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- Man kicked and injured a CBP beagle during airport baggage search: 2025 Jun 28

- People gather to pay respects to slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman: 2025 Jun 28

- Funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 decaying bodies is sentenced to 20 years: 2025 Jun 28

- Protester killed at the No Kings rally in Salt Lake City remembered in public memorial: 2025 Jun 28

- Slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman mourned at funeral service: 2025 Jun 28

- What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling?: 2025 Jun 28

- A fourth judge has blocked a Trump executive order targeting elite law firms: 2025 Jun 27

- Supreme Court wraps up term with two big wins for conservatives, and Trump: 2025 Jun 27

- People in Minnesota say goodbye to slain lawmaker Melissa Hortman and husband: 2025 Jun 27

LAW | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 11:41 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Man kicked and injured a CBP beagle during airport baggage search

By Alana Wise

A 70-year-old Egyptian man pleaded guilty in federal court this week after he kicked a Customs and Border Protection agriculture detector dog during a bag search at Washington Dulles International Airport.

Hamed Ramadan Bayoumy Aly Marie was charged with harming an animal used in law enforcement for kicking a 5-year-old beagle named Freddie hard enough to lift the 25-pound animal off the ground, CBP said in a news release.

The dog suffered contusions on the right side of his ribs.

Freddie and his handler were inspecting baggage when the dog "alerted to one of Marie's suitcases," the agency said. "As the CBP canine handler started questioning Marie, he violently kicked Freddie."

CBP said Marie was attempting to bring in several items of food, including illicit agriculture products. Among his belongings, CBP said its agents found 55 pounds of beef, 44 pounds of rice, 15 pounds of eggplant, cucumbers, bell peppers, two pounds of corn seeds, and a pound of herbs.

Various foreign agricultural products are prohibited from being brought into the United States in order to protect the country's native plantlife from disease and invasive species.

"Being caught deliberately smuggling well over one hundred pounds of undeclared and prohibited agriculture products does not give one permission to violently assault a defenseless Customs and Border Protection beagle," said Christine Waugh, CBP's Area Port Director for D.C.

Marie was ordered to pay the dog's veterinarian bill and on Thursday was ordered removed back to Egypt.

"We rely heavily on our K9 partners and Freddie was just doing his job," Waugh said.

"Any malicious attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and CBP will continue to work with our investigating and prosecuting partners to deal swift and severe justice to perpetrators," Waugh added.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449630

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NATIONAL | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 9:16 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

People gather to pay respects to slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman

By Scott Simon, Catharine Richert

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

In Minnesota, the funeral is being held for state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing)The lord is my shepherd. Nothing shall I want.

SIMON: The Hortmans were killed in their home two weeks ago by a man authorities say posed as a police officer. The gunman is also accused of wounding a state senator and his wife and planning other attacks. Attendance at the funeral was limited, but it was livestreamed, and Minnesota Public Radio's Catharine Richert joins us from St. Paul. Catherine, thanks for being with us.

CATHARINE RICHERT, BYLINE: Thanks for having me, Scott.

SIMON: Please tell us about the scene there.

RICHERT: Well, you know, Hortman was a very prominent Democratic leader who earned respect from politicians from across the political spectrum. So it's really no surprise that so many members of both political parties have been mourning her and her husband. Hundreds of guests gathered at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis for a traditional Catholic mass this morning. And they wore buttons with lilac and sage. This is a nod to how much Melissa Hortman loved gardening. Guests also include former President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well. And a choir sang as Melissa and Mark were brought into the front of the basilica by pallbearers, who included - that included Governor Tim Walz. And he spoke as well.

TIM WALZ: Melissa Hortman will be remembered as the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history. I get to remember her as a close friend, a mentor and the most talented legislator I've ever known. For seven years, I have had the privilege of signing her agenda into law.

RICHERT: You know, Walz and millions of Minnesotans got to live better because of Hortman's work, and he listed accomplishments that expanded preschool to clean energy.

RICHERT: And of course the funeral is being held at a time when people have been concerned about political violence in recent months. How did speakers address this at the funeral?

SIMON: A lot of lawmakers are rattled by these shootings, and not just in Minnesota. How are people there feeling about the political violence we've seen recently?

RICHERT: Well, you know, I'd say overall the focus has very much been on how the Hortmans will be remembered and what the Hortmans stood for. But Father Dan Griffith did make some brief remarks during his homily about the particular historical moment that we're living in. He pointed out that five years ago, Minneapolis was where George Floyd was murdered at the hands of a police officer, what he called an act of racial injustice.

DAN GRIFFITH: And now we are the ground zero place for political violence and extremism. Both of these must be decried in the strongest possible terms as they are respectively a threat to human dignity and indeed our democracy.

RICHERT: You know, he says that instead of being ground zero for violence, Minnesota now has the opportunity to be ground zero for peace.

SIMON: And, Catharine, today's ceremony was not open to the public, but the Hortmans lay in state yesterday into the Capitol Rotunda. What did you see?

RICHERT: You know, the Minnesota Capitol sits on this hill in St. Paul, and thousands of people were lined up across that sweeping front lawn. And that line even snaked around the building. Hortman was a prominent Democrat, as I said, but she also was known for being a political bridge builder, and that's why a lot of people came out. Visitors paused at two caskets surrounded by potted trees and ferns - one for Melissa, one for Mark. And in between them was an urn which holds the ashes of their golden retriever, Gilbert, who was also shot. The Hortmans adopted him after he failed to graduate from a service dog training program, and it's really moved people here. Service dogs cycled in and out of the Rotunda to keep watch over Gilbert yesterday. And I'd say today the service is being livestreamed, and I think that's a way for people who didn't know the Hortmans but felt touched by their lives to honor their legacy.

SIMON: Minnesota Public Radio's Catharine Richert. Thank you so much for being with us.

RICHERT: Thank you, Scott.

(SOUNDBITE OF SKULI SVERRISSON'S "SWEET EARTH (FEAT. BILL FRISELL)")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445258

NATIONAL | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 8:30 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 decaying bodies is sentenced to 20 years

By The Associated Press

DENVER — A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed nearly 190 dead bodies in a decrepit building and sent grieving families fake ashes received the maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison on Friday, for cheating customers and defrauding the federal government out of nearly $900,000 in COVID-19 aid.

Jon Hallford, owner of Return to Nature Funeral Home, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in federal court last year. Separately, Hallford pleaded guilty to 191 counts of corpse abuse in state court and will be sentenced in August.

At Friday's hearing, federal prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and Hallford's attorney asked for 10 years. Judge Nina Wang said that although the case focused on a single fraud charge, the circumstances and scale of Hallford's crime and the emotional damage to families warranted the longer sentence.

"This is not an ordinary fraud case," she said.

In court before the sentencing, Hallford told the judge that he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people's lives, "then everything got completely out of control, especially me."

"I am so deeply sorry for my actions," he said. "I still hate myself for what I've done."

Hallford and his wife, Carie Hallford, were accused of storing the bodies between 2019 and 2023 and sending families fake ashes. Investigators described finding the bodies in 2023 stacked atop each other throughout a squat, bug-infested building in Penrose, a small town about a two-hour drive south of Denver.

The morbid discovery revealed to many families that their loved ones weren't cremated and that the ashes they had spread or cherished were fake. In two cases, the wrong body was buried, according to court documents.

Many families said it undid their grieving processes. Some relatives had nightmares, others have struggled with guilt, and at least one wondered about their loved one's soul.

Among the victims who spoke during Friday's sentencing was a boy named Colton Sperry. With his head poking just above the lectern, he told the judge about his grandmother, who Sperry said was a second mother to him and died in 2019.

Her body languished inside the Return to Nature building for four years until the discovery, which plunged Sperry into depression. He said he told his parents at the time, "If I die too, I could meet my grandma in heaven and talk to her again."

His parents brought him to the hospital for a mental health check, which led to therapy and an emotional support dog.

"I miss my grandma so much," he told the judge through tears.

Federal prosecutors accused both Hallfords of pandemic aid fraud, siphoning the money and spending it and customer's payments on a GMC Yukon and Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and even laser body sculpting.

Derrick Johnson told the judge that he traveled 3,000 miles to testify over how his mother was "thrown into a festering sea of death."

"I lie awake wondering, was she naked? Was she stacked on top of others like lumber?" said Johnson.

"While the bodies rotted in secret, (the Hallfords) lived, they laughed and they dined," he added. "My mom's cremation money likely helped pay for a cocktail, a day at the spa, a first class flight."

Jon Hallford's attorney, Laura H. Suelau, asked for a lower sentence of 10 years in the hearing Friday, saying that Hallford "knows he was wrong, he admitted he was wrong" and hasn't offered an excuse. His sentencing in the state case is scheduled in August.

Asking for a 15 year sentence for Hallford, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff described the scene inside the building. Investigators couldn't move into some rooms because the bodies were piled so high and in various states of decay. FBI agents had to put boards down so they could walk above the fluid, which was later pumped out.

Carie Hallford is scheduled to go to trial in the federal case in September, the same month as her next hearing in the state case in which she's also charged with 191 counts of corpse abuse.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449615

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NATIONAL | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 8:15 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Protester killed at the No Kings rally in Salt Lake City remembered in public memorial

By Saige Miller

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Hundreds of cities had No Kings rallies on June 14 in protest of Trump administration policies, but only one of the rallies turned deadly. Thirty-nine-year-old Arthur Afa Ah Loo was killed while he attended a march in Salt Lake City. Saige Miller with member station KUER has more on his public memorial Friday evening.

SAIGE MILLER, BYLINE: The celebration of Afa Ah Loo's life didn't resemble a traditional memorial as Americans know it. The hundreds of attendees wore vibrant colors, lively, patterned clothing and traditional Pacific Islander regalia.

(APPLAUSE)

MILLER: People clapped throughout the memorial. They laughed, they sang and they spoke in his native tongue of Samoan.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Singing in Samoan).

MILLER: Laura Ah Loo is Afa's wife. She proudly spoke about how he was a wonderful father of two, a fashion designer who was featured on the hit competition show "Project Runway" and a pillar of Utah's Pacific Islander community.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LAURA AH LOO: Losing Afa feels like losing the sun - our light, our warmth and our comfort. It is more devastating than I can ever put to words because no amount of words can encompass who he was as a person and who he was to me and our babies.

MILLER: Ah Loo was fatally shot by an unnamed safety volunteer while marching in the No Kings protest. Salt Lake City police say Ah Loo wasn't the intended target. He was an innocent bystander. The armed safety volunteer told police he saw another man, identified as Arturo Gamboa, separate from the crowd, pull out a rifle, and begin manipulating it. The safety volunteer fired three shots. One struck Gamboa, the other killed Ah Loo. Gamboa was the only person arrested by police. He has since been released, no charges have been filed and the case remains under investigation.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Singing) With his love...

MILLER: But what happened to Ah Loo wasn't mentioned during the service. Telesia Tonga was Ah Loo's dear friend. She told the crowd the evening was solely about remembering his legacy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TELESIA TONGA: His fashion, his kindness, his music, even his food, his unapologetic laughter, and his one-of-a-kind humor, and especially his fearlessness.

MILLER: Everyone had different stories to tell about their time with Ah Loo, but they all reiterated one thing - Afa was larger than life.

For NPR News, I'm Saige Miller in Salt Lake City.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5447479

POLITICS | UPDATED SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 2:45 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman mourned at funeral service

By Alana Wise

Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funeral of Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota lawmaker who was slain in a display of political violence that shocked the nation.

Hortman, a former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their Brooklyn Park, Minn., home earlier this month in what law enforcement says was part of a planned string of attacks against dozens of state Democratic elected officials. The family dog, a golden retriever named Gilbert, was also gravely injured in the attacks and was later euthanized.

The service was attended by family and friends of the couple and a number of high-profile Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Minn. Gov. Tim Walz, who delivered remarks.

The day prior to the funeral, the Hortmans and Gilbert lay in state at the Minnesota Capitol for members of the public to pay their respects.

Thousands of supporters queued for a chance to mourn the three at the Capitol building, including Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who said in a statement on Saturday that she was not able to attend the funeral due to a potential vote on the Senate budget bill, but that she would watch the service remotely.

"I join the state and the country in honoring our beloved friends Melissa and Mark Hortman," Klobuchar said. "In speaking with their children Sophie and Colin yesterday at the Minnesota Capitol, I know that Melissa and Mark's legacy of goodness and service to others is in the best of hands."

At the funeral service, the Hortmans were remembered as a force of good in their community. And Melissa Hortman was praised by Walz as "the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history" and the "most talented legislator" he had ever known.

"Maybe it is this a moment when each of us can examine the way we work together, the way we talk about each other, the way we fight for the things we care about," Walz said.

"A moment when each of us can recommit to engaging in politics and life the way Mark and Melissa did — fiercely, enthusiastically, heartily, but without ever losing sight of our common humanity," he continued. "But let's not do it because of the way Mark and Melissa died. Let's do it because of the way they lived, and the way they led."

Also amid the attack that killed the Hortmans, Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot at their Champlin, Minn., home just miles away by the same suspected gunman, but the pair survived, despite sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

The man accused of carrying out the killings, Vance Boelter, has been charged with stalking and murdering the Hortmans, and stalking and shooting the Hoffmans. Boetler is being held in federal custody.

In a statement on Thursday, Boelter's wife, Jenny, sent her condolences on behalf of herself and her children to the Hortman and Hoffman families.

"We are absolutely shocked, heartbroken and completely blindsided. This violence does not at all align with our beliefs as a family," Jenny Boelter said in a statement through her attorney.

"It is a betrayal of everything we hold true as tenets of our Christian faith," she said.

Hortman's assassination is one of the latest attacks on political figures in recent years. In April, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro's mansion was set ablaze while he and his family slept inside.

Last summer, President Trump was the target of two apparent assassination attempts during his run for the White House.

Research shows that Americans are more polarized today than they have been in decades, and threats against members of Congress have seen a spike.

To honor the Hortmans' legacy, the couple's two children, Sophie and Colin, suggested the community connect more with the people around them.

"The best way to honor our parents' memory is to do something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else," they said.

Correction

Jun. 28th, 2025

The photo caption previously misspelled Melissa and Mark Hortman's last name.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74962

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NATIONAL | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 8:29 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

What is birthright citizenship and what happens after the Supreme Court ruling?

By Bill Chappell

After the Supreme Court issued a ruling that limits the ability of federal judges to issue universal injunctions — but didn't rule on the legality of President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship — immigrant rights groups are trying a new tactic by filing a national class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two immigrant rights organizations whose members include people without legal status in the U.S. who "have had or will have children born in the United States after February 19, 2025," according to court documents.

One of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, William Powell, senior counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, says his colleagues at CASA, Inc. and the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project think that, with the class action approach "we will be able to get complete relief for everyone who would be covered by the executive order."

The strategic shift required three court filings: one to add class allegations to the initial complaint; a second to move for class certification; and a third asking a district court in Maryland to issue "a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction asking for relief for that putative class," Powell said.

In the amended complaint, filed two hours after the Supreme Court's ruling, the immigrant rights attorneys said that Trump's effort to ban birthright citizenship, if allowed to stand, "would throw into doubt the citizenship status of thousands of children across the country."

"The Executive Order threatens these newborns' identity as United States citizens and interferes with their enjoyment of the full privileges, rights, and benefits that come with U.S. citizenship, including calling into question their ability to remain in their country of birth," reads the complaint.

Rights groups and 22 states had asked federal judges to block President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. Issued on his first day in office, the executive order states, "the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States."

But after three federal district court judges separately blocked Trump's order, issuing universal injunctions preventing its enforcement nationwide, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block universal injunctions altogether.

The Supreme Court did not rule on the birthright issue itself. But after the ruling, Trump called it a "monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law," in a briefing at the White House.

The president said the ruling means his administration can now move forward with his efforts to fundamentally reshape longstanding U.S. policy on immigration and citizenship.

Friday's ruling quickly sparked questions about how the dispute over birthright citizenship will play out now — and how the ruling on universal injunctions might affect other efforts to push back on executive policies, under President Trump and future presidents.

"Nationwide injunctions have been an important tool to prevent blatantly illegal and unconstitutional conduct," the National Immigrant Justice Center's director of litigation, Keren Zwick, said in a statement sent to NPR. The decision to limit such injunctions, she said, "opens a pathway for the president to break the law at will."

Both Zwick and Powell emphasized that the Supreme Court did not rule on a key question: whether Trump's executive order is legal.

At the White House, Attorney General Pam Bondi would not answer questions about how the order might be implemented and enforced.

"This is all pending litigation," she said, adding that she expects the Supreme Court to take up the issue this fall.

"We're obviously disappointed with the result on nationwide injunctions," Powell said. But, he added, he believes the Supreme Court will ultimately quash Trump's attack on birthright citizenship.

"The executive order flagrantly violates the 14th Amendment citizenship clause and Section 1401a of the Immigration and Nationality Act," Powell said, "both of which guarantee birthright citizenship to nearly all children born in the United States, with only narrow exceptions for ambassadors [and] invading armies."

The court's ruling set a 30-day timeframe for the policy laid out in Trump's executive order to take effect.

"The Government here is likely to suffer irreparable harm from the District Courts' entry of injunctions that likely exceed the authority conferred by the Judiciary Act," a syllabus, or headnote, of the Supreme Court's ruling states.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, also discusses the differences between "complete relief " and "universal relief."

"Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship," Barrett wrote. "Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete."

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling suggests that constitutional guarantees might not apply to anyone who isn't a party to a lawsuit.

The concept of birthright citizenship has deep roots, dating to the English common law notion of jus soli ("right of the soil"). The doctrine was upended for a time in the U.S. by the Supreme Court's notorious Dred Scott ruling.

Current legal standing for birthright citizenship in the U.S. extends back to the 1860s, when the 14th Amendment of the Constitution was ratified, stating, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

"Any executive order purporting to limit birthright citizenship is just as unconstitutional today as it was yesterday," Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, told NPR.

"There is nothing substantively in the decision that undercuts those lower court opinions. The opinion just undercuts the tools available to the courts to enforce that constitutional mandate."

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448863

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LAW | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 7:36 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

A fourth judge has blocked a Trump executive order targeting elite law firms

By Ryan Lucas

A federal judge has struck down President Trump's executive order targeting the law firm Susman Godfrey, delivering the latest in a series of legal wins for firms that have challenged the president's punitive campaign against Big Law.

The ruling Friday from U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan marks the fourth time out of four that a federal judge has permanently blocked one of Trump's executive orders seeking to punish an elite law firm.

Judge AliKhan said in her ruling that the executive order against Susman Godfrey "is unconstitutional from beginning to end."

"Every court to have considered a challenge to one of these orders has found grave constitutional violations and permanently enjoined enforcement of the order in full," she wrote. "Today, this court follows suit, concluding that the order targeting Susman violates the U.S. Constitution and must be permanently enjoined."

"The Court's ruling is a resounding victory for the rule of law and the right of every American to be represented by legal counsel without fear of retaliation," Susman Godfrey said in a statement. "We applaud the Court for declaring the administration's order unconstitutional. Our firm is committed to the rule of law and to protecting the rights of our clients without regard to their political or other beliefs."

The latest order delivers a resounding rebuke to Trump's unprecedented series of executive orders targeting prominent law firms since February. The orders have sought to punish them for representing causes or clients that he opposes, or for once employing attorneys he dislikes, such as former special counsel Robert Mueller.

The orders impose several punitive measures, including suspending security clearances for the firm's attorneys, barring its employees' access to government buildings and officials, and ending government contracts with the firm.

Four law firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey — individually sued to block Trump's actions, saying the executive orders were unconstitutional and a threat to the legal profession.

In all four lawsuits, judges — appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike — have found Trump's orders unconstitutional and permanently blocked enforcement of them.

"Let's kill all the lawyers"

In their rulings, the judges found Trump's orders to be an attack on the law firms' First and Fifth amendment rights, as well as a broader assault on the American legal system.

"The cornerstone of the American system of justice is an independent judiciary and an independent bar willing to tackle unpopular cases, however daunting," Judge Richard Leon, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote in his opinion blocking enforcement of the order against WilmerHale.

"The Founding Fathers knew this! Accordingly, they took pains to enshrine in the Constitution certain rights that would serve as the foundation for that independence," he added. "Little wonder that in nearly 250 years since the Constitution was adopted no Executive Order has been issued challenging these fundamental rights."

That changed, the judge notes, with Trump.

In her ruling in the lawsuit brought by the firm Perkins Coie, Judge Beryll Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, also noted that no American president had ever targeted a law firm with executive orders like Trump has.

But, she noted, "in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'"

Defending the rule of law

Despite those setbacks, Trump has notched successes with other firms.

At least nine big law firms have cut deals with Trump to either have an order against them lifted or to avoid being the target of one. In return, they've agreed to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono legal work on causes both they and the president support.

Some legal experts, however, question whether those deals are legally valid.

Timothy Zick, a professor at William and Mary Law School, said the Trump administration doesn't appear to care whether the executive orders against the law firms are constitutional.

"As we've seen many firms will capitulate. And if judges invalidate the orders, the administration will just blame 'radical' judges for interfering with the president's agenda," he said in an email.

Still, the recent court rulings demonstrate the strength of the law firms' case against the executive orders.

"The firms that cut 'deals' surely knew this, but reasoned that more harm would come from fighting the administration than from capitulating," Zick said.

"A big-picture question is how the law firms will be perceived in the future," he added. "Those that litigated may benefit from being perceived as defending not just their own interests but those of the Bar and the rule of law. Those that folded may be perceived as having failed in those respects."

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-70443

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LAW | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 5:52 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Supreme Court wraps up term with two big wins for conservatives, and Trump

By Nina Totenberg

Heard on All Things Considered

The Supreme Court, on Friday, handed President Trump a major victory, allowing the administration to take steps aimed at implementing its ban on automatic citizenship for all babies born in the United States.

More importantly, the court's 6-to-3 decision makes it far more difficult to bring a nationwide challenge to other executive orders issued by President Trump or any future president.

Trump, on Friday, hailed the decision as "giant" — a vindication of his plan to bar birthright citizenship for children born in the United States whose parents are not here legally or who are here legally but on a temporary basis.

"Our country should be very proud of the Supreme Court," the president said in a news conference Friday morning.

Notwithstanding Trump's celebratory remarks, Friday's decision took no position on birthright citizenship at all.

Rather, the court's conservative supermajority granted the administration's request to curb the ability of lower courts to apply their rulings nationwide, the result being that in most cases, challenges to a presidential executive order will benefit only the individual plaintiffs and groups that bring a case.

Writing for the conservative court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that universal injunctions, which apply a ruling nationwide, were not anticipated by the nation's founders and have not been authorized by congress.

"When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully," said Barrett, "the answer is not for the court to exceed its power too."

Writing for the three liberal dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the president's executive power "...does not permit him to rewrite the Constitution or statutory provisions at a whim."

Indeed, both liberal and conservative scholars have said that the text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution leaves little room for doubt on birthright citizenship, since it explicitly says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

By allowing the Trump policy to continue for now, though, said Sotomayor, the court "endorses the radical proposition that the President is harmed, irreparably whenever he cannot do something that he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is break the law."

"The real import of the Supreme Court's decision is less about birthright citizenship policy, which is almost certainly never going to go into effect anywhere in the United States," says Georgetown Law professor Stephen Vladeck, adding that it will make it "much harder ... for plaintiffs in other cases who are trying to challenge other nationwide initiatives of the Trump administration and any future president."

Justice Barrett's opinion for the court did leave some loopholes for plaintiffs to use in challenging not just Trump's birthright citizenship policy, but other policies.

For instance, the opinion said that states can seek universal injunctions, and that citizens can bring class actions on behalf of themselves and others in similar situations.

But, Vladeck called the court's exception for class actions "ironic," given that nationwide injunctions became "so popular" after "the Supreme Court in a series of rulings in the 2010s put more and more obstacles in the way of certifying nationwide classes."

Notwithstanding those difficulties, immigrants rights groups, including one of the organizations that received a nationwide injunction against Trump's executive order in the lower courts, almost immediately filed a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging the Trump executive order barring birthright citizenship for certain classes of babies born in the United States.

University of Chicago Law professor William Baude said he believes that despite the administration's win today, Trump's birthright executive order "is going to be dead one way or another." Baude, however, sees the Supreme Court's decision on Friday as "a valuable reset for the ways the courts have been dealing with the Trump administration."

Other opinions

While the birthright case was certainly the most prominent of Friday's decisions, the court delivered many more.

The court upheld a provision of the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, that requires most insurers to provide free preventive care without copays.

The justices also upheld the FCC's longstanding fund authorized by Congress nearly 30 years ago to ensure that people living in rural and underserved areas have access to internet and phone services that are available in big cities.

The court upheld a Texas law that requires anyone seeking online access to sexually explicit material, to provide proof of age, something that adults had objected to as a violation of their First Amendment rights.

And the justices punted to next term an important voting rights case from Louisiana.

Parents can opt out

Finally, the Supreme Court issued a major religion decision about the rights of parents to opt their children out of classes in which material, like schoolbooks with LGBTQ characters, violate their religious beliefs.

At the center of the case was the Montgomery County, Md., school system, the most religiously diverse county in the nation, with 160,000 students of nearly every faith.

A group of parents sued the school board, seeking to opt their elementary school children out of classes because they viewed the material as offensive to their religion. The school system refused, saying that it had tried an opt out program but found it too disruptive.

By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court agreed with the objecting parents. Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said parents challenging the board's introduction of "LGBTQ-inclusive" storybooks, along with its decision to bar opt-outs "unconstitutionally burden" the parents' right to the free exercise of religion.

He said the storybooks conveyed a "normative message" that seeks to separate gender from biological sex, contrary to the parents' religious beliefs.

Professor Thomas Berg of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota said he sees the decision as a major advance for religious believers who are required by law to send their children to some school and cannot afford private school.

"If the public school's the only option," said Berg, school boards must accommodate "people of different views in public schools."

But Berg also acknowledges that the court's opinion on Friday failed to provide much guidance for public school systems as to what age groups must have opt outs and in what circumstances. School boards across the country have allowed kids to opt out of sex education classes, and Maryland is no exception. But beyond that, the Supreme Court provided little guidance for school officials who have long worried about this case.

Sonja Trainor, the executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, concedes that school boards may be loath to use controversial books and materials in class after Friday's Supreme Court decision.

"I think they will vanillafy but they're not going to stop teaching," material like Darwin's theory of evolution, said Trainor. "They're not going to stop teaching what they think kids should learn academically."

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The Supreme Court today handed President Trump a major victory, allowing the administration to take steps aimed at implementing its ban on automatic citizenship for all babies born in the U.S. More importantly, the court's 6-to-3 decision makes it far more difficult to bring a nationwide challenge to other executive orders issued by President Trump or by any future president. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: President Trump hailed the decision as a vindication of his plan to bar birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. whose parents are not here legally or who are here legally, but on a temporary basis.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's a giant. It's a giant. And they should be very proud, and our country should be very proud of the Supreme Court today.

TOTENBERG: Notwithstanding the president's celebration, today's decision took no position on birthright citizenship at all. Rather, the court's conservative supermajority granted the administration's request to curb the ability of lower court judges to apply their rulings nationwide, the result being that, in most cases, challenges to a presidential executive order will benefit only the individual plaintiffs and groups that bring a case.

Writing for the conservative court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that universal injunctions that apply a ruling nationwide were not anticipated by the nation's founders and have not been authorized by Congress. Quote, "when a court concludes that the executive branch has acted unlawfully," she said, "the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too."

Writing for the three liberal dissenters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the president's executive power does not permit him to rewrite the Constitution or statutory provisions at a whim. Indeed, both liberal and conservative scholars have said that the text of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution leaves little room for doubt on birthright citizenship since it explicitly says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. By allowing the Trump policy to continue for now though, said Sotomayor, the court, quote, "endorses the radical proposition that the president is harmed irreparably whenever he cannot do something that he wants to do, even if what he wants to do is to break the law."

Georgetown law professor Stephen Vladeck.

STEPHEN VLADECK: The real import of the Supreme Court's decision is less about the birthright citizenship policy, which is almost certainly never going to go into effect anywhere in the United States, and more about how much harder it's going to make plaintiffs in other cases who are trying to challenge other nationwide initiatives of the Trump administration and any future president.

TOTENBERG: Justice Barrett's opinion for the court did leave some loopholes for plaintiffs to use in challenging not just Trump's birthright citizenship policy, but other policies. The court said that states could seek universal injunctions and that citizens could bring class actions on behalf of themselves and others in similar situations. But states cannot bring class actions, and as Vladeck notes...

VLADECK: So one of the real ironies of today's decision is that part of why nationwide injunctions became so popular was 'cause of the Supreme Court, which, in a series of rulings in the early 2010s, put more and more and more obstacles in the way of certifying nationwide classes.

TOTENBERG: Notwithstanding those difficulties, immigrant rights groups almost immediately today filed a nationwide class action lawsuit challenging the Trump executive order barring birthright citizenship for certain classes of babies born in the U.S. University of Chicago law professor William Baude.

WILLIAM BAUDE: I think the real stakes with this case are not just for the birthright citizenship order, which I think is going to be dead one way or another. It's for everything else this administration and the next Democratic administration wants to do, and it means that the district courts are going to have to, you know, deal with things a little bit more piecemeal rather than trying to give one answer for the entire country, from Amarillo or Maryland. I think this is going to be a valuable reset for the way the courts have been dealing with the administration.

TOTENBERG: The court's decision in the birthright case was certainly the most prominent of the day, but there were others, too. The court upheld a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires most insurers to provide free preventive care without co-pays. It upheld the FCC's longstanding fund, authorized by Congress nearly 30 years ago, to ensure that people living in rural and underserved areas have access to internet and phone services that are available in big cities. It upheld a Texas law that requires anyone seeking online access to sexually explicit material to provide proof of age, something that adults had objected to. It punted to next term an important voting rights case from Louisiana.

Finally, it issued a major religion decision about the rights of parents to opt their children out of classes in which material like school books with LGBTQ characters violate their religious beliefs. At the center of the case was the Montgomery County, Maryland school system, the most religiously diverse county in the nation, with 160,000 students of nearly every faith. A group of parents sued the school board seeking to opt their elementary school children out of classes because they viewed the material as offensive to their religion. The school system refused, saying that it had tried an opt-out program, but found it too disruptive. By a 6-to-3 vote, the Supreme Court agreed with the objecting parents.

Writing for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that parents challenging the board's introduction of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks, along with its decision to bar opt-outs, unconstitutionally burdened the parents' right to the free exercise of religion. He said the storybooks conveyed a normative message that seeks to separate gender from biological sex contrary to the parents' religious beliefs. Professor Thomas Berg, of the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minnesota, sees the decision as a major advance for religious believers who are required by law to send their children to some school and cannot afford a private school.

THOMAS BERG: If the public school is the only option, then they have to make some room for people of different views in the public schools.

TOTENBERG: But he acknowledged that the court's opinion today failed to provide much guidance for public school systems as to what age groups must have opt-outs and in what circumstances. School boards have long allowed kids to opt out of sex education classes, for example. Indeed, in Maryland, that's the state law. But beyond that, educators have long been worried about this case. Sonja Trainor, executive director of the National School Attorneys Association, concedes that school boards may be loath to use controversial books and materials in class after today's Supreme Court decision.

SONJA TRAINOR: I think they will vanillaify (ph) it, but they're not going to stop teaching a widely accepted scientific consensus, for instance, on evolution. That's part of the state guidelines in most states. They're not going to stop teaching what they think kids should learn academically.

TOTENBERG: So that's the end of the Supreme Court term. To be resumed next October.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448843

NATIONAL | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 5:11 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

People in Minnesota say goodbye to slain lawmaker Melissa Hortman and husband

By Peter Cox

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

People in Minnesota are getting a chance to say goodbye to lawmaker Melissa Hortman. She and her husband, Mark, were lying in state today at the Minnesota Capitol, where she had been a political force. They were killed in their home on June 14 by a man who authorities say posed as a police officer. He's now charged with murder. The attack shocked the nation. In her home state, Hortman was known as a prominent Democrat with a down-to-earth style. Minnesota Public Radio's Peter Cox was at the Capitol and joins us now. Hi, Peter.

PETER COX, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Tell us about what the scene was like today.

COX: So a line of several hundred people stretched through the Capitol, down the front steps and around the block throughout the day for the event. In the main rotunda, behind velvet ropes, were the two wooden coffins of Melissa and Mark Hortman and between them an urn with the remains of their golden retriever Gilbert, who was also killed in the attack. State patrol officers stood guard at the sides of the coffins, and two golden retriever service dogs sat at either side of the rotunda. People came through, and they paused for a moment of silence in front of the coffins, including former President Joe Biden, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and many other state dignitaries from both sides of the aisle.

SHAPIRO: As you talked to those people in line, what did they say about their reasons for coming?

