Up First from NPR - Super El Niño, Measles, Iran War Stalemate

Episode Date: August 29, 2026

An unusually strong El Niño is disrupting the weather around the globe, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr's anti-vaccination crusade is muddled after two deaths from measles complications, and it's been six ugly months since the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

An unusually powerful El Nino this year has shattered records for air and sea surface temperatures. The climate phenomenon has already caused crop failures and droughts. It hasn't peaked yet. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon, and this is up first from NPR News. El Nino has long been a cause of climate chaos, forming in warm waters over the Pacific Ocean. So far this year, it's changed the weather from Germany. to India. And two deaths associated with the Mizus outbreak in Pennsylvania have called into question the anti-vaccination crusade of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Finally, it's been six months since the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran. With very little to show for it, what could eventually

end the war? Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. It's hot, it's dry, and normal weather patterns are haywire. El Nino is back in all its disruptive power. This year, it's being called a super El Nino. In PR's Lauren Summer covers climate and joins us now. Hi, Lauren. Hey, Aisha. So how exactly does an El Nino work and how does it affect the planet? So it's actually a natural cycle that the Earth goes through. And it happens when there's just this huge amount of warm water in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. That releases a lot of heat to the atmosphere, and it has this really far-reaching ripple effects. It can change weather patterns dramatically, and that could mean, you know, lack of rain and drought in some places, and then

extreme rain and flooding in other places. And what makes this particular El Nino a super El Nino? Yeah, it's like super, super duper El Nino. Some people are calling it like a Godzilla El Nino. But really officially, federal forecasters say it's a very strong El Nino. And I talk to Julia Cole about why that is. She's a climate scientist at the University of Michigan. Right now we're looking at an El Nino developing across the tropical Pacific that is stronger than any other El Nino has been at this time of year. These temperatures are still rising. And so we expect that this Al Nino that's developing now is going to be historic, probably a record-breaking El Nino.

And El Nino's tend to peak at the end of the year. so this one is still strengthening and the impacts could last for months after that. What could those impacts look like here in the U.S.? First thing is heat. It'll raise temperatures globally. I mean, the hottest years on record are usually El Nino years. And remember, this El Nino is on top of climate change. The planet is already about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter from burning fossil fuels. So this year or next year, most likely, could become the hottest year on record.

And then the other major risk is related to rainfall. In the U.S., El Nino years usually bring more intense rain to the southern half of the U.S. And that could mean destructive flooding. The northern half of the U.S. gets drier, too. So that's a big deal in the Inner Mountain West, which had low snowfall last year and is in a drought right now. We know that climate change is already raising the risk of natural disasters generally. Is climate change also increasing the chances? of creating super El Nino's like this?

Yeah, that's actually been a tough question to figure out scientifically because this is a very complex climate pattern. But a new study just came out about that. Cole and her colleagues put together a record of past El Nino's by looking at coral skeletons in the Galapagos. You know, corals, they grow a tiny bit each year, and their skeletons kind of tell this story about what conditions were like when they were growing.

Cole looked at those records of El Ninos from the past. past thousand years and compared them to today. What we found is that the modern El Ninoes are significantly stronger than the ones that we saw in the pre-industrial era. So that leads us to believe that strong El Nino events that we're seeing now are a consequence of being in a warmer world. She says today's El Ninoes are about 36 percent stronger, and that can lead to some much higher risks.

We obviously saw that horrible, deadly flooding in the Himalayas this past week. Is that related to El Nino? That flood was likely caused by a glacier collapsing. And, you know, warming temperatures from climate change could have influenced that. But this El Nino is still developing, so we haven't really seen the major effects of it yet. Knowing the risk that the U.S. will face this winter, is there anything that communities should be doing to prepare? Yeah. There are already communities that are starting to think about this.

Emergency planning, evacuations. that'll be important. And emergency managers say this developing El Nino should be a huge warning sign to get ready before this winter hits. That's NPR's Lauren Summer. Thank you so much. Thank you. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. traveled to Florida this week to talk about farming, childhood fitness, and school nutrition. But measles kept coming up instead. This week, the governor of Pennsylvania announced two deaths have been linked to measles. Speaking with reporters in Tampa, Secretary Kennedy questioned whether those deaths were real. We're trying to figure out who those deaths were and whether they actually happened, and we can't figure that out yet. Kennedy went on to say that vaccination should be a personal choice for parents

and that vaccine requirements are motivated by profits for big pharma. We're doing a better job than any country in the world at controlling the measles outbreak. This is a worldwide epidemic. And Pierre Salina Simmons-Duffin joins us now. Thanks for being with us. Hi, Scott. Please tell us more about what we know about these two deaths in Pennsylvania. Yeah, the deaths were announced by Governor Josh Shapiro, and they were billed as the first measles deaths in 2026 and the first in Pennsylvania in 35 years. And that announcement turned into a very public conflict. Secretary Kennedy used his personal ex-account to accuse the governor of gaslighting. He also suggested the measles vaccine has fetal tissue in it. It does not. He did not offer condolences to the families for the lives lost that I've seen. And he did not urge people who were not vaccinated for measles and live in an area with an outbreak to get the vaccine. I called up Kathleen Sebelius to talk about this. She had the same job as Kennedy, health secretary, during the Obama administration. And she said the fact that Kennedy is even going to these events about school lunches as measles cases are rising nationwide is a choice.

