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top story of the day
An Israeli attack killed nearly 500 people, including 35 children, in Lebanon yesterdayaccording to Lebanese authorities. At least 1,645 people were injured in the attack. Analysts say it is the largest campaign of Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah since the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes.
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese village of Khiam, near the Lebanon-Israel border, on Monday.
Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images
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Rabih Daher/AFP via Getty Images
- 🎧 NPR’s Jane Arraf reports Go up first he was just south of Beirut, in Sidoni traveling the escape route in bumper-to-bumper trafficwhere he saw eight or nine people crammed into several cars. Hezbollah appears to be scrambling to respond after they took multiple hits from a massive security breach from an exploding communications device and an attack a day later that led to the death of a top commander. The Iran-backed group has launched a revenge attack but indicated it was not retaliating for last week’s attack.
Vice President Harris has made four campaign stops in Wisconsin since becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. Democratic votes in the state are concentrated in a few areas, including the blue counties around the city of Madison, which opened on Friday. To secure the votes he needs in this crucial swing state, he must garner the most votes in Democratic-leaning areas and minimize losses in rural counties that tend to vote Republican.
- 🎧 Harris highlighted her message for the region and the state in an interview with Kate Archer Kent of NPR network station Wisconsin Public Radio. His campaign has focused heavily on abortion rights, and he has said he is confident Democrats can retain a majority in the Senate and retake the House. He said he supports changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to allow passage of bills to codify abortion rights. He also addressed concerns about the lack of affordable housing, saying he wants to have 3 million homes built in the first place and offer $250,000 in assistance to first-time home buyers.
California filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against ExxonMobil yesterday, alleging the company spent decades lying. community about whether plastic can be recycled. Despite knowing that plastic recycling is technically and economically challenging, the company still promotes recycling as a viable option. The lawsuit cites ExxonMobil’s efforts to blame the public for the plastic crisis, which the country’s top prosecutor says the company created. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state has spent over $1 billion annually to manage its plastic waste problem.
- 🎧 At the attorney general’s staff has discovered many internal documents between oil companies and industry executives, who seem to admit that plastic recycling is not effective, but publicly claim the opposite, Laura Sullivan NPR said. In response, the company released a statement insisting that recycling works and that California is trying to blame them for its own recycling challenges. The country wants Exxon to pay billions of dollars and re-educate the public that the vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled and is simply trash.
We, the voters
NPR is visit six key swing countries which will likely decide this year’s historic election. This week, Morning Edition is in Nevada to hear from voters about what’s important to them and how it affects them.
People enjoy rides at the Pahrump Fall Festival in Pahrump, Nevada on September 21, 2024.
Krystal Ramirez for NPR
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Krystal Ramirez for NPR
A fall festival and rodeo takes place in Pahrump, Nevadalocated miles west of Las Vegas, recently. The event features carnival games, fried food and rodeo activities, but that’s not all. In particular, the crowd was filled with Make America Great Again hats. Only one person was seen wearing a Harris-Walz camo hat in the political red zone. Morning edition journalists attend the festival to talk to voters and gather their thoughts until the election.
Deep dive
A Tesla Supercharging station is seen in a parking lot on September 16, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Electric vehicles have significant environmental advantages over similar gas-powered vehicles, but the percentage of Americans who believe they do has declined slightly over the past two years.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
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Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Electric vehicles are considered cleaner than alternativesbut fewer Americans are convinced. According to the market research company Ipsos, the percentage of Americans who believe that electric cars are better for the environment than gasoline cars has decreased by five percentage points since 2022. People interested in buying EVs still believe that the vehicle offers environmental benefits. People who are not open to using alternative electricity are more hesitant. This is where it comes from:
- 🚗 EVs are often called zero-emission vehicles because they produce no exhaust emissions. However, there are pollution and environmental costs associated with building and charging batteries.
- 🚗 Braking emissions are a concern for EVs because of their weight. Nick Molden, the researcher behind the original Emission Analytics study, suggests that regenerative braking, which captures the car’s energy when it slows down and stores it for later use, can offset this effect.
- 🚗 EV sales in the US have been declining. In fact, automotive data giant JD Power predicts that the share of new car sales for EVs will only peak for the year at 9.2%.
- 🚗 The accessibility of charging is one of the main reasons people interested in EVs hesitate to buy one, according to JD Power tracking.
3 things to know before you go
Korea’s Kim Yeji, who appeared during the Paris Olympics in August, has been a killer in the “short series.”
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
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Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
- Kim Yeji, South Korea’s silver medalist pistol shooter and internet adoration at the Paris Olympics, has landed her first acting role. He will play the killer.
- A student at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College has left school after investigation found responsible for etching a racist slur across the chest of another student during a social gathering earlier this month.
- By 2023, the crime rate in the US is down compared to the previous year, with a drop recorded in murder and rape, according to new FBI data.
This newsletter is edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
