A battle of sounds stops at the inter-Korean border

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GANGHWA, South Korea — Kim Ok-soon used to take bike rides along a waterfront road near her home with her grandchildren after dinner.

The road in her farming village of Dangsan-ri in Ganghwa Island looks over rice paddies to one side that attract long-legged birds and reflect the moon at night.

The other side, toward the Han River estuary, is lined with fences and occasional military guard posts. Just over a mile beyond is North Korea.

One evening last July, Kim says a mixture of noises she describes as “ghostly sounds, raven sounds, wolf sounds” started blaring toward the village, from a loudspeaker atop a hill across the river.

“It was so scary we couldn’t go outside,” Kim says. “Our everyday life was shattered.”

About a month earlier, South Korea had started blasting propaganda broadcasts from its loudspeakers along the inter-Korean border. And North Korea was now reciprocating.

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The loudspeaker battle continued for a year. Villagers of Dangsan-ri and other border towns had to live with unnerving noises day and night.

Then, last week, the new South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, ordered a stop to South Korea’s broadcasts. North Korea returned the favor within hours, stopping its own blasting of sounds across the border.

Lee has pledged to pursue peace with the North through dialogue and cooperation. The decision to turn off loudspeakers was his first move. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said the decision was made to alleviate military tension and restore trust between the two Koreas.

Lee’s North Korea policy is a marked shift from his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol, who emphasized “peace through strength.”

As North Korea cut off inter-Korean communication and made military advancements, Yoon responded with tit-for-tat measures. During his time in office, both Koreas revoked the 2019 military pact that banned tension-raising activities in the border region, including loudspeaker broadcasts.

The two Koreas have engaged in psychological warfare since the 1960s, with weapons like huge billboard screens, loudspeakers installed along the border, and airdropping propaganda leaflets.

But the confrontation particularly escalated under the Yoon administration.

After South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2023 that the law criminalizing leafleting excessively limits freedom of expression, the government gave defector groups a free hand to send balloons and plastic bottles across the border carrying leaflets and thumb drives with South Korean TV dramas.

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The North Korean regime, which is increasingly closing off its society from outside information, retaliated by sending its own balloons toward the South, carrying mostly trash, beginning in May last year.

Seoul then resumed its loudspeaker campaigns, and Pyongyang soon followed.

But unlike the previous North Korean broadcasts that slandered South Korean leaders and glorified its own leaders, this time North Korea was just blasting noise, and it came at random times.

“Sometimes they keep it on for 24 hours. And sometimes they are quiet for two straight days. That makes it more nerve-racking,” says Dangsan-ri’s village chief, Ahn Hyo-cheol.

NPR visited the village while the loudspeaker broadcasts were still underway.

Ahn has lived in the town all his life and was familiar with North Korean propaganda. But he says the noises stressed him out so much that his eyesight was affected.

In a sample survey by the local public health clinic, he says, 100% of the surveyed residents said they are sleep deprived. According to Ahn, the noise was at times as loud as 95 decibels, which is similar to the noise of a subway train approaching a station .

“We are all just farmers. They shouldn’t be blasting the sound toward this village,” Ahn says.

But some argue that the broadcasts South Koreans were blasting towards North Korea were actually appreciated on the other side of the border.

Ahn Chan-il defected to the South in the 1970s while serving at a border unit of the North Korean military. He heard South Korea boasting in its broadcast about the number of cars it makes and the number of refrigerators and televisions its people have. And he could see from the guard post he was manning the helicopters and vehicles moving on the other side.

North Korea, once ahead of its southern rival, was beginning to lag behind. Ahn’s unit was getting less meat and fish in their meals.

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“Because I could confirm with my own eyes, I was more assured that North Korea wouldn’t be a match,” says Ahn, who is now a scholar and activist leading the Seoul-based think tank World Institute for North Korea Studies.

He says North Korea blared noises instead of propaganda because the country knows its messages are useless in persuading South Koreans. And that North Korea promptly responded to the South’s conciliatory gesture, he says, to save scarce electricity.

“But it would be careless to think that Kim Jong Un would be open to holding an inter-Korean summit or reopening the joint industrial complex just because the broadcast stopped,” says Ahn.

In the past few years, the North Korean leader has ignored calls for dialogue from South Korea and the United States. He has instead focused on starting and cementing a new alliance with Russia.

And to continue this strategy, Ahn says, Kim would want inter-Korean tensions to remain high, regardless of the loudspeakers.

The Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates steady Wednesday, as policymakers wait to see how President Trump’s tariffs and fighting in the Middle East will affect the U.S. economy.

The Fed has been in a holding pattern since December, after cutting rates by a full percentage point last year.

Investors who place bets are nearly certain that the central bank will keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged Wednesday — between 4.25% and 4.5% — according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool.

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“Uncertainty about the economic outlook has increased,” the Fed’s rate-setting committee said in a statement after its last meeting, in May.

Three months ago, committee members said they expected to cut interest rates by an average of half a percentage point this year. Markets will be watching closely for an update to that forecast on Wednesday afternoon.

