Zelenskyy Sacks Defense Minister, Putin Meets Erdogan, Americans Celebrate Labor Day
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Ukrainian president fela demise elli is shaking up the top rinks of his government.

he says, is time for a new approach and a new leader of ukraine, s. Defense ministry. What's this mean for the .

ongoing counteroffensive against russia? And this is up first from M. P.

R. lives. Russian leader vlada.

mr. Putin will meet with his turkish counterpart today. Could the meeting revive a vital deal that allows ukraine to export its brain to the world?

And workers in the us. Are celebrating this labor day with a day off. And americans say unions are stronger today than they were five years ago.

It's been a long time since this country has seen workers united like this. Oh, long time.

So stay with us will give you the news. You need to start your day.

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Ukraine's president volodia zelenski has sacked the country's defense minister.

The move comes after corruption scandals involving military contractors. IT also comes near the end of a grinding and costly summer counteroffensive that so far has failed to bring major Victories .

against russia. Brian man is following developments in keep.

Enjoy now. Hi morning.

Good morning. So this has been called the biggest shakeup in cave since the russia invasion. Why they shake up now .

know making this announcement. So as he wasn't specific about the timing, but he said, change is needed.

Exceed any of her shop. See this new period, pia, they had neve.

he says there, the current defense minister, alex, I resume. Kos served during the first five hundred and fifty days of this war. The zeeland cci says, I believe the ministry needs new approaches and other forms of interaction with the military and society at large, so clearly acknowledging some of that public dissatisfaction.

So new approaches, let's talk about these corruption scandals. What were they?

There have been two big scandals here. Journalists and government investigators found numerous cases where military contractors were inflated the Prices of food procured for the military, often charging two to three times the market Price for basics like eggs and cabbage. And there's been evident some defense ministry officials were involved in that scheme. The government also investigating a large number of cases where men allegedly paid bribes to avoid military service. So once he didn't blame rising the cough for those scandals, but he did make this announcement right after talking about the need for ukraine to keep cleaning up corruption and implementing Better policies to root out crookit officials .

and who will replace ration A V well.

this is interesting, lengthy tap. A guy named ruse dem uma off his a number of parliament. He's also a muslim, ukrainian and ethnic tota with deep roots in crimea.

That's one of the regions occupied by russia. Since twenty fourteen, you have been involved in international negotiations surrounding the treatment of totals and ukrainians living in occupied territories for years. Some of those talks apparently involved back channel negotiations with russians. He also took in part in failed peace talks that happened right after russia's full scale invasion of ukraine last year. I should say disappointment needs approval by ukraine's parliament, but that's expected to be a formality.

very interesting and made really signal a new approach here. As we mention, this change also comes near the end of the summers s big counteroffensive. Ukraine hope to score big gains, pushing russia back out of occupied lines in the eastern south. But as we mentioned, progress has been slow. Did that play into this decision?

Yeah, you know, everything here does ultimately come back to what's happening on the battlefields. Lansky has been doing a lot of two leading lately, killing ukrainians. Their army is gaining ground, promising that these sacrifices will pay off IT.

There's anxiety over th Epace o f t he w ar a nd t he h uge l oss o f u kraine l ives. I spoke late yesterday with Alexander to pull a spokesman for the unified military command of where most of the heavy fighting is happening. He said ukraine is gaining ground, but slowly ended .

a steep Price .

LG Stephen said. The enemies defensive structures are quite dense, and a large amount of ammunition is needed to destroy them. So this is what humor office gna face when he takes over a situation where progress is really slow. And we are close now to the autumn rains that are going to turn this battle field to mud, which means the chances for breakthrough going forward will be either harder.

And here's brian man with us from key. Thanks.

brian. Thank you.

Global grain supplies are at stake in a meeting today between the leaders of russia and turkey.

Yeah, ukraine is among the world's top producers, but IT faces russia's invasion and a defect to sea block hate. For about a year, grain and fertilizer shipments were allowed to continue in a deal mediated by turkey and the united nations. In july, russia cancelled the deal. And now they're back at the table and Peter.

