Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor, Johnston.
Israel launched fresh air strikes across southern Lebanon today, the Iran-backed militant
“group Hezbollah says it fired back, and P.R.'s Lauren Fair reports the ongoing violence”
between Israel and Lebanon is threatening to derail ceasefire talks in Islamabad this weekend. Lebanese state media says Israeli air strikes hit in and around the Mediterranean city of tie-up, part of a zone in which Israel says it's trying to seize territory to prevent Hezbollah from firing cross-border rockets from there.
The Iran-backed group says it launched rocket propelled grenades at Israeli ground troops inside Lebanon. In the capital Beirut, rescuers are still pulling bodies from the rubble of 100 Israeli strikes in 10 minutes on what local media dubbed Black Wednesday, when more than 300 people were killed according to Lebanon's government.
The World Food Program says the Israeli invasion has disrupted supply lines, leaving Lebanon
in a food security crisis. A plain load of aid is due here from Qatar, Lauren Freyer and PR News Bay Root.
“The White House is warning staff to not-place vets on popular prediction-market sites, and”
PR's Bobby Allen reports on new scrutiny over weather and government officials are abusing confidential information for profit. A staff-wide email from the White House management office put Trump officials on notice over prediction-market sites like Kouchi and Polymarket, is that it's a criminal offense to use non-public information to make money on betting markets about federal policy, military
strikes, and war. It comes as a number of suspiciously well-timed vets have raised alarms, including six-figure poly-market vets on a ceasefire between the US and Iran hours before an announcement was made. Regulators have cleared the lane for the prediction-market industry to boom in Trump's second term, but accusations that insiders could be profiting off-of-classified military intelligence
have put the sites on the defensive, Bobby Allen and PR News. The leader of Cuba says he was elected to office, and it's not up to the US government to decide whether he stays in power. Katie Silver reports the Cuban President's comments come as the Trump administration calls for a regime change.
Speaking to NBC News, Miguel Diaz Canel said as a revolutionary,
stepping down as not part of his vocabulary, and that is the Cuban people that he responds to. We have sought the self-determination and independence, and we are not subjected to the designs of the United States. President Trump has indicated the US will likely move to take over Cuba,
“and it's been reported that Canel's departure would be a key part of that.”
The Caribbean island has been brought to the brink in recent months, after the US led a fuel blockade threatening tariffs on any countries that supplied it with oil. The blockade has led to significant power blackouts, as well as shortages of food and medical supplies. For MPR News, I'm Katie Silver.
On Wall Street, down futures are down at 24 points. This is NPR. Astronauts onboard the Artemis 2 are on their way back home. The three Americans and one Canadian said a new distance record during Monday's lunar flyby traveling more than 253,000 miles from Earth.
They're aiming for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean tonight off the coast of San Diego. New CDC data show fewer babies were born again last year in the United States. NPR's Brian Mann reports immigration into the US is also falling. This latest drop means roughly 710,000 fewer babies were born in the US in 2025, compared with the peak in 2007.
Lead CDC researcher Brady Hamilton says the steady drop in US fertility is sizeable, and is persisted for almost 20 years. Since 2007, there's been a decline in the general fertility rate of 23%. That's partly driven by a big decline in teen pregnancies. At the same time, immigration into the US has plunged under the Trump administration
a report earlier this year by the congressional budget office, found that these combined demographic trends mean the US population will age faster and grow much more slowly than once predicted, Brian Mann and PR news. The Trump administration says it's taking steps toward automatic registration for the military draft.
This elective service has required eligible men ages 18 to 25 to registers since 1980. And that could change later this year. The agency says it will begin registering men automatically, instead of requiring them to sign up themselves. I'm Windsor-Jonsten and PR News in Washington.
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