Author: rpnadmin

Politics / December 9, 2025 During oral arguments, the conservative justices made clear that they intend to allow Trump to fire FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter—and reorder the separation of powers. Ad Policy President Donald Trump greets Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on arriving to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress.(Win McNamee / Getty Images) The Republicans on the Supreme Court are poised to take a major step toward their generational goal of restructuring the constitutional separation of powers. The court heard arguments on Monday aimed at taking away the independence of independent federal agencies created by…

President Trump is pursuing aggressive policies throughout the Western Hemisphere. His administration is calling it the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. LEILA FADEL, HOST: The Trump administration has a new name for its aggressive policies in the Western Hemisphere, including military attacks on alleged drug smugglers and threats of regime change in Venezuela. His administration is reaching back two centuries and calling this Trump’s version of the Monroe Doctrine. NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre is following all this and is with me in the studio now. Good morning.GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Leila.FADEL: OK. So for those of us…

Politics / December 9, 2025 Democratic Representative Shri Thanedar has filed articles of impeachment against the secretary of defense over the murderous attacks on boats in the Caribbean. Ad Policy Shri Thanedar and Pete Hegseth.(Alex Wong / Getty Images ; Celal Gunes / Anadolu via Getty Images) As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth becomes more deeply mired in the scandal surrounding the military strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, familiar refrains of Beltway discourse have lurched into gear. Democrats in Congress, for instance, are issuing calls for greater “transparency” and official “accountability” and vowing to widen the probes…

“Before, carrying my passport around, I had a feeling of pride, and now I’m carrying it and it has a lot of darkness around it because now I’m just like, ‘I just want to get home safe to my kids.’” We’re in Minneapolis, days after the Trump administration directed ICE to begin targeting and arresting undocumented Somali migrants in the city. “The Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country. We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.” “People from Somalia aren’t garbage. When I heard it the first time,…

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., speaks during the Senate Appropriations full committee markup of commerce, justice, science, agriculture, rural development, FDA, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Acts and other bills on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 10. Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP hide caption toggle caption Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat representing Maryland, says his party must do more to regain public confidence and counter what he calls a “lawless president.” “We’ve become too much the party of the status quo when people want to see us move in a different direction,” Van Hollen said in a Morning…

December 9, 2025 But local MAHA laws may be an even bigger threat. Ad Policy US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) summit in Washington, DC, on November 12, 2025. (Alex Wroblewski / Getty Images) Even within the freakshow that is Donald Trump’s cabinet, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a singular knack for dominating the headlines with the most disturbing sort of carnivalesque spectacle.  In recent months, he’s amplified harmful disinformation linking Tylenol and autism and dismissed the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee, replacing them with skeptics and conspiracy theorists.…

Republicans in Congress have shown some willingness to push back on President Trump but it is not clear how far they are willing to push back against the leader of their own party. Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR hide caption toggle caption Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR The Republican-controlled House and Senate have not done much to stand in the way of President Trump — even when his actions have encroached on terrain the Constitution reserved for them. But there are signs that some Republican lawmakers are trying to reassert their independence. When news broke last week that the Pentagon carried out a second strike on…

FBI officers are seen here taking a knee as demonstrators marched in June 2020, in Washington, D.C., during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. Jose Luis Magana/AP hide caption toggle caption Jose Luis Magana/AP Twelve FBI agents who were fired this year for taking a knee during racial justice protests in the heated summer of 2020 are suing the Bureau and its director, alleging unlawful retaliation. The former special agents—who together have nearly 200 years of experience—once received awards for helping disrupt…

Alina Habba speak during a panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2025 in Oxon Hill, Md. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Alina Habba, a former personal attorney for President Trump, is stepping down as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey following an appeals court ruling last week that found she was unlawfully serving in the role. Habba said in a statement posted on social media on Monday that she was not quitting in the face of legal challenges but instead resigning “to protect the stability and integrity” of the U.S.…

The voluminous literature devoted to examining the relationship between capitalism and environmental degradation makes it rather difficult to have something original to say. But in her new book, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, the political theorist Alyssa Battistoni does exactly this by pinpointing the exact reasons for capitalism’s persistent failure to value nonhuman nature, and what this means for politics as well as for our collective future on this planet.Inspired by Marxist thought, Battisoni argues that the problem of climate change is rooted in the manner in which capitalism systematically treats nature as a “free gift.” By…