COX: Well, I met 23-year-old Devic Richter, who drove 3 1/2 hours to be here. Two years ago, he said, he came to the state Capitol just to see it, and he met Melissa Hortman.

DEVIC RICHTER: I was just wandering around, and she just - she walked up to me and asked if she could just give me a tour, and she was on her - she was on a break or something. So it was so sweet and genuine and honestly made me more interested in politics.

COX: Richter says she spent 20 minutes showing him around, and it was enough to make him feel like he had to make the drive to pay his respects. People came in from across the state and the country. I met a woman from Florida who was in town for business who said she was so shocked by what had happened that she felt she had to be here.

SHAPIRO: I'm sure there was shock across the state. Can you tell us more about what the reaction has been to the killing and its aftermath?

COX: Yeah, I met many people outside who came not just - not because they knew the Hortmans but just to show support and pay their respects. Lara Anderson took the day off of work just to come see the Hortmans lying in state.

LARA ANDERSON: There used to be a time when Democrats and Republicans could sit in a room together and get along and talk about their different opinions, and it just doesn't feel that way anymore. It feels so divided. And obviously, assuming this is politically motivated, it just brings it to the next level.

COX: Now, the shootings have put politicians on edge here. The Minnesota State Capitol is historically completely open to the public, but legislators say they're now looking on how to strengthen security there. In another security step, the state government removed politicians' addresses from state records.

SHAPIRO: The man accused of killing the Hortmans also shot another lawmaker and his wife that night. They are recovering. He was in court today. What's the latest in his case?

COX: Yeah, Vance Boelter, who's facing murder charges, made a brief appearance in federal court this morning asking to be taken off suicide watch. He said he's not suicidal. And he and his attorney asked for a procedural hearing that was supposed to happen today to be pushed back to next week. The judge granted that. I'll note, though, back in line at the Capitol, several people said they came not only to show respect, but to stand up against political violence.

SHAPIRO: That's Minnesota Public Radio's Peter Cox. Thank you.

COX: You're welcome.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445388

World

- Around 100,000 march in Budapest Pride event in defiance of Hungary's ban: 2025 Jun 28

- With a series of wars, Israel's military reshapes the Mideast: 2025 Jun 28

- Israel's leaders slam a news report on a Gaza 'killing field' near food sites: 2025 Jun 28

- In an about-face, Germany plans to build Europe's biggest military: 2025 Jun 28

- Iran and the U.S., Part Two: Rules of Engagement: 2025 Jun 28

- Five academics and former diplomats on U.S. strikes, Iran and stability: 2025 Jun 27

- Supreme Court to decide on 6 cases today. And, new details on U.S. airstrikes on Iran: 2025 Jun 27

- U.S. to fund Gaza food plan mired in chaos and killings: 2025 Jun 27

- Trump promised mass deportations. In Honduras, returns have slowed down instead: 2025 Jun 27

EUROPE | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 1:37 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Around 100,000 march in Budapest Pride event in defiance of Hungary's ban

By The Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Around 100,000 people defied a government ban and police orders on Saturday to march in what organizers called the largest LGBTQ+ Pride event in Hungary's history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government.

Marchers gambled with potential police intervention and heavy fines to participate in the 30th annual Budapest Pride, which was outlawed by a law passed in March by Orbán's right-wing populist governing party.

The march began at Budapest City hall and wound through the city center before crossing the capital's Erzsébet Bridge over the Danube River. Police diverted the crowd from its planned route to keep it separated from a small group of far-right counterprotesters, while members of Hungary's LGBTQ+ community and large numbers of supporters danced to music and waved rainbow and anti-government flags.

The massive size of the march, which the government for months had insisted would no longer be permitted in Hungary, was seen as a major blow to Orbán's prestige, as the European Union's longest-serving leader's popularity slumps in the polls where a new opposition force has taken the lead.

Some participants said that the march wasn't only about defending the fundamental rights of sexual minorities, but also addressed what they see as an accelerating crackdown on democratic processes under Orbán's rule.

Orbán and his party have insisted that Pride, a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility and struggle for equal rights, was a violation of children's rights to moral and spiritual development — rights that a recent constitutional amendment declared took precedence over other fundamental rights, including that to peacefully assemble.

The law fast-tracked through parliament in March made it an offense to hold or attend events that "depict or promote" homosexuality to minors under age 18. Orbán earlier made clear that Budapest Pride was the explicit target of the law.

Authorities installed additional cameras throughout the city center before the march, and were expected to use facial recognition tools to identify individuals who attend the banned event. According to the new law, being caught attending Pride could result in fines of up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($586).

The ban was the latest crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights by Orbán's government, which has already effectively banned both same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage and disallowed transgender individuals from changing their sex in official documents.

Police rejected several requests by organizers in recent weeks to register the Pride march, citing the recent law. But Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony joined with organizers and declared it would be held as a separate municipal event — something he said that doesn't require police approval.

But Hungary's government has remained firm, insisting that holding the Pride march, even if it's sponsored by the city, would be unlawful. Hungary's justice minister this week warned Karácsony that organizing Pride or encouraging people to attend would be punishable by up to a year in prison.

More than 70 members of the European Parliament, as well as other officials from countries around Europe, participated in Saturday's march. Hadja Lahbib, the EU's commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, earlier said that "all eyes are on Budapest" as Pride marchers defy the government's ban.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449685

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MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 9:20 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

With a series of wars, Israel's military reshapes the Mideast

By Greg Myre

With a series of powerful blows to Iran and its proxies, Israel has reasserted its military dominance in the Middle East and reshaped the region less than two years after it was caught off guard in a surprise attack.

The Israel-Iran ceasefire after 12 days of intense airstrikes may mark the end, for now, of the region's major battles that began with the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. But the Middle East still faces much unfinished business.

Israel and its rivals have not resolved their political disputes, which in some cases have been further inflamed by the bloodshed. And Israel's international reputation has been badly tarnished by the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the huge number of Palestinian civilian deaths in the territory.

Israel considered Iran its most dangerous enemy for decades. Yet from Israel's first strike on June 13, the air force was able to dominate the skies over Iran, repeatedly hitting the country's nuclear sites and military facilities, while also killing many top leaders.

Iran's supreme leader, the 86-year-old Ayatollah Aly Khamenei, claimed his country came out on top. President Trump countered on Friday, saying, "I'm going to respond to the ayatollah's statement yesterday that 'we won the war.' I said, 'Look, you're a man of great faith, a man who's highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth — you got beat to hell.'''

This follows Israel's conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which wiped out their leaderships and devastated the two groups, both allied with Iran. In addition, Syria's longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, fled in December after more than a decade of civil war. While Israel didn't play a direct role, his ouster removed another regional rival with close ties to Iran.

The collapse of Iran's proxies

Iran spent decades building this network of proxies, collectively known as the "axis of resistance" and designed to pressure Israel from all sides. The result was an unstable Middle East featuring Israel, backed by the U.S., against Iran and its partners. Both sides believed they could inflict major damage on the other, a proposition that made everyone wary of a major confrontation.

The past two years made clear that Israel, with U.S. help, is the dominant military force.

"The Iranian camp is decimated and beaten to smithereens," said Hussein Ibish with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a think tank.

Middle East conflicts are frequent, though often the fighting is contained and for a limited period. But the severity of the Hamas attack, which killed more than 1,100 Israelis in one day, prompted a massive Israeli response, which Hamas should have expected, Ibish said.

"Hamas tries to claim, 'We didn't know that the October attack would be game-changing and bring out Israel with all its force," said Ibish. "That's just absolute nonsense. They knew it. They wanted it. And they said they'd keep attacking Israel until they got that result."

The Hamas leader who orchestrated that attack, Yahya Sinwar, wanted allies to join in as part of a full-scale regional war against Israel. However, in the early months of the fighting, Hamas received only limited support from Hezbollah, which fired rockets into northern Israel, and the Houthis in Yemen, who fired on commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Sinwar, who was killed by Israel in Gaza last October, was completely focused on the Palestinian cause. Yet the attack he launched set off the chain of events that have realigned the region — though not in a way he ever intended.

The changes came rapidly when Israel began an offensive against Hezbollah last fall, beginning with exploding pagers that killed or wounded many group members simultaneously.

"In very short order, Iran's entire presence around Israel's borders collapsed," said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert who's a professor at Johns Hopkins University. "Israel found much greater room to maneuver in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza. And then Israel decided this was the time to press this advantage and settle things with Iran as well."

The limits of military power

However, these military successes only go so far.

Israel has greatly reduced the security threat it faces, but has not solved political differences in the region, especially when it comes to the Palestinians, where a solution seems further away than ever.

The fighting in Gaza drags on, though it's almost entirely one-sided. Israel continues to carry out regular attacks and Palestinians continue to suffer high casualties, many of them civilians trying to get food aid that remains in chronically short supply. More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.

The recent Gaza fighting received little attention amid the Israel-Iran war. But more broadly, the Palestinian call for statehood still generates widespread support in the region and in the West. This ranges from political protests to sanctions to a genocide case filed against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

"When the genocide case was first launched, I thought it was plainly hyperbolic, sort of an interesting rhetorical exercise in law, but not really a serious case," said Hussein Ibish. "Now, obviously, it's become a very serious case indeed."

Before the Gaza war began, Israel was making headway in establishing diplomatic and business relations among Arab countries. The U.S. was pushing for formal ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which would be a major breakthrough. But the Saudis say that's on hold until Israel makes progress toward a political deal with the Palestinians.

"Relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel was to become the basis for the integration of the region," said Vali Nasr. But the Gaza war "disrupted this and put the Palestinian issue squarely on the table. Israel cannot move into the region, coexist with the region, build these normal relations, without solving this issue."

Over the past two years, Israel has had moments of friction with the U.S., including an angry outburst by Trump when he said Israel didn't observe the start of the ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday.

But the U.S.-Israel alliance was on display with the U.S. airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program last weekend. And on Wednesday, Trump praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a hero and said a long-running corruption case against him in Israel should be called off.

"Bibi and I just went through HELL together, fighting a very tough and brilliant longtime enemy of Israel, Iran, and Bibi could not have been better, sharper, or stronger in his LOVE for the incredible Holy Land," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

After the Hamas attack, Netanyahu's days as prime minister seemed numbered. But Netanyahu, and Israel, have made a comeback.

"The Israel that has come out of October 7th and the Gaza war is confident. It wants to settle its security issues around the region once and for all," said Vali Nasr. "If it's successful, then we will be dealing with a very different Middle East in which Israeli military power will reign supreme."

But, he added, the outcome is not entirely clear. If Israel doesn't succeed, "then the region is going to roll back again into the kind of stalemate it had, except far more dangerous than the one before."

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5440332

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 6:16 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Israel's leaders slam a news report on a Gaza 'killing field' near food sites

By Aya Batrawy

A newspaper report published in Hebrew and English quoting Israeli soldiers saying commanders have ordered them to shoot at unarmed hungry crowds of people in Gaza trying to reach food distribution sites prompted a scathing response by Israel's prime minister on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement calling the Haaretz report "blood libel."

"These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], the most moral military in the world," they added.

Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 500 people have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded by Israeli forces while seeking food aid in the past month.

The Haaretz report quotes multiple anonymous Israeli soldiers describing what they say are the military's attacks on people trying to get food aid in Gaza since May 27. The soldiers say they were ordered by commanders to fire at unarmed civilians who were approaching food distribution sites during off hours, even when the crowds posed no threat.

The report is the latest to shed light on what aid workers and critics say is a flawed plan by Israel to control food in Gaza after 11 weeks of full Israeli blockade and continued restrictions on the entry of aid into the territory. This week, for the first time in months, the United Nations was able to bring in some medical supplies into Gaza.

NPR has not independently confirmed Haaretz's reporting. The head of the U.N. told reporters the world doesn't need reports like this to acknowledge massive violations of international law in Gaza.

"Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.

Troops describe firing at crowds of aid seekers

One soldier quoted in Haaretz says the army fires machine guns, grenade launchers and mortars at crowds — who pose no threat — while waiting for the distribution sites to open. The distribution sites are manned by U.S. contractors inside, in areas under Israeli military control. The soldier says there are no crowd-control measures, only gunfire being shot at crowds near these sites.

The soldier says it's akin to a lethal version of the children's game "red light, green light," and calls it a "killing field."

Another soldier quoted in the report says Israeli commanders take the law into their own hands in Gaza.

Israel's military says it rejects the accusations in the Haaretz article and that soldiers are not instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians. The military says reports of such "incidents are being examined" by military authorities. Haaretz says a military body is being asked to investigate incidents at these distribution sites for suspected war crimes.

These food distribution sites operate at erratic times and some days, not at all. They are run by a group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is receiving $30 million from the Trump administration to bolster its operations. The State Department says GHF offers a creative solution to keep aid from reaching Hamas, the group that Israel is at war with in Gaza.

There are only four GHF sites distributing food in Gaza. These fenced-off facilities were placed in expansive military "red zones," where Israeli troops are positioned and where Palestinians have been told not to be, outside of the GHF's erratic and often short operating times.

People in Gaza walk to these sites, three of which are far south, and grab food, without vetting or I.D. checks, according to witnesses and survivors who have spoken to NPR.

Inside these sites, people take what they can carry, ripping GHF boxes open. People in Gaza have told NPR that some of the canned food and other goods from these sites have ended up sold at exorbitant prices on the black market, suggesting looters and traders are among those taking the food.

GHF denies shootings are taking place near its sites, but has acknowledged challenges in getting food to people, describing it as a "learning loop." It called on Israel to investigate the allegations made in the Haaretz story and publish the findings.

Aid workers and medics call for end to GHF distribution plan

Doctors Without Borders, one of the many nongovernmental aid groups in Gaza refusing to work with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, says aid must not be controlled by a warring party to further its military objectives.

The medical NGO says one of its clinics has been receiving 10 or more patients a day with injuries from GHF distribution sites, but that the clinic does not have the lifesaving treatment needed for blood transfusions and surgery.

"This system is a slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid, and it must be immediately dismantled," the aid group said.

Adil Husain, a physician from Dallas, Texas, who's been volunteering in southern Gaza's Nasser Hospital for the past two weeks, told NPR that every day he's treating people shot near GHF sites. He called it a horror movie on repeat.

"I can't tell you how many boys, young boys and adults that get rushed into my resuscitation bay, bleeding out from their abdomen, bleeding out from the head," he said. "When I'm exposing them trying to look for their injuries, what I find is empty bags. Empty bags that they had only hoped to fill with food, just so that they could survive for a few more days."

He says instead, people are left without food and with life-changing injuries. Dr. Husain shared images with NPR of a thin, frail-looking teenager who died after being shot in the head, and of two young boys, one who lost his eye and another now paralyzed from the neck down, whom he said were shot by the Israeli military near GHF sites while trying to get food this week.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449587

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WORLD | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 6:02 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

In an about-face, Germany plans to build Europe's biggest military

By Rob Schmitz

BERLIN — Six weeks into his current term in office, President Trump was asked by a reporter about countries, like Germany, that for decades had not spent 2% of their GDPs on defense — despite, like all NATO countries, having made that commitment.

His response was chilling to many in Europe.

"Well, I think it's common sense, right?" Trump said, interrupting the reporter asking the question. "If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them."

A new Trump presidency and a war on European soil have pushed Germany — a country that for the better part of the past two decades has spent between 1% and 2% of its gross domestic product on its beleaguered military — to take the big step of changing its constitution to free up the money to spend more.

Two months after Trump's comments, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gave what many observers saw as a historic speech to parliament.

"Building up our military is our top priority," said Merz. "From now on, the federal government will provide the military with as much money as it needs to ensure it becomes Europe's strongest armed force. We are Europe's most populous country and Europe's biggest economy, and nothing less should be expected from us. Our partners not only expect this — they demand it."

Changing the national DNA

"So this sense of urgency made a decision possible that was unthinkable before," says Claudia Major, senior vice president overseeing trans-Atlantic security initiatives at the German Marshall Fund.

She says the German government's plan over the next decade to spend 3.5% of its GDP on defense — a percentage equal to that of the United States — is a bold and surprising move.

"But we also know that the DNA of a country — the way our country and the citizens behave in defense, how they see military force, how they see their armed forces — takes years and decades to change," she says. "Normally we say it takes a generation."

Germany won't cut social programs for defense. A $117 billion special fund and a 2025 constitutional change suspending what's known in Germany as the debt brake — or balanced budget spending cap — let it borrow separately from the normal federal budget for defense and infrastructure. This will enable close to $400 billion in defense spending through 2029 without affecting core budgets — for now.

Some parts of German society, especially businesses in the defense sector, are more ready than others for this historic change.

In an industrial park outside Munich, a worker completes a series of tests on a drone that has just come off the assembly line at Quantum Systems. The aircraft, called the Vector, is the company's bestselling drone, says Director of Operations Alexandra Rietenbach. "It's our dual-use product," she says. "It's used on the one hand in Ukraine. It's also used for the German armed forces. It also is used in Europe in general, in different organizations like police, like border control."

Rietenbach says Ukrainian troops rely on the Vector and the company's other drones to gain a military advantage against invading Russian troops. As a result, Quantum Systems' chief sales officer, Martin Karkour, says sales have picked up. "We are doubling each year in terms of sales and revenue, and also in terms of head count," he says.

Buying weapons is the easy part

While business for defense companies like Quantum Systems looks promising, Germany's defense spending boost might take some time when it comes to rebuilding a culture of military service.

At a job fair in Berlin, the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, has set up a recruiting booth staffed by Marco Mann, who has recruited at fairs like this for 18 years. He says the German public's attitude toward its armed forces is improving.

"I never used to hear 'Thank you for your service' from others, but that's starting to change," he observes. "People now are thanking us for our support of Ukraine, thanking us for being here — it's a nice change."

Germany is the third-biggest provider of military support to Ukraine, after the U.S. and the United Kingdom. It provides weapons systems prized by Ukraine, including Leopard 2 tanks, the IRIS-T air defense systems, ammunition and artillery shells. Germany has also welcomed 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, according to the German Interior Ministry.

Abdul Rehman Saeed is one of the job seekers at this fair. He's 32, was born in Pakistan, has lived in Germany for a decade and is a German citizen. He says he's interested in joining the Bundeswehr as an IT specialist. "I think it's not about going to the battlefield, but as a preemptive measure to actually help them if they are trying to do something and might need someone with a cybersecurity background, because everything is now cyberwar," he says.

He says Germany has given him a free education, affordable health care and many other opportunities. "I feel personally responsible to provide back to this society because Germany gave me a life I wanted," he says.

In return, he says, if he gets job security, then joining the Bundeswehr is a "win-win." And as the Bundeswehr has more money and begins the challenging process of recruiting more personnel, it hopes to gain prestige, both domestically and internationally.

Esme Nicholson contributed to reporting from Berlin.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Germany has a complicated relationship with its military. Two world wars when the country was on the wrong side of history have taught Germans to be cautious about the pitfalls of a big army. But with a war on European soil and a U.S. president who is less committed to defending Europe, Germany - Europe's largest economy - is stepping up. NPR's Berlin correspondent Rob Schmitz reports.

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Just six weeks into his current term in office, President Trump was asked a question about countries like Germany, which for years have not paid 2% of their GDP on defending themselves a requirement of all NATO countries. He was so eager to answer that he interrupted the reporter.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, think it's common sense, right? If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them.

SCHMITZ: A new Trump presidency and an ongoing war on European soil has pushed Germany - a country that for the better part of two decades spent around a single percent of its GDP on its beleaguered military - to finally change its constitution in order to spend more. Just weeks after Trump's comments, incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gave what many observers saw as an historic speech to Parliament.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHANCELLOR FRIEDRICH MERZ: (Speaking German).

SCHMITZ: "Building up our military," said Merz, "is our top priority. From now on, the federal government will provide the military with as much money as it needs to ensure it becomes Europe's strongest armed force. We are Europe's most populous country and Europe's biggest economy, and nothing less should be expected from us. Our partners," said Merz, "not only expect this, they demand it."

CLAUDIA MAJOR: So this sense of urgency made a decision possible that was unthinkable before.

SCHMITZ: Claudia Major is a political scientist at the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. She says the German government's plan to, over the next decade, spend 3.5% of its GDP on defense - a percentage equal to that of the United States - is a bold move.

MAJOR: But we also know that the DNA of a country, the way how a country, the citizens behave in defense, how they see military force, how they see their armed forces, takes years and decades to change. Normally, we say it takes a generation.

SCHMITZ: But some parts of German society are more ready than others for this historic change. Inside an assembly room in an industrial park outside Munich, a worker tests a drone.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY HUMMING)

SCHMITZ: It's called a Vector, and for Quantum Systems, it's their best-selling drone, says Director of Operations Alexandra Rietenbach.

ALEXANDRA RIETENBACH: It's our dual-use product. It's used, on the one hand, in Ukraine. It's also used for the German armed forces. It also is used in Europe in general, in different organizations like police, like border control.

SCHMITZ: The Vector has rotating propellers that enable it to go up and down like a helicopter and then shift into what's called glide mode, like a plane.

RIETENBACH: So if you go into the gliding mode, you have much more capability to fly longer distances, to use the circumstances in the air for saving energy.

SCHMITZ: Rietenbach says Ukrainian troops rely on the Vector and the company's other drones to gain a military advantage against invading Russian troops. As a result, she says, sales have picked up from selling 200 vectors in 2023.

RIETENBACH: Last year, we more than tripled. So for this year, we have also the aim to sell around about 1,500 to 2,000 Vectors. So sales is running smoothly.

SCHMITZ: And while business for German defense companies like Quantum Systems look promising, the country's defense spending boost might take some time when it comes to rebuilding a culture of military service. That starts here at a job fair in Berlin, where the Bundeswehr, Germany's armed forces, has set up a recruiting booth.

MARCO MANN: (Speaking German). Thank you for service. (Speaking German).

SCHMITZ: Recruitment officer Marco Mann says, In his 18 years of recruiting at fairs like this one, he never used to hear, thank you for your service, but that's starting to change, he says. People are thanking us for our support of Ukraine, thanking us for being here. It's a nice change, he says. Abdul Rehman Saeed is one of those gracious job-seekers at this fair. He's 32, born in Pakistan, but has lived in Germany for a decade and is a German citizen. He's interested in joining the Bundeswehr as an IT specialist.

ABDUL REHMAN SAEED: It's not about going to the battlefield, but as a preemptive measure to actually help them if they are trying to do something, and might be they need someone with the cybersecurity because everything is now cyber war.

SCHMITZ: Rehman Saeed says Germany has given him a free education, affordable health care, opportunities.

REHMAN SAEED: I feel personally responsible to provide back to the society because Germany gave me a life I wanted.

SCHMITZ: And in return, he says, if he gets job security, then joining the Bundeswehr is a win-win. And as the Bundeswehr has more money and begins the challenging process of recruiting more personnel, it hopes to gain prestige, both domestically as well as internationally - a return to the days when Germany helped maintain security for itself and for Europe. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Berlin.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74591

THROUGHLINE | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 3:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Iran and the U.S., Part Two: Rules of Engagement

By Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Julie Caine, Sarah Wyman, Amber Qi, Casey Miner, Devin Katayama, Cristina Kim, Anya Steinberg

Military confrontations, early-morning attacks, and digital warfare: the story of Iran and the U.S. from the 1979 Iranian revolution to the fraught moment we're in today.

This episode originally ran as Rules of Engagement. You can find more of Throughline's coverage into the origins of the conflict in the Middle East here.

If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a list:

- The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist

- Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon by Kim Zetter

- The Root: The Marines in Beirut by Eric Hammel

- Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State by David Patrikarakos

Full article: https://www.npr.org/1269528007

MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:04 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Five academics and former diplomats on U.S. strikes, Iran and stability

By Majd Al-Waheidi

The U.S. military strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites have reignited long-standing debates over Washington's strategy in the Middle East. While President Trump hailed the attacks as a decisive blow to Iran's nuclear ambitions, reactions from regional and international experts reveal a far more divided picture.

Shortly before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza, the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia were in the process of aligning more closely to counter Iran's regional influence. But the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran marks a shift from shared strategic goals to the coordinated use of military force.

Analysts note that while diplomatic alignment has long existed on paper, the airstrikes signal a new phase of direct, operational collaboration.

From calls for regime change to warnings of legal overreach and diplomatic collapse, the strikes have exposed deep fractures in how policymakers and analysts view the path to security and stability in the region.

To understand these competing visions, before and after the ceasefire currently in place between Israel and Iran, NPR's Morning Edition spoke to five academics and former diplomats with expertise on diplomacy and the region about what the attacks achieved, what they jeopardized, and what the future might now hold for diplomacy in the Middle East.

Here's what they said:

Only regime change in Iran can bring "peace and stability," according to John Bolton

Bolton, who served as national security adviser in Trump's first term and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, said he "wouldn't have terminated the air campaign as soon as Trump did," and would've wanted to see Iran placed under intense surveillance.

Destroying Iran's nuclear program, he said, requires "breaking the links" in nuclear production and for now he's satisfied with the "enormous damage" from these strikes.

"The effort to destroy a complex program involves breaking the links in the nuclear fuel cycle at multiple points so that it is ultimately a project of years to put it back together. That's why I'm happy," he said. "I've been spending a long time emphasizing the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. It was another key link in the process. It has been destroyed."

Bolton says there's no contradiction in Trump's actions, noting, "He kind of zigged into doing the right thing, and he zagged back out by terminating it too early. He'll probably zig and zag for the next six or eight months — that's just how he is. He doesn't have a national security strategy."

Ultimately, though, he said the "only long term answer to get peace and stability in the Middle East and around the world is to overthrow the ayatollahs."

Only way forward may be direct U.S.-Iran negotiations, former Iranian official says

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian diplomat who took part in nuclear negotiations in the early 2000s, highlights the unprecedented nature of the recent attack: Iran was targeted by two nuclear states without the approval of the UN Security Council. He believes the strikes were counterproductive.

"What could be worse than this? How can Iran trust?" Hossein Mousavian said.

On the question of nuclear weapons in Iran, Mousavian suggests it's a game of narrative and rhetoric used as a cover to justify military actions and regime change: "They have never been after weapons. This is really a fake and manufactured narrative, like what the narrative they made in order to attack Iraq."

Like Bolton, he sees a constantly shifting approach from Trump, but he believes that direct negotiations are the only way forward.

"I have proposed there is a need for direct negotiations between Iran and the U.S. I mean, I really don't see any other way because [the International Atomic Energy Agency] proved it is completely helpless," Hossein Mousavian said. "Because by the charter of the IAEA, if a nuclear weapon state is attacking a non-nuclear weapon state, this agency should come to support the non-nuclear weapon state. But they did nothing. I hope President Trump would go for a serious, sincere, comprehensive dialogue and would stop these zigzagging positions."

Diminished nuclear capabilities may force Iran to reconsider options domestically and with allies, a think-tank analyst says

Jonathan Panikoff, a former intelligence officer who now directs the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, says Iran's military capabilities have been "severely degraded." He sees the potential for diplomacy, possibly mediated by Oman, Norway or Switzerland.

"I think that pathway exists, but I think it's going to take quite a lot of cajoling over the coming, frankly, weeks and months," Panikoff says. "You could even imagine, potentially, an outside actor like China trying to convince the Iranians to come back."

Faced with internal struggles, Iran also now faces a new choice, he notes: "Will it reinvest billions of dollars to rebuild those entities at a time when its economy is struggling, which could lead to even further internal strife? Or will it try a different path, rebuilding some defenses over time, but not reestablishing the same proxy network [of regional military groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza] or nuclear program that has long been a broad threat to the region, including Arab Gulf states?"

The latest U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran push boundaries of international law, Middle East expert says

Vali Nasr, a Middle East scholar at Johns Hopkins University, notes that U.S. and Israeli military actions in Iran signal that the countries are willing to bypass diplomatic norms and could reshape security perceptions among countries in the region.

He says, "The regime is still standing," and emphasizes that "the signal here is that the United States and Israel are willing and capable to settle all issues militarily and that international law, rules, diplomacy, et cetera, won't stand in their way."

Nasr warns this approach will "have a chilling impact on all countries in the region, be it their enemies or allies," fundamentally changing how security is perceived beyond Iran and Israel.

Israel exaggerates nuclear threat and war doesn't spare civilians, Iranian academic says

Setareh Sadeqi, a professor at the University of Tehran's Faculty of World Studies, says Israel's claims about Iran's nuclear program are greatly exaggerated. Sadeqi says that war harms everyone, including innocent civilians.

Sadeqi dismisses Israel's long-standing claim that Iran is "one month away" from nuclear capability, arguing, "While I totally disagree with nuclear weapons, I think if Israel, Pakistan, India, the U.S., France, and other countries have the right to have nuclear weapons, then any other country should also have it, and Iran does not have one."

When asked if she thinks Iran is innocent, she says: "And you're saying that Iran has called for the elimination of the state of Israel. Iran has never called for the elimination of a people, but an occupying regime that has stolen land from others and has been a colonial project of the Zionist entity. Many, including the international community, hold it responsible for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Lebanese."

The Israeli government denies accusations of genocide.

Despite the rising tensions, Sadeqi said that normal life in Tehran continues. "And when war starts, it does not distinguish between pro-government and anti-government citizens. It kills everyone. That's what Israel has been doing," she said.

This piece was edited for digital by Obed Manuel and James Hider. The Morning Edition team, including Adam Bearne, Olivia Hampton and Mo Elbardicy, edited the expert interviews for radio.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74805

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UP FIRST NEWSLETTER | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 7:18 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Supreme Court to decide on 6 cases today. And, new details on U.S. airstrikes on Iran

By Brittney Melton

Good morning. You're reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today's top stories

The Trump administration has revealed new details about the U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear program, including that the operation was years in the making. In a briefing yesterday, President Trump's top military adviser said B-2 pilots put bombs on the targets and returned safely during the airstrikes this past weekend. A clear assessment of the damage inflicted is still not available. The evidence shows the Trump administration hit their targets at three separate nuclear sites. But Trump said the Iranian program was completely wiped out.

- 🎧 The big question that remains is the whereabouts of 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, NPR's Greg Myre tells Up First. International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said Iranian officials have told the agency they took protective measures for the enriched uranium, which could mean they hid it somewhere before the U.S. attacks. To prepare for the strike, the U.S. worked for years on developing a weapon that could reach its target deep inside a mountain. This led to the development of the 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb.

- ➡️ The U.S. and Iran have had a tense relationship for decades. Listen to this Throughline episode to see where it all began. For deep dives into the origins of conflict in the Middle East, click here.

Today marks the final day of the Supreme Court's term. Opinions are anticipated for the last six cases. Among these are some of the most significant cases argued this term, including a pivotal question concerning birthright citizenship. This case revolves around the constitutional phrase stating that "all persons born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S."

- 🎧 Trump issued an executive order saying that only some children in the U.S. can be citizens, and every judge who has ruled on it has said he's wrong. The Justice Department, likely knowing it was going to lose this case, didn't ask the court to reverse those decisions, NPR's Nina Totenberg says. The Justice Department is instead arguing that the judges exceeded their authority when they made their rulings apply nationwide. With this argument, they aim to bar these kinds of nationwide injunctions. That would make litigating against the Trump administration policies extremely difficult.

- Update: The Supreme Court decision limits nationwide injunctions in birthright citizenship order.

Read the latest on the universal injunctions and birthright citizenship case here.

The Trump administration says it's allocating $30 million for a food program in Gaza that the United Nations has described as a death trap. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group using American contractors, distributed boxes of food in four sites in Gaza a month ago as part of a plan Israel devised. The sites draw in thousands of hungry people every day. Gaza's Health Ministry says hundreds of them have been killed and thousands wounded trying to reach the sites since the operations began.

- 🎧 This week, a dozen human rights and legal groups said that any country backing GHF could potentially be liable for complicity in war crimes. NPR's Aya Batrawy says part of the reason it is so deadly to get food is that the GHF sites are in military zones where Israeli troops are positioned. Israel's military says it has fired warning shots at crowds approaching troops, and it is working on reviewing its processes.

Life advice

Getting laid off can be a devastating experience, and it can make planning for the future difficult. Career coach Octavia Goredema offers a practical checklist of next steps to help you focus on your future rather than get bogged down by logistics.

- 💼 Be sure to thoroughly review your exit paperwork. If you need more time during the process, don't hesitate to ask for it. Negotiate your terms; you might be able to secure a longer timeframe for receiving certain benefits.

- 💼 Apply for unemployment insurance. The state-run benefit will pay you a weekly amount based on how much you earned before filing for unemployment.

- 💼 Take time to reflect on what you want to do next. It can help to think about what you liked and disliked about your last job. This can help you focus your search.

- 💼 Create a monthly budget based on a realistic timeline for securing a new job. For instance, if you anticipate that finding your next job will take six months, divide your savings to cover expenses over a six-month timeframe.

For more guidance on how to get back on your feet after a layoff, listen to this episode of NPR's Life Kit. Subscribe to the Life Kit newsletter for expert advice on love, money, relationships and more.