Inflation hasn’t risen yet, despite tariffs

Inflation has been relatively tame in recent months. But Fed officials worry that Trump’s tariffs — which are the highest in nearly a century — could rekindle price pressures.

Israel’s attack on Iran last week added a new wrinkle to the outlook by triggering a spike in crude oil prices. If sustained, that could jeopardize the drop in gasoline prices that has helped keep the overall cost of living in check.

Trump continues to exert pressure on Fed chief Powell

Trump has been urging the central bank to cut interest rates more aggressively, arguing that lower borrowing costs will goose the economy while also saving the federal government money on its $36 trillion debt.

“GREAT NUMBERS!” Trump wrote in all caps on social media last week, after a report showed that consumer prices rose just 2.4% for the 12 months ending in May. “FED SHOULD LOWER ONE FULL POINT.”

Trump later called Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell a “numbskull” for not lowering interest rates more quickly.

Bonds aren’t doing well, and that’s not good for America

The government’s own borrowing costs are set by the bond market, which is not directly tied to the short-term rates set by the Fed. And those borrowing costs have only risen in recent months.

Bond yields ordinarily fall during times of turmoil, as investors flock to the safety of U.S. government debt. But yields on Treasury bonds unexpectedly rose last week after Israel’s attack on Iran, suggesting investors are not as confident in the U.S. government’s creditworthiness as they once were.

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The combination of high debt and rising bond yields can be costly not just for the government but also for taxpayers. Interest on the federal debt totaled $776 billion in the first eight months of the fiscal year — the government’s third-biggest expense after Social Security and Medicare.

The higher bond yields also make mortgages, car loans and other types of consumer borrowing more expensive.

Foreign-born workforce shrinks by 1 million people

In addition to tariffs, the Fed is monitoring the combined effects of Trump’s policies on taxes, regulation and immigration. Tax cuts and deregulatory moves have the potential to boost the economy while strict border controls and large-scale deportations could make it harder for businesses to find the workers they need.

The foreign-born workforce shrank by more than a million people in the last two months, according to surveys from the Labor Department.

Fewer immigrant workers could “add meaningful upward pressure to inflation by the end of the year in sectors reliant on immigrant labor such as agriculture, construction, food processing, and leisure and hospitality,” Fed Governor Adriana Kugler warned in a speech this month.

Demand for workers has been cooling in recent months, but the unemployment rate remains low, at 4.2%.

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SUNRISE, Fla. — Stanley’s stay in South Florida is getting extended.

The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final on Tuesday night, becoming the NHL’s first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in 2020 and ’21 and the third team to do it this century.

Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming just the sixth player in league history and first since Maurice Richard in 1957 to get that many in a game in the final. His third to complete the hat trick sent rats, along with hats, flying onto the ice. Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the franchise, fittingly scored the Cup clincher.

More rats were part of the victory celebration when the clock hit zeroes. Panthers players mobbed in the corner, while the Oilers watched in dismay.

“Good evening, South Florida,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said before presenting the trophy to captain Aleksander Barkov. “It feels like we just did this.”

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced, closing the door on a rematch with the same end result. The only goal came from fellow Russian Vasily Podkolzin in garbage time, long after the outcome was decided.

That was followed by chants of “We want the Cup!” as time ticked down. The Panthers already had it. Now they get to keep it.

“This is as good as the first one,” Reinhart said. “We learned some lessons. We stayed on the gas, foot on the pedal, and obviously the result speaks for itself.”

Not long after the Lightning made three trips to the final in a row, Florida has done the same and now has the makings of a dynasty. The Panthers have won 11 of 12 playoff series since T kachuk arrived by trade and Paul Maurice took over as coach in the summer of 2022.

“We’ve got to be a dynasty now,” Tkachuk said. “Three years in a row finals, two championships. This is a special group.”

The only time they have been on the wrong side of a handshake line was the final in Vegas in 2023, only after several key players were banged up and gutting through significant injuries.

From the core of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Barkov and Sam Bennett on down the roster, they were much healthier this time around and were boosted by key trade deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones. Bennett led all goal-scorers this postseason with 15, and Marchand had six in the final alone.

Bennett won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Barkov handed the Cup to first-time champion Nate Schmidt, and all the others winning it for the first time got it soon after.

“It’s amazing to be able to be here,” Schmidt said. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Getting depth contributions from throughout the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers, who struggled with Florida’s ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders multiple times in the final. Stuart Skinner got the nod in Game 6 and was again done in by mistakes in front of him that ended with the puck in the net behind him and had his own blunder on Reinhart’s second goal.

McDavid tried to take over but was again stymied by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with seven points in his second career trip to the final, again denied his first title.

The Panthers spent more time leading during this Stanley Cup Final than any previous team in history, 255:49 minutes in all.

“We lost to a really good team,” McDavid said. “Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in, but they’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”

Canada’s Stanley Cup drought reached 31 seasons and 32 years dating to Montreal in 1993. Teams in the U.S. Sun Belt have won it five of the past six times, four of them in Florida.

