"Lie from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.
The federal reserve is opting to hold its benchmark interest rate steady as most investors
“had expected, and PR has got horsely reports today the Central Bank left the door open”
to raise rates in the future if inflation remains elevated."
This was the second rate setting meeting that by Kevin Wars, who took over his chairman
of the Central Bank in May, worst-old lawmakers this month, he and his colleagues are determined to restore price stability after five years of uncomfortably high inflation. That task has been made harder by the U.S. War with Iran, which is triggered as spike in energy prices, gasoline prices have moderated from their wartime peak this spring, but renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz could keep pump prices elevated for
months to come. Three members of the Fed's rate setting committee dissented from today's decision, saying they would have preferred to raise the benchmark rate by quarter percentage point. Scott Horsley and PR News, Washington. The Trump administration is ending subsidies for Medicare drug plans that had been in place
since the beginning of last year, and PR Sinni Lupkin says that means some seniors will soon face higher monthly premiums.
“Under the inflation reduction act, Medicare started capping patients out of pocket”
drugs spending at $2,000 last year. That change and others that changed how plans would pay for drugs meant insurers were on the hook for more money.
And first, they didn't know how much more they'd be spending, or how high to set premiums.
To ease the transition for insurers, the Biden administration created temporary subsidies to stabilize premiums. The subsidies were expected to last three years, but are ending a year early, at the end of 2026. Dr. Mehmet Ahs, who oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, said on the social media
platform X, that it's because the subsidies are no longer needed. But the change means beneficiaries could be paying higher monthly premiums next year. Sinni Lupkin and PR News. Under an intensifying heat wave wildfires continued to rage across Southern Europe, including
“Spain's Valencia region, as recorded by APT News and France, where one massive blaze”
that's four times the size of Paris could grow. And Paris El Norbeirtsley has been following the fires that force massive evacuation. The military has been mobilized, joining firefighters, about 5,000 people are now battling these blazes. The European Union has sent firefighting planes and helicopters to join the French Canada
planes, or there's the planes that scoop up water and dump it on fires. And in France, more than 200,000 people, residents and vacationers have been evacuated about 100,000 in Spain. In PR Zil Norbeirtsley reporting, a massive search operation continues today in southwestern Japan, which was struck this week by magnitude 6.8 earthquake, local authorities say the
quake killed at least 18 people, including a foreign national dozens more people were injured. This is NPR News. President Trump and the Department of Justice are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to toss
an $83 million defamation verdict columnist E. Jean Carroll won.
Carroll accuses Trump of sexually assaulting her years ago in a department store fitting room. Trump later accused her of fabricating the allegation for publicity. A jury awarded Carroll damages, but government attorney say, "Resident Trump cannot be sued for comments he made during his first term as president."
The opening of a new museum dedicated entirely to AI-generated art this summer in Los Angeles brings up questions about how much of it is the work of machines and how much is human. And PR's Chloe Vultman asked the force behind the project, "World Renown Digital Artist, Refique Anadol." Refique Anadol is known for using AI algorithms to transform massive troves of data into bombastic
three-dimensional installations of light and sound. The Turkish-American artist says he creates his projects, including the new data-land museum in LA, with a help of the people in his studio, a multidisciplinary group of artists, architects, and data scientists. He says his artist, "50% human, 50% machine."
To create the art at data land, Anadol fed images and sounds from museum archives labs and even his own travels to the Brazilian Amazon into a custom AI model. He then directed it to create specific scenarios, such as a dream-like hummingbird narrative. Chloe Vultman MP on use. I'm Lakshmi Singh, MPR News in Washington.
Every episode of it's been a minute, NPR's What's Happening in Culture Podcast starts by asking three questions, "Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking about it."
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