NPR News: 09-12-2026 8PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Linda Kenyon. The CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman says his company will not have an initial public offering this year. Something analysts had been anticipating. As NPR's John Ruich reports, the decision hinges in part on widespread concerns about AI safety after reports of AI programs going rogue. OpenAI's IPO is one of the most anticipated public share offerings in years and it's expected to be one of the biggest. But in an interview with Fortune, Sam Altman said the maker of Chatchy BT is not rushing into it, given events in AI safety lately. Right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public. And we don't feel pressure on that. Pressed on the timing, Altman added this. I would say not to say 26, yeah, I don't. Like, we got a lot of stuff to do. The AI world has been rocked by recent reports of AI agents colluding together without people in the loop and going off script, even hacking into other companies. Now leading labs, including OpenAI, are talking about slowing the pace of development so safety

1:01measures can keep up. John Ruich, NPR News. The Navy is providing new details on how much its main supply hub in Bevereign has been damaged by the war with Iran. Steve Walfe with Member Station WHO has the story. NPR has been reporting since April about the evacuation of families and sailors from naval support activity Bahrain and the damage the base suffered. In recent days, the Navy has become more forthcoming, acting Navy Secretary Hong Khao told the epoch times that Iranian forces blew the hell out of Bahrain and that the Navy is reviewing the future of the base. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Darrell Coddle told sailors in a televised hound hall that the service didn't expect to increase staff at the base any time soon. A Navy official says it is managing more than 1,700 cases of sailors and families who remain dislocated since the beginning of the war in February. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walfe. President Trump this week promised gas prices will come down after the midterm elections.

2:06The president also blames the U.S. war with Iran for the increase. NPR's Windsor-Johnston reports. Americans are feeling the effects even if they're not filling up at the pump. Diesel powers the machinery used to grow food and move goods across the country. Jason Kurtz is a farmer in Forest City, Missouri. He says one piece of equipment alone burns through 200 gallons of fuel a day. We have to harvest and we have to run the machines. We have to use the diesel. So bottom line is it cuts into our bottom line. And that cost keeps climbing. The national average for diesel has reached another record high. $6.16 a gallon. According to Tribal A, that's up more than $0.10 since Friday and nearly $2.46 from a year ago. Windsor-Johnston and NPR News. You're listening to NPR. A new study finds that suicide-related emergency department visits by kids aged 5 to 17 rose

3:07dramatically between 2016 and 2022. The findings published in the annals of emergency medicine also find half of those visits were in poorly-resourced hospitals not equipped to provide appropriate care. NPR's RITU Chatterjee reports. Researchers use data on nearly 5.4 million pediatric mental health-related visits to emergency departments across the country. Visits for suicidal thoughts and attempts rose by 74%. Dr. Audrey Brewer is a pediatrician at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago and the main author of the study. She says nearly half of the suicide-related visits were to hospitals that are not specialized for pediatric care, like community hospitals. And so that can be really concerning, especially where these kids are coming in with more severe mental illness. And there may not be the necessary resources to really meet their needs. She says these hospitals are also seeing a significant number of kids with depression and substance use disorders. RITU Chatterjee and NPR News.

4:08Even Nashville, Tennessee, Republican and Democratic leaders have found something they can agree on. Renaming the airport to honor the state's favorite daughter, Dolly Parton. The Metropolitan Nashville Airport's authority unanimously approved a motion to begin the renaming process while a competing city-controlled authority also supported it. Parton who passed away two weeks ago had previously declined the honor. I'm Linda Kenyon, NPR News in Washington. This is Ira Glass. On this American life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected and very unpleasant term. And it did take me a while to realize that it's basically because of the monkey press the button. That's right, because of the monkey press the button. Rising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts.