his public life, Jimmy Carter devoted decades to
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Speaker 1: election monitoring, diplomacy, public health, and habitat for humanity, work
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Speaker 1: that transformed his reputation and earned him a Nobil Peace Prize.
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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, it will turn eighty next month, remained highly visible,
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Speaker 1: building a global foundation, writing books, delivering paid speeches, and
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Speaker 1: campaigning for Democrats, including his wife. George W. Bush largely
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Speaker 1: stepped away from partisan politics, focusing on veterans, the Bush
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Speaker 1: Institute and painting. Obama has been more selective, merging for
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Speaker 1: major political moments while devoting much of his time to books,
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Speaker 1: media projects, his foundation, and most recently, the Obama Presidential Center.
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Speaker 1: Biden's allies or raising money for a presidential library in Delaware,
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Speaker 1: imagined as a center for public service and civic life,
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Speaker 1: but his library efforts have so far attracted only a
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Speaker 1: fraction of the money raised for the legacy projects and
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Speaker 1: recent presidents. His foundation expected to collect about eleven million
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Speaker 1: dollars by the end of twenty twenty seven, aired with
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Speaker 1: the hundreds of millions raised by Bush and Obama in
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Speaker 1: the first years after they left office. And next our
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Speaker 1: favorite fast food road trip eats from chains big and small.
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Speaker 1: So many summer vacations involve road trips, and road trips
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Speaker 1: require fuel, but not just for the vehicle. We'd all
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Speaker 1: love to be the kind of people who packed fabulous,
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Speaker 1: homemade meals to make whatever journeys we're embarking on a
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Speaker 1: civilized one. But let's face it, the trunk is often
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Speaker 1: too full for a cooler, and if your pre trip
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Speaker 1: situation is anything like mine, you're probably so busy finishing
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Speaker 1: a load of laundry or desperately searching for an arrant
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Speaker 1: bathing suit you can't muster the energy. That's where fast
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Speaker 1: food comes in. It fulfills the most basic needs of
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Speaker 1: your traveling party. It's fast, and it's food. Even people
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Speaker 1: who don't usually freaqu to drive through might find themselves
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Speaker 1: at the mercy of the roadside offering us For those
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Speaker 1: of us might find ourselves eyeing the options at sixty
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Speaker 1: five miles an hour. We ask the staff for the
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Speaker 1: Washington Post for their recommendations. Some come from National change,
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Speaker 1: others are regional options. A couple are even healthy ish.
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Speaker 1: Here are the quick bites we're breaking for this summer.
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Speaker 1: The Taco Bell cheesy bean and rice s burrito. Taco
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Speaker 1: Bell offers an alternative to the ubiquity of highway side burgers,
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Speaker 1: and I simply must make a run for the border.
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Speaker 1: I'm almost always going to opt for this simple meatless guy.
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Speaker 1: The blend of rice beans and nacho cheese and a
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Speaker 1: hint of jalapino sauce is a bargain at less than
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Speaker 1: two dollars, and it somehow doesn't leave me craving a
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Speaker 1: nap and the passenger seat afterwards. I usually upgrade with
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Speaker 1: the addition of a pico di gallo, but I'll probably
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Speaker 1: be skipping that step this summer. Had a squirt of
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Speaker 1: fire sauce, and it will stave off the hungry long
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Speaker 1: enough for me to allow to compromise on which murder
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Speaker 1: podcast we're gonna listen to next. Next is of an
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Speaker 1: out chicken wrap. Let's get one thing straight. Cookout is
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Speaker 1: not my choice because it has the best fast foods
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Speaker 1: That obviously is Popeyes. Cookout can't be bothered with such
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Speaker 1: trivial matters because the paradigm shifting roads stop roadside stop
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Speaker 1: is far too busy bending reality for the uninitiated. The
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Speaker 1: North Carolina based chain ask a simple question, why is
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Speaker 1: our understanding of a side dish so limited? You choose
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Speaker 1: your entree from items including a burger, two hot dogs,
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Speaker 1: or two casadillas. Then you choose your side from such
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Speaker 1: items as a bacon wrap, a corn dog for one casadia.
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Speaker 1: On your first visit, your brain will melt trying to
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Speaker 1: understand this. It's impossible recommend a dish as your perfect
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Speaker 1: combinations come up some deep, beautiful part of your soul.
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Speaker 1: But you can't go wrong getting an entire chicken rap
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Speaker 1: has a side dish. Then there's Royal Farms fried chicken
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Speaker 1: and biscuits. I was introduced to the joy of the
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Speaker 1: road trip. Royal Farms chicken and biscuit order several summers
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Speaker 1: ago by an old friend during a three hour drive
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Speaker 1: to our favorite beach spot, Asategu Island. Then quickly discovered
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Speaker 1: a box of gold and deliciousness will keep you so
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Speaker 1: full for hours and you can stick to snacks for
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Speaker 1: the rest of the day. The crispiness, the chicken piece options,
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Speaker 1: the sauces, nothing screams driving over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
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Speaker 1: quite like it. Gas station touch order meals aren't foreign
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Speaker 1: to me. I grew up a sheets girl, but as
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Speaker 1: an adult, I tend to favor healthier meals. Royal Farms
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Speaker 1: has brought me back to my childhood, when I had
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Speaker 1: the constitution to withstand such chain indulgences. Plus, I'm a
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Speaker 1: firm believer that the calories do not count when you're
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Speaker 1: on a road trip. The body knows this is a
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Speaker 1: special occasion. Then there's pe Terry's Veggie Burger. I first
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Speaker 1: had a Pee Terry's Veggie Burger in twenty seventeen, a
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Speaker 1: time when our meatless burger technology hadn't progressed much, so
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Speaker 1: I was completely unprepared for how wildly delicious that first
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Speaker 1: bite was. The blend of brown rice, crimini, mushrooms, and
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Speaker 1: black beans makes this patty the king of veggie burgers,
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Speaker 1: served on a warm bun with a melty slice of cheese, lettuce, tomato,
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Speaker 1: and special sauce. For four dollars and eighty five cents.
