The News Roundup For August 28, 2026

26:09And wildfire emergency spending could most likely be attached to that. These fires do cut across red and blue areas. Many of these states are very blue when you're talking about Oregon, but certainly red pockets there, especially in the rural areas. So I think that we will see some money being appropriated through this by Congress. All right. We'll be looking forward to that next week. Now we have to make sure that we take enough time to properly honor one American icon. We have a couple of icons we're going to talk about this hour. We got to take some time, of course, to talk about Dolly. Dolly, the undisputed queen of country.

26:50She died this week, of course, at age 80. The outpouring has been all over our media and our national conversation. The love for Dolly Parton stretches remarkably to just about every corner of the country, every political party, every age. You have a hard time finding somebody who doesn't love Dolly unless they're a jerk, to be honest. Here's Dolly Parton talking about what drove her in a 2009 interview. It's not about my career so much as it's about my life. It's about who I am, what I do, and what I'm best at. I do love my career, but it never was just about money to me. It was about the art.

27:28It was about the fact that I wrote and God gave me a talent, and I think he wanted me to make the most of it. So I'm out there, and I feel like I touch people. I feel like I make a difference. I feel like I can write songs for people that can't express themselves. So I really think I'm helping. Margaret Tulliv, what do you think made Dolly Parton so appealing to so many different kinds of people in this divided, disparate, and fractious country of ours? I mean, first of all, that she had this incredible voice and that the voice itself was a tool. It was a real emotional tool of communication. Second, her own biography.

28:06I mean, she was poor. She made her own life. And the third is that she really didn't wear her politics on her sleeves. And The Washington Post headline this week, I'm paraphrasing, but I think it said, like, United States of Dolly, is this the last bipartisan icon? She managed to take issues like women's rights, LGBTQ freedom to marry, and make these issues that resonated across Democrats, Republicans. President Trump is flying the flags at half-staff. And, you know, 20 years ago, everyone was talking about Dolly Parton's boobs. Nobody is talking about that anymore. more literacy, uniting a divided country.

28:46It's incredible. We talked to book critic Ron Charles this week about another element that Margaret just alluded to, Dolly Parton's legacy. Listen. I don't think you can name anyone else who has done more for literacy in America than Dolly Parton, which is kind of surprising because we think of her as this great country singer, but then there's this whole other legacy. 330 million books, that's just astronomical. And the program still goes on. It's for everyone birthed to five years old. That means by the time you go to kindergarten, you've got a library of 60 books. There is so much research to prove that having books in the house, reading to kids early, makes a tremendous difference in their literacy and their economic success and their economic success later in life.

29:27But what Dolly knew is that it's about pleasure. It's about dreaming. It's about imagination. It's not about eat your peas. Megan Scully. Well, I have three boys, so I have 180 books in my house thanks to Dolly Parton. And the oldest one who started high school yesterday, I still remember him walking off to daycare holding a book from the Imagination Library. And that will always be a big memory of mine. Elena Schneider, I've met your kids. Do they have Dolly books too? We have Dolly books in our house and I have a kindergartner. So I got this letter in the mail and it's going to make me cry, but I'm going to read a little bit of it.

30:02So this is from Dolly. My, how time flies. Oh God. It seems like only yesterday when your family and friends read you your first story. You were just a baby. Now you're five years old and about to go to school. How exciting. This may be your last book from my imagination, a library, but you have to promise me you will keep on reading. We're keeping that one. Here's Dolly. A little sparrow. I am just the broken dream. Of a cold, false-hearted lover And his evil cunning scheme Little spell, little spell Precious, fragile little thing Little spell, little spell Flies so high, feels no way This message comes from Grainger.

31:03This is the story of the one. As a procurement manager for a hospital system, she keeps every facility in her network stocked and ready. That's why she counts on Grainger to be her single source for thousands of products, from disinfectants to lighting, air filters, and more. And with fast, dependable delivery, Grainger helps her keep every facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. This season on Planet Money Summer School, we have drilled for oil in Norway, we've smuggled products into North Korea, and now we make it to our seventh continent, Antarctica.

31:44That's right, speak for me. Mr. Penguin, speak for me. That's another sound of Antarctica. That's a reporter trying to interview a penguin. We'll explain on Planet Money Summer School. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. As we mourn the loss of the great Dolly Parton, it feels good to listen back to her reflecting on her life and to hear some of her Dolly-isms. I always say that it's a good thing I was a woman because if I'd have been a man, I would have been a drag queen just because I'm so damn gaudy. We've dropped the Dolly Fresh Air interview on the NPR app and wherever you listen to podcasts.

32:23Welcome back. It's 1A. I'm Todd Zwilling. It's like, Elena Schneider, we're all still reeling from what you had to say about what Dolly wrote to your kids. Nobody's recovered from it during the break. She's a special person. And I think part of what I think makes her so magical is her ability to remind us that we are all children, that we all start as children, and that that's what's really beautiful in this world. Well, we want to thank you for bringing that to us. Thanks for sharing that. Okay. Every week here on the Roundup, the news quiz. We don't want to deprive you of that. Last week, we asked about former Major League Baseball pitcher Tommy John.

33:02His name became synonymous with an innovative elbow surgery in 1974. It's performed on Tommy for the first time. It's helped thousands of pitchers, some of them way too young to be getting Tommy John surgery, but nevertheless, ever since then. And we asked you, how many seasons did Tommy John pitch after that career-saving surgery extended his career? The answer, 14 seasons in the major leagues. Congrats to our winner, Michael Sachs from Loveland, Colorado. Michael, your 1A swag is on the way. Right there in a red heart-shaped hot air balloon from right there in Loveland along the front range in Colorado.

33:39Now this week's question, we talked about the death of legendary country singer Dolly Parton. And of course, this week, tributes have been remarkable, including Fleuram, Elena Schneider, and our guests around the table. They've been pouring in from everywhere, including this somewhat surprising one.

34:05Our audio question this week, who is playing Dolly's hit 9 to 5 there, and where are they playing it? Here's your hint. They were wearing some very famous red outfits during this performance. Send us your answers via our app, 1A Vox Pop. We're accepting answers through Sunday evening. No help from Google, no searching, no AI. Use that brain and good luck. OK, get back to the news roundup now. Margaret Tollev from Syracuse and Axios is here. Megan Scully, Congress editor at Bloomberg and Elena Schneider, national political reporter at Notice. Let's turn to some major tech news out this week, also from the courts.

