LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The scenes across Lebanon were like something out of a James Bond movie.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yesterday, pagers exploded across the country. These are old-style communication devices, often used today by hospital staff or groups that want secure communications, which apparently included the armed group Hezbollah. Many of its members were carrying these pagers in bags or on their hips or in their hands when they detonated yesterday. Videos showed explosions in grocery stores, at desks and in crowded streets. NPR's producer in Beirut, Jawad Rizkallah, reported from a hospital shortly after the blasts.
JAWAD RIZKALLAH, BYLINE: Ambulances keep coming, and no filming is allowed. Their army is here. It's a scene of chaos.
INSKEEP: The attack killed at least nine people, including a girl, and wounded at least 2,800. A U.S. official tells NPR that Israel has privately acknowledged to the United States that it was responsible.
FADEL: NPR's Daniel Estrin is following these developments from Tel Aviv and joins us now. Hi, Daniel.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: So walk us through the details of what we know about what happened in Lebanon.
ESTRIN: This took place at 3:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday. Pagers exploded across Beirut, in south Lebanon, and they also went off in Syria, according to a Syrian monitoring group. Hezbollah says that these were hand-held pagers used by its operatives. The son of a Hezbollah parliament member was killed. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was wounded, and Lebanon's health minister said that the majority of the injuries were to the face and to the eyes. And that might be because people were holding up these pagers to read a text message. According to The New York Times, a text message came in, appearing to be from the Hezbollah leadership, and then the blasts followed.
FADEL: Yeah. I watched some of these videos where people were buying groceries and then suddenly an explosion. And as we mentioned, Israel admitted to the U.S. that it was behind this mass attack. How did Israel carry this out?
ESTRIN: Well, first of all, the pagers. Hezbollah started using pagers at the beginning of this year because it was worried that Israel had infiltrated their smartphones. That's what a Jordanian security expert told me, Amer Al Sabaileh. He follows Hezbollah, and he said that the group distributed these pagers across the organization this year. And The New York Times reports that Israel booby-trapped the pagers before they were brought into Lebanon and that the pager brand is apparently associated with a company in Taiwan. Now, NPR's Emily Feng is in Taiwan. She visited that company this morning, and the owner told her that the pagers were their brand, yes, but that they were manufactured by another company based in Budapest, and all that he knew was that one of the company's local directors was named Teresa, so very mysterious, still a lot we don't know yet.
FADEL: Very mysterious. And Hezbollah has warned that there will be consequences. Are there any signs you see that at this point could lead to an all-out regional war? I feel like we talk about this all the time, Daniel, but at this point, what do you think?
ESTRIN: Oh, yeah, I mean, we are fearful of a regional war, and that fear - I think we are much closer to that today than we have been before. We've been speaking with security experts in the region who think it will take time for Hezbollah to respond. Its communication system has been hijacked. They are suspicious. There might be a mole in their midst collaborating with Israel. So it's a big psychological blow. Hezbollah will need time to rebuild. I think the question is, will Israel be the one to initiate a further attack on a weakened Hezbollah? Israel has been saying that military action is needed to stop Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. And the Biden administration's been trying to prevent a regional war, but based on NPR's reporting, the administration finds this attack very unhelpful.
FADEL: NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Daniel.
ESTRIN: You're welcome.
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FADEL: The long-running battle against inflation is coming to a turning point today.
INSKEEP: The Federal Reserve is expected to start cutting interest rates, which is good news for anybody who's trying to borrow money to buy a car or grow a business.
FADEL: NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now to discuss. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: Good morning. So why is the Fed making this move now?
HORSLEY: It's moving because inflation has come down a lot. Annual inflation last month was just 2 1/2%. That's a big improvement from a couple of years ago, when it was north of 9%. And at the same time, we are starting to see some weakness in the job market. So Fed policymakers feel like it's time to start letting up on the brakes. One big question at today's meeting is how quickly they're going to move. Some people think the Fed is getting a late start on rate cuts and needs to act aggressively to catch up. Fed governor Chris Waller is not in that camp. He thinks the central bank was right to proceed with caution.
CHRIS WALLER: I believe our patience over the last 18 months has served us well. But the current batch of data no longer requires patience. It requires action.
HORSLEY: So we're going to get some action today. We're not sure how much. And it's important to stress today's rate cut is just the first step. We're likely to see interest rates fall further in the months to come.
FADEL: So you say there's uncertainty about the size of today's rate cut. What are the options?
HORSLEY: A normal rate cut would be a quarter percentage point. But some are arguing for a more aggressive half-point reduction. The Fed acted aggressively to raise interest rates when it was focused on fighting inflation, and some want the central bank to be equally aggressive about cutting interest rates now that the focus is shifting to protecting the job market. Waller says he is open to that argument, but he didn't make any commitments when he spoke at Notre Dame a couple of weeks ago.
