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Some Republican candidates are having a distance themselves from President Trump's actions. With midterm elections approaching Trump picked new fights with Iran, China, and Canada, highlighting inflation and unpopular war. Oh, you Martinez, that is Steve Ineskeep, and this is a first from NPR News. [MUSIC]
Meta agreed to settle lawsuit. States said the company made its apps addictive for kids. The company denied the allegation but agreed to make changes and pay up to 17
billion dollars how could Facebook and Instagram be safer.
Also, a glacier collapsed on the border of Nepal and Tibet. Flood waters swept away roads and bridges. So many people lost their lives, so many people lost their families. The missing includes 65 Americans.
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But with the NPR app, news culture and podcasts are ready when you want them. In your pocket, download the NPR app today. [MUSIC] Republicans facing reelection fights this fall are in the position they often face. They would like to appeal to voters, but are chained to a president who does what he wants.
Now so far this week, President Trump has clashed with Iran, China, Canada, and even some members of his own party fights that emphasize inflation and war. NPR, White House correspondent, Deepa Shiveram is covering all of this. Good morning. Good morning, Steve.
“So what is the president trying to achieve on some of these issues that AJ mentioned?”
>> Yeah, well let's look at Iran, for example. This war is about to hit six months, right?
And it was a conflict that when Trump started, said it would last about six weeks.
This war continues to be unpopular among voters. It's weak in the economy. And Trump's threats against Iran haven't worked. There's no deal, there's no end in sight to this war. And this is led to a different approach the administration is trying to take where Trump
is now threatening sanctions against Iran and other countries that do business with Iran, which includes China, Trump's under a lot of pressure to end this war, and he's running out of time before the midterms. But what's unclear is how these sanction threats might get applied and how seriously countries like China take them in the next couple of months.
And then you also mentioned Canada, there's a terrifying going on with Canada this week. A curious move from Trump when high prices are already top of mind for voters this year. Trump's tariff tactics aren't new, but it's reignited tensions with an ally, and it's likely to increase prices even more for Americans. >> Okay, so then relate all of that to the midterm elections, which are coming in November
and early voting is not so far away, really. >> You're right. So with the tariffs on Canada that led to some Republicans who are running in some really tight elections, like Senator Susan Collins and Maine, to distance herself from Trump say that these tariffs are a mistake.
And Trump recently also announced that the U.S. this is a different move would import more beef from abroad. That was an effort to try and lower the cost of beef, which has increased in part because of the war. And the White House is trying to say that this decision is a big win, but it got immediate
pushback from Republican senators and states like Montana and Wyoming saying that beef imports would hurt American farmers, many of whom support the president.
“>> Are there other moves by the president recently that seem politically awkward?”
>> Yeah, it's a good way of phrasing it. I think a good example of this is on AI data centers. This is something that has just blown up in the last few weeks. It's become a huge issue in the midterms. There are candidates now proposing moratoriums attacking their opponents for being too soft
on data centers. Just trying to put forward a stance that matches this public backlash. It's come up in races and Wisconsin, Ohio, Texas. But the president is taking a different approach than a lot of members of his own party. He's saying that he wants the U.S. to win the AI war against China.
That's long been his stance. And he recently said that he thinks every town should have a data center because he says
That it brings in jobs and tax benefits.
But that puts him at odds Steve with the seven out of 10 Americans who were opposed to
a data center getting built in their area according to Gallup.
“>> Okay, so is the president responding at all to this feedback?”
>> You know, when Trump's on the road in front of voters, he usually falls back on his favorite campaign lines, he attacks Democrats, say that they're bringing back Communism. When it comes to lower in costs, Trump just points to how he lowered the price of eggs, which happened a year and a half ago. And when he says that the war with Iran, you know, when it does, and he says the oil
prices will come down, but he's been telling that to voters for months. So lately, he's just been talking about what he really wants to talk about. And that's largely his construction projects at the White House. That's one example. He's done just one event in front of cameras this week where he talked about education.
And then invited guests to go on a tour of this outlaw and where he's building a new Halipat. >> The state's alleged that the company knowingly designed social media platforms to be addictive to miners met at denies this.
The proposed settlement requires meta to pay up to 17 billion impenities to states over
10 years.
“They also say they will make specific changes to Facebook and Instagram to make them safer”
for kids. Health correspondent Ritu Chattergy is here in studio 31 to talk about this. Good morning Steve. >> Good morning Steve. >> Okay, so this is personal for you and me, where parents are thinking about our kids.
What kinds of changes is meta-grade to make? >> So the changes involve both restricting the kind of content kids can see and features that will make their social platforms a lot less addictive. So for example, they will have to give miners the option of having non-personalized feeds where meta does not use an algorithm to throw specific content to keep them scrolling.
>> Okay. >> There will be a default daily time limit of 2 hours for miners and only parents can opt out of that. >> Oh, meaning that the kid would have to say, "Mom, Dad, can I have an accurate link?" >> Okay.
>> And the parents will have to agree. So meta will have to have a default block on nighttime use from midnight to 6am and a block on notification to miners both overnight and during school hours when they are in classrooms. They will also be a ban on showing miners how many likes or reactions they have to their posts.
