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Haitians that used to have Temporary Protected Status are facing a new reality in the United States. Immigration operations targeting members of this community are currently underway at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced this week she would be leaving her post within the Trump administration. And new reporting indicates that…
When Head Start was founded, the idea was simple: give low-income kids a running start before kindergarten — not just with preschool classes and childcare, but with health screenings and support for their families. Some 60 years later, it serves more than 750,000 children — and their families — every year. But the Trump administration thinks the program is too costly and inefficient. Last week, it…
Nationwide, students, teachers, and parents are gearing up for the school year. And measles is spreading. The U.S. has already logged more cases this year than in all of 2025. It’s the highest count in 35 years. That’s in large part because measles vaccination rates have slipped below 95 percent – the threshold public health experts say is needed to stop community spread. Last week on CNN, Health…
Journalists often say, “Follow the money.” But what if we said, “Follow billions of dollars to understand who controls this country’s political policy, technology and culture” instead? Tesla CEO, Elon Musk dropped $200 million on the 2024 election and later headed up the now defunct Department of Government Efficiency. Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos’s company paid $48 million to license and distribute…
From school board officials and city council members, to decisions over roads and disaster relief budgets, local elections make a direct impact on your day-to-day life. But state and local elections get less attention, less media coverage, and lower voter turnout. In November’s municipal elections in Dallas, Texas, some 14 council seats were up for the vote but turnout was just 8 percent. And…
Progressive Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed won his Michigan primary this week, sending a strong message to the Democratic party establishment that backed his opponent. Dr. Anthony Fauci was found in contempt of Congress on Thursday. The vote by the Senate Homeland Security Committee came after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right over 100 times during a recent hearing. And reports indicate the…
Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing how we work, live, and engage with the world. Whether that’s using ChatGPT to do our taxes or spending hours sifting through AI generated images on social media. It’s also reshaping our education system. Roughly half of U.S. students said they used AI in some way for school, according to a 2025 survey from the Rand Corporation. But some students aren’t…
Affording groceries is becoming a struggle for many Americans. Food prices are up 33 percent since 2019. That’s according to federal data analyzed by the Associated Press. It’s led some people to change their diets or where they shop. Others are taking more drastic measures by dipping into their savings or going into credit card debt. A 2025 survey from the Urban Institute found that one in four…
Data centers. They’ve been all over the news. Last month, protesters showed up in 125 cities across the country on a single Saturday to demonstrate against these structures, either proposed or completed. But are the politicians listening? We sit down for the second part of our data center deep dive. This time, we talk politics. Why have data centers become a political flashpoint so quickly? And…
Should judges be elected? That’s the question Kansas voters are answering on the ballot this month. A constitutional amendment aims to change how judges are chosen in the state – abandoning the 68-year-old system of appointing judges. Proponents of the change say elections put the choice back in voters’ hands. And their arguments aren’t new: Republicans in Kansas have long argued for judicial…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week for his first visit to the White House since the war in Iran began. Former CDC head Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights as he sat in before Congress during a hearing led by Sen. Rand Paul concerning the doctor’s COVID diaries. And Temporary Protected Status lapsed for hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in the…
If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably been fooled by AI at least once. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. One poll by the data security company, All About Cookies, found that 77 percent of Americans have been duped by artificial intelligence at some point. Sometimes it can seem harmless – like that viral TikTok video of bunnies jumping on a trampoline, which raked in over 25 million…
Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard died today in a motorcycle crash in Ireland at the age of 56. We sat down with him in April to talk about his storied career and his final album, "Don+t Settle – Transmissions East and West." Here's what we wrote about that conversation at the time. – The song “Falling Slowly” first debuted in the 2007 indie romance film “Once” starring Irish singer-songwriter…
Navigating a challenging moment in a friendship. Weighing a new job or changing your career. Seeing news about instability in our politics. A confusing diagnosis at the doctor’s office. Tending to a loved one in the hospital or in hospice. Uncertainty strikes us in every part of our lives, big and small. And about three quarters of the world’s more than 8 billion people turn to faith. In this…
At least 18 American service members have been killed and hundreds more wounded since the start of the Iran war. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump spoke little of the troops who’d recently been killed before giving updates on the war: We feel very badly, but you know those great people, those great patriots who are out there fighting that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran has been very,…
Nearly 100 U.S. service members have been injured since the resumption of hostilities between Iran and the U.S. The American death toll now stands at 18. In Maine, Democrats have chosen their replacement candidate to challenge Sen. Susan Collins. Troy Jackson is a former state lawmaker and is stepping in to fill the void left by Graham Platner. Platner stepped aside after allegations of sexual…
