LIMA, Peru — Conservative leader Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as Peru's president on Tuesday after winning the June presidential runoff by a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes, a victory that confirmed a regional shift in South America toward the conservative wing.

With the ceremony, Fujimori, a four-time presidential candidate and leader of Peru's largest political party, officially takes office as the country's ninth president in a decade. The 51-year-old is hoping to stabilize Peru's turbulent politics, reduce crime and boost economic growth.

Over the past decade, only three of Peru's presidents have been elected by popular vote. The rest have come into office after their predecessors resigned or were removed by congress amid corruption scandals.

Fujimori's Popular Force party and its main ally, Popular Renovation, will hold half the senate seats once the new legislature is installed, making it harder for opposing legislators to attempt to remove her as president.

An incoming president with a political past and promises for the future

Fujimori centered her campaign around promises to improve security in a nation where extortion rackets have become a significant problem. She has also promised to develop infrastructure by making it easier for government agencies to form partnerships with private investors.

She is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who led the country in the 1990s and stabilized its economy while defeating terror groups, but was later imprisoned for human rights abuses committed under his rule by the Peruvian military as his government took an authoritarian turn. He was pardoned in December 2023 and died in September the following year.

During her campaign, Keiko Fujimori pledged to fight crime with an "iron fist," implementing some policies adopted by Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, and also build a megaprison modeled after the notorious Cecot penitentiary in El Salvador.

To guarantee judges their safety, she has said she will implement reforms to enable them to hide their identities as they oversee criminal trials.

She also said on Tuesday she would reorganize social services to fight malnutrition in rural communities and announced a 15% increase in the nation's minimum wage.

Fujimori said that the nation's military will "temporarily" lead security operations in crime afflicted areas. And said she will focus on preparing the South American nation for the latest onset of El Niño, a weather pattern that warms ocean temperatures and often leads to flooding along Peru's coast.

"My goal is not only to administer the state" Fujimori said. "My main objective is to narrow the enormous social deficit that affects millions of Peruvians."

Opposition leaders remember those killed in protests

Opposition leaders have asked Fujimori's incoming government to reverse a series of laws approved by Peru's last legislature, which critics say weaken efforts to fight organized crime.

The laws eliminate preventive arrests and stop prosecutors from processing political parties involved in corruption under the same statutes as criminal groups. The laws also make it harder for police to confiscate the goods of criminal groups.

Opposition leaders are also asking the incoming government to create a commission to investigate the deaths of 50 civilians during anti-government protests in late 2022 and early 2023 following the removal of former President Pedro Castillo.

During Fujimori's swearing-ceremony, some opposition lawmakers protested outside the parliament, holding photos of people killed during the protests. Relatives of the dead have said they do not recognize Fujimori as president and that they are protesting her inauguration.

Fujimori will lead a deeply polarized country

Fujimori was widely backed by voters in Peru's capital and along the Pacific coast, but voters in the highlands, where there is a larger Indigenous population, overwhelmingly supported left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez, an ally of Castillo.

Sanchez challenged the election results, arguing there were irregularities in how votes were counted at Peruvian consulates abroad, but electoral authorities dismissed his complaints.

Despite the political friction, Peru continues to be one of the most stable economies in Latin America. Its central bank has long kept the benchmark interest rate below 5%, and the government is known for a conservative approach toward public spending.

But critics point out a growing gap in living standards between coastal areas and communities in the Andean highlands.

Fujimori's June election victory, along with those of Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and José Antonio Kast in Chile, underscored South America's shift toward the conservative wing, a stark contrast from the panorama of a few decades ago when left-wing leaders such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the current Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emerged.

Conservatives have won seven major presidential elections in Latin American in the past few years, most of the them since the January 2025 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, in a winning streak propelled by concerns over crime, immigration and slow economic growth

Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated July 28, 2026 at 4:35 PM EDT

KYIV — When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Sergiy Kyslytsya was in New York serving as Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations. 

That day, Kyslytsya leaned into his microphone at the U.N. and looked straight at his Russian counterpart Vasily Nebenzya. Kyslytsya did not hold back.

"There is no purgatory for war criminals," he said. "They go straight to hell, ambassador."

Russia's invasion severed diplomatic relations between Kyiv and Moscow. That made Kyslytsya's posting at the U.N. a particularly unique one: the only place where a Ukrainian diplomat engaged directly with his Russian counterpart.

"My fellow ambassadors in all capitals around the world would not talk to them," Kyslytsya says. "So by the time I was part of our negotiating team (for peace talks), I already knew how to control my feelings and attitude."

Official negotiations mediated by the U.S. have stalled since early this year as the Trump administration has focused on the U.S. war on Iran. Yet Ukraine continues to talk with American and, occasionally, Russian envoys, says Kyslytsya, who has been a key member of Ukraine's negotiations team since 2025.

"Dialogue," he says, "is active and ongoing."

NPR spoke to Kyslytsya, who also serves as the first deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, inside the well-guarded presidential compound in Kyiv. His office is decorated with wartime artwork and shelves of history and current-affairs books, including one by Jared Kushner. Standing guard is DeZi, Kyslytsya's 13-year-old Jack Russell terrier.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Kyslytsa reaffirmed Kyiv's current position on stopping the war: freeze the fighting along the current frontline.

"Of course, that does not entail illegal or de facto recognition of the territories occupied by the Russians as Russian territories," he says.

The Kremlin, he says, continues to make unrealistic demands. He points to the "3+2" proposal, also known as the "Anchorage formula," which Russian officials have described as a U.S.-backed diplomatic framework that emerged from an August 2025 summit in Alaska between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Under this proposal, Russia is seeking recognition of its claims over five Ukrainian regions—three that it fully occupies and two that it partially occupies. U.S Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this proposal had failed because Ukraine rejected it, and that he wants a deal acceptable to both sides.

"The Russians are obsessed, and Putin is obsessed with taking full control of the Donetsk region, the 15 to 20 percent that's not occupied," he says. "And (the Russians) have been feeding the Americans with the line that in two or three months, they will take full control."

Even when it's clear, he says, that this is no longer solely a war of infantry and artillery.

"It is a war of the 21st century," he says. "And we have the upper hand."

Ukraine's long-range drones are repeatedly hitting Russian oil and gas facilities, causing fuel shortages, and weakening the Kremlin's ability to wage war. Kyslytsya argues the Russian army is no longer making meaningful advances on the battlefield.

"And that has become very apparent not only to Ukrainians but also to our partners and to the United States," he says.

President Trump praised Ukrainian troops at the NATO summit in Ankara last month.

In June, Zelenskyy wrote a pointed open letter to Putin proposing face-to-face talks between the two men.

"In Russia, this war is a decision of just one person," Kyslytsya said. "In Russia, this war can be stopped at any given time by just one person."

Kyslytsya says he believes it's likely such a meeting could happen even later this year and yield in a "major breakthrough."

Last month, Putin said he saw no point in such a meeting. But if the war continues on its current trajectory, Kyslytsa says that could change.

"Because, see, if we keep doing what we do, with long-range strikes, sooner or later, the Russian leader would have only one choice: to sit down and discuss how to stop this war."

He says he believes even Putin has realized that Ukraine now has all the cards.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Today on Stateside, Michigan's primary election, where voters will choose the candidates who will appear on the ballot in November, is less than a week away. Michigan Public's Morning Edition host Doug Tribou has been interviewing the people hoping to be Michigan's next governor. Today, his conversation with current Secretary of State and Democratic candidate for governor Jocelyn Benson.