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Speaker 1: You can see why I can't visit Austin without stopping
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Speaker 1: by this hometown fast food delicacy. Then there's the standard
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Speaker 1: McDonald's egg and cheese biscuit sandwich, the Golden Arches, other sandwiches,
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Speaker 1: big Max mcmuffins, and mcgriddles. What have you tend to
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Speaker 1: get more attention. But I'm here to make the case
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Speaker 1: for the snow frills breakfast option that manages to be
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Speaker 1: both restrained, especially compared to some of the chains other gimmicks,
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Speaker 1: and substantive. The buttermilk biscuit is warm and salty. It's
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Speaker 1: oft enough to be pleasant to eat, but sturdy enough
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Speaker 1: not to crumble under the weight of the folded egg
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Speaker 1: and melty American cheese. In about four bucks, it's an affordable,
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Speaker 1: enjoyable morning meal to grab your way out of town.
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Speaker 1: Then there's the Public's Deli grab and go Greek salad.
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Speaker 1: At some point During the long trips of road trips
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Speaker 1: between DC and South, I start to crave salad. I
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Speaker 1: need something that feels fresh and zesty, salvation for my
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Speaker 1: chicken nugget blasted taste buds. Luckily, the majority of those
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Speaker 1: drives are near a public grocery store, where I head
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Speaker 1: straight for the deli. I like most the grab and
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Speaker 1: ghost salad options. Can't go wrong with the Southern cobb
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Speaker 1: or strawberry and glazed pecan, but I'm usually going for
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Speaker 1: the Greek option full of chickpeas, feta, kalamada, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, consini,
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Speaker 1: and red wine vinegar. I put the onions aside. I've
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Speaker 1: got hours in the car now. I'm not a monster. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: sub pubs are iconic, but those sandwich lines can be
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Speaker 1: long and on the road, fast light and crispy is
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Speaker 1: the way. Then there's Starbucks, spinach, feta and egg white wrap.
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Speaker 1: My mom and I are what you might call it
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Speaker 1: high maintenance eaters. So across the years of fractious family
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Speaker 1: road trips, my father and my husband have learned there's
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Speaker 1: exactly one place they can stop for breakfast to minimize
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Speaker 1: the chance of later hangry recriminations, and that's Starbucks. The
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Speaker 1: chains spinach, Feta and egg white wrap somehow checks every
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Speaker 1: box on my and my mother's link the lists. It's healthy, spinach,
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Speaker 1: egg whites, protein, and it's low calory, just two hundred
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Speaker 1: and ninety if like us, you count while pretending not to.
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Speaker 1: It's actually extremely satisfying, felling, and delicious, and it's widely available.
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Speaker 1: Grab yours at any of the gazillion Starbucks that punctuate
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Speaker 1: the highway stretching sea to shining Sea. Then we've got
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Speaker 1: Taco John's Potato oleise. Very little about Taco John's, found
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Speaker 1: than Wyoming, now headquartered in Minnesota, fields authentically Mexican, but
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Speaker 1: in this rare case, that's part of the charm. Where
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Speaker 1: else might you find a Midwest mex fusion specimen so
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Speaker 1: perfect as potato oleis. Crispy quarter size hash brown medallions
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Speaker 1: spiced with just the absolute faintest dusting of taco seasoning.
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Speaker 1: Swing by a drive through and order them with or
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Speaker 1: without the mildest beef burrito the Great Plains have ever seen.
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Speaker 1: Olets are the crunchy, salty potato side dish in an
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Speaker 1: outs fries wish they were then we stopped by Waterburger
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Speaker 1: with Holopinos. If you happen to be road tripping through Texas,
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Speaker 1: you must stop and experience the culinary delights. That is whataburger.
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Speaker 1: My go to order at the chain is a water
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Speaker 1: Burger with holopinos and a die Oxter pepper. The water
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Speaker 1: Burger is basically a burger with pickles, onions, lettuce, and tomatoes,
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Speaker 1: but in my option, in my opinion too, it tastes
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Speaker 1: fresher and more homemade than your average fast food burger.
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Speaker 1: You aren't that hungry. You can get the water Burger Junior,
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Speaker 1: smaller version of the basic burger, and water Burger's takitos
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Speaker 1: are also pretty delightful. Then we have Culver's cheese curds.
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Speaker 1: How did I a New Jersey and by birth and
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Speaker 1: now Wisconsin I through marriage, go for so much of
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Speaker 1: my life never consumed a cheese curd. That's the question
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Speaker 1: I'm often asking myself as I pop these morsels into
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Speaker 1: my mouth, and long stretches of farm land passed by
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Speaker 1: the window. While there are now Culvers throughout the Midwest,
22:56
Speaker 1: there are strict standards in our family. This specialty can
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Speaker 1: only be consumed in its birthplace of Wisconsin. The fried Koords,
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Speaker 1: as God intended them to be consumed, are portable, always hot,
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Speaker 1: and also enjoyed by the dogs, usually sitting next to
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Speaker 1: me in the back seat. Then we've got the in
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Speaker 1: and out milkshake. Is in and out overrated? Yes, but
23:25
Speaker 1: don't get me started on the chain's secret menu hype.
23:30
Speaker 1: But as a native California who grew up on the
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Speaker 1: state's many farm flanked freeways, I will defend the quicksand
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Speaker 1: thick delight that is an in and out milkshake. It's
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Speaker 1: a reliable road trip treat, no matter what flavor you picked, chocolate, vanilla,
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Speaker 1: or strawberry, or mix a few to create a combo
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Speaker 1: taste far more luxurious than the four dollars price. Then
23:53
Speaker 1: we move over to the dairy queen peanut britle crunch cone.