34:45Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, of course, has settled with 47 states, U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, for up to almost$18 billion. This is a landmark settlement. It follows lawsuits over allegations that the company endangered children with addictive social media platforms. There's been a lack of regulation when it comes to social media. These kinds of lawsuits have been filling the gap in the meantime. Earlier this week, we spoke to historian Jill Lepore about tech companies and regulation. The argument that regulation stifles innovation is presented by these companies as a kind of eternal, timeless truth.

35:24In fact, it's kind of equal parts marketing campaign and political slogan. You can find our conversation with Jill Lepore on our website. It's at the1a.org. Margaret Tolliv, so up to$18 billion in settlement. It's gigantic. Met has also agreed to make a bunch of changes to their products. What kind of changes? Yeah, and my little one is 22 now. If she was still ages 13 to 17, I would be super dialed in on this because it takes over young people's lives for those years in middle school and the early parts of high school. So here are some of the changes. One is it is supposedly going to impose a two-hour daily time limit for that age group, ages 13 to 17, for those meta platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

36:07There would be a night mode that supposedly, although there are some carve-outs, would make those apps not usable between midnight and 6 a.m. when kids should be sleeping. A school mode so that kids are less distracted during school time hours. and also supposedly only the parents can adjust the settings. I don't know if you parents believe that that's true. There's a big question about the algorithmic feed. It does give teens the ability to opt out of an algorithmic feed, but it still defaults to the algorithm. The algorithm is a big problem. I actually hear a lot of young people wonder out loud, what if I chose my own media other than the algorithm choosing it?

36:48So they may try to here, but it won't be automatic. it also is going to give states a lot of money. So it could be a financial boon for states, but it's really like a teeny tiny, if you think about what Meta is, it's a one and a half trillion with a T. Second quarter, Meta took in$60 billion in revenue. This settlement is maybe$18 billion. That's right. And so there are obviously questions about like, this is what it's promising to do. Will it really do all these things? So there's an An independent auditor is supposedly going to review those changes and try to keep this on track, but we'll see.

37:22Megan Scully, concerns widespread, not just in the United States, all over the place. Addictive platforms, psychological effects on children without warnings about the addiction of the products. This has reminded a lot of people of the tobacco settlements of the 1990s. This is one case, but there are still thousands of others and not just meta, right? We're talking TikTok, Snap, YouTube, right? So where does this fit in? Well, Meta, sort of one unusual part of this settlement was that Meta's sort of incentivized to get other platforms like YouTube and TikTok on board with a lot of these restrictions.

38:01And they, despite the fact that Meta has campaigned against bills, lobbied against bills, such as the Kids Online Safety Act, they're now finding themselves on the other side of the coin here, trying to get their competitors to get on board with these restrictions. Whether or not they do remains to be seen. But as Margaret said, you know, the real effect of this when you're looking at this subset of 13 to 17-year-olds, you know, my own 14-year-old, I long for the days he was carrying an Imagination Library book. And, you know, they're pretty skilled at getting around these things. So there are a lot of doubts.

38:42We talked to one analyst this week who called this pretty weak sauce. And that$18 billion, we should also say, is not exactly a lump sum payment up front. I understand that is to be spent over 10 years, sort of weakening it even further. And it's$12 billion to start. It only goes to$18 if other companies pony up and join the settlement. That's how Meta is sort of protecting itself in the market. Okay, there's another case we have to talk about. We're still in federal court. or at least we thought we were in federal court, Elena Schneider, the Department of Justice was poised to launch a legal battle, a major antitrust case against the world's biggest concert promoter.

39:20We're talking about Live Nation. But then, reporting this week, said President Trump told a senior DOJ official to settle that case, essentially to back off. That's according to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal. What was this trial supposed to be about? Sure. So this was a case that was originally brought during the Biden administration. And they looked at Live Nation and Ticketmaster. And as we all remember, those of us who attempted to go to Taylor Swift's heirs tour, there was all kinds of issues in terms of trying to get access to those tickets. And there's really been some fury within the American consumer base about how this company that has sort of gotten a monopoly, essentially, of live events and concerts.

40:02And so they were looking to break it up. And when Trump came into office, he initially sort of signaled that he was interested in keeping up the pressure on this effort. But then as this case has sort of continued to meander on and they've been trying, you know, Live Nation has been trying to negotiate with DOG about a settlement just, I believe, days, if not a day before they were supposed to go to trial. There was a meeting between Live Nation CEO and Donald Trump. and Donald Trump came out of that meeting, even though the Wall Street Journal and its excellent reporting, I want to also note this wasn't sort of expressly a meeting for the purposes of this trial.

40:38But nonetheless, out of it came this directive from the president to say, figure this out. And that's in fact what happened. Donald Trump campaigned in part on high ticket prices, high concert prices, scalping. He mentioned it in the campaign. Do we know why Margaret Toll if he would have told his government now to drop this major case? Oh, God, no. Look, I just think Trump is, Trump's not a regulatory, he genuinely fundamentally believes that if that less regulation is good for his politics and his brand and his supporters and his political allies. And I think that's some of what we're seeing here.

41:21All right, let's turn to another area of policy where the president and his administration know exactly what they think. We're talking about immigration. This time we're talking about legal immigration, people with authorization to be in the United States. The Trump administration announced the largest visa revocation in U.S. history this week, potentially targeting 200 ,000 foreign citizens in the United States on business and tourism visas who've either applied or in the process of applying for asylum. They include people from all across the economy, including professional baseball players who I saw this week.

41:57No stone is left unturned here. Margaret Taleb, what are the broader implications of this move? What's going on here? We hear so much about illegal immigration, illegal immigrants in the pejorative. We're talking about documented people here being kicked out of the country. Yeah, this particular subset, and it is huge. Like you said, it's 200 ,000 people. These are people who came into the U.S. on B-1 and B-2 visas. These are visas either for business or for tourism. And then once they were in the United States, sought to apply for asylum to stay more permanently. And the administration's argument has been, well, the threshold is much easier for a business or a tourism visa.

42:36You shouldn't be able to use this to, like, sneak in. But the other reality is that for a lot of people, it is easier to leave your country on a business or tourism visa and then say, hey, I need political asylum. than it is to flee, hang out at the Mexico border. You know, it's just this is it's not necessarily intended to trick the U.S. It is intended for many people as a way to get out of their country. And this comes amid a multifaceted effort by the administration to block visas, reverse visas, slow down visas. You're seeing, you know, this call right now for a total halt on visa interviews for applicants in progress.