Then, a look at an under-discussed subject: men’s mental health. Men are less likely than women to self-report conditions like depression and anxiety. Michigan State University clinical nurse practitioner Michael Martel discussed the nuances that shape how men experience mental health conditions.

And, writer John Freeman reviews the new collection Dementia Lyrics by Michigan poet Dennis Hinrichsen. In it, Hinrichsen uses neuroscience and prose to make sense of a friend’s decline.

Finally, there are an estimated nearly 20,000 Amish residents spread across more than 50 settlements in Michigan. Their commitment to preserving traditions for centuries has set them apart and drawn fascination from mainstream society. Ohio author Kevin Williams reflects on more than three decades of observing Amish settlements in his new memoir Not So Simple: My Adventures Among the Amish, Mennonites, Shakers, and Other Plain People.

GUESTS ON TODAY’S SHOW:

• Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State and Democratic candidate for governor
• Michael Martel, assistant professor at the MSU College of Nursing 
• John Freeman, lecturer at Oakland University and author of the books Brother of Leaving and Fight Songs
• Kevin Williams, author of Not So Simple: Adventures Among the Amish, Mennonites, Shakers, and Other Plain People

A group of Michigan activist leaders have created a statewide election protection initiative for the August 4 primary.

The Hands Off Michigan Coalition is an effort to promote election safety, security, and ensuring eligible voters can cast a ballot without intimidation.

The coalition includes grassroots networks, labor unions, and advocacy groups.

Scott Holiday is executive director of Detroit Action. He said the purpose of the coalition is to promote the integrity and authenticity of elections in Michigan.

“We are coming together to draw attention to the process of free and fair voting in the state of Michigan,” said Holiday. “Lift up the security of voting in Michigan and ensure that there is visibility around the process from all angles.”

This effort is a response to baseless voter fraud claims regarding the 2020 election that President Donald Trump recently resurfaced in a speech.

Holiday said the coalition wants to ensure that people understand that voting is their right and it cannot be impeded.

While the U.S. Department of Justice has announced it will monitor voting in several Michigan jurisdictions during the primary, coalition leaders are also joining in.

“We are coordinating training for people to be trained as observers, election observers, all the way to legal challenges,” said Holiday. “We are establishing a communication channel to ensure that if there is an interference that we can route community aid and resources to where there is a potential problem.”

Holiday said there are resources and information that eligible voters should be aware of prior to the election.

“You can look on the secretary of state’s website, and trusted organizations like vote.org also have great information about how to vote, where to vote and that if anybody tries to stop you from voting that there should be help available either by your local clerk or organization on the ground actively at your polls.”

This is your one-stop shop for all the information you need before voting in the primary election on Aug. 4, 2026.

Logistics of Voting

Am I registered to vote?

Check if you’re registered to vote by clicking this link and inputting your information.

If you’re not registered to vote yet, you’ve missed the deadline to register online for the primary. You must register in-person by visiting your local clerk’s office or a satellite location with proof of residency documentation.

You can register to vote and vote on the same day.

For more information on voting eligibility requirements, how to register or updating your registration, visit this website.

Where is my polling place?

The same website where you checked your voter registration status also tells you where your polling locations are and what times they are open.

Can I still get an absentee ballot?

While you still can register to get an absentee ballot, for all methods it’s recommended that you sign up at least 15 days before the election.

Click here to request an absentee ballot online.

If you choose to register for an absentee ballot in-person, you have until 4 p.m. the day before the election to submit your request to your clerk’s office. If you are not registered to vote or need to update your registration, you have until 8 p.m. on Election Day to visit your clerk’s office, register (or update your registration), request an absentee ballot, and submit it on-site.

For more information on absentee ballots, how to request one and how to turn it in, visit this link.

Need to spoil your ballot t because you changed your mind or voted for a candidate who has dropped out? Find information on that here.

Candidates and their stances

Which races is Michigan Public watching?

We will post results on the Republican and Democratic Gubernatorial Primaries, Democratic U.S. Senate Primary, the District 7 Democratic Primary for the U.S. House, and the District 11 Democratic Primary for the U.S. House.

We are also watching the Ann Arbor Mayoral Race.

Why is Michigan Public only reporting Democratic primary results for some races?

The Republican primary for those races only has one candidate, meaning they are running unopposed.

Has Michigan Public interviewed candidates?

Yes. Below are the interviews.

I’d like a direct comparison of candidates and stances. Do you have that?

Also yes.

Where can I find election results on your website?

On the homepage or at michiganpublic.org/election.

Updated July 28, 2026 at 4:45 PM EDT

President Trump heralded the late Sen. Lindsey Graham as a "legend" and "giant of the U.S. Senate" during a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday. 

Trump's remarks came on the first of two days of remembrances for Graham, who died earlier this month at the age of 71. 

Trump expressed fondness for the man who once had harsh words for him when the pair competed for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. He recalled sharing Graham's personal cell phone number in a particularly heated moment with millions of people – "something I shouldn't have done," he admitted, before once again reciting the digits during the ceremony, to much laughter in the sanctuary.

"But it was Lindsey who had the last laugh because while I blew up his phone for one day, we became great friends, and Lindsey did not stop calling me for the next 10 years," Trump said with a smile.

Graham, a legislative powerhouse for over three decades in Congress, grew to become one of the president's closest confidantes, particularly on matters of foreign policy.

"He never saw a war that he didn't like," Trump said of the hawkish senator. "Only friends would understand that. But he wanted it for the good of our country."

Trump spoke about Graham's role in shepherding his signature tax and spending bill through the Senate last summer, quipping: "a lot of Lindsey goodies in there, I can tell you."

He recalled a lesson Graham said he learned from his parents' pool hall business that included a liquor store: "You have to be funny enough that people will keep coming back, and you have to be tough enough that you can stay in business and thrive. A very difficult combination. For his entire storied career, that's exactly who Lindsey Graham was. He was the first person to make you laugh, and one of the last people that you really ever wanted to fight."

"He died doing the work he was born to do," Trump said, referencing Graham's trip to Ukraine one day before his death. Graham announced a newly-brokered deal with the White House on a sanctions deal he believed would compel Russia to end its assault on Ukraine.

That sanctions bill has been a priority for Republican leaders in the Senate, who plan to hold a procedural vote on the legislation on Tuesday after the end of services in Washington.

'A family man'

Dozens of members of Congress, along with members of the Cabinet, attended the funeral. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was also in attendance; Graham was one of Kavanaugh's most vocal defenders during his confirmation process.

Several of Graham's staff members served as honorary pallbearers for the South Carolina senator.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were both in attendance — a reminder of Graham's longtime advocacy for both nations, and his interventionist foreign policy approach.

Among the other speakers was Emillie Boggs Roberts, who gave an emotional tribute to her uncle.

"Lindsey was, without a doubt, a family man. His world revolved around my mother, his family, and those he considered such," she said.

She shared the story of how after Graham's parents died, he became the primary caretaker for his teenaged sister Darline Graham, who has now been appointed to serve out the remainder of his term.

"Lindsey became brother, father and mother to my mother overnight," she said. "My mother said Lindsey would come home to visit every weekend from the University of South Carolina in Columbia while she was living with their aunt and uncle in Seneca. That is over a two-hour trip, one way, every weekend, as a young man in college. And that was only the beginning. Without a second thought, Lindsey made sure that he was there for his little sister, and he never stopped. Lindsey was always there for all of us."

Congress says goodbye to Graham at the Capitol

Earlier Tuesday, with a flag-draped coffin at the center of the Capitol Rotunda, Republican senators past and present remembered Graham in remarks that celebrated his far-reaching influence — from his home state of South Carolina to the international stage.

