Author: rpnadmin

The French government confirmed this week that it has granted citizenship to George and Amal Clooney — pictured on a London red carpet in October — and their 7-year-old twins. Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images One of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars is now officially a French citizen. A French government bulletin published last weekend confirms that the country has granted citizenship to George Clooney, along with his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and their 7-year-old twins. The Clooneys — who hail from Lexington, Ky. and Beirut, Lebanon, respectively — bought…

Politics / Authoritarian Watch / January 2, 2026 Looking at how the Trump administration fits into a pattern of authoritarian governance can empower people to think about how to best resist the country’s slide to autocracy. Ad Policy Demonstrators rally against President Donald Trump during a protest, dubbed “Resist the Dictator,” to mark President’s Day on February 17, 2025, in New York City.(David Dee Delgado / AFP via Getty Images)) As year two of Trump 2.0 gets underway, my column will be shifting focus. For the past year, I have been writing on the corrupt and cruel acts being carried…

President Trump discusses his health after spending the 2024 campaign knocking President Biden as old. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Over the past year, President Trump has regularly appeared with makeup on the back of his right hand. He’s also talked about getting an MRI, and he has appeared to nod off during meetings. Trump will turn 80 this year. He is the oldest person ever to have assumed the presidency. So all this has raised questions about his health. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump faced those questions head-on. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is…

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…