Peter kenia joins us from is stable to discuss this hype. Ter, hello. So why does turkey play such an important role? Inss, well.

there's a few reasons. Geographically, turkey has long seen itself as a regional power, one that follows its own path. For instance, turkey never joined the international sanctions against russia after IT invaded ukraine.

Turkey continues with relatively good tied to moscow. It's continued trade in other contacts. The russian tourists are back in droves here.

In addition, turkey's president egyptian pair, to want his long sought to portrait turkey as a regional mediator. He took some credit for the agreement reach last year, the one moscow pulled out of a july. So as things stand, turkey remains a loyal, if sometimes difficult, nato ally, supporting A U. N, plan to ease this crisis, while at the same time maintaining ties with russia.

I think the big question is, what's possible here? What is this seem like russia wants? And what can turkey in the west offer?

Yes, moscow w has been quite clear about what IT sees as the problematic implementation of this Green deal. Russia had high expectations that the deal would provide a big boost to its own agricultural and other exports, which had been curtailed by sanctions. But russian officials have complained that even under the deal sanctions against russia engaging in certain financial transactions, other restrictions like shipping, insurance, things like that, they've continued. Some people point out that russian exports are in fact quite a bit higher than they were when the deal kicked in, but that doesn't seem to be good enough for russia.

Now we know this grain is vital for global food supplies. So what happens if IT and other commodities don't get moving again?

Well, this grain deal has been a big benefit, not just to ukrainian grain farmers, but also the countries in africa, the middle east, asia. The united nations has called IT a major success in reducing the Spike in Prices we saw at the beginning of the war.

So should this deal somehow collapse, should russia resume a tougher black cade of ukrainian cargo ships in the black sea? Experts say the prospect of food shortages in those regions would increase significantly. And then beyond that, some wonder, if this grand deal breaks down, what else could that trigger? A pushed for more sanctions against moscow could rush a double down on its drive to occupy ukraine or part of IT. In that light, sum analysts say a credible move to increase russian exports beyond where they stand now could be seen as a sensible course of action, and there is a course warn against a piece moscow. So we'll have to see how that plays out.

So a lot at stake today and a lot at stake for people who need these food supplies. That's npr Peter canyon in a temple. Thank you so much for your reporting.

Thanks later.

On this labor dep, organized labor is on the move.

Walking picket lines in hollywood, signing up new members and in some cases, celebrating wins at the bargaining table. Polls show public support for unions is close to its highest level in more than half a century. Organized labor still faces big obstacles, though, and for people who do not belong to a union, their bargaining power depends in large part on the overall health of the job market.

We're going to spend a few minutes this morning talking about the state of labor with peers. Andrew issue. Good morning.

Andrea. Good morning, lily.

So during the pandemic, a lot of workers became newly interested in forming union, and we seen high profile efforts to organize workers at starbucks cafes, amazon warehouses. So what's been the .

result was there has been a lot of organizing activity, but with mixed results. Workers petition for more than twenty five hundred union elections last year, the highest level in seven years, and IT has slow down a little year.

But last year, less than half of the union elections ended up in winds for the unions, and even fewer resulted in collective bargaining agreement, a union contract and, you know, lyla unionizing efforts at starbucks first got underway two years ago. Since then, more than three hundreds stories have unionized, but not one of them has a contract. And I think that is one reason we have seen some slowdown in new organizing at starbuck because braces just aren't seeing that there's been much gain for all their efforts.

And meanwhile, they have seen the length that the company has gone to, to dissuade people from union zing. We've eez raced as fired stores have been closed. And while this is illegal, the penalties are so minimal, they don't seem .

to be a deterrent. So a big risk and not much of a rewarded. Sounds like so far, a lot of roadworks for those trying to form new union. So what explains this? Continued enthusiasm?

Well, public perception of unions has shifted a lot in the last few years. Not only our unions popular again, but a new gala poll found thirty four percent of respondents believe unions are getting more powerful. And that's a huge jump from just five years ago when only ninety percent thought unions were gaining strength.