Weekend picks

Check out what F1. Plus, two other films hitting theaters this weekend.

📺 TV: Marvel's fun new series, Ironheart, follows Riri Williams as she tries to fund her inventions, including a suit a lot like what Iron Man used to wear. She falls in with a gang of criminals who rob from the rich.

📚 Books: We are around halfway through the year, which makes it the perfect time for NPR staffers, including me, to tell you all about their favorite 2025 reads so far. This summer edition of Books We Love includes fiction and nonfiction picks.

🎵 Music: Lorde's fourth album, Virgin, confronts her discomforts and insecurities in a humanizing album made by an artist who knows she doesn't have it all figured out, NPR Music editor Hazel Cills says. Plus, more great music that was released at midnight.

🎭 Theater: At London's Palladium theater, the latest production, Evita, is playing through early September. The musical about Argentina's first lady in the 1940s and early 1950s is sparking buzz because the star sings the song "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" offstage on a balcony over the street.

❓ Quiz: Welp, let's just say it wasn't my week. But, I bet it will be yours. Give it your best try.

3 things to know before you go

1. Kenya's Faith Kipyegon attempted to become the first woman to run a mile in under 4 minutes yesterday, but her personal best came up short.

2. Anna Wintour announced yesterday that she would be stepping down as head of editorial content at American Vogue after nearly 40 years in the role.

3. Dune director Denis Villeneuve has signed on to lead the next installment of the James Bond franchise.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74899

WORLD | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:08 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

U.S. to fund Gaza food plan mired in chaos and killings

By Aya Batrawy, A Martínez

Heard on Morning Edition

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The U.S. is stepping up its support for a food program in Gaza that the United Nations has described as a death trap.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The Trump administration says it's allocating $30 million for that program. It comes at a moment when chaos is spreading in Gaza, where armed groups are now looting and attacking United Nations aid convoys.

MARTÍNEZ: Here to tell us more about this is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. And a warning that we will be talking about some graphic details of the violence in Gaza. Start off by just telling us about this plan and why the Trump administration is funding it.

AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Sure. It's a plan that Israel devised, and it works like this. A group calling itself the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation uses American contractors to distribute boxes of food in just four sites in Gaza. And these four sites are drawing thousands of hungry people every day, desperate for food. Now, Gaza's Health Ministry says hundreds of them have been killed and thousands wounded trying to reach these GHF sites since they began operations. This group, GHF, insists these shootings are not happening near their sites. But here's what State Department Tommy Pigott had to say yesterday.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TOMMY PIGOTT: We see the $30 million approved. So that's what the story is here - moving to implement, get those creative solutions in there to make sure that the aid being distributed is not being looted by Hamas.

BATRAWY: And he called on other countries to join in funding GHF. But this week, a dozen human rights and legal groups warned that any countries or donors backing GHF are potentially liable for complicity in war crimes.

MARTÍNEZ: But why is it so deadly right now to get food there?

BATRAWY: You know, partly, it's because these GHF sites were put in military zones where Israeli troops are positioned and where Palestinians are not supposed to be. And so people are being shot in these red zones, and Israel's military says it's fired warning shots at crowds approaching troops, clearing them out. The military says it's reviewing and undergoing learning processes like building fences and expanding routes to these sites, but these daily shootings continue. Now, I want you to have a listen to American physician Dr. Adil Husain from Dallas. He's been volunteering in Gaza for the past two weeks. He tells me every day he's treating people shot near these GHF sites. He called it a horror movie on repeat.

ADIL HUSAIN: I can't tell you how many boys, young boys, and adults that get rushed into my resuscitation bay, bleeding out from their abdomen, bleeding out from their head. And when I'm exposing them, trying to look for their injuries, what I find is empty bags that they had only hoped to fill with food, just so that they could survive for a few more days.

BATRAWY: And, you know, he sent me photos this week of boys who've lost their eyes, boys who've been paralyzed, being shot by Israeli forces near these GHF sites.

MARTÍNEZ: Wow, that's difficult to hear. OK, so this plan by Israel and the U.S. is supposed to keep aid from reaching Hamas, but we're seeing these incidents of looting still happening in Gaza. So who's behind that?

BATRAWY: So there's hardly been a trickle of U.N. aid allowed into Gaza, and most of it's being looted by hungry people and armed clans. Now, Palestinians say a hundred and twenty aid trucks were stolen by armed clans in southern Gaza in just the past two days. Now, this comes as Israel has admitted to arming groups in Gaza to undermine Hamas, groups that are known for looting. But what we're seeing now is even more clans clashing with Hamas security officials who are trying to crack down on this looting and the price gouging of these stolen goods in the markets. Now, one of these clans actually raided Nasser Hospital, where Dr. Husain and other American doctors volunteer, and opened fire inside yesterday.

But we also yesterday saw Hamas security forces being targeted by an Israeli airstrike. The Gaza Health Ministry says 19 people were killed trying to get flour that these security forces had confiscated from the looters and were distributing to a crowd of people. Now, these security forces are under the interior ministry, which oversees the police. Israel's military has acknowledged throughout the war, targeting police in Gaza, saying they're an arm of Hamas. Hundreds have been killed. But Gaza's police say they're not part of any political or armed wing of Hamas. Ultimately, you know, this chaos and breakdown of order is happening after more than 20 months of war, as Hamas is also losing its grip on the territory.

MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Thank you.

BATRAWY: Thank you.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5447444

WORLD | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:06 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Trump promised mass deportations. In Honduras, returns have slowed down instead

By Dan Girma

Heard on Morning Edition

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

While President Trump continues to tout his administration's immigration policy, in Honduras, the threats of mass deportation have caused some anxiety. But authorities there say an influx of returned migrants has not yet materialized. Here's Dan Girma.

DAN GIRMA, BYLINE: Carmen Paz (ph) waits outside the airport in San Pedro Sula with a bouquet of roses. She's happy, but it's complicated. She's here for her sister, who was just deported from the U.S. and separated from her family.

CARMEN PAZ: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "I'm sad because she wanted to be with her sons over there," she says, "but we're happy because she's coming back to be with us." Paz says her sister went to the U.S. legally and doesn't know why she was kicked out. But they all now have to live without the remittances she sent back to Honduras.

PAZ: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "The truth is," she says, "that's how we survive." When President Trump took office in January, Honduras braced itself for an unprecedented wave of deportations. Idalina Bordignon, who runs the Center for the Care of Returned Migrants, watched the first detainees arrive by military transport.

IDALINA BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "The planes were so heavy," she says, "they couldn't park on the civilian runways." But those first flights brought only a handful of deportees.

BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: In fact, government statistics show that so far, in 2025, the number of deportees sent to Honduras from the United States has actually decreased from the previous year. The Department of Homeland Security didn't respond to our request for comment. Bordignon says the goal of all this is to create confusion and fear.

BORDIGNON: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "They planted this image of mass deportations and everyone was terrified, but the wave never came."

Outside the airport, the first deportees start to walk out into the stifling tropical heat. Authorities return their confiscated belongings - wallets, phones, shoelaces. Juan de Dios Cardenas (ph) puts on its belt for the first time in weeks. Cardenas lived in the U.S. illegally for 22 years. He was picked up as he arrived at his plumbing job at a federal building in Maryland.

JUAN DE DIOS CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "I never thought something like this would happen."

CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "I left my family, my two kids, my things." He doesn't understand what he did to deserve this.

CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "I don't have a felony."

CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: "Not even a traffic ticket."

CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: He wishes President Trump would have given a little more credit for 20 years well lived. More deportees walk out of the airport. Many are welcomed by their families, like Paz.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: Cardenas steps to the side and gathers his things. No one is waiting for him at the airport. In fact, he's thinking about having his family join him in Honduras.

CARDENAS: (Speaking Spanish).

GIRMA: But Cardenas is worried about how that would affect his daughters, who are American. Honduras is his country, not theirs.

Dan Girma, NPR News, San Pedro Sula.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAM PREKOP'S "A CLOUD TO THE BACK")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5437942

Law

- How the Trump administration stands to benefit from SCOTUS decisions: 2025 Jun 28

- Recapping a blockbuster day of SCOTUS opinions, many of which hand Trump a victory: 2025 Jun 28

- The Supreme Court just lifted a key check on presidential power: 2025 Jun 27

- SCOTUS says parents can opt kids out of lessons with LGBTQ+ characters. What's next?: 2025 Jun 27

LAW | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 9:16 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

How the Trump administration stands to benefit from SCOTUS decisions

By Scott Simon

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Supreme Court gave President Trump several big wins yesterday, but the dissenting justices did not accept the rulings quietly. And groups opposed to several of Trump's executive orders have already filed lawsuits seeking workarounds. Amy Howe, co-founder of the SCOTUSblog, which covers all the cases before the Supreme Court, joins us. Amy, so good to have you with us in our studios. Thanks very much.

AMY HOWE: It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

SIMON: Let's begin with a decision to limit the powers of lower court justices from handing down nationwide injunctions because there's several that had blocked several of President Trump's executive orders recently. Has the president suddenly been granted new executive powers?

HOWE: He hasn't been granted new executive powers, but it will be much harder for federal district judges to block his agenda. And this is - these nationwide injunctions - or universal injunctions, as Justice Amy Coney Barrett called it in her opinion for the Supreme Court yesterday - have been a thorn in the side for the president, both in this administration and in his prior one. And in between, they were a thorn in the side of the Biden administration because with these universal injunctions, it meant that a plaintiff who was opposed to a law or in particular to an executive order - which the current President Donald Trump has issued many of since he was inaugurated on January 20 - could go to a federal district judge, and in many cases, you could select which federal court you wanted...

SIMON: Yeah.

HOWE: ...To go to and pick one that you thought might be sympathetic and get a ruling that would block the administration from enforcing the order anywhere in the United States. And so it had kept the Trump administration from really implementing some of its agenda until the issue could make its way up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court could step in.

SIMON: I have to ask, there's typically a sense of difference among justices and mutual respect for one another - even as they may strongly disagree - but the exchanges that you could read in this decision were notably sharp, weren't they?

HOWE: They were. The decision was by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which was itself really sort of interesting because she is the second most junior justice on the court, and she's the most junior of the conservative justices. Many of us thought that because this was such a major opinion, that it would be one that Chief Justice John Roberts would keep for himself. But she was very critical, in particular, of the solo dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. And it's not unusual for the justices to criticize each other in their written opinions. Famously, a couple of years ago, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan - who are both liberal justices on the court - sort of exchanged barbs in a copyright case, of all things, involving an Andy Warhol print. But this one seemed particularly pointed...

SIMON: Andy Warhol makes a lot of people exchange barbs.

HOWE: (Laughter).

SIMON: But go ahead, yeah.

HOWE: They were - this one seemed particularly pointed...

SIMON: Yeah.

HOWE: ...And personal, in no small part, because she mentioned Justice Jackson by name.

SIMON: Yeah.

HOWE: You know, it - to a certain extent, she had to do that because there were two dissents. There was a main dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, which Justice Jackson also joined. And then Justice Jackson had her own dissent, but, you know, it seemed - she devoted a lot of ink to it, and it seemed particularly stinging.

SIMON: We should note and come back to the fact nothing in that decision gets at the underlying issue of ending birthright citizenship. Did anything in yesterday's ruling give you a sense of how the Supreme Court would vote when presented with that issue?

HOWE: The Supreme Court was very clear that it was not deciding anything about the legality of the president's order ending birthright citizenship itself. You know, there were some questions about birthright citizenship at the oral argument back in May. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the conservative justices, really pressed John Sauer, who is the solicitor general representing the Trump administration, asking the court to end these kinds of universal injunctions about how it would work to have this executive order go into effect if the birthright citizenship order were to go into effect. But the court was very clear that it was not actually deciding this issue because the Trump administration hadn't asked it to.

SIMON: You've been following the Supreme Court for two decades now.

HOWE: Thanks, make me feel old (laughter).

SIMON: Oh, my gosh. Some of us have been doing stuff longer than that, so don't - no.

HOWE: Yes, OK.

SIMON: You're welcome here. Well, let us tap your expertise. How interesting a term has this last one been, or is that an understatement?

HOWE: It's an understatement. You know, this court didn't have the kind of over-and-over-again blockbuster rulings on the merits cases in which the court heard oral arguments and then issued written opinions. But this was really an extraordinary term, and we could continue to get rulings from the court on its so-called emergency docket or shadow docket...

SIMON: Yeah.

HOWE: ...These emergency appeals asking the justices to intervene and block lower courts' orders, like the kind of orders that we had in the birthright citizenship cases at the Supreme Court.

SIMON: Amy Howe of the SCOTUSblog. Thanks so much for joining us.

HOWE: Thanks for having me.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445226

LAW | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 8:15 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Recapping a blockbuster day of SCOTUS opinions, many of which hand Trump a victory

By Nina Totenberg, Scott Simon

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Yesterday was the day for blockbuster opinions at the U.S. Supreme Court. Who better to join us than NPR's legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg. Nina, thanks so much for being with us.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Always my pleasure, Scott.

SIMON: Please give us the top lines here.

TOTENBERG: Well, among the questions resolved by the justices were, can President Trump prevent federal courts from issuing nationwide court orders to block his executive orders? And do public schools have to provide an opt-out for children when material is offensive to their religious beliefs? And the answers to those questions are yes and yes.

SIMON: All right. Well, let's take up the decision about universal injunctions first. That was a case involving President Trump's executive order to limit birthright citizenship. It's a little more complicated than that, isn't it?

TOTENBERG: The subject of this case was the president's executive order limiting citizenship for children of illegal immigrants and some legal immigrants, too. Now, remember that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution says that every baby born in the United States is automatically an American citizen. And so it wasn't surprising that every judge to have ruled on the Trump executive order struck it down. And the Supreme Court didn't disagree with that. It didn't even address the question at all. But bowing to the arguments put forth by the administration, the court, for the first time, barred the practice of a single district court judge applying his or her rulings to the whole country. And that's going to make challenging all of President Trump's executive orders and any future president's executive orders exponentially more difficult.

SIMON: So, Nina, what are the implications of this decision, and what's the status of birthright citizenship as we speak?

TOTENBERG: Look, you really can't find any constitutional scholar who thinks that Trump's birthright order is constitutional, and all of the lower court judges who ruled on this question said that. And even the justices who sided with Trump didn't seem likely to uphold the Trump executive order when it comes back to them. But they did grant Trump's big wish, meaning that -for now, at least - lower court decisions can only protect the individual plaintiffs or groups that brought these cases. And at that rate, this whole process could take years, except that it won't because the court did provide some outs, allowing states, for instance, to seek nationwide injunctions and allowing class action suits, which are difficult and expensive but can be used, the court said, instead of universal injunctions. In fact, yesterday, the ACLU filed a nationwide class action challenging Trump's executive order.

SIMON: And the other big case now, the court ruled that public school systems are required to provide parents with an opt-out provision that would excuse their children from class when course material conflicts with their religious beliefs. Please tell us what the implications of this are and if the children are going to be pulled in and out of classes. How would that even work?

TOTENBERG: Well, public school boards, administrators and teachers are worried about how to navigate opt-out demands of all kinds, from courses that include LGBTQ characters in books to science classes that teach Darwin's theory of evolution. During the arguments in this case, the school board had said that opt-out provisions were impractical and noted that it had initially allowed parents to opt their children out of select lesson plans, but they got rid of the opt-out program because it became too difficult and disruptive to class time. The board argued that while it's easy enough to facilitate single-class opt-outs, like school districts provide for sex education, it's much more challenging to take children from the classrooms every time that a book mentions same-sex parents or gay and lesbian kids. But the court in its 6-3 opinion, along ideological lines, disagreed and required opt-outs for religious parents but giving precious little in the way of guidance as to how to implement the ruling, which, of course, has school boards sort of freaking out.

SIMON: NPR's Nina Totenberg. Thanks so much.

TOTENBERG: Thank you, Scott.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449059

CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 6:15 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

The Supreme Court just lifted a key check on presidential power

Three different federal judges have issued nationwide blocks to President Trump's executive order to deny U.S. citizenship to some babies born to immigrants in the U.S.

These court orders are called universal injunctions.

But when the case reached the Supreme Court, the administration didn't focus on the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.

Instead, government lawyers put most of their energy into arguing that universal injunctions themselves are unconstitutional.

And on Friday, in a 6-3 decision on ideological lines, the Supreme Court agreed — limiting the power of lower courts and lifting a key restraint on the Trump administration.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/1254874773

LAW | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 5:34 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

SCOTUS says parents can opt kids out of lessons with LGBTQ+ characters. What's next?

By Gabriel J. Sánchez, John Ketchum, Ailsa Chang

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Public school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, do not have to stay in the classroom when books like "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" and "Prince & Knight" are being read. That's because the Supreme Court ruled today that parents have the right to remove their children from classrooms when lessons relying on books with LGBTQ+ characters are used. The 6-to-3 majority says school officials in Montgomery County have to allow parents to opt their kids out of coursework that goes against their religious beliefs. For help understanding this case, we're joined now by Jeffrey Fisher. He teaches constitutional law and Supreme Court practice at Stanford Law School. Welcome.

JEFFREY FISHER: Thank you very much.

CHANG: So before we get into the specifics of this ruling, can you just lay out in general terms what rights the law generally provides to parents who object to what their kids are being taught at school? - because can't parents already opt out of certain courses like sex education for religious reasons?

FISHER: Yes, that's true as a matter of practice, but what today the court waded into is, what if a school district does not give that opportunity to parents as a matter of just their own policy choice? So in other words, if the school district determines that a certain lesson is important enough to require students to be in the classroom, whether it be the kind of things we're talking about today or some sort of science or math curriculum, do opt-out requirements kick in when the content butts up against religious beliefs?

CHANG: OK, then how does the majority in this case - concerning LGBTQ-themed books - how does the majority elaborate on that law that you just laid out when it comes to opt-out rights?

FISHER: Well, what the court does is it starts from the premise that parents have an important First Amendment right of free exercise of religion not just for themselves, but in terms of caring for their own children. And what the court decided today was if a particular lesson is going to substantially interfere with the religious development of children from their parents' perspective, the school district needs to give the parents an opportunity to opt their children out of that lesson.

CHANG: So advance notice is required. 'Cause I'm just trying to imagine how this would work in real life - like, if a student opens a book in a classroom in Montgomery County, Maryland, and realizes right then and there the book mentions two gay boys who have a crush on each other, how does a parent invoke an opt-out in that moment?

FISHER: I think you've put your finger on one of the tricky parts here, is that you can't always predict in advance when there's going to be a religious objection. And that may be one of the implications of today's decision, is that it's going to require school administrators to take a harder look at lesson plans and the like. And I do want to clarify one thing, which is I don't know that this court decision today applies to a child his or herself simply pulling a book off the shelf as much as it does to lessons taught out loud in a classroom by a teacher.

CHANG: Right.

FISHER: I think that's what the court's particularly concerned with. And I think maybe a fair way to understand the decision is it puts a responsibility, starting today, on schools and individual teachers to know in advance what they're going to say or assign and be responsible to give the appropriate notice as the court directed today.

CHANG: OK. Well, today's ruling is not a final decision on this case. Can you just explain what happens at this point?

FISHER: Well, for this particular case, what the court said is the plaintiffs - the parents - have a probability of success in their lawsuit. And the reasoning of the majority decision suggests that the school district does in fact have to provide notices for these particular books and others like it. I think there's two real big questions as we go forward. One is, is this ruling limited to just particularly young children, say in elementary school?

CHANG: Right.

FISHER: And is it going to have the same kind of effect where children get older and have more of, you might say, a mind of their own? Secondly, is this ruling going to be limited to books with LGBTQ themes or other content that - you know, as you started by saying, things that have to do with sex education and sex and morality can tend to be particularly combustible in certain religious traditions.

CHANG: Yeah. Can you imagine other types of public school lessons getting challenged because of this ruling today?

FISHER: You can 100% imagine it. So just take maybe one of our country's most storied debates of creationism versus evolution. You know, does science class now have to give opt-out notices when they're going to teach evolution? And so that's a big question going forward that the majority writes in a way - as the court often does - not taking a position one way or the other. It writes in somewhat broad strokes. But on the other hand, the case has particular facts in a particular place in time that the court could decide were determinative in a future case. So all these future objections that, no doubt, school districts are going to receive - from everything from science to history, English class and whatever the novel of the season would be assigned - are now going to be sorted out by the lower courts, and we've no doubt not heard the last of this debate.

CHANG: Indeed. That is Jeffrey Fisher, a co-director of the Supreme Court litigation clinic at Stanford Law School. Thanks so much for joining us.

FISHER: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448840

Politics

- Here's what's in the GOP megabill headed for a vote in the Senate: 2025 Jun 28

- Week in politics: Senate to start vote on Trump's tax bill, blocks military action: 2025 Jun 28

- Big beautiful bottleneck: Trump's high-stakes week at home and abroad: 2025 Jun 28

- Where the Voting Rights Act stands after the Supreme Court punts on a Louisiana case: 2025 Jun 28

- When Trump met crypto: 2025 Jun 27

- Trump's high pressure week: 2025 Jun 27

- USNS Harvey Milk renamed amid Trump administration efforts to cut DEI: 2025 Jun 27

POLITICS | UPDATED SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 10:07 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Here's what's in the GOP megabill headed for a vote in the Senate

By Elena Moore

Senate Republicans have released an updated version of the massive spending and tax cut legislation, containing much of President Trump's domestic agenda, setting the table for votes on the legislation less than a week ahead of the party's self-imposed July 4 deadline.

The updated bill shares many of the same overall policies that narrowly passed in the House of Representatives in May, including an extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts as well as increased funding for border security, defense spending and energy production.

Republican leaders hope to begin votes on the measure on Saturday. The process includes an open-ended series of amendments that could stretch into Sunday and may lead to further changes to the bill.

Where Republicans remain divided is how they pay for these priorities. Despite the same toplines, the Senate's proposed legislation features several changes from the House-passed bill, notably a higher increase to the debt limit and major changes to Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income Americans.

The Senate bill also has modifications made at the advice of the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who serves in an unelected and nonpartisan role focused on maintaining chamber rules. Over the last week, MacDonough found that a number of provisions in the bill didn't qualify for a simple majority under reconciliation and needed to be removed.

The Senate bill is expected to face pushback from conflicting factions of the party, particularly from fiscal hawks who want to reduce the deficit and lawmakers who have drawn a red line on major cuts to social safety net programs.

And there is still internal strife over how to address the nation's borrowing limit. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, has vowed to vote against the bill over the issue.

While some GOP Senators also have concerns about the bill, the bigger fight may rest back in the House, which holds a razor-thin majority and will need to agree to the same bill if it passes the Senate.

This is a developing story, some elements of the bill were negotiated up until the last minute. What follows is a partial list and will be updated.

Some of the biggest changes

Tax incentives

Congressional Republicans have included many of the president's tax-related campaign promises in the bill. The Senate's text includes temporary changes that would allow Americans to deduct up to $25,000 for tip wages and $12,500 for overtime pay through 2028. The Senate version also says that overtime and tip deductions will be reduced for Americans with incomes higher than $150,000. Those limits were not included in the House version.

The Senate bill also increases the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200 per child and adjusts the amount for inflation after 2025. It's slightly different than the House plan to temporarily increase the credit to $2,500 before cutting it back to the current level and adjusting for inflation.

In addition, the Senate text would permanently expand the standard deduction, marking a key difference from the House bill, which temporarily expands it through 2028. Senators also boosted a tax deduction for people over 65 to $6,000 through 2028, compared to $4,000 in the House bill. Both chambers included a phase out for people earning over $75,000.

Increasing the debt ceiling

The Senate is proposing raising the nation's debt limit by $5 trillion, a sizable increase compared to the House bill, which agreed to $4 trillion.

Lifting the debt limit doesn't authorize new spending. Instead, it allows the government to pay for programs that Congress has already authorized. If the cap isn't lifted and the government can't meet its obligations, then it will be at risk of default — a scenario that economists say would be catastrophic not just for the U.S., but the global financial system as a whole. The CBO estimates that without action from Congress, the U.S. will run out of money to pay its bills at some point between mid-August and the end of September.

Earlier this month, 38 members signed onto a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-N.D., criticizing the size of the increase.

Changes to SNAP

Both the Senate and House outlined reforms for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, which provides aid for food to more than 40 million low-income Americans.

The Senate bill includes expanded work requirements that "able bodied adults" continue to work up to age 64. There are exemptions for parents with children under 14 and limits on the ways states can offer waivers for those requirements.

The bill would also force states to take on a greater share of the cost of providing food assistance. The amount a state owes would be based on a formula set by the percentage of erroneous payments reported each year. Those changes would go into effect in 2028.

State and Local Tax Deduction

One of the thorniest issues during negotiations has been the state and local tax deduction, also known as SALT. The deduction is particularly important to a small number of GOP lawmakers in the House from blue states with high taxes, such as California and New York. Trump's 2017 tax cuts capped the SALT deduction at $10,000. The Senate plan would temporarily lift the cap to $40,000 for married couples with incomes up to $500,000. But that provision would expire after 2028 — an effort to buoy the blue-state Republicans through the 2026 midterm and 2028 election cycles, while limiting the long-term impact of the cuts on federal tax revenue.

"We have about a dozen members that are voting on this bill exclusively based on what happens with SALT. There's not a single senator on the Republican side that has that same issue," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise R-La., acknowledged to reporters on Tuesday adding an agreement on SALT "has to get resolved if you're going to have a bill to pass."

Medicaid

The Senate released an updated version of the legislation that includes several proposed changes to Medicaid, the popular, joint federal/state health care program for low-income, elderly and disabled Americans. It's remained one of the most divisive issues throughout both House and Senate negotiations.

The Senate plan would require able bodied adults to work 80 hours per month until age 65 to qualify for benefits. There are carveouts for parents of children under 14 and those with disabilities.

The plan would also cap and gradually reduce the tax states can impose on Medicaid providers. The phase out would begin in 2028, ultimately ending in a 3.5 percent cap on that tax. Several GOP senators have raised concerns that the tax is a critical funding stream for rural hospitals in particular — which could close if that income stream dries up.

In an effort to alleviate some of those concerns, Senate GOP leaders included a new $25 billion fund to support rural hospitals. That program would also begin in 2028 and funds would be spread out over five years.

What's stayed mostly the same

Extending the Trump tax cuts

The Senate bill calls for $4 trillion in tax cuts, which is slightly higher than the $3.8 trillion proposed in the House. That move would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, meaning that without an extension, most households would see their taxes increase.

Billions for border security

Both the Senate and the House bills allocate $46.5 billion toward completing Trump's border wall. It also puts $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities and $10 billion to be used for border security more broadly. The Senate bill sets aside less funding to hire and retain more agents and officers, proposing $4.1 billion compared to the $6 billion allocated in the House. The legislation also invests in upgraded technology for screenings and surveillance of U.S. borders.

New immigration fees

Much like the House-passed bill, the Senate legislation includes a handful of new or increased fees for immigration services. The bill would create a $550 charge for work authorization applications with renewal every six months.

However, the Senate parliamentarian determined that a $1,000 fee for asylum applications did not meet the rules necessary to qualify for a simple majority vote.

A student loan overhaul

Like the House-passed bill, the Senate plan would scrap several existing repayment options, including the Biden-era SAVE program that based payments on income and household size. It replaces them with a new, standard repayment plan and an income-based plan Republicans call their "Repayment Assistance Plan." The bill would also cap the amount that parents and graduate students can take out in federal loans each year.

One difference between the two bills concerns the Pell Grant program for low-income students. The House proposed increasing the credit hours required for full-time and part-time students in order to receive Pell Grants, but the Senate has left current enrollment rules intact. The Senate bill does bar students from qualifying for a Pell Grant if they've received a full scholarship through other sources of aid.

Regulating Artificial Intelligence

The Senate proposal allocates $500 million to the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, which is focused on increasing broadband access for Americans, and specifies that the funding can be used for developing artificial intelligence models and systems. But it also requires that states only receive this funding if they do not regulate A.I. for 10 years. That rule was also laid out in the House-passed bill

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74388

POLITICS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 8:14 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Week in politics: Senate to start vote on Trump's tax bill, blocks military action

By Scott Simon, Ron Elving

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

President Trump's tax and spending bill appear to have hit a snag this week as senators changed a key provision of the bill that was passed by the House over a month ago. Still, the Senate plans to start the vote on the bill today. NPR's Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.

RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.

SIMON: Senate Republicans racing to rewrite some provisions in the president's spending bill in advance of the vote. What can you tell us about those?

ELVING: It looked like a tough week for the bill because the Senate parliamentarians stripped away a number of provisions Republicans wanted. But they did not meet the rules test for legislation to pass by simple majority, and every change to the bill puts it at risk because it's such a delicate balance. At base, though, you know, it's an extension of the big tax cuts from Trump's first term. That loss of revenue has to be at least partially offset. So Republicans have cut back food stamps and Medicaid benefits. Some senators say that's a red line for them.

But also this week, the Senate bill got a better-looking bottom line, and The Washington Post is reporting that the improvement comes from an accounting change that allows them to estimate a smaller impact on the deficit and long-term national debt. But at the same time, there are new tax cuts in the bill that also divide Republicans between the House and Senate, so they may not be out of the woods yet.

SIMON: Senate also voted on Friday against a bid to block the president from using further military force against Iran. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia had brought the measure under the War Powers Act just before President Trump decided to bomb Iran last week. Tell us about that vote.

ELVING: Under the War Powers Act of 1973, a president who wants to mount an attack on another country is required to get Congress onboard - either with an outright declaration of war or something called an AUMF. That stands for authorization for the use of military force. Congress did that for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there are those who say presidents should not need to have this approval, but the War Powers Act itself is unconstitutional, and that is an argument we've been having for over half a century. Last night, the vote was 53 to 47 against the resolution. That means, of course, a green light for President Trump. There was one Democrat among the majority vote and one Republican with the minority.

SIMON: Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, warned against more U.S. strikes on his country, said that Iran had won the war against Israel. President Trump, who has also been declaring the strikes he ordered on Iran as a resounding success, took issue with that, saying, quote, that they "got beat to hell." Where is the truth between these two declarations?

ELVING: There is a reality on the ground. Iran's nuke program is either obliterated - as Trump keeps saying - or it still exists. And if it exists, it may conceivably renew itself and go forward. Now, as I say, Trump has been insisting on his version all week, but various independent experts and even briefing officials from within his own administration have been far more nuanced in their assessment. So at this point, it's safer to say, we don't know.

SIMON: Truth Social on Friday, President Trump said the U.S. is ending all trade negotiations with Canada and that tariffs levied by the U.S. in response will be announced within a week. This is Canada, our neighbor. What's going on?

ELVING: The immediate spark was Canada instituting a 3% tax on the revenue that tech companies get from Canadian customers. Now, Trump has taken up the cudgels on behalf of Big Tech, and he's been consistently hostile toward Canada, which he says should just be part of the United States.

As for the U.S. economy, there are mixed signals - some confusing and sometimes uncertain. On Friday, the S&P 500 closed at a record high. It's been a very strong week for stocks. Yet overall growth remains weak, and there may, in fact, not be any growth at all this quarter. The Federal Reserve board chairman says Trump's tariffs are creating a lot of uncertainty in the economy, and polls show consumers agree.

ELVING: NPR's Ron Elving. Always good to speak with you. Thanks so much.

SIMON: Good to be with you, Scott.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5441727

POLITICS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 5:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Big beautiful bottleneck: Trump's high-stakes week at home and abroad

By Tamara Keith

For President Trump, it's been — to borrow a phrase — one big, beautiful week.

A favorable Supreme Court ruling on Friday prompted Trump to hold an impromptu press conference, capping off a high-stakes few days for his presidency.

"It's a really big day," he concluded. "We've had a big week. We've had a lot of victories this week."

While he touted victories, several matters remain unresolved. What happens over the next 10 days or so, domestically and abroad, could come to define Trump's presidency.

"The president is doing peace deals, tax deals, trade deals," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Capitol Hill earlier this week. "So he's done a peace deal. I think we'll have the tax deal done by July 4, and then we can finish with the trade deals."

Hogan Gidley, who served in the first Trump administration and is now a senior adviser to the House speaker, said he couldn't think of a time from the first term that was as momentous as what's happening now.

"Every day, it's just a heart monitor in a hospital. It's like, up and down, up and down all day long," Gidley said. "And I can't come up with a time that was as pressure-filled in the previous administration as we're dealing with right now, although I'm sure there were plenty."

Here are the wins and challenges for Trump this week:

Win: Supreme Court ruling on nationwide injunctions.

The Supreme Court issued a ruling on Friday that makes it much more difficult for opponents of the administration to put a quick stop to executive actions they say are illegal.

The ruling stemmed from a case about Trump's executive order calling for an end to birthright citizenship in the U.S. While the justices did not rule on whether the order is constitutional, they did say that the nationwide pause on it — known as an injunction — was an overreach by lower courts.

"This morning the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law," Trump said in the White House briefing room Friday.