43:21For people, as we say, coming here, the quote, the right way. That's a buzzword in immigration. These are people doing it the right way. Yes. And it's also agreed. There was a judgment last week out of a federal court blocking an administration plan that was going to block visas from 75 countries. So the administration is throwing a lot of things at the wall trying to make some of them stay. Another milestone this week in the immigration crackdown, ICE arrested nearly 50 ,000 people in July alone. That's a record-breaking number according to newly released government data. It's also the first month that a majority of people arrested by ICE did not have any criminal record at all.

43:59It's the biggest month for ICE arrests in Trump's second term. Elena Schneider, what does this say about how the administration is changing or pushing its approach now? Yeah, it's taking a markedly different approach to how it wants to deport more people. If you remember back in January, we were all staring at cable news coverage of, you know, these really moving videos of protests and obviously then the two killings of two American citizens in Minnesota in efforts as they tried to push back on those ICE efforts. I mean, look, there was not only those like very intense confrontations with protesters, but also these sizzle reels or these, you know, ways in which Kristi Noem, then the DHS secretary and Bovino, her deputy, that they were trying to sort of make this look cool.

44:43And they were turning this into, you know, trying to push a PR campaign around this to inject it into the conversation. Now that Kristi Noem has left DHS, Mark Wain-Mullen is leading the department. There's a very different approach, which is to do it quietly, is to do it in targeted ways. There still have been people killed in ICE custody. So I don't mean to say that there aren't still those really horrific incidents. But nonetheless, they are happening. They're attempting to make it happen at a much quieter level and not draw media attention, not draw protester attention. because they realized that that was not ultimately a very effective way of moving forward with their agenda.

45:22It's a very interesting point, Margaret, that Elena makes, which is record arrests, 50 ,000 people handcuffed by ICE. We're just not hearing as much about it in the media coverage as we were back over the winter, of course, when Americans were also killed in the streets. Yeah, that's right. And I think that was sort of a peak and a turnaround point. The president's base is still tremendously concerned about immigration. For many American voters in the middle, it is a real concern. But right now, affordability and the economy are by far the dominant concern. It's hard to get immigration back in the news.

45:55And sometimes the administration wants to, sometimes it doesn't. Well, I want to thank this great panel for being around the table with us today. You're all regulars on the show. We love having you here. We love what you bring to the table. And I love seeing your faces every couple of weeks around the table as well. So thanks for being here. Margaret Tollef, senior contributor for Axios and director of Syracuse University's Institute for Democracy, Journalism, and Citizenship, the trifecta. Margaret, thank you. Thanks, Todd. Megan Scully, Congress editor at Bloomberg, and Elena Schneider, national political reporter for News of the United States.

46:28Again, thanks for bringing us those great stories about Dolly Parton and your family, Elena. Well, now I'll just go quietly crying at home about my kindergartner. Thanks for bringing that to us and for making us quietly cry. All right, we're going to shift gears and bring you a new panel and news from around the world. Before we do that, we want to say goodbye to another iconic performer who we lost this week, an actor of stage, TV, movies whose career spanned nearly 50 years. It's Tim Curry. On the day I went away Goodbye was all I had to say. Tim Curry got his start in London's West End with Hair.

47:17That was 1968. After that, a career with hundreds of credits. In movies alone, Home Alone 2, Clue, The Hunt for Red October, so much more. He was in cartoons. He was on TV shows. He terrified 90s kids as Pennywise in the TV adaptation of It. Well, I think it's terribly important when you're playing bad guys to make them... I mean, I think you have to be the guy they love to hate, you know? And the fact is that, you know, all of us would like to behave badly. All of us would like to behave, you know, in an underhanded way, perhaps. All of us would like to have the kind of power that bad guys have.

47:55And, of course, Tim Curry brought to life the baddest, the naughtiest bad guy of them all. Dr. Frankenfurter, the evil and very, very randy alien scientist of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tim Curry inspired millions of fans who saw him strut and seduce Brad and Janet over and over and over again. Fans, including me, if you couldn't tell, I remember where I was and what I was doing the very first time I saw Dr. Frankenfurter come down that elevator, stomping in his heels. Tim Curry died this week. He was 80 years old. We'll be right back. I'm going home

48:45I'm going home

48:55I'm going home

49:07This message comes from Grainger. This is the story of The One. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. I'm Todd Zwillick. It's the international half of our weekly news roundup.

49:46President Trump is escalating a campaign of economic warfare on Iran, where military action has failed to end the conflict so far, but also against Canada, which it appears is in no mood to back down. We also have news on the director of the CIA who made a surprise visit and carried a warning to Moscow. But we begin the hour on the border of Nepal and Tibet, where rescue teams and military helicopters are searching for hundreds of missing people along that mountainous border. On Wednesday, of course, a catastrophic landslide unleashed water and ice and mud several stories high that swallowed entire communities.

50:28The landslide was triggered by a glacier collapse upstream from those communities. I saw around nine trucks being swept away by the floods, including people. It's a heartbreaking incident. I've been teaching here for 18 years, and I've never seen anything like this here before. Videos of the disaster are harrowing. They show hundreds of people running as floodwaters swept them away, washed out thousands of buildings and bridges. More than 500 people were killed, according to authorities in Nepal and China. More than 1 ,300 remain missing now, including hundreds of foreigners and pilgrim visitors to holy sites around the area.

51:07I want to bring in Saurabh Sharma, Reuters correspondent who joins us now from Nepal's capital, Kathmandu. Saurabh, what's the latest on the ground? Can you give us a sense of how things stand with rescue efforts? Hi, so things are pretty bad here. The rescue is in full swing. Today the rescue had to be halted because there was a warning that the lake on the upper Tibet region was overflowing. And there was a warning issued saying that the water can come anytime. But fortunately it didn't happen. So the latest that we know is that the death toll in this tragedy has climbed to 579 and still 1924 people are missing.

51:55And this includes 622 tourists from over 30 countries. This is what we know so far. And what we have seen on the ground is people digging the debris to find their loved ones, to find their valuables. and rescue forces trying to bring in, save every single soul from the upper regions, which are not connected via road now. I wanted to ask you about transit and communication to some of these villages in remote areas. What is the state of isolation in many of these places now? so the communication is just restoring the communication uh it's still patchy in some of the areas but communication in the areas which are accessible by road uh is pretty much restored but we do not know what has happened upside because we really can't reach the affected villages the first of the villages which were swept away in those flash floods and in terms of transit, it's the only way to, helicopters are the only way to reach there.

