Mid Day Report: Friday, July 4, 2025 - podcast episode cover

Mid Day Report: Friday, July 4, 2025

Jul 04, 20257 min
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Episode description

Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular begins just moments away, security ramps up amid celebrations across the country, and some positive outlook on the nation's unemployment rate. Stay in "The Loop" with iHeartRadio.

Transcript

Speaker 1

This is WBZ Boston's news radio, redefining local news.

Speaker 2

The committities down is a beautiful sunny day, seventy four degrees right now in the city at eleven o'clock on this fourth of July. Thanks for being with us. I'm Sherry Small. Let's get you caught up. Here's what's happening. A major win for President Trump's contentious budget bill after it passed by a narrow margin in the House yesterday. CBS News Boston's Brandon Truet has more on the impact to local nonprofits.

Speaker 3

Step into Daniel's table in framing him, and you'll find Sandra Montecito, faced with empty shelves and a growing need. It's way down. Donations have been really down for the past decade. The organization has been helping the food and secure. The donations have dropped more than fifteen percent, and they're worried this new bill will make it worse. These cuts are going to have a significant impact to Daniel's table.

When President Donald Trump's signature, Big Beautiful Bill passed on Thursday, it significantly increased spending for border security, immigration enforcement, and defense. It also extends the twenty seventeen tax cuts from the president's first term, increases the child tax credit, ends tax on tips and overtime pay. Democrats unanimously voting against the bill, citing changes and steep cuts to safety net programs, including

SNAP and Medicaid. The non partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates Medicaid could be cut by nine hundred and thirty billion dollars, with nearly twelve million people at risk of losing healthcare.

Speaker 2

And President Trump is expected to sign the bill at a ceremony at the White House later today. The Boston Pops firework Spectacular will feature some of the city youngest artists. Here's WBC's Jared Brosnan with more on that.

Speaker 4

Griffith at soundcheck first time.

Speaker 5

We've been with the Pops for this event since twenty fourteen, so we're really excited to be here to bring a bit of youth and fun and hope.

Speaker 4

It's not just the Pops and the BCC reuniting.

Speaker 5

One of the songs we're singing after the Storm, and that'll be with Leslie Odom Junior. We're super excited to reconnects with him. We haven't performed with him for a little while, but he's familiar to BCC. We're really excited to welcome him back to Boston and to have that partnership there.

Speaker 4

He says. The kids couldn't be more excited to take that hatch shell stage.

Speaker 5

It's a very special moment, an opportunity for our city to come together and are really glad that Boston's Social Scores gets to be ambassadors of hope and harmony for our city.

Speaker 4

For Boston and jere Brows and w b Z Boston. So Here's radio.

Speaker 2

Security is beefed up across the country this fourth with law enforcement bracing for possible attacks.

Speaker 1

The nation's police on high alert, increasing security in the air, on the streets, and the waterways. The FBI and Homeland Security warns the potential for lone wolf attacks on Independence Day. Bultants reveal authorities are concern that lone wolf attackers might conduct mass shootings or use cars or even drones as weapons, authorities reacting to a stunning pace of high profile attacks in recent months.

Speaker 2

That's ABC's Thomas reporting there no specific plots have been uncovered, but police say they are taking no chances. It's a beautiful day today. Highs eighty three, upper seventies to near eighties on the Cape and the islands, and the humidity is dialed down as well, so beautiful, mainly clear skies tonight with the low of sixty four in the city.

Fifties is the low in most of the suburbs. Tomorrow Saturday, it's a dry day, a mix of sun and clouds, highs eighty four to eighty eight, closer to eighty once again for the Cape and the islands. We warm up even more on Sunday, mix of sun and clouds with the high of ninety two. That's the exact same carbon copy for Monday, and then looking ahead, the heat breaks for Tuesday will bring the high down to settling mainly in the eighties, and we'll add a couple of thunderstorms

as well. Right now in the city, we have sunny skies and seventy four degrees. In Boston it's eleven oh five, all right. Triple A is predicting seventy two million Americans are traveling for four for the holiday. CBS's Dave Melkoff has details from Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta.

Speaker 6

American Airlines predicts that they will see the most customers ever during this travel period. United says that expects to fly five hundred and sixty thousand people every single day of the fourth of July travel period. That's something like three takeoffs per minute.

Speaker 2

According to fly to ware. So far today, there have been seventy six flights delayed and ten flights canceled. The nation's unemployment rate fell to four point one percent. That's down a tick from a four point two percent back in May, but CBS's Joe link Kent tells us you have to look behind the headlines.

Speaker 7

What you need to understand about that, though, is labor force participation rate. That's a nerdy way of saying some people who were looking for a job stopped looking, and so that means they don't feel confident in the job market to continue. So that actually isn't a great number. And labor force participate was actually at its lowest since twenty twenty two, so that is certainly a flat.

Speaker 2

And economists expect growth to slow in the second half of the year. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has said that tariffs could start to hobble economic activity and drive up inflation this summer. At a gathering of central bankers in Portugal earlier this week, Powell said that the FED has held off on lowering interest rates this year because of President Trump's tariffs. UPS is offering buyouts to delivery drivers as part of what the company is calling a reconfiguration.

Speaker 8

In a statement, UPS as full time drivers can get a generous financial package for leaving the company, along with any earned retirement benefits. The union that represents drivers calls the plan an illegal violation of a contract agreement to create more than twenty two thousand jobs. Instead, UPS announced in April it plans to cut twenty thousand jobs to lower costs and improve efficiency. I'm Tammy Trhio.

Speaker 2

A local volunteer, has found a massive Lishnist era document while searching American Baptist church archives in Groton. The nearly one hundred eighty year old scroll is five feet long and includes a handwritten declaration signed by more than one hundred New England ministers saying they disapprove and abhor the system of American slavery. Document was signed two years after the Southern Baptist Convention was formed to uphold the institution

of slavery. You are now in the loop. For news updates throughout the day, listen to WBZ News Radio on the iHeart Radio app. I'm Sherry Small WBZ, Boston's news radio

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