Extreme heat isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s a growing public health threat. More than 40 million people across the U.S. have remained under heat alerts this month. Heat remains the deadliest extreme weather event in the United States. At least 44 people have died as a result of July heatwaves. And in Europe, heatwaves killed more than 10,000 people in June, according to health data published…
How did you celebrate July 4 this year? What did the country’s landmark 250th anniversary, in honor of the founding of the United States, mean to you? The next 50 years likely hold a lot of change for our country where democracy, economic uncertainty, technology, and our social fabric are concerned. What do we want that change to look like? We opened the phones so that you, our listeners, can tell…
You may have heard of a parasite that’s causing some gastrointestinal distress. Cyclospora has sickened thousands of people across 34 states this summer – more than six times the number reported at this point last year. The CDC has linked a major cluster to shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell in some states. And Taylor Farms de Mexico has now pulled all of its iceberg lettuce from the U.S.…
One of the most critical parts of a democracy is the right to dissent. But if democratic norms weaken, that right can become harder to exercise. And when authoritarianism creeps into a government, dissent can get dangerous. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison for resisting Apartheid before becoming South Africa’s first Black president. Before becoming president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel…
As ICE ramps up its operations in and around American communities, its agents were involved in the deaths of three men in the last week. Trump Director of National Intelligence nominee Jay Clayton refused to answer Georgia Sen. John Ossoff’s question about the results of the 2020 presidential election during a confirmation hearing. After weeks of silence, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell confirmed on…
Israel is expanding its command of Gaza and now controls almost 70 percent of the tiny enclave that’s home to more than two million people. More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas nearly a year ago. Some 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in total since Israel’s military offensive began after Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.…
An Alzheimer’s diagnosis can have a real impact on a person and their family. There’s a lot to consider — what the future will hold, what symptoms they’ll experience, and on what timeline. About 7.5 million people in the U.S. currently suffer from Alzheimer’s. Every year, around half a million more are diagnosed with the disease or another form of dementia. As the population gets older, that…
What do gyms, TV shows, pet food, and smart doorbells all have in common? Nowadays, you might use a monthly subscription or other recurring membership to access these goods or services. The average American spends $219 every month on subscriptions. That’s more than $2,600 a year. Those recurring payments mean predictable profits for companies. That is, unless you cancel. Enter: subscription traps.…
The Trump administration is threatening top election officials with criminal prosecution if any ballot is cast by noncitizens in their state. That’s according to a letter from the Justice Department sent last week to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The president’s threats raise the specter of noncitizen voting. In Michigan, for example, officials found that only 16 noncitizens voted in…
Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner dropped out of the race for Maine Sen. Susan Collins’ seat in Congress, after sexual assault allegations made by a former partner surfaced. Democrats are searching for a replacement. Calls for answers on Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s whereabouts and wellbeing are growing. The former Senate majority leader has not been seen in three weeks, leading to…
Humans like to know what’s coming next. How to plan for the future. And what the consequences of our actions might be. But the modern world is only becoming less certain — war abroad and political conflict at home, technological breakthroughs once only seen in science fiction, a volatile economy and labor market with the careers of billions at risk. And of course, the climate crisis, which rages…
At the end of June, the Supreme Court ruled six to three that the federal government can end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for more than 300,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians currently residing legally in the United States. TPS is a program that allows people from designated countries currently experiencing crises, like natural disasters or civil war, to live and work in the U.S. Some Haitian…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. 250 years on, are these words still guiding us? The Declaration of Independence marked the start of our American Experiment. Does that document still hold central tenets of who we are as a nation? Deep political polarization has made that question murkier than perhaps ever before. We reflect on what a shared civic gospel…
It’s been nearly a year since a major reshaping of the State Department. It was part of the Trump Administration’s goal to overhaul the federal government and to streamline and reduce redundancies. On July 8, 2025 the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Administration’s massive reduction in force plan. Days later, more than 1,350 employees, including foreign services officers were laid off from…
It's a milestone birthday for the U.S. this weekend. And we're marking the 250th by taking a look back at this year's Sounds of America series. Every year, the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress selects 25 pieces of sound to add to its collection — songs, speeches, and beyond. In the past, we’ve partnered with the 14th Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, who oversaw this…
Throughout history, adulthood has often been defined by clear markers — turning 18, moving out of your parents’ home, or getting married. But most of us know that being an adult by law is very different from being one in real life. Traditional markers of adulthood like purchasing a home or getting married are happening later and later these days. The average first-time homebuyer in 1981 was just…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 250 years ago, the founding fathers were days away from adopting the Declaration of Independence. Fast forward to July 4, 2026, two and a half centuries later, has America lived up to…