Trump has faced more than two dozen nationwide injunctions against executive actions on everything from ending birthright citizenship, to halting refugee resettlement and freezing federal funding. Now he says the way has been cleared for his administration to push ahead.

Trump and others in his administration argue that lower court judges have been wrongly blocking the president and therefore the will of the American people.

With this decision, the balance of power is now tilted in the president's favor.

More wins: NATO commitments and the Israel-Iran ceasefire

Through the week, the Trump administration had ample praise for the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and the ceasefire between Iran and Israel that followed.

The president is not budging from his early assertion that Iran's nuclear program was totally obliterated, and Friday he said he doesn't believe Iran will go back to trying to build nuclear weapons. That, however, is far from certain. Assessments of what was actually destroyed are still underway.

A more unqualified win is what happened at the NATO summit, which Trump attended in the Hague earlier this week. Member states agreed to spend more money on defense, something Trump has long pushed for.

His longstanding skepticism about the alliance seemed to melt away as a result. It doesn't hurt that at one point the NATO secretary general seemed to awkwardly and perhaps accidentally refer to Trump as "daddy" — a moment the Trump White House seemed unable to let go.

Challenge: Unfinished trade deals

When Trump punted on his so-called reciprocal tariffs earlier this year, he set a July 8 deadline to get dozens of trade deals done. So far, just one agreement is signed, sealed and delivered, and many more are in limbo.

He announced in a post on Truth Social on Friday that he was halting all trade negotiations with Canada over its new digital services tax, which would affect major U.S. technology companies.

He also said this week that the U.S. had reached a deal with China, but that turned out to be a step forward on a framework, rather than a finalized agreement.

Members of his Cabinet have said for months that deals with other countries such as India, South Korea and Japan were just around the corner.

As July 8 draws closer, Trump is wavering. This traffic jam of negotiations is a problem he created, and with a stroke of his pen, he could change it.

It's hard to tell whether this is strategic uncertainty or just plain old uncertainty.

Chris Whipple, an expert on White House chiefs of staff, said Trump is reactive and instinctive, which drove his success on the campaign trail. But now, he said, the crises are piling up.

"You know, it does feel like kind of a defining moment," Whipple said. "One thing that's clear, six months in, is that shock and awe, so-called, is just not an effective formula for governance."

Challenge: The fate of the "One Big Beautiful Bill"

The House has passed Trump's major tax and policy bill, but there have been speed bumps in the Senate. That process is ongoing, and it's not clear whether it will pass or whether that version can pass in the House.

Trump wants a bill signing celebration to coincide with Independence Day. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said it would be epic. But planning the wedding before the engagement can be dicey, and it's hard to say at this moment whether Trump will get the party he wants on the date he wants it.

As a reminder, he calls it the "one big beautiful bill" because it essentially combines his entire legislative agenda into a single package. Trump has a lot riding on this legislation, not just tax cuts and promises he made like no tax on tips, but also funding for immigration enforcement that he needs in order to keep his pledge of mass deportations.

Gidley said every Republican in Congress understands the gravity of this moment.

"If they cannot deliver on the very thing that put them in office, there's going to be a big problem with their chances of reelection," he said.

Trump was supposed to travel to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Instead, he is staying in D.C. to monitor action on Capitol Hill and to twist arms when needed.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

For President Trump, it has been - to borrow a phrase - one big, beautiful week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a really big day. We've had a big week. You know, we've had a big week. We've had a lot of victories this week.

SHAPIRO: Those remarks came during a press conference where Trump praised the Supreme Court for a ruling that will make it harder for judges to put sweeping legal blocks on his actions. This caps off a high-stakes week in the Trump presidency where several matters remain unresolved. Here to talk about some of the pressures the president is facing is NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Good to have you in the studio.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good to be here.

SHAPIRO: To start with the ruling today, what did Trump have to say about the Supreme Court decision?

KEITH: Oh, he is very happy about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law.

KEITH: Really, it is a win for his powers, his executive authority. It makes it much more difficult for opponents to put a quick stop to executive actions that they say are unlawful. President Trump has faced a lot of nationwide injunctions, halting executive actions on everything from ending birthright citizenship to halting refugee resettlement, freezing federal funds, more than two dozen. Now, he says, the way has been cleared for his administration to push ahead. Trump and others in his administration argue that lower court judges have been wrongly blocking the president and therefore the will of the American people. With this decision, the balance of power is now tilted in the president's favor, this one and the next one.

SHAPIRO: And what else is the president putting on his list of wins this week?

KEITH: Well, the strikes over the weekend on Iran's nuclear sites and the ceasefire between Iran and Israel that followed. He is not budging from his early assertion that Iran's nuclear program was totally obliterated. And today, he said he doesn't believe that Iran will go back to trying to build nuclear weapons. That, however, is far from certain. Assessments of what was actually destroyed are still underway.

A more unqualified win is what happened at the NATO summit, which Trump attended in The Hague earlier this week. It has been a big week. Member nations there agreed to spend more money on defense. That's something that Trump has been pushing for for a long time. And all of a sudden, his skepticism about the alliance seemed to just melt away. It also doesn't hurt that at one point the NATO secretary general seemed to awkwardly and perhaps accidentally refer to Trump as daddy.

SHAPIRO: No comment on that.

KEITH: Nope.

SHAPIRO: If the White House is putting those in the win column, what's in the other column?

KEITH: Yeah. This is such a pivotal time. What happens over the next 10 days or so could really define his presidency. First, there's trade. When President Trump punted on his so-called reciprocal tariffs, he set a July 8 deadline to get dozens of trade deals done. So far, just one agreement is signed, sealed and delivered, and many more are in limbo. Today, he angrily announced that he was halting trade negotiations with Canada. Members of his cabinet have said deals with other countries like India, South Korea and Japan were just around the corner for months now.

So as July 8 draws closer, Trump is wavering. You know, this traffic jam of negotiations is a problem that he created. And with the stroke of his pen, he could change it. And this is one of those times where it's really hard to tell whether this is strategic uncertainty or just plain old uncertainty.

SHAPIRO: The July 8 deadline is one thing. There's a July 4 deadline for Congress to pass this bill that's so important to his agenda. What's going on with that?

KEITH: Yeah, there seem to be some speed bumps in the Senate. The latest is that they are set to begin the process of debating the bill tomorrow. Once they get started, that will be a long process, and it's not clear whether it will pass or whether that version can pass the House. Trump wants a bill-signing celebration to coincide with Independence Day, July 4. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it would be epic. But planning the wedding before the engagement can be dicey.

SHAPIRO: Right.

KEITH: Yeah. And it's hard to say at this moment, whether President Trump will get the party that he wants on the date that he wants. As a reminder, he calls this the One Big, Beautiful Bill because it essentially combines his entire legislative agenda into a single bill. So Trump has a lot riding on this legislation, not just tax cuts - like no taxes on tips - but also funding for immigration enforcement that he needs to keep his pledge of mass deportations. He was supposed to travel to his golf club in New Jersey this weekend. Instead, he is staying in D.C. to monitor the action on Capitol Hill and likely twist some arms.

SHAPIRO: NPR's Tamara Keith. Good to have you here. Thanks.

KEITH: You're welcome.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449188

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POLITICS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 5:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Where the Voting Rights Act stands after the Supreme Court punts on a Louisiana case

By Hansi Lo Wang

In a rare decision this week, the U.S. Supreme Court postponed ruling on a Louisiana congressional redistricting case that could have implications on legal protections for the rights of minority voters across the country.

The high court's order on Friday did not explain why the court wants to hear oral arguments again in Louisiana v. Callais during its next term that is expected to start in October, although it signaled there may be details in a follow-up order coming in "due course."

"This is on the surface a fairly easy case factually to decide," says Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. "The Supreme Court almost never holds over cases for argument. And the fact that it's doing so in this case is puzzling."

Some legal experts are watching to see if the court's ruling ends up joining a string of decisions since 2013 by the court's conservative majority that have limited the scope of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its protections against racial discrimination in elections.

"Voting Rights Act watchers have been predicting a major shift around the Voting Rights Act for over a decade," says Atiba Ellis, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. "The fact that the Court is rearguing Louisiana v. Callais may mean there is deep debate and a potential major decision upholding — or striking down — the Voting Rights Act."

The Louisiana case also centers on the role of politics when redrawing maps of voting districts, notes Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor. The court's punting this week "may mean more justices want to think a little bit more about the interaction of race and politics and the Voting Rights Act than I would have thought, but that's not sort of prejudging the outcome of that consideration," adds Levitt, who served as a White House adviser on voting rights during former President Joe Biden's administration.

Levitt also points to the court's 2023 ruling for a similar redistricting case out of Alabama as a sign that the Voting Rights Act may end up unscathed by the court's ultimate ruling in this long-running redistricting battle. In that decision, the court upheld its previous rulings on the same part of the Voting Rights Act that many of its advocates fear could be weakened in the Louisiana case.

As the Voting Rights Act's supporters prepare to mark the 60th anniversary of the law's passage this August, Levitt, however, does note that its critics are setting up potential future showdowns at the Supreme Court.

Here's what to know about where Voting Rights Act protections currently stand in the Louisiana case and the key lawsuits that could weaken them next:

The Louisiana ruling could make it harder to claim that a voting map dilutes minority voters' collective power

To comply with what's known as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, state lawmakers in Louisiana — where voting is racially polarized and nearly 1 in 3 people are Black — are under a federal court order to pass a map with two out of six districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidates.

But a group of self-described "non-Black" voters challenged the map that the state's legislature said it passed to get in line with Section 2. Those challengers argue that one of the districts the lawmakers drew is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

During oral arguments in March, however, Louisiana state Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga said the Republican-led legislature made a "politically rational decision" to draw a map with a pair of majority-Black districts in a way that protects the seats of three top Louisiana Republicans — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Julia Letlow, a House Appropriations Committee member.

With a candidate filing deadline for the state's 2026 primary election coming up this December, a Supreme Court order from last year keeps the congressional map with two majority-Black districts in effect at least for now.

But voting rights advocates are keeping watch for any ruling by the high court that strikes down the map and potentially further limits how race can factor into redistricting around the country. That could make it harder to enforce Section 2 protections against maps of voting districts that dilute minority voters' collective power in areas where voting is racially polarized.

Alabama wants to again argue against race-based redistricting before the Supreme Court

Republican state officials in Alabama are, once again, appealing another long-running congressional redistricting case to the Supreme Court.

This time, they've teed up an argument that it is unconstitutional for Congress to allow race-based redistricting to continue without an end date under the Voting Rights Act.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas raised that point when the high court ruled on Alabama's congressional map in 2023, when Kavanaugh also noted: "Alabama did not raise that temporal argument in this Court, and I therefore would not consider it at this time."

In that ruling, Kavanaugh joined Chief Justice John Roberts, a fellow conservative, and the court's three liberal justices to uphold the Supreme Court's past rulings on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

But some voting rights advocates are watching to see if Republican Alabama officials can sway Kavanaugh this round and ultimately undo Section 2 protections against the dilution of minority voters' collective power in redistricting.

GOP state officials in Louisiana have raised the same constitutional argument against Section 2 protections in a state legislative redistricting case, which is currently waiting for a ruling by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A North Dakota case could end a key tool for enforcing minority voters' rights

Last month, a North Dakota state legislative redistricting case moved a step closer to the Supreme Court, where a potential ruling could eliminate a key tool for protecting the rights of minority voters.

For decades, private individuals and groups have brought most of the lawsuits focused on enforcing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But a pair of decisions out of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found that private individuals and groups are not allowed to sue because they are not explicitly named in the words of the Voting Rights Act. Only the head of the Justice Department, these 8th Circuit panel decisions say, can file these types of lawsuits.

Native American voters led by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians are asking the full 8th Circuit to review the latest decision.

In the meantime, the rulings apply to seven mainly Midwestern states — Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — as the Justice Department under the Trump administration steps away from Section 2 lawsuits it previously brought when Biden was in office.

Some voting rights advocates fear that if the North Dakota case is ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court, the high court could make it harder to enforce Section 2 protections across the country. Justice Neil Gorsuch signaled his interest in this issue with a single-paragraph opinion in 2021.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445336

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PLANET MONEY | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 6:39 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

When Trump met crypto

By Andrea Bernstein, Ilya Marritz, Marianne McCune, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler

In 2019, President Trump tweeted: "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies." Today, the Trumps are all over crypto.

There are memecoins for Trump and the first lady. They own a stablecoin, a bitcoin mining operation, and a crypto financial services company. And, at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Trump's media group announced they're raising 2.5 billion dollars from investors to buy bitcoin.

At that same conference, speakers included two White House advisors, two sons of the US president, the son of the U.S. Commerce Secretary, and a Trump appointee to the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a cryptocurrency built on independence from big government, this was a swerve.

So, what happens when the President of the United States showers his love on the crypto community ... while also becoming a crypto entrepreneur himself? We follow along as Trump Inc.'s Ilya Marritz and Andrea Bernstein spend three days at the Las Vegas conference center where convicts are cheered, oversight and regulation are booed, and the separation of crypto and state no longer applies.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, and reported by Ilya Marritz and Andrea Bernstein. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and fact-checked by Willa Rubin with help from Emma Peaslee. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was engineered by Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.

Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Music: Universal Production Music - "Bass Talks," "Warm Welcome," and "Better Weather"

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: This is Planet Money from NPR.

[COIN SPINNING]

ANDREA BERNSTEIN: Back at the end of May, I went to a bar in Greenwich Village in New York City.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MIKE GERMANO: Hi, pleasure to meet you.

BERNSTEIN: Wow.

GERMANO: Welcome, welcome, welcome.

[END PLAYBACK]

ALEXI HOROWITZ-GHAZI: It's a Bitcoin bar where you can buy an actual beer with virtual currency.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: This is a dive bar.

BERNSTEIN: Yeah, but it looks really nice.

GERMANO: I would say we're a luxury dive bar. So, you know, dive bars are approachable places for everybody, you know? That's the--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The first person I meet is a guy named Mike Germano. He's one of the people that runs this place. It's called PubKey, and it's not normally open for lunch, but it is today because so many people are here.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: But we're a little extra special Italian back there because it's Pizza Day, the most important holiday in the Bitcoin calendar.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Today, everyone is particularly jazzed because it's the 15th anniversary of the very first time someone used Bitcoin to buy a thing, and that thing was pizza. There are stacks of pizza boxes in the back room, where people are eating, and I can smell the pies.

HOROWITZ-GHAZI: But there is another reason why all these people are at the bar on this particular day. They're kind of like pilgrims stopping at this waystation on a journey to a much bigger gathering. One guy even came here from Singapore. Their destination? The most important event of the year for Bitcoiners, the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas.

BERNSTEIN: And appropriately for a pilgrimage, there's a shrine.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: If you walk into the right, there is kind of our shrine to all the Bitcoin culture.

BERNSTEIN: Over here?

GERMANO: Yeah.

BERNSTEIN: OK. So what are we looking at?

GERMANO: So once again, here's our shrine--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Behind the bar, there are shelves full of Bitcoin memorabilia. There's a package of orange Tic Tacs and a little orange phone-sized computer that mines Bitcoin and a Misfits action figure.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: I like the nesting dolls--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Right in the center of the display, there are brightly painted Russian dolls.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: --that happen to have all the people who have gone to jail for fraud in the crypto world. So you might remember that the largest one there, that was the founder of FTX.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: It's Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency exchange founder who was convicted of fraud and money laundering. He's fighting the charges. They all are.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: Then it's Alex Mashinsky from Celsius. And the little one there that kicked it all off--

[END PLAYBACK]

HOROWITZ-GHAZI: In this bar, and in the Bitcoin world and crypto in general, outlaws can be heroes.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: The Terra Luna disaster.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Bitcoiners have long seen themselves as a liberation force, and they think governments and banks are in their way. So it was a big day about nine months ago, when a presidential candidate showed up here to do something no other major presidential candidate had done before.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: While we're standing right here, where it took place, next to the Bitcoin shrine, can you describe, like, what happened?

GERMANO: When President Trump visited? Yeah, so--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The other guy who runs the bar jumps in. His name is Thomas Pacchia.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

THOMAS PACCHIA: President Trump bought 50 burgers and 50 Diet Cokes. And he used Bitcoin to facilitate the transaction.

BERNSTEIN: Right here? Right where we are, where you're sitting?

PACCHIA: Yeah, yeah. [CHUCKLES] It was a surreal day.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Nine months later, people at this bar are happy because Trump is smiling on crypto. They're happy because Bitcoin has just hit an all-time high. And they're happy because they're headed to Las Vegas. Out on the street, before I leave PubKey, Mike introduces me to Frank Corva.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

GERMANO: He's actually-- he's actually the best journalist in the space and covers the White House.

FRANK CORVA: Yeah, I'm the White House--

GERMANO: So this is the exact person you should--

CORVA: --correspondent.

BERNSTEIN: You were the one who just got your White House credentials?

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Frank is with Bitcoin Magazine, and he now has a hard pass to cover the White House. He'll also be on the pilgrimage to Vegas, where he'll be live streaming the conference. And with just a few days to go, he's thinking about how this year will be so different from all the previous ones.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

CORVA: So Bitcoin is the separation of money and state. So it feels a little bit weird to have so many representatives from the "state," quote unquote, there. We have a number of high-level speakers.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: It's the speaker list that got us interested. There are so many big Trump world names, from Vice President JD Vance to two of the president's sons, to the son of the US Commerce Secretary, to one of the most famous crypto outlaws newly freed by Trump, all of them headed for Vegas.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

HOROWITZ-GHAZI: Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. Reporter Andrea Bernstein and her colleague, Ilya Marritz, have been covering Trump and his businesses for years. So we sent them to the Venetian resort to join these thousands of pilgrims traveling to Las Vegas to hear from their newest leaders.

BERNSTEIN: What happens when the president of the United States showers his love on the crypto community while becoming a crypto entrepreneur himself?

ILYA MARRITZ: Today on the show, three whirlwind days in Las Vegas, where crypto convicts are cheered, oversight and regulation are booed, and the separation of crypto and state no longer applies.

BERNSTEIN: Plus, the inside story of Trump's love affair with crypto.

MARRITZ: What we saw in Vegas is not going to stay in Vegas. So Andrea and I fly to Las Vegas. We set ourselves up in the vast, windowless conference hall of the Venetian, and right away, we encounter a strangely high number of people wearing orange-- orange neckties, orange suits, orange bikini tops. Orange, it turns out, is the color of Bitcoin. People who go all in on Bitcoin talk about getting orange-pilled. Then there is another thing we notice.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: I see all this, like, kind of crypto-related art on the right.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: It's an art exhibit that I am still thinking about today because of how clearly it shows the way outlaw culture is baked in to crypto culture. I'm standing near some pictures of world currencies on fire when I meet a guy named Majid Zafer.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MAJID ZAFER: Did you see the Ross Ulbricht auctions?

MARRITZ: No.

ZAFER: Those are really cool. He was the founder of Silk Road.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: This is the thing I'm still thinking about-- an art auction to raise money for Ross Ulbricht because Ulbricht was convicted and sent to prison 10 years ago for operating a dark web marketplace, where illegal drugs were bought and sold anonymously. It was called Silk Road, and the whole thing ran on Bitcoin.

BERNSTEIN: He was given two life sentences. The prosecutor called him a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people's addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people.

MARRITZ: Ulbricht was separately charged with attempted witness murder. That case was dropped after his two life sentences were upheld in the Supreme Court.

BERNSTEIN: But on President Trump's first full day in office this year, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht. And in the program for this Bitcoin Conference, Ulbricht's picture is front and center-- Ross Ulbricht, freedom fighter, right next to JD Vance, Vice President.

MARRITZ: And now I'm looking at a whole wall of Ulbricht's prison paraphernalia that's up for auction-- ID cards, a sweatsuit, some paintings he did. And my new buddy Majid is telling me he's willing to overlook Ulbricht's crimes.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ZAFER: I mean, if you think about most people that freed any revolution, right, most of them spent some time in jail, [LAUGHS] right?

MARRITZ: You don't have any misgivings? I mean, he got two life sentences.

ZAFER: You know, here, there's good and bad for anyone that's done anything big.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: For Majid, it's about what Ulbricht did for Bitcoin. He showed how it could work in a real marketplace.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ZAFER: He was one of the first people to really bring commercial legitimacy to the technology.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: We went back to the Ulbricht wall a few times, and no one we talked to objected to this convicted criminal being celebrated. And it occurred to me that Ulbricht's reversal in fortune tracks with a broader turnaround. Maybe the whole crypto world, its history of fraud and swindles, was being pardoned.

BERNSTEIN: There are all kinds of people at this conference-- families with strollers, high-end executives, influencers, people who are just getting interested, some of them because of President Trump's enthusiasm, like Steven Dalehite. He's a lawyer from San Antonio, 61, tall, goes by Esteban sometimes because he spent so much of his life in Mexico. He's been watching Bitcoin for a while.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

STEVEN DALEHITE: My wife is into it big time. She's been talking about it for years now. And I'm the one that's like, oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's just, like, pie in the sky.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: He started thinking his wife might be right, though, during the presidential campaign. He said he felt the whole Bitcoin thing mushrooming.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: And I'm saying, if Trump gets elected, this is going to go up. So I did my research. I got the crypto app. And then I got stuck with the whole wallet thing, for whatever reason, you know? I'm like--

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: It is a well-known and longstanding problem that buying Bitcoin is just not so simple, even today. So he didn't buy any, and he watched the price go up.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: Oh, man, 107,000. I could have bought one at, you know, 60-some odd thousand, almost 70,000.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: He put the whole idea of buying Bitcoin aside for a while. But then it came up again recently. Steven was watching a personal finance YouTube channel, and an ad came on.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: So it was actually advertising this conference, and I just said, what the heck? And I'm like, I'm just going to go over there and get into it.

MARRITZ: How long ago was this?

DALEHITE: This? This was two days ago.

MARRITZ: That you made this decision?

DALEHITE: Yeah. Just overnight.

MARRITZ: Incredible.

DALEHITE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like that.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: So he's been here not even one whole day. And I hear him becoming convinced Bitcoin is on the rise.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: I mean, the whole thing-- because it's not really just a currency. It's a movement. And it's an ideology as well.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Talking with Steven, it hit me how much the value of money is psychological. We believe in US dollars because we believe the US government stands behind them. It's actually one of the few things almost all Americans still agree on. And millions of people believe in Bitcoin because millions of people believe in Bitcoin. Having the support of the US president could draw in a lot more people.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: If Trump had lost the election--

DALEHITE: Oh, yeah.

MARRITZ: --would you be getting into Bitcoin?

DALEHITE: Uh-- probably n-- that's a really hard question.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: We say our goodbyes for now.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Can I follow up with you later, though?

DALEHITE: Yeah, of course.

MARRITZ: How can I find you?

SPEAKER: Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Bitcoin Magazine News Desk presented by MARA at Bitcoin 2025.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The marquee speeches of the conference were all taking place on the main stage. And one of the things that we came here for was to listen in to what all these top Trump world people would say to this very friendly crowd.

MARRITZ: Of course, the new guy from the Washington press corps was there at the anchor desk, right outside the door.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SPEAKER: --over these days. We've got Frank Corva, White House correspondent for Bitcoin Magazine.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Frank had wondered, back at the Bitcoin bar, what it would mean for Bitcoin to get such a firm embrace from the establishment. During a break in his anchoring duties, he said now that we're here, the hug seemed even tighter than he'd expected.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

CORVA: A lot of politicians are here. I think this idea that Bitcoin is no longer a countercultural thing-- it is now just a part of the mainstream. It's part of the political process. The vibe has shifted.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Over the next three days, the conversations Frank and Steven from Texas and all of us heard on stage were surprisingly unguarded. And in bits and pieces, the speakers told us the story of a kind of romance between the Trump world and the crypto world. It was like a romcom. Like, at first they hated each other, or at least the way Donald Trump, Jr. told it during an interview on stage, they were not interested.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DONALD TRUMP, JR.: What I realized was, you know, I wasn't an early adapter, like so many of the people in the room that were here in 2012 or something like that. We were later. We were, you know, real estate guys. We were hard assets. We built buildings.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Back then, President Trump wasn't into crypto either. During his first term, he wrote on Twitter, "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money." He said their value was based on thin air and that unregulated crypto assets could facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade.

BERNSTEIN: But it wasn't long before the Trump family began to turn around on crypto, as Don, Jr. told the story. That happened after January 6. Donald Trump had been suspended from social media, and his family business was dropped by some banks after he encouraged the attack on the Capitol. On stage, Don, Jr. complained bitterly about how mistreated and censored the family felt.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

JR.: We're getting de-banked. We're getting de-insured. We're getting de-everything.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: The Trumps never lost access to banking entirely, but still, crypto seemed so inviting.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

CORVA: When did you get orange-pilled?

JR.: Honestly, during that same period of time. I mean, I think there's so many natural ties between free speech, crypto, Bitcoin.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The sons were in, but their father, not yet.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

CORVA: Did you orange-pill your dad?

JR.: [LAUGHS] Well, you know, I think, honestly, between, you know, my brother and I, you know, probably definitely, you know, did some of that.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: According to the story unfolding at the conference, the relationship between Donald Trump himself and crypto didn't really blossom until a year ago. Trump had just been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which he's still challenging.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DAVID SACKS: It was right on the heels of that whole sham trial that they put the president through where--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: A crypto venture capitalist named David Sacks told the story of Trump's first serious flirtation with the crypto world during a conversation on the main stage. Sacks said it was at a fundraising dinner he held in San Francisco for Trump.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SACKS: This was June 6 of last year. I remember that date because that happens to be D-day.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Sacks said about a third of the people he invited were crypto entrepreneurs, and up until this point, Trump and crypto people hadn't really had the chance to talk to each other much.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SACKS: And no one knew exactly how he would be received.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: But at this very nice dinner in San Francisco, there was a spark.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SACKS: And I think it was maybe one of the first times that he had heard this message about how unfairly that, you know, all the crypto people were being treated by the Gensler SEC.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The name Gary Gensler came up a lot. He was Biden's appointee to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. And when anyone on stage would mention him, people would boo. The crypto world hates Gensler for what they see as years of regulatory overreach. And in Sacks's story about the fundraising dinner, his guests finally had the chance to explain to Trump how, in their minds, there was a war on crypto.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SACKS: And so I think he really understood the plight of the crypto community, because they were being subjected to the same kind of unfair persecution that he was.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: And that's when their gripes became Trump's gripes, too, according to Sacks and the others on stage with him. Just a month later, Trump told Bitcoiners, if elected, he'd fire Gary Gensler.

MARRITZ: So this was a moment where Trump and crypto discovered they were a match made in heaven. Trump got so much applause for that line, he repeated himself.

BERNSTEIN: On stage at the Bitcoin Conference, we also heard a parallel story, a really important one that I hadn't quite understood before. Basically, at this moment that Donald Trump started courting crypto votes on the campaign trail, he and his sons were starting crypto businesses.

MARRITZ: And at first, as Don, Jr. told it, there was a lot to figure out.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

JR.: I'm a late-ish adapter. And when I'm calling my friends who've been doing it forever, like, OK, how do I do this again so I don't send someone a fairly large piece of money and don't get it wrong?

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: They figured it out. And pretty soon, the Trump family was all over crypto. They launched a crypto financial services company. They started a Trump meme coin, a First Lady meme coin, a stablecoin, a Bitcoin mining operation.

BERNSTEIN: And even while we were all at the conference, there was another new thing. Trump's social media company announced it was raising $2.5 billion from investors to buy Bitcoin.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

JR.: That's a pretty big deal, right? I mean, you know, there's not a lot of people-- there's not a lot of people that have done something that big or has shown that level of commitment. And, you know, the fake news is going to fake.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: During the three days of interviews and talks, we listened to a parade of administration officials lay out all that Trump has done for cryptocurrency since he won the election and became president.

BERNSTEIN: Gary Gensler resigned. Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht. His SEC dropped investigations into crypto companies. And his Department of Justice disbanded its national cryptocurrency enforcement team. Trump set up a strategic Bitcoin reserve, like a pile of gold, but Bitcoin. David Sacks, who threw the San Francisco fundraising dinner for Trump, he's now the White House crypto and AI czar.

MARRITZ: Trump also invited all the crypto and Bitcoin bigwigs to the White House, the titans, the donors, the cabinet secretaries and regulators. They all sat down together in the White House State Dining Room.

BERNSTEIN: All of these moves have been very, very good for this crowd, and they've been good for the Trump family.

MARRITZ: We asked the White House about this, and they sent a statement. "President Trump is dedicated to making America the crypto of the world and revolutionizing our digital financial technology. His assets are in a trust managed by his children, and there are no conflicts of interest." The Trump Organization did not respond to our request for comment.

BERNSTEIN: In the past year, according to Forbes, crypto has added $1 billion to Donald Trump's $6 billion net worth. It will soon be more, Forbes says, possibly billions more.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MARRITZ: So that's how Trump is profiting from crypto. When we return, how the crypto industry is profiting from Trump. Wandering the halls of this Bitcoin Conference is a little like how I picture Burning Man, this community that comes together IRL only once a year, with zany costumes and DJs and all these different places to make a friend or just chill out. By day two, I start to suspect everyone has swallowed the orange pill. Steven, the guy from San Antonio who's here dabbling with the idea of becoming a Bitcoiner, he's been wowed by the speeches so far.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: What's his name, the Italian guy who's the owner of Tether? Never seen him before. Never heard about him before. I'd kind of just heard the word "Tether." It was really interesting for me to listen to him.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Paolo Ardoino is the CEO of Tether, and he spoke about bringing crypto to the masses around the world.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

PAOLO ARDOINO: The digital dollar for the hundreds of millions of people that are living in emerging markets and developing countries that are left behind by the traditional financial system--

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Tether makes a particular kind of digital currency called stablecoins. Unlike Bitcoin, stablecoins are tied to the value of something more conventional, like the US dollar.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: We started to realize that money is the ultimate social network. I think Bitcoin is actually the ultimate social network.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: When Paolo wasn't on stage, he found a quiet hallway to talk with me.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Do you want to sit, stand? OK, yeah.

ARDOINO: I can stand.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Paolo is 40 years old. He wears all black. And when he moves around the conference, he has two muscly guys, also in black, clearing a path for him so he can type on his phone as he walks.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: Vegas, I'm going to say, is too bit too much for me.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: And if, on the stage, the Trumps talked about how good the crypto romance is for them, what I got from Paolo is a sense of what the romance is doing for a business like his. Paolo told me he had never once been to the US until this past March.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: Actually, this year, in 2025, was the first year I came to the United States.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: And he started big. On March 6, he posted an image from his visit to the White House and another from outside the Capitol.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: We have some good conversations with the Trump administration. I've never met the president himself. We have good conversations with lawmakers on the Senate and the representatives of the House.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: President Trump has been urging Congress to pass a bill lightning fast to bring stablecoin like Tether into the mainstream. And Trump has his own stablecoin, called USD1.

BERNSTEIN: People who study the financial system worry stablecoin could introduce all kinds of risk. And Tether has been used by drug runners and to evade sanctions. The company says it's now working on these issues with US law enforcement.

MARRITZ: So Tether has connections in Washington. Another one is through the company's financial partner, Cantor Fitzgerald. When they first started working together, Cantor's chairman was Howard Lutnick, and he is now Trump's Commerce Secretary. Paolo says he and Howard don't talk anymore.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: There could be a conflict of interest.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: But on stage at the conference, Paolo appeared with another Lutnick.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ARDOINO: I'm joined here by my friend Brandon, the new chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, at 27. Tell us all about that.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Howard's son, Brandon Lutnick, took over for his dad as the bank's chairman.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BRANDON LUTNICK: It's-- it's really a blessing to be here, especially on stage with you, Paolo. You know, you and I have really had a blossoming friendship.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: He's wearing a well-fitted suit and bookish glasses.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

LUTNICK: I owe a lot to you and the whole Tether team, really orange-pilling me.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: So that's the talk that impressed Steven Dalehite. He told me after watching Paolo, he sees how useful stablecoins like Tether can be, both abroad and right here at home.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: That blew my mind, right? And that is all Paolo.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Here's the thing, though. Tether's coins are not dollars. They're not backed by the US government. But with so many friends in high places, you could get that impression.

BERNSTEIN: So many of the people on stage at this conference are big winners under this new crypto regime. Not a lot of people are talking about who loses because they're all here to try to win. But while we were saving our seats for Vice President JD Vance's speech, I met a guy who made it clear for me how completely the odds can be stacked against people who are not on the inside.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Since you're sitting next to me, I'm going to interview you.

WILL: That's my name, yeah.

BERNSTEIN: Yeah, that's OK then.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: His name is Will. His day job is at an investment advisory firm. He didn't want to say his last name because he was worried being connected with Bitcoin could hurt him in his work life. I met a lot of Bitcoiners who felt like this. So Will from Salt Lake City and I got to talking about meme coins. They're collectibles, like baseball cards, but digital.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Did you ever buy a Trump meme coin?