And you can can see what's behind the shift. The summer alone, pilots one big raises. U.

P, S. Drivers got what the teamsters calls the most lucrative contract in ups history. Of course, the bite administration is happy about this. Workers are gaining not only historic raises, but also big quality of life improvements. Here's acting labor secretary.

I think that is continuing to inspire you know what you've called like a hot labor summer, right? You know, worker standing up. And the more we see that, I think the more we will see the benefits of real worker power. Now we should .

point out though that now is the perfect time for unions to be putting up big demands. As these companies have been enjoying record profits, unions have been feeling good about their wins, but how long their leverage lasts is unclear.

The vast majority of workers in this country actually don't belong to a union. So what kind of leverage do non union workers have? yet?

Nine out of ten workers in this country don't belong to unions. But the thing that workers all over the country have going for them right now is the strong job market. Unemployment did rise a little bit last month but is still very low.

Employers are still adding jobs, one hundred eighty seven thousand jobs in August. And competition for workers has pushed up weight as especially for low wage workers. And all of that good. But like it's proving to be not really any match for the power of collective bargaining.

The treasury department issued a report last week that found, on average, unionized workers are in ten to fifteen percent more than workers who aren't part of a union and they have Better benefits. And of course, as industries are undergoing so much change, workers who are unionized are more likely to have a say in how those changes are made. So whether it's the transition tel electric vehicles or the adoption of A I, you know, these are all things being discussed in union negotiations going on right now. And by the way, that seem galaxy mention found broad support for the union workers in these .

negotiations empire under a shoe.

Thanks, and you're welcome.

Torrential rains put a serious damper on the burning man festival this year. Tens of thousands of revelers are stranded in the nevada desert after heavy rainfall turned the annual weeklong arts and counter cultural event into a mud vest. Authorities are also confirming one death, which is under investigation.

It's Daniel van bark, second burning man, and he says, unexpected, whether r is just part of the experience.

I was here for the crazy heat, and now here for the crazy rain.

wind and mud. Van barcus from los Angeles compared the wet soil in the nevada desert to mixing concrete.

It's arts to get wet and IT just gets sticky. It's it's a really unique experience and sticks to your shoes and sticks to your feet. It's very difficult to get off. You can't ride a bike on IT. You can't really drive on IT just whatever IT touches IT sticks on.

Festival grounds were hit by over half inch of rain. On friday night, organizers closed access into an out of the temporary site for the remainder of the event, which officially ends today.

Twenty nine year old mei do from los Angeles s was pitching in by frying up some bacon.

seeing everybody you can like doing something as I, well, i'm not gna be in my time all day because, like, you know, move around. So I decided to just like, yeah, make some food IT really encourage me to like, you know what? Like, let's be a part of and how do you want out?

And even though her first burning man didn't exactly turn out as SHE hoped do is certain that SHE will be back.

It's the third burning man for denver resident gordon gram. He agrees the festival sense of community sets IT apart.

I was not alerted of the rain that was not a broken, but helping out your neighbors and being here for everybody that was in the broken. We know that. And I think everyone's really to do that and excited to do that.

Fifty two year old zai rubinstein said being stuck in the desert will make her grateful for the little things. Well, i'm really.

really going to appreciate bathrooms and mine in particular. You know, when you live without them, you realize, oh, modern plummers.

that is a marvel. yeah. This is why I don't camp. With more rain and thunderstorms drenching the festival area yesterday, organizers of asked attends to conserve water and food and shelter in place for now. But there is one sliver of good news.

A social media account associated with the burning man projects website says the traditional climax of the festival, the burning of a giant man like structure, will happen tonight. And that's the first for monday, september fourth labor day. I'm llah audit .

and i'm Daniel estrin. Toy's episode of up first was edited by raphael nam, mark cave and Peter granite. He was produced by shelby hawkins chat, cambell Taylor, honey and the we get engineering support from carrey, strange. And our technical director is initiates. Ss, start your day here tomorrow with us.

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