A daily non-partisan, conversational breakdown of today’s top news and breaking news stories
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Headlines:
– Welcome to Mo News (00:00)
– Biden and Harris Meet With Netanyahu (02:30)
– Debate About The Next Presidential Debate (05:50)
– J.D. Vance Once Called Kamala Harris a 'Childless Cat Lady’-- People Have Thoughts (07:45)
– Why More U.S. Adults Are Choosing Not To Have Kids (09:30)
– Newsom Orders California Officials to Remove Homeless Encampments (12:10)
– Still No Return Date for Starliner as Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams Remain In Space (13:30)
– Monday Breaks The Record For Hottest Day Ever On Earth (14:40)
– North Korean Trash Balloon Lands On South Korea's Presidential Compound (15:50)
– Southwest Ending Its Open Seating Policy (17:00)
– Olympics Opening Ceremony Is Today: Which US Athletes To Watch (17:50)
– What We’re Watching, Reading, Eating (19:50)
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Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022.
Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast.
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(upbeat music) - Hey everyone, it is Friday, July 26th. Then you are listening to the Mo News Podcast. I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. We read all of the news and read between the lines so you don't have to. As you could tell, Moshe is not here. He is enjoying some time off. I will be holding things down for the next few days. And I feel like Moshe would want me to mention that today is National Coffee Milkshake Day, National Ant and Uncle Day, and National Chili Dog Day. I genuinely do not know where they come up with all this stuff, but happy celebrating for everyone who is, and also happy Friday. Hopefully we'll have a quieter news weekend, but we shall see, because usually we say that out loud, and then news breaks. All right, speaking of news, tons of it. Here are the headlines. We're gonna start with a roundup of the political headlines. President Biden and Vice President Harris meet separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Plus a debate about the debate will Harris and Donald Trump face off, and when? Meanwhile, Trump is standing by his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, who's under fire for once calling Kamala Harris a childless cat lady, needless to say, people have thoughts, and by people, I mean, Jennifer Aniston getting into the debate, and why more US adults are choosing not to have kids. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom orders state officials to remove homeless encampments, and stop me if you've heard this before, Earth just broke another record for its hottest day ever. Now to two people not on planet Earth, there is still no return date for Boeing's Starliner as those two American astronauts remain in space. North Korea still sending trash balloons over to South Korea, but this time, one of them landed near South Korea's presidential compound, how South Korea is responding, and let's just say it involves K-pop. In business news, Southwest is ending its open seating policy, and the Paris Games are finally here, who to watch as the games get going. Plus it is Friday, cheers to the freakin' weekend, what we are watching, reading, and eating. So I wanna start with a roundup of some of the biggest political headlines to start a high stakes meeting between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two have had a long relationship, sometimes a tense relationship. Their meeting came after Biden's oval office address on Wednesday night, explaining his reasoning for stepping aside in the presidential race. On Thursday, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his decades of support for the state of Israel. - As president, we've known each other for 40 years, and you've known every Israeli Prime Minister for 50 years. From Goldenmere, so from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I wanna thank him for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. - Biden and Netanyahu then met with families of hostages still kept captive in Gaza. Many of these families feel like Netanyahu and Biden, for that matter, should be doing more to bring their loved ones home. Biden says securing a ceasefire deal that would end the fighting and secure the release of the hostages is still a top priority of his. He and U.S. officials have repeatedly said a ceasefire deal is imminent, and yet, as motion I have reported, we have heard this before, and there is no deal until there is a deal. Notably, Netanyahu met with Vice President Harris separately afterward. Harris is seen as more critical of Israel's war in Gaza. After the meeting, Harris made a statement touting her unwavering support for Israel, even reading the names of the Americans still being held hostage, but also expressing her concern for Palestinians who are facing famine and being displaced for the third or fourth times. She said quite forcefully that the fighting needs to stop. - It is time for this war to end, and to end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination. Earlier in the day on Thursday, she released a statement condemning demonstrators who voiced support for Hamas and burned an American flag near the U.S. Capitol. That was part of protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress on Wednesday. She said in a statement, "Hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation." She said, "I condemn any individuals "associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, "which has vowed to annihilate the state of Israel "and kill Jews. "Prow Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, "and we must not tolerate it in our nation." On Wednesday, most of the demonstrators marched peacefully, but some did clash with police near the Capitol. They climbed up flagpoles at nearby Union Station, replacing American flags with Palestinian flags. On Thursday, National Park Service staff started a massive cleanup effort. Some of the protesters graffitied and vandalized the Liberty Bell and Christopher Columbus Fountain. By the way, today, Netanyahu will be meeting with Donald Trump at Morilago. And some other political headlines former President Obama is expected to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris soon, that is according to CNN. Harris was on the campaign trail Thursday. She spoke at a Teachers Union event in Houston, as for a timeline here on when she could officially get the nomination. If anyone else wants to run, they'll need to declare by tomorrow, Saturday at 6 p.m. So anyone out there listening, if you want to challenge Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, you've got about 30 hours to make it known. If not, the DNC will start a virtual roll call for Harris on August 1st. And then she's expected to pick her vice president by August 7th to make sure that they can get on every ballot. Now, as far as a debate between Harris and former President Trump, Harris told reporters on Thursday that she is ready to debate Donald Trump. She accused him of backpedaling from