WILL: [LAUGHS] No, I went out to dinner that night. So if I had been in front of my computer, yeah, I may have picked up a little bit. But by the time I got back, it was already worth $20, $30 billion. And no, it'd already had its run.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Took me a second to understand. He was talking about the night Trump announced his meme coin was for sale. It was at the crypto ball, just before Trump became president.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: By the time you got back from dinner that night?

WILL: It was pretty clear that some people were set up to make quite a bit on that. [LAUGHS] It's almost-- most meme coins are actually set up like that. And so the insiders that have the ability to see and pump it themselves, they are going to make the most, which is fine. Whatever.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: If you're selling a stock or a bond regulated by the US government, you can't just secretly tip off your friends. That would be insider trading. But meme coins aren't regulated this way, and the Trump administration has said they won't be.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Do you think there's anything strange or unusual about that he's the regulator and, like, the chief booster and also running his own crypto business?

WILL: Obviously, it's a very gray line, which, obviously, this president has never really shied that far away from gray lines, if not crossing them directly. But it's the saying, it's good to be the king, right?

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Finally, Vice President JD Vance walks up to the lectern.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

[APPLAUSE, CHEERING]

JD VANCE: Thank you. Thank you all. First of all, I want--

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: He talks about how proud he is to be at the conference and says crypto finally has a champion in the White House.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

VANCE: We reject the Biden administration's legacy of death by a thousand enforcement actions.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: And he slams the Biden official who resigned from the SEC before Trump took office. This is the guy who's taken the most punches at this conference.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

VANCE: We reject regulators, and we fired Gary Gensler. And we're going to fire everybody like him.

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: By the end of day two, I was desperate for some perspective from outside the bubble of this conference. So I sat down on the carpeted floor of the rotunda and made a phone call to someone who has definitely not been orange-pilled.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

AMANDA FISCHER: I was Chief of Staff for Gary Gensler, who was the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Her name is Amanda Fischer.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

FISCHER: So I don't speak for Gary, but I can say that he would likely welcome their disapproval because he's proud of the work at the SEC.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Amanda told me one reason crypto was a priority for Gary Gensler and the SEC was because it seems to be causing so many people so many problems. Crypto represents just 2% to 3% of investment assets worldwide, but it was 20% of the complaints they got from investors, she told me.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Why do you think that is, that people are willing to, like, overlook a lot of problems that this industry has had?

FISCHER: I think that there are a lot of people who rightly feel like work doesn't necessarily translate to wealth these days. And there is a ton of marketing around the cryptocurrency industry that promises people that if they're just clever enough, they can be rich.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Amanda told me it gets her down to see regulation and oversight dismantled. The whole point is to protect investors.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

FISCHER: The only solace I take-- and this is not much because I don't want to see people get hurt-- but I do think eventually, this type of manic hype that is unsupported by real value cannot sustain itself. I just hope that the bubble bursts before the collateral damage is too bad.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: The very last afternoon of the conference, I meet up one more time with Steven Dalehite. We get to talking, and then we realize we need to go catch the final speakers.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: No, no. I know, I know, I know.

BERNSTEIN: Are you gonna go?

DALEHITE: Yes, I just want to know what-- yeah, I'm just curious to see.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: For three days, the exposition hall has been so, so loud. But now it's that feeling you get before a big storm comes through, the stillness, when all the air whooshes out. Everyone at the entire conference is packing in to see what's going to happen on the main stage.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: I feel like maybe all the seats are full.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: Steven and I have to sit on the floor by the wall. We're here for the last two big draws.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

MICHAEL SAYLOR: Rockstar ovation, huh?

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: The first is a Bitcoin evangelist named Michael Saylor. His speech is 21 Ways to Wealth. His message? Sell everything you have. Buy Bitcoin.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SAYLOR: You have cash flow, you buy Bitcoin. You have Treasury assets, you buy Bitcoin.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: Sell your stocks, your bonds, your property.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SAYLOR: You have a house that doesn't have a mortgage on it? OK, well, good for you.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: It's been a long three days, but Saylor absolutely captures this crowd.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

SAYLOR: I'm here because of all of you, and I look forward to seeing you next year.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: After it's over, Steven leans to me and says that 21, the number of items on Saylor's list, is a multiple of 7, which is a significant number in the Bible.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: I think people choose those numbers, you know? So people give 7 a special significance, right? So I-- kind of funny. He finished on 21, not on 20, not on 22.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARRITZ: And now, it's time for the final speech of this whole event.

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

MARRITZ: A tall, slender man walks on stage, beaming, blinded by the stage lights. Unable to get a word in, he paces back and forth. He waves to his supporters.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ROSS ULBRICHT: Hey, gang.

[CHEERING, APPLAUSE]

ULBRICHT: So I'm not in a prison cell anymore. [CLEARS THROAT]

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: It's Ross Ulbricht, the man Trump freed from his two life sentences for running a dark web narcotics bazaar, Silk Road.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ULBRICHT: Bitcoin doesn't work without freedom. Bitcoin's power comes from the fact that any one of us can mine if we choose to. Any one of us can send Bitcoins to anyone else. We are all on equal footing with Bitcoin. With Bitcoin, we are all free.

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: What I hear Ross Ulbricht saying to his audience is that his redemption is their redemption. Trump has brought him back to life.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

ULBRICHT: When I didn't know if I would ever get out from behind those thick iron bars, you even got President Trump to see that Bitcoin is the future. Yeah, you did that.

[APPLAUSE]

[END PLAYBACK]

BERNSTEIN: As the speech wraps, applause ricochets through the hall. The exit music swells. And Steven leans over to me again.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

DALEHITE: I would have liked for him to kind of just mention that, you know, what he did was wrong, kind of, you know? But maybe it wasn't the right place to say that. I don't know. I don't want to judge either. So I guess he's home, he's happy. Everybody's happy. And I think hopefully, you know, a second chance is not wasted. And I wish him well, you know? Yeah.

BERNSTEIN: Thank you so much, Steve.

DALEHITE: Oh, anytime.

BERNSTEIN: It was good to meet you.

DALEHITE: Anytime, anytime, anytime, anytime.

[END PLAYBACK]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MARRITZ: The last time I checked in with Steven, he told me he hasn't bought Bitcoin, not yet. It's become a little too expensive. Today's episode was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and fact-checked by Willa Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was engineered by Maggie Luthar. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

BERNSTEIN: Special thanks to Meg Cramer, Amanda Wick, Tanya [? Kasarova, ?] Katherine Sullivan, and Adam Zarazinksi. I'm Andrea Bernstein.

MARRITZ: And I'm Ilya Marritz. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Full article: https://www.npr.org/1254874796

POLITICS | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:52 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Trump's high pressure week

By Tamara Keith

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

For President Trump, it has been - to borrow a phrase - one big, beautiful week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a really big day. We've had a big week. You know, we've had a big week. We've had a lot of victories this week.

SHAPIRO: Those remarks came during a press conference where Trump praised the Supreme Court for a ruling that will make it harder for judges to put sweeping legal blocks on his actions. This caps off a high-stakes week in the Trump presidency where several matters remain unresolved. Here to talk about some of the pressures the president is facing is NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Good to have you in the studio.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good to be here.

SHAPIRO: To start with the ruling today, what did Trump have to say about the Supreme Court decision?

KEITH: Oh, he is very happy about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered a monumental victory for the Constitution, the separation of powers and the rule of law.

KEITH: Really, it is a win for his powers, his executive authority. It makes it much more difficult for opponents to put a quick stop to executive actions that they say are unlawful. President Trump has faced a lot of nationwide injunctions, halting executive actions on everything from ending birthright citizenship to halting refugee resettlement, freezing federal funds, more than two dozen. Now, he says, the way has been cleared for his administration to push ahead. Trump and others in his administration argue that lower court judges have been wrongly blocking the president and therefore the will of the American people. With this decision, the balance of power is now tilted in the president's favor, this one and the next one.

SHAPIRO: And what else is the president putting on his list of wins this week?

KEITH: Well, the strikes over the weekend on Iran's nuclear sites and the ceasefire between Iran and Israel that followed. He is not budging from his early assertion that Iran's nuclear program was totally obliterated. And today, he said he doesn't believe that Iran will go back to trying to build nuclear weapons. That, however, is far from certain. Assessments of what was actually destroyed are still underway.

A more unqualified win is what happened at the NATO summit, which Trump attended in The Hague earlier this week. It has been a big week. Member nations there agreed to spend more money on defense. That's something that Trump has been pushing for for a long time. And all of a sudden, his skepticism about the alliance seemed to just melt away. It also doesn't hurt that at one point the NATO secretary general seemed to awkwardly and perhaps accidentally refer to Trump as daddy.

SHAPIRO: No comment on that.

KEITH: Nope.

SHAPIRO: If the White House is putting those in the win column, what's in the other column?

KEITH: Yeah. This is such a pivotal time. What happens over the next 10 days or so could really define his presidency. First, there's trade. When President Trump punted on his so-called reciprocal tariffs, he set a July 8 deadline to get dozens of trade deals done. So far, just one agreement is signed, sealed and delivered, and many more are in limbo. Today, he angrily announced that he was halting trade negotiations with Canada. Members of his cabinet have said deals with other countries like India, South Korea and Japan were just around the corner for months now.

So as July 8 draws closer, Trump is wavering. You know, this traffic jam of negotiations is a problem that he created. And with the stroke of his pen, he could change it. And this is one of those times where it's really hard to tell whether this is strategic uncertainty or just plain old uncertainty.

SHAPIRO: The July 8 deadline is one thing. There's a July 4 deadline for Congress to pass this bill that's so important to his agenda. What's going on with that?

KEITH: Yeah, there seem to be some speed bumps in the Senate. The latest is that they are set to begin the process of debating the bill tomorrow. Once they get started, that will be a long process, and it's not clear whether it will pass or whether that version can pass the House. Trump wants a bill-signing celebration to coincide with Independence Day, July 4. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said it would be epic. But planning the wedding before the engagement can be dicey.

SHAPIRO: Right.

KEITH: Yeah. And it's hard to say at this moment, whether President Trump will get the party that he wants on the date that he wants. As a reminder, he calls this the One Big, Beautiful Bill because it essentially combines his entire legislative agenda into a single bill. So Trump has a lot riding on this legislation, not just tax cuts - like no taxes on tips - but also funding for immigration enforcement that he needs to keep his pledge of mass deportations. He was supposed to travel to his golf club in New Jersey this weekend. Instead, he is staying in D.C. to monitor the action on Capitol Hill and likely twist some arms.

SHAPIRO: NPR's Tamara Keith. Good to have you here. Thanks.

KEITH: You're welcome.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448668

POLITICS | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:03 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

USNS Harvey Milk renamed amid Trump administration efforts to cut DEI

By Alana Wise

The Pentagon has officially stripped the late gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk's name from a U.S. naval vessel, amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to erase what it describes as "woke" ideology from the public.

The former USNS Harvey Milk is now called the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced in a video posted online Friday.

"We are taking the politics out of ship naming," Hegseth said. "We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration."

The ship is part of the John Lewis-class oilers, named after the famed civil rights activist and longtime congressman.

In 2016, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said ships in this class would be named after leaders in civil rights activism. That included paying homage to Milk, who was a Navy veteran and became the first openly gay person to serve in California politics when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Milk was assassinated by a former board colleague in 1978, leaving behind a legacy of advocacy for gay rights.

The ship's new namesake, Oscar V. Peterson, was a naval officer who was killed in World War II and posthumously granted a Medal of Honor by Congress for bravery during the war.

"People want to be proud of the ship they're sailing in," Hegseth said in the video announcement. "And so we're naming it after a chief, a Navy chief."

Under Hegseth's guidance, the Navy is reviewing the names of several other ships named after women, Black and Hispanic people.

Other Navy vessels under review include those named after Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Lucy Stone and Medgar Evers.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449053

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FOOD | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 12:45 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

J.M. Smucker plans to remove artificial colors from its jams and other products

By The Associated Press

J.M. Smucker Co. plans to remove artificial colors from its products by the end of 2027.

Orrville, Ohio-based Smucker said Thursday it will also remove synthetic dyes from foods sold to K-12 schools by the 2026-2027 school year.

Smucker said the majority of its products — including its Uncrustables sandwiches — are already free of synthetic dyes. But some products still have them, including sugar-free jams and ice cream toppings.

Smucker said some products from Hostess, which it acquired in 2023, also contain artificial colors. Twinkies are made with Red 40 and Yellow 5, for example, while Snoballs snack cakes are made with Red 40 Lake, a dye combined with aluminum to keep it from dissolving in water.

Smucker joins a growing number of big food companies that have announced plans to eliminate artificial dyes. Earlier this week, Nestle and Conagra Brands — the parent company of Duncan Hines — both said they would phase out synthetic dyes. Kraft Heinz and General Mills made similar pledges last week.

The federal government has stepped up its scrutiny of artificial colors in recent months. In January, days before President Donald Trump took office, the U.S. regulators banned the dye called Red 3 from the nation's food supply, nearly 35 years after it was barred from cosmetics because of potential cancer risk.

In April, Trump's Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency would take steps to eliminate synthetic dyes by the end of 2026, largely by relying on voluntary efforts from the food industry.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449648

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GOATS AND SODA | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 7:01 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Hard to imagine a worse time to deport Afghan refugees, human rights advocates say

By Ruchi Kumar

"We see families arriving with barely anything — often just the clothes on their backs," said Najib Ghiasi.

He's on the staff of the Afghan charity Aseel, and he's speaking about Afghan refugees in Pakistan who lived there for years, even decades — and are now being removed from their homes by police and sent back to the border.

Ghiasi told NPR that a refugee named Mausera spoke to one of his colleagues at Aseel and shared video of the interview. She told Aseel that interviewer that she had lived with her two grandchildren and worked as a cleaner in Pakistan to support them and that – her son had been was killed years ago and her husband abandoned her long before.

She told the interviewer that her family was left with nothing "No food, no clothes, not even our household items. We lost everything," she tells the interviewer from Aseel. The interview took place at the Torkham border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she and her grandchildren now live in a makeshift tent.

Deportations are occurring from Iran as well. The two countries had been home to 3.5 million Afghan refugees. There have been waves of returnees over the last few years, said Sherine Ibrahim, the Afghanistan country director for the International Rescue Committee. But this year, Iran and Pakistan have stepped up the deportations.

A U.N. report released on Thursday says that 71,000 Afghan refugees from the two countries were deported just from June 1 to June 15, adding to millions who have been deported or left since 2023. Ghiasi says he and his colleagues spent much of early June at the Torkham crossing and counted some 5,000 families arriving every day.

This past week has also seen the largest number of returnees in a single day — 30,607, according to Ibrahim.

In videos shared by Aseel, the border crossing is a sea of humanity: Men, women and children packed into trucks, vans and small cars. Some of the women were clutching newborn babies. People sat atop piles of meager belongings, some of which are bundled in bedsheets.

Ghiasi said the forced deportations are hardest on children, who "understand that something terrible is happening, but they don't fully grasp why they are being removed from the only homes they've ever known." And perhaps the only homes their parents have ever known, he said. "Most of the deportees have lived in Pakistan for over three decades. A large majority of them have nowhere to go and no place to call home upon return."

Similar scenes are unfolding at the western borders that Afghanistan shares with Iran. Social media has featured images of men walking with bags of their belongings — everyday items like blankets and kitchenware.

The reasons for the waves of deportations aren't fully clear. Representatives of the two country governments did not respond to an NPR request for comments.

One explanation is that the governments want to remove those immigrants who do not have proper documentation.

On June 7, Fatemeh Mohajerani, an Iranian government spokesperson, told local media: "The government differentiates between legal and illegal residents. The decision is that those with valid legal documents will be allowed to stay in accordance with the law, while those without legal documents may leave."

The deportations reflect a growing anti-immigrant sentiment worldwide, says Teresa Casale, executive director of Mina's List, a human rights organization working on resettlement and advocacy for Afghan women refugees. And the U.S. crackdown on immigrants under Trump makes it more difficult if not impossible for Afghan refugees in other countries to resettle in the United States.

And the Afghan refugees in Pakistan have no real rights to protect them. "It's so unfortunate that Pakistan is not a signatory to any kind of international refugee protocols or conventions, so obtaining legal status for refugees there is virtually impossible," Casale added.

"In the worst-case scenario, more than three million people could be forced to return to Afghanistan by the end of 2025," said Jacopo Caridi, country director of Norwegian Refugee Council in Afghanistan.

A bad time to go back

One thing is clear to advocates: The timing couldn't be worse.

Afghans are returning to a country suffering a humanitarian crisis, which has grown more dire since the Taliban seized power more than three years ago.

"Afghanistan is a humanitarian crisis unto itself," says Ibrahim of the IRC. "There are 23 million people in need."

Millions of Afghans are unable to purchase food and rely on charity to get by. But aid groups, including the U.N.'s World Food Programme, scaled down their activities after the Trump administration initially pulled back most aid that it had designated for Afghanistan, including for food and basic medical care. Aid from the U.S. amounted to just over 40% of all funding that reached Afghanistan.

In February and March, other major aid donors, including the U.K., also announced they were curtailing their foreign aid budgets, forcing charities to curtail their activities in Afghanistan, which is among the world's most reliant countries on international donors. This year, foreign donors have only pledged 20% of what humanitarian groups say they need to offer basic services to Afghanistan, according to Caridi.

Then in early April, all U.S. humanitarian aid to Afghanistan was eliminated. The canceled contracts totaled $280 million with the World Food Programme, $24 million with the United Nations Population Fund and $257 million with other nongovernmental organizations.

What returnees face

Needs will not be met, says Ibrahim: "The surge of numbers means that very few people are going to be getting the immediate support that they need."

Many of the returnees are women on their own. She says: "I've met women who've said to me, I've been separated from my family. I have nowhere to go. I can't walk around Afghanistan or travel to a community of origin because I don't have a mahram, which is the male companion — a blood relative who is a male."

As families return to Afghanistan, aid workers say they expect to see a rise in child labor. Many of the deported families are headed by women — the Taliban does not allow them to work in most professions so "families rely on children to earn a living," said Safi Nurzai, who also works at the Afghan aid group Aseel.

If the female heads of family can't work, Nurzai said, the children will try and earn money by cleaning cars on the streets or selling tissue paper and pens. Nurzai adds that the kids are "often pushed into begging for survival."

Ruchi Kumar is a journalist who reports on conflict, politics, development and culture in India and Afghanistan. She tweets at @RuchiKumar

Full article: https://www.npr.org/g-s1-74742

SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 7:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

'Where's our money?' CDC grant funding is moving so slowly layoffs are happening

By Selena Simmons-Duffin

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

Health departments around the country have noticed there's something strange happening with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: It's not showing up on schedule and there's been no communication about why.

The federal public health agency doles out most of the money it receives from Congress to state and local health departments, which then contract with local organizations. That's how public health work gets funded in the U.S.

According to two CDC staff members with knowledge of the agency's budget, the CDC has yet to receive its full funding for the 2025 fiscal year. NPR agreed not to name the staff members because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Both CDC staffers say the funding is now months late, and it will soon be too late to disperse the agency's grants that local health departments are waiting on. In the interim, the CDC has been operating with just 30-days of funding at a time. The staffers say this amounts to impounding the agency's funding. One of them called it "rescission by inertia."

The Department of Health and Human Services did not answer NPR's questions for this story or respond to a request for comment on that characterization.

A big change from the usual process

"Most state health departments get most of their funding from the feds — in Alabama's case, we get more than two thirds of our funding from federal grants, predominantly CDC," says Dr. Scott Harris, who runs Alabama's health department and is the president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. "Less than 10% of our money comes from state dollars."

"Nothing really can happen if we don't know that we're going to get the money — if there's no notice of award," Harris explains.

This year, the CDC's notices of award are just not arriving on schedule. "For example, one of our cardiovascular grants expires at the end of this month," he says "We don't have any notice of award, so it's really risky for us to incur a bunch of costs over the next several weeks doing work in this program, not knowing if we have the ability to get reimbursed."

Harris says he's heard from state health departments across the country who are in the same situation with CDC funding being mysteriously delayed.

Grants related to HIV prevention work in many states expired at the end of May with no information about future funding. In Ohio, that meant the state's HIV hotline and the delivery of free test-at-home-kits were abruptly halted. The San Antonio AIDS Foundation had to pause its testing services. And in Charlotte, North Carolina, the funding delays led to job losses at the local health department, explains Mecklenburg County Health Commissioner Raynard Washington.

"The majority of those six people that we sent home at the beginning of June were disease investigation specialist staff — contact tracers for HIV, syphilis and other STIs," Washington says, referring to sexually transmitted infections.

"The result on the ground is that our other staff that we have that do that work have to take on more workload, and then very often we end up getting behind," he says. Getting behind could mean that people who have potentially been exposed to something don't know it, he adds. "The ultimate risk is that they are also then exposing other people and then the chain just continues from there to grow."

Funding for more grants will expire soon, says Dr. Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services in Texas. Huang says the state health department just warned them that if they don't receive notices of award for some immunization and emergency preparedness grants they would have to pause the activities funded by those grants.

"[That] is extremely distressing to us because we have like 60 staff on those grants and significant funding that are affected," he says.

Washington adds that North Carolina has not received a new notice of award for the breast and cervical cancer screening program either.

The CDC is operating with an "eyedropper" monthly budget

In March, President Trump signed a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2025, which included $9 billion for the CDC.

"Once [a budget] is passed and signed by the president, there is always a lag," explained one of the CDC staff members who spoke to NPR who is a senior leader at the agency. There's an "apportionment" process to give each agency its money, which usually takes between 45 and 60 days.

During this period, to be able to make payroll and keep up with regular bills, the CDC is given money in 30-day increments.

This year? "Forty-five days came and went. Sixty days came and went, more and more time came and went — no word, no information," the CDC senior leader explains. "We keep asking — where's our money? Where's the money that's been approved by Congress?"

Without a pot of money to distribute out to various centers and divisions, the CDC can't send out the notice of awards that state and local health departments need to be able to continue their work and know they will be reimbursed for it.

Month after month of funding in 30-day increments is like receiving money "with an eyedropper," the senior leader adds.

HHS did not answer NPR's questions about the reasons for these funding delays at the CDC by publication time.

The staffers at the CDC say they are running out of time to be able to spend the agency's 2025 funds before the end of the fiscal year in September because of all the steps involved in getting funding out the door.

"The money just doesn't flow from one account or the other — people have to actually do the manual work of connecting the funds that are provided to the actual accounts at the appropriate levels," the other CDC staffer explains.

"If they can delay until the end of September, then that's it," the staffer adds. "Those projects are not going to happen. That money goes straight back to Treasury."

That's why both CDC staffers who spoke with NPR say this amounts to impounding the agency's funding.

"At this point, it is absolutely our assumption that it is being done intentionally to grind us to a halt," the senior leader says.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment on that characterization.

HIV funds showed up late, but uncertainty remains

This week, state health departments received word that the End the HIV Epidemic grants that expired at the end of May were finally being awarded.

There was no explanation for the delay, says Washington, the health commissioner in Charlotte, N.C.

"Now I have to go figure out if the staff that we laid off are willing to come back to work," he says. "If they're not willing, then we have to start hiring, have to train — we've lost months of work because of administrative delays."

And the delays continue, he says. There's been no communication about what might happen with the many grants that expire on Monday, as June ends. "Throughout this experience, we've just been told, 'We don't have any answers,'" he says. "That's the hard part when you're trying to plan."

Harris of Alabama agrees. "We have to get paid to do these things, whether it's tobacco prevention or diabetes work or public health preparedness or whatever it is," he says. "We can't really do it without the funding."

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Most of the money Congress designates for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gets sent out to state health departments. States then fund county, cities and community groups so public health works across the country is paid for. But this year, health departments say CDC funding is not showing up on schedule. In this exclusive report, NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin digs into why the money may be delayed.

SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Public health leaders are worried. Next week, lots of CDC grants expire.

SCOTT HARRIS: For example, one of our cardiovascular grants expires at the end of this month.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: That's Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama's state health officer and president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Normally, he says, they would have received what's called a notice of award from CDC, assurance that the funding was coming. But that hasn't happened, and the clock is ticking.

HARRIS: So it's really risky for us to incur a bunch of costs over the next several weeks doing work in this program not knowing if we have the ability to get reimbursed.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: The same thing is happening with grants for immunization, cancer screening, emergency preparedness and more, and it's happening all over the country in Texas, Ohio and North Carolina. The mysterious delays have already led to some job losses. In Charlotte, North Carolina, six local health department staff members were laid off, says Mecklenburg County Health Commissioner Raynard Washington.

RAYNARD WASHINGTON: The majority of those six people that we sent home at the beginning of June were disease investigation specialist staff - contact tracers for HIV, syphilis and other STIs.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: Without those staff, the other contact tracers have more work. If they get behind, they might not be able to reach people who have been potentially exposed.

WASHINGTON: And then, of course, the ultimate risk is they are also within exposing other people, and then the chain just continues from there to grow.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: So what's happening at CDC that's causing all these delays? According to two CDC staff members with knowledge of the agency's budget, CDC has yet to receive its full funding for this fiscal year. NPR agreed not to name the staff members because they were not authorized to speak with the media. President Trump signed the budget for this year in March. There's always a few weeks delay after that while the money gets apportioned out. While that happens, an agency gets 30 days of funding at a time to pay bills and make payroll. That stopgap system is still how CDC is getting funded, months later than usual. One CDC senior official says, it's like receiving money, quote, "with an eyedropper."

Without the big pot of money Congress set aside for CDC, the agency can't send out the notice of awards that state and local health departments have been waiting on. The senior CDC official told NPR, quote, "we keep asking, where's our money? Where's the money that's been approved by Congress," unquote. But they have received no explanation. Raynard Washington in Mecklenburg County is in the same situation. None of his contacts at the Federal Department of Health and Human Services or elected officials have been able to explain what's going on.

WASHINGTON: Throughout this experience, we've just been told, we don't have any answers. So (laughter) that's the hard part when you're trying to plan.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: HHS did not answer NPR's questions about the reasons for these funding delays at CDC. The agency staff here say they're running out of time to be able to spend the agency's 2025 funds before the end of the fiscal year in September because of all the steps involved in getting funding out the door. They say this amounts to a backdoor rescission of the agency's funding. HHS did not respond to a request for comment on that characterization. All state and local health departments know is that the usual process for funding their work has been upended. This week, state health departments received word that the HIV prevention grants that had expired at the end of May were finally coming without any explanation for the delay. Here's Raynard Washington in Charlotte again.

WASHINGTON: And now I have to go figure out if the staff that we laid off are willing to come back to work. If they're not willing, then we have to start hiring, have to train over, and we've lost months of work because of administrative delays.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: There's also been no communication about what might happen with all the other grants that are set to expire at the end of June. Harris, the state health officer in Alabama, says two-thirds of his state's public health funding comes from the federal government.

HARRIS: We have to get paid to do these things, whether it's tobacco prevention or whether it's diabetes work or public health preparedness or whatever it is.

SIMMONS-DUFFIN: He says none of that work can happen without the funding from CDC that Congress has already approved getting sent out to the front lines of public health.

Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5442689

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HEALTH | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 6:27 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

People say they've faced withdrawals from SSRIs. They want recognition and research

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

A growing number of people say antidepressants have left them with debilitating symptoms years, even decades after going off the medications. Increasingly, these people are gathering online and pushing for recognition and research. Emily Corwin with APM Reports has the story.

EMILY CORWIN: It was 2013 when Phillipa Munari decided to go off her antidepressant Effexor, which she'd started 10 years earlier. Her doctor oversaw the process of quitting, which took a few weeks. And at first, it was fine.

PHILLIPA MUNARI: And about six to nine months later, I started feeling horrible. I had nerve pain. My neck and shoulders were sore all the time. My anxiety was through the roof.

CORWIN: All of this was new. Munari says she found it difficult just to stand up. To get disability, a doctor told her to go back on the Effexor, which she later weaned off of more slowly. The nerve pain and exhaustion got better, but she says the debilitating anxiety, it got worse.

MUNARI: It took over two years for my brain to calm down enough that I'm not panicking 24/7.

CORWIN: Munari is one of the tens of thousands of people who have turned to online forums while dealing with long-term consequences from antidepressants. Many say their doctors didn't warn them this could happen and didn't believe them when it did. But increasingly, these symptoms are gaining recognition by academic psychiatrists like Nassir Ghaemi at Tufts University.

NASSIR GHAEMI: I think it's important to understand that severe serotonin withdrawal syndrome does happen with these drugs.

CORWIN: Serotonin withdrawal syndrome - that's what Ghaemi calls the array of problems that can occur after stopping antidepressants. Researchers have been documenting cases for decades, but virtually no large-scale studies on these conditions exist. Because of that, experts still disagree on what to call them, how to prevent them and how common they are.

GHAEMI: I was just going over this with a colleague recently to potentially try to do a research study on it because we don't know.

CORWIN: Ghaemi believes long-term effects like Munari's are probably quite rare. But he says severe short-term withdrawal is far more common. What we do know is the longer you take the drugs, the more likely it is you'll have problems going off them. Ghaemi says treating depression is important.

GHAEMI: The solution is not for everyone to never take them, but maybe not to be on them for 10, 15, 20, 30 years.

CORWIN: To be clear, doctors say don't stop antidepressants cold turkey. It's important to go slow. Sven Huber in western Germany spent 13 years on antidepressants. He says he developed genital numbness one day after he took his first Lexapro pill.

SVEN HUBER: And I also developed extreme emotional numbness.

CORWIN: Huber says the medication did help his mood, but the side effects were too much, so he weaned himself off the drug. He took his last pill a year and a half ago. But the sexual dysfunction and emotional numbness, they haven't gone away.

HUBER: I can't relate to any family members or friends. Before I took it, I had feelings, bad feelings often, but I felt something. And now I do not feel anything at all.

CORWIN: Huber says his doctor told him this was all in his head. But on the internet, he found forums full of people with similar stories. And these online networks are growing. Take the subreddit for people with Huber's condition - post-SSRI sexual dysfunction or PSSD. Five years ago, this Reddit thread had just 1,000 members. Today, 17,000 people subscribe. Nick Alves does outreach for the nonprofit PSSD Network. He says patient advocacy groups like his are starting to get attention, most importantly from institutions.

NICK ALVES: We just got, like, our first ever grants, for example. Like, that's historic in this. That's huge.

CORWIN: These are small research grants funded by the Canadian government. On top of that, Dr. Alan Schatzberg with the influential American Psychiatric Association just told me it has begun looking into the issue. The reason he gave? Because a bunch of people who are suffering spoke up.

For NPR News, I'm Emily Corwin.

SHAPIRO: And that story came from APM Reports.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445196

MEDIA | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 11:56 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Remembering war correspondent Rod Nordland

By Terry Gross

Heard on Fresh Air

After surviving many close calls as a war correspondent, Norland was diagnosed with a lethal brain tumor in 2019. He died June 22. In this 2024 interview, he reflected on facing mortality.

Transcript

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. If there was ever a life designed to teach one how to face death, mine was it. Rod Nordland wrote that while facing death from a glioblastoma - a lethal brain tumor. Life expectancy is between one and 1 1/2 years, but with experimental treatments, he survived for six more years. He died last week at age 75. Nordland was used to facing mortality from decades as a war correspondent for The New York Times, Newsweek and The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1979, Nordland was part of the reporting team that covered the Three Mile Island accident, including visiting the site of contamination - a risk he was willing to take. That coverage won a Pulitzer Prize for the Inquirer. While there were wars and conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Congo, Cambodia - he was there.

Nordland wrote about his life as a war correspondent, and as a patient, and how both extremes affected his relationships and family life. His 2024 memoir, "Waiting For The Monsoon," is a reference to his first seizure while he was in India, filling in for the New Delhi bureau chief of The New York Times. That seizure led to his diagnosis in 2019. A recent review of "Waiting For The Monsoon" in The Guardian said, quote, "this is a gripping memoir of a consummate foreign reporter and an inspiring journal of self-discovery when the cold breath of mortality is on the neck," unquote. We're going to listen back to Terry's interview with Nordland from last year when his memoir was first published.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS: Rod Nordland, welcome to FRESH AIR. We spoke years ago. Welcome back.

ROD NORDLAND: Yeah. Thank you, Terry.

GROSS: The neurologist who is your brain surgeon told you that this tumor would kill you and that you needed to come to terms with that and that you needed to be honest with your loved ones about it. You were reasonably confident that you'd be among the 6% of people who survive more than five years. Why were you so optimistic, and are you still? I mean, I tend to see worst-case scenarios, so I'd love to hear how you managed to see best-case scenario.

NORDLAND: Well, I've always been an optimist and, you know, a very upbeat person. So I think that has been maybe - and doctors have even said it to me - it's my greatest strength in fighting this disease. There have been studies done of terminal patients with terminal diseases in which they asked the people if they thought they would survive. And those that said they thought they would survive - even though they had a diagnosis that medically had doomed them - had better outcomes than people that just said, oh, well, and sat back and let it do its thing. So that gives me a lot of hope.