Graham's former colleagues shared memories of him as a friend, a congressional mainstay and a leading voice in U.S. foreign policy.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., highlighted the scope of Graham's work over his three decades in Congress, from his role in judicial confirmations to his fierce defense of Ukraine to his support of the anti abortion rights movement.

With Graham's death, a "powerful voice" and a magnetic friend of the Senate was gone, Thune said.

"There was no one — no one — who took his job more seriously than Lindsey Graham. But also, no one was more capable of cracking up a room," Thune said. Graham was often the first call for joint Senate dinners, where "the conversations and the laughs always flowed at any meal where Lindsey Graham was present."

Vice President J.D. Vance, who served alongside Graham in the Senate, said it was impossible not to like his former colleague. Vance described a heated argument the two once had over funding for Ukraine.

Vance assumed Graham would never support another piece of his legislation. But he was wrong.

"It was impossible not to like him — that swashbuckling, infectious laugh, that attitude, that passion that so many others have talked about," Vance said.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a close friend who served with Graham in the Senate, said he was exceptional at developing personal relationships with those who disagreed with him. Ayotte, who comes from a military family, said his work for the armed forces will never be forgotten.

An alum of the University of South Carolina's law school, Graham served in the U.S. military for more than three decades, including as an Air Force judge advocate. Ayotte said he often joked about her status as a freshman senator.

"Lindsey never missed an opportunity to remind me that he outranked me — not only in service but also in his office in the upper chamber," Ayotte said. "And you know what, he had earned that right."

Graham's remains will be flown back to South Carolina for a funeral service on Wednesday at the First Baptist Church in Columbia.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated July 28, 2026 at 3:13 PM EDT

From Spain to southwestern France, around 330,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and holiday sites as some of Europe's worst wildfires of the summer spread across the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic coast.

In France's Gironde region near Bordeaux and in wildfire-hit areas of Spain, flames are being fueled by extreme heat — and scientists say some fires are now creating their own weather systems, making them even harder to control.

"You cannot stop a storm, so you will not stop a firestorm," says Jean-Baptiste Filippi, a fire-weather expert at France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), or National Centre for Scientific Research.

Europe, the world's fastest-warming continent, is facing increasingly frequent and intense fire seasons, heating at more than twice the global average according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The Gironde wildfire alone has burned land equivalent to four times the size of Paris and displaced 220,000 people.

The devastation across Spain and France continues to reshape communities and landscapes, serving as a stark reminder of the growing threat posed by climate change.

"The evidence is clear: the climate emergency kills. That is why it is not enough simply to deal with the consequences. We must tackle the root causes, anticipate the consequences and better prepare our country to protect people's lives," said Pedro Sánchez, prime minister of Spain.

Copyright 2026 NPR

This year's Booker Prize longlist, announced Tuesday, includes 13 books covering a wide range of genres, from thriller to dystopian sci-fi to love story.

Two previous winners have made the prestigious list again – Douglas Stuart, who won for Shuggie Bain in 2020, and Marlon James, who took the prize in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings. Elizabeth Strout is on the list as a third-time nominee for her latest work The Things We Never Say. The longlist also includes three debut authors.

Mary Beard, chair of the Booker Prize 2026 judges, said in a statement: "Every writer on our longlist brilliantly musters the power of words on the page to take the reader to new places, to see old places from new angles, to change minds."

The Booker Prize is awarded each year to an author for a book published in English in the U.K. and/or Ireland between Oct. 1 and Sept. 30. The 2025 prize went to David Szalay for Flesh. 

Six shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500, about $3,300. The winner of the prize, to be announced at a London ceremony on Nov. 9, will be awarded £50,000, a little more than $66,000.

Here is the full 2026 Booker Prize longlist:

The Shadow of the Object, Chloe Aridjis

Switzy, Emma Cline

Helen of Nowhere, Makenna Goodman

The End of Everything, M. John Harrison

The Disappearers, Marlon James

Black Bag, Luke Kennard

The Renovation, Kenan Orhan

May We Feed the King, Rebecca Perry

The Palm House, Gwendoline Riley

The Things We Never Say, Elizabeth Strout

John of John, Douglas Stuart

All Them Dogs, Djamel White

The Vivisectors, Missouri Williams

Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated July 28, 2026 at 11:11 AM EDT

TOKYO — An earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.1 shook Japan's southern main island of Kyushu and caused part of a shopping center to collapse on Tuesday, leaving dozens of people missing or injured, officials and reports said. A tsunami advisory was issued but quickly lifted.

The second floor of the Aeon Mall shopping center in Kashima Town collapsed, trapping an unknown number of people. Around 20 to 30 employees were missing while several other people were dug out and taken to a hospital, Kyodo News agency reported, quoting local police.

The affected area is about 900 kilometers (540 miles) southwest of Tokyo. A tsunami advisory for the Ariake and Yatsushiro Seas on the western coasts of Kumamoto prefecture and three neighboring prefectures was lifted within two hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters there were reports of damage to roads, bridges and buildings, as well as blackouts and fires, though details were unclear.

Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said there were no reports of damage to major public facilities or infrastructure. Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were found at three nearby nuclear power plants.

Kyodo said a hospital in Yatsushiro city took in about 40 people with injuries and about 50 others were taken to a hospital in Kumamoto city.

Shinkansen bullet trains and local trains in Kyushu were suspended for safety checks, and the runway at Aso Kumamoto Airport was closed, with "no prospect of resuming operations," according to a notice on the airport's website. There were no details.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said it dispatched aircraft to the area to assess the situation.

A train derailed and fell on its side at Yatsushiro station, and stone walls were damaged at Kumamoto castle, Kyodo said.

"The shaking reminded me of the Kumamoto quake (10 years ago) and I was frightened," said Hiroki Shimoda, an official at Mifune town hall, who saw roof tiles of nearby homes crash to the ground. Kumamoto was hit with a deadly quake in 2016 that left more than 50 people dead.

Shinji Kiyomoto with the Japan Meteorological Agency urged residents to be cautious over the next two to three days.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Earlier this year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared, "We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter."

Many other AI companies seem to be betting on a similar future. If that vision actually comes to be, then "AI tokens" may break out of the world of nerdy tech and econ conversations and become a much more familiar part of our lives. The number of AI tokens businesses and consumers use could even become one of the defining measures of a new industrial age — the AI equivalent of the kilowatt-hour for electricity: the standard way we measure and pay for AI usage.

Think of tokens as the meter running in the background every time you use AI. Every time an AI model reads your prompt, writes an answer, or does a task, that work is measured in tokens. They are the tiny chunks of text and other data that AI models read and generate. In general, the more work a model does, the more tokens it typically processes.

While AI companies still tend to offer flat-rate subscriptions to average consumers, they're increasingly charging businesses and developers based on the number of tokens they use. At the same time, companies, particularly in the tech sector, have been using AI in more and more of their work. As their AI usage has soared, many businesses have discovered just how expensive token-based pricing can become.

After a period when tech workers were engaged in a kind of AI free-for-all — which some dubbed "tokenmaxxing" — companies like Uber and Amazon have been putting guardrails around AI use and reducing their soaring token bills (which one clever writer at The Information recently dubbed "tokenminimizing").

But tokens aren't just the way AI companies measure usage and charge many of their business customers. They also leave behind a kind of digital paper trail that a growing number of economists and other researchers are using to track AI usage and study its economic impact.

