--:-- [Up First theme music plays]
--:-- Michelle Martin: Welcome to Up First from NPR News. I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Florida's recovery from Hurricane Milton is underway. As vast as some of the damage is, it could have been worse.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Forecasters warned of an enormous storm surge that didn't happen, which is good, but why was the forecast wrong?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Also, SpaceX wants to test-launch the biggest rocket ever made, but the EPA wants a word.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The company is spraying enormous amounts of water under the rocket as it launches, so what happens when that tainted water flows into surrounding wetlands?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from BetterHelp. It's only human to ask others for advice, like turning to your barista, hairdresser, or a taxi driver for life advice.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from PACA. Everyone's got that one hoodie they practically live in.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But the Paka hoodie? It's on another level.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Right now, grab a Paka hoodie and score a free pair of alpaca cruise socks.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Moisture-wicking, odor-resistant, and guaranteed for life.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Level up your hoodie game at go.pakaapparel.com slash NPR, code NPR.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Secret documents show TikTok officials describing how habit-forming the app can be for teens.
--:-- Michelle Martin: In the documents, state officials say a teenager could become addicted to TikTok after 35 minutes on the app.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That is according to previously hidden portions of a lawsuit filed by the Kentucky Attorney General's office.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Kentucky Public Radio and NPR have reviewed dozens of pages of the lawsuit that were blacked out from public view.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR Tech correspondent Bobby Allen has been reading.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Hi there, Steve. Hey, Steve. How was this secret material made public?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was a huge mistake.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Kentucky was one of 14 attorneys general that have been investigating TikTok for two years over child safety, sent the company subpoenas, obtained reams of internal communications and internal studies.
--:-- Michelle Martin: At TikTok's request, Kentucky and the other states redacted privileged and confidential parts of the suit.
--:-- Bobby Allen: This is pretty common in lawsuits. But in Kentucky, the blacking out did not work.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And our colleague, Sylvia Goodman at Kentucky Public Radio, figured this out when she tried to copy and paste a blacked out portion, which usually does nothing.
--:-- Bobby Allen: But here, Steve, it worked. When she did it, the stuff behind the blacked out portions were revealed.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So since then, we have been reviewing large swaths of the suit that were never intended to see the light of day.
--:-- Bobby Allen: OK, so what have you found?
--:-- Michelle Martin: It been pretty startling
--:-- Bobby Allen: This material is quite damning
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And again, these details have not been made public before, including company officials admitting in these internal messages that features like a time on app reminder are not expected to reduce screen time as advertised, but instead aimed at, quote, improving public trust.
--:-- Bobby Allen: There was an internal TikTok document that found the exact number of videos it took before someone formed a habit, 260 videos.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And Kentucky authorities said that could boil down to just spending 35 minutes on the app since the videos are so short on TikTok, you know, four, five, six, seven seconds long, you're flying by on this app.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Another section described how TikTok has demoted what they deem as unattractive people off the main feed.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And instead, the app is promoting what the company sees as attractive users.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Another document, Steve, quotes a TikTok executive talking about the app's algorithm potentially addicting minors.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And this quote here really stuck with me. The executive says, we need to think about how the app might deprive young people of opportunities.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Quote, and when I say other opportunities, I literally mean sleep and eating and moving around the room and looking at someone in the eyes.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Wow. I mean, that quote from a TikTok executive hurts.
--:-- Bobby Allen: But what has TikTok said now that its internal words have been made public?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I reached out to them and a TikTok spokesman condemned NPR for reporting on information under seal.
--:-- Bobby Allen: And to clarify, the documents are now sealed. But when we obtained them, they were indeed public.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And anyone, you or I or anyone else, would have been able to see through these redactions if you just went to the docket and pulled them.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Besides that, TikTok said the company has robust safeguards and that they proactively remove underage users and have voluntarily launched safety features like parental controls and beefed up privacy for minors under 16.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So what are the new revelations mean for these lawsuits?
