Nepal-Tibet Flood Rescue, Fed Chair Speech, Kennedy Center Renaming Hearing

0:02Authorities in Nepal warn of a secondary flood after water swept away many buildings. Loved ones are waiting for news of more than a thousand people missing after water swept through valleys in Nepal and Tibet. I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez and this is Up First from NPR News. The head of the Federal Reserve gives a big speech at an annual Fed gathering in Wyoming. Last month, he promised to tackle inflation but offered few details, so investors want to know what he will actually do. And a federal judge heard arguments over putting President Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center. A court already ruled that renaming it takes an act of Congress, but the Kennedy Center board, chaired by Trump, wants it up in two weeks, or they might tear the building down.

0:45Stay with us. We've got news you need to start your day.

0:55This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab. When is the right time to sell a stock? How do you protect against inflation? Financial decisions can be tricky, and often your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Reepy as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash financial decoder. This message comes from Eleven Labs. Eleven Labs builds AI voice and audio models along with creative tools, developer APIs, and conversational agents for enterprises.

1:41Those agents power real time conversations with natural sounding speech in over 70 languages across support, sales, and operations. Learn more at 11labs, spelled E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O slash first. That's 11labs dot I-O slash first. It's been two days since nearly 30-foot-high waves raced down a river between Tibet and Nepal, wiping away communities for miles downstream. Police in Nepal say the death toll there has risen to 469 people. China has not updated its death toll of three, but both countries together say over 1 ,500 are reported missing. Last night, I was talking with an American whose parents are among those missing.

2:28She's gathered with family, and they have no news. NPR's Dia Hadid covers Nepal. She's on the line with us now. Dia, so it's been two days. What's the latest information about these floods? Search and rescue efforts are still ongoing. The waters receded from most places, leaving behind mud and debris. But Santosh Pandey from the aid group Oxfam says one of the worst affected areas, Raswa is still only accessible by helicopter. So that's how they're getting aid in. So we are coordinating with the government, providing support basically on non-food items and hygiene keys. But because that area is largely inaccessible, it also means the death count is likely to rise further.

3:07And now authorities are warning that there might be secondary floods because there's still an overflowing lake in the area where experts say the first glacier collapsed, blocking up a river valley and triggering those major floods. There's concern it might burst. David Fisher is head of Nepal's Red Cross delegation. We're worried, of course, for the population and for the safety of our own colleagues. We don't have a full view about what kind of intensity would come in a second flood. He says for now, in other devastated areas, aid is getting in. Yeah, it sounds like that area is still very dangerous.

3:40So what does that mean for the rescue efforts? Are more people likely to be found? Any hope of that? Napoli authorities say they've now rescued more than 1 ,500 people. Some survivors recounted how they fled into forested hills. So there is hope for others. But the situation is so very uncertain. We don't even know yet if those rescued people were even included in the list of the missing. Yeah, we mentioned how the State Department says 90 Americans are among the foreigners missing. Any of them at all? Have any of them been found? Yeah, to be clear, the State Department says impacted, not missing.

4:15And it appears many of those Americans were Hindu pilgrims, like the in-laws of 28-year-old Ariadna Riley, her husband's parents, the 64-year-old Neelam Kumari Sharma and 65-year-old Ramesh Sharma. She tells NPR they retired and saved to make a pilgrimage to circle Mount Kailash in Tibet. It's a mountain revered by Hindus. They were really excited. They were eager to be able to participate in, for them, an incredible event. She says they haven't heard anything so far. We have been tirelessly looking for them. That's just been the most torturous part that anyone can imagine, is not knowing where your family is.

4:57Yeah, Dia, that sounds absolutely awful. Has the State Department said anything more about this? President Trump expressed his sorrow in the White House yesterday and said his administration offered any help that Nepal needs. So far, the State Department says it's deployed$500 ,000 to rescue efforts. David Fisher from the Red Cross says they're calling for solidarity. Not just for the first ration for the first day, but to really put them back on their feet. And solidarity to help Nepal mitigate the impact of human-caused climate change, which, frankly, they've barely contributed to, but are paying a massive price.

5:34Climate change is absolutely accelerating disasters. We're not going to be able to cope with them if we don't invest very substantially in risk reduction early warning. To help people flee before the waters come. That's NPR's Dia Hadid, who covers Nepal. Dia, thank you. You're welcome, A.

6:01Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh speaks this morning at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming. The elevation for this annual Fed conference is 6 ,800 feet. The stakes for the central banker are equally high. Investors were disappointed last month when Warsh promised to curb inflation, but didn't say how. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. Scott, sounds like this could be a do-over for the Fed chair? Yeah, it could be, but there's no guarantee. You know, all of us are still getting used to Kevin Warsh's somewhat elusive communication style, which is very different from the last several central bank leaders.

6:36And he could use this opportunity to maybe fill in some of the blanks, but he might not. As you say, investors were disappointed last month when Warsh talked a good game about getting prices under control, but offered very little in the way of a detailed roadmap. Kathy Bajancic, who's chief economist at the big insurance company Nationwide, says she understands Warsh's reluctance to get locked into an economic forecast when right now there are a lot of moving parts. But she says she would like to have a better sense of what the Fed chairman's thinking. I'd like to hear him be a bit more communicative on economic views, on inflation views.

