Colombia Digs Out, Trump's Truth Social Lawsuit, and an Eclipse Over Europe

MayaGood morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Morning Rundown.

DavidGood to be here. Third coffee kicking in, so let's go.

MayaSame energy over here. Okay, so we start heavy today.

DavidYeah.

MayaColombia's earthquake response is testing the new government, and the WHO says Congo's Ebola outbreak could become the worst on record.

DavidWow.

MayaMm-hmm.

DavidPlus Russian and Ukrainian strikes on grain terminals in the Black Sea, and a wildfire ripping through Big Sur.

MayaThen we head to Washington. A federal lawsuit accuses Trump of selling early access to his Truth Social posts.

DavidAnd Karoline Leavitt is stepping down as press secretary. There's also a decoy plane story from last month's NATO summit.

MayaWait, seriously? Okay, we'll get into that.

DavidAfter all that, we breathe a little. Eclipse photos from Greenland all the way to Spain.

MayaPlus Russell Westbrook hanging up his sneakers after 18 seasons in the league.

DavidAnd Google's new Pixel lineup because somebody's due for a phone upgrade.

MayaAll right, let's start where the stakes are highest.

DavidColombia's clock is running out.

MayaA hundred aftershocks, David. That's what rescue crews in Colombia are working through right now. A hundred.

DavidSince Monday.

MayaSince Monday. And AP's Astrid Suárez, Megan Janetsky, and Marco Alvarez are reporting search teams are racing the clock. That forty-eight to seventy-two hour window where you can still find someone alive under concrete. Mm-hmm.

DavidThat window's basically gone or going right now.

MayaRight. And CBS News has the death toll still climbing as families are literally standing outside collapsed buildings waiting.

DavidThis is the first real test for Colombia's new government, isn't it? Not a policy fight, just can you move people, equipment, medicine fast enough?

MayaAnd from what Astrid Suárez's reporting shows, the strain is showing. Aid isn't reaching some of the hardest hit communities as quick as it needs to.

DavidYeah. Every disaster becomes a referendum on the guy in charge, whether that's fair or not.

MayaSo anyway, that's Colombia. Now Congo's dealing with something almost as brutal, just slower moving.

DavidRight. The Ebola numbers. Stefanie Dazio and Mark Banchereau at AP reported this week that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says this outbreak is on pace to pass the deadliest one ever recorded.

MayaWait, worse than the 2014 outbreak? The one that killed over eleven thousand people?

DavidThat's the comparison Tedros made. Over two thousand dead already, more than forty-three hundred cases, and AP's reporting calls it the fastest growing outbreak on record.

MayaOkay, so why is this one moving faster? Is it just like a nastier strain?

DavidPart of it's how this outbreak is spreading differently than past ones, different transmission patterns according to that same AP piece, but honestly, nobody's fully sure yet.

MayaThat's the scary part. The number's bad, but the trajectory is worse.

DavidYou wanna track the response speed, not just the headline number. That's where these things actually turn.

MayaSpeaking of things spiraling fast, David, the grain story.

DavidYeah. So BBC's Laura Gozzi reported that major Russian grain export terminals just got hit in a Black Sea port attack.

MayaAnd Ukraine's ports have been getting hit too, right?

DavidBoth sides. Gozzi's reporting says exports out of Russia and Ukraine are falling as each country keeps targeting the other's shipping infrastructure.

MayaSo that's what? Wheat prices going up eventually?

DavidThat's the mechanism to watch. Those two countries together move an enormous share of the world's wheat and grain. Hit the terminals, you hit supply. Hit supply...

MayaPrices move.

DavidPrices move. Bread in countries that can't least afford it getting more expensive. That's the quiet cost nobody puts in a headline.

MayaOkay, last one before we move on. The timber fire in California?

DavidNew York Post's Pierce Sharpe reported it's near four thousand acres now up in Big Sur.

MayaThat's close to some pretty iconic spots out there.

DavidAbout a thousand firefighters on it, per Sharpe's reporting, and there's a major road closure still in effect.

MayaI mean, four thousand acres in what? A couple days?

DavidFast-moving is the word Sharpe used. Big Sur terrain doesn't make it easy either. Steep, dry, hard to access.

MayaUgh. Rough morning all around, honestly. Colombia's government getting tested on logistics. Congo's outbreak outrunning containment.

DavidGrain terminals burning, a fire eating through California.

MayaMakes you wonder how a government handles pressure when the crisis isn't a natural disaster at all, when it's self-inflicted.

DavidOh, we've got one of those coming up too.

MayaBuilding on that, let's switch to something happening here at home. Trump's getting sued over Truth Social?

DavidSouthern District of New York filed Wednesday. Devin Dwyer broke it down for ABC News.

MayaSued over his own posts?

DavidOver selling early access to them. The complaint calls it profoundly corrupt, and that's a direct quote, because the president allegedly benefits financially when paying customers get a head start on posts that can move markets.