In a new working paper, Nicola Borri, Aleh Tsyvinski, and Yukun Liu do basically that. Using data from 380 trillion AI tokens, these economists try to understand how the growth of AI usage is reshaping financial markets. They ask a simple question: as overall AI consumption changes over time, which companies' stock prices tend to rise with it — and which tend to fall?

To be clear, the economists aren't tracking how many AI tokens individual companies are using — which, let's be honest, would be way cooler. Instead, they're looking at the rising tide of overall AI usage and asking which stocks rise and fall with it.

Part of their analysis is classic finance theory. The idea is that stock prices tend to reflect investors' expectations about the future, so they can offer a window into which companies Wall Street sees as most positively or negatively impacted by the rise of AI.

Of course, investors can be spectacularly wrong. Hello, the long history of financial bubbles. That said, if you want to know what markets expect AI to do to the economy, stock prices are a compelling place to look.

Not surprisingly, the economists find that as AI usage has grown, financial markets have treated some companies very differently than others. The companies seen as the biggest AI beneficiaries have enjoyed higher stock returns — a pattern the researchers call an "AI premium." More interestingly, they find it's not just tech stocks that appear to earn that premium. Their findings suggest investors expect AI to benefit a wide range of companies and industries across the economy.

"The story of AI is no longer just a Silicon Valley story," Tsyvinski says about their paper's findings. "Financial markets already see Main Street being impacted."

What's most exciting about this study is probably less its findings and more that it offers a glimpse into future research possibilities. Instead of relying on surveys, earnings calls, or company announcements, economists may be able to study the spread of AI by following the digital paper trail created by AI tokens. AI tokens could become a powerful new source of data, allowing researchers to track AI usage in almost real time and study its economic effects, with a kind of precision not possible in past technological revolutions.

An exciting way to measure the AI economy

Borri, Tsyvinski, and Liu's analysis relies on a relatively new source of data: OpenRouter.

OpenRouter is a kind of one-stop shop for AI models. Instead of contracting separately with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and dozens of other AI companies, developers can access hundreds of models through a single interface. As businesses and workers have become more conscious of their mounting AI token bills, they've turned to platforms like OpenRouter to compare prices, switch to cheaper models for less complex tasks, and manage their token spending. In the process, OpenRouter has amassed rich data on usage of AI tokens (and this data is anonymized to protect users' identities).

The economists analyze the use of 380 trillion AI tokens between January 2024 and April 2026. That represents around 2 percent of monthly global AI usage. They then combine weekly growth in tokens, spending, and active users into a broad measure of AI consumption, which they call the "AI Factor." Next, they estimate which companies' stock returns move most strongly with changes in that factor.

The economists find that companies whose stock prices were most sensitive to increases in overall AI consumption subsequently earned significantly higher returns. The companies that Wall Street appears to view as the biggest beneficiaries of AI outperformed those viewed as the least likely beneficiaries by about 0.64 percentage points per week — the "AI Premium" described in the paper.

Of course, markets aren't always right. These AI-related stock movements could reflect the wisdom of crowds — or simply a herd of excited investors hoping to cash in on a technological revolution that ultimately disappoints. In other words, take these findings with a grain of salt.

Probably the most interesting of their findings is that the AI premium can be found well beyond the tech world. Markets seem to believe that companies in industries ranging from airlines and cruise lines to utilities, industrial manufacturers, retailers, banks, and even waste management companies could all benefit as AI reshapes the economy. They also find that this "AI premium" is strongest for companies in the United States and Europe, and is much weaker in China and other emerging markets. Perhaps relatedly, they find that stocks are the most sensitive to increased use of the most technologically advanced, "frontier" AI models.

The economists even provide a list of S&P 500 companies with high AI premiums in their paper. The top five are: AppLovin, Carvana, Lumentum, Expand Energy, and Baker Hughes.

They also identify companies Wall Street appears to view as AI's biggest losers. The bottom five are: Moderna, Estée Lauder Companies, ON Semiconductor, Skyworks Solutions, and Aptiv.

There are a bunch of caveats to their analysis. First, this is a working paper that has yet to be peer reviewed. Second, OpenRouter's token data likely provides a skewed picture of AI usage. People who use OpenRouter are likely sophisticated, heavy users of AI who are trying to save money as they shop between competing models to get the best bang for their buck. Their data doesn't represent the sort of average consumer, who may have a ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini monthly subscription and sticks with using those.

Perhaps most importantly, even if the researchers have correctly identified the companies investors expect to benefit from AI, that doesn't mean those expectations will prove right. And if markets are reasonably efficient, much of that optimism may already be reflected in today's stock prices. So buying the stocks they identify as potential AI-related winners and selling the ones that could be AI-related losers is by no means a good financial strategy. This is not financial advice!

Still, the paper's biggest contribution may not be what it says about today's stock market. It may be that it points toward a new way for economists to measure the spread of AI through the economy. We welcome this era of AI measurement-maxxing. There are still many big economic questions about AI, and better data is rarely a bad place to start.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., published a tranche of diary entries over the weekend made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 1,141-page document, which was released over the weekend and was no longer available on the website on Monday, came ahead of Fauci's appearance before a Senate committee on Wednesday. The entries, and Paul's commentary on them, highlight the disagreement between the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and some politicians over the origins of the coronavirus.

Paul and Fauci — who served as a key member of the White House's Coronavirus Task Force — have disagreed publicly for years over how the pandemic began. Even after Fauci stepped down from his position at NIAID at the end of 2022, Paul has continued to conduct an "investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and risky taxpayer-funded life sciences research."

On Saturday afternoon, as part of this ongoing inquiry, Paul published a thread on X describing the release of a string of what he called diary entries made by Fauci from December 2019 through December 2022. Paul commented on X at the start of the posts, "What [Fauci] wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories."

Fauci and Paul did not respond to an NPR request for comment prior to publication.

Felicia Goodrum, a virologist at Dartmouth College who spoke to NPR from the American Society for Virology meeting in Minneapolis, says that it's possible that Fauci may have been less certain in private with his colleagues as they were racing to learn about the new virus than he was in public where he had to assure a population that was panicking over the rapidly emerging pandemic.

This thread emerges ahead of a scheduled hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs. Paul unilaterally subpoenaed Fauci to testify after he said that Fauci notified the committee that he wouldn't appear voluntarily. Lawmakers are expected to question Fauci about what he knew and didn't know as the pandemic was unfolding.

What is Rand Paul looking to hear from Anthony Fauci?

For years, Paul and Fauci have differed over the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Fauci has asserted that the scientific evidence points to a spillover — whereby the virus would have found its way from an animal into its first human host, and then spread at that point from human to human.

Proponents of this theory point to the wet market in Wuhan where potentially infected animals were waiting to be sold. "There's very good evidence that there are two lineages [of SARS-CoV-2] that emerged," according to Goodrum. "Both of those lineages were present at the market, and susceptible animals were present at the market."

Goodrum says the market was cleared before it was possible to take any samples. However, she says the genetic data "maps all initial cases to that market" and "none to, for example, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they have accused the virus of having been created or released."

Most scientists in the virology community share this view, according to a survey published in February 2024 by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, a nonpartisan U.S.-based think tank that studies potentially catastrophic events.

Paul has advocated for an alternative explanation. He says the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab should not be discounted. Two years ago during a full Senate committee hearing, Paul said, "Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there's a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab."

In late 2024, the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic published their final report that concluded a lab leak was the most likely explanation for the origins of SARS-CoV-2. They suggested that funds from the NIH may have helped support research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology to make a more potent or transmissible virus. Such viral enhancement is called gain of function.

But Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University, says he disputes this line of reasoning because there is "no actual evidence for it." And he says that no one, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, had a precursor virus similar enough to SARS-CoV-2 to create the pathogen that ultimately caused the pandemic.

Still, Paul suggests that Fauci, his colleagues, and certain federal agencies may have covered up any evidence to support the lab leak theory. In his view, he said in that same statement, they "withheld and continue to conceal crucial information from both Congress and the public."

As noted, NPR reached out to Fauci about Paul's comments, but did not receive a response before publication.

What does Paul say these newly published diary entries reveal?

In his posts on X, Paul highlights a few select excerpts from Fauci's notes. For instance, he points to an entry on Jan. 26, 2020, not quite two months before the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, where Fauci writes, "the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. … Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier."

Paul notes in his post, "The wet market was already off the table in [Fauci's] own private notes."

But in that same journal entry, Fauci adds, "Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans."

Not quite a week later, in an entry penned on Feb. 1, 2020, Fauci listed the dozen researchers who participated in a conference call debating the origins of COVID-19. Specifically, they were talking about the plausibility that a key part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome could have evolved naturally.

According to his notes, only two of the scientists voiced support for a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2. "The rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible," he wrote, referring to the hypothesis that the virus was engineered in a lab.

In response to that passage, Paul wrote on X, "This was never a 50/50 room," suggesting that early scientific consensus considered a lab leak possible.

But Goodrum says that this meeting took place very early on, when scientists did not have as much data as they would later. The virologist points out that science is iterative and takes time to play out. What some of those scientists believed at the start gave way to a different consensus as more evidence emerged.

"We make the best conclusions we have with the data we have at the time, but then you're going to keep working," she says. "And then you're going to ultimately revise the original conclusions that you made. You will change your mind. That's absolutely fundamental to the way science is done. And it's something that Fauci wasn't really given any latitude to do."

Goodrum adds that it's possible that Fauci may have been less certain in private with his colleagues as they were racing to learn about the new virus than he was in public where he had to assure a public panicking over the rapidly emerging pandemic.

What happens next?

Fauci and Paul will again face off publicly on Wednesday when he testifies before the senator's committee. Paul is likely to ask Fauci about the contents of his notes and the specific lines of concern that he identified in his thread on X.

Fauci may respond to the questions as he has before, describing his thought process and that of his colleagues at different points throughout the pandemic.

Previously, Fauci has expressed disinterest in questions about unproven claims regarding the pandemic. On Aug. 24, 2021, he wrote in his diary, "More conspiracy theory like letters keep coming in from congressmen and senators trying to link us to the origin of COVID-19. This is an amazing and unbelievable waste of our time."

But in his thread over the weekend, Paul argued this wasn't a waste at all. Rather, "it's oversight."

Copyright 2026 NPR

Charles Graeber said he has some positive feelings about being among the three main plaintiffs in one of the largest copyright infringement settlements in history.

"I was proud to be part of a group that showed that a ragtag bunch of authors joined later by publishers could actually hold together as a class, face a Goliath like Anthropic and get a meaningful number out of them," The New York Times bestselling author and journalist told NPR.

But he's also hesitant to call the efforts and outcome of the lawsuit an all-out win.

Graeber is among the more than 300,000 writers involved in the suit who may soon be getting a modest windfall. A federal judge in San Francisco rubber stamped a $1.5 billion settlement in July resulting from a landmark class action lawsuit the authors brought against the AI company Anthropic two years ago.

The AI company agreed to settle after a federal judge ruled last year that it had used the contents of millions of digitized copyrighted books to train the large language models behind its chatbot, Claude, without seeking the consent of or compensating the authors of those works.

Graeber said he is entitled to around $3,100 in compensation for each of the two books he wrote that were used to feed Claude, including The New York Times bestselling true crime book The Good Nurse, which Netflix adapted into a movie in 2022.

The author said the hard cash reaffirms that piracy is a crime. But he has mixed feelings about the last 2-plus years he's spent fighting Anthropic. "A lot of travel, a lot of discussion about what to do and how to proceed and a lot of jobs passed up," he said. "I'm much poorer for this settlement, ironically."

The overall settlement amount may seem large. But thousands of authors are involved, and they have to split the money with the publishers. Also, more than $100 million went to the plaintiffs' lawyers.

And perhaps more importantly, the case could be seen as more of a win for the AI companies than it is for the publishing industry.

A win for the AI industry?

That's because within the narrow terms of this particular lawsuit, the court did not find it illegal for Anthropic to train its AI algorithms on authors' copyrighted works – as long as the company pays for the books it uses.

"Training AI on books is fair use under copyright law," said Aparna Sridhar, deputy general counsel for Anthropic, in a statement to NPR. "More than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close." The company declined to respond to further questions about the implications of the judge's ruling.

A federal judge also ruled in favor of Meta in a similar case last year involving a group of authors, who included Richard Kadrey and Sarah Silverman. The authors sued Meta, alleging they used pirated copies of their novels to train some of its AI models. Meta claimed fair use and won because the authors failed to present evidence that the tech company's use of their books affected the market for their original work.

AI companies often invoke the fair use doctrine – which enables the use of copyrighted works without the copyright holder's consent in some situations – as they try to make the case in court for training their models on these materials.

New York Times bestselling author Andrea Bartz, another named plaintiff in the Anthropic trial alongside Graeber, said the argument for fair use makes little sense when the algorithms are being used to create machine-authored texts that directly compete with works by human authors on the open market.

"The algorithm is being used to essentially try to put us out of a job," Bartz said.

Threats from abroad

Meanwhile, even if laws in the U.S. eventually give authors stronger copyright protections, there's no guarantee that other countries will play by the same rules.

Intellectual property lawyer Dale Nelson, who was not involved in the Anthropic vs Bartz case but said she follows such matters closely, notes the threat from overseas AI companies, especially the creators of powerful and increasingly popular chatbots like China's DeepSeek.

"The government in China controls in large part what the companies are doing," Nelson said. "So I think that enforcement attempts there would be very difficult."

Bartz said to address this reality, AI regulation needs to move beyond borders, especially as nations compete for political dominance through AI.

Chinese AI companies often use a technique to build their models called "AI distillation." This involves feeding their models the outputs generated by other AI models, often high-quality U.S.-based ones like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Anthropic's Claude, instead of directly training them on pirated copies of books by American authors.

"The only thing that makes sense to me is sort of this non-proliferation agreement, this treaty that could be extended internationally," said Bartz.

But despite the threats, Bartz said she is optimistic about the proliferation of copyright infringement cases involving AI working their way through the U.S. court system, and said authors must keep fighting for their rights.

"My hope is that this lawsuit is the first of many steps that will create a more fair environment for creatives in the era of AI," she said.

Licensing – a possible way forward? 

One possible way for authors to get a fairer shake in the age of AI could be through the licensing of their work to AI companies.

"Licensing is a way to make sure that training happens legally," said Umair Kazi, director of policy and advocacy at the nonprofit group, Authors Guild. "Not only that, licensing also enables rights holders to restrict how their works show up in AI chatbot outputs. Maybe you license just for the training, but you don't want the model churning out summaries or other kinds of derivative works – sequels and the likes."

There are already some such deals between publishers and AI companies in place, such as Perplexity AI's agreement with media entities like the Los Angeles Times and Le Monde to license content for the training of its models. There are also online licensing marketplaces, such as Created by Humans.

But it remains to be seen if licensing will take off.