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Speaker 1: There's a question that rarely goes unanswered in my Minnesota family.
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Speaker 1: Should we pay our respects to the Queen? My pick
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Speaker 1: is always the crunch one and the crunch cone A
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Speaker 1: simple vanilla cone coated in a crunchy layer of peanut
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Speaker 1: and toffee brittle mixed with sprinkles. It's the perfect combination
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Speaker 1: of salty and sweet, and you can eat it one
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Speaker 1: handed while rolling through Midwestern cornfields and prairies. Don't be discouraged.
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Speaker 1: If it's not technically on the menu, Thro're all out.
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Speaker 1: My backup decue order is a butterfinger and health blizzard.
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Speaker 1: Then we have Duncan iced coffee. Season Traveling companions with
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Speaker 1: larger bladders than yours will caution you about drinking too
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Speaker 1: many liquids before a road trip. I'm of the firm opinion, however,
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Speaker 1: the driving through the Northeast without a sickly sweet Duncan
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Speaker 1: iced coffee in your cup holder is like flying without
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Speaker 1: a passport. No one could argue that the Massachusetts based
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Speaker 1: brand has the best coffee. It's more candid jet fuel
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Speaker 1: the requisite propellant to get you from point A to
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Speaker 1: point B, and pair it with a donut. It's not
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Speaker 1: a road trip if you don't arrive without a stomach ache.
25:22
Speaker 1: The best part is that when you inevitably need a
25:25
Speaker 1: bathroom break a couple of hours, you can stop at
25:29
Speaker 1: another Duncan and replenish. In the next article, JFK on
25:35
Speaker 1: Israel in nineteen fifty six versus Democrats today, israel standing
25:43
Speaker 1: plummets among Democrats. An NBC News headline reported in March
25:49
Speaker 1: announcing poll results showing fifty seven percent of Democratic voters
25:54
Speaker 1: view Israel negatively. The decline of the party's support for
25:59
Speaker 1: the Jewish state was vividly displayed on July fifteenth, when
26:03
Speaker 1: nearly half of the House Democratic Caucus one hundred and
26:07
Speaker 1: three representatives voted to cut all USA to Israel worth
26:13
Speaker 1: three point three billion dollars in next year's fiscal budget.
26:18
Speaker 1: The effort failed, but the message was clear. The long
26:22
Speaker 1: tradition of solid Democratic support for Israel, based on the
26:26
Speaker 1: recognition of shared liberal, democratic modern values is dead. Perhaps
26:33
Speaker 1: it will be revived once president once Prime Minister Benjamin
26:36
Speaker 1: netan Yahoo's government is no longer in power, though we
26:41
Speaker 1: are skeptical. Democratic support for Israel itself once remained unshakable,
26:49
Speaker 1: regardless of who was running the government. Such a revival
26:53
Speaker 1: can hardly be counted on given the rising influence within
26:57
Speaker 1: a Party of Democrats such as Representative Rokhana of California
27:02
Speaker 1: and New York Mayor zoan Manbami, who are overtally hostile
27:06
Speaker 1: to Israel. This disintegration of the historic Democratic Israel bond
27:13
Speaker 1: is painful to contemplate for a sense of how deeply
27:18
Speaker 1: democrats once regarded Israel and Israelis and Americans as kindred spirits.
27:24
Speaker 1: Consider a long forgotten speech delivered by a young Democratic
27:28
Speaker 1: senator from Massachusetts seventy years ago on April twenty ninth,
27:33
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, at Yankee Stadium in New York. John F.
27:37
Speaker 1: Kennedy spoke that the America salutes Israel celebration of Israel's
27:43
Speaker 1: Independence Day, defending the world's only Jewish state. As he
27:48
Speaker 1: addressed a crowd of forty two thousand, Kennedy emphasized Americans
27:52
Speaker 1: and Israeli's mutual commitments to national memory, self government, and
27:57
Speaker 1: ordered liberty. The United States, Kennedy proclaimed, is the oldest
28:03
Speaker 1: republic on Earth and the youngest people, and the Israelis
28:08
Speaker 1: have the youngest republic and the oldest people. He noted
28:12
Speaker 1: that both Israel and the United States won their freedom
28:16
Speaker 1: in a bit of war for independence, and as fledgling
28:20
Speaker 1: democracies had defeated autocratic enemies, and both Israel and the
28:26
Speaker 1: United States acknowledged the supremacy of the moral law. Both
28:31
Speaker 1: believe in personal as well as national liberty, and perhaps
28:35
Speaker 1: most important, both will fight to the end, to maintain
28:39
Speaker 1: that liberty, to defend Israel against the Arab states that
28:43
Speaker 1: longed to eradicate it was to defend Western liberalism on
28:47
Speaker 1: its front lines. We know that no other nation in
28:52
Speaker 1: this world is surrounded on every side by such violent
28:55
Speaker 1: hate and prejudice, Kennedy remarked, emphasizing that the righteousness of
29:00
Speaker 1: Israel's cause that the US could not leave its ally
29:03
Speaker 1: defenseless without arms. Kennedy movingly recounted how he had visited
29:10
Speaker 1: the Holy Land twice, once under the British mandate in
29:14
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, when he found a baron realm, baron
29:18
Speaker 1: of hope and cheer and progress, and again in nineteen
29:22
Speaker 1: fifty one, three years into the newly reborn Jewish state.
29:28
Speaker 1: A nation has been reborn, a desert has been reclaimed,
29:32
Speaker 1: and a national integrity had been redeemed. After two thousand
29:36
Speaker 1: years of seemingly endless waiting, Zion had at least been restored,
29:42
Speaker 1: and she had promptly opened her arms to the homeless
29:45
Speaker 1: and the weary and the persecuted. It was an in
29:49
Speaker 1: gathering of the exiles. They had heard the call of
29:53
Speaker 1: the homeland. They had come brands plucked from the burning.
