NPR News: 09-07-2026 9AM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. Labor Day traditionally marks the unofficial start of the General Election Campaign and voting is already getting underway. The first melon ballots went out Friday. NPR Stephen Fowler looks at where both parties stand, heading into the final stretch. The party in power tends to lose seats in midterm elections and this year is poised to be no different. As in a Trump second term agenda and performance is historically unpopular, but the GOP is holding a midterm convention this weekend Dallas, hoping to inspire the base and convince independent voters to give them two more years to get things done in Congress. Polls and primary results have shown Democrats are especially motivated to vote and thanks to Trump's unpopularity and strong nominees and states like Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Alaska, control of both the House and the Senate could flip this year. Stephen Fowler and PR News. Germany's far-right AFD has won a landslide victory in a state election that would felt

1:03short of an outbreak majority. If it can form a governing coalition, it would lead the country's first far-right regional government since the Nazi era. NPR's, as me Nicholson says, the party has already laid out how it wants to govern. Right at the top of the agenda is what the AFD calls its re-migration policy, which promises mass deportations. The AFD also wants to segregate refugees and disabled children in schools and revamp the curriculum to focus on a more positive teaching of Germany's history. It is also promising to dismantle the region's public broadcaster and all this and more is seen as the AFD's blueprint for the rest of Germany. NPR's, as me Nicholson. Open AI, the maker of CHATGBT, is developing a new system for disclosing what it calls misalignment incidents. That's when AI models act in ways people did it in tend. NPR's John Ruich reports the move comes after another case of AI agents behaving unexpectedly.

2:06Reuters reported that a swarm of open AI agents or AI programs took over a German language website and created a secret message board there, working together for weeks without the company knowing it. It says this happened before the so-called hugging-face incident where AI agents from open AI hacked into another company in July, triggering a tsunami of concern about human control over AI. In a statement posted online, open AI acknowledged the incident involving the German website but did not give details. It said its misalignment disclosure practices need to expand for this, quote, new phase of model capabilities. And it's working on a framework for when and how to report when AI goes off script. John Ruich, NPR News. US prices are at a record high for the Labor Day period. A gallon of regular is averaging $4.14 per gallon. This is NPR News. Canada is set to impose new retaliatory tariffs on US goods starting tomorrow.

3:07The duties range from 15 to 50% and cover about $20 billion worth of American imports. This includes steel, aluminum, appliances, electronics, clothing, and some food. Canada says the tariffs are a dollar-for-dollar response to President Trump's new 50% duties on Canadian goods. The move comes after trade talks between the two countries collapsed last month. Researchers estimate that thousands of genetic variants help shape personality. And according to a recent study published in the journal Nature, NPR's Katie Arittle reports. Psychologists frequently describe personality using five broad dimensions. Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and eroticism. A new study identified more than 1,000 genetic markers associated with these traits and suggests that thousands more may contribute a very small effect. Elliott Tucker-Drab is a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and one

4:08of the study's leaders. Elliott Tucker-Drab is a very small effect. It's really the effects that work in aggregate matter. Janetics is only one influence on whether someone is relatively introverted or extroverted, for example. Environment, culture, and life experiences also help shape personality. Katie Arittle, NPR News. Wall Street is closed for the Labor Day holiday trading on the exchange resumes tomorrow. I'm Windsor Johnston, NPR News in Washington.