MayaWait, wait. People pay to see his Truth Social posts before anyone else?

DavidMm-hmm. That's the claim. His company runs the platform, so if it holds up, that's a real edge for whoever's paying.

MayaOkay, but is that actually illegal, or is it more of a headline play?

DavidThe First Amendment argument is that the public's owed equal access to a president's official statements. A paid front row seat cuts against that. Getting a judge to agree is a much bigger lift than writing it in a filing.

MayaSo they've got to prove real harm, not optics.

DavidRight, and free press groups are behind this one. They've got a stake in the fight regardless of how a judge rules.

MayaI mean, cases like this usually crawl, right? Discovery alone could eat months.

DavidIt could, but filing now while this is already a story means the lawsuit doesn't need to win to do its job.

MayaIts job being staying in the headlines.

DavidThat's one read on it.

MayaBefore I forget, Karoline Leavitt's out as press secretary.

DavidBy end of August, per Dan Mangan's reporting for CNBC. Trump says she's stepping back for her kids.

MayaDidn't she just come back from maternity leave?

DavidLess than a month ago. Losing your top spokesperson right as the fall news cycle ramps up isn't small.

MayaAny word on who's taking over?

DavidNothing official, but that hire shapes how the whole administration handles hostile questions through November, including this lawsuit.

MayaRough briefing to inherit.

DavidAnd speaking of appearances not matching reality, there's a decoy plane story from last month's NATO trip.

MayaWait, what?

DavidBrandon Drennan reported for the BBC, citing CBS, that Trump quietly left what everyone assumed was Air Force One and boarded a separate plane. Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent stayed on board the original.

MayaSo his own cabinet didn't clock that he'd left.

DavidLooks like that. It's routine tradecraft, decades old. Every White House has run some version of it.

MayaStill wild imagining Rubio just sitting there, chatting away, completely in the dark.

DavidThat's the image.

MayaOkay, we need something lighter. Speaking of things everyone actually agreed on this week.

DavidUh-oh, where's this going?

MayaMillions of people staring at the same patch of sky: the eclipse.

DavidNow there's a story nobody's suing anybody over.

MayaExactly. Time to look up. Okay, switching gears hard. The eclipse photos from Europe are unreal.

DavidI saw those. Where'd it actually hit?

MayaCNN's live team, Katie Hunt and the crew, tracked it cutting across Greenland, Iceland, into northern Russia, then Spain and Portugal.

DavidWait, it went through Spain too?

MayaYeah, and get this. WIRED's Fernanda González wrote that it's been a century since the Iberian Peninsula sat in full shadow like that.

DavidA hundred years. That's wild to sit with.

MayaRight? People were out there with lawn chairs, telescopes, whole families just staring up.

DavidI love that it still stops people in their tracks.

MayaTotally. Anyway, did you catch the Westbrook news?

DavidUh, yeah. Eighteen seasons. That's a career.

MayaThe Associated Press has him retiring as the league's all-time triple-double leader.

DavidAnd fifth all-time in assists.

MayaAnd fourteenth in points too. Nine All-Star nods, an MVP in there.

DavidLeather man 80 shot selection. The guy played every single night like it was game seven.

MayaThat's the Westbrook I'll remember. Full sprint every time down the floor.

DavidHmm. I'm not sure the highlight reels do the rebounding justice, honestly.

MayaFair. Okay, before I forget, Google dropped a bunch of hardware.

DavidThe Pixel stuff?

MayaPixel 11, a Pixel Watch 4, and something called a Pixel Tag.

DavidA tag? Like an AirTag competitor?

MayaBasically. Mashable's Chance Townsend covered the whole event, and I mean, his headline pretty much says it: No surprises, just new phones.

DavidI love him the headline you don't see often.

MayaRight? No huge reveal, no shocking pivot, just steady upgrades.

DavidSometimes that's fine. Not every launch needs to be a moment.

MayaExactly. Solid hardware, better watch, a tracker to compete with Apple. Done.

DavidI'll take boring tech news after the week we've had.

MayaSame. Honestly, after Colombia and everything else today, I needed the eclipse pictures.

DavidGood note to land on.

MayaAll right, that's the rundown. Okay, that's the rundown. Heavy stuff out of Colombia and Congo today.

DavidYeah. Colombia's really the story to watch. A brand-new government getting tested by the clock, not by politics.

MayaAnd the WHO's Ebola warning stuck with me too.

DavidMm-hmm.

MayaTwo thousand lives already.

DavidRough one. Losing Leavitt right before the fall news cycle didn't help either.

MayaAt least we got eclipse photos and Westbrook stats to breathe a little.

DavidSmall mercies.

MayaIf you like the show, subscribe and leave us a review. It actually helps.

DavidSeriously. Takes 10 seconds.

MayaThanks for starting your morning with us.

DavidSee you tomorrow.