29:58
Speaker 1: And they had come from concentration camps and ghettos, from
30:02
Speaker 1: distant exile and dangerous sanctuary, from broken homes in Poland,
30:06
Speaker 1: and lonely huts and Yemen, Like the ancient strangers in
30:10
Speaker 1: a strange line, they had come, and Israel received all
30:14
Speaker 1: of them, fed them, housed them, cared for them, bound
30:20
Speaker 1: up their wounds, enlisted them in the struggle to build
30:23
Speaker 1: a new nation. The future president painted an inspiring picture
30:29
Speaker 1: starkly different from the revisionist story democrats tell today of
30:35
Speaker 1: Israel as a genocidal colonialist enterprise, but the change has
30:42
Speaker 1: little to do with the changes of fact. Israel, in
30:46
Speaker 1: the decades following Kennedy's speech fought defensive wars that resulted
30:52
Speaker 1: in its conquering lands. It then traded for peace. It
30:56
Speaker 1: gave Palestinian sovereignty is that Israel could have controlled indefinitely,
31:04
Speaker 1: including the full withdrawal from Gaza in twenty oh five,
31:08
Speaker 1: and repeatedly offered Palestinians a state of their own. Yet
31:13
Speaker 1: its enemies continued and continue to seek its destruction. Kennedy
31:20
Speaker 1: called Israel the noblest of all the twentieth centuries experiments
31:24
Speaker 1: in democracy, one that's here to stay. She will not surrender,
31:29
Speaker 1: she will not retreat, and we will not let her fall.
31:34
Speaker 1: But now more than one hundred House Democrats would like
31:39
Speaker 1: to cut off US support. In closing, Kennedy said.
31:44
Speaker 2: Of Israel, today we celebrate her eighth birthday. I say
31:49
Speaker 2: without hesitation that she will live to see an eightieth
31:52
Speaker 2: birth day and an eight hundredth. Peace is all Israel asks,
31:58
Speaker 2: no more a piece that will beat swords into plowshares
32:02
Speaker 2: and spars into pruning hooks.
32:05
Speaker 1: During this season, when America reflects on its birthday of
32:08
Speaker 1: its own, the Democrats who have not been captured by
32:12
Speaker 1: the anti Israel strain within their party would do well
32:17
Speaker 1: to contemplate Kennedy's words. This is no time for quivocation hesitation,
32:23
Speaker 1: he said, emphasizing that amid gathering forces of darkness, the
32:29
Speaker 1: obligation of those who cherish liberal democratic ideas is to
32:34
Speaker 1: support and defend them at home and abroad. And next,
32:43
Speaker 1: the new FED chair won't tell you what he thinks,
32:48
Speaker 1: ask Kevin Walsh. Now the Federal of Reserve should think
32:52
Speaker 1: about inflation, talk to markets, or weigh the impact of
32:55
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence on the economy. And the new chair has
32:59
Speaker 1: a stop answer. There's a task force for that, five
33:05
Speaker 1: new task forces. In fact, roughly two months into his tenure,
33:10
Speaker 1: warshes handled panels of outside experts core questions about FED
33:14
Speaker 1: policy and has said a little about what he thinks
33:17
Speaker 1: any of it should land. If we get policy right
33:21
Speaker 1: in we will wash till lawmakers this month the inflation
33:25
Speaker 1: surge the past five years will be a thing of
33:28
Speaker 1: the past. What Warsh has not said is how the
33:32
Speaker 1: Fed gets there. That is already causing uncertainty among Fed watchers.
33:38
Speaker 1: Policymakers meet this week. The first interest rate increase of
33:43
Speaker 1: the year is not out of the realm of possibility.
33:48
Speaker 1: Officials are roughly split over whether rates need to move higher,
33:53
Speaker 1: and Warsh has not said where he stands. President Trump, meanwhile,
33:58
Speaker 1: spent months demanding cuts, which means any increase could spark
34:04
Speaker 1: fresh conflicts with the White House. Warsh's reticence may in
34:09
Speaker 1: fact carry some political upside for the Fed. I mean
34:12
Speaker 1: sustained pressure from the White House to cut interest rates
34:15
Speaker 1: even as inflation runs at three and a half percent,
34:18
Speaker 1: well above the Central Banks two percent target. The less
34:23
Speaker 1: Wash telegraphs, the smaller target he presents to the White
34:27
Speaker 1: House and anyone else unhappy with the Fed, said Vincent Reinhardt,
34:31
Speaker 1: a former senior FED economist. The more you talk, the
34:35
Speaker 1: bigger the target is that you paint on your back,
34:38
Speaker 1: said Reinehart, was now chief economist at Being Why Investments.
34:42
Speaker 1: But Warsh's restraint is also a matter of principle. While
34:47
Speaker 1: he has ended the Fed's practice of signaling its likely
34:50
Speaker 1: next move, the deliberate break with his predecessor that he
34:55
Speaker 1: defends as sound policy, his silence extends well beyond guidance
35:00
Speaker 1: on interest rates. On questions about how the FED reads
35:04
Speaker 1: the economy and its preferred yard sticks for inflation, Worsh
35:08
Speaker 1: has repeatedly declined to say what he thinks, often pointing
35:12
Speaker 1: instead to the task forces he has set in motion.
35:16
Speaker 1: The approach marks a returned toward an era with a
35:19
Speaker 1: central bank did less to explain itself, a reversal of
35:24
Speaker 1: two decades in which the FED grew steadily more transparent.
35:29
Speaker 1: At his White House swearing in sonor a ceremony in May,
35:33
Speaker 1: Walsh thanked Alan Greenspan as the first to show me
35:37
Speaker 1: what this role demands. Greenspan, who died last month that
35:41
Speaker 1: one hundred, was famous for his inscrutability. If I seem
35:48
Speaker 1: unduly clear to you, green Span once said, you must
35:52
Speaker 1: have misunderstood what I said. Only five hours of congressional
35:57
Speaker 1: testimony this month, Warsh said very little about it views
36:01
Speaker 1: and at time seemed to reverse some of his earlier statements.
