--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Scott Simon: Israel warns of a prolonged conflict with Iran. But with the war now in its second week, do the two countries have the weapons to fight a sustained campaign?
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: I'm Ayesha Rascoe, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Scott Simon: President Trump is pushing to pass his massive tax cut and spending bill by as early as next week. But he'll need to overcome opposition from within his own political ranks.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: So can the president close the deal?
--:-- Scott Simon: And we're about to have the first heat wave of the summer. Record-breaking temperatures are expected to affect millions of Americans, and extreme humidity is also a big concern.
--:-- [Sound effects: News theme music continues to fade out]
--:-- Scott Simon: Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.
--:-- [Sound effects: News theme music continues]
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--:-- Scott Simon: President Trump says it's very hard to ask Israel to stop attacking Iran at this moment in the conflict. If somebody's winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody's losing. But there's a specific kind of math that could determine just how long the war could go on for. How many long-range missiles Iran has versus how many missile interceptors Israel possesses to shoot them down?
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: And P.S. I've been looking into this issue, and I join us now. Kat, thanks for being with us.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Hey, good morning. Help us get hold of this. Describe first Israel's air defense system.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Yeah, so Israel has one of the best, if not the best, air defense systems in the world. And it's multilayered. Probably the most well-known layer of that is called the Iron Dome, but there are several others that work too. And the system works well. It generally has about a 90% success rate.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: What makes this situation different is essentially sheer numbers. Iran has launched more than 400 missiles at Israel in recent days, along with hundreds of drones, according to Israel. And Iran continues to barrage Israel daily, often usually with dozens of missiles at a time.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: That means basically Israel is using its missile interceptors faster than it can make them right now.
--:-- Tom Carrico: Whenever you're talking about somebody shooting big ballistic missiles at you, you pay real close attention to the clock in terms of how long you can shoot back.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: He says his biggest worry right now is that eventually Israel's missile interceptors could run out.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: And what would that mean for Israel? Well, the longer this goes, Israel might have to start making some hard choices in terms of what to defend. Maybe focusing on key military or security targets versus civilian infrastructure, for example.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Meaning that Israeli cities and towns might start seeing more destruction.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Experts I talked to say this would be a big win for Iran, hoping it might put more pressure on Israel to give up on its goal of destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: I should say Israeli officials won't comment on how many interceptors it has left. That would potentially give Iran a big advantage.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: NPR asked the Israeli military about its stock of interceptors, and it said it is, quote, prepared and ready for any scenario.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: And what about the other side of the equation? What do we know about the Iranian arsenal?
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Yeah, that's the other key piece of this, of course, is how many long-range missiles Iran has to shoot and what it has to shoot them with.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: There aren't many reliable estimates on Iran's stockpile, but experts tend to think that Iran has used around a third to a half of what it has.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: But perhaps more important is how many missile launchers Iran has, because it can't use the missiles without them.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Launchers have been a key target for Israeli strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimated earlier this week that Israel has taken out more than half of them, although that number is hard to know for sure.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: And another upper hand for Israel is that it's crippled Iran's air defense systems, claiming it has total control over the skies there and it can hit whatever it wants at will.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: President Trump says he would decide within two weeks if the U.S. would join Israel's bombing campaign against Iran.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: What would be at stake? Well, we know the White House has been weighing whether or not to greenlight using these huge bunker-buster bombs that only the U.S. has to try to destroy a key Iranian nuclear site.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Obviously, Israel having control of Iran's airspace would be a huge help for that.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: But, Scott, maybe the most important numbers in all of this to keep in mind here, are the civilian lines being lost on both sides if this war continues.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: Iran says 430 people have been killed. Israel says it's lost at least 24.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorf: And Pierce, thanks so much.
--:-- Scott Simon: Thanks, Kat.
--:-- [Sound effects: News theme music continues]
--:-- Scott Simon: This week's news, of course, has been dominated by events in the Middle East, but at home, President Trump is pressing ahead with his domestic agenda.
--:-- Scott Simon: Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned what's at stake if Congress doesn't pass the president's massive tax cut and spending bill.
--:-- Scott Simon: If we don't take action, American families will be facing a massive tax hike starting in 2026.
--:-- Scott Simon: Senator Thune aims for a vote next week, but first, he has to resolve divisions among his own fellow Republicans.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: NPR congressional correspondent Deidre Walsh joins us. Deidre, thanks for being with us.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Hey, Scott.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: But remind us, please, first, how is this bill significantly different than the one the House passed last month?
