Author: rpnadmin

Politics / January 2, 2026 Mayor Zohran Mamdani defies the cold and the calls to move to the center with the promise of a New York that belongs to the people who live in it. Ad Policy Mayor Zohran Mamdani stands alongside his wife, Rama Duwaji, after concluding his address to the crowd at the 2026 New York City Inauguration outside of City Hall in New York City on January 1, 2026.(Jason Alpert-Wisnia / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images) How cold was it in City Hall Park on the morning that New York’s “111th or 112th mayor” was…

Immigrants prepare to become American citizens at a naturalization service on Jan. 22, 2018 in Newark, New Jersey. Although much of the federal government was shut down Monday morning, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), offices remained open nationwide. John Moore/Getty Images North America hide caption toggle caption John Moore/Getty Images North America The Department of Homeland Security is pausing the immigration applications from an additional 20 countries after an expansion of travel restrictions took effect Jan. 1. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, in a memo released Thursday, said it would pause the review of all pending…

Flood the zone. Move fast and break things. DOGE the civil service. War against woke. Liberation Day tariffs. Big Beautiful Bill. The longest government shutdown in history. The “Peace President” bombing seven countries—plus fishing boats in the Caribbean. Bulldoze the East Wing, slap gold and the Trump name on every wall in reach. Barrages of unhinged Truth Social rants, including a Christmas blessing to “the radical left scum.”Amid the chaos, Trump’s first year of his second term featured a lawless grasp for power, exercised most dramatically to wage a culture war at home and to open a reign of untrammeled…

An April 1961 file photo shows a group of CIA-backed Cuban counterrevolutionaries after their capture in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba. Miguel Vinas/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Miguel Vinas/AFP via Getty Images President Trump’s pressure campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is the latest chapter in a long history of U.S. intervention in the Caribbean basin, rooted in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine but fully realized in the 20th century — ostensibly to protect U.S. interests and counter communism. In recent months, U.S. strikes on boats that the White House says were transporting Venezuelan drugs, the seizure of…

This photo illustration shows a new batch of files released in December by the U.S. government in relation to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Staff/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Staff/AFP via Getty Images During the 2024 election, President Trump promised to release the Epstein files as part of a campaign message arguing the government was run by powerful people hiding the truth from Americans. At the start of 2026, many people agree — and believe that he is now one of the powerful few keeping the public in the dark. In the two weeks since the…

YouTuber Nick Shirley films protesters demonstrating against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in New York City in October. He went viral in late December for a video purportedly uncovering $110 million in alleged fraud by federally funded day care centers in Minnesota. Adam Gray/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Adam Gray/Getty Images The Trump administration is freezing child care funding to the state of Minnesota in response to a viral video that purports to expose extensive fraud by federally funded day care centers. Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old self-described “independent YouTube journalist,” posted the 42-minute video on X and YouTube…

President Trump issues his first vetoes of his second term. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Yesterday, more than 11 months after being inaugurated, President Trump vetoed his first bills of this term. Both had passed Congress with broad bipartisan support. These were not divisive bills. So these vetoes pit the president against his fellow Republicans and raise the question of how far they might go to defy the president. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to walk us through details. Hey there.DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey there.KELLY: What did he veto?KURTZLEBEN: Well, the first is a bill that would have…

The Capitol is seen from the base of the Washington Monument on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Washington. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP hide caption toggle caption Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees. “There’s a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this…

The TikTok logo is displayed on signage outside TikTok social media app company offices in Culver City, California on September 30, 2025. A new law in Virginia is designed to limit social media use by kids under 16 to one hour a day. It faces a legal challenge. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images Here at NPR, we like to ring in the new year by looking at new state laws taking effect on Jan. 1. This year, states are enacting a slew of laws focused on wages, social media…

There are many ways a progressive politician can fail. They can fail to be elected. They can fail to deliver on their platform once in office. And they can also fail to build up the left’s power in a way that outlasts their administration.This third possibility has often been overlooked by commentary around Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor. However, this scenario fits the tenure of John Vliet Lindsay perfectly: a New York mayor who, from 1966 to 1973, passed progressive legislation that leftists would dream of winning today, but whose administration nonetheless oversaw an erosion of working-class…