36:06
Speaker 1: In one exchange, Representative Richie Tory's Democrat of New York,
36:10
Speaker 1: read Warsh's own testimony back to him. In his April
36:14
Speaker 1: nomination hearing, Warsh had said he preferred an inflation gauge
36:19
Speaker 1: that strips out the biggest price wings each month, not
36:22
Speaker 1: the measure the FED was rolled long relied on. Torres.
36:27
Speaker 1: Asked about the comment, Wars said he had not endorsed anything.
36:32
Speaker 1: None of those are very good measures of underlying inflation.
36:36
Speaker 1: War said, if I had a preferred measure, I wouldn't
36:41
Speaker 1: have called for a task force to go back to
36:43
Speaker 1: the first principles. Wassh's predecessor, Jerome H. Powell, used news
36:50
Speaker 1: conferences after each meeting to walk through the Fed's reading
36:54
Speaker 1: of the economy and summarize the range of views on
36:57
Speaker 1: the rate setting committee. Warsh is not common at holding
37:02
Speaker 1: news conferences after every meeting. His communications task force is
37:07
Speaker 1: studying that too. Asked by reporters last month, what would
37:13
Speaker 1: prompt the FED to raise rates, he said, I can't
37:17
Speaker 1: give you any afford guidance about what we're going to
37:19
Speaker 1: do next. The good news is we'll be meeting in
37:23
Speaker 1: six weeks. Referring to the meeting that begins this Tuesday,
37:28
Speaker 1: he said he wants each rache Setting meeting to be
37:31
Speaker 1: a family fight rather than a formality whose outcome has
37:35
Speaker 1: been telegraphed in advance. Sharing expectations about future rate moves
37:41
Speaker 1: invites policymakers to find ourselves sort of taking information that's
37:46
Speaker 1: consistent with our priors and rejecting information that's inconsistent, he
37:50
Speaker 1: has said. Being somewhat more circumspect in our communications, at
37:56
Speaker 1: least for me, is a better way of calling balls strikes,
38:00
Speaker 1: he told lawmakers. The challenge with less communication is if
38:05
Speaker 1: the FED does raise rates this week without laying out
38:08
Speaker 1: its reasoning, investors in the financial markets could read far
38:13
Speaker 1: more into the Fed's move than intended and react negatively
38:17
Speaker 1: if their gas is wrong. This is why you communicate
38:21
Speaker 1: about the reasons for your actions, said William English, a
38:25
Speaker 1: former senior FED economist now at Yale. But if they
38:29
Speaker 1: don't want to do that communication, they could be misunderstood.
38:35
Speaker 1: No major shock has yet materialized to test WASH. Inflation
38:41
Speaker 1: cooled last month, which could give the Fed room to
38:44
Speaker 1: hold off making a decision on interest rings, although oil
38:48
Speaker 1: prices have edged higher as fighting resumed in the Middle East.
38:52
Speaker 1: Michael Strain, an economist of the right leaning American Enterprise Institute,
38:58
Speaker 1: said the silence has not cost Wash anything. It might
39:03
Speaker 1: not until something forces the question, such as a sharp
39:07
Speaker 1: jump in inflation, a spike in unemployment, or a disruption
39:11
Speaker 1: in financial markets. Any of those would put markets and
39:16
Speaker 1: the Fed's Policy Committee in search for a signal from
39:19
Speaker 1: the chairman. We have a task force for that would
39:23
Speaker 1: not suffice, he said. His approach to communication works only
39:28
Speaker 1: when there's not a strong need to communicate. Straine said
39:32
Speaker 1: the reticence held up even under friendly questioning the Senate
39:38
Speaker 1: Banking Committity Committee. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, who
39:43
Speaker 1: said he lovedsh like a taco, asked the FED chief
39:47
Speaker 1: to explain whether inflation was temporary or more persistent. It's
39:52
Speaker 1: not going to be permanent under my watch, Walsh replied,
39:57
Speaker 1: ask how he would determine which Marsh pointed to task forces. Next.
40:05
Speaker 1: The Post counted seventy deaths from July's heat domes. The
40:10
Speaker 1: true toll may not be known. Martha Irene Van Edmond
40:16
Speaker 1: was working in her garden in Bolton, Mississippi, when she
40:20
Speaker 1: stumbled and couldn't get up. The eighty three year old
40:23
Speaker 1: spent hours lying on the ground amid temperatures of over
40:26
Speaker 1: ninety degrees the County Corner set, eventually succumbing to the
40:31
Speaker 1: oppressive heat. Mike Rodriguez, fifty seven, died of a heat
40:37
Speaker 1: stroke in his poorly ventilated attic apartment in Chicago's South
40:40
Speaker 1: Side Neighbor's Toll local public radio station wbe Z, his
40:46
Speaker 1: core body temperature rising so high his organs could no
40:51
Speaker 1: longer function. A small town south of Philadelphia, a sixty
40:57
Speaker 1: eight year old man stepped inside his home after trimming
41:00
Speaker 1: his hedges and immediately collapsed. The County Corner attributed his
41:05
Speaker 1: death to a heart attack triggered by heat exhaustion. These
41:11
Speaker 1: three are among at least sixty nine people who died
41:14
Speaker 1: from the extreme temperatures that beset the US at the
41:18
Speaker 1: beginning of July, According to a Washington Post survey of
41:21
Speaker 1: health departments, medical examiners, records, and local news reports. That
41:28
Speaker 1: figure puts the heat wave on par with some of
41:31
Speaker 1: the deadliest weather events of the twenty first century, exacting
41:35
Speaker 1: a direct toll more than twice that of the twenty
41:38
Speaker 1: twenty five Los Angeles wildfires, which killed thirty one, and
41:42
Speaker 1: more than Hurricane Harvey's sixty eight deaths in twenty seventeen.