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WALLER: I am open-minded about the size and pace of cuts. If the data supports cuts at consecutive meetings, then I believe it will be appropriate to do so. If the data suggests the need for larger cuts, then I will support that as well.
HORSLEY: Fed policymakers like to say they are data driven, but their challenge is so far the data has been kind of inconclusive. You know, the latest jobs number was kind of weak, but not so weak you'd say you've got to go with a bigger rate cut. The most recent inflation data showed price hikes remain a little stubborn, but not so bad that you definitely want to stick with a smaller rate cut. So that's why today's decision is still sort of up in the air.
FADEL: So does cutting an interest rates mean the inflation battle is over?
HORSLEY: I wouldn't go that far. I think...
FADEL: OK.
HORSLEY: ...Policymakers do feel confident that they've made a lot of progress, and the prices are not going to go spiraling out of control again, but they're still going to be on alert. You know, inflation is still above the Fed's target of 2%. And even once it's back to 2%, that doesn't mean that prices are going back to where they were before the pandemic. And, of course, a lot of people remain frustrated by the cumulative price hikes of the last several years. Waller says he gets that.
WALLER: I don't dismiss any of the pain and suffering people have from this. I know I go to the grocery store myself. I'll look at certain products, say, hell no, I am not buying that.
HORSLEY: The good news is, wages aren't going back to pre-pandemic levels, either. Average wages have been climbing faster than prices for over a year now, and eventually, that means people's buying power should catch up.
FADEL: NPR's Scott Horsley. Thank you, Scott.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
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FADEL: For the first time in decades, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. appear to be plummeting.
INSKEEP: This is a big deal, a hopeful trend, which began late last year, and it's accelerating. It may mean thousands fewer drug deaths each year.
FADEL: NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann is covering the story, and he joins me now. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: OK, so the fentanyl overdose crisis has been devastating. Are things finally getting better?
MANN: You know, the experts I'm talking to say this looks really promising. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - they show more than a 10% drop in deaths. That's unprecedented. And Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, researcher at the University of North Carolina, says new, more recent data collected by many states shows an even bigger change.
NABARUN DASGUPTA: In the states that have the most rapid data collection systems, we're seeing declines of 20%, 30%.
MANN: Ohio, for example, has seen drug deaths drop by roughly a third. Missouri - fatal overdoses down 34%. Dasgupta says if this trend holds, Leila, we could see 20,000 fewer overdose deaths each year in the U.S. I checked in with Keith Humphreys. He's one of the nation's top addiction researchers at Stanford University, and he summed it up this way.
KEITH HUMPHREYS: This is going to be the best year we've had since all of this started.
MANN: So, yeah, most researchers I talked to agree, this is a big change.
FADEL: OK, so do we know why this is happening?
MANN: Well, first, to be clear, nobody thinks this problem is solved. Deaths...
FADEL: Right.
MANN: ...Appear to be way down and dropping fast, but there's still roughly 100,000 fatal overdoses a year. But Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, says he is convinced now that the tide is finally shifting, and he thinks it's because public health and addiction treatment programs are finally working. He points to one thing in particular, the spread of this overdose reversal drug naloxone, also known as Narcan. He thinks that's really helping. And Gupta wants to double down on those efforts in places that are still seeing really high drug deaths, especially Black and Native American communities.
RAHUL GUPTA: No way, we're going to beat this epidemic by not focusing on communities that are often marginalized, underserved, communities of color.
MANN: One thing that is interesting here, though, is a lot of experts don't think this drop in drug deaths can be explained entirely by these public health measures. It's such a big drop. Those things are likely helping, but it's still a mystery why so many people are now surviving, compared with just a year ago. Researchers are now racing to try to understand the change. They want to build on it, keep it going, try to save even more lives.
FADEL: What about people experiencing addiction? I know you talk to a lot of people. Do they think this change is real?
MANN: You know, some people I spoke to say drug use is as dangerous and scary as ever. But I also spoke with people like Kevin Donaldson. He uses fentanyl on the street in Burlington, Vt., and he told me more of his friends are surviving overdoses.
KEVIN DONALDSON: For a while there, we were hearing about it every other day, but who was the last overdose we heard about - a couple of weeks ago, maybe? That's pretty far and few between.
MANN: Now, because someone survives an overdose doesn't mean they're free of addiction. But what addiction experts are telling me, Leila, is that by reversing the catastrophic level of death, this is an important first step. If this trend holds up, it gives thousands more people in the U.S. a chance, a shot to get into long-term recovery.
FADEL: NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann. Thank you, Brian.
MANN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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