GROSS: You were confident in war zones that you aren't going to get killed, even though you knew fellow journalists who'd been killed. You had some very bad close calls with death yourself. So what made you think that you were going to survive? I never understand this about war correspondents, that - I think you have to believe that you're being careful enough that you can survive, but it's a war and anything can happen. So what made you confident that you would survive some of the evidence to the contrary?

NORDLAND: Because I am the most careful person around. And no matter what conflict I was covering, I was always very conscious of putting, you know, the safety of myself and the people that worked with me, putting that first. I like to say that I preach the virtues of cowardice when covering wars. I never go to the front line. I think the front line in a conflict where there's a lot of explosions and high-speed projectiles flying around, I think that's a very dangerous place, and you have to be either an idiot or completely deluded to go there. Much more productive is to go, say, to the headquarters or to the nearest hospital and talk to witness and survivors. And I've always made that my mantra, kind of.

GROSS: You faced down death several times in war zones. Tell us about one of the close calls - and I know you have several to choose from.

NORDLAND: You know, when I began working as a war correspondent, I was still 20-something and still, in many ways, an adolescent. And I think, like a lot of young people, I really didn't believe in my own mortality. And I think that's true of a lot of people who do that kind of work, 'cause otherwise, who would do it? I mean, who would jump out of an airplane (laughter) into a parachute if they didn't have some belief in their own immortality?

So I lost that arrogance very profoundly when I was on a front line, against my own rules, in Cambodia on the outskirts of a refugee camp, where there was a nasty little internecine war going on between factions that ran the camp and that lived off of the proceeds of the food and supplies they could steal. So those creeps were, you know, in constant conflict with themselves. And I found myself on the front line with a couple of them. I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one of these militiamen, and there were bullets whizzing over our heads. That expression, by the way, is quite accurate. That's what it sounds like, something whizzing over your head. And we just stood there like idiots. And one of those bullets hit the guy next to me and blew his brains out, quite literally. His comrades then - you know, I had a rental car, and they ordered me to put him in the car and take him to the hospital. I mean, he was clearly brain dead. He was convulsing and bleeding kind of all over the Avis upholstery.

GROSS: Avis Rent a Car?

NORDLAND: Yeah. As we used to say, what's the best all-terrain vehicle to use in a war zone? Answer - a rental car (laughter).

GROSS: Right. OK. So you just told us about when you were a young war correspondent, and the person next to you had his brains blown out, and then you were forced to take him to a hospital, even though you were sure he was dead. And I think there was a gun to your head while you were doing this. And you certainly continued to be a war correspondent for many years after that. That was an early warning that, you know, you would be surrounded by the threat of death. Why did you keep doing it? Why did you keep staying in war zones...

NORDLAND: Well...

GROSS: ...After that?

NORDLAND: ...I started doing it really differently. That taught me that I was, in fact, mortal, which is an important lesson that all young men should learn as soon as possible. After that, I never went to front lines anymore, especially with irregulars. And I stayed as far away from them as I could.

GROSS: There were other times when you faced the possibility of death. You were in a Holiday Inn in Sarajevo during the conflict there, and you were staying on what was called Sniper's Row in the Holiday Inn 'cause there was so much sniper fire there, firing at everybody. And you were told - you had someone bang on your door and say, get out of the room and into the hallway right now because they're coming down the street with mortars. And sure enough, as soon as you got into the hallway, your room was mortared, and you probably would have died there. Your bed was basically exploded when you got back in.

NORDLAND: Yeah. The whole room was rubble and shards of shells. Yeah. That was another warning.

GROSS: And another time was when you were scheduled to be executed with several other journalists the next day, and a delegation from the International Red Cross happened to come by and rescue you. So, I mean, you had a lot of brushes with death. What are some of the differences in terms of your emotional state and your understanding of death between facing the possibility of it, doing your job in war zones as a correspondent - as a foreign correspondent - and facing it because of your brain cancer?

NORDLAND: Well, there are a lot of similarities. One of the most important things I learned as a war correspondent was that the first thing you had to be sure to do was to stay calm and not lose control of your emotions and just stay calm, no matter what. And I think that's been a really good lesson for dealing with cancer, too.

BIANCULLI: Rod Nordland speaking with Terry Gross in 2024. He died last week at age 75. Nordland's memoir, "Waiting For The Monsoon," is about facing mortality both as a war correspondent and as a cancer patient. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2024 interview with Rod Nordland. He died last week at age 75. He covered four decades of wars for The New York Times, Newsweek and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Now that you've faced mortality as a war correspondent and as somebody, you know, battling brain cancer, a very deadly form, has your acceptance of mortality changed? Like, when you were in conflict zones, did you accept the fact that you - you thought you wouldn't die, you thought you wouldn't be killed, but did you accept the fact that you might be? Did you reconcile with the possibility of death? And now, as a cancer patient, even though you've survived longer than the odds would have given you, this is a deadly form of cancer. And even if you go into a remission, it's likely to come back. So what's your level of acceptance of mortality now? And again, how does that compare to what it was in war zones?

NORDLAND: Well, I think in war zones, it was much more of a coin toss. And I think I became very good at playing the odds and weighing the risks and moderating them by, you know, the way I approached my work. But with glioblastoma, there's no coin toss. You know, it's incurable. It's terminal. And it can be treated, but it can't be cured. And I've had some good treatment, but the treatment's also been sometimes really difficult and devastating. So, I mean, I had to face reality - that my death was, within a fairly short time span, highly probable. That had never been the case before. And I think it made me a better person for that.

GROSS: In what way?

NORDLAND: Well, because it made me look back on my life and things that had happened in my life and think about what was most important. And it also made me want to - instead of being angry at my kids for siding with their mother against me in our divorce, instead of being angry at them, I was accepting and just - you know, they also came to my bedside, and I felt a lot of love from them, which was very heartening.

GROSS: When you're a journalist, you have license to ask anything that you wouldn't normally ask people. And the way you describe it, that's also true for you with the brain cancer, because you feel like having a terminal illness allows you to ask things that you normally wouldn't ask about the meaning of life or about death. Do you see a similarity between those two licenses, as a journalist and as somebody with a terminal illness?

NORDLAND: Yeah, and I played that for all it was worth. I asked everybody I met what the meaning of life was. I even asked Alexa...

GROSS: (Laughter).

NORDLAND: ...Who had a pathetic...

GROSS: I'm sure she had the best answer.

NORDLAND: ...Answer.

GROSS: What was the answer?

NORDLAND: The answer was, to quote Eleanor Roosevelt, that the purpose of life is to live life to the fullest and to enjoy everything about it. That's somewhat of a lame answer. But at one time, I asked that question of a nurse, and she turned it around on me and said, what do you think the meaning of life is? So I said, well, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to punt on that. But I think the meaning of life is, as Raymond Carver said, to feel yourself beloved on this Earth. And that was my answer then, and it's my answer in the book, too.

GROSS: You met your partner, your current partner, in 2016. She's a poet and a human rights activist. You had planned a life together. And then, you know, about three years after you became a couple, your relationship was tested because of the brain cancer diagnosis. You know, it's - and it's a form of brain cancer that's lethal. And she has been with you the whole time, overseeing your health care, making all the arrangements that need to be made when someone is seriously ill. You had planned...

NORDLAND: She's been amazing, yeah.

GROSS: She sounds amazing in the memoir, I have to say. And you were so upbeat about what you expected your outcome to be. You expected to be one of the survivors, one of the small percentage of survivors. But you were given the advice to grieve, for you and Leila to grieve. Not necessarily to grieve for imminent death, but to grieve for the kind of life you had planned that you could no longer have because what you can do now has been compromised - places you can go to or travel to. So tell me about what it means to have grieved for the life that you could no longer have and to do that together.

NORDLAND: I think it made us even closer than we were already.

GROSS: Was there a process? Were there things that you talked about that were helpful?

NORDLAND: Yeah. I think there's things we decided to do together. There are books that we read that were - we both found very moving, books on dying and death and on facing death, especially a book called "The Five Invitations" by an American Buddhist monk, Frank Ostaseski, whose name I usually mangle. He ran a hospice, a Zen Buddhist hospice in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The hospice was for people dying of HIV and for homeless people, people who had no one to care for them or be with them. And he writes so movingly about how these people faced the awful ordeal of dying. And it's really inspiring. We recommend it to anybody who's got a friend with a serious illness. It really changed our lives. We read the book out loud to each other and - for days on end sometimes.

GROSS: How are you mentally preparing yourself for death? Because you know that this is a terminal illness, and you never go into total remission. This is a cancer that recurs even if you're in remission. So far, you've really beat the odds. But you know, somewhere along the line, it's inevitable. I mean, it's inevitable one way or another, but it's inevitable sooner. There's more of a deadline. So how are you mentally preparing yourself for that?

NORDLAND: I think, you know, by repairing my relationships more than anything else and working hard on those, both my relationships with my friends and with my family, and especially with my partner.

GROSS: Well, Rod Nordland, thank you so much for talking with us. And, you know, I wish you more life.

NORDLAND: Thanks. I plan to have some.

BIANCULLI: War correspondent Rod Nordland, who covered four decades of war for The New York Times, Newsweek and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He spoke with Terry after the publication of his 2024 memoir, "Waiting For The Monsoon." He died last week at age 75. After a break, we'll listen to Terry's 1993 interview with legendary guitarist Buddy Guy, who has a cameo in "Sinners," now streaming on various platforms. And I'll review the latest season of "The Bear," now streaming on Hulu. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY ENSEMBLE'S "PULSE")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5446132

LAW | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 10:48 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Supreme Court upholds key Obamacare measure on preventive care

By Nina Totenberg, Anuli Ononye

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, ensuring, at least for now, that some 150 million people will continue getting many free, preventive services under the act.

The vote was 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joining the court's three liberal justices in the majority.

Siding with the government on Friday, the court upheld the Affordable Care Act, allowing the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to continue determining which services will be available free of cost to Americans covered by the Affordable Care Act.

At issue in the case was a lawsuit that sought to undo the preventive care provision by challenging the appointment process for members of a 16-person task force that determines which preventive services are to be provided for free under insurance policies. Two lower courts found that the appointments were unconstitutional, but on Friday, the Supreme Court disagreed.

More Supreme Court decisions from today:

More Supreme Court decisions today:

- Supreme Court limits nationwide injunctions in birthright citizenship order

- SCOTUS: Parents can opt kids out of classes with LGBTQ book characters

- Supreme Court sides with Texas' age verification law for porn sites

- Supreme Court postpones Louisiana redistricting case to next term

- Supreme Court upholds program providing internet access to rural Americans

Writing for the court majority, Justice Kavanaugh said the Department of Health and Human Services has the power to appoint members of the task force.

"Task Force members are supervised and directed by the Secretary, who in turn answers to the President, preserving the chain of command in Article II," Kavanaugh wrote.

The ACA's preventive treatments have benefited millions of people since the health care law went into effect 11 years ago — a sufficiently long time for most people to take the free coverage for granted. Activists argued that if the court ruled for the groups challenging the law, the benefits could disappear.

Friday's case arose when the preventive care task force classified pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs as essential to preventing HIV. Preventive PrEP coverage under the ACA includes not only HIV testing and medication, but also clinic visits and lab testing without added cost-sharing. Without ACA coverage, PrEP care would be astronomically expensive for most Americans.

The suit was brought by individuals and businesses with religious objections to the PrEP mandate—they claimed that providing PrEP coverage encourages "sexual behaviors and drug use" antithetical to their Christian beliefs.

Braidwood Management, the case's named plaintiff, is led by Republican mega donor Steven Hotze who has referred to members of the LGBTQ+ community at different times as "morally degenerate," "satanic," and "termites." Hotze, has challenged the ACA in at least two other federal lawsuits.

The court's decision on preventive care likely will protect other existing preventive services under ACA, including treatment for blood pressure screenings, as well as birth control, breast and lung cancer screenings, immunizations, and more.

Prior to the court's decision on Friday, proponents of the ACA's existing preventive coverage had worried that without it, the financial burden of out-of-pocket expenses for these services would have discouraged people from getting care to prevent or detect disease at an early and treatable stage.

"I cannot think of another health policy that impacts more Americans than the preventive services provision," said Dr. Mark Fendrick, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Michigan.

Two lower courts in Texas found that the government violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution because its task force members were appointed not by the president, but by the secretary of Health & Human Services.

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed, declaring that the task force was not composed of principal officers who must be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Rather, the court said, the advisory panel is composed of "inferior officers," who may be appointed by a department head if that power is designated by Congress. Moreover, as the government pointed out in its briefs, the task force members are directly supervised by the HHS secretary, and members can be terminated at will.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5430393

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POLICY-ISH | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 5:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

U.S. uninsured rates could resurge if Trump's budget bill passes

By Renuka Rayasam, Sam Whitehead

CLARKESVILLE, Ga. — Last September, Alton Fry went to the doctor concerned he had high blood pressure. The trip would result in a prostate cancer diagnosis.

So began the stress of trying to pay for tens of thousands of dollars in treatment — without health insurance.

"I've never been sick in my life, so I've never needed insurance before," said Fry, a 54-year-old self-employed masonry contractor who restores old buildings in the rural Appalachian community he's called home nearly all his life.

Making sure he had insurance was the last thing on his mind, until recently, Fry said. He had been rebuilding his life after a prison stay, maintaining his sobriety, restarting his business, and remarrying his wife. "Things got busy," he said.

Now, with a household income of about $48,000, Fry and his wife earn too much to qualify for Georgia's limited Medicaid expansion. And he said he found that the health plans sold on the state's Affordable Care Act exchange were too expensive or the coverage too limited.

In late April, a friend launched a crowdfunding campaign to help Fry cover some of the costs. To save money, Fry said, he's taking a less aggressive treatment route than his doctor recommended.

"There is no help for middle-class America," he said.

More than 26 million Americans lacked health insurance in the first six months of 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The uninsured are mostly low-income adults under age 65, and people of color, and most live in the South and West. The uninsured rate in the 10 states that, like Georgia, have not expanded Medicaid to nearly all low-income adults was 14.1% in 2023, compared with 7.6% in expansion states, according to KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

Health policy researchers expect the number of uninsured to swell as the second Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Congress try to enact policies that explicitly roll back health coverage for the first time since the advent of the modern U.S. health system in the early 20th century.

Under the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" — budget legislation that would achieve some of President Donald Trump's priorities, such as extending tax cuts mainly benefiting the wealthy — some 10.9 million Americans would lose health insurance by 2034, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office based on a House version of the budget bill.

A Senate version of the bill could result in more people losing Medicaid coverage with reductions in federal spending and rules that would make it harder for people to qualify. That bill suffered a major blow Thursday when the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official who enforces the chamber's rules, rejected several health provisions — including the proposal to gradually reduce provider taxes, a mechanism that nearly every state uses to increase its federal Medicaid funding.

The number who could lose insurance could rise to 16 million if proposed rule changes to the ACA take effect and tax credits that help people pay for ACA plans expire at the end of the year, according to the CBO. In KFF poll results released in June, nearly two-thirds of people surveyed viewed the bill unfavorably and more than half said they were worried federal funding cuts would hurt their family's ability to obtain and afford health care.

Like Fry, more people would be forced to pay for health expenses out-of-pocket, leading to delays in care, lost access to needed doctors and medications, and poorer physical and financial health.

"The effects could be catastrophic," said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of KFF's Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

A patchwork system

The House-passed bill would represent the largest reduction in federal support for Medicaid and health coverage in history, Tolbert said. If the Senate approves it, it would be the first time Congress moved to eliminate coverage for millions of people.

"This would take us back," she said.

The United States is the only wealthy country where a substantial number of citizens lack health insurance, due to nearly a century of pushback against universal coverage from doctors, insurance companies, and elected officials.

"The complexity is everywhere throughout the system," said Sherry Glied, dean of New York University's Wagner School of Public Service, who worked in the George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations. "The big bug is that people fall between the cracks."

This year, KFF Health News is speaking to Americans about the challenges they face in finding health insurance and the effects on their ability to get care; to providers who serve the uninsured; and to policy experts about why, even when the nation hit its lowest recorded uninsured rate in 2023, nearly a tenth of the U.S. population still lacked health coverage.

So far, the reporting has found that despite decades of policies designed to increase access to care, the very structure of the nation's health insurance system creates the opposite effect.

Government-backed universal coverage has eluded U.S. policymakers for decades.

After lobbying from physician groups, President Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned plans to include universal health coverage in the Social Security Act of 1935. Then, because of a wage and salary cap used to control inflation during World War II, more employers offered health insurance to lure workers. In 1954, health coverage was formally exempted from income tax requirements, which led more employers to offer the benefit as part of compensation packages.

Insurance coverage offered by employers came to form the foundation of the U.S. health system. But eventually, problems with linking health insurance to employment emerged.

"We realized, well, wait, not everybody is working," said Heidi Allen, an associate professor at the Columbia School of Social Work who studies the impact of social policies on access to care. "Children aren't working. People who are elderly are not working. People with disabilities are not working."

Yet subsequent efforts to expand coverage to all Americans were met with backlash from unions who wanted health insurance as a bargaining chip, providers who didn't want government oversight, and those who had coverage through their employers.

That led policymakers to add programs piecemeal to make health insurance accessible to more Americans.

There's Medicare for older adults and Medicaid for people with low incomes and disabilities, both created in 1965; the Children's Health Insurance Program, created in 1997; the ACA's exchange plans and Medicaid expansion for people who can't access job-based coverage, created in 2010.

As a result, the U.S. has a patchwork of health insurance programs with numerous interest groups vying for dollars, rather than a cohesive system, health policy researchers say.

Falling through the cracks

The lack of a cohesive system means even though Americans are eligible for health insurance, they struggle to access it, said Mark Shepard, an associate professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. No central entity exists in the U.S. to ensure that all people have a plan, he said.

Over half of the uninsured might qualify for Medicaid or subsidies that can help cover the costs of an ACA plan, according to KFF. But many people aren't aware of their options or can't navigate overlapping programs — and even subsidized coverage can be unaffordable.

Those who have fallen through the cracks said it feels like the system has failed them.

Yorjeny Almonte of Allentown, Pennsylvania, earns about $2,600 a month as an inspector in a cabinet warehouse. When she started her job in December 2023, she didn't want to spend nearly 10% of her income on health insurance.

But, last year, her uninsured mom chose to fly to the Dominican Republic to get care for a health concern. So Almonte, 23, who also needed to see a doctor, investigated her employer's health offerings. By then she had missed the deadline to sign up.

"Now I have to wait another year," she said.

In January, Camden, Alabama, resident Kiana George, who's uninsured, landed in an intensive care unit months after she stopped seeing a nurse practitioner and taking blood pressure medications — an ordeal that saddled her with nearly $7,000 in medical bills.

George, 30, was kicked off Medicaid in 2023 after she got hired by an after-school program. It pays $800 a month, an income too high to qualify her for Medicaid in Alabama, which hasn't expanded to cover most low-income adults. She also doesn't make enough for a free or reduced-cost ACA plan.

George, who has a 9-year-old daughter, said she "has no idea" how she can repay the debt from the emergency room visit. And because she fears more bills, she has given up on treatment for ovarian cysts.

"It hurts, but I'm just gonna take my chances," she said.

Debating the high cost of care

Researchers have known for decades that a lack of insurance coverage leads to poor access to health care, said Tom Buchmueller, a health economist at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

"It's only more recently we've had really good, strong evidence that shows that health insurance really does improve health outcomes," Buchmueller said.

Research released this spring by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that expanding Medicaid reduced low-income adults' chances of dying by 2.5%. In 2019, a separate study published by that nonpartisan think tank provided experimental evidence that health insurance coverage reduced mortality among middle-aged adults.

In late May, the House narrowly advanced the budget legislation that independent government analysts said would result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage and reduce federal spending on programs like Medicaid by billions of dollars.

A key provision would require some Medicaid enrollees to work, volunteer, or complete other qualifying activities for 80 hours a month, starting at the end of 2026. Most Medicaid enrollees already work or have some reason they can't, such as a disability, according to KFF.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has defended the requirement as "moral."

"If you are able to work and you refuse to do so, you are defrauding the system. You're cheating the system," he told CBS News in the wake of the bill's passage.

A Senate version of the bill also includes work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks for Medicaid recipients.

Fiscal conservatives argue a solution is needed to curb health care's rising costs.

The U.S. spends about twice as much per capita on health care than other wealthy nations, and that spending would grow under the GOP's budget bill, said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a think tank that supports less government spending on health care.

But the bill doesn't address the root causes of administrative complexity or unaffordable care, Cannon said. To do that would entail, for instance, doing away with the tax break for employer-sponsored care, which he said fuels excessive spending, high prices, and ties health insurance to employment. He said the bill should cut federal funding for Medicaid, not just limit its growth, to reduce excessive health care prices and spending.

The bill would throw more people into a high-cost health care landscape with little protection, said Aaron Carroll, president and CEO of AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan health policy research nonprofit.

"There's a ton of evidence that shows that if you make people pay more for health care, they get less health care," he said. "There's lots of evidence that shows that disproportionately affects poor, sicker people."

Labon McKenzie, 45, lives in Georgia, the only state that requires some Medicaid enrollees to work or complete other qualifying activities to obtain coverage.

He hasn't been able to work since he broke multiple bones after he fell through a skylight while on the job three years ago. He got fired from a county road and bridge crew after the accident and hasn't been approved for Social Security or disability benefits.

"I can't stand up too long," he said. "I can't sit down too long."

In February, McKenzie started seeing double, but canceled an appointment with an ophthalmologist because he couldn't come up with the $300 the doctor wanted in advance. His cousin gave him an eye patch to tide him over, and, in desperation, he took expired eye drops his daughter gave him. "I had to try something," he said.

McKenzie, who lives in rural Fort Gaines, wants to work again. But without benefits, he can't get the care he needs to become well enough.

"I just want my body fixed," he said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445275

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HEALTH | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:12 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

RFK Jr.'s vaccine advisers meeting wraps up

By Will Stone

Heard on Morning Edition

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

A committee that helps craft vaccine policy in the U.S. has become a source of controversy under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Yesterday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices wrapped up its two-day meeting. Here's NPR's Will Stone.

WILL STONE, BYLINE: This meeting of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was unusually high-profile, largely because of Secretary Kennedy's decision to purge the entire panel of experts just a few weeks ago - in their place, his handpicked roster of seven members, some with a history of making inaccurate claims about the safety of COVID vaccines. The chair of the committee, Martin Kulldorff - an epidemiologist who's worked on vaccines - began the meeting with a call to rebuild public trust and an announcement that a new working group would reexamine the childhood vaccine schedule.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MARTIN KULLDORFF: The number of vaccines that our children, our - and adolescents receive today exceed what children in most other developed nations receive and what most of us in this room received when we were children.

STONE: Another group, he said, would look at vaccines that have not been subject to review in more than seven years. All of this makes Yale Professor Jason Schwartz, who studies vaccine policy, very nervous.

JASON SCHWARTZ: They're already signaling their interest in revisiting long-settled questions around vaccine safety, opening up issues that have been focal points of critics of vaccines for decades.

STONE: On the second day, a majority of the panel reaffirmed the CDC recommendations that anyone over six months get the annual flu shot. Other votes, however, focused on essentially banning flu vaccines with a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal. Theories that chemical could cause autism have long been disproven. Even so, manufacturers voluntarily removed it from childhood vaccines years ago. It's rarely used in flu shots anymore. And yet the panel heard a presentation on alleged safety concerns from the former head of Children's Health Defense, a group that Secretary Kennedy founded. It's questioned vaccine safety and spread misinformation. Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrician at Dartmouth, was the only panel member to vote against the recommendations.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CODY MEISSNER: I'm not quite sure how to respond to this presentation. This is an old issue that has been addressed.

STONE: The meeting of the group, called ACIP for short, was at times chaotic. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics decided not to attend. Dr. Jim Campbell, who's with the academy, says they thought there would be no room for real participation, and the votes on thimerosal prove that.

JIM CAMPBELL: The vote was based on a single talk, without any work group or other expert input. That is not the way that ACIP typically works, so we're just disappointed.

STONE: And the meeting has raised big questions about the future of vaccine policy for Dr. Andy Pavia, a pediatrician at the University of Utah.

ANDY PAVIA: I think hundreds of physicians, epidemiologists, pediatricians watched with some degree of horror.

STONE: Pavia points out this panel helps shape insurance coverage of vaccines, and he worries what they decide going forward could ultimately reduce access to them.

Will Stone, NPR News.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5447451

PLANET MONEY | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 4:11 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Cuts under the Trump administration have gutted the PEPFAR program

By Darian Woods

Heard on Morning Edition

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

An HIV/AIDS treatment program created by President George W. Bush is under threat as Republicans in Congress look to cut federal spending. Our colleague, Darian Woods, from The Indicator podcast examines the legacy of PEPFAR and what it would mean for the program to end.

DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: Not everyone remembers this acutely, but in the 1990s, AIDS was one of the leading causes of death, including in the U.S. And then came game-changing drugs to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. These drugs were what's called antiretroviral therapy. Jon Cohen is a senior correspondent for Science magazine and has been covering public health for over 30 years.

JON COHEN: They could basically allow people who had HIV to live normal lifespans.

WOODS: Antiretroviral therapy saved millions of lives in wealthy countries.

COHEN: Well, that wasn't available to most people living with HIV in the world because the drugs were so incredibly expensive, about 15,000 a year per person.

WOODS: That's what impelled George W. Bush to start PEPFAR. And what's made PEPFAR successful is that the program is heavily monitored for its outcomes. Program managers can look at a country and see where it's succeeding, where it's failing, and what could be changed. And even some of the countries hardest hit by AIDS have reached these targets.

COHEN: To date, the program has spent over $120 billion and has saved an estimated 26 million lives. It's a phenomenally successful program.

WOODS: That success is now under grave threat. The hope had been that American assistance could start phasing down around 2030. But some Republican lawmakers didn't like that some money was targeting higher-risk groups, like sex workers and LGBT people, so that glide path has now turned more into a crash landing. Earlier this year, many HIV/AIDS organizations in places like Africa received emails terminating their contracts with the USAID. The emails were signed off, God bless America.

White House budget director Russ Vought said the US is in $37 trillion in debt, and at some point, the continent of Africa needs to absorb more of the burden of providing this health care. So could African countries fund HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention themselves?

COHEN: Sure. And they want to, and they're moving toward that. But to think that this is going to solve our debt problem, I mean, come on. Do the math. It's more than simply soft diplomacy. It's creating a stable world where you don't have military conflicts and you don't have countries falling apart because of health.

WOODS: We reached out to the Department of State asking if its leadership was concerned. A spokesperson said PEPFAR continues to support lifesaving HIV testing, care and treatment approved by the secretary of state. But they also said that other PEPFAR-funded services are currently being reviewed for efficiency and consistency with U.S. foreign policy. Jon says, like any large system, there were always wrinkles, like leadership in Washington pushing too hard for those metrics sometimes or debates over abstinence promotion. But overall, he says, this was an extremely well-run program. In its hobbled state now, though, researchers from the HIV Modelling Consortium estimated 70,000 people have already died.

Darian Woods, NPR News.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5443943

HEALTH | THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025 • 7:29 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Autism rates have soared. This doctor says he knows part of the reason why

By Juana Summers, Courtney Dorning, Michael Levitt

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

There was a New York Times headline that caught our eye this week - "Autism Rates Have Increased 60-Fold. I Played A Role In That." It's an opinion piece written by Dr. Allen Frances. Dr. Frances, a psychiatrist, led the task force that created the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM is something of a bible for mental health professionals who are looking to diagnose and treat a wide variety of mental illnesses and neurological disorders. Dr. Allen Frances joins me now.

Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

ALLEN FRANCES: Thank you.

SUMMERS: I'm curious about the timing. In your piece in the Times, you wrote that the explosion in autism rates has become fodder, as you called it, for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - the health secretary's conspiracy theories. Is that why you've decided to speak out now?

FRANCES: Exactly. When - I think if you searched the world wide, you could not find a less suitable person to be leading healthcare efforts in the United States or the world. And when he began redirecting resources vitally needed for research into the causes of autism and the best way of treating it back to trying to figure out a way, a ploy, a deceptive method of proving the vaccine theory, I felt it was necessary to speak. And it became even worse when he fired the people on the vaccine advisory committee for the CDC and hired hacks to try to pursue the vaccine conspiracy theory that has been the passion of his life for the last 20 years.

SUMMERS: I'll just note that Kennedy's assertion that vaccines cause autism has been debunked repeatedly. There has been a host of studies that prove that they do not. But the fact does remain that there is still no clear answer on what causes autism. Can you say that the single biggest factor driving the explosion in autism rates is driven by ways in which the definition was changed?

FRANCES: You know, what happened was, in 1994, we added a condition that was called Asperger's disorder that was a very mild form of some of the same symptoms that occur in classic autism. Classic autism is absolutely unmistakable. The onset is before the age of 3. Severity and disabilities are tragic and lifelong, and you cannot mistake classic autism for anything else.

Asperger's is a very mild version of classic autism and therefore much more common and much more easily mistaken for other mental disorders or for normal eccentricity and social withdrawal. So the 60-fold increase was largely started by the change in definition in DSM-IV, and then it was promoted by several factors. First and foremost, originally, it was the fact that educational services were geared to getting the diagnosis. And anytime there's a benefit related to a psychiatric diagnosis, it - rates jump enormously.

Secondly, the internet spread the idea of autism like wildfire. And many people incorrectly self-diagnosed themselves with autism. In some places, it became almost a badge of brilliance. And so the differences in the definition and differences in the application of the definition and the fact that educational benefits have been associated with it - that's what caused the 60-fold increase - not vaccines. We know from very conclusive studies that vaccines do not cause autism.

SUMMERS: As we're talking, I can't help thinking about some of the countless people out there who have struggled their entire lives who get a diagnosis of autism as an adult, and it's like a lightning-bolt moment for them. Everything suddenly makes sense. How can that be a bad thing?

FRANCES: You know, I think it's definitely true that human distress looks for an explanation, and different periods of time come up with different explanations that are suddenly very popular. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon. It helps to explain to the individual the problems they're having. So the - I'm sympathetic to people who feel that autism is an explanation for their problems. And sometimes it is, and then it's very worthwhile. So some people have been identified who would have been missed. And for them, it can be very useful. But for the vast majority of people who carry the diagnosis now, it's questionable, and second and third opinions would be useful.

SUMMERS: Doctor Frances, to your mind, what is the best way forward for people who, as you described them, are perhaps socially awkward, who believe they might have autism spectrum disorder?

FRANCES: Don't overdiagnose yourself, and don't accept what may be an overdiagnosis from others. Very often, a diagnosis of autism made early in life does not remain stable throughout life. And meeting a good friend, falling in love - many life experiences help social awkwardness, and it disappears and gets better with age. So I wouldn't be limited by the fact that I have an autistic diagnosis into thinking that I can't have a brighter future.

SUMMERS: That's Dr. Allen Frances, a psychiatrist who led the task force that created the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dr. Frances, thank you.

FRANCES: Thank you very much - and always a pleasure listening to you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5445270

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CLIMATE | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 7:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Defense Department will stop providing crucial satellite weather data

By Rebecca Hersher

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

The U.S. Department of Defense will no longer provide satellite weather data, leaving hurricane forecasters without crucial information about storms as peak hurricane season looms in the Atlantic.

For more than 40 years, the Defense Department has operated satellites that collect information about conditions in the atmosphere and ocean. A group within the Navy, called the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center, processes the raw data from the satellites, and turns it over to scientists and weather forecasters who use it for a wide range of purposes including real-time hurricane forecasting and measuring sea ice in polar regions.

This week, the Department of Defense announced that it would no longer provide that data, according to a notice published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.

"I was surprised, given how important it is for forecasting hurricanes and monitoring important features like sea ice," says Brian Tang, a hurricane researcher at the University at Albany. "This is data that forecasters use regularly."

The Navy did not respond to questions about why it has stopped sharing the data with scientists and forecasters.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Space Force, which is responsible for the satellites, said in a statement that the satellites and instruments are still functional, and the Department of Defense will continue to use them even as it cuts off access for scientists.

"It's not an issue of funding cuts," says Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a federally funded research center in Colorado that has relied on the soon-to-be-terminated Defense Department data to track sea ice since 1979. "There are cybersecurity concerns. That's what we're being told."

The Navy did not respond to questions about what those concerns are.

Tracking hurricanes as they form

The Department of Defense collects satellite weather information because it has ships and planes operating all over the world, and needs information about conditions in the oceans and atmosphere.

But the Defense Department data also allow hurricane forecasters to see hurricanes as they form, and monitor them in real-time.

"What we can do with the data is we can see the structure of hurricanes," Tang explains, "Sort of like an MRI or X-ray."