Talking about anything else, doing anything else, seems to me a very intentional refusal to confront both the spread of measles throughout the country, but also the effectiveness of vaccines and a call to action for parents to get their kids vaccinated. I reached out to HHS to ask whether Kennedy recommends that people who are unvaccinated get the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, and I did not receive a response by my deadline. Did Kathleen Sebelia say what she thought Secretary Kennedy could or should be doing? Yeah, she said he could be highlighting the case numbers, engaging with community groups to talk about the outbreaks and encourage more people to get vaccinated. She says Kennedy's response to the current situation is baffling to her. We have an emergency in measles outbreaks all over this country. And we have a vaccination rate that is diminishing among children. going to kindergarten. She says that promoting the MMR vaccine would protect vulnerable people from potentially serious complications like blindness or death, especially since measles is extremely contagious.

Sebelius told me she's especially distressed that Kennedy is pointedly not sharing that message because it's back to school time and there's a real danger that these outbreaks will get worse as kids are back in the classroom. Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, has also faced criticism this week for how he handled the two deaths, hasn't he? Yeah, he held a press conference in Lancaster County to announce the deaths, but then released extremely limited information about the people who died citing privacy concerns, and that has fueled theories online that they never happened or weren't caused by the measles after all. Some public health experts said this week that state officials should have had more information at the ready to tamp down those kinds of theories. Cynthia Bauer is an expert of

health literacy and communication at the University of Maryland, and she told me this is kind of the new normal since the COVID pandemic, and it's not good. For public servants, for people who are supposed to be serving the public interest, it does not help anybody to have those kinds of disagreements over basic facts in the public space. She said Pennsylvania officials should be rock-solid in what they're saying, and HHS should be backing them up. Otherwise, the public doesn't know who to believe, and that breeds distrust and cynicism. Secretary Kennedy also made other news this week related to measles. It goes back to his work with an anti-vaccine group before he was health secretary.

Yeah, that's right. Some Democratic members of Congress have called on Kennedy to resign or be fired, charging that he lied to Congress during his confirmation hearing. And that's related to a report, the AP and the Guardian published this week about a trip Kennedy took to Samoa in 2019 when it had a deadly measles outbreak. During his confirmation hearing, he said that trip had nothing to do with vaccines, but new documents published this week suggest that it very much did. I should say there are no signs at this point that Kennedy is going to resign or be fired by President Trump.

And Pierce-Lina Simmons-Duffin. Thanks so much. You're welcome. President Trump launched what he called major combat operations in Iran six months ago. He said the goal was to eliminate immediate threats posed by the regime and to support the Iranian people. To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Later, press for a timeline, he said the operation would take four or five weeks. Reza Saya is a freelance journalist and a special correspondent for PBS News who joins us from Tehran. Mr. Sayah, thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me. Six months of war, more than four months of a naval blockade that was aimed to choke off the Iranian economy. What is life like there now? Life is difficult. It's challenging. Certainly it's challenging for the people. It's challenging for the governments. They see themselves in a war, whether the missiles are being launched or not.

They view this as a hybrid war where you have an economic pressure on one hand from Washington, and then you have the military strikes that have been off and on. But, you know, what I've seen here for months is a leadership that's on a war for, footing, a leadership that believes they are facing a critical moment in history, whether survival is at stake. The security and geopolitical makeup of the region and their view is at stake. And obviously, the Trump administration sold this as a war that was going to end quickly within days, weeks. It offered numerous objectives, and six months later, it's clear to many observers that none of those objectives have been met and that Iran survived an unprecedented attack.

but it has come at a cost. Life has been very difficult on many fronts here for the people. Tell us a bit about that. I gather inflation is projected to be almost 70%. How do people get by every day? The economic situation is bad here. The pain comes in waves. Sometimes all you need is a headline to cause another wave of pain.

This week, the headline came when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced plans for economic doomsday for Iran. the toughest economic measures in histories, he put it. And even announcements like that impact people. There were long lines at the gas station. The prices of basic goods went up. The price of basic food items went up. This week, the value of the Iranian currency dropped to its lowest level,

trading at more than 2 million realls to the dollar. And there's little evidence that the economic pressure has been effective in changing Iranian policy here to get the leadership to surrender. What's public opinion like? I know that's difficult to estimate, but early on we did hear some Iranian voices in support of the U.S. and Israeli attacks, the hoping they might bring about regime change. Those voices have been muted in the past few months, and it's Tehran's view and the view of many here that those voices were amplified by anti-Iran, the news media that exists outside of Iran. But, you know, I remind everyone that Iran has 90 million people living here. They have 90 million views and opinion.

It's hard to get inside the heads of every individual. There is no question that many people here are having a hard time economically, and they want this pressure to ease. They want reform. There's a sector of the population who's called for regime. change. But what we've seen publicly over the past several months is almost a daily presence of many people who see this as a war for survival, that they're supporting the government. They don't buy the narrative from Washington.

Without putting you on the spot, can you report freely from Iran? Reporters without borders obviously says it's one of the most repressive countries in the world when it comes to press freedom. I have reported here with press credentials from the Ministry of Culture for close to 20 years, and nowhere are you completely free. And I'm pleased and sometimes surprised with the freedom that I have. And I think as long as they view your reports, even if they're critical as fair, they're going to allow you to work here.

And I think, you know, that's been the case with me. Rezaea in Tehran, thanks so much for being with us. You're welcome. That's up first for Saturday, August 29th, 2026. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Michael Radcliffe produced this podcast, along with Danny Hensel and Dave Mistich. Our editor is Diana Douglas.

She had help from Rachel Waldholz, Diane Weber, D. Parvas, and Jacob Finston. In the control room today, our director, Andy Craig, joined by our technical director, David Greenberg. Our engineering team also includes Zovangunhoven, Jay Sizz, and Simon Laslow Janssen. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. Our executive producer is E.B. Stone and our deputy managing editor is Catherine Laidlaw, three peas in a podcast. Tomorrow on the Sunday story, the country music

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