--:-- Leila Faldin: Welcome to Up First from NPR News. I'm Leila Faldin.
--:-- A Martinez: And I'm A Martinez.
--:-- Leila Faldin: What are you doing?
--:-- A Martinez: I'm about to... Host a show? Lead a national radio show alongside with my... Do you see that? He's talking about me like I'm a sidekick. I'm kicking you off this show. This is going to be Leila's show today.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Hey, you put that one on a tee for me today. That's on you.
--:-- A Martinez: The Harris-Walls campaign is drawing massive crowds in the Midwest. This is what's like jazzed everybody up because now we have hope and there's a chance.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Can they turn that August enthusiasm into November momentum?
--:-- Leila Faldin: I'm Leila Faldin, that's A Martinez and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Ukraine is getting new weapons like F-16 fighter jets to aid in its war with Russia. But Ukrainian troops are still struggling to gain ground in the conflict.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Will the new weapons make a difference?
--:-- Tamara Keith: And Maui residents are remembering the Lahaina Fire one year ago, some questioned whether the town is prepared for any future disasters.
--:-- Leila Faldin: We have no evacuation spaces. Even though they're creating some, it's still one way in and one way out.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Announcer: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP. Where do you see your career in 12 years? What are you doing now to help you get there? The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do. Because the steps you choose to take today will help you love what you do in the future. Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.
--:-- Announcer: This message comes from NPR sponsor, Adobe. Introducing the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio, now with AI-powered PDF spaces. Need to turn 100 pages of market research into five insights with a click? Templates for a sales proposal that'll close that deal? Or an AI specialist to tailor the tone of your market report? You can do all that with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, are continuing their introductory tour today.
--:-- Tamara Keith: They'll be in Phoenix tonight and then head toward Las Vegas.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Yesterday, they drew thousands of people on a hot Midwestern summer day in Wisconsin and Michigan.
--:-- Tamara Keith: The energy around the campaign is heating up.
--:-- Leila Faldin: They try and steal the joy. But you know what? You know what? Our next president brings the joy. She emanates the joy.
--:-- Tamara Keith: NPR's Tamara Keith is traveling with the candidates, joins us now from Detroit.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Yeah, these are the biggest rallies I've seen in a very long time. These are the kinds of rally crowds that you would see in October or early November, just ahead of the election.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But it's August right now. This is really not the campaign that Democrats were girding themselves for even just a month ago.
--:-- Tamara Keith: And it's the kind of enthusiasm they haven't experienced since Obama.
--:-- Leila Faldin: I talked to Kathy Windorf of Madison, Wisconsin at the rally in Eau Claire, and she had driven about three hours to get to the rally and said before President Biden dropped out, she was in a funk, depressed about politics.
--:-- Tamara Keith: They felt like Trump had won the election. I think that's how people felt.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And so this is what's like jazzed everybody up because now we have hope and there's a chance.
--:-- Tamara Keith: The second rally was at the airport in Detroit in an aircraft hangar and Air Force Two pulled right up It reminded me of so many Trump rallies I covered over the years but the mood was different There were DJs hyping up the crowd and when Harris and Walls walked off the plane everyone went wild Instead of getting in the SUVs, they walked straight toward the crowd, and members of Harris's staff were literally dancing on the tarmac.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Now, you mentioned how it's November energy, but in early August. It is early August only, so what does this mean for the campaign, practically speaking?
--:-- Tamara Keith: Well, in the first 24 hours since Walls was announced as the running mate, the campaign raised $36 million.
--:-- Leila Faldin: A million of that was from people buying camouflage hats with orange writing on it that says Harris Walls, because Walls is known for wearing a hunting style camo hat.
--:-- Tamara Keith: You know, there's definitely optimism, but there's also an urgency to their message in their speech.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And in her speeches, Harris talks about winning, but she also talks about needing to do a lot of work, knocking on doors, talking to neighbors.
--:-- Tamara Keith: And they don't want people to assume that they'll win and then just not show up and vote in the end.
--:-- Leila Faldin: She's holding rallies with 12,000, 15,000 people and still describing herself as an underdog.
--:-- Tamara Keith: You know, there's a lot that could go wrong for Harris in the next 90 days of this campaign.
--:-- Leila Faldin: She is very much in the honeymoon period right now, and nobody knows when it will end.
--:-- Tamara Keith: She's got the stump speech down, but she hasn't put herself in a position to be pressed on exactly what her positions are or how her positions have changed since 2019.
--:-- Leila Faldin: As vice president, it wasn't her job to set a policy agenda. As the Democratic nominee now, it absolutely is her job.
--:-- Tamara Keith: And quickly, how has the Trump campaign been handling this shift?