--:-- Bobby Allen: Yeah, well, these cases will be unfolding for many months to come.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But the new internal communications we have from TikTok provide what the states will likely be showcasing at trial.
--:-- Bobby Allen: And the states here are trying to portray a company they say hooked an entire generation of young people to an app, misled the public, and buried its own research about a whole host of harms and instead pursued growth and profits.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR Tech correspondent Bobby Allen breaking a huge story here in connection with one of our local affiliates, Kentucky Public Radio.
--:-- Bobby Allen: Bobby, thanks so much.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thanks, Bobby.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Cleanup is underway in Florida from Hurricane Milton. Millions are still without power.
--:-- Michelle Martin: At least eight deaths have been attributed to the storm.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Five people died when tornadoes touched down in a retirement community in St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So this was a serious storm, though not as bad as some feared.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Greg Allen went through the storm. He's in St. Petersburg.
--:-- Greg Allen: Hi there, Steve. Hi, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I was watching the forecasts. A storm surge was expected of as much as 15 feet in some places, and at least that didn't happen.
--:-- Greg Allen: Well, you know, just a few days ago, Milton was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But as it approached land, it did some things that hurricanes often do.
--:-- Greg Allen: It made this jog. In this case, it was one that took it south of Tampa Bay, which is an area that's really vulnerable to storm surge.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The hurricane also weakened a bit, but even so, it hit the coast with 125 mile-per-hour winds.
--:-- Greg Allen: But the effect was that the storm surge was much less than was forecast.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was just five to ten feet above ground level in the area where it made landfall.
--:-- Greg Allen: Tampa Bay, as it turned out, had very little surge.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Here's Governor DeSantis.
--:-- [Audio clip of Governor DeSantis]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You did have storm surge in Sarasota Venice Charlotte Harbor and all the way down the west coast of Florida and some significant storm surge but not the worst case scenario of what we were looking at Milton did a lot of damage but far less than what was feared
--:-- Greg Allen: Yeah, and I want to pause to respect those who did suffer damage.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I know it is serious. I know some lives were lost.
--:-- Greg Allen: But what have you seen around Tampa and St. Pete?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, here there are a lot of limbs and trees down, but for the most part, the buildings and other infrastructure held up pretty well against the winds.
--:-- Greg Allen: A construction crane in St. Petersburg toppled into a building and the fiberglass roof of the baseball stadium was shredded.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But Holmes, on the whole, did pretty well.
--:-- Greg Allen: In St. Petersburg, I talked to Jenna Michael about what she was seeing in her neighborhood.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: There's definitely some with trees on their roofs.
--:-- Greg Allen: Like when we were driving by, we saw some that significantly have damage.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But for the most part, it looks like it's mostly downed power lines, downed trees, downed fences, and not catastrophic damage to Holmes.
--:-- Greg Allen: She had a 50-foot oak tree fall on her property.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thankfully, it missed her house, though.
--:-- Greg Allen: I did hear you say, though, yesterday, 19 inches of rain in St. Petersburg, among other places.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Can that lead to flooding in days to come?
--:-- Greg Allen: Right. That's what we're watching for now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: A number of rivers across Florida are rising and are expected to flood, and they have been flooding, not just on the coast, but also in central Florida.
--:-- Greg Allen: The St. Petersburg area, like you say, got so much rain.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In one neighborhood, Melissa Anderson said she spent the day using towels, blankets, even T-shirts to stop the water from coming into her house.
--:-- Greg Allen: Water was just coming into the bottom of the house, faithfully, just kept coming.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And coming and coming and coming until we couldn't stop it anymore.
--:-- Greg Allen: The whole bottom floor.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah. You know, like other people in the neighborhood, her house is not in a flood zone and she doesn't have flood insurance.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Which raises another question, Greg. Second big storm in weeks. Are people getting fed up with living in such a hurricane prone area?
--:-- Greg Allen: Well, you know, that's always the question we have here in Florida, especially after these really destructive storms.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The people I talk with in St. Petersburg all seem to take Milton in their stride.