53:10So, Rab, a glacier collapse is believed to be the cause of this disaster, as we mentioned. Why is this area especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides of this kind?

53:24See, this area falls, the actual place where this happened was in Nepal's territory, and it is also a home to dozens of hydropower projects. So experts have different arguments that it was triggered by a climate change event. Some say it happened because of the construction activities there. But we still do not know the actual cause behind it. But yeah, Himalayas are very young mountains, so they are prone to such events. We have seen similar tragedies in India, I believe in Pakistan as well, last year. That's Reuters correspondent Saurabh Sharma joining us from Kathmandu. Saurabh, thank you so much.

54:10Thank you. This is a rapidly moving story, a developing story. For the very latest, you can go to npr.org. We have a great panel to take us through the rest of the hour, not only from Nepal, but from around the world. Emily Tampkin is here, freelance writer and reporter, contributing columnist at The Forward. Her forthcoming book is about Holocaust consciousness. Emily, great to have you at the table. Great to be here. Thanks. Akbar Shahid Ahmed is a diplomatic correspondent at Notice, that's News of the United States. Also an upcoming book, Crossing the Red Line, Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza.

54:46Hi, Akbar. Thanks for having me, Todd. And a familiar voice on the line, Greg Karlstrom, Middle East correspondent at The Economist. Greg, welcome back. Thanks for having me, Todd. As always, you can email your questions and comments about the week's international news 1A at wamu.org. We just heard about the devastation in this river valley below an apparent glacier collapse on the border between Nepal and China. Akbar, there have been other similar, not as catastrophic incidents in Pakistan and other places in the Himalayas as glaciers crack up and melt. It's too soon to assign direct causes.

55:24But climate change and warming is already part of this conversation because a two or three thousand foot chunk of ice broke free and plummeted thousands of feet. And ice only melts when it's getting warmer. Right. And it's interesting to talk because I'm from Pakistan myself. I can tell you from that country and similarly in the region, part of the effect of this kind of warming has been that suddenly places are much more accessible, right? So our colleague online was talking about hydropower. There's also increased tourism, increased development, increased building in a lot of these very fragile contexts, right, where there haven't been people amassing in these ways before.

56:02And are there the emergency resources and the infrastructure to support them then? We're going to continue to follow this story. As I mentioned, you can go to npr.org to follow the story as it develops. All right, let's move around the world as we do every weekend. Let's start up north with a war, a trade war this time that's heating up after talks collapsed this week between the United States and, yes, Canada. On Monday, the president announced the United States is slapping Canada with a 50 % tariff on$20 billion worth of Canadian goods. We're talking Canadian liquor, lumber, electronics, diamonds, even cosmetics, hockey sticks, you name it.

56:43The president also said Canada needs the United States, not the other way around, adding that they're among the worst nations in the world to deal with, in his view. Here's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubling down on that claim. They were offered quite a good deal last week. They chose to reject it. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Carney rose to power on an anti-American, anti-Trump platform. I believe he was more than 20 points behind. And, you know, he seems to have gone back to his old playbook. And I think one has to ask oneself, is he trying to benefit himself, the Liberal Party or the Canadian people?

57:20Well, Canadian lawmakers responded right away, announcing a matching of U.S. tariffs, quote, dollar for dollar, rate for rate, a range of exports from the United States effective September 8th, Canadian politicians are fighting back at every level. I'm asking British Columbians, if you have a choice, please don't travel to the United States. Choose another place to do your tourism. If you can choose a Canadian product instead of an American one, please choose it. Right now, Canadian workers from coast to coast to coast need our support. with 50 % tariffs imposed by the president on many products by being our own best customer.

58:02We can help respond and support Canadians in every corner of this amazing country we call home. That's the premier of British Columbia speaking to Canadians at home there. Emily Temkin, Canada and the U.S. exchanged$872 billion of goods and services in 2025, an enormously beneficial relationship for both countries. What is each side trying to achieve here now that this has reached such a confrontation? The Canadians have been extremely straightforward about what they're trying to achieve. They're trying to not be bullied by a president who, as they have said, his signature is written in pencil, right?

58:39So they don't want to be pushed around and they don't want to be taken for a ride and they don't want to agree to a deal that's going to be torn up the next day. And the Treasury Secretary can say whatever he wants about partisan agenda, but the Prime Minister of Canada is something like 16, 17. His approval rating is something like 16, 17 approval rating points higher than Trump's. And the opposition party may not like him, but from Ontario to British Columbia and in the opposition, in the party in power, they are united on this point, which is that they do not want Canada to be pushed around by the United States.

59:09That's something that Canadian voters and Canadian people agree with. This is anecdotal. But I spent my childhood in Toronto, and I can tell you that my friends there, my family's friends there, they're not coming to the United States. They take it very seriously. There is a clear narrative that Mark Carney can give to the American, to give to the Canadian people. Trump's message to the American people as to why we're doing this, I mean, you have as much insight as I do as to, you know, what the end goal is here. Greg Karlstrom, Mark Carney is making a show of standing up to the United States.

59:40He knows that the world is watching, and I'm curious of your view from outside the country, from where you are in the Middle East. Well, he's getting a fair amount of support from countries around the world. I mean, there's a talk in Europe about whether they too should take a more sort of muscular approach to these kinds of trade wars with the U.S. following in Carney's footsteps. There's been some praise in China. You've had state-run media there talking about this as if it was a Chinese-style counterattack. They were saying on Carney's part, pushing back on the U.S. They've been supportive.

1:00:17I think in the Middle East, listen, no one is surprised to discover that Donald Trump is an unreliable ally and that deals with him are not worth much. I mean, they've learned that lesson over the past six months, especially here in the Gulf where I am. But I think it just adds to their sense of despair at the moment as they wait to see whether Trump is going to negotiate a deal with Iran. Their future depends to no small extent on whether America can do that. And meanwhile, they're watching America have yet another round of trade war with a close American ally. I think it's very discouraging for them here in the Gulf.

1:00:52Akbar, you've been talking to Canadian diplomats about how this deal fell apart, what their motivations seem to be. What have you learned? The reporting is quite stunning, Todd, because Canadians really felt they were walking into a negotiation with Donald Trump and his team, people like Howard Latnik, that might finally be in good faith. I mean, this has been an issue over a year and a half. However, they came so, so close. What I heard from good diplomatic sources is that they felt they were almost at a deal until the second the White House suddenly walked away, the president started to make threats publicly.