Americans are grappling with a rising cost in healthcare. For the first time in five years, fewer than half of Americans can consistently afford healthcare. That’s according to the latest data from Gallup. The cost of healthcare in the US remains higher than any other large, wealthy country. According to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, five million fewer people are…
President Donald Trump has taken an increasingly personal role in the government’s clemency process, wielding pardons aid his allies and advance his own political grievances. A Reuters investigation found tha t 96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants have gone to recipients who didn’t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests. Past presidents on have sidestepped those rules before ,…
This week the Supreme Court sides with President Trump on ending Temporary Protected Status . The decades-long program currently gives legal status in the U.S. to about 350,000 Haitians and more than 6,000 Syrians seeking refuge from crises at home. The court also ruled to renew a “turn-back” policy at the border with Mexico that prevents migrants from entering the U.S. to seek asylum. A decision…
Artificial Intelligence is advancing at a dizzying pace. One analysis shows it doubling its abilities every seven months . And it’s surpassed humans in more than just trivia and Chess. Last year, an AI from Microsoft solved complex medical cases with 85% accuracy, far about the 20% average for experienced physicians . And a recent Stanford report found that some of the newest A-I systems now match…
Black Americans serving in the U.S. military have long lived with a great contradiction. The country they’re fighting to protect is the same one that’s failed to serve and protect them. Despite this, Black Americans continue to enlist. There are over 350,000 Black active duty and select reserve members and more than 2.4 million Black veterans. That’s according to the Institute for Veterans and…
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran. The Israel-Hamas war. Each of these conflicts of the last few years is rewriting how war is fought. Cheap drones are doing damage that once required far more expensive weapons. Battlefield information is now available at a distance in real time. And some of the biggest innovations are coming from countries with…
How would lawmakers respond to election interference – both foreign and domestic – ahead of the midterm elections? That was the central question of a summit held earlier this month between top Senate Democrats and election experts. The meeting came weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order that gave the U.S. postal service control over who gets to vote by mail. That order is…
Novels centering on love and sex are among the best-selling books year after year. More and more are challenging the conventions of romance as a genre — and bringing us well beyond fairy tale endings. Two novels out this summer are pushing some of the boundaries of romance writing and love stories as we know them. Haili Blassingame’s “They All Fall in Love at the End” follows a young Black writer…
When a couple struggles to conceive, the assumption is often that there is something wrong with the woman. Women are evaluated for infertility far more often than men . But male factor infertility accounts for about half of all infertility cases . And when that’s the case, men are less likely to talk about it, seek support, or even get tested in the first place. In this installment of our “In Good…
This week, on the southern shores of Lake Geneva, leaders of the Group of Seven countries gathered for their annual summit. There are several pressing issues that require attention including the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran , the resulting economic crisis, the state of the Persian Gulf, and long term questions about the future of relations with Iran. The G7 meeting also notably brought Ukrainian…
It’s a busy time for the Supreme Court – with 20 cases left and only weeks left in its term. The Court has a stacked docket of high-profile cases that could have seismic effects for years to come. Decisions are expected soon on immigration and Birthright Citizenship , a nearly 160-year legal precedent that says those born in the US are citizens. Plus decisions on mail in ballots , transgender…
President Trump is working fast to remake the nation’s capital in his image. His major construction projects include demolishing the East Wing of the White House for his proposed ballroom and a planned 250-foot arch that would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial. As part of the mission to renovate D.C., the White House has bypassed many of the checks put in place for any president seeking major…
The latest inflation number are out, and prices are rising fast. Last month, prices soared at the fastest rates seen in three years. A new $70 billion immigration enforcement bill narrowly passed the Senate on Tuesday. The package funds ICE and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s second term in office. And the World Cup began on Thursday, with Mexico taking on South Africa in a replay of the…
In 1966, the United States declared victory over a destructive flesh-eating parasite that devastated livestock. The New World Screwworm is a fly whose larvae burrow into the living flesh of mammals. It was eradicated after a long campaign that involved releasing millions of sterile flies over infested areas. Last week, that fly came back. The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed five cases of…
104 games. 48 teams. Three host nations. One dream. The men’s World Cup returns to North America for the first time in 32 years. And fans from all over the world are descending on cities like Dallas, Toronto, and Monterrey, hoping to watch their nations find glory. But it’s not all grass and glamour. The run-up to this tournament has been plagued by issues around ticket pricing, transportation…
Across the U.S., cities and communities are celebrating Pride during the month of June. At the same time, a new poll from Gallup suggests attitudes around LGBTQ issues are shifting. After two decades, support for the community has now dropped. The swing is being largely driven by republicans. Just four years ago, polling data suggested a majority of Republicans supported same sex marriage at 55…
Last week marked the anniversary of Congress passing the 19th Amendment. In 1919, that Constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote — although it only applied in practice to white women for decades. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and Jim Crow-era state laws prevented Black women from voting. Fast forward 107 years, and a growing conservative movement now wants to repeal the 19th Amendment…