Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor, Johnston.
The White House is signaling of far more aggressive stance toward Iran.
“Press Secretary Caroline Levitt is defending the administration's action against Iran”
and says the president is determined to confront what she calls the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. Under the leadership of President Donald J Trump, the rogue Iranian terrorist regime is being absolutely crushed. 47 years of tolerating and enabling the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism are over.
Iran's murderous terrorist leaders are paying for their crimes against America and they are paying in blood. Let it said the president believed Iran was preparing to strike U.S. personnel in assets in the reason.
She said that left him with a choice, act first, using U.S. military capabilities to eliminate
the threat, or risk an attack by what she called the rogue Iranian regime. The Israeli military says it began striking Hezbollah targets after the Lebanese militant
“group launch rockets into Israel and what it called solidarity with Iran.”
And PR's Hedil Al-Shalci reports officials in Lebanon say more than 70 people were killed in the attack. Life in the village of Bidlif and South Lebanon had started to go back to normal since a ceasefire was struck with Israel more than a year ago. Villagers had to evacuate for months to avoid Israeli strikes on Hezbollah.
And now the 425 families of Bidlif find themselves on the move again. 52-year-old Mayor Hamiyyim Mustafa says they received three Israeli evacuation orders in the past three days. The remaining one or two people have now left, he says, "Our village is totally empty." The Lebanese government says over 80,000 people have been internally displaced since the
war with Iran began. Hedil Al-Shalci and PR news, Beirut.
“A new NPR review has compiled dozens of accounts, describing what it's like to be caught”
in the Department of Homeland Security's growing surveillance web. NPR's Kat Lonstor reports those accounts paint a picture of the broad tools the DHS is using to monitor people it seeks to deport.
ISIS budget has skyrocketed during President Trump's second term, and the administration
is taking the unprecedented step of aggregating Americans' personal data and making it more accessible to the agency. NPR dug through court records and interviewed people to better understand the extensive surveillance apparatus DHS has been building. Immigration lawyers said their clients had been subjected to facial recognition technology,
protesters and journalists describe the agents' photographing them and calling them by name, or knowing their home addresses. Others worry such tactics violate the Constitution, particularly the first amendment. DHS denies that. Kat Lonstor of MPR News, Washington.
On Wall Street, the Dow was up 314 points. This is NPR News in Washington. The number of black owned bookstores in the United States has risen substantially over the past decade, that's according to numbers from a new trade organization formed last year, as NPR's Neta Ulibe reports.
The National Association of Black Bookstores was founded last June 10th. It's report on the state of black owned bookstores around the country shows a growth of nearly 150% since 2014. Many independent bookstores back then were struggling after the rise of big bookstore chains and Amazon.com.
But since the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd's murder, black owned bookstores seemed to be making a comeback. The organization counts 306 around the country. From Maine, where there's one, to California, where one can find more than two dozen. But 14 states currently do not have any black owned bookstores.
Neta Ulibe and PR News.
For the first time, Anthropics Chatbot Claude has surpassed ChatGPT in phone app downloads
in the U.S., analysts say the surge may reflect growing public support for the company after its recent stand-off with the Pentagon over the use of AI. While some experts have praised Anthropics' stance as ethical, critics say the industry has spent years lobbying to deploy AI in sensitive high-stakes settings. A push that's drawing, new scrutiny.
Stocks continued to trade higher on Wall Street at the sour, the Dow was up 322 points, the NASDAQ up 348. Winzer Johnston and P. R. News in Washington.