--:-- Greg Allen: I think one reason is that it did a lot less damaged than Helene.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And so people went through that. They said this one wasn't so bad.
--:-- Greg Allen: They all didn't have power yesterday, but one homeowner said, you know, you learn how to deal with it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: If you've lived in Florida long enough, she said, you learn it's just part of the nature of the state.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And it has other pleasures of being there without a doubt.
--:-- Greg Allen: Greg, thanks so much.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: SpaceX is preparing a test launch of the largest rocket ever made.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It's called Starship, and the company hopes it could lift off as soon as Sunday from South Texas.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Despite concerns that it may damage the surrounding area.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR science correspondent Jeff Brumfield is here.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Good morning.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What's the problem?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Well, the first thing to know is that SpaceX's launch pad is actually in the middle of a major wildlife preserve down there in Texas.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It's home to hundreds of thousands of shorebirds, sea turtles, and other species.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And the launch pad is right up against a sand flat where birds love to nest.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I was out there last month with Justin LeClaire, a conservation biologist with the nonprofit Coastal Bays, Bends, and Estuaries program.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And as we walked through the dunes next to the pad, he pointed out lots of debris.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You can see some rebar kind of poking up through the grass all over here.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It was basically a minefield of debris out here after that first flight test.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That first flight test, the rocket was so powerful it actually blew up its own launch pad.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And to keep that from happening again, SpaceX sprays nearly 200,000 gallons of water in this sort of incredible massive fountain under the rocket during the launch.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So that prevents the pad from blowing up, but it's created a new problem.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The water isn't contained.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It just flows out onto the flats.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Quite a lot does spill off, either is projected off or kind of runs off.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: OK, I'm trying to get my brain around that amount.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It hard to conceive of that number but it not a bucket full
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It not a bathtub
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It an unbelievable flow of water
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Is this allowed?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Under the Clean Water Act, SpaceX needs to have a special industrial wastewater permit.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR reviewed documents and correspondence between the company and regulators and found they were told multiple times to get the permit by the EPA earlier this year.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But they kept launching, even after the EPA told them twice this violated the law.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Finally, in July, they did apply for the permit from Texas regulators.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But they've been fined roughly $150,000 by state and federal regulators for the violations.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's what's been holding up this launch.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: OK, I do want to note we're talking about wetlands and this is water.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Is this water in some way hazardous?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Now, SpaceX has put out a lengthy statement about this whole situation.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: They say this is a paperwork issue.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The water being used is drinking water.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that is true.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But experts I spoke to said it's not true that the water is drinkable after it comes in contact with the exhaust of the largest rocket ever built.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In its permit application, SpaceX submitted some tests it had done, and those showed high levels of dissolved solids, zinc and something called hexavalent chromium.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: None of this you want to drink, according to experts, and it's not particularly good for the environment.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Still, it does appear regulators are willing to let this next launch go forward so long as SpaceX does some testing and shares its results after the launch.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So this next flight is really high stakes.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The rocket's giant booster is going to come back and try and land at the launch pad.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's important for SpaceX for their plans to make Starship reusable.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Of course, if it goes wrong, that means more debris is going to end up spread across the wetlands when the booster explodes.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Wow.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Jeff, thanks so much for the update.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Thank you.
--:-- [Closing music plays]
--:-- Michelle Martin: That's Up First for this Friday, October 11th.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And don't forget, Up First airs on the weekend, too.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Ayesha Roscoe and Scott Simon have the news.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It will be wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today's Up First was edited by Louise Clemens, Gigi Dubin, Gisele Grayson, Roberta Rampton, Ali Schweitzer, and Alice Wolfley.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Paige Waterhouse, Christopher Thomas, and Anna Pettis.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Coleman.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us Monday.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NetSuite.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What does the future hold for business?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Can someone invent a crystal ball?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Until then, over 42,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one AI cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.
--:-- Michelle Martin: With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash story.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: An expert in language learning for 30 years.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.
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