Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst.
Iranian officials now say the Strait of Hormuz International Waterway will never fully reopen
“until the United States "corrects its behavior," saying Tehran won't negotiate directly”
with the U.S. unless the Trump administration honors an agreement reached in June. Meanwhile, Vice President Vance says negotiations with Iran have progressed, but that the conflict isn't over. Mark Esper, who served as Defense Secretary during the first Trump administration, says the Iranians now believe they have the upper hand. This is having global impacts, so we should motorize it, motorize it, get our Asian allies
and board our European allies, others around the world, and really put economic pressure on this country and slowly strangled it until they come back to the negotiation table in a serious way. Speaking there too, ABC's this week. This morning, the Iranian-backed Houthis attacked a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea and a UAE ship yesterday. At least eight people are dead, several more are wounded in weekend
air attacks between Russia and Ukraine. As NPR's Charles Mains reports from Moscow, the casualties come as both sides have increased attacks on civilian infrastructure. For the past month, Ukraine is used long-range drones to strike energy and commercial logistics centers in Russia, part of an attempt to bring the war home to Russians in a way you crannies of experience for more than four years. Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky says the campaign
is successfully drained Russia of millions of dollars. It could otherwise put towards the war effort. Yet Russia's intensified its own attacks taking advantage of Ukraine's dwindling air defenses with ballistic missile strikes. That includes in the Black Sea region where attacks
“abroad shipments of Ukraine's key export grain to a virtual standstill raising concerns”
of a global food shortage come winter. Charles Mains and PR News, Moscow. Just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more people sought long-term and permanent birth control options. As NPR-Selena Simmons-Duffin reports, abortion restrictions don't seem to be influencing those decisions quite as much anymore. Dr. Katelyn Bernard is an OB-GYN in Indiana, which has had a strict abortion ban for years. She says right after the
ban took effect, her patients talked about it when considering birth control options. Now, nobody is really talking about abortion bans, nobody really is thinking about them, then other things that help you decide whether or not she's contraception are more top of mind. Things like health insurance coverage or potential side effects, Bernard says more than abortion restrictions, social media influencers,
“disparaging hormonal birth control, is something her patients are talking about these days,”
Selena Simmons-Duffin and PR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. This summer travel season not only are gas prices higher because of the US war in Iran, so are airline tickets for both domestic and international flights. The travel site, kayaks, has an average domestic flight last week, costs around $80 more than a did a year ago. The average international flight was about $170 more expensive than the same time last year.
Hollywood keeps setting new box office records this summer, but NPR's Bob Mondello says that while dollar totals are up, attendance is down. Spider-Man brand new day, the Odyssey, Toy Story 5, movie theaters are raking in so much cash. "We're going to need back up."
The forecasters say the film industry is on track to have its first $10 billion in 2019.
But through the end of July in 2019, cinemas had sold 747 million tickets. This year's ticket sales are way down, fewer than 500 million. What's keeping the dollar totals high is prices. Seven years ago, the average movie ticket cost $9.16. Today, audience fondness for premium formats like IMAX has pushed the average ticket price above $13, which means fewer patrons for bigger event films.
Whether that's a thing of always a big question, but this summer, it's led to a slew of box office records, including the biggest overall weekend in Hollywood history, Bob Mondello and PR News. U.S. Futures contracts are trading in mixed territory at the sour, dial futures are down about 114 points, Nasdaq futures are up about 12 points. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.
50 years ago, Congress set out to protect coal miners from black lung disease. Today, it's back at rates not seen in half a century. These guys are being treated like disposable widgets, not human beings. On the Sunday story, why coal miners and Appalachia are getting sicker faster.
Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First Podcast on the NPR app.