--:-- Tamara Keith: Well, J.D. Vance has been shadowing her. His plane was on the tarmac at the same time ours was in Wisconsin.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Trump himself is not having any rallies in swing states this week.
--:-- Tamara Keith: He does have a rally, however, in Montana, which is not a swing state.
--:-- Leila Faldin: That's NPR's Tamara Keith in Detroit. Tab, thanks.
--:-- Tamara Keith: You're welcome.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Ukraine has launched one of its boldest operations in the war with Russia.
--:-- Leila Faldin: In a surprise attack, the Ukrainian military has sent a large ground force across its northeastern border and into western Russia.
--:-- Greg Myrie: This is according to Russian officials and military analysts.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Ukraine is so far remaining tight-lipped about the incursion.
--:-- Greg Myrie: NPR's Greg Myrie is in Ukraine's capital of Kiev.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Most of the information is coming from the Russian side, though it's still pretty limited.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Now, the defense ministry in Moscow said the incursion began Tuesday when about 300 Ukrainian troops, backed by more than 30 armored vehicles, crossed from Ukraine into Russia's Kursk region.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Yesterday, the top Russian military official briefed President Vladimir Putin, and the official spoke of 1,000 Ukrainian troops entering Russia.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Now, Russia is sending reinforcements to counter the Ukrainians, and the Russian official predicted the military would regain control of the border very soon.
--:-- Greg Myrie: And Putin was taking this in. He was shown sitting at the head of a long table, and the look on his face seemed to be a mixture of impatience and disgust.
--:-- Leila Faldin: He called the Ukrainian operation a large-scale provocation.
--:-- Greg Myrie: The Ukrainians appear to be several miles inside Russia and have entered or taken over several small communities.
--:-- Leila Faldin: The fighting seems to be ongoing, but we just don't have many details.
--:-- Greg Myrie: You mentioned that most of the information is coming from the Russian side, but Ukrainians are often very talkative about what they do with their military.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Anything at all coming from Ukraine?
--:-- Greg Myrie: The Ukrainians are trying to say as little as possible.
--:-- Leila Faldin: However, I was able to sit down yesterday with one of President Volodymyr Zelensky's closest advisors.
--:-- Greg Myrie: His name is Mihailo Podolak We met in a hotel conference room just outside the heavily fortified presidential compound
--:-- Leila Faldin: Now Podolak declined to provide any specifics on the operation but in general terms, he seemed to provide the rationale for it, saying Ukraine needs to drive Russia away from border areas where it's launching so many attacks.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Here he is speaking through an interpreter.
--:-- Mihailo Podolak: We have to push them back in some areas if we want to make those areas safe for us. And we are creating this buffer zone. A buffer zone.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Is it realistic to think that Ukraine could actually hold a buffer zone on Russian territory?
--:-- Greg Myrie: Yeah, that would be pretty remarkable. No one's been predicting that.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But the Ukrainians found a weak spot on Russia's border and certainly caught the Russians by surprise.
--:-- Greg Myrie: But we'll have to see how this plays out. Will the Ukrainian forces stay and fight? Or will they try to slip back into Ukraine?
--:-- Leila Faldin: Ukraine has far fewer troops in Russia. And some military analysts are questioning whether this incursion makes sense.
--:-- Greg Myrie: They say Ukraine needs all the forces it can muster to defend its own territory.
--:-- Leila Faldin: So speaking of that, bring us up to date on the fighting inside Ukraine.
--:-- Greg Myrie: The Ukrainian official, Mihailo Podolak, acknowledged Ukraine is having a very tough time in the eastern region, the Donbass.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Russia has seized a number of small villages and is making incremental gains for the past few weeks.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Now, Russia has two big advantages. One, the Russians send wave after wave of ground troops.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Sometimes they even attack on motorcycles and they get mowed down by Ukrainian fire, but they just keep coming.
--:-- Greg Myrie: And second, the Russians have far greater air power.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Ukraine received its first batch of F-16 fighter jets just last week.
--:-- Greg Myrie: But we're talking about 10 planes and Ukraine says it needs many more before it can effectively counter Russia in the skies.
--:-- Leila Faldin: All right. That's NPR's Greg Myrie in Kiev. Greg, thank you.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Sure thing, eh?
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Today in Maui, residents are remembering 102 people who lost their lives a year ago.
--:-- Leila Faldin: That's when an extreme wildfire tore through Lahaina, destroying more than 2,000 homes and buildings.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Many of those who died were trying to flee the flames.
--:-- Leila Faldin: So what's being done to improve evacuations?
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Yeah, I mean, that's on the minds of a lot of people I spoke to in Lahaina because there's a lot that went wrong one year ago.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Many residents did not get an alert to evacuate. It came too late when the cell phone network was already down.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: The roads were completely jammed with traffic and, you know, some people had to jump into the ocean to escape the flames.