1:01:27And that's been the pattern. So even if we're looking at how we get out of this crisis now, which is really important economically to both countries, including the U.S., the Canadians feel they have no good faith partner on the other side, no reliability, no trust. How do we move forward out of that? Well, there's the trade war and there's the messaging war here. On Thursday, President Trump said he was changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America by executive order. This evokes the move previously to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Mark Carney, the PM of Canada, had some things to say about that.

1:02:03And here's the vice president, J.D. Vance, in Maine on Tuesday. We have to remember, Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident. Canada is a country that has underinvested in its military that quite literally would get invaded by a foreign country were it not for the umbrella of protection provided by the United States of America. And so how does Emily Tampkin, the vice president trolling the Canadians there? You mentioned the different political situations in Canada and the U.S. The president of the United States right now is at about 33 percent approval in this country.

1:02:44Mark Carney at about 60 percent. I read one poll that said 76 percent of Canadians supported walking away from the trade deal with the Americans. And it's important to remember Mark Carney was elected because the other party, the conservatives in Canada, were deemed to be viewed to be too close to Donald Trump. They had a lead in the polls, something like 25 points. that evaporated when Donald Trump got elected and started insulting Canada. There's a lot of politics behind this that don't tell me that the Canadians are in any mood to capitulate here. No, and so as I said, there's, and as you just said, there's a very clear message that Canadian voters and the Canadian people really understand, which is we are tired of this.

1:03:29Like, as Akbar was saying, it's you move us here, you move us there, enough. We're going to buy Canadian. We're not going to go to the United States. It's going to be really hard, but we're going to do it for our country, which is not a state. What is the message to the American people? Are we doing this for the glory of another joke about renaming a body of water to be America? Right. Is it, you know, maybe Trump gets lucky and the American voters still don't understand or care that tariffs are a tax that we, the American consumers, are paying. But it's possible that they go to the store, they go to buy a car, they go to buy a house.

1:03:58And oh, my goodness, all of a sudden, everything is so much more expensive. And what do we get from it? The vice president can make a funny joke about Canada being a state. We got this note from Charles who says the root cause for this conflict, as well as most others, is the fact that Canada, as well as other countries, have had protectionist trade barriers and tariffs on American products for a decade. Why are those policies okay as long as those tariffs are on American products, but it's not okay for us to reply in kind with tariffs in return? Greg Karlstrom, I wonder if you have any insight into Charles' thought there.

1:04:33Well, I think because what we've seen with Donald Trump, not only in this trade dispute with Canada, but in so many of these trade wars that he has picked around the world, is that it's not just a dispute about tariff levels. That would be a perfectly legitimate thing for the U.S. and Canada to negotiate. And yes, for the U.S. to take reciprocal measures if negotiations didn't succeed. But you listen to Mark Carney, for example, talk about these negotiations, and he said one of the demands that the Americans threw out at the 11th hour was insisting that Canada water down some of the protections that it has around the French language as the second official language of Canada.

1:05:13That has absolutely nothing to do with a dispute over mutual tariff rates. So it's not just the trade dispute. This comes back to much bigger things that really have no place in these sorts of negotiations. We're going to keep an eye on this story as it develops. By the way, Jen talked to Nick Taylor-Vasey in Ottawa for Politico earlier this week, and you can find that conversation at the1a.org. Well, let's pick up on these new economic sanctions announced on another country this week. There's a trade war against Canada and a new economic war against Iran. Here's U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant again.

1:05:53Today, at President Trump's direction, the United States Treasury has begun Operation Economic Outcast, an unprecedented campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers. Akbar Besant issued a warning to foreign governments and companies saying that they could lose access to U.S. financial markets and systems if they continue doing business with Iran. This week, he didn't mention China. Last week, he did. What's Iran's response been so far to Operation Economic Outcast and what kind of pressure, if any, is this putting on a potential end somewhere to this conflict in the Persian Gulf?

1:06:34The U.S. vision here is really looking at kind of secondary sanctions. So you mentioned China, people who are still trading with Iran, who the Iranians rely on. However, there are so many kind of mitigating factors. So for instance, President Trump has clearly shown he doesn't want to upset Xi Jinping. He has a looming summit with him. So when you see these U.S. sanctions go against targets in Hong Kong, targets in China, it's not going to be enough in any real way to change China's relationship with Iran. The Chinese have been quite clear on that. they don't want to capitulate. From the Iranian side, yes, you're seeing the real plummet to new lows.

1:07:09And the Iranian people, of course, have been immiserated throughout this war, right? Their livelihoods, their plans for the future, and their physical safety are totally in question. However, six months into this war, where it was initially framed as a liberation effort for Iranians to get overcome an oppressive regime and have a better life, the US doesn't have a sort of convincing message to Iranians, right? It can't topple the regime at all, and nor has it shown real concern for whether it's human rights violations or the economic prospects of Iranians. So the kind of return to this U.S. vision of we'll bully the Iranian people into somehow accepting our frame, I don't know that it's going to change the course of the war in the way officials are promising.

1:07:51Greg Karlstrom, can you help us understand this new economic pressure if it's designed and calibrated, as Akbar says, to not anger the Chinese too much. And they're the number one trading partner of Iran right now, a lot of their oil and other products. And we've already been sanctioning Iran, of course, for decades and decades, that's nothing new. What's new here? How effective is it designed to be? And that's the irony of this. Donald Trump went to war with Iran in February because decades of sanctions failed to produce the sort of behavioral change that American presidents wanted from the Iranian government.

1:08:29And now six months later, he's turning back to sanctions because the war also failed to produce that sort of behavioral change. And I think these sanctions, if you don't really go all out with China, they are not going to be terribly effective. And as Akbar said, if you do that, a number of negative things will happen in return, not just the cancellation of the summit next month, but China taking reciprocal measures, perhaps cutting off supplies of critical minerals, things like that. So it's hard to imagine the US or any president, not just Donald Trump, any president, really going after major Chinese banks, Chinese refiners, etc., with sanctions.

1:09:10The other key actor in this is the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, which trades extensively with Iran, which has for a long time served as Iran's sort of economic lung, its outlet to the world and has helped it access the global financial system. The UAE, which has been targeted thousands of times by Iran over the past six months, did say earlier this month that it was cutting off economic ties with Iran. They made that announcement, I think, to preempt the U.S. announcement of secondary sanctions. But we have to see what that means in practice. I mean, the UAE has a very opaque financial system, and they might say that they're severing ties with Iran, but Iran is very adept at using shell companies and other sort of deniable ways to continue doing business in the UAE.