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Senator Republicans did make some changes to the version that cleared the House last month.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: But the core elements of this bill are similar. The bill permanently extends the tax cuts for individuals and businesses that Trump enacted back in 2017.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: But Republicans added some additional ones, things the president campaigned on, like no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: To pay for the tax cuts, this bill makes significant cuts to Medicaid.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: That's the health care program for low-income, elderly, and disabled Americans.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: It adds new work requirements and changes the way states can finance their Medicaid programs.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: This bill also phases out hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax breaks that the Biden administration put into place.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And Senate Republicans are split on this package, right? Where are some of the divisions?
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Right. There are several issues.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Rand Paul of Kentucky, for one, says the provision to increase the country's borrowing authority by $5 trillion to avoid a default later this summer is a nonstarter for him.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Some conservatives say the bill doesn't cut enough spending.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Another group of Republicans in the Senate oppose the Medicaid changes.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: They're worried that some of the changes could cause rural hospitals in their states to close.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: There's another group of Senate Republicans who represent states where new energy projects are getting up and running and generating jobs.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And they want to delay phasing out those energy tax breaks so these projects can move ahead.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Remember, Senate Majority Leader Thune can afford to lose only three votes to get this package through.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And what's the senator doing to try and bridge some of the differences?
--:-- Deidre Walsh: He's relying heavily on President Trump to be the closer.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was on the Hill meeting with Senate Republicans this week, and she reiterated the president wants this done by July 4th.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: There are discussions making tweaks to some of the things that I just talked about to address these concerns.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: But for people like John Thune, it's kind of like whack-a-mole. If you give in to moderates on Medicaid, it could impact how conservatives view the bill in terms of its spending cuts.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And whatever changes Senate Republicans make, we'll need to get a majority in the House.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And there's already a group of House Republicans who are raising red flags about some of these changes that the Senate's making.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: It's pretty clear this could slip beyond July 4th.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: That's not a real hard deadline. The real deadline comes later this summer when the Treasury Department warns the country could bump up against the debt ceiling if Congress doesn't authorize more borrowing.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Separately, the Senate next week is expected to take up a resolution related to Iran, right?
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Right. As the president weighs whether or not to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is forcing a vote on a resolution.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: That resolution says the president cannot take military action against Iran without first coming to Congress for a vote.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Cain says he does expect some Republicans to join him.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: But so far, no Republican has said they're voting for this resolution.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: There will be intelligence briefings on the Hill early next week on Iran.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: And that could really impact the vote on this kind of resolution.
--:-- Deidre Walsh: Thanks so much, Deidre.
--:-- Scott Simon: For much of the country, summer is about to be off to a blistering start.
--:-- Scott Simon: A heat dome is expanding over much of the U.S.
--:-- Scott Simon: It's expected to raise temperatures well into the 90s, even into triple digits in the coming days.
--:-- Ben Knoll: Ben Knoll is a meteorologist with the Washington Post, and he joins us now. Hi, Ben.
--:-- Ben Knoll: Good morning. So how hot and humid is it going to get in the U.S.?
--:-- Ben Knoll: Because here in D.C., it is hot as 80s. Can I say that?
--:-- Ben Knoll: Yeah, look, I just ran some of the latest statistics, and we're looking at about 265 million people across the country experiencing 90 or 100 degree heat over the next week.
--:-- Ben Knoll: And this is interesting because I think this event can kind of interchangeably be called a heat wave or a humidity wave because it's going to be really brutally humid across the central and eastern part of the country.
--:-- Ben Knoll: What is causing that? Why is there so much moisture in the air?
--:-- Ben Knoll: So the winds in this case are blowing up from the Caribbean Sea, so thousands of miles away, transporting kind of the weather from the Caribbean islands, from the Gulf of Mexico, right up into the United States.
--:-- Ben Knoll: But it's not just that. Actually, the ocean waters in those parts of the world are warmer than average, and warmer air can hold more water vapor.
--:-- Ben Knoll: And that's what millions of people across the United States are going to feel.
--:-- Ben Knoll: Places like Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Washington, Baltimore, down into the Carolinas, even up into southern Canada, places that you wouldn't normally, I guess, associate with extreme humidity feeling honestly more like the tropics for a couple of days next week.
--:-- Ben Knoll: This high humidity, is that a part of climate change?
--:-- Ben Knoll: I think it is. It is part of that bigger picture.
