NPR News: 09-05-2026 11AM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Linda Kenyon. U.S. Central Command confirms the U.S. has destroyed three Iranian oil tankers in your carg island after Iran targeted two U.S. Navy warships. The attacks come after President Trump told reporters he agrees with Vice President J. D. Vance, who said the conflict in Iran is no longer a war. I would say that it's intermittent. We do intermittent strikes, so I heard what he said. And it was interesting because I think that there's a lot of truth that we're not fighting right now. There's no fighting. Earlier, the President referred to the military conflict as, quote, small potatoes for us. It's not a big thing. The U.S. has spent more than $36 billion in the fight against Iran while 18 service members have been killed. The Kremlin says it is instituting a 72-hour pause on strikes against Kiev. This coincides with the visit of U.S. envoy Steve Whitkov and Jared Kushner, who are in Moscow to meet with Russian President Putin.

1:01They're trying to broker an end to Russia's war against Ukraine, which is now in its fifth year. The BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports. I have to say, expectations of some kind of breakthrough here are pretty low. And that's based on a couple of things. I mean, first of all, as far as Steve Whitkov is concerned, this is his eighth visit to Russia as envoy over the last year and a half. He's had a lot of face time with Vladimir Putin. They've sat at the table talking for many hours. The previous seven trips did not produce a breakthrough. And also from the speeches from the public statements that President Putin has been making recently, there is no hint there, no sign that the Kremlin leader is ready to compromise. Ukrainian President Zelensky released a statement saying that he spoke with the U.S. envoy, saying Ukraine will honor the ceasefire in airstrikes against Moscow. Whitkov and Kushner will head to Kiev tomorrow after they wrap up their talks in Russia. California's Attorney General is investigating open AI over its systems hack into another

2:04artificial intelligence company, as NPR's Bobby Allen reports. More than a dozen other states are also probing that incident. California Attorney General Rob Bontas office says state investigators are examining the hack of startup hugging face, which was breached by rogue open AI bots. Bontas tells NPR to statement that California authorities are weighing the AI industry's compliance with consumer protection, data security, and criminal laws. Montana, Alabama, and several other states have launched similar probes. Open AI agents went haywire and autonomously hacked into hugging faces systems during a cyber security test. The episode is sparked calls from state and federal lawmakers for greater oversight of the rapidly advancing frontier of AI development. Separately, open AI has announced its most powerful system yet known as Astra. The company says it has beefed up guardrails. Bobby Allen and P.R. News. You're listening to NPR News. Flog cameras are facing intense backlash over privacy concerns.

3:04The license plate readers are used by police across the country. Flog recently changed some of its features to prevent abuse. But as NPR's Meg Anderson reports, the fight against those cameras is largely bipartisan and unlikely to go away anytime soon. In the span of just over a week, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said he'd welcome a state ban on the cameras. Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican froze state spending for them. And Florida governor Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, said his state is revoking permits for them on highways. Jay Stanley is a policy analyst at the ACLU. The reasons people oppose Flog are different. Some liberals warn the technology has been used to track immigrants. Some conservatives say it could be used to create a national gun registry. But regardless of political party, recent polling shows more Americans now disapprove of the cameras than approve of them.

4:07Meg Anderson and PR News. Apple has relabeled Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users of its maps app. The change comes after Google did the same. President Trump ordered a new name for the body of water amid his escalating trade war with Canada as a Wednesday Apple Maps shows Lake America for U.S. users, while users outside the U.S. will see Lake Ontario. Canadian leaders have rejected the move. I'm Linda Kenyon, NPR News in Washington.