1:09:59And so, again, if you don't get either China or the UAE to meaningfully downgrade their economic relations with Iran, this is just going to be an incremental toughening of the sanctions that were already in place for many, many years. And I don't think it's going to produce a real change in Iran's approach to negotiations with the United States. I think it's important to remember that historically the U.S. has used discretion in sanctioning and in dealing with sanctions evasion exactly for the reasons that Akbar and Greg just described, which is that this is not the only U.S. foreign policy goal, right?

1:10:34If you go all out in sanctioning or punishing the evasion of sanctions with the Chinese, so a major company or a government official, there are other foreign policy consequences for that. Sanctions are a tool that in order to work, you require a clear goal. You need to know how you're going to use the tool, and you need to be consistent in the application of that tool. This goes back to what we were speaking about with Canada, which is—and really with the Trump foreign policy more generally. There has been no consistency. And so not only is there this wariness to face the repercussions for major sanctions, but if you do and China does not cooperate with those sanctions, which they didn't in the Obama administration as the table was set for the JCPOA with sanctions, right?

1:11:12China did not cooperate with that. Then what are you going to do, and will you be consistent? Meanwhile, a ton of shuttle diplomacy away from banking back in the Strait of Hormuz. You know we were going to return to the Strait of Hormuz before this discussion was over. Shuttle diplomacy all week long. The Qataris, the Omanis, Pakistan is involved. Of course, the foreign minister of Iran back and forth visiting with counterparts in other countries. This week, Iran and Oman have say they've reached a revenue-sharing agreement on future tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. And Akbar, it wasn't too long ago that President Trump made threats in response to these ongoing talks, including a pledge to bomb Oman if that country gets in the way.

1:11:56What now? It wasn't that long ago, Todd, on February 27th when there was no prospect of tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, right? Because that was just how it operated. I don't think President Trump's threats towards Oman are substantive in that way. Oman is a longstanding U.S. and Western partner. But what it reflects is the ongoing anguish and frustration among Trump administration officials, senior officials. I spoke with someone quite high up in the State Department earlier this week about this, this sense of they don't know the way out. And so what they're doing now is a little bit trying to message their way out.

1:12:33Right. We've seen the Trump administration this week while this shuttle diplomacy is going on. The countries and others are trying to reach a real deal. What the Trump administration has been busy with doing is saying, actually, the street is open, you know, and sort of messaging to reporters and pushing that out through friendly outlets. That's a dubious claim, right? And it's certainly not a claim that shippers, that people whose lives are the oil markets don't believe it. Prices are still elevated. Precisely. So but that's where the Trump administration is. And I'll just add, you know, Emily's astute point about how any specific policy has to be seen in the broader context of a U.S.

1:13:07president's approach. U.S. partners are looking at this while also knowing that the Trump administration is simultaneously pursuing really kind of self-interested policies. You saw the UAE, which Greg mentioned, investing again in World Liberty Financial, Bitcoin with Coffin and Trump. So is it about national interest or corruption? And then you see kind of insane Trump measures like trying to take part of national parks out. My colleagues at Notice reported that Mount Rushmore may get slightly pulled back because the Trump administration wants to give a road to a private developer. So if you're looking at the broader picture of Trump policy, what is it driven by?

1:13:44Friends and family of the president or particular strategic goals for the United States? And foreign governments are watching and entering this into their calibration as they try to suss out what the Americans are really about now. That's Akbar Shahid Ahmed from Notice. Greg Karlstrom is here from The Economist and Emily Tampkin, freelance reporter, columnist at The Forward. Well, we cover Russia and Ukraine pretty much every week here on The Roundup. But this week, whatever was going on in Moscow was a big enough deal to get the director of the CIA to drop everything and fly there. Personally, John Ratcliffe's trip wasn't officially announced.

1:14:23The Pentagon declined to comment. Kremlin spokesperson acknowledged the visit, however. There were contacts between the special services. I can tell you that there were no meetings with the president of Russia. Now, the last time a CIA chief went to Moscow, as far as we know anyway, was back in 2021 when William Burns warned Putin not to attack Ukraine. We know how that worked out. Greg Karlstrom, what do we know about this trip? There's been some varying reporting that Ratcliffe had a message not to infiltrate or try to attack NATO, that no, it was about the Russia-Ukraine war. Maybe it was about those things and more.

1:15:00What do we know about why the CIA director flew to Moscow personally? It was certainly an emergency. Right. It's all a bit murky. As you say, some of the reporting has emphasized the warnings not to attack NATO countries. Some of it has suggested that Ratcliffe went with a message to tell the Russians that they were losing the war in Ukraine and needed to make some sort of peace deal there. There's also been reporting that Iran came up in their conversation, that the CIA director went there to urge the Russians to distance themselves from Iran to stop providing military support, intelligence support, other forms of aid for Iran's war in the Gulf.

1:15:47We don't know exactly what they discussed. It's possible, it's probably likely that all of these things came up at some point in the conversation. But I think the NATO part of it is a real concern for America's allies in Europe. I mean, if you look at what we've seen over the past few months, you had Romanian fighter jets that shot down drones in July. There was this bizarre incident earlier this month with an explosive-laden drone that was found at an airport in Germany, which is an important logistics hub for NATO. So there are some indications that Russia, not overtly, it's not probably preparing a ballistic missile barrage against the European capital, but in some sort of gray zone hybrid warfare way, is planning to carry out an attack, perhaps hoping it will be a deniable one on a NATO country.

1:16:43Let me get Emily Tamkin here briefly, also reporting that Putin might think the United States and NATO are weak because interceptors and other weapons are running low. Right, because – I mean, one, because of the war in Ukraine, but two, because the United States is bogged down in this war with Iran, right, and so depleting itself militarily there. And I agree with Greg that it's not going to be like the storming of Vilnius, but you might see activity on the border of Ukraine in one of these countries. Probing attacks. Exactly. You might see seizure of a European ship that's not marked as such.

1:17:16The sort of plausible deniability which the NATO country, these states are taking very, very seriously. We call them gray zone attacks, and they've happened in the past. A little bit of news about a Russian ally from a European war of another era. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, died in The Hague on Thursday while serving a life sentence for genocide. Milotic was convicted of genocide for orchestrating the killing of at least 8 ,000 Muslims in a UN-designated safe area during the Bosnian war. He was arrested in Serbia in 2011 after 16 years on the run.

