Funerals, Fireworks, and Fun: Your July 5th Rundown

Maya: Morning, everybody. Welcome to the morning rundown. David: Saturday, July 4th, a big one. Hope you got your coffee. Maya: I've got my tea, actually. Third cup already. David: Of course you do. Okay, so today's a lot. Iran is beginning a six-day funeral for Khamenei, and the succession question is wide open. Maya: Wait-six days! David: Six days-we'll get into it. Maya: Meanwhile Ukraine is hitting oil terminals near St. Petersburg and the Pope's spending his Fourth in Lampedusa, David: Wow. Maya: not DC David: And DC had its own mess-heat, a rally on the Mall, and groups marching that frankly don't deserve air time. Maya: Oh, and Philly's got a PECO strike, too, right in the middle of this heat wave. David: Yeah, workers walked out this morning. Maya: Right. David: Rough timing. Maya: Then later, Taylor and Travis's MSG wedding. Apparently there's an arcade in there somewhere. David: An arcade, sure. Maya: Plus, Morocco's shocking the World Cup, Mbappe's chasing Messi's record, and Voyager 1 is still calling home after forty-nine years. David: Forty-nine years. That's wild, right? Maya: It really is. Alright, let's start where the headlines start. David: Iran, Ukraine, and the Vatican, here we go. Maya: Picture this, the streets of Tehran packed wall to wall, and Iran's putting Khamenei's body on display for six straight days. David: Yeah, Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell reported for AP that the funeral started Saturday and runs through Thursday when he's buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his hometown. Maya: And he's 86? Killed in an airstrike during the war, right? David: That's right. The WSJ reported the same scene, crowds swelling across Tehran. On any man's government expecting millions in the streets before this is over. Maya: Hmm. Speaker 3: Okay, but who actually takes over now? David: That's the question nobody in Tehran says out loud. The Assembly of Experts picks the next Supreme Leader, and there's no obvious heir waiting. Speaker 3: Is there a front runner? I keep hearing his son's name floated. David: Mojtaba's name comes up a lot, sure, but nothing's official, and the clerics don't love the idea of it staying in one family. Speaker 3: No way there's a clean handoff after somebody's run the country that long. David: Right-and you've got the Revolutionary Guard wanting control-a clerical Speaker 4: army with its own air force. David: The Old Guard trying to hold the centre. Follow the money and the guns; whoever locks down the guard probably locks down the country. Speaker 3: So instability stacked on a country that just came out of a war. David: And that instability doesn't stay inside Iran's borders. Speaker 3: Speaking of borders getting crossed, Ukraine just hit oil terminals near St. Petersburg. David: Louis Oelofse covered it for DW: long range strikes, part of Ukraine's push to hurt Russia's economy and slow its war machine. Speaker 3: St. Petersburg though-that's deep, that's nowhere near the front line. That's the point; every strike that reaches further in sends a message: 'Nowhere in Russia is fully safe any more. Feels like every few weeks it's a new refinery or terminal.' It's been building all year; each one chips away at how easily Russia funds this. I mean, come on, that's a real shift from where this war even started. It is; the question is how much further Keith pushes before something actually changes on the ground. Switching gears 'cause this next one actually got me. Go ahead. Pope Leo the Fourteenth. spent the Fourth of July at Lampedusa. Praying at the cemetery for migrants who died trying to reach Europe. David: Heavy way to spend America's two hundred fiftieth birthday, if you're the first American Pope. Speaker 3: Right? And AP's Nicole Winfield and Andrea Rosa reported the Vatican confirmed he later visited the U.S. ambassador that same day. David: So one day, prayers for people who died chasing freedom, then a stop with the ambassador representing the country built on that idea. Speaker 3: It's such a contrast to the politics back here on the same day. AND David: Yeah. Quiet moment, big symbolism, and barely anyone noticed next to everything else going on stateside. Speaker 3: And on that note, can we address the Patriot Front thing real quick? David: Hundreds of masked members marched a Confederate flag through D.C. on the 4th, per the Guardian's Gloria Oladipo. That's embarrassing, not patriotism. Speaker 3: Doesn't represent anybody who actually showed up for the fireworks that night. David: Every year, some fringe group tries to hijack the holiday for attention. Speaker 3: And every year, the answer's the same. Ignore the flag; focus on the fireworks. David: Agreed. Moving on. Speaker 3: Because despite the heat and a labor strike back home? David: The mood on the National Mall was something else entirely. Speaker 3: So what made this Fourth feel different? Maya: Let's talk about D.C. hitting triple digits during President Trump's 250th speech on the National Mall? David: Reuters framed it as a campaign-style rally, but I watched the same footage and just saw a packed mall for the country's birthday. Maya: Right? NPR noted he drifted from American exceptionalism into warnings about communism at one point. Quite a range for one speech. David: Guy can't stand one track for five minutes, but the crowd stuck it out through a real weather scare. Speaker 3: Yeah, BBC reported officials actually evacuated the mall for a severe storm warning before he even got to the podium. David: And the Washington Post framed the whole day as marked by division: white supremacists on one side, activists on the other. Speaker 3: I get why that's a story, but from what I saw, most of that mall was just families with flags, not a culture war. David: Fair point: the crowd on that mall dwarfed either protest by a mile. Two loud groups don't make the whole day divided. Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Phillies- Maya: WHYY has got its own holiday headache. WHYY reported PECO workers went on strike right as the heat wave landed. David: Wages and benefits for that report, Rough timing, a heat wave and the power company on strike. Maya: Not ideal. David: NBC actually pulled its whole parade. NPR said organizers scrapped it Friday night over warning for up to 115 degrees. Maya: Wait, no parade at all? But the fireworks stayed on? David: Yep, and follow the planning side: Permits, marching bands, road closures. That's locked in weeks out, so canceling same day means real cost already spent. Maya: Whereas fireworks are one vendor in a barge, way easier to just hold the show and light it later that night. David: Exactly. Cheaper call, safer call. Not a sign anybody dropped the ball, just math. Maya: That makes sense. Honestly, fireworks over a sweaty mall after a day like that feels more American. American, not less. David: Messy, hot, and still showing up. That tracks for a 250th. Maya: Okay, I think we both need a break from politics and heat indexes. David: Agreed. Good thing there's a wedding to talk about. Maya: Out with a wedding, let's go! Okay, palate cleanser. Let's talk about that wedding. David: Finally, something lighter. Maya: Jack Brewster's piece for Yahoo has all the details from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding at Madison Square Garden, and I'm obsessed. David: What have we got? Maya: Arcade games, a Just and Married sign, and, wait for it, an Adam Sandler cameo. David: Of course there's an Adam Sandler cameo. That guy shows up everywhere. Where? Maya: Right? Guests leaked the little details, but the couple kept the rest locked down. David: Makes sense, given how much attention follows them. Maya: Totally. Okay, speaking of things nobody saw coming, David: Please tell me this connects. Maya: it does. NASA just launched an emergency mission to save a satellite from crashing to Earth, and it's literally called the Swift Observatory. David: Wait, seriously? Named Swift? Maya: I know! The Verge's Terrence O'Brien reported NASA teamed up with a couple. up with a company called Katalyst Space Technologies, and they pulled the rescue together in nine months. David: Nine months for a satellite save. That's fast for anything government-related. Maya: The Swift Observatory needed saving the same week Swift got married. I didn't plan that one. The universe did. David: Noted. All right, over to soccer. Morocco just punched their ticket to the World Cup quarterfinals. Maya: Yeah, saw that. David: Al Jazeera had Azzedine Ounahi scoring two of three second-half goals in a... win a three nil win over Canada, ending the co host's run. Maya: Rough way for Canada to go out hosting and getting knocked out. David: Same round, Kylian Mbappe scored his nineteenth career World Cup goal off a penalty against Paraguay per AP's Dan Gelston. Maya: Nineteen? Isn't that close to the record? David: One behind Messi, nineteen goals in nineteen World Cup appearances. That's a ridiculous strike rate. Maya: That's insane consistency. David: Keep that pace up, and he's got the record locked up soon. Maya: Okay, last one, just for fun, Voyager 1. David: Oh, I love this one. Maya: Space Daily reported it launched back in 1977, and it's so far out now that a radio signal at light speed takes over twenty-two hours to reach it. David: Twenty-two hours, one way. Maya: And it's still sending data back from interstellar space, running on a power source about the size of a- Because of a car battery. David: Forty-nine years old and still phoning home on basically a car battery. Meanwhile, my phone dies by 2 PM. Maya: Seriously. It left before either of us was born and it's still out there working. David: Kind of wild what keeps going when you don't expect it to. Maya: And that's the rundown for today. David: Yeah, from Iran's murky succession fight to Ukraine pushing strikes deeper into Russia, heavy start. Speaker 3: Definitely. But my favorite moment was pushing back on that divided framing of the Fourth. Most of what I saw was just families with flags. David: Fair point. And Voyager One, still phoning home decades later, puts our heat wave complaints in perspective. Speaker 3: Right. All right, if you liked today's show, subscribe and leave us a review. It helps. David: It does. Share with a friend who needs their morning news. Speaker 3: We're back tomorrow. David: Thanks for listening, everyone. Speaker 3: See you then.