--:-- Ben Knoll: I mean, summer, it's hot, it's humid. But you can look back historically at humidity over the course of many past summers and look at how that is changing.
--:-- Ben Knoll: And what you find is a gradual trend toward more humidity.
--:-- Ben Knoll: For the planet as a whole, the year 2024 last year was the most humid by one particular metric of humidity measuring on record since records began in 1940.
--:-- Ben Knoll: So this is a real trend, and it's kind of linked to the fact that a warmer atmosphere can basically contain more water vapor.
--:-- Ben Knoll: So a warmer world actually is often a wetter world.
--:-- Ben Knoll: What are the specific dangers associated with high humidity?
--:-- Ben Knoll: It makes the human body, it makes it more challenging to cool off.
--:-- Ben Knoll: The human body cools off by sweating.
--:-- Ben Knoll: That sweat, which needs to evaporate off of the skin, it can't evaporate as quickly or as efficiently in an atmosphere that is very humid.
--:-- Ben Knoll: So that sweat kind of lingers, it sticks around, your body temperature starts to go up.
--:-- Ben Knoll: And that's when kind of heat-related illnesses, heat stroke, heat stress can come into the picture.
--:-- Ben Knoll: So remaining kind of in an air-conditioned place, if you have access to that.
--:-- Ben Knoll: Some folks may have a dehumidifier, that can help.
--:-- Ben Knoll: If you don't have those two things, cool showers.
--:-- Ben Knoll: If you have to work outside, listen to your body, take breaks, drink water preferably and not other beverages that can actually dehydrate you.
--:-- Ben Knoll: So it's kind of knowing your limits because they can kind of creep up on you fast in weather like this.
--:-- Ben Knoll: Thanks so much for joining us.
--:-- Scott Simon: And that's Up First for Saturday, June 21st, 2025.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: I'm Ayesha Rascoe.
--:-- Scott Simon: And I'm Scott Simon.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Wait, wait, one more thing for you today.
--:-- Scott Simon: Here at Up First, we take keeping you informed seriously.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Meanwhile, our friends at NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me take making fun of the news very seriously.
--:-- Scott Simon: Each week, they create a news quiz, and we want to give Up First listeners a chance to play along.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Test your knowledge of the week's news against the show's panelists.
--:-- Scott Simon: I mean, what do they know?
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: By listening every weekend, here's this week's lightning fill-in-the-blank news quiz.
--:-- [Sound effects: News theme music continues]
--:-- Bill: Now onto our final game, lightning fill-in-the-blank. Each of our players has 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as they can.
--:-- Bill: Each correct answer now worth two points.
--:-- Bill: Bill, can you give us the scores?
--:-- Bill: Hari has five. Rachel and Jeff each have four.
--:-- Bill: All right, Hari has five. Okay. Rachel and Jeff are tied for second.
--:-- Bill: And you guys are going to go first. I'm going to arbitrarily pick Rachel.
--:-- Bill: Here we go. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, Israel launched an airstrike against a nuclear facility in blank.
--:-- Bill: In Iran, yeah.
--:-- Bill: And Monday, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's ban on blank, affirming care for trans youth.
--:-- Rachel: Um, affirming.
--:-- Bill: Gender affirming care, right.
--:-- Bill: This week, NASA said that a giant asteroid has a chance of hitting the blank in 2032.
--:-- Bill: No, sadly the moon.
--:-- Bill: Okay. Damn it!
--:-- Bill: This week a monkey in Hong Kong was caught on camera destroying blank.
--:-- Bill: No, destroying a sign warning people not to feed the monkeys.
--:-- Bill: On Tuesday the senate passed an act aimed at regulating bitcoin and other blanks.
--:-- Bill: Right, cryptocurrencies.
--:-- Bill: According to a new lawsuit, weight loss drugs like blank are causing vision loss.
--:-- Bill: Yes, and Ozempic.
--:-- Bill: This week, the head of a waste management company in Sweden, once called the queen of trash, is headed to prison because she took the trash she was in charge of disposing and blanked.
--:-- Rachel: Uh, sold it.
--:-- Bill: No, she just left giant piles of it all over Sweden.
--:-- Bill: Bad girl. Bad girl.
--:-- Bill: On Tuesday, Fariba Van Kor, who called herself the queen of trash, was convicted on 19 counts of environmental crimes.
--:-- Bill: Prosecutors called her waste management business a pyramid scheme, and they're right in that the giant trash piles she left all over Sweden were kind of pyramid
--:-- Bill: Bill how did Rachel do in our quiz?