1:17:56Now, continuing our weekly discussion about the war between Russia and Ukraine and how Russia might be looking for openings around NATO, as maybe Vladimir Putin perceives weakness among NATO allies. Meanwhile, Ukraine has a new strategy that we've talked about of its own, trying to bring the war in its country home to Russians. Ukraine's attacks on e-commerce hubs and energy infrastructure, they're causing major disruptions to people's lives inside of Russia. And this week, Vladimir Putin warned businesses that the government could seize control of critical companies if they don't keep things up and running themselves after attacks.

1:18:35Akbar, what kinds of economic pressures and pressures from a public, maybe tired of war, is Vladimir Putin in Russia facing right now? For Putin, there had been a sort of, not honeymoon period, but at least a sort of safe period where Russians were not feeling very affected by the war. And there was a narrative going around of despite unprecedented European and American sanctions, we're living our lives, we're shopping, all of that. That already began to change, Todd. earlier this year. You saw that Putin wasn't able to do his big World War II parade the way he wanted to, normally would have been able to.

1:19:09This sort of sense of triumphalism for the regime is not there. All of that said, simultaneously, you have the U.S. administration sometimes coming in and saying, we don't want Ukraine to do these infrastructure attacks, right? So sort of thwarting that approach and the Russians are quite aware that they can play that card. They're also quite aware of what I've been hearing this week kind of talking to people at the CIA director visit is there's also ruptures in the Western alliance that are so clear. So while Ratcliffe might go and sort of say, don't go hurt NATO, the Russians are also quite aware that, for instance, Five Eyes allies here in Washington, know they can't go to the State Department and the White House, they would in normal scenarios when they are concerned and aware.

1:19:52And the Five Eyes, by the way, of course, for people who don't know, is the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the US's closest allies, which support NATO very closely. We mentioned shortages in interceptors. Reports this week that American interceptors are at beyond critical levels was the quote in one AP report about American equipment after Ukraine and the war in Iran. Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine reports severe shortages of her own as Russian missile attacks continue on Kiev and across the country. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, glide bombs, jet-powered drones from Russia, all raining down on Ukraine.

1:20:31Ukrainian President Zelensky says the number of missiles and drones Ukraine is intercepting has plummeted. A barrage of missile attacks that occurred earlier this month, Ukraine didn't intercept a single one. We talk about American shortages, but Zelensky's talking about severe shortages, Emily, in Ukraine's ability to defend itself. Right. And it's, you know, Ukraine has gotten sort of sick to say good at war. But Ukraine, the improvements that they have made in fighting this war and defending their territory has been vast as the years have unfortunately gone on. But they are still, you know, they still depend on American, European equipment.

1:21:10And Russia has not gotten any worse at, say, targeting energy infrastructure, right, and at taking advantage of, you know, military and defensive shortages. All right. Let's leave Ukraine and Russia aside for the moment. I say this every week because we will be returning to this conflict in the weeks to come, unfortunately, but we will. There will be much more to talk about in the ongoing war from Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. And let's head to Gaza now because there were developments this week. On Wednesday, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, Nikolai Mladenov, told the United Nations Security Council that Israeli strikes are jeopardizing the ceasefire there and warned of a point of no return.

1:21:53If the ceasefire collapses and the strip spirals into another full escalation, there will be no roadmap to return to, there will be no administration to deploy, and there will be nothing left on the ground to rebuild. That would not be a setback. It would be a point of no return for everyone. Greg Karlstrom, this is the point person for the Board of Peace, Donald Trump's Board of Peace in Gaza. We talk about phase one and phase two so many times here and the inability of that plan to really get off the ground. But there's something notable here, which is Donald Trump's board of peace, the point man on it, criticizing Israel at the United Nations.

1:22:35How significant is this? What's going on here? Right. And in the sort of bizarro world of diplomacy, it is significant. This is someone, as you say, he heads a Trump-created board. He's not some anti-Israel ideologue. He's very close to the UAE, which is Israel's closest ally in the Middle East. So his criticism of Israeli conduct, you can read that as indicative of frustrations in Washington and amongst Israeli allies in the region. But, you know, that and four dollars will get you a cup of coffee. I mean, what is he or what is the U.S. or what are other countries actually prepared to do to put pressure on the Israelis to stop carrying out these sorts of strikes in Gaza?

1:23:21And, you know, when he talks about when we talk about phase one, phase two, this post-war roadmap, you know, again, you see this gulf between rhetoric and reality, where on paper, yes, Hamas and Israel have agreed to a disarmament plan, and there is now this technocratic government that is meant to be taking power in Gaza. But in reality, that government doesn't have any power yet. Hamas is not actually disarming. Israel is not withdrawing. It's continuing to carry out strikes in Gaza. And And it doesn't seem as if anyone from the outside is either able or willing to apply the sort of pressure that might compel either of those two parties to change their conduct.

1:24:01Akbar? To Greg's point about pressure, because that's the big question here, we're coming up on the third three-year anniversary of this war, right? And of the U.S. enabling this war from President Biden through to Trump. This has been the constant question, right? What are you allowing the Israelis to normalize? And when are you using your leverage? And whatever might happen with the Board of Peace, Phase 1, Phase 2, disarmament, what has been normalized is 2 million Palestinians living in unbelievable consequences, right? Living in unexploded ordnance, living where aid is conditioned and controlled.

1:24:35And U.S. officials consistently across a Democratic administration and now a Republican administration have never been able to kind of break that link between basic requirements under international law and human rights principles and that kind of strategic goals. Instead, they've led Israel, tie all of those issues together. And that's where, while Nikolai Mladenov and diplomats will say we're talking about disarmament, we're talking about transitional authorities, Palestinians will say, look at the broader picture of our lives. What are we being offered? Now, here is a picture of Palestinian life that we can look at from this week that also applies to Israeli security concerns.

1:25:14Israeli military issuing warnings against kite flying this week along the border of Gaza in Israel-U.S.-led border peace put in place by President Trump. They relayed the message to Hamas after Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, threatened to retaliate if kites, drones, or balloons took to the air in Gaza. Now, Hamas has used kites and balloons as incendiary devices in the past. In this case, parents in Gaza condemned this message. They have been deprived of education, which is the most essential pillar for children and for human beings. Should they even be deprived of this simple toy?

1:25:55The simplest toy that we can provide for them at the lowest cost, the Israeli army has banned from them. The simplest toy to bring a little bit of joy to a Palestinian child, Emily Tamkin. the Israeli army and its leadership will respond and have to say, the reality is that kites and balloons have been used as bombs in the past. That's what this is about. What's happening on the ground? You know, the Board of Peace put out a statement that sort of said, yes, we expect militants to stop, and that includes kite flying. And also, Israelis should also cooperate with the ceasefire. And I think that it's just important to note that there is a distinction between a hypothetical use and the real strikes that have killed real Palestinian children since the ceasefire has taken effect.