"Because the big AI companies are all in litigation over training, licensing deals are still rare," Kazi said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

In a visit to Michigan on Monday, President Donald Trump argued that his economic policies have revived the auto industry and American manufacturing even as many businesses contend that the sweeping tariffs he’s imposed against Canada and the rest of the world have hurt the state.

Trump defended his policies while visiting a General Motors facility in the Detroit suburb of Milford that is a testing ground for its vehicles. He pumped a fist after watching Corvette, Cadillac and Hummer vehicles compete in a series of drag races.

In a speech, Trump cheered GM's plans to expand production

domestically in coming years and declared himself a president who was standing up for auto workers “at long last.”

“I’ve done more for you than your parents, OK?" he joked.

After being led on a tour of vehicles from different eras of GM, some of which he sat in, Trump claimed the tariffs have helped the automaker.

“They’ve come a long way,” he said to reporters about the Detroit-based automaker. “It’s amazing what tariffs are doing for GM.” Trump said he’s been good to the company but he declined to say more.

“The rest of the world doesn’t love me, but that’s OK,” he said, alluding to tariffs. “It’s called ‘America first.’”

Trump's visit is close to Michigan primary on August 4

Trump called out several Republican candidates and invited them onstage during his remarks Monday.

Republican Mike Rogers is unopposed in the Senate primary, but the GOP gubernatorial contest pits Trump-backed Representative John James against Perry Johnson, a businessman turned politician who has launched unsuccessful campaigns before, including for president in 2024.

Johnson is now trying to style himself in the president's mold — despite missing out on his endorsement. The Democratic Senate primary between Representative Haley Stevens and progressive Abdul El-Sayed has drawn national attention for the right to face Rogers, who was narrowly defeated by Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin in 2024.

Early voting is underway.

Trump's new Canada tariffs could hurt Michigan

Michigan was one of the 2024 battlegrounds Trump flipped after it backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020. But the state has seen parts of its economy affected by the president's tariffs, including on imported cars and auto parts.

A new round of steep import levies is taking effect on dozens of U.S. trading partners. But Trump has singled out Canada with tariffs as high as 50% on a wide array of its products, including cars.

The GM facility is in Oakland County, which encompasses much of Detroit's northern suburbs. Once a Republican stronghold, it has increasingly leaned Democratic, backing Biden against Trump in 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump four years later.

GM says its facility is the oldest dedicated vehicle testing operation in the United States, where 4,200 employees work to refine nearly every vehicle the company makes before they reach consumers.

Michigan's economy relies heavily on Canada, however, meaning the new tariffs — coupled with inflation still running high and gas prices rising again as the already unpopular war in Iran escalates — have created additional economic concerns statewide.

Those come at a time when voters across the country were already increasingly dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who tried unsuccessfully to distance it from Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement in 2021, said that more than coinciding with his new round of tariffs, Trump's visit is a function of Michigan's relatively late primary and is meant to ensure that James secures the nomination.

But Roe also said it was a risk for the president to tie himself too closely to top Republicans before the general election, calling it “kryptonite to November voters.”

Trump, who won the White House on a promise to lower the cost of living, also has seen his approval ratings sag, meaning kitchen table issues could be a liability for Republicans trying to hold control of Congress in the November 3 elections.

“We’re happy to have the president here, campaigning with Republicans. We think it highlights the fact that the only thing they care about is Donald Trump and refuse to stand up to him," said Curtis Hertel, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. "It’s good for us every time the president is here because he’s incredibly unpopular.”

The U.S. and Canada have squabbled over a new border bridge

The Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but his administration has tried to find ways around that, including by arguing that he can impose them on Canada because that country is discriminating against American exports of products including automobiles.

But Trump’s latest round of tariffs came after he voiced frustration with Canada for having retaliated and imposed its own levies on U.S. imports in response to Trump’s initial tariffs last year. Trump launched the first round after alleging Canada should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling.

It is Trump's third trip to Michigan in his second term.

In January, he visited a Ford plant in Dearborn and addressed the Detroit Economic Club, offering a defense of tariffs even as auto industry leaders blamed them for increasing the cost of doing business.

The president marked his second term's first 100 days with a rally in Warren, where he mostly mentioned grievances left over from the 2024 campaign.

His latest visit coincides with tensions between his administration and Canada that have marred the opening of a new bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Canada on Friday held its own event hailing the opening of the $4.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge instead of a planned celebration with officials in the U.S. after Trump announced the new Canadian tariffs.

Michigan's 2026 primary election is August 4. In the state's 7th Congressional District, three candidates are running in the Democratic primary, and the winner will face Republican incumbent Tom Barrett this fall. As part of Michigan Public's Election 2026 coverage, All Things Considered is featuring a series of interviews with all three Democratic candidates.

Candidate Bridget Brink spoke with All Things Considered host Rebecca Hector.

Rebecca Hector: What will your top three priorities be if you are elected?

Bridget Brink: First, I'd just like to say this fight is going to be about who will stand up to Trump and who will take on a broken Washington that works for corporate special interests while leaving Mid-Michigan families behind. And the truth is, I'm the only one who has stood up to Trump and will fight like hell to take on his chaos and corruption in Congress. My three priorities are the priorities of our district. First, making healthcare more affordable and accessible. Second, lowering skyrocketing costs that are affecting everyone in our district. And third, defending our democracy.

RH: Affordable Care Act premiums have increased significantly across the country this year. Costs of other health plans are also up. And then people also feel like those plans are covering less. So what, if anything, should Congress do differently to make health care affordable?

BB: First of all, we need to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Tom Barrett voted against at the beginning of this year. Secondly, we need to reverse the cuts that happened with the big ugly bill last year. In our district alone, this will take 25,000 people off of Medicaid. We need to take on the insurance and the drug companies. We need to do all this and also create, I believe, a public option so that there's an affordable option on the marketplace for people to buy into who don't otherwise have insurance.

RH: Sticking with the affordability issue, people are worried about being able to find high quality, high paying work to pay for things. Do you have an example of legislation that you would propose or support to help bring and keep those kinds of jobs in the 7th District?

BB: We need to find ways where we're bringing back manufacturing and green technology and contributing to the economy of the future here. And we've got this amazing manufacturing base in Michigan, and we can use it. So we should do whatever we can to support good union paying jobs. And I think the key is working with local authorities, local businesses, and also with labor unions to do everything we can to bring back manufacturing here, and particularly in Mid-Michigan.

RH: One thing that we are seeing a lot of here in Michigan is AI companies wanting to move in and set up these data centers. Should the federal government change the way it regulates AI companies and data centers?

BB: My view is that local communities should be able to decide what's in their backyards, but they have to be able to do it with full transparency. I think part of the problem are these nondisclosure agreements which generate mistrust and concern, and rightfully so. I also believe anything coming in the community needs to mitigate any environmental impacts. And I believe that should data centers be proposed, that the corporations must be held fully accountable for all increases in costs. And finally, I'll just say that the total cost of all of this should be borne solely by the corporations.

RH: What about inflation? What should Congress's top priority be to bring down inflation and improve affordability?

BB: Well, one of the key things we're seeing out of President Trump and this administration is just chaos and corruption. And Tom Barrett, as our representative, as well as all the Republicans in Congress, are enabling this. This is one of the fundamental factors that underlies the economic instability that we're all feeling. And I'll give you a couple of examples. One, the reckless tariffs. These are even more reckless on our closest partner and our biggest trading partner for Michigan: Canada. Second thing, the war in Iran. Starting wars of choice is an enormous problem for us on many levels, including cost. And what that means for us is, number one, we are risking our most precious resource. That's our sons and daughters who are serving in uniform. Number two, the cost of this war. The last figure I saw was $28 billion. And number three, it's jacking up prices on everything, including at the pump, which is what we all see every single day.