41:46
Speaker 1: At least one person died in a later heat dome
41:50
Speaker 1: that stretched from Montana to Wisconsin in the middle of
41:52
Speaker 1: the month, but the preliminary death count from both these
41:57
Speaker 1: events probably underestimates the true impact of this summer's heat.
42:02
Speaker 1: Health experts said that exposing the shortcomings of the United
42:06
Speaker 1: states slow and sometimes haphazard approach to assessing deaths from
42:11
Speaker 1: extreme temperatures. Most dates rely on official death certificates, which
42:17
Speaker 1: can take weeks to be issued and often fail to
42:20
Speaker 1: identify heat as a contributing factor. These are mass mortality events,
42:28
Speaker 1: said Christy Ebe, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington's
42:33
Speaker 1: Center for Health and the Global Environment. But when we
42:37
Speaker 1: don't know the numbers and people can't see it, it's
42:41
Speaker 1: hard on an individual level to understand what heat. That
42:46
Speaker 1: heat is deadly many European countries, by contrast, assess deaths
42:52
Speaker 1: from extreme temperatures by using an approach known as excess
42:56
Speaker 1: mortality analysis, which was also why I used during the
43:01
Speaker 1: height of the coronavirus pandemic. This method uses statistical analysis
43:06
Speaker 1: to assess how many more people died in a given
43:09
Speaker 1: period than would have been expected under normal circumstances, then
43:15
Speaker 1: estimates what portion of those deaths are attributable to heat.
43:20
Speaker 1: European officials have attributed more than ten thousand excess deaths
43:26
Speaker 1: to this continent's record breaking June heat wave. We're falling
43:30
Speaker 1: behind Europe and protecting population health during extreme heat events,
43:36
Speaker 1: said Joan Casey, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Washington,
43:41
Speaker 1: used to eat excess mortality method to analyze deaths from
43:45
Speaker 1: a twenty twenty one heat wave in the Pacific Northwest.
43:49
Speaker 1: The methods are fairly standard and we have the capacity
43:53
Speaker 1: to do this, she said. We just need to make
43:56
Speaker 1: the collective decision that we think it's important for us
43:59
Speaker 1: to understand in real time. To assess the death toll
44:04
Speaker 1: from two heat domes that descended on the US this July,
44:09
Speaker 1: the Post contacted the health departments for every state or
44:13
Speaker 1: the National Weather Service issued in extreme heat warning. Of
44:18
Speaker 1: the thirty one agencies, the Post contacting nine said it
44:22
Speaker 1: would take them weeks or months to analyze death records
44:26
Speaker 1: from the event. Ford did not respond to information requests
44:30
Speaker 1: in time for publication, and two states, Ohio and Wyoming,
44:35
Speaker 1: said they did not track heat related mortality. The states
44:39
Speaker 1: that did provide data emphasized that their numbers are preliminary.
44:45
Speaker 1: Most deaths from the two heat waves occurred in New Jersey,
44:50
Speaker 1: where officials say and estimated twenty nine people died from
44:52
Speaker 1: heat related causes. That doesn't mean the state suffered worse
44:57
Speaker 1: heat or was less prepared to protect to protect people,
45:00
Speaker 1: eb said it's possible that even more deaths occurred elsewhere
45:04
Speaker 1: but have yet to be identified. These fatalities were connected
45:09
Speaker 1: to some of the most extreme temperatures on records locations,
45:14
Speaker 1: and more than two dozen states matched or exceeded their
45:17
Speaker 1: previous all time highs during the heat domes. Millions of
45:21
Speaker 1: people sweltered through temperatures over one hundred degrees fahrenheit for
45:26
Speaker 1: multiple days in a row. Researchers at the World Weather
45:30
Speaker 1: Attribution Network, which conducts rapid studies to determine how climate
45:35
Speaker 1: change influenced weather events. Found that the torrid combination of
45:40
Speaker 1: heat and humidity in early July events would have been
45:44
Speaker 1: virtually impossible in a world not warmed by a greenhouse
45:48
Speaker 1: gas pollution. Those conditions but immense strain on the human body,
45:55
Speaker 1: the heart will begin to pump harder, pushing blood just
45:58
Speaker 1: below the surface of the sky, where it can shed
46:01
Speaker 1: heat more easily. Heavy sweating will kick the kidneys and
46:05
Speaker 1: high gear so that they can conserve more water. If
46:09
Speaker 1: the body is unable to keep a person's core temperature
46:12
Speaker 1: within healthy limits, it can trigger a cascade of organ failure.
46:18
Speaker 1: It eventually proves deadly. But if we are focusing only
46:22
Speaker 1: on heat stroke, that's just the tip of the iceberg,
46:26
Speaker 1: said Gary Follows Constantino to this, an epidemiologist at the
46:31
Speaker 1: Imperial College of London who studies climate impacts on health.
46:35
Speaker 1: If a person already suffers from a chronic illness such
46:39
Speaker 1: as cardiovascular disease or diabetes, the stress of keeping cool
46:44
Speaker 1: can trigger a heart attack or dangerous blood sugar swings.
46:49
Speaker 1: Pro Long exposure to extreme temperatures can also exacerbate respiratory
46:54
Speaker 1: and kidney conditions, with potentially fatal consequences. In these cases,
47:00
Speaker 1: the person responsible for filling out the victim's death certificate,
47:03
Speaker 1: typically a physician, corner or a medical examiner, often focuses
47:08
Speaker 1: on the most immediate cause of death without mentioning environmental factors.