1:26:40So you're right to point out that, yes, they have been used before. Certainly since October 7th, Israel is sensitive about being this element of surprise. And at the same time, when we are talking about why the ceasefire might break and the lives that have already been taken during the ceasefire, we are not talking about children flying kites. We are talking about Israeli strikes. And if there are security concerns about incendiary devices on kites, and there are, what you were talking about, Akbar, a moment ago, regardless of the security concerns, as real as they may be, we are talking about daily life in Gaza for civilians, for children and regular people, and the war on their shoulders in a way that does get lost.

1:27:24And I'll bring people back to there are still fundamental basic responsibilities under a law of war, even if you are facing a militant group like Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are active in Gaza and did attack Israel. Absolutely, they did. Just two important notes here are that the Israeli army has shown it can show discretion and discrimination when it wants to. It doesn't have to target children who are flying kites, which leads to these really disturbing questions about, is that happening deliberately? Why have they, three years into this war, not been able to not hit children and instead hit militants?

1:27:56And then, of course, the broader question, as you have, again, Israelis say we have a security concern. Israel still occupies nearly 60 percent of Gaza. They have been in there for three years, and Hamas has not been defeated. So how are you addressing that militant threat? Greg Karlstrom, we talk about it all the time. Benjamin Netanyahu is up for re-election in October. What are his political motivations right now when it comes to domestic political consumption in Israel and an approach to Gaza and a ceasefire? And everything he is doing right now is about that election. Polls suggest it's going to be a difficult one.

1:28:32You look at the most recent surveys and his Likud party is polling well behind that of Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief, who is his main opponent. Eisenkot is also ahead of him in surveys asking, who do you think would be a more effective or reliable prime minister? Now, usual caveats about polling in Israel. What happens on election day can sometimes be quite different than what the surveys say. But for the moment, it looks like a tough election for Netanyahu. And he's trying to keep alive this state of constant war that has been the case for three years now so that he can try to make the case to Israeli voters that only I can keep you safe.

1:29:11And, you know, these soft lefties who are running against me can't do it. That's the only move that he has politically. At the same time, he can't totally break with Donald Trump. He can't totally be seen as torpedoing Trump's plan in Gaza, for example, because he's worried about what Donald Trump might do in response. And a rupture with Israel's closest ally going into an election is not good for Netanyahu. So he's trying to thread this needle. But what he is fundamentally interested in doing, again, is keeping a state of at least low-level conflict going because he thinks that is politically advantageous for him.

1:29:48Meanwhile, airstrikes continue in Gaza. On Monday, strikes hit a water plant, a mosque, several homes. According to local Palestinian medical authorities, those strikes killed at least seven people. They included civilians. They didn't mention fighters. At least two children wounded several others in those attacks. Meanwhile, the United States government is now designating the UK-based group Palestine Action as a terrorist group. The Treasury Department said it imposed new sanctions on that group. Now, last year, the UK banned support for Palestine Action under anti-terror legislation in that country.

1:30:24Akbar, this action in the UK has led to heated conversations over free speech and support for what the UK government and now the United States government say are at least terrorist-adjacent organizations. What do we know? So in the UK, this effort has been a huge matter of contention, especially under a center-left government, where a lot of their base is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. And so what the government does is really responsive to that. UK courts have upheld the idea that Palestine action does pose a threat to security. And you have seen instances of Palestine action, people going into arms factories, bludgeoning police officers, all of that.

1:31:01The broader question here, though, as we look at the Trump administration's move, is what are government's responses to a really genuine, deep and widespread backlash in their publics about three years of this policy that hasn't shifted? And I think that kind of question, the more you suppress the uproar, it's not being answered. One more piece of important news out of Gaza in Israel this week marks one year since Israel struck Gaza's Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunus. That attack killed 20 people, including five journalists with Reuters, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and other media outlets. Now, Israeli officials say they were targeting a Hamas camera position that was on the roof of that hospital.

1:31:43There's been an ongoing investigation by the Israeli army. Emily Tamkin, has anything come out of that investigation one year on in terms of answers or accountability for the attack? The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is that often when there are these attacks and deaths, there are calls for an international investigation. And the Israeli response is we conduct our own investigations. But rights groups have noted that this is not the first time that Israel has conducted a long investigation at the end of which there's no real answers. There's certainly no prosecution and there's no accountability for the families.

1:32:15And we should note that this has not been the only attack in Gaza that has been deadly for journalists over the course of this. We're going to round out the hour. We have a couple of moments just to get to your thoughts on stories in your notebook that you're thinking about, what you think should be on our radar. We just have time for one quick thought from each of you, what story you think we should be watching for next week. Greg Karlstrom, you go first. We'll see if anything comes from these talks between Iran and Oman. And so, as usual, I'll be watching the Strait of Hormuz. Emily. The cockroach movement, a movement of young people in India, has announced a march for their unmet demands in September.

1:32:51How does the government respond? The Democratic Party, as they try to regain power, talking about Israel on the campaign trail and looking back on Biden's record, which my book will discuss. It'll be out in September. And I want to highlight one story that Akbar mentioned briefly reporting in The Wall Street Journal this week. We've covered how World Liberty Financial wants to become a bank, how it now has gotten a charter from the Trump administration to actually become a bank. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that the largest stake in World Liberty Financial, the bank, 49%, has been bought by a holding company controlled by the intelligence chief of the United Arab Emirates.

1:33:27They call him the spy shake, and he now has a 49 % stake in Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial. Donald Trump, his sons, Steve Witkoff, and his sons. I want to thank our panelists this week, Emily Tamkin, freelance writer and reporter, contributing columnist at The Forward, Akbar Shahid Ahmed, diplomatic correspondent at Notice and author of the upcoming book Crossing the Red Line, Biden, his advisors in Israel's war in Gaza, and Greg Karlstrom, Middle East correspondent at The Economist. Thank you all for being with us this hour. We're going to leave you with the music of the great Dolly Parton, of course, who died this week at age 80.

1:34:04In the words of one fan who paid tribute this week, world, when you think of America, think of Dolly. Too often you see the world, you see the worst of us. Dolly Parton was the very best of us. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. Have a great weekend. Listen to some Dolly this weekend. She was the very best of us. This is 1A.

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1:35:36Oh, good question. This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air, and the questions are only the half of it. Listen to Fresh Air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.