a previous agreement for a debate hosted by ABC News on September 10th. That was one of two debates that Trump and then candidate Joe Biden had agreed on. Trump now says he wants to shift the debate to Fox News. For its part, Fox has proposed a debate for September 17th in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Harris, not responding to a question about having Fox News host the debate. So the debate over the debate continues. But one thing that we have learned during this election cycle is that these debates are really important. It was Biden's disastrous performance on June 27th that really sparked concerns that he was too old for a second term. It's a chance to see the candidates side by side laying out their positions on the issues. On Thursday, Donald Trump hitting the campaign trail, calling Harris part of the radical left. He is also sticking by his vice presidential pick, JD Vance, who's come under fire for some past comments that he made about vice president Kamala Harris. In a clip from 2021, Vance told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the country was run by quote, "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives." Take a listen. - They're effectively run in this country. Via the Democrats via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too. And it's just a basic fact. You look Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it? - In response, the ex-wife of second gentleman Doug Emhoff defended Harris saying that for over 10 years, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I to their children, Cole and Ella. She said, "Harris is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present." And that quote, "I love our blended family and I'm grateful to have her in it." Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg also responding. He is now the parent of twins but says that Vance's comments back in 2021 came at a time when he and his husband had been through what he calls a heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey. And he told CNN, "Maybe that is why you shouldn't be talking about other people's children." And even actress Jennifer Aniston reposted the Vance clip, writing, "I truly cannot believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States. All I could say is Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day." And in some non-political news, but on the topic, a new Pew Research Center survey shows that an increasing share of adults under the age of 50 say that they are unlikely to have kids, mostly because they don't want to. 47% of adults under 50 without kids say they're unlikely to have them. That is up 10 percentage points from 2018. Another reason, the high cost of having kids. 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Again, go to Shopify.com/mo'news to grow your business no matter what stage you're in, Shopify.com/mo'news. (bell rings) We're always talking about health trends and food trends and how hard it is to get all of your nutrients. Well, one way to get all the important ones is HE1 powder. It is just one scoop with a glass of water in the morning. It is easy and quick. So you can replace multiple health supplements like multivitamins, digestivates, immune support, and more with just one simple scoop. There's things like folate, magnesium, my favorite, ashwagandha, for stress support, vitamin C and zinc, all through your immune system. It's good to know that you could cover your nutritional bases and just set yourself up for success in just 60 seconds. So with your first purchase of HE1, they are giving mo' news listeners a free one year supply of their vitamin D and five free travel packs of HE1. Visit drinkagone.com/mo'news to take advance to this offer. You can get a discounted monthly subscription or try it one time for just a month. Again, that is drinkagone.com/mo'news, M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal, and really start to take ownership of your health. Time now for the speed read from the New York Times, California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered state officials on Thursday to begin dismantling thousands of homeless encampments, the nation's most sweeping response to a recent Supreme Court ruling that gave governments greater authority to remove homeless people from their streets. Homeless encampments have vexed California where housing costs are among the nation's highest, an estimated 180,000 people were homeless last year in California. Unlike New York City, most jurisdictions in the state do not guarantee a right to housing. Gavin Newsom, who is a Democrat, called on state and local leaders to humanely remove encampments from public spaces in an urgent manner. His executive order, though, could divide Democratic local leaders in California. You've got Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who has criticized the Supreme Court ruling. She had some early success in reducing the homeless population by moving people off the streets and into motels and shelters. But in San Francisco, Mayor London Breed, also a Democrat said last week that city officials plan to become very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments, and that the city might start to cite homeless people who refused offers of shelter. From USA Today, still no return date, set for the astronauts on the Boeing capsule. NASA and Boeing say that the Starliner, which launched into space with two astronauts aboard on June 5, still does not have an official return date. Originally, if you remember, it was slated for about an eight-day mission. The Starliner's now been in space for about seven weeks. It's docked at the International Space Station, with veteran NASA astronauts Barry Butch Wilmore and Sunita Sunny Williams. NASA says they're making a lot of progress, but still do not have a return date. Starliner's return to Earth has been repeatedly pushed back since its initial planned re-entry about a week after launch. Now, Starliner and its crew aren't expected back until August at the earliest. Boeing and NASA have done continuous testing on the malfunctioning thrusters that caused issues during the trip to ISS, but officials want to make it clear that the astronauts are not stranded or trapped or stuck at the space station. They say they are at ISS. They are living with the rest of the onboard crew. They are comfortable and have supplies. Still, I hope they packed a lot of extra underwear. From Reuters, global temperatures hit their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, according to preliminary data from Europe's top climate monitor. It came after Sunday's heat broke the record from last July, and scientists think this is just the beginning of even more broken records, and I feel like I sound like a broken record with this news. According to preliminary data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, the global average temperature reached 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit Monday, topping the prior day's record of 62.76 degrees. Remember, the takes an average across the globe, so you've got half the globe experiencing winter, half