47:14
Speaker 1: In many states, corners are elected officials, she added, and
47:18
Speaker 1: may not have the medical training necessary to recognize when
47:21
Speaker 1: a heart attack is caused by heat, or kidney failure
47:25
Speaker 1: or other failed condition. It means when US health officials
47:29
Speaker 1: look through the medical records to assess mortality from heat wave,
47:34
Speaker 1: they're missing a broad array of indirect deaths triggered by
47:37
Speaker 1: the high temperatures e beset. The pains taking process of
47:42
Speaker 1: gathering and analyzing death certificates can also lead to a
47:45
Speaker 1: long lag time before the public learns a disaster's true
47:49
Speaker 1: death count, and makes it difficult to compare mortality across states.
47:55
Speaker 1: In Maryland, where officials have attributed at least nineteen fatalities
47:59
Speaker 1: to the early July heat dome, determining deaths from heat
48:05
Speaker 1: relies on a comprehensive investigative process that considers scene findings,
48:10
Speaker 1: the person's medical history, and a post mortem examination, said
48:15
Speaker 1: Department of Health spokesperson David McAllister. McAllister contrasted that process
48:21
Speaker 1: with a relatively simpler task of assessing whether someone's drowned
48:25
Speaker 1: in a flood or suffered trauma from a hurricane. Heat
48:30
Speaker 1: related deaths can be more difficult to definitively identify because
48:35
Speaker 1: heat often acts as a physiological stressor, he wrote in
48:39
Speaker 1: an email. Because so many deaths from extreme heat go unrecognized,
48:44
Speaker 1: the phenomenon is also often called a silent killer. Constantinotis said,
48:51
Speaker 1: it sounds cheesy, but we say this because it's very
48:55
Speaker 1: hard to get a complete picture. That's where excess mortality
48:59
Speaker 1: analysis come. They cannot identify precisely who died because of
49:04
Speaker 1: the heat, experts said, and should not replace more detailed methods.
49:09
Speaker 1: But these analysis can be performed more quickly and they
49:14
Speaker 1: can reveal deaths that remained hidden when officials rely only
49:18
Speaker 1: on death certificates. In Europe, Constantinotice SID officials have widely
49:25
Speaker 1: adopted the excess deaths approach to provide real time mortality
49:29
Speaker 1: estimates during extreme events. Spain's leading public health agency, for example,
49:35
Speaker 1: publishes daily estimates of heat deaths based on temperature data
49:40
Speaker 1: and statistical models. The French government reported approximately one thousand
49:46
Speaker 1: excess deaths while the June heat wave was still going on.
49:50
Speaker 1: Within three weeks, the total was revised to more than
49:54
Speaker 1: five thousand, seven hundred. These staggering numbers may partly reflect
50:00
Speaker 1: the region's struggle to adapt rising temperatures air conditioning remains
50:05
Speaker 1: relatively rare, even though Europe is the fastest warming continent
50:10
Speaker 1: on Earth, but they also show the wider impact of
50:14
Speaker 1: heat that is likely missing from US counts. Constant Tootice
50:18
Speaker 1: sit Having owned statistics on hand during the summer rather
50:23
Speaker 1: than months after the fact, can motivate people to take
50:27
Speaker 1: heat risks more seriously. They can also spur governments to
50:32
Speaker 1: adapt after deaths. In Italy last year, several regional governments
50:39
Speaker 1: instituted bands on outdoor work they're the hottest part of
50:43
Speaker 1: the day. Studying excess mortality also allows researchers to assess
50:49
Speaker 1: how climate change influence to heat waves human cost. In
50:54
Speaker 1: a recent analysis of deaths in England and Wales, Constantinotice
50:58
Speaker 1: and colleagues a little relationship between temperatures and mortality based
51:03
Speaker 1: on historical data, then use their findings to estimate how
51:08
Speaker 1: many more people died during the June heat wave than
51:11
Speaker 1: would have if the disaster happened in a pre industrial world.
51:17
Speaker 1: They found that daytime maximum temperatures are in the region
51:20
Speaker 1: of three to four degrees celsius, which is five point
51:24
Speaker 1: four to seven point two degrees fahrenheit higher because of
51:27
Speaker 1: planet warming pollution, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels.
51:34
Speaker 1: That extra heat accounted for thirty eight percent of the
51:37
Speaker 1: deaths during that June heat wave, more than eight hundred people.
51:43
Speaker 1: This gives us an important argument for climate mitigation constant
51:49
Speaker 1: to notice it, we see the actual toll and next.
51:56
Speaker 1: Trump wants to give the US and Iran talks some
51:59
Speaker 1: spacey as he weighs escalation and aid says. President Trump
52:06
Speaker 1: wants to give ongoing talks with Iran some space as
52:09
Speaker 1: he considers whether to escalate attacks, the US Ambassador to
52:13
Speaker 1: the United Nations said Sunday. Mike Waltz's comments came as
52:18
Speaker 1: the US military paused its bombing raids on Iran over
52:21
Speaker 1: the weekend, after thirteen consecutive days of heavy strikes and
52:26
Speaker 1: warnings by Trump of an even more aggressive bombing campaign.
52:31
Speaker 1: On Friday, Trump emphasized ongoing talks between the United States
52:36
Speaker 1: and Iran and an Oval office appearance. The day prior,
52:40
Speaker 1: he had told Axios that he's considering a massive attack,
52:43
Speaker 1: bigger than ever before, close to making a decision. When
52:48
Speaker 1: asked Sunday's NBC's Meet the Press whether the US had
52:52
Speaker 1: decided against ramping up attacks on Iran, walt said, I
52:56
Speaker 1: wouldn't go that far at all. He said. Trump is
52:59
Speaker 1: keeping all all the options on the table. What the
53:02
Speaker 1: President is doing right now, as we've seen all along,
53:06
Speaker 1: is give some talks some space, Waltz said, adding that
53:11
Speaker 1: discussions are ongoing on every level, both technical talks and
53:15
Speaker 1: between governments. Waltz pushed back on reports that the decision
53:21
Speaker 1: to back away from escalation was driven in part by
53:24
Speaker 1: concerns within the Trump administration about the depleted US munitions.