RH: Another big theme with the current administration has been deportation. How should Congress respond to the administration's mass deportation efforts?

BB: Well, the way in which this is being conducted is completely against the law and, in my view, completely un-American. The way in which ICE has operated, not as an entity to protect Americans and protect us against transnational threats, this is something that we should all be extraordinarily worried about. So I believe we need to overhaul ICE. We also need to make sure that agents are not going on the streets and picking up people without proper rule of law and due process. People and American citizens are being killed and with no investigation, with no accountability. It's just completely unacceptable. We also need to improve our court processes. And finally, of course, we need to secure our border. This is an important element of our national security.

RH: Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like voters to know?

BB: I believe that if we want to change Washington, we have to change the kind of people that we're sending to Washington. This is a really tough race and a tough fight, but I'm no stranger to those. I've had to stand up to Putin in a war zone. I've had to fight cancer, and I've had to stand up to Trump. And in Congress, I'm going to fight like hell for mid Michigan and for the families that are here.

Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of this interview near the top of this page.

Today on Stateside, businessman Perry Johnson discussed his run for governor, in the Republican primary, with Morning Edition Host Doug Tribou.

Also on the show, have you ever wondered where Claude A.I. got its name? As we found out, its origin is close to home.

Then, we talked to Michigan Public’s Reporting Fellow Etai Smotrich-Barr, on how an Oakland County man's mental distress led to a suicide inside the county jail. Smotrich-Barr's story, published in the Detroit Free Press, also details how the man's family is seeking accountability.

If you or someone you know is struggling, the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The number is 988, with the option to text or call.

Plus, Third District Court of Appeals Judge Mark Boonstra is the author of three books, and in his spare time, also writes for a Substack. However, nowhere in his campaign financial disclosures does he mention those side hustles. So, is Judge Boonstra in compliance with the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct? Ben Solis, senior reporter for Michigan Advance, joined us to share his reporting.

And, in the latest edition of our On Hand podcast, we heard your Michigan cherry stories. In today’s episode we hear from a listener about the lessons in tenderness and abundance a forgotten cherry taught him. You can find that here.

GUESTS ON TODAY'S SHOW:

• Perry Johnson, Republican candidate for governor
• Etai Smotrich-Barr, freelance journalist
• Ben Solis, senior reporter for Michigan Advance
• Michelle Jokisch Polo, Stateside producer

In the early 90s, John Moe moved to Seattle to follow his dream of becoming a writer or an actor. Instead, he found himself working full-time in customer service, at a software company.

"It wasn't anything fun," Moe said. "But I had been dealing with depression for a long time by then. So I just had this inherent belief that other people got to do the cool things, and I had to go get a job that I hated and work there until I died."

One day, Moe stopped by the office of a woman he knew in HR named Jane. Jane knew about his other work in theater and comedy, so she told him about a new job opening up at her husband's company. She said they were looking for someone creative.

"And I said, 'Oh, okay. So you want to know if I can think of anybody creative?' And she's like, 'No, no. I mean you,'" Moe recalled.

"And she said, 'You don't belong here. You're meant to do something else. You should be making your living being creative.'"

Moe not only got the job, he went on to make a name for himself in the industry. Today, he is the author of the memoir The Hilarious World of Depression. He also hosts two podcasts, Depresh Mode with John Moe and Sleeping with Celebrities.

He credits the pep talk Jane gave him, as well as the confidence she had in him when it was hard for him to feel that confidence himself.

And now, he makes sure to follow Jane's example by going out of his way to tell someone they are good at something — especially if they're not giving themselves credit for it.
"Because maybe they haven't been told that enough times," Moe said.

"And that's going to give them the confidence to get to the next level … and they can tell somebody else at some later point, you know, 'You have this in you. You can do this.'"

My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.

Copyright 2026 NPR

As a child in Morocco, novelist Leïla Slimani sometimes felt she lived inside a bubble: There were rules for behavior inside the house, where the family was "very liberal, very free," and a different set of rules for the outside world.

"[My parents] would always tell us, 'Outside you have to shut up. Outside you have to be afraid of the Islamists,' she says. "So you have to hide everything you are. You have to hide everything you think."

Slimani's grandmother is French, and her grandfather is Moroccan. She was raised in what she calls a "very complex and multilingual family."

In Morocco, Slimani observed women being treated as second-class citizens. Both her grandmother and her nanny were illiterate, and her mother pushed her to get an education so that she'd never be financially dependent on a man. When she moved to France for school when she was 18, Slimani expected to experience a new sense of freedom. Instead, she was disheartened by what she found in Paris.

"There were men following you in the subway and in the street at night," she says. "I was very disappointed [to discover] that my fantasy about the West and my fantasy about this world where women were totally free was a fantasy and was not totally true."

In 2016, Slimani won France's top literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for her novel Chanson Douce (published in English as The Perfect Nanny). Her latest novel, I'll Take the Fire, is the third in a trilogy of books about a Moroccan French family whose members struggle with their own questions of identity.

"Are they French or Moroccan? Are they Muslim or non-believers?" Slimani says. "We must be very, very wary of all the people who are forcing us to choose a side. I think belonging, of course, can be very comforting. But it can also be dangerous. So this question of belonging, for me, is a very moral question. It's an ethical question."

Interview highlights

On being outspoken as a child, and how that led to writing

I always spoke out and my parents were always very, very afraid that something would happen to me. ... In a family you have one person sometimes who is a rebel, someone who doesn't accept the norms, who doesn't accept the rules. And I was this kind of young girl. And when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, I had a fight with my father. I did something and he yelled at me and I answered him. And he said, you don't answer your father. And I said, "It's my mouth and I say whatever I want." In French, I said "c'est ma bouche."

And then it was my nickname for a very long time. My father used to call me "c'est ma bouche," because I was always speaking out and it was impossible for me to shut up or to be silent when I was feeling something. I had a very strong feeling of injustice and it was something that really destroyed me. And that's how I think I began to write, because I was always telling my grandmother, "It's so unfair, it's unfair." And one day she said, "Yeah, it is unfair, life is unfair and you will see and you will understand. So maybe write about this and maybe you can resolve or you can try to correct this injustice through writing."

On her mom's advice to her 

My mother, first of all, she told us at a very young age, because I have two sisters, the first thing that she said and that she repeated years, after years, after years, was that you have to be independent financially, never depend on a man. So you have to study, study, study, and you have to find a job and make your own money and never have as a dream to marry someone who is rich and who is going to take care of you. And the second thing is knowledge. My mother always said the first weapon of a woman is knowledge, the more books you read, the freer you are.

On associating sexuality with fear 

For me, I think I had a very dark vision of sexuality. I was always worried. I was incapable of abandoning myself to sexuality because from the moment I became a woman, my mother always told me about sex in a way that she was telling me about danger. The danger of getting pregnant, the danger of going to jail, the danger of being raped. All the dangers. So for me, being a woman was dangerous and I was always afraid. I was always thinking that someone was judging me, that I was not a good woman, that I was not doing the right thing. And I was thinking that for us women it was impossible to be innocent, that from the beginning we were guilty, guilty of something. But I couldn't understand and I couldn't know exactly what I was guilty of.