--:-- Leila Faldin: So Maui officials are changing their evacuation methods to use zoned evacuation, basically doing it sequentially to control traffic.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: So staggering the evacuation.
--:-- Leila Faldin: So has that been shown to work better?
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Yeah, it's the direction a lot of cities with wildfire risk are moving because, yeah, the idea is not to create gridlock and to keep that traffic flowing.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Maui is also getting new software that can analyze how to do that in real time during a disaster.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: There's new networks of fire sensors and cameras that can help with early detection of fires.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But, you know, even a well-planned evacuation won't be enough if there aren't enough roads for all that traffic to get everyone out of town.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Is this then a chance for Lahaina to rebuild those roads to create more ways out?
--:-- Leila Faldin: Yeah, I mean, Maui County officials, they're planning seven road projects to connect dead-end roads and create more outlets.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Because, you know, about half the deaths happened in one neighborhood with very narrow streets.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But to widen those streets, you know, or make more evacuation routes, it will likely involve taking some of people's property.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: And that's something Maui County Mayor Richard Bisson has brought up in community meetings.
--:-- Leila Faldin: If there a decision to be made that be made with their respective landowner We not trying to take anybody property But if we can convince them that this would be in their benefit too to be open to an exchange a swap
--:-- Lauren Sommer: So that could be, you know, a land swap of some kind or maybe just buying out a landowner.
--:-- Leila Faldin: So I'm sure a lot of residents are very eager to start rebuilding as soon as possible.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Would that slow the process down?
--:-- Leila Faldin: Yeah, it would.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: And, you know, that's the tension right now.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Most residents haven't started rebuilding yet and some really want to get home.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: It's been a very painful year. It's been hard to find housing for a lot of people.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But other residents like Shannon E.E. say, you know, there needs to be more done on evacuation for her to feel safe again.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: She lost her home in the fire and was one of those people who sat in traffic as that fire got closer and closer.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Nothing's changed. And I'm like, what's going to happen?
--:-- Lauren Sommer: And we have no evacuation spaces. Like, even though they're creating some, it's still one way in and one way out.
--:-- Leila Faldin: You know, this is a dilemma that many communities hit by wildfires face.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: With so many buildings gone, it seems like a clean slate, right? Like, it's a chance to build a community that will be safer next time.
--:-- Leila Faldin: But it's not really a clean slate.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: There are still property lines on the map.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And to remake that, you know, at a time when there's so much urgency to rebuild, it's just, it's a really tough discussion.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: All right, that's Lauren Sommer from NPR's Climate Desk. Lauren, thanks.
--:-- Lauren Sommer: Thank you.
--:-- Brian Mann: And last but not least today, NPR's Brian Mann is at the Summer Games in Paris.
--:-- Leila Faldin: We checked in with him about the latest and what to look for next at the Olympics.
--:-- Brian Mann: Yesterday, the big news was American runner Quincy Hall, who surged from behind in the 400-meter Olympic final to win the gold medal.
--:-- Leila Faldin: It was a remarkable race. He was trailing and put on this amazing burst of speed toward the end, Quincy Hall claiming a gold medal here.
--:-- Brian Mann: Pivoting forward, it's going to be a really, really big day at the track at the Stade de France.
--:-- Leila Faldin: World's fastest man, American Noah Lyles, races in the 200-meter final.
--:-- Brian Mann: He won gold earlier in Paris in the 100-meter.
--:-- Leila Faldin: That gives him a shot at the Olympic sprint double.
--:-- Brian Mann: Only nine men have done this in the history of the Olympic Games.
--:-- Leila Faldin: The last to do it was Jamaica's Usain Bolt, so we'll see if Lyles can pull it off.
--:-- Brian Mann: Also, Sidney McLaughlin-Lavroni is heavily favored in the women's 400-meter hurdles final, and Grant Holloway favored in the 110-meter hurdles, so could be a lot of American gold.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Also, the U.S. men's basketball team plays Serbia in a semifinal game.
--:-- Brian Mann: I'm Brian Mann, NPR News in Paris.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And that's the first for Thursday, August 8th.
--:-- Leila Faldin: I'm Emey Martinez.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And I'm Leila Faldin.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Your next listen is Consider This from NPR.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has spent the better part of four decades amassing political power and using it to achieve her legislative goals.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Now she's put pen to paper about how she did it in her new book, the art of power.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Listen to Consider This.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Nick Spicer, Neela Banerjee, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle.
--:-- Leila Faldin: It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Julie Depenbrock.
--:-- Leila Faldin: We get engineering support from Carleigh Strange.
--:-- Leila Faldin: And our technical director is Zac Coleman.
--:-- Leila Faldin: Join us again tomorrow.
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