53:29
Speaker 1: The US military, and I've verified this every which way,
53:35
Speaker 1: has everything it needs to conduct the campaign effectively, he said.
53:39
Speaker 1: Though the Pentagon has dismissed concerns about US stockpiles pending on,
53:44
Speaker 1: officials have expressed far greater anxiety in private, according to
53:49
Speaker 1: current and former officials, arguing that the military desperately needs
53:54
Speaker 1: more money to replenish munitions, including to the Church, China,
53:58
Speaker 1: and Russia. Walt said one diplomatic challenge in the negotiations
54:04
Speaker 1: is that those on the Iranian side are divided. He
54:08
Speaker 1: said that there's internal fighting, some seeking guidance from the
54:12
Speaker 1: Supreme Leader and others who want to move in a
54:15
Speaker 1: different direction. Still, the ambassador warned that Iran should take
54:20
Speaker 1: the president very seriously. The US military is locked and loaded.
54:25
Speaker 1: In fact, more assets have gone into the region. Despite
54:29
Speaker 1: the pause in US strikes, the conflict with Iran has
54:32
Speaker 1: widened the mid new turmoil in the Red Sea. Yemen's
54:36
Speaker 1: Iran backed Hoothy rebels asserted responsibility for strike Saturday on
54:42
Speaker 1: oil facilities belonging to the Saudi state oil company Aramco
54:46
Speaker 1: in the Red Sea towns of Yanbu and Jason. The
54:50
Speaker 1: Houthi strikes could add to the pressure on global oil markets,
54:55
Speaker 1: which are already under severe strain amid disruptions caused by
54:59
Speaker 1: the closure of the stra tofore moves. On Sunday, of
55:03
Speaker 1: Ranian state affiliated media reported that an oil tanker exploded
55:08
Speaker 1: after hitting a mine in the Strait. In a separate incident,
55:12
Speaker 1: Roan's Foreign ministry accused Ukraine of attacking a commercial Iranian
55:16
Speaker 1: vessel in the Caspian Sea on Saturday in killing a sailor.
55:22
Speaker 1: In a Saturday statement on telegram, President Vladimir Zelenski said
55:27
Speaker 1: Ukraine has had good results with long range strikes on
55:31
Speaker 1: Russian targets, including in the Caspian Sea. He said targets
55:36
Speaker 1: included a warship and vessels involved in the transportation of
55:40
Speaker 1: military cargo linked to Iran. Iran's Foreign ministry on Sunday
55:45
Speaker 1: summoned Ukraine's charged affairs in Tehran over the attack. Roan's
55:51
Speaker 1: assistant Foreign Minister, Manu Chermadi said the meeting said in
55:57
Speaker 1: the meeting that it amounted to an active aggression. Ranian
56:01
Speaker 1: state media reported And finally, a desert town may run
56:05
Speaker 1: out of water and others could face the same fate.
56:09
Speaker 1: Mayor Curtis Stacey starts every morning checking two websites that
56:12
Speaker 1: tell him how much water he needs to worry about.
56:15
Speaker 1: Once I tells him about the reservoir that supplies his
56:18
Speaker 1: tiny desert town and it's effectively empty. The other side
56:22
Speaker 1: tells him and that if the town gets additional water
56:25
Speaker 1: that other communities with more senior rights aren't using right now,
56:29
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes. But Stacey tries to remind
56:32
Speaker 1: Kearny's roughly two thousand residents that they could easily tip
56:36
Speaker 1: back into crisis mode just like this spring. In newsletters,
56:41
Speaker 1: he underscores that frailty with no less than twenty exclamation points.
56:47
Speaker 1: Now the communities call for more water, they will have
56:49
Speaker 1: to cut back again. This situation is almost certainly temporary,
56:54
Speaker 1: he wrote in one bulletin posted on the Curry Facebook
56:57
Speaker 1: page and tapped up and down the glass door of
57:00
Speaker 1: the office. Kearney is an extreme example of the water
57:04
Speaker 1: crunch facing communities across the West, as states and cities
57:07
Speaker 1: stare down a future of mega drought and fight over
57:11
Speaker 1: scarce resources, and an usually dry winter this year left
57:15
Speaker 1: the Southwest parched, with not enough water for everyone laying
57:19
Speaker 1: claim to it. The complex web of water rights that
57:23
Speaker 1: govern how the short supply is distributed, The tiny town
57:27
Speaker 1: of Kearny comes last. Other cities around the West could
57:32
Speaker 1: face similar challenges and cutbacks. The federal government is set
57:36
Speaker 1: to release a plan for the shrinking supply of Colorado
57:39
Speaker 1: River water this summer that could force dramatic cuts. Kearney's
57:44
Speaker 1: not directly affected by the Colorado River negotiations, officials say,
57:49
Speaker 1: but the dilemma shows how dwindling resources and water rights
57:54
Speaker 1: rules that can arbitrarily feel like those most affected, can
57:59
Speaker 1: up in daily life. Kearny usually uses about two hundred
58:03
Speaker 1: and eighty acre feet of water a year, and this
58:06
Speaker 1: year was allocated seventy seven. One acre foot supplies about
58:11
Speaker 1: three homes annually. The town officially realized that they were
58:16
Speaker 1: on track to run out of water in July. Now
58:20
Speaker 1: the mayor was worrying about twenty twenty seven. If the
58:23
Speaker 1: lake didn't recover, Kearney's apportionment of river water next year
58:26
Speaker 1: could be zero. And this concludes the reading of the
58:30
Speaker 1: Washington Post for today, Monday, July twenty seventh. Your reader
58:33
Speaker 1: for today's been Rod Brotherton. Thank you for listening, and
58:37
Speaker 1: now please stay tuned for continued programming right here on
58:41
Speaker 1: Radio LI