experiencing summer, and it comes on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year that scientists have ever seen. Higher than normal winter temperatures in Antarctica are helping to push the globe to these new highs, according to Copernicus. Effects from climate change and the El Niño climate pattern have also pushed this summer to be especially hot, but the director of Copernicus says that we are truly in unchartered territory. From NBC News, North Korean trash balloons are back, and this time they're landing on South Korea's presidential compound. Seoul's presidential security service said in a telephone call it tracked the balloon in real time as the winds carried it across its nuclear-armed neighbor's border until it eventually landed in the presidential compound in the South Korean capital. The agency said it posed no danger. Balloons are emerging as they new and messy weapon of war this year. Since May, North Korea has been floating thousands of balloons with bags of trash attached to them, and they have become a new source of tension between the two Koreas. Some have been filled with bottles, old batteries, and even manure, but more recently they have been carrying waste paper. Pyongyang says the launches are a tit-for-tat response to activists and defectors who have for years sent propaganda leaflets via balloons. Others have contained dollar drugs and painkillers. South Korea's response so far blaring K-pop through loudspeakers across the border. Previous broadcasts have included weather forecasts, news about Samsung, the biggest South Korean company, and criticism of the North Korean missile program. Some business news for the first time in history, Southwest Airlines is doing away with open seating. They announced Thursday that they'll sign seats and offer premium seating options on all flights. Southwest became known for having a single economy class cabin with open seating assignments. So currently passengers are assigned a boarding group, but once they're on board, they can choose any available seat customers can pay extra to board early to get their preferred seat. The recently announced changes will effectively let the carrier boost profits by charging a higher rate for its premium seats across all flights. But Southwest says this decision came after research showed that 80% of its customers, and nearly 90% of potential customers, prefer having an assigned seat. And finally, today is the day the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics are today at 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. But competition has actually already started. Team USA has about 600 athletes competing. Some that we'll be watching, Katie Ledecky. This is gonna be the swimmer's fourth summer games. She already has seven Olympic gold medals. By the end of the two weeks, she could become the most decorated female Olympian in history. And then there is Simone Biles, gymnastics goat, with Drew from most events during the last summer Olympics because of a bad case of the twisties. But she's back and looking great. She is the most decorated athlete in gymnastics history. And she's also the pioneer of four moves that no one else has ever matched. Her team includes four other Olympic veterans and a newbie, Hesley Rivera. In the last summer games, they got silver as a team. So they'll be trying to reclaim their 2021 and 2016 gold. We're also watching both the men and women's basketball teams after skipping the 2016 and 2021 games. LeBron James, at 39 years old, will likely be making his last Olympic appearance. And as for the women's team, they're going for their 10th gold, but Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese will not be there. They were not named to the team this year. In terms of track, Shikari Richardson, she was disqualified from the Tokyo Games after testing positive for THC. That's the active ingredient in marijuana. Well, she's looking to prove she is the fastest woman in the world. She'll be racing in the 100 meters. You can watch the opening ceremony today on NBC or via streaming on Peacock. And by the way, there's actually already a little bit of controversy. The coach of Canada's women's soccer team will not be coaching in their opening game against New Zealand after members of her staff flew drones over New Zealand's practices on Friday and Monday. All right, it is Friday. Cheers to the freaking weekend. Time for it. We are watching reading and eating. As I mentioned yesterday, I am going to be watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Over 10,000 athletes will be sailing down the riversend today in what is poised to be the most ambitious Olympic ceremony ever attempted. Again, it starts at 7.30 p.m. Paris time. You can watch it at 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. And then there's also an encore prime time showing on NBC. As for what I am reading, surprise, surprise, a piece from the Atlantic. It's called how to make friends according to science. So we know from science that friendships are very important in terms of our happiness. So what does the science say about how to make friends? Well, building deeper friendships may be largely a matter of putting in the time. There's a study that shows it takes about 50 hours of socializing to go from acquaintance to casual friend. And then another 40 hours to become a real friend and a total of 200 hours to become a close friend. If that sounds like too much effort, they say, try to reconnect with old friends. And if all else fails, you could start randomly confiding in people that you don't know that well in hopes of, quote, letting the tail wag the relational dog. They say self-disclosure makes us more likable. And what I am eating, I made cottage cheese chips. So I saw them on Instagram from fitness trainer Jasmine Mays. And the reason that I made them is because they only have two ingredients in them. And I happened to have both of them at my house, a scoop of cottage cheese. And then you season it with everything bagel seasoning and put them in the air fryer for about 30 minutes. I have to say they were really good. I made them smaller than a tablespoon. And a friend messaged me that she tried the recipe and they didn't get crispy. So it sounds like you might need to cook them a little bit longer than the 30 minutes. Either way, I will repost the recipe on my Instagram account, Jill R. Wagner. And let me know if you try them because again, they are really easy to make and pretty healthy and filling. All right, that does it for this solo edition. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me and listening to the Emo News podcast. If you like what you hear, share this with your friends. It will help us grow. Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Review us in the app store. If there is any crazy breaking news this weekend, I'm sure Mosch will jump on the microphone and join me for an emergency episode. But hopefully it'll be smooth, sailing until Monday. Everyone have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for listening to the Emo News podcast. 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