For example, hurricane experts can see where the center of a newly formed storm is, which allows them to figure out as early as possible what direction it is likely to go, and whether the storm might hit land. That's important for people in harm's way, who need as much time as possible to decide whether to evacuate, and to prepare their homes for wind and water.

The data also allows forecasters to see when a new eyewall has formed in the center of the storm, which can indicate that the hurricane is about to intensify. For example, Tang says, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center used the data from Defense Department satellites to observe a circular eyewall forming in Hurricane Erick earlier this month as it moved over the Pacific.

"That was a really good indication that the storm was about to intensify much more quickly than the computer models indicated it was going to intensify," Tang says, which allows forecasters to publish early warnings. The storm hit Mexico as a destructive Category 3 hurricane.

NOAA, which oversees the National Hurricane Center, says the loss of the Defense Department data will not lead to less-accurate hurricane forecasts this year. In a statement, NOAA communications director Kim Doster said, "NOAA's data sources are fully capable of providing a complete suite of cutting-edge data and models that ensure the gold-standard weather forecasting the American people deserve."

Other satellites, operated by NASA and NOAA and by other countries, collect similar data, Tang says. But hurricanes form and intensify so rapidly that forecasters need near real-time information, which requires as many satellites as possible since no one sensor is always pointed at a given storm. Without the Defense Department data, there will be bigger gaps in time when forecasters will not know the current conditions inside a storm. That could lead forecasters to be surprised when a hurricane suddenly intensifies.

That's particularly concerning because, as the Earth heats up, large, rapidly intensifying hurricanes are getting more common. Storms that gather strength quickly right before they hit land are particularly deadly because people have little time to prepare and evacuate.

A scramble to keep monitoring sea ice

The Defense Department satellites were also the main source of real-time information about changes to sea ice.

Sea ice data is important for a lot of reasons. Permanent sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is shrinking rapidly because of climate change, and the exact amount of ice fluctuates dramatically over the course of each year.

In any given year or season, the amount of sea ice in the Arctic informs international shipping decisions, because when there is less sea ice around the North Pole, ships can take shorter routes across the globe.

On the other end of the planet, sea ice helps slow the melting of glaciers in Antarctica, which threaten the planet with catastrophic sea level rise if they collapse.

Now, as a result of the Defense Department's decision, six widely used datasets about sea ice at both poles will be interrupted, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

"We've been very reliant on these data for many years," explains Serreze, the director of the center. He says the Defense Department had warned him that the data would no longer be available after September. Then, this week, the deadline was moved up to June 30th.

"This June 30 deadline has really caught us by surprise," Serreze says. "And so we have to kind of blitz here to get things in order."

Serreze's team had already planned to switch to an alternate source of sea ice information: a sensor on a satellite operated by the Japanese government. The U.S. has access to data from that sensor through an agreement between NASA and the Japanese government's space agency.

But they thought they had months to make the switch, which requires a lot of labor-intensive calibration. Now they have just days before they lose access to the American data. "It's a blow," says Serreze.

And this is happening in the middle of a record-breaking year: so far in 2025 there is less sea ice in the Arctic than any other year since satellite records began in 1979.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Department of Defense says that it will stop sharing crucial satellite weather data next week. The DOD collects a lot of information about what's happening in the oceans and atmospheres, and scientists and meteorologists use it every day. Now that data will be gone. NPR's Rebecca Hersher joins us. Rebecca, thanks so much for being with us.

REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: Of course.

SIMON: And remind us, why is the DOD collecting weather data?

HERSHER: Because they need it. You know, the military has ships in the ocean. It has planes in the sky. It needs to know what's happening in the ocean and the atmosphere, and so the DOD has satellites that collect weather information. And since the 1970s, they've shared that weather information with forecasters and with scientists, and it's been really useful for them.

SIMON: How's it been useful?

HERSHER: Well, because these satellites, they're up there. They can see the whole planet, and they give a really clear picture of what's happening in the ocean, all over the world and in the atmosphere. I talked to a hurricane scientist who uses this data for his research. His name is Brian Tang. He works at the University at Albany.

BRIAN TANG: What we can do with the data is we can see the structure of hurricanes, sort of like an MRI or a X-ray.

HERSHER: But this week, the DOD said that they're going to stop sharing this data no later than Monday.

SIMON: Why? Is there a problem with the satellites?

HERSHER: Well, I reached out to the Department of Defense about this, and here's what I learned. So the Space Force, which is responsible for the satellites, says there's nothing wrong with the satellites. There's nothing wrong with the sensors on them - you know, the instruments that actually collect the data - and that the DOD will actually continue to use this information internally. They said the Navy are the ones who made this decision to stop sharing data. So I reached out to the Navy to ask why and didn't hear back.

But there's one more wrinkle. I spoke to the head of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is this federally funded research center. It relies on this data to monitor sea ice. And the director there, Mark Serreze, told me that the DOD told him that there are, quote, "cybersecurity concerns." But we don't know what those concerns might actually be.

SIMON: And, Rebecca, how could the loss of this data affect weather forecasting?

HERSHER: Well, it's not great, particularly for hurricanes. When hurricane forecasters see a storm that's starting to form out there over the ocean, they rely on satellite data 'cause it's really far out there. So they use this data to figure out where the storm is headed and how quickly it might grow. Now, the DOD satellites, they are not the only satellites that collect this type of data, but they are a crucial piece of the puzzle because storms change continuously. So forecasters need basically real-time information. With the DOD satellites in the mix, forecasters are able to monitor storms continuously. Without it, there will be gaps - so periods of time where they just don't know what's happening.

The hurricane researcher Brian Tang told me that could lead to a situation where forecasters are surprised by a storm that rapidly gained strength, which would be really bad because people on land would have less time to evacuate, less time to prepare. Plus, climate change is actually making those kinds of large, rapidly intensifying storms more common. And this is a particularly big deal right now because peak Atlantic hurricane season is looming, and forecasters have already said that they expect an above-average number of storms this year.

SIMON: NPR's Rebecca Hersher. Thanks so much.

HERSHER: Thanks.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAURENT DURY'S "THREE STEPS FROM HEAVEN")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5446120

SCIENCE | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 6:09 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

This week in science: the power of a nap, planet birth and how wildfires affect water

By Regina G. Barber, Emily Kwong

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

It's time for our science news roundup from Short Wave, NPR's science podcast. And joining me this time are Regina Barber and Emily Kwong. Good to have you both back.

REGINA BARBER, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.

EMILY KWONG, BYLINE: Hi, Ari. Good to be here.

SHAPIRO: As usual, you've brought us three stories that caught your attention this week. What's on the list?

KWONG: A new study which shows how taking a nap can help you solve a tough problem.

BARBER: A new picture of a planet right after it's born.

SHAPIRO: Oh.

KWONG: And how wildfires can affect water quality after the fires stop burning.

SHAPIRO: I love any reason to take a nap. Are you about to give me another reason proven by science?

(LAUGHTER)

BARBER: It's your lucky day. You know how when you're stuck on a problem, the common wisdom is sleep on it?

SHAPIRO: Yeah, sure. Like, you wake up and have some insight you didn't have when you went to bed.

BARBER: Yes. Ari, science backs this up. A full night of sleep may lend itself to a burst of insight. And a group of researchers in Germany wanted to know more about the stages of sleep involved in a eureka moment. Could a nap be enough to deliver us that aha?

SHAPIRO: How do you actually measure a eureka moment scientifically?

BARBER: Yeah, good question. OK, so researchers invited study participants to track a group of dots on a screen and decide whether the dots were generally moving towards one of the four corners of the screen.

KWONG: But there was a secret trick that made the task super easy. The correct response was paired with a color. Without knowing that trick, though, the task was kind of tough.

BARBER: So in the middle of the task, the researchers let the participants take a 20-minute break in a room with the lights off, seated upon the most comfortable Ikea chair that cognitive neuroscientist Anika Lowe could find.

ANIKA LOWE: Yeah, we also told people to sleep 30% less the night before and not consume any caffeine before coming in at 1:00 p.m.

SHAPIRO: So very primed to fall asleep.

KWONG: Yeah. Exactly. Participants were also hooked up to an electrode cap to measure their brain activity. Some stayed awake, some fell asleep. And then they were asked to return to the task and discovered something kind of amazing.

BARBER: Yeah. Ari, those who napped figured out the color trick at a higher frequency. And those who managed to enter the first phase of deep sleep, known as the N2 phase, had the highest frequency of insight. Eighty-six percent of those deep sleepers had their eureka moment.

SHAPIRO: So they cracked the color code, they solved the task, and they only napped for, like, 20 minutes max.

KWONG: Yeah, that's right.

BARBER: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Amazing. So on the level of brain chemistry, how does deep sleep, even for a brief period of time, lead to these breakthroughs?

BARBER: Yeah, that's the next question this team and others want to investigate. Anika told me the leading theory is that deep sleep consolidates what you learned. So maybe in deep sleep, irrelevant synaptic connections are pruned away and relevant connections remain so that upon waking, that might set our brain up for a breakthrough.

KWONG: Yeah. But this theory, of course, would have to be, like, tested with more sleep research.

SHAPIRO: Sign me up. I'm happy to be paid to sleep. OK, next story. Gina, what is so special about this newborn baby distant planet?

BARBER: Yes. OK, so it's a planet beyond our solar system. It's orbiting another star. That's what's called an exoplanet. And astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets before, but this one is special because, one, this exoplanet was actually seen in an image, which is really hard to do. And two, astronomers took this picture while the exoplanet was still in this leftover disk of gas and dust it was formed from. The researchers published this image in the journal Nature this week.

KWONG: Yeah, and astrophysicist Alycia Weinberger, who didn't work on this study, said the image helps clarify a big missing piece of the planet-formation puzzle.

ALYCIA WEINBERGER: We have only a few examples of stars that have both a disk and a planet, where we can really look at that interplay and how one is influencing the other.

SHAPIRO: And so does this new evidence fit the conventional wisdom about how planets form?

BARBER: Yes. Yeah. So scientists have a very good hypothesis that, like, planets form inside this disk of gas and dust that's left over from, like, the star forming, actually. And these disks look like pancakes of light around a very young star. That's why all the planets in our own solar system are in a plane. They came from a similar pancake.

KWONG: Yes, a very delicious pancake. But sometimes there are gaps in the disks that are thought to be created from planets forming. And until now, scientists haven't been able to capture a planet in a gap on camera.

SHAPIRO: So now that it's been caught on camera, what can we learn about this exoplanet?

BARBER: We can learn about its atmosphere, for one, which tells us more about, like, what it's made out of. We've talked to multiple astrophysicists for this story, and they all think that this image is, like, just the beginning, that eventually, the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal, like, the whole process of how a planet forms.

SHAPIRO: Yet another insight thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, which is so much better than any that came before, huh?

BARBER: Yeah.

KWONG: So much. I mean, it's sensitive enough to get an image of an exoplanet this small, about 30% of the size of Jupiter. The exoplanet is still bigger than Earth, but photographing a planet formation this small is a step towards finding even smaller planets closer to the size of Earth in our galaxy.

BARBER: Yeah, and a planet closer to the size of Earth is more likely to be hospitable to life.

SHAPIRO: Well, let's come back to Earth for our third and final story...

BARBER: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: ...Which is about how wildfires affect water quality. We heard about this a lot during the Southern California wildfires. What's the new insight here?

BARBER: Yes. So a study came out this week in the journal Nature Communications and Environment which suggests that water impacts can linger nearly a decade after wildfire flames die down, especially when it comes to contaminants left behind by the fires, like sediment or nitrogen.

SHAPIRO: A decade's a long time. How did they figure that out?

KWONG: Yeah, the researchers analyzed hundreds of watersheds and compared areas that have been burned in wildfires to areas that were unburned. But they used data from across four decades. They collected data between 1984 and 2021, which is a big deal, since, like, most wildfire studies have looked at a smaller window of time - two to three years, like, after a fire.

BARBER: And a watershed, by the way - they're very important. It's an area of land that collects water from rain or snowmelt and eventually channels water into a larger body like a reservoir. Watersheds provide around two-thirds of the U.S. population's clean water supply.

SHAPIRO: So knowing the state of a watershed could be a good way to measure the aftermath of a fire.

KWONG: Yes, exactly.

SHAPIRO: I know fires are becoming larger and more frequent due to man-made climate change. What sort of contaminants are hanging around long after these fires?

BARBER: Yeah, the authors saw that carbon and phosphorus stuck around for up to, like, five years after a fire, while nitrogen and sediment were detected in the watersheds for up to eight years, all of which, in excessive amounts, can be harmful to humans and ecosystems.

SHAPIRO: But public water utilities filter water before it reaches our faucets. So what does this mean for those of us who are - I don't know - taking showers and drinking water?

KWONG: Yeah, so one of the study authors, Ben Livneh at University of Colorado Boulder, said that listeners shouldn't worry about water quality, but water utility companies should be extra aware of these contaminants for a long time after a wildfire takes place. They should perhaps pivot to use a new supply, depending on where the watershed is.

BARBER: Or use this information to be better prepared for future fires and help build water systems that are more resilient towards fire. And this data could help them do that.

SHAPIRO: That is Regina Barber and Emily Kwong from NPR's science podcast Short Wave, which you can follow for new discoveries, everyday mysteries and the science behind the headlines. Thank you both.

BARBER: Thank you.

KWONG: Thanks, Ari.

(SOUNDBITE OF MATT LARGE'S "THE NÆCKBRÆKER")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5444991

CLIMATE | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 5:50 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Solar manufacturing is booming. Advocates say it could go bust without incentives

By Michael Copley

A couple of years ago, Mick McDaniel started a company in Indianapolis to make solar panels in the United States. Then-President Joe Biden had just signed the Inflation Reduction Act, a law packed with tax incentives for clean energy. America's solar market was about to take off.

Since then, tens of billions of dollars have poured into solar factories that are operating or under development, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA, which advocates on behalf of the field. Once those factories are all finished, the facilities could create close to 60,000 manufacturing jobs, the trade group has said.

But those investments are now at risk.

Congressional Republicans are on the verge of rolling back clean-energy tax credits as part of a huge tax-and-spending bill that's a cornerstone of President Trump's second-term agenda. On the chopping block are incentives that encourage solar developers to buy American-made products, like solar panels and components.

Abruptly unwinding the incentives would threaten a decade-long push to onshore solar manufacturing and challenge China's dominance of the sector, according to industry executives and analysts.

"What I see two years out is low-cost will once again drive demand in this market," says McDaniel, general manager of Bila Solar. He adds, "That's going to be a hard road for some of us who have [higher costs] than panels made over in China or Southeast Asia."

President Trump supported solar manufacturing in his first term

Since 2022, when Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, companies have invested $9.1 billion in U.S. solar factories that are operating and another $36.7 billion in facilities that are under construction or in development, according to SEIA.

This year, U.S. factories will be able to make enough solar panels to meet most of the country's demand, the trade group said.

Asked about the potential impacts of ending clean-energy tax credits that help domestic solar factories, a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said in a statement to NPR that the "radical climate initiatives" of the Biden administration are costing Americans billions of dollars. "Rather than using taxpayer dollars to subsidize uneconomic energy sources to meet vague climate change goals, President Trump is unleashing energy sources that are economical and will drive down bills for everyday families," Rogers said.

But Trump himself tried to boost U.S. solar manufacturing during his first term. In 2018, Trump approved tariffs on imported solar cells and panels after the U.S. International Trade Commission found that a flood of imports hurt American companies. In a recent post on Truth Social, Trump complained that China dominates renewable energy supply chains.

Renewables are cost competitive with fossil-fueled energy — even without subsidies, according to the financial firm Lazard. But manufacturers and industry analysts say U.S. solar developers still need incentives to use American-made products.

If the tax credits disappear too soon, companies building solar plants will "buy the cheaper foreign panels to get that cost down as much as you possibly can," says Doug Lewin, an energy consultant in Texas. "And that leaves the American manufacturer of solar modules [and components] just stranded."

Trump's 2018 tariffs helped protect domestic manufacturers, says Scott Moskowitz, vice president of market strategy and industry affairs at Qcells, which announced it was building a Georgia solar factory in 2018 shortly after Trump set the import tariffs. However, Moskowitz says the tax incentives passed under the Biden administration were key to creating demand for solar panels and components that are produced in the U.S.

"It's not a question of whether or not the country is going to install solar if these provisions are removed or phased out too quickly," Moskowitz says. "It's just a matter of where [project developers] are going to get the product from."

The stakes go beyond who supplies America's solar market. With more time, Moskowitz says U.S. manufacturers could scale up the size of their operations to compete globally.

"You want to set up that counterweight to China," Lewin says. "You want to be able to tell Pakistan and Latin America and everywhere else, 'No, you can go through the United States for this vital resource for the 21st century. You don't have to go to China.'"

Presidents have tried for years to make America a solar manufacturer

Every president since Barack Obama has used tariffs to try to nurture domestic solar manufacturing by raising costs on imported panels and components — first from China and later from Southeast Asia, as well.

However, tariffs on their own weren't enough to build a manufacturing sector big enough to meet U.S. solar demand. That's why the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act were hailed as a breakthrough by advocates of the domestic solar industry.

"We were already seeing an increase in manufacturing before that, but the IRA was like throwing gas on that fire," says Lewin, the Texas energy consultant.

But just as American manufacturing is taking off, the outlook for the country's solar market has now been thrown into doubt by Congress.

Legislative text released by the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month calls for phasing out tax credits for solar plants starting next year. Under current law, those credits, which encourage companies to use American-made products, are scheduled to start phasing out in 2032 or when greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector are 25% of 2022 levels, whichever comes later.

"I expect to see a couple of painful years in the U.S. solar industry, period," says Craig Lawrence, a partner at the investment firm Energy Transition Ventures. "But I ultimately think it bounces back."

Supporters push for slow tax-credit phaseout

The broader impact of rolling back incentives will depend on the details of whatever lawmakers ultimately agree to.

Without tax credits, America would build fewer clean-energy projects and use more natural gas to generate electricity, according to a study this winter commissioned by the Clean Energy Buyers Association, whose members range from Amazon to ExxonMobil to Walmart.

"There will be some companies that go under if they do this. But we will still see solar built. We'll just see less of it, and it'll be more expensive," Lewin says.

Those costs are expected to be passed on to homeowners, renters and businesses through higher electricity bills, according to the Clean Energy Buyers Association's study.

Limiting renewable energy development also raises concerns about electric reliability, says Heather Reams, president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a right-of-center advocacy group.

"You're looking at the lights going out and the air conditioning going off in the hot summer," Reams says. "And then not meeting the [electricity] demands of tomorrow, leaving the U.S. behind competitively."

Industry executives and analysts say clean energy projects are crucial to meet rising power demand from things like data centers and factories, because the plants can be constructed quickly and produce electricity that is relatively cheap.

Reams' group has called for lawmakers to delay phasing out the tax credits at least until after 2027. "I don't think anyone's arguing they need to be here until the end of time," she says. "But market certainty is something that all business owners understand."

Manufacturers are already struggling with the looming policy changes.

"If my market is smaller, what kind of decisions do I have to make about investment, hiring and growth on my side to right size my business for that future that will be smaller?" says McDaniel, the Indianapolis solar manufacturer. "We don't know how much that demand side will get impacted and how much smaller that market will be."

With Congress under pressure to deliver Trump a tax-and-spending bill by July 4, solar manufacturers and their supporters are running out of time to sway Republican lawmakers.

"They're getting ready to walk off the field," Lewin says, "and cede the 21st century to the Chinese."

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5442376

Related

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SHORT WAVE | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 3:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Stuck on a problem? Take a nap!

By Emily Kwong, Regina G. Barber, Rebecca Ramirez, Rachel Carlson

Since 2004, scientific research has shown that a full night of sleep may lend itself to a burst of insight in the morning.

But what about the earlier stages of sleep?

That was the question posed by a group of researchers at the University of Hamburg, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research.

The research team found that even a 20-minute nap could deliver a "eureka" moment, and published their findings in the journal PLOS Biology this week.

For the study, 90 participants tracked a group of dots and decided whether the dots were generally moving towards one of the four corners of the screen.

There was a secret trick that made the task super easy: The correct response was paired with a color. Without knowing that trick in advance, however, the task was quite difficult.

Could a nap help?

To figure that out, in the middle of the task, the researchers let the participants take a 20 minute break — with the lights off, seated upon the most comfortable Ikea chair that cognitive neuroscientist Anika Löwe could find.

"We also told people to sleep 30% less the night before and not consume any caffeine for coming in at 1 p.m," Löwe told NPR.

During the experiment, participants' brain activity was measured with an electrode cap. Some stayed awake; some fell asleep.

Upon returning to the task after the break, those who napped figured out the color trick at a higher frequency than those who did not sleep. Even better: Those who managed to enter the first phase of deep sleep, known as the N2 phase. A startling 86% of those deep sleepers had a eureka moment — more than any other group.

Célia Lacaux, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University Geneva, who was not a part of this study, was really impressed by these results.

"I am super happy to see that they also replicated the fact that short nap is helpful for boosting insights," she said.

Lacaux and Löwe both say the next step is further research to determine why this is happening — at the level of biochemical level.

Have a question about sleep? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!

Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

This episode was produced by Megan Lim and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Patrick Jarenwattananon. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Jay Czys, Ko Takasugi-Czernowin and Tiffany Vera Castro were the audio engineers.

Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

REGINA BARBER: You're listening to Short Wave from NPR. Hey, Short Wavers, Regina Barber here.

EMILY KWONG: And Emily Kwong.

BARBER: With our bi-weekly science news roundup featuring my brother from the Pacific Northwest, Ari Shapiro from All Things Considered.

ARI SHAPIRO: My sister from another mister.

BARBER: That's right.

SHAPIRO: So good to be here, especially because I hear we've got a story about naps, which I just love, how they can help solve a problem.

KWONG: This podcast would not be made without naps. Yes, we also have a story on an important picture of an exoplanet.

BARBER: Yes, and how wildfires can impact water quality nearly a decade after they burn.

KWONG: All of that on this episode of Short Wave, science podcast from NPR.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BARBER: All right, Ari. Where do you want to start?

SHAPIRO: I love any reason to take a nap. Are you about to give me another reason proven by science?

BARBER: It's your lucky day. You know how when you're stuck on a problem, the common wisdom is sleep on it?

SHAPIRO: Yeah, sure. Like, you wake up and have some insight you didn't have when you went to bed.

BARBER: Yes. Ari, science backs this up. A full night of sleep may lend itself to a burst of insight. And a group of researchers in Germany wanted to know more about the stages of sleep involved in a eureka moment. Could it a nap be enough us to deliver us that aha?

SHAPIRO: How do you actually measure a eureka moment scientifically?

BARBER: Yeah, good question. OK, so researchers invited study participants to track a group of dots on a screen and decide whether the dots were generally moving towards one of the four corners of the screen.

KWONG: But there was a secret trick that made the task super easy. The correct response was paired with a color. Without knowing that trick, though, the task was kind of tough.

BARBER: So in the middle of the task, the researchers let the participants take a 20-minute break in a room with the lights off seated upon the most comfortable IKEA chair that cognitive neuroscientist Anika Lowe could find.

ANIKA LOWE: Yeah, we also told people to sleep 30% less the night before and not consume any caffeine before coming in at 1:00 PM.

SHAPIRO: So very primed to fall asleep.

KWONG: Yeah, exactly. Participants were also hooked up to an electrode cap to measure their brain activity. Some stayed awake. Some fell asleep. And then they were asked to return to the task and discovered something kind of amazing.

BARBER: Yeah. Ari, those who napped figured out the color trick at a higher frequency. And those who managed to enter the first phase of deep sleep, known as the N2 phase, had the highest frequency of insight. 86% of those deep sleepers had their eureka moment.

SHAPIRO: So they cracked the color code, they solved the task, and they only napped for like 20 minutes max.

KWONG: Yeah, that's right.

BARBER: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Amazing. So on the level of brain chemistry, how does deep sleep, even for a brief period of time, lead to these breakthroughs?

BARBER: Yeah, that's the next question this team and others want to investigate. Anika told me the leading theory is that deep sleep consolidates what you learned. So maybe in deep sleep, irrelevant synaptic connections are pruned away, and relevant connections remain so that upon waking, that might set our brain up for a breakthrough.

KWONG: Yeah, but this theory, of course, would have to be tested with more sleep research.

SHAPIRO: Sign me up. I'm happy to be paid to sleep. OK, next story. Gina, what is so special about this newborn baby distant planet?

BARBER: Yes. OK, so it's a planet beyond our solar system. It's orbiting another star. That's what's called an exoplanet. And astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets before. But this one is special because, one, this exoplanet was actually seen in an image, which is really hard to do. And two, astronomers took this picture while the exoplanet was still in this leftover disk of gas and dust it was formed from. The researchers published this image in the journal Nature this week.

KWONG: Yeah, and astrophysicist, Alycia Weinberger, who didn't work on this study, said the image helps clarify a big missing piece of the planet-formation puzzle.

ALYCIA J. WEINBERGER: We have only a few examples of stars that have both a disk and a planet, where we can really look at that interplay and how one is influencing the other.

SHAPIRO: And so does this new evidence fit the conventional wisdom about how planets form?

BARBER: Yes. Yeah, so scientists have a very good hypothesis that planets form inside this disk of gas and dust that's left over from the star forming, actually. And these disks look like pancakes of light around a very young star. That's why all the planets in our own solar system are in a plane. They came from a similar pancake.

KWONG: Yes, a very delicious pancake. But sometimes, there are gaps in the disks that are thought to be created from planets forming. And until now, scientists haven't been able to capture a planet in a gap on camera.

SHAPIRO: So now that it's been caught on camera, what can we about this exoplanet?

BARBER: We can about its atmosphere, for one, which tells us more about, like, what it's made out of. We've talked to multiple astrophysicists for this story. And they all think that this image is, like, just the beginning, that eventually, the James Webb Space Telescope will reveal, like, the whole process of how a planet forms.

SHAPIRO: Yet another insight thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, which is so much better than any that came before, huh?

BARBER: Yeah.

KWONG: So much. I mean, it's sensitive enough to get an image of an exoplanet this small, about 30% of the size of Jupiter. The exoplanet is still bigger than Earth, but a photographing a planet formation this small is a step towards finding even smaller planets closer to the size of Earth in our galaxy.

BARBER: Yeah, and a planet closer to the size of Earth is more likely to be hospitable to life.

SHAPIRO: Well, let's come back to Earth for our third and final story--

BARBER: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: --which is about how wildfires affect water quality. We heard about this a lot during the Southern California wildfires. What's the new insight here?

BARBER: Yes. So a study came out this week in the journal Nature Communications and Environment, which suggests that water impacts can linger nearly a decade after wildfire flames die down, especially when it comes to contaminants left behind by the fires, like sediment or nitrogen.

SHAPIRO: A decade's a long time. How did they figure that out?

KWONG: Yeah, the researchers analyzed hundreds of watersheds and compared areas that have been burned in wildfires to areas that were unburned. But they used data from across four decades. They collected data between 1984 and 2021, which is a big deal since, like, most wildfire studies have looked at a smaller window of time, two to three years after a fire.

BARBER: And a watershed, by the way, they're very important. It's an area of land that collects water from rain or snowmelt and eventually channels water into a larger body like a reservoir. Watersheds provide around 2/3 of the US population's clean water supply.

SHAPIRO: So knowing the state of a watershed could be a good way to measure the aftermath of a fire.

KWONG: Yes, exactly.

SHAPIRO: I know fires are becoming more intense and more frequent due to human-caused climate change. What kinds of contaminants are sticking around long after a fire?

BARBER: Yeah, the authors saw that carbon and phosphorus stuck around for up to, like, five years after a fire, while nitrogen and sediment were detected in the watersheds for up to eight years, all of which in excessive amounts, can be harmful to humans and ecosystems.

SHAPIRO: But public water utilities filter water before it reaches our faucets. So what does this mean for those of us who are-- I don't know-- taking showers and drinking water?

KWONG: Yeah, so one of the study authors, Ben Livneh at University of Colorado Boulder, said that listeners shouldn't worry about water quality, but water utility companies should be extra aware of these contaminants for a long time after a wildfire takes place. They should perhaps pivot to use a new supply, depending on where the watershed is.

BARBER: Or use this information to be better prepared for future fires and help build water systems that are more resilient towards fire. And this data could help them do that.

SHAPIRO: Which is going to be even more necessary as the planet heats up.

BARBER: Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for hanging out with us.

SHAPIRO: It's always so fun and educational.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BARBER: You can hear more of Ari Shapiro on Consider This, NPR's afternoon podcast about what the news means for you.

KWONG: And while you're checking out Consider This, why don't you hit Follow on the NPR Short Wave feed on the NPR app, or whatever podcasting platform you wish, so you'll never miss an episode. And if you like this one, share it with a friend.

BARBER: This episode was produced by Megan Lim and Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Patrick Jarenwattananon.

KWONG: Tyler Jones checked the facts, Ko Takasugi-Czernowin, and Tiffany Vera Castro were the audio engineers. I'm Emily Kwong.

BARBER: And I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Full article: https://www.npr.org/1254874800

ENVIRONMENT | THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2025 • 11:31 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

What's that in the sky? We're not sure, but the fireball was very bright

By The Associated Press

McDONOUGH, Ga. — An object bright enough to be seen streaking across the midday sky fell across parts of the Southeast U.S. on Thursday.

The object was likely either a meteor or space junk, with most sightings of the streak of light and fireball coming from Georgia and South Carolina around 12:30 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, Georgia, said on social media.

Someone in Henry County, Georgia, reported a rock coming through their roof about the time they heard the sonic boom from the fireball. It left behind a hole in the ceiling about the size of a golf ball and a crack in a laminate floor, the weather service said.

Emergency officials are investigating the object that fell about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.

Dashboard and doorbell cameras across several Southeast U.S. states caught glimpses of the fireball that appeared to be plummeting straight down. More than 140 people in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee reported the object to the American Meteor Society.

Meteors and other space debris frequently enter Earth's atmosphere, but it is rare for an object to be so bright it can easily be seen in broad daylight.

Bright fireballs are caused by friction as an object enters the atmosphere and slows down considerably. Almost all objects break into minuscule pieces before striking the ground, according to NASA.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448142

Related

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NPR coverage of space exploration, space shuttle missions, news from NASA, private space exploration, satellite technology, and new discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics.

Religion

- Pilgrims and clergy gather in remote Alaska village to canonize first Yup'ik saint: 2025 Jun 27

RELIGION | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 7:18 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Pilgrims and clergy gather in remote Alaska village to canonize first Yup'ik saint

By Evan Erickson

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

We go now to the tiny village of Kwethluk, Alaska, where the Orthodox Christian tradition remains strong after almost two centuries. This village recently welcomed hundreds of clergy from the Orthodox Church in America and pilgrims from all around the world to canonize a local midwife and healer as a Saint. Evan Erickson with member station KYUK has this story. And a warning to listeners - this story includes the sounds of celebratory gunshots.

UNIDENTIFIED BOAT CAPTAIN: Let's get it off the ground.

EVAN ERICKSON, BYLINE: Volunteer captains of small fishing boats in Bethel, Alaska, welcome the visitors to ferry them 15 miles up the Kuskokwim River to Kwethluk, which is not reachable by roads.

UNIDENTIFIED BOAT CAPTAIN: You can take one more.

ERICKSON: In the village, a two-day glorification ceremony is about to begin.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE CHUGGING)

ERICKSON: Locals whiz around on four-wheelers. Matushka Olga, the Yupik woman being sainted, was born here in 1916 and died in 1979. Her direct descendants are easy to find.

ATAN' WINKELMAN: She was an actual person to me that would hold me and piggyback me. And we would sit and eat together, or I would sit and watch her sew.

ERICKSON: Atan' Winkelman, an elementary school principal in Bethel, is Olga's granddaughter.

WINKELMAN: I'm finding the whole exhuming of her body - the whole glorification, canonization - very strange.

ERICKSON: Matushka Olga is remembered as a humble midwife and gifted healer of trauma, particularly sexual abuse. The FBI says rates of sexual assault in Alaska are among the highest in the nation. After her death, accounts spread of miracles attributed to her, often through appearances in dreams. Icons of her likeness began to appear in churches. Bertha Howard, one of her nieces, sums up her memories in Yugtun, the Yupik language.

BERTHA HOWARD: (Speaking Yugtun).

ERICKSON: "She helped. She was compassionate. That's all I can say," she says.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

ERICKSON: On a muddy riverbank, around 200 pilgrims sing as boats arrive with Orthodox bishops and priests. A group of young boys fire off rifles in welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

ERICKSON: In the crumbling cemetery of the old St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, St. Olga's glorification begins with her last funeral rite. Local priest, Father Vasily Fisher, explains, going forward, the day of her death will be celebr4ated as the day of her birth as a saint.

VASILY FISHER: Our faith is about life. Sainthood is about life. Everything is done as if going backwards. They come back to the church and in the presence of life.

ERICKSON: Some gathered in the cemetery have tears in their eyes. Others pat beads of sweat from their foreheads. Matushka Olga's descendants stand transfixed among head-scarfed pilgrims from nearby villages and from as far away as Romania and Australia.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) You are my cross (ph).