This run through Tampa Bay in five games, Toronto in seven, Carolina in five and Edmonton in six showed how clinical the Panthers have become under Maurice, who has coached more NHL games than everyone except Scotty Bowman and is now a two-time champion.

So is Marchand, who last hoisted the Cup in 2011 with the Boston Bruins. The 14-year gap is the third-longest in league history, just shy of 16 for Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 for Mark Recchi from ’91 to ’06.

“It’s incredible,” Marchand said. “It’s a feeling you can’t really describe. Seeing the family and everyone up there and everyone that supported me and helped me get to this point, words can’t put this into reality how great it feels. Such an incredible group.”

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For the first time in more than a year, street drug deaths appear to be rising across the U.S. according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The latest available data, compiled in January of this year, shows fatal overdoses over the previous 12-month period increased by roughly 1,400 deaths.

“This slight increase reflects historic data and suggests that the U.S. saw more overdose deaths in January 2025 than it did in January 2024,” the CDC said in a statement sent to NPR. “We are working on analyses to better understand geographic trends.”

The CDC data suggests roughly 82,138 deaths during the 12-month period ending in January 2025. That would be a significant increase from the December 2024 report, but it’s still far below the overdose crisis peak of 114,664 recorded in August 2023.

Still, after seventeen months of declines in fatal overdoses that stunned drug policy experts and an unprecedented 27 percent drop in drug deaths in 2024, some addiction researchers described this report as troubling.

Keith Humphreys, a researcher at Stanford University, said the new CDC data could be an early warning that drug death declines brought on by a number of factors, including the end of COVID pandemic disruptions and weaker fentanyl being sold on U.S. streets, could be fading.

“If we assume it’s not a blip, this makes it more likely that the sudden drop [in fatal overdoses] was a one-off event rather than a fundamental change in epidemic dynamics,” Humphreys said in an email.

Most overdose deaths in the U.S. are caused by fentanyl, but researchers who sample the street drug supply have warned of an increasingly dangerous mix of chemicals being sold by dealers, including cocaine and methamphetamines, as well veterinary tranquilizers such as medetomidine and xylazine.

“Overdose trends are not a one-way street, and there will be periodic local increases,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, who studies overdose trends at the University of North Carolina.

His analysis of the latest CDC data suggested “most of the country is still trending down in the right direction.”

According to Dasgupta, the “increase in predicted national numbers are driven primarily by upticks in Texas, Arizona, California and Washington.”

A “blip” or a troubling new trend?

Drug death data in the U.S. is collected slowly and made public only after significant delays.

Experts say reports like this one, incorporating the most recent available preliminary data from January, offer only a crude snapshot of the current street drug situation.

CDC officials said “fluctuations” in drug overdose deaths could be caused by a number of factors including changes in the illegal drug supply and shifts in access to treatment.

This CDC data is from the period before President Trump took office or any of his policies took effect.

But the apparent rise in drug deaths comes as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are moving to curtail spending on addiction-related public health and science programs, as well as funding for Medicaid, which currently provides the largest source of insurance coverage for people in the U.S. experiencing addiction.

“America is still in the middle of an incredibly deadly addiction and overdose crisis,” Dr. Stephen Taylor, head of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said in response to the latest CDC data.

“Reducing federal support for Medicaid — the largest payer of mental health and substance use disorder treatment — would be a sign of retreat,” Taylor added.

Regina LaBelle, former White House acting chief of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Joe Biden, who studies addiction policy at Georgetown University, echoed that concern but said she hopes this report amounts to a “blip” in what had been steady improvements in drug death numbers.

“I do know that there’s always more we can do in a bipartisan way to curb overdose deaths. Cutting grants to states and laying off thousands of employees isn’t a plan,” she said.

Last week, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department sent a statement to NPR saying “reorganization” of federal addiction programs is designed to improve their “efficiency and effectiveness.”

“We aim to streamline resources and eliminate redundancies, ensuring that essential mental health and substance use disorder services are delivered more effectively,” the HHS statement said.

In a statement to NPR on Tuesday, CDC officials said this latest data highlights the need for continued “public health investments” to research and monitor street drug impacts.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a sharp new warning to the U.S. on Wednesday, declaring that “any military intervention by [the U.S.] will undoubtedly cause irreparable harm” to Americans.”

In a nationally broadcast address, Khamenei praised what he called the “steadfast, courageous, and time-sensitive” response of the Iranian people to Israeli airstrikes, and said Iran would equally resist an “imposed war” and “imposed peace.”

“Americans should know that the Iranian nation cannot be surrendered,” he said.

Khamenei’s comments, given during a televised address to the Iranian people on Wednesday, come amid President Trump’s increasing signals that the U.S. may take an active role in the conflict.

In a string of posts on his social media site Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and boasted that the U.S. and Israel had “total and complete control of the skies over Iran,” raising speculation that American forces are already more involved than previously acknowledged.

Trump also issued a direct threat against Khamenei.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.”

A person briefed on the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, told NPR that Israel believes the U.S. will eventually join the offensive against Iran and is currently awaiting a formal decision from Washington.

This is a developing story, which will be updated.

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