On leaving journalism to pursue fiction writing 

What is beautiful about fiction is that you can write about things that you don't know, and you can write about the things that you didn't see, that you did not experience. That's the beauty of imagination. And that's exactly what you can't do when you're a journalist. You're supposed to say the truth. That's the goal of your job. And I think that I wanted to write about a different kind of truth, the truth of emotion, the truth of our human condition.

On accepting being selfish in her work 

Being a writer makes me selfish because I'm selfish with my time. I'm selfish with space and I think also that it's not a very likable thing to say, but very often I'm waiting for people to adapt to my schedule and to adapt my vision of things because my goal and my only goal and obsession is writing a novel. And so I consider that my husband, my children, everyone should understand that and that they should all adapt to that. I know it's very selfish, but it's how it is. And it would be impossible for me to change that.

Thea Chaloner and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Editor's note: This story was produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you're able, WCMU encourages you to listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the LISTEN button above.

In 1948, mathematician and Gaylord native Claude Shannon theorized that information could be transmitted using ones and zeros.

The small-town northern Michigander's research helped develop the internet, wireless phones and artificial intelligence. According to the New York Times, Anthropic's AI model Claude is an homage to him.

Known as the "father of information," Shannon "established the basic methods and technology that enabled logic design for electronic circuits and formed the backbone of all the electronic digital electronics that we have," said Alfred Hero, a computer science and electrical engineering professor at the University of Michigan.

Shannon's rise to fame came after the publication of his paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," but the mathematician had spent years prior honing his skills.

As a kid, Shannon worked on old radio systems and built a telegram out of barbed wire outside of his house, which sits right outside of downtown Gaylord. As a teen, he earned money by delivering messages through Morse code with Western Union.

In 1932, Shannon graduated from Gaylord High School, where his mother was principal, according to the Otsego County Historical Society.

"Here's somebody that did extraordinary things and grew up in a very ordinary town," former Gaylord Superintendent Brian Pearson said. "His parents had allowed him to go out and explore."He attended the University of Michigan and eventually the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying mathematics and electrical engineering.

The graduate student became interested in Boolean algebra, a branch of mathematics that focuses on equations with variables that only have two values: one and zero. His master's thesis, "A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits," showed how phone relays and light circuits could be simplified using algebra.

"I think his realization goes back to when he was an adolescent working for Western Union," Hero said.

He later used Boolean algebra in his 1948 paper about information theory.

Shannon worked in several fields. According to MIT, he worked on genetic research during his doctoral degree and developed methods for delivering cryptic messages between world leaders during World War II.

He also developed some of the earliest AI systems.

While working for Bell Laboratories, a former research arm of AT&T, he created a metal maze for an electronic mouse, Thesus, to navigate. Shannon's goal was that the electronic mouse would learn from its mistakes by storing and utilizing information in hundreds of relay cables stored under the maze.

That is considered one of the first successful experiments on machine learning, in which a machine identifies patterns and refines its decisions.

He also wrote a paper on "Programming a Computer for Playing Chess," which later helped develop the first AI chess bot.

"The Claude Shannon story is he tinkered his way to greatness," Pearson said.

While Shannon is well known in the computer science industry, his name isn't as famous as other researchers of his time like Robert Oppenheimer or Albert Einstein.

That's because he was reluctant to be in the spotlight.

"He intentionally didn't self-promote," Pearson said. "He was not that guy."

Following his death in 2001, editors of the MIT Technology Review wrote that Shannon "turned down almost all the endless invitations to lecture, or to give newspaper interviews; he didn't want to be a celebrity."

However, the Michigander's legacy has been carried on in Gaylord. In October 2000, the University of Michigan and the Institute of Electrical and

Electronics Engineers placed a statue of Shannon downtown, where his father's furniture store was before it was demolished in the 1990s.

There are five other identical statues across the country.

In 2016, the Otsego County Historical Society dedicated an exhibit to the mathematician to help educate people about his accomplishments. Recently, Gaylord Intermediate School established a science, technology, engineering and mathematics lab in honor of the former resident.

"It's a matter of introducing him to our students," Pearson said. "Leveraging his success and his accomplishments as motivation for our students. Because sometimes I think our students think, 'I'm isolated. I'm in northern Michigan. People from other places do these types of things.'"

Copyright 2026 WCMU

Šumit Ganguly is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a distinguished professor of political science emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington.

In September 2025, Nepal's government banned 26 popular social media platforms, alleging the companies had failed to comply with new regulations aimed at curbing misinformation and online hate speech. Critics, however, viewed the move as an attempt to suppress viral videos showcasing the lavish lifestyles of politicians and their "nepo kids." Mass protests followed, and within days, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned.

Barely a year earlier, in August 2024, a similar student protest movement ousted Bangladesh's longtime ruler, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The protests stemmed from a High Court decision to uphold a quota system reserving 30% of government jobs for descendants of the veterans of the 1971 independence war. Like Nepal, Bangladesh's Gen Zers also led the protests.

These uprisings highlight a common fault line: Elite privilege endures even as youth opportunities stall. In each case, a single incident acted not as the sole cause of the unrest, but as the spark that brought existing grievances into the open.

Now, similar dynamics have appeared in India, home to the world's largest young population. Although India differs substantially from Nepal and Bangladesh, many of the same sources of youth frustration are becoming increasingly visible. For example, despite its economic boom, nearly 40% of graduates ages 15 to 25, and 20% of those aged 25 to 29, are unemployed, according to a recent report by Azim Premji University.

On Saturday, Dharmendra Pradhan, India's embattled education minister, resigned amid mounting pressure from massive student protests over widespread exam paper leaks. Weeks earlier, Chief Justice Surya Kant sparked outrage after remarks that many interpreted as comparing unemployed youth to "cockroaches." Although he later said his comments had been misinterpreted, it was too late. Young Indians had already turned the remark into a rallying cry for a protest movement.

Why is the pattern repeating?

Why is this pattern repeating across the world's most populous region? Three structural drivers may help explain why South Asia's Gen Zers have reached their breaking point.

First, while a large part of South Asia has achieved impressive economic growth in recent years, the increase in wealth has not translated into equality and opportunities. In Bangladesh, the richest 10% own 58.4% of the country's wealth, while the bottom half owns just 4.7%, according to Paris-based World Inequality Lab.

And in Nepal, where 56% of the population is under 30, about 1 in 5 Nepalis ages 15–24 remained unemployed last year. Worse still, many of these young people are college-educated and have high expectations for their careers, only to confront a prospectless future.

Second, young South Asians' frustrations have coalesced around widespread official corruption. From preferential access to quality jobs in Bangladesh to exam paper leaks in India, young South Asians increasingly believe meritocracy no longer works. Last week, one 23-year-old Indian protester told NPR: "The [exam] papers are being leaked, the rich are paying for their children to pass, and [we] poor people are being left behind … Where are we supposed to go?"

Finally, widespread internet access has not only made the population more informed about their democratic rights, it has also raised aspirations and given protesting youth a powerful tool to overcome the collective action problems that often plague social movements. Attempts to restrict online discussion can backfire. In Nepal last year, authorities' efforts to suppress the use of social media only intensified public anger and drove mass mobilization.

The dark side of the demographic dividend

For now, student leaders in New Delhi have temporarily paused demonstrations in "good faith" following Pradhan's resignation over the weekend.

But their underlying resentments will not easily dissipate. Real stability relies on the genuine efforts by the ruling class to address the systemic lack of opportunities facing the young population.

Across South Asia, leaders have long boasted about their demographic dividend. They are now discovering its darker side as well: a demographic dividend can easily become a demographic reckoning.

Copyright 2026 NPR