NPR News: 09-12-2026 5PM EDT

0:00This message comes from Thumbtack. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between Matt, Paint, Finish, and Satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Live from NPR News and Washington. I'm Linda Kenyon. Iraq's government says it is investigating after Iran-backed militias are accused of attacking a key Saudi oil pipeline. The drone strikes shut down Saudi Arabia's East West pipeline and alternative to the Strait of Ormuz. April Longley, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Yemen says this attack has far reaching implications. The Iranians and the Houthis want to create a new reality in the region, a new status quo where they control these critical choke points,

1:01where they push the U.S. out of the region. So the order, the region orders and flux, and they have a vision for where it wants to go. Now, in terms of the next few weeks, I think they feel like they have the wind at their back. And so they're probably going to try to consolidate the gains they've made on the coast and maybe push into more territory in Yemen. President Trump said Iran was probably responsible for the pipeline attack. The leaders of Anthropic and Open AI are both urging caution. Anthropic CEO Dario Amadeh says the industry should slow down and hear Shannon Bond reports. In a new essay, Amadeh says AI companies should deliberately slow the pace at which they improve their models' capabilities because the technology is advancing so quickly. He says he's worried about a recent incident where rival Open AI's agents went rogue and hacked another company. Amadeh says labs need to embed third party evaluators to report incidents and track safety practices and that Anthropic will do so. He's also calling for international cooperation around AI development.

2:02Public warnings about AI safety are mounting after the recent resignation of an Anthropic researcher who warned the AI industry is not acting responsibly. Shannon Bond and Pierre News. Anthropic is a financial supporter of NPR. For decades, the automotive supply chain in the US and Canada has been tightly woven together, but as NPR's Willow Rubin reports, the renewed trade wars putting pressure on the companies that make auto parts. All kinds of parts are made by businesses that take other parts, machine them into something new, and sell them to big car makers who turn them into a car. And for decades, because many of North America's car supply chains have been built as one ecosystem, parts have moved across the border fairly easily, but new tariffs make that more expensive. Here is Jim Jerald, the CEO of the Canadian manufacturing company, Linemar. Putting tariffs into the process is like putting like a bunch of toll booths every few miles on the same highway, right?

3:05President Trump wrote on Truth Social that if the US and Canada don't reach a trade deal by January 1st, tariffs on cars and auto parts coming from Canada will rise to 50%. Willow Rubin and Pierre News. The president is posted, the US has been ripped off by Canada. You're listening to NPR. A new study from the Brookings Institution looked at the effects of cell phone bands in schools after one year. And Pierre Sequoia Carillo reports. The Brookings recent study on cell phone bands finds that usage of phones in schools by teens increased across the 2025, 2026 school year, despite nearly all schools having some kind of ban in place. That increases were the smallest in schools with the strictest policies like belt-a-bell bands versus policies that allowed use during lunch and passing periods. But even in schools with the strictest policies, most teens reported no impact on well-being indicators like happiness or stress. Cell phone bands have swept the country in popularity in recent years,

4:07uniting folks from across the political and geographic spectrum. Sequoia Carillo and Pierre News. President Trump wants the Smithsonian Institution to install a massive statue of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History. The president suggested replacing the current infinity sculpture in front of the museum with the 30-foot statue of Washington. In a late-night social media post, the president also asked for a special exhibit honoring Washington to run through February 22, 2032, that date would mark the 300th anniversary of Washington's birthday. It's unclear if the president has the power to enforce any of these changes as the Smithsonian operates outside of the executive branch, but the president has already taken steps to try to exert his influence over many of the exhibits at the Smithsonian's collections. I'm Linda Kenyon, NPR News in Washington. At NPR, there's a little something for everyone.

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