ERICKSON: After the funeral rite, there's a procession. Clergy wear flowing robes. Altar servers carry golden banners. There are puffs of incense and a couple curious village dogs. Pallbearers bear the casket along a short, dusty track to the village's new church.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting) The intercessions of our all-pure lady, the Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary.

ERICKSON: A four-hour service follows. It's standing room only. Orthodox churches in Alaska don't have pews anyway.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting) At the supplication of the honorable, glorious...

ERICKSON: Archbishop Alexei of Alaska calls this an elaborate, beautiful dance. St. Olga's casket is open for pilgrims to kiss her sacred relics and receive her blessing.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) [inaudible].

ERICKSON: St. Olga's granddaughter, Atan' Winkelman, is touched that the ceremonies include the local Yugtun language.

WINKELMAN: To use the word elders in song - that was, like, the elders of Kwethluk. I'm like, oh, I've never heard that anywhere else in any of our - venerating any other saint.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing in Yugtun).

ERICKSON: The Alaska diocese is now fundraising for a new church, pilgrim's lodge and cultural center in Kwethluk. That would cost millions of dollars. People here don't have much extra money, but they do believe in miracles.

For NPR News, I'm Evan Erickson in Kwethluk, Alaska.

(SOUNDBITE OF MAZZY STAR SONG, "FADE INTO YOU")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5438495

Culture

- Authors petition publishers to curtail their use of AI: 2025 Jun 28

- Willi Carlisle blends the absurd and the sentimental on 'Winged Victory': 2025 Jun 28

- Opinion: Remembering Bill Moyers: 2025 Jun 28

- 'M3GAN 2.0' is more of an expansion pack than an upgrade: 2025 Jun 28

- These drag artists know how to turn climate activism into a joyful blowout: 2025 Jun 27

- Why 'The Bear' is the best series on television right now: 2025 Jun 27

CULTURE | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 11:28 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Authors petition publishers to curtail their use of AI

By Chloe Veltman

A group of more than 70 authors including Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire and Lauren Groff released an open letter on Friday about the use of AI on the literary website Lit Hub. It asked publishing houses to promise "they will never release books that were created by machines."

Addressed to the "big five" U.S. publishers — Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan — as well as "other publishers of America," the letter elicited more than 1,100 signatures on its accompanying petition in less than 24 hours. Among the well-known signatories after the letter's release are Jodi Picoult, Olivie Blake and Paul Tremblay.

The letter contains a list of direct requests to publishers concerning a wide array of ways in which AI may already — or could soon be — used in publishing. It asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors' consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators — among other requests.

"The writing that AI produces feels cheap because it is cheap. It feels simple because it is simple to produce. That is the whole point," the letter states. "AI is an enormously powerful tool, here to stay, with the capacity for real societal benefits—but the replacement of art and artists isn't one of them."

Lawsuits a focus — until now

Until now, authors have mostly expressed their displeasure with AI's negative impacts on their work by launching lawsuits against AI companies rather than addressing publishing houses directly. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman are among the biggest names involved in ongoing copyright infringement cases against AI players.

Some of these cases are already starting to render rulings: Earlier this week, federal judges presiding over two such cases ruled in favor of defendants Anthropic AI and Meta, potentially giving AI companies the legal right under the fair use doctrine to train their large language models on copyrighted works — as long as they obtain copies of those works legally.

Young adult fiction author Rioghnach Robinson, who goes by the pen name Riley Redgate, and is one of the organizers of the letter and petition, said these rulings only make the need for safeguards feel more urgent.

"With courts allowing AI access to copyrighted texts as fair use, the next -- and possibly last -- line of defense has to be the publishers" she said. "Without publishers pledging not to generate internally competitive titles, nothing's stopping publishing houses from AI-generating their authors out of existence. We're hopeful that publishers will act to protect authors and industry workers from, specifically, the competitive and labor-related threats of AI."

Existential threat

The authors said the "existential threat" of AI isn't just about copyright infringement. Copycat books that appear to have been written by AI and are attached to real authors who didn't write them have proliferated on Amazon and other platforms in recent years.

The rise of AI audio production within publishing is another big threat addressed in the letter. Many authors make extra money narrating their own books. And the rise of machine narration and translation is an even greater concern for human voice actors and translators. For example, major audio books publisher Audible recently announced a partnership with publishers to expand AI narration and translation offerings.

"Audible believes that AI represents a momentous opportunity to expand the availability of audiobooks with the vision of offering customers every book in every language, alongside our continued investments in premium original content," Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said as part of the announcement. "We'll be able to bring more stories to life — helping creators reach new audiences while ensuring listeners worldwide can access extraordinary books that might otherwise never reach their ears."

Robinson acknowledged the steps publishers have taken to help protect writers.

"Many individual contracts now have AI opt-out clauses in an attempt to keep books out of AI training datasets, which is great," Robinson noted. But she said publishers should be doing much more to defend their writers against the onslaught of AI. "There are major concerns that publishers might create generative AI titles of their own that could swallow the publishing landscape, or replace editorial workers with AI tools, or the like," she said.

NPR reached out to all five of the publishing houses named in the letter, and received one response ahead of the publication deadline.

"Simon & Schuster takes these concerns seriously," spokesperson Susannah Lawrence said in a statement. "We are actively engaged in protecting the intellectual property rights of our authors."

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5449166

MUSIC INTERVIEWS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 9:16 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Willi Carlisle blends the absurd and the sentimental on 'Winged Victory'

By Scott Simon, Dave Mistich, Samantha Balaban

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

The songs on Willi Carlisle's new album are full of cowboys, dreamers, weirdos and misfits. There's also a donkey, after whom the album is named.

On Winged Victory, the Kansas native employs more than half a dozen instruments, addresses issues of class and pulls from both childhood memories as well as Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The 11 tracks on the album are a mix of originals and cover songs — drawing from traditional, uncredited folk songs ("We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years") to modern classics from the likes of Richard Thompson ("Beeswing") and American folk singer Mark Ross ("Old Bill Pickett"). Delicate moments can quickly turn toward stream-of-consciousness surrealism.

Carlisle's varied vocal style — which he says "verges from singing like a drag queen at a vaudeville show" to "a delicate whisper" — plays a key role. "I learned to sing by being in choirs in Kansas and in rural Illinois and also by calling square dances," Carlisle explains. "So, I've got a big voice and a little one." And he uses both, to full effect, on Winged Victory.

On the donkey named "Winged Victory"

Carlisle was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., with a bunch of friends who were representing the Ozarks, playing traditional tunes with "old folks and traditional artists and weavers and cooks," he says.

"I was being a true bad folklorist," Carlisle says. "I was drunk on moonshine, but also was taking copious notes." The group was talking about animals with funny names and one of his notes said: "A donkey named Winged Victory?" He'll never know if that donkey is real or imagined.

"And I just thought it was so funny," laughs Carlisle, "that I had to write a song about it."

Youtube Video

On delivering a message through his songs

"I believe that a folk singer should be a dreamer with a long memory," Carlisle says.

Labor struggles and the working class have long been themes in Carlisle's repertoire. The first song on his new album is "We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years." Originally written by an "unknown proletariat," it's a traditional song from the labor movement that dates back to the beginning of the 20th Century.

"It's the first folk song I really fell in love with," says Carlisle. "It comes from ... a time when workers wanted to coexist with other wild leftist movements that were happening around the globe. When Zapatistas and miners might be sharing the same pamphlets."

He was a teenager when he first heard the tune, sung by anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips. And it stuck with him.

"It kind of started me down a pathway of learning about these working class folk songs," Carlisle says. "And in a world of big cowboy hats and bad politics, learning about people that were about kindness, unification and equity."

On his range of instruments

Carlisle plays — and tours with — a number of instruments: guitar, fiddle, harmonica, banjo, accordion, concertina, bouzouki and rhythm bones. So how does he choose?

"I try to let the instrument do the work," Carlisle says. "There's no money past the fifth fret."

By which he means, he tries to keep it simple at all times.

"I have kind of come to believe that simple is hard, simple is good," he says. "I play a lot of instruments but I would never claim to be an expert in any of them."

On "Wildflowers Growin,'" Carlisle let the bouzouki take the lead. "In this case, I was using one of my quietest voices," he explains, "and so a sweet, double course lute — it sounds like a big mandolin — was the right choice."

On giving a nod to Shakespeare

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the title character, upon learning of his wife's death, says: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Carlisle says he always thought about that line. "What if it's signifying nothing and it's great? What if it means nothing and that's wonderful?"

He wrote "Sound and Fury" as a four-part bluegrass gospel-style song.

"If you're going to try to make something new out of something old," Carlisle explains, "why not use the old good stuff, right?"

His philosophy? Take the best parts of bluegrass, slap some Shakespeare on it and have fun being an idiot about it all. "Try to find joy in what sometimes feels stodgy," Willi Carlisle says. "Even if it's beautiful."

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Willi Carlisle says the songs in his new album are full of cowboys, dreamers, misfits and weirdos. There's also a donkey.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WINGED VICTORY")

WILLI CARLISLE: (Singing) I walk alone. I'm rarely lonely. The open road's my one and only. The nightly cold comes on so fast. True love truly doesn't last.

SIMON: "Winged Victory" is the title of Willi Carlisle's fourth album - also, maybe the name of that donkey. He's known for blending country with traditional folk music and weaving between the absurd and the sentimental. He also plays about half a dozen instruments. Willi Carlisle joins us now from Kansas City. Thanks so much for being with us.

CARLISLE: Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WINGED VICTORY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Whеn I met a mule named Beauty in the state of old Missouri, and a donkey named Winged Victory in the state of Arkansas.

SIMON: Tell us about Winged Victory. Donkey? Personal friend?

CARLISLE: You know, donkey, personal friend and maybe just a dream that I had. I was at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival with a bunch of friends, playing a bunch of Ozark traditional tunes. I was being a true, bad folklorist, in that I was drunk on moonshine, but also was taking copious notes. And somehow, in my notes, ended up, donkey named Winged Victory, question mark. And I just thought it was so funny later that I had to write a song about.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WINGED VICTORY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) But I sang to the dementia ward, and the old folks all sang back.

SIMON: Are you in what you call your full chest voice on this album?

CARLISLE: Absolutely, yeah. It sort of verges from singing like a drag queen at a vaudeville show to what I would call a delicate whisper. I learned to sing by being in choirs in Kansas and then rural Illinois, and then also by calling square dances. So I got a big voice and a little one, and both of them get used, for sure, on this one.

SIMON: This album has both original songs and covers. Tell me, please, about one of the covers, "We Have Fed You All For 1,000 Years."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS ")

CARLISLE: (Singing) We have fed you all for a thousand years, and you hail us still unfed.

It's the first folk song I really fell in love with. It's an IWW folk song. It comes from the early 20th century - a time when workers wanted to coexist with other wild leftist movements, when Zapatistas and miners might be sharing the same pamphlets, where there were attempts to link the goals of the global working class against global oligarchs and robber barons and trying to make sense of a material history of exploitation through songs. It's a lofty goal, and as much as any one folk song could, I think that the song manages that goal.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS ")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Come and reckon our dеad by the forges red and the factories where we spin. Oh, if blood be the price of your cursed wealth, good God, we have paid it in.

I first heard it when I was a teenager, from the great anarchist folk singer Utah Phillips. And it kind of started me down a pathway of learning about these working-class folk songs and, in a world of big cowboy hats and bad politics, learning about people that were about kindness, unification and equity for all people.

(SOUNDBITE OF WILLI CARLISLE SONG, "WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR 1,000 YEARS ")

SIMON: You want to create music for and with working-class people, I gather?

CARLISLE: Yeah. I kind of believe that a folk singer should be a dreamer with a long memory. I believe that we need folk singers on street corners and in small clubs. I don't think we can stop singing the news any more than NPR can stop doing the news. I think that's been a folk singer's task for a long time - is to make the news into song, to listen to everyone.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Oh, turn away, young Magdalene. Morning's on the rise.

SIMON: Our crack research staff has brought me what they discern to be a list of the instruments you play. I'm going to rattle them off.

CARLISLE: (Laughter).

SIMON: Please tell me if I've missed something, OK? Guitar, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, accordion, concertina and bouzouki. I think of that as a Greek instrument.

CARLISLE: Yeah. You know, true to this kind of pan-American or even global ideas about folk music, the bouzouki was adopted by Irish folk musicians and then has traveled around the world. So we take the ashes of a garden and we use it to fertilize the next one, you know?

SIMON: We hear the bouzouki in "Wildflowers Growin'"?

CARLISLE: Mm-hmm.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Bad TV and frozen food in a house we can't afford. The neighbors with bad politics are loner folks, for sure. I want to know a weed from a chestnut tree and a friend from a foe. But nobody knows the names of wildflowers anymore.

SIMON: What made the bouzouki the instrument you wanted in this case? What steers your choices in any of these songs?

CARLISLE: I try to let the instrument do the work. I think it was the great vaudeville banjo player Uncle Dave Macon who said, there's no money past the fifth fret.

SIMON: (Laughter) I'm going to remember that the next time we - you know, we go on a little bit in our reports.

CARLISLE: Right (laughter). I have kind of come to believe that simple is hard. Simple is good. So I play a lot of instruments, but I would never claim to be an expert at any of them. I love them, especially in folk context, because I get to let them speak very simply and kind of see what they have to say about the words that I'm working with and about the melody that I'm working with. In this case, with "Wildflowers," I was using one of my quietest voices.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'")

CARLISLE: (Singing) I'll be there, if you care to watch some wildflowers grow.

So a sweet, double-coursed lute that sounds like a big mandolin was the right choice.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILDFLOWERS GROWIN'")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Come on by and waste some time watching wildflowers grow.

SIMON: Tell us about the inspiration for your song "Sound And Fury."

CARLISLE: (Laughter) Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUND AND FURY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Dip my toes in the boiling water. Sip sugar from the udder of an angel. Purse my lips for the sound and fury, signifying nothing. Signing na-na-na-na na-na nothing.

I always thought about that line from "Macbeth," full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And I just thought - what if it's signifying nothing, and it's great? What if it means nothing, and that is wonderful?

SIMON: And we should explain. In, I mean, Shakespeare, the line is, as I recall, it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

CARLISLE: Right. And so I guess I just thought of myself as the idiot, and what a joy it is to be the idiot.

SIMON: Oh, well, I - Shakespeare will tell you the idiots often say the wisest things, don't they?

CARLISLE: Right, exactly.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUND AND FURY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Born a lollygagger, so baby I'm shook. I'm studying the art of the ornery stinker, looking for a good word in a good book. No bad jokes, but a whole lot of thinkers. Well, I told you I was working on a building.

I wrote it having a good time with my bandmates, and immediately thought that it should be a four-part bluegrass, gospel-style song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUND AND FURY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Na-na-na, yeah.

If you're going to try to make something new out of something old, why not use the old, good stuff - right? - a genre that has been notoriously serious about its religiosity, and instead, slap some Shakespeare on it and try to be an idiot about it. Try to find joy in what sometimes feels stodgy, even if it's beautiful.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUND AND FURY")

CARLISLE: (Singing) Yeah.

SIMON: Willi Carlisle - his new album, "Winged Victory," out now. Thank you so much for being with us.

CARLISLE: It's a huge honor. Thanks for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORK IS WORK")

CARLISLE: (Singing) A bitter morning. The sun is dope sick, and all the world is tied off for its fix. At the casino, where all the scene girls say they don't mind turnin' tricks.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5406777

SIMON SAYS | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 8:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Opinion: Remembering Bill Moyers

By Scott Simon

Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

All of us in public broadcasting owe a thanks to Bill Moyers, who died this week at the age of 91. He was one of the signature figures, along with Big Bird and Susan Stamberg, who helped build public broadcasting in the United States.

Moyers started his career as a teenage cub reporter at a newspaper in Marshall, Texas. He went on to work as an intern for then-senator Lyndon Johnson. He became ordained as Baptist minister, and a few years later, in 1960, he joined Johnson on the campaign trail, eventually following him to the White House after the Kennedy assassination.

"I work for him despite his faults," he said once when he was Johnson's press secretary, "and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies." They had a falling out, reportedly over the war in Vietnam, and Moyers returned to journalism for the next 6 decades.

He won the most prestigious awards of our profession, some in bunches: more than 30 Emmys, 11 Peabodys, two Columbia-Duponts, and many other honors for his PBS documentaries and interviews.

He interviewed newsmakers. But from the start of Bill Moyers Journal, to NOW with Bill Moyers, and to Wide Angle, he interviewed poets like Rita Dove, scholars like Joseph Campbell, and other writers, artists, religious leaders and historical figures like Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

He once asked Tutu how people who read the same Bible and prayed to the same God could wind up on opposite sides of grievously serious issues.

"We are human beings," Tutu said to him, "who have been given, extraordinarily, by this God we worship the gift of freedom … God takes seriously the gift that God has given us. And we make choices. And the God, who is an omnipotent God, in many ways become impotent, because God has given us the gift to choose."

In a media world which can overwhelm with breaking news, Bill Moyers asked questions that could be at once simple and probing in his Texas hill country tenor, steeped with a pastor's compassion, and reminded us to try to find out what can last in the human heart.

I remember what seemed almost an incidental remark he made years ago at a long news meeting which we both attended.

"Is this a story that reaches into people?," Bill Moyers asked.

We can honor his memory by asking ourselves that question as we go on with our work today.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

All of us in public broadcasting owe a thanks to Bill Moyers, who died this week at the age of 91. He was one of the signature figures, along with Big Bird and Susan Stamberg, who helped build public broadcasting in the United States. He started his career as a teenage cub reporter at a newspaper in Marshall, Texas, went on to work as an intern for then-senator Lyndon Johnson, became ordained as a baptist minister. A few years later, in 1960, he joined LBJ on the campaign trail, eventually following him to the White House after the Kennedy assassination. I work for him despite his faults, he said once when he was Johnson's press secretary, and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies. They had a falling out, reportedly over the war in Vietnam, and Bill Moyers returned to journalism for the next six decades.

He won the most prestigious awards of our profession, some in bunches - more than 30 Emmys, 11 Peabodys, two Columbia-duPonts, plus many other honors for his PBS documentaries and interviews. He interviewed newsmakers. But from the start of "Bill Moyers Journal," to "NOW with Bill Moyers" and to "Wide Angle," he interviewed poets like Rita Dove, scholars like Joseph Campbell, plus other writers, artists, religious leaders and historical figures like Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

He once asked Tutu how people who read the same Bible and prayed to the same God could wind up on opposite sides of grievously serious issues. We are human beings, the archbishop told him, who have been given, extraordinarily, by this God we worship, the gift of freedom. God takes seriously the gift that God has given us, and we make choices. And the God, who is an omnipotent God, in many ways becomes impotent because God has given us the gift to choose.

In a media world which can overwhelm with breaking news, Bill Moyers asked questions that could be at once simple and probing in his Texas Hill Country tenor, steeped with a pastor's compassion, and reminded us to try to find out what can last in the human heart. I remember what seemed an almost incidental remark he made years ago at a long news meeting which we both attended. Is this a story that reaches into people? Bill Moyers asked. We can honor his memory by asking ourselves that question as we go on with our work today.

(SOUNDBITE OF AAESPO'S "HAPPINESS STILL EXISTS")

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5441724

POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR | SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2025 • 7:00 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

'M3GAN 2.0' is more of an expansion pack than an upgrade

By Glen Weldon

The problem with M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to 2022's surprise hit/meme-generator about a killer robot determined to protect her young charge, is that its title denotes something that the film's audience wants, but that the film's characters really, really don't.

"M3GAN 2.0," after all, promises the audience that M3GAN, the artificial companion originally created by workaholic roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams) for her newly orphaned niece Cady (Violet McGraw), is gonna get rebuilt. (Gemma pulled M3GAN's plug at the end of the original film after the robot went on a distinctly PG-13 killing spree.)

Now, we the audience recall only too well that M3GAN, again embodied here by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis, was a hoot and a half. She quipped, sang some Sia, danced to some Skatt Brothers, killed folk who mostly deserved it, and always told the truth with the cool dispassion of Siri on lithium.

We, in turn, loved M3GAN. We did her dance on TikTok, we dressed up like her for Halloween, we commissioned our drag queens to pay her musical homage.

So this summer, as we settle our butts into theater seats for a film called M3GAN 2.0, we all know what it is we want to see: M3GAN's incipient return, and the commensurate booty-shaking and butt-kicking that will inevitably ensue.

But the thing is, the sequel's characters recall the events of the first film, and have a very different take on them. To Gemma, Cady and the other members of the returning cast, the idea of rebuilding M3GAN is a very bad, no good, downright stupid idea.

You see the problem. We know M3GAN's gonna get rebuilt. The film's characters – particularly Gemma – don't wanna rebuild her.

Thus, the first half-hour of the film is taken up by Gemma cycling through variations of "What, are you crazy?" "Rebuild M3GAN? That's a terrible idea!" "I'm not rebuilding M3GAN! Don't you remember what happened the last time?" and "No. No way. Not happening."

Here's the thing though, reader: Eventually? It's happening.

But before that gets to be happening, the script does a lot of very sweaty, superfluous work to narratively justify rebuilding M3GAN. (Not to justify it to us, of course – we've been onboard from the jump; since the lights in the theater first went down, we've all practically been standing by the laboratory table waiting to hand Gemma the dang soldering iron.)

But it's Gemma who must be convinced, so the plot threads start dutifully, joylessly unspooling. The main one involves a renegade robot named AMELIA, played by Ivanna Sakhno. She's built from M3GAN tech, but lacks M3GAN's compunction against killing innocent people. The other subplots have to do with the FBI, the fraught relationship between Gemma and Cady, a tech bro played by Jemaine Clement, another one played by Aristotle Athari, and the big tech MacGuffin that all the above-named parties are desperately searching for.

It's a lot, and it's why M3GAN 2.0 ends up feeling less like an upgrade and more like the DLC expansion pack no one asked for. All that extraneous narrative stuff does – eventually – convince Gemma to rebuild and retool M3GAN, and that's good news. But there's so much of it that it only serves to keep pushing M3GAN offscreen. And when the formula for your movie is as ruthlessly simple as this one is (M3GAN onscreen = fun, M3GAN offscreen = less so), it doesn't compute.

Eventually, however, M3GAN 2.0 locks in enough to deliver on the promise, and the premise, of the first film. It flirts with fan service by winking at the memes you fully expect it to. (There's another dance sequence, for example, and another moment when M3GAN launches into a ballad. The choice of ballad this time around, plus its employment at a specific juncture in the script, combine to produce a scene that's much funnier than the one it evokes from the first film.)

And despite the new film's midsummer drop date (the first movie snuck into theaters in January) expect no major budgetary glow-up. Like its predecessor, M3GAN 2.0 remains bracingly, confidently, even defiantly, a B-movie. There's still a kind of modest, lo-fi quality to the proceedings; the effects are practical, the fight choreography (the last act features lots of robot-on-robot violence) impresses, but doesn't dazzle.

Which is why the transition from M3GAN to M3GAN 2.0 isn't so much Alien to Aliens, or Terminator to T2. It's more Weekend at Bernie's to Weekend at Bernie's II. I can't help but respect that.

This piece also appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what's making us happy.

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Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5446118

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CULTURE | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 6:07 PM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

These drag artists know how to turn climate activism into a joyful blowout

By Ezra Romero

Heard on All Things Considered

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Talking about climate change can really kill the mood at a party. That is, unless you're a drag artist who knows how to turn a dance number about divesting from big oil or plastic pollution into a joyful blowout. This Pride Month, Ezra David Romero from KQED in San Francisco spent some time with drag performers who are using their routines as a form of climate activism.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

EVE SWALLOWS: OK, Queer Surf, are we ready to see some drag?

(CHEERING)

EZRA DAVID ROMERO, BYLINE: San Francisco drag queen Eve Swallows is kicking off the show here at Pacifica State Beach before a crowd of around 200 queer and trans surfers. Her outfit's a nod to an oil spill. She's wearing a black latex gown, and her headpiece looks like an oil pump.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GASOLINE")

BRITNEY SPEARS: (Singing) You're so bright.

ROMERO: The performance held earlier this month was meant to call out the Trump administration's aim to expand offshore drilling. Eve Swallows has chosen a petrol-themed medley, including the song "Gasoline" by Britney Spears.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GASOLINE")

SPEARS: (Singing) Gasoline.

ROMERO: If you've ever watched "RuPaul's Drag Race" or been to a drag show, you know the art form can be ultra campy and full of flips and humorous - like some of the performances of Nymphia Wind, a winner of the show who is famous for her rhinestone-studded banana gown. But while drag isn't always serious, its roots are based in queer activism. For Eve Swallows, incorporating climate activism into drag was second nature.

SWALLOWS: Drag kind of, like, accomplishes a paradox of embracing joy and fun and also really serious issues of liberation and social justice and climate justice.

ROMERO: She's part of a growing family of artists who are dragifying (ph) climate activism. For several years now, an environmental activist drag queen from Oregon called Pattie Gonia has been performing in person and attracting fans online. For the past few months, she's been on a national tour called "Save Her! An Environmental Drag Show." Here, she's performing "Barbie Girl" by Aqua.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BARBIE GIRL")

AQUA: Come on, Barbie. Let's go party.

(Singing) I'm a Barbie girl.

PATTIE GONIA: Sometimes we get a number that is a very sexy honey bee performing a bee/pollinator mix. Sometime it's just a campy, dumb, fun number about how life in plastic is not fantastic.

ROMERO: At a different performance this month, drag king Vera performed another climate act at San Francisco's Baker Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them. They wore a gown made of used red, yellow and green netting and danced to Florence & the Machine's "Cosmic Love."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COSMIC LOVE")

FLORENCE & THE MACHINE: (Singing) The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out.

ROMERO: The Oakland-based artist says they perform climate drag to encourage more queer and trans people to mobilize on behalf of the climate.

VERA: Of course, you do it because we can't be out here just fighting for queer and trans lives if we don't have a planet to stand on.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes.

(CHEERING)

ROMERO: Vera says the number of climate-minded drag artists is growing, thanks in part to the national show they co-lead with Pattie Gonia.

VERA: It really also creates in that way, like, a big environmental loving family that we have now across the nation.

ROMERO: That family is reflected all around Vera at this show - their queer community cheering them on with the beautiful Pacific Ocean in view.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COSMIC LOVE")

FLORENCE & THE MACHINE: (Singing) They have all been blown out. You've left...

ROMERO: For NPR News, I'm Ezra David Romero in San Francisco.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COSMIC LOVE")

FLORENCE & THE MACHINE: (Singing) And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat. I tried...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes.

(CHEERING)

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5444036

TV REVIEWS | FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2025 • 11:55 AM EDT | VIEW ON NPR

Why 'The Bear' is the best series on television right now

By David Bianculli

Heard on Fresh Air

Transcript

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. "The Bear" is back. This week, the Hulu streaming service launched season 4 of the intense and astoundingly excellent series about a talented chef trying to launch a successful high-end restaurant in Chicago. Jeremy Allen White stars as Carm, who returns home after his brother Mike's death to save the family's beef sandwich shop, then expand it into something more grand.

The creator of "The Bear" is Christopher Storer, who won an Emmy for directing the show's hectic holiday dinner flashback episode called "The Fishes." The series has an especially talented cast and even a deep bench, with lots of guest actors and regulars racking up Emmy nominations and wins. At the most recent Emmys, "The Bear" won 11 awards, the most ever for a comedy series in a single season. And that beat the awards set by "The Bear" at the previous Emmys, where it won 10. That's an amazing accomplishment.

It's also a somewhat bizarre one because - and I say this every time I review this show - "The Bear" is not a comedy. I've seen all 10 episodes of the new fourth season, and the first genuine comedy-style dialogue exchange didn't happen until episode 5. But that's my one and only complaint about "The Bear" - that it should be winning all these Emmys as a drama, not a comedy. But the quality and the artistry and the ambition - those are givens.

Most impressive, perhaps, is that Christopher Storer and his writing staff are playing the long game and have a clear idea where they're going. Last season ended on a cliffhanger, with the restaurant staff awaiting its first influential review. This season charts the staff's ups and downs, but as much off the job as on it. And there are constant callbacks to everything from a chicken wishbone to the movie "Groundhog Day" and its intentional monotony.

The restaurant staff is working to meet and exceed expectations, while the show's writing and production staff is working just as hard to defy them. So much happens to so many characters in this season of "The Bear," dealing with the past as well as the future, that I don't want to play any excerpts that could reveal any secrets. Rest assured, though, that this season includes one expanded episode that finds a reason to reunite the show's extended cast of guest players, including Bob Odenkirk, John Mulaney, Brie Larson and Sarah Paulson.

And as this season gains momentum, there are shared scenes between key characters that once again are sure shots to gain Emmy nominations - scenes between Jeremy Allen White as Carm and Jamie Lee Curtis as his mom, and between Carm and Ayo Edebiri as his head chef, Sydney. Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richie, Liza Colon-Zayas as Tina, Jon Bernthal as Carm's late brother, Mike - all of them already are Emmy winners for their work on this show, and all of them shine brilliantly once again.

But the only season 4 taste of "The Bear" I'm willing to present is from the very first scene of the very first episode. It's a flashback with Carm and his brother Mike in a kitchen, stirring some tomato sauce and talking about food, as a radio plays in the background. Carm is visiting after working successfully at a Michelin-starred California restaurant and is explaining to his brother why he's so passionate about his chosen vocation.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE BEAR")

JEREMY ALLEN WHITE: (As Carm) Look, every one of our good memories - they happened in restaurants, right? Like Homer's Ice Cream after baseball - you know, Omega after that weird birthday party with Mom.

JON BERNTHAL: (As Mike, laughing).

WHITE: (As Carm) You know, when we couldn't stop laughing?

BERNTHAL: (As Mike) Yeah, fine.

WHITE: (As Carm) Look, like, all this good [expletive] - it happened to us in restaurants 'cause, I don't know, restaurants are special places, right? And people go to restaurants to be taken care of, right? They go to restaurants to celebrate, to relax, to not have to think about anything else for a minute. You know, people go to restaurants to feel less lonely.

BIANCULLI: This new season of "The Bear" is all about turning Carm's new restaurant into just such a place. There's a lot of pressure, financial and otherwise. And it's all depicted, so you feel every bit of it. Sometimes, there are rapid-fire montages of food prep. Other times - lots of times - there are lengthy dialogue scenes between two people shot in extreme close-up. I should mention how unusually emotionally real all of these characters seem and how much you end up caring about them. Abby Elliott is Carm's sister, Oliver Platt is his uncle, and even some new cast additions, like guest star Rob Reiner as a potential investor. Finally, the choice of music on the soundtrack is inspired. Songs by Paul Simon and Lou Reed, Van Morrison and R.E.M., Bob Dylan and The Who are played in ways and in spots that make you respond to the lyrics in a new context.

Call "The Bear" a comedy if you must, but I won't. Watching this new season, I cried more times than I laughed. Yet however you characterize it, "The Bear" right now is the best series on television.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETHING SO RIGHT")

PAUL SIMON: (Singing) You got the cool water when the fever runs high. You got the look of love light in your eyes. And I was in crazy motion till you calmed me down. It took a little time, but you calmed me down.

BIANCULLI: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. On Monday's show, Terry talks with Jeffrey Seller, who played a key role as a producer of the Broadway musicals "Rent," "Hamilton," "In The Heights," "Avenue Q" and the revival of Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" that starred Josh Groban. His new memoir, "Theater Kid," is about his life and offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to produce a Broadway musical. I hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) We're not trapped in time, whoa.

Full article: https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5448708

Table of Contents

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People in Minnesota say goodbye to slain lawmaker Melissa Hortman and husband: 2025 Jun 27

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With a series of wars, Israel's military reshapes the Mideast: 2025 Jun 28

Israel's leaders slam a news report on a Gaza 'killing field' near food sites: 2025 Jun 28

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Iran and the U.S., Part Two: Rules of Engagement: 2025 Jun 28

Five academics and former diplomats on U.S. strikes, Iran and stability: 2025 Jun 27

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Trump promised mass deportations. In Honduras, returns have slowed down instead: 2025 Jun 27

Law

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Recapping a blockbuster day of SCOTUS opinions, many of which hand Trump a victory: 2025 Jun 28

The Supreme Court just lifted a key check on presidential power: 2025 Jun 27

SCOTUS says parents can opt kids out of lessons with LGBTQ+ characters. What's next?: 2025 Jun 27

Politics

Here's what's in the GOP megabill headed for a vote in the Senate: 2025 Jun 28

Week in politics: Senate to start vote on Trump's tax bill, blocks military action: 2025 Jun 28

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Trump's high pressure week: 2025 Jun 27

USNS Harvey Milk renamed amid Trump administration efforts to cut DEI: 2025 Jun 27

Health

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Science

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Why 'The Bear' is the best series on television right now: 2025 Jun 27