--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The U.S. Forest Service is improving wildfire prediction models with Google AI. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at g.co slash American Innovation.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The Trump administration tells federal agencies to prepare for permanent mass firings if the government shuts down. Plus, we look at how Delta Airlines is racing to address a surge of toxic fume events happening on planes.
--:-- Ben Katz: The Airbus A320, which is the best-selling aircraft in the world today, is kind of driving this increase in incidents that we measured in our reporting. And that's really the plane that Delta is trying to deal with, trying to curb some of these fume events.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And senators question big tech companies over how they use H-1B visas. It's Thursday, September 25th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: We begin with breaking news from Denmark, which has suffered a professional hybrid drone attack overnight. Drones were observed over multiple airports late Wednesday, including a military airbase housing most of the country's F-16 and F-35 fighter jets.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: It's the second time in less in a week that unmanned aircraft have disrupted air traffic in the NATO country and follows Russian violations of Estonian and Polish airspace in recent weeks. The Danish Minister of Defense said a professional actor was behind the attack and that the drones were launched from Denmark's vicinity.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: He added that there was currently no evidence linking the drone activity to Russia, but called the action a danger to freedom and safety. The Danish government is now considering calling for national security consultations under NATO's Article 4.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: U.S. lawmakers have less than a week to reach a spending agreement before the government shuts down. And the situation just got all the more complicated. The White House's Budget Office has directed federal agencies to go ahead with mass firings if the government does indeed go dark next week.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The memo instructs agencies to design layoff plans for employees who work for programs that are, quote, not consistent with the president's priorities. These permanent layoffs would be in addition to any temporary furloughs that happen during a shutdown.
--:-- Hakeem Jeffries: Democrats do not support the partisan Republican spending bill because it continues to gut the health care of the American people. Republicans have launched an all-out assault on the health care of everyday Americans, the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Later, Jeffries said in a social media post that Democrats will not be intimidated. The GOP is insisting that their seven-week stopgap measure to fund the government is the only one on the table, and there are no planned talks with President Trump and Democrats after the president earlier this week backed out of a planned meeting.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: If no bipartisan deal is reached the government will shut down at 12 Eastern on Wednesday October 1st We are exclusively reporting that lawmakers are ramping up scrutiny of how big tech companies are using H visas
--:-- Chuck Grassley: Last night Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Democratic Ranking Member Dick Durbin sent letters to the largest users of the visas. That includes Amazon, Apple and JPMorgan Chase, asking them to explain why they continue to hire thousands of H-1B visa holders while also cutting other jobs.
--:-- Dick Durbin: Yesterday, the senators asked for detailed information on how many H-1B workers the companies employ, what wages they are paid, and whether American workers have been displaced in the process.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Meanwhile, the Justice Department is racing to obtain criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey this week, escalating President Trump's unprecedented efforts to prosecute his political foes.
--:-- Caroline Levitt: The president is fulfilling his promise to restore a Department of Justice that demands accountability. And it is not weaponizing the Department of Justice to demand accountability for those who weaponized the Department of Justice.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And now we are exclusively reporting that Delta is replacing engine units to address toxic fume surges on its planes. According to a journal investigation published last week, there have been several APU-related fume events on Delta's A320 jets over the past year.
--:-- Ben Katz: A fume event happens when oil leaks into an engine and vaporizes, releasing an unknown quantity of neurotoxins and other chemicals into the air that we then end up breathing inside the aircraft.
--:-- Ben Katz: Most of the time, even, the effects are pretty fleeting, pretty mild. you may not even notice it. But on occasion, the effects can be longer lasting and more severe, right? And they range from reports of passengers feeling nauseous or vomiting to crew who have reported brain injuries or even developed cancer.
--:-- Ben Katz: We've learned that Delta has been addressing the issue for some time and has now upgraded about 90% of the auxiliary power units on more than 300 of its Airbus jets.
--:-- Ben Katz: Airbus has previously identified the APU, which is typically a third engine that sits in the tail of an aircraft, as a leading cause of toxic fumes contaminating the air that's pumped into the plane when the two primary engines aren't running.