--:-- Bill: Four right. Eight more points. Tuttle to 12. Rachel you did well. You in first place.
--:-- Bill: All right Jeff. Oh, God.
--:-- Bill: Jeff, you're up next.
--:-- Bill: Here we go. Fill in the blank. According to a new report, by 2034, blank will not be able to pay out full monthly benefits.
--:-- Jeff: Social security.
--:-- Bill: Right. During a routine test, another one of blank's rockets exploded on the launch pad.
--:-- Bill: Right. This week, Brad Lander, city comptroller and one of the mayoral candidates in blank was arrested by ICE.
--:-- Jeff: Oh, true? No, in the... I'm looking for blank. Name of the city.
--:-- Jeff: Oh. New York?
--:-- Bill: Right. On Tuesday, over 200 people waiting for aid in blank were injured by Israeli fire.
--:-- Bill: This week, a game of disc golf in South Carolina was interrupted when blank fell from the sky and onto the course.
--:-- Bill: Oh. You know what? Shame on me. Shame on me.
--:-- Bill: On Tuesday, the owner of the L.A. Dodgers agreed to buy majority ownership of the L.A. Blanks for $10 billion.
--:-- Bill: Yes, the Lakers.
--:-- Bill: According to a new study, regularly smoking blank may be worse for your heart than cocaine.
--:-- Bill: Marijuana, right.
--:-- Bill: This week, a man in Texas was shocked to discover that his ex had secretly blanked after they broke up.
--:-- Bill: No, had secretly married him after they broke up.
--:-- Bill: According to police, the woman somehow convinced a pastor to certify a wedding certificate without the man being there, which she then filed with the county clerk.
--:-- Bill: So they're married.
--:-- Bill: The man only found out about it because his wife mailed him a copy of the marriage certificate along with, this is true, a gift bag from Bath and Body Works.
--:-- Bill: Insult to injury.
--:-- Bill: Bill, how did Jeff do in our quiz?
--:-- Bill: Jeff, this is hard to believe for a newbie, But you got six right. Twelve more points. Sixteen put you in the ring. Yay!
--:-- Bill: So, how many does Hari need to win?
--:-- Bill: Six. Go for it, Hari.
--:-- Bill: Here we go, Hari. This is for the game.
--:-- Bill: On Thursday, President Trump once again delayed the ban on social media app blank.
--:-- Bill: Right. This week, the National Weather Service warned of record-breaking temperatures as a blank dome covers the U.S.
--:-- Bill: Yes, heat dome.
--:-- Bill: On Monday, a recall order was placed on some brands of ready-to-eat fettuccine Alfredo linked to a blank outbreak.
--:-- Bill: After multiple thefts of their street signs, residents of blank Road in the UK are demanding police take action.
--:-- Bill: No, Daddy Hole Road.
--:-- Bill: On Tuesday, the Florida Panthers won their second consecutive blank Cup.
--:-- Bill: Later on Tuesday, the Florida Panthers cracked and dented their blank cups.
--:-- Hari: Right. Following a number of dangerous incidents, a shopping center in the UK has imposed a speed limit on blank.
--:-- Hari: Shopping cards.
--:-- Bill: No mobility scooters.
--:-- Bill: After a shocking number of collisions and near misses, the Idlewell shopping center in the UK announced a four-mile-an-hour speed limit on all mobility scooters.
--:-- Bill: I can't wait until someone's caught speeding, tries to make a run for it, and a chase breaks out between a mobility scooter and a security guard doing a brisk walk.
--:-- Bill: Bill did hurry do well enough to win.
--:-- Bill: He got four right for eight more points. Total of 13.
--:-- Bill: Jeff is the winner. Oh, my goodness. First time's the charge. Wow.
--:-- Bill: You know I'm the first one here, and I'm the last one to leave.
--:-- Bill: See how closely you follow the week's news and have some fun? by listening to the podcast Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz every Saturday.
--:-- Bill: It's available in the NPR app and wherever you get your podcasts.
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--:-- Announcer (Voiceover): Level up your hoodie game at go.pakaapparel.com slash NPR. Code NPR.
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--:-- [Theme music fades in]
--:-- Scott Simon: Up First is a production of NPR.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: I'm Ayesha Rascoe.
--:-- Scott Simon: And I'm Scott Simon.
--:-- Ayesha Rascoe: Thanks for listening.
--:-- Scott Simon: And thanks for listening.
--:-- [Theme music continues to play as the episode ends]