>> Sounds good. Does it actually make kids safer though? >> In theory, yes. So psychologists, Mitch Princeton, Code Rex, the Winston Center and Technology and Brain Development at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and in fact he was scheduled to testify
at the trial on Monday, doesn't have to do that, of course. He told me that these constant notifications and likes and dislikes on platforms are not well suited for the pre-teen and teenage brain. >> By the time a kid turns around 10 or 11, the part of their brain that makes them suddenly super interested in things like popularity and who sits at one lunch table are really showing
a hypersensitivity to social signals. >> And you can imagine when you have social platforms that give kids 24/7 access to how many followers they have, how many likes, that makes them hooked to social media. So getting rid of those notifications, especially during school hours in nighttime, should help make a big difference.
>> I suppose there's still a lot writing on how meta would execute these things. >> Exactly.
First of all, Princeton told me that these changes will take years to implement and there
has to be close and careful monitoring of how meta makes these changes and what impacts they have. And he also says this is a role for the government. >> We still need our state and federal government to act and to create regulations to make sure that as tech evolves, we continue to see that kids safety is prioritized over profit.
“>> One detail here, in order to have these safety measures for kids, you have to know who a”
kid is. >> That's right. >> Social media companies have resisted requirements that kids show that they are minors are not minors. >> Right.
And we know that kids lie all the time on social platforms about their age, right? And that's a problem that the settlement requires meta to address with new measures to detect when a user is under 18, and we'll just have to see what the company does for age verification. So overall, we still have to wait and watch how this plays out. >> And because we do charity, thanks for coming by.
>> My pleasure. [MUSIC] >> Some other news now, flooding has killed more than 170 people and left far more than that missing in Nepal and Tibet. This includes at least 65 Americans missing according to the latest numbers from the Nepal tourism board.
>> The floods were triggered after a part of a glacier collapsed into a valley, blocking a river early Wednesday. That caused water to build up some 30 feet and 30 minutes. The water then tore through riverside communities from miles downstream, burying people and places under mud.
>> And trustia, Hadee, covers Nepal is on the line.
>> Hi there, Dia.
>> Hi, Steve.
>> What are you hearing from people?
“>> What we managed to get through to one survivor, her name is Santa Tamang, and she's a 25-year-old”
university student. He lives in one of the river valleys, and she spoke to the MPR producer, Mamita Bandari over the phone, and Mamita translated for her. >> We were doing the house chores. >> All of a sudden, police started getting the savings of whining of the flood.
>> Tamang says people were shouting all around them. So her brother carried their elderly grandmother, and they rushed to high a ground. Their home was washed away, but Tamang says she's grateful to have just survived. >> So many people lost their lives, everything is gone. My childhood, my family's, my community.
>> The thing is, Nepal is a popular tourist destination, and so the missing also include foreigners, including Americans. Many were Hindu pilgrims. One tour group of about 80 people lost contact after the flood swept away an immigration building.
>> And here's one prominent spiritual leader, he's known as Sudgudal, and he's sharing the news with other worshipers. He posted the video on X. >> So this is a terrible internet extraordinary event. It's so unfortunately, it's done about this way.
“>> How do you get your brain around all of this, a rescue efforts underway?”
>> They are underway, but they're in their first stages. I spoke to Rios Lodi, who heads the World Food Program there, and he says workers at this point are just trying to ding people out of the mud, but roads have been washed away. So the government's deploying helicopters.
>> This all happening in the mountainous region, where road access is always challenging,
but under these circumstances, it's impossible. >> Lodi says they estimate about 10,000 households have been badly affected by this disaster, but he says that number will go up. >> At least Adewarker say, Napoleon authorities have a well-practiced emergency response. They learned a lot from the 2015 earthquake.
It was devastating, killed more than 9,000 people. But they also say, no one's seen anything like these floods, how powerful they've been, but experts say it's going to keep on happening. >> Why would they keep happening? >> It's happening because of climate change.
I spoke to Mahmoud for Rios Lodi. It's from it's an environmental advocacy group that covers Asia's high mountains. The Himalayas, Caracorum, Hindu Kush. And he says the Himalayas are just warming faster than the global average, and it's destabilizing some of the 60,000 glaciers up there.
And that's triggering these avalanches. So he says communities in these areas urgently need more real-time data, but they don't have it. You don't have a lot of data from the region, but that we can develop some AI model to know the fragile areas or to know the areas where we are about to having such events.
>> He says though, they'll have to get it done because this will keep on happening. >> And if you're as dear, he did cover South Asia, and she'll keep us updated, dear, thanks so much. >> You're welcome. [MUSIC] And that's up for us for this Thursday, August 27th. I'm Steve Innsky.
>> And I'm a Martinez, today's episode about first was edited by Kelsey Snell, Diane Weber,
Tina Cryo, Muhammad of RDC, and Alice Wolfly was produced by Julie Deppembrok and the Amos. Our director is Christopher Thomas, we get engineering support from Nisha Heines, our technical director is currently strange, and our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens joining us again tomorrow. [MUSIC]
>> Fall is right around the corner. That means the midterms, hey, it's Miles Parks from the Empire Politics podcast. Now is the perfect time to calibrate your news diet for the fall.
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