7:14We're not talking forward guidance, but it's just some understanding of how he views the inflation dynamics right now, and perhaps even some outlook. In the past, this annual meeting sponsored by the Kansas City Fed at Jackson Hole has offered a venue for that big picture. You know, back in 2022, for example, when inflation had just topped 9%, then Fed Chairman Jerome Powell used this meeting to warn that interest rates would go up and stay up for an extended period, which they did. So considering how you describe his style as elusive, has Warsh telegraphed at all what he's going to say today?

7:50No. At his news conference after the last Fed meeting in July, Warsh said he was still deciding what to use this speech for, whether he would talk about the next few months of policymaking or perhaps take a step back and offer a more long-range view. If I could, in the high mountain air in Jackson, Wyoming, I'd like to also frame the big questions. What's really happening with productivity? What's really happening with demographics? What's really happening to the global economy amid the shocks? And some forecasters think it's likely Warsh will stick with that high-altitude approach at Jackson Hole rather than sort of come down to sea level and talk about what we can expect in the next few months from the central bank.

8:32At the July meeting, the Fed held its benchmark interest rate steady, but three members of the committee voted to raise rates, and right now investors see about a 1 in 3 chance of a rate increase at the next Fed meeting in September. Now, Warsh has been open and optimistic about the cost-cutting prospects of artificial intelligence. Are we likely to hear about that today? We certainly could. It is the focus of one of the task forces that Warsh has set up to offer guidance to the Fed. You know, eventually, the AI boom could usher in lower costs. But Matthew Luzzetti, who's chief economist at Deutsche Bank, warns that right now, the massive investment in data centers to support AI is having the opposite effect.

9:10It's driving up the cost of construction and computer chips. In the near term, at least, there's clear evidence that AI is an inflationary force. But there is hope that over the medium term, if we look several years out, it will begin to be a disinflationary force by lifting productivity growth, making the economy far more productive, and therefore putting downward pressure on prices as we look ahead. Warsh is optimistic about the long-range potential of AI, but of course a lot of consumers are more preoccupied with the prices they're paying right now at the gas pump and the grocery store, and they'd like to hear what the Fed's going to do about it.

9:45NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks. You're welcome.

9:55A federal judge heard arguments Thursday over the latest efforts to put President Trump's name back on the Kennedy Center. The board that oversees the memorial to the slain president wants to change the wording on the building soon, as early as two weeks from now. NPR culture correspondent Anastasia Sioukas has been covering all of this for us. Anastasia, so early in his second term, President Trump made himself the chair of the Kennedy Center board. What does it want to do now? So the board, which is now dominated by members appointed by President Trump, voted a couple of weeks ago on August 13th to close the main building of the Kennedy Center, meaning its biggest halls, its biggest performing spaces for two years for renovations.

10:37And they also voted to put up a new sign on the entryway that would read, quote, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump. And they say if Trump raises$100 million, they'll add a third line reading, quote, endowed by the Trump-Kennedy Center fund. And they're not stopping there. The board says it also wants to rename the physical grounds President Donald J. Trump Plaza. And they want that restored and renovated sign up as early as September 9th. And if they don't get their way, they say the building might have to be torn down?

11:12Yeah. Earlier this week in their own legal filings, the board said if there's no major renovation, they might have to demolish the Kennedy Center and perhaps build something else altogether, like an outdoor amphitheater. Now, A, I have to note, in a statement they emailed to me afterwards, the Kennedy Center walked that back and they called that a, quote, hypothetical scenario. OK, so how did all this land them back in court? Well, this is all part of the federal lawsuit which Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, originally filed last December. And the judge in the suit, Christopher R.

11:48Cooper, has already ruled that it was unlawful to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center. Only Congress has that authority since the center was created as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. So this latest round is over the name again. That's exactly it. The question really at this now is, would adding Trump's name in the way that the board wants to fundamentally be the same as renaming the center after Trump? Or is it something different, right? Beatty and her team are arguing it's basically the same thing. In their emergency motion that led to this hearing, Beatty's lawyers quoted Yogi Berra.

12:25It's deja vu all over again. Joyce Beatty was on All Things Considered yesterday afternoon to discuss all this. And she said what she's been saying since the start of all of this. The law is very clear that you cannot change what Congress has already passed. She's also been making the point that the board wants to put up a sign now saying the center has been renovated and restored before anything's actually happened. So what's the Trump team saying about all this? So the board and Trump in his role as county center chairman are all being represented by lawyers from the Department of Justice, from the civil division of the DOJ.

13:02And they're arguing that an enormous renovation is desperately needed and that Trump is the only person who can do it. And they're saying that adding Trump's name is not the same as changing anything. I think Yogi also said it ain't over till it's over. I guess we'll find out. That's NPR's Anastasia Siolkas. Anastasia, thanks. You bet.

13:26And that's Up First for Friday, August 28th. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Steve Innscape. Today's Up First was edited by Tina Crya, Rafael Nam, Steve Drummond, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Julie Deppenbrock and Nia Dumas. Our director is the long-suffering Christopher Thomas. He has to put up with us. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines, and our technical director is Carly Strange, who puts up with us too. Our executive producer is Jay Shaler. We put up with him. Join us tomorrow.

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