Author: rpnadmin

The Harry S. Truman Federal Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of State, in a 2024 file photo. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers “censorship” of Americans’ speech. The directive, sent in an internal memo on Tuesday, is focused on applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, which are frequently used by tech companies, among other sectors. The memo was first reported by Reuters; NPR also obtained a copy.…

Texas Republican state Sen. Pete Flores looks over the state’s redrawn congressional map at the Texas Capitol in Austin in August. Eric Gay/AP hide caption toggle caption Eric Gay/AP The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Texas to use a new congressional map that could help Republicans win five more U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterm election. The decision released Thursday boosts the GOP’s chances of preserving its slim majority in the House of Representatives amid an unprecedented gerrymandering fight launched by President Trump, who has been pushing Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on as President Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced scrutiny on two fronts Thursday, as lawmakers zeroed in on the legality of a Sept. 2 strike on survivors aboard an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, while separately a Pentagon watchdog faulted him for using Signal to discuss a U.S. attack on Yemen. Lawmakers in both chambers were shown video of the boat strike behind closed doors in briefings with Navy Admiral Frank…

Zohran Mamdani celebrates during an election night event at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, New York, on Nov. 4, as New Yorkers elected him their next mayor. Angelina Katsanis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Angelina Katsanis/AFP via Getty Images LONDON — When Zohran Mamdani swept to a historic win in New York City’s mayoral race, it made headlines well beyond the city and the United States. Newspapers across Europe ran analyses and commentaries about it, and left-wing politicians in Europe took heart from the success of the 34-year-old American democratic socialist. “Echoes of hope” beyond the U.S.…

Politics / December 4, 2025 A barrage of bad economic news has spurred Trump to unleash his hate-infested id on any nonwhite target that flits through his overtaxed brainpan. Ad Policy Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House, on December 2, 2025. (Yuri Gripas / CNP / Bloomberg via Getty Images( Remember “economic anxiety”? That was the central concept in an all-too-representative Democratic effort to explain away the mass movement aligning behind Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Back then, the liberal commentariat was mocking the notion that Trump’s supporters were motivated by questions of economic policy like…

Members of the Pentagon press corps walk out of the Pentagon as a group after turning in their press credentials on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. On Thursday, The New York Times sued the Defense Department and Secretary Pete Hegseth over its new media policy. Kevin Wolf/AP/FR33460 AP hide caption toggle caption Kevin Wolf/AP/FR33460 AP The New York Times sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday over the Pentagon’s new policy that requires media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release. That policy, unveiled in September, includes a ban on credentialed journalists reporting even…

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents look over lists of names and their hearing times and locations inside the Federal Plaza courthouse in June 2025 in New York. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images Democrats in Washington want to impose legal requirements on whom the Trump administration can bring in as temporary immigration judges, after the White House terminated at least a dozen tenured judges. A bill introduced on Wednesday by California’s Sen. Adam Schiff and Rep. Juan Vargas would authorize the attorney general to appoint temporary immigration judges that…

Women walk down a street in the predominantly Somali neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis in 2022. The Twin Cities is a hub for Somalis in the U.S. Jessie Wardarski/AP hide caption toggle caption Jessie Wardarski/AP Minnesota boasts the largest population of Somalis in the U.S. — a community that’s recently faced attacks from President Trump. On Tuesday, Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said he wanted to send them “back to where they came from.” He continued on Wednesday, saying, “they’ve destroyed our country and all they do is complain, complain, complain.” The tirade came less than two weeks after…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet Meeting at the White House on Dec. 2. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images A Pentagon watchdog has determined that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked the safety of U.S. servicemembers by sharing sensitive military information on the Signal messaging app, according to a source who has reviewed the forthcoming inspector general report.  The report, which is expected to be released as early as Thursday, was launched after a journalist for The Atlantic revealed in March that he had…

Left: Ed Martin was one of the authors of the law now known as IDEA. Before the law, children with disabilities were often turned away from public schools. “They were invisible,” says Martin. Right: Maggie Heilman and her daughter, Brooklynn, 14, at their home in a Kansas City suburb. Brooklynn has Down syndrome and her own special education plan thanks to IDEA. Thomas Simonetti and Katie Currid for NPR hide caption toggle caption Thomas Simonetti and Katie Currid for NPR Fifty years ago, just after Thanksgiving of 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the…