--:-- Ben Katz: That, for example, happens during taxiing. Ben says Delta's efforts will eliminate some of the fume events, but not solve the entire problem There only one modern commercial plane that isn affected by fume events and that the Boeing 787 but every other aircraft is
--:-- Ben Katz: There are kind of a number of causes of these fume events You know they can affect the jet engines themselves And there also a fundamental issue with the design of the aircraft that Airbus is still yet to address.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Apple has asked the European Union to repeal or significantly scale back the Digital Markets Act, saying the law is making it harder to do business and bring new products to Europe.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The request came in remarks submitted to the European Commission, where officials are reviewing how the new law is working. Apple is now obliged to let rival app stores set up shop on iPhones and show users a choice screen that allows them to choose a different default browser in the European Union.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The commission was quick to open investigations into Apple product changes early last year when the company had to start abiding by the law and has fined the tech giant almost $600 million for failing to comply.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Coming up, Chinese leader Xi Jinping takes a veiled swipe at President Trump while speaking to the UN yesterday. Plus, Jimmy Kimmel was right. His four-day suspension did lead to blockbuster ratings. More on those stories after the break.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: My marathon isn't about time. It's about my 26 friends with intellectual disabilities I'm dedicating each mile to. I'm Joseph. I'm running my first Bank of America Chicago Marathon for Special Olympics Illinois to help give my friends a place to shine. Join Bank of America in supporting Joseph's cause. Give if you can at bfa.com slash support Joseph.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: What would you like the power to do? Bank of America.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: References to charitable organizations is not an endorsement by Bank of America Corporation.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled a new plan to tackle climate change in an address to the United Nations yesterday, just one day after President Trump used the same global stage to do pretty much the opposite.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: The Chinese leader, speaking in a video message, presented a new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Accord. He called the green and low carbon transition, the quote, trend of our time, and said that while some countries are acting against it, the international community should stay focused in, quote, the right direction.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: China is both the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for about a third of the global total, and it is also the dominant manufacturer of all kinds of clean energy technologies, from solar panels to wind turbines to electric vehicles and batteries.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: So it is absolutely essential to both the problem of climate change and the solution to it. What is the Chinese plan that Xi laid out yesterday promising here, and how is it being received?
--:-- Matthew Dalton: So he said that China will aim to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions 7 to 10 percent from their peak by 2035. That's the core of the plan.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: And it was received with frankly a lot of disappointment from environmental groups and analysts because he didn't say what the peak would be and that a really important variable to determine what the overall course of the planet's warming is going to be.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: It leaves open the possibility that China could increase its greenhouse gas emissions by quite a bit before starting to reduce them.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: I think most people think that's unlikely because its emissions growth has been slowing very significantly in recent years. And it's more or less flat, I would say, over the last year.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: And that's because China has been adding so much wind and solar power to its electrical grid that the growth of coal fire generation has basically come to a stop.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Now, there are other sources of greenhouse gases growth in China that could mess this all up. So China's at this kind of inflection point where if it keeps on doing what it's doing with renewable energy, then it really stands a good chance of starting to reduce its emissions very soon.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And actually, the 7% to 10% by 2035 from a peak would be a very conservative target. But that has been China's trend in climate policy since the Paris Accord was signed in 2015.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: I think the hope of environmental groups is that China is going to significantly overperform this target, given all the renewable energy they're adding to the grid, given what a champion of renewable energy they have become.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: and that will put the goals of the Paris Accord within striking distance. Remember that the Paris Accord calls for governments to try to keep global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And it's a target that's in serious jeopardy, but it's something that China's emissions are absolutely crucial for how close to the goal the entire world gets.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: That's Journal Climate reporter Matthew Dalton. Matthew, thanks for joining us today.
--:-- Matthew Dalton: Thanks a lot, Caitlin.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And finally, nearly 6.3 million people tuned in to watch Jimmy Kimmel's emotional return to the airwaves on Tuesday night after the show was suspended over remarks the comedian made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: That's well above the 1.8 million viewers that the show averaged in the second quarter of this year, based on preliminary numbers from Nielsen.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Tuesday's ratings were also notable in part because Jimmy Kimmel Live wasn't available on broadcast TV in more than 20 percent of the country, including in big cities like Seattle, New Orleans, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: Station owners Nextar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group have not said if or when they would put Kimmel's show back on their stations.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sondra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.
--:-- Caitlin McCabe: tasks, see deadlines, and keep things moving all in one place. It's simple, really. Visit todoist.com and bring a little clarity to your chaos.
