Live from NPR News and Washington, I'm Ryland Barton.
During a congressional hearing this afternoon, acting Attorney General Todd Blance said
the Trump administration is scrapping plans for a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.
The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them.
“The reasons for the fund, I think, were remain as important as they were”
before, but we are not moving forward with the fund. The fund would have compensated President Trump's allies who believed they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted. Democrats and many Republican senators had pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio faced tough questions about Ebola, Iran, and other subjects on Capitol Hill today. NPR's Michelle Calvary reports Rubio says Iran won't get relief from sanctions just for reopening the straight-of-war moves. Secretary Rubio says before the U.S. lifts its blockade of Iranian ports, the Iranians need
to stop firing on commercial vessels and let traffic resume. Democratic Senator Christopher Murphy pressed him on that, pointing out that the straight was open before the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran.
“The question is, how are we going to get it reopened?”
Are you going to drive a bargain that is so tough and so hard that the straight remains closed? So, how are we going to get it open? The first thing, that is a predicate to anything else happening. The straights have to be reopened. And Rubio says U.S. sanctions won't be eased until Iran gets to the next step negotiating
over its nuclear program. Michelle Calvary and PR news, the State Department. President Trump is tapping federal housing finance director Bill Polty to be the new intelligence director after the departure of Tulsi Gabbard. Trump says Polty will also remain director of the federal housing finance agency, Democrats
and several Republicans say Polty seems unqualified and lacks national security experience. Voters in six states are going to the polls today for election primaries. They include California where more than 60 candidates are seeking to replace outgoing Governor
“Gavin Newsom in the November election and PR's Sage Miller has more.”
California voters will select which two candidates for governor will move onto the general election in a non-partisan primary. But it's also the first time in decades that Democratic voters haven't had a clear front runner. As part of the nationwide redistricting fight sparked by President Trump's push for more
GOP seats, California is slated to pick up five new Democratic seats. Iowa Republican voters will pick their nominee for governor, but Democrats are hopeful they can flip the office, come November. Iowa Democrats will also pick the U.S. Senate candidate who they believe has a shot at winning the competitive seat, Sage Miller and PR News.
The mayor-old primary and Los Angeles is also today. Primaries are also being held in Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. This is NPR News.
Israel's weapons exports reached a record high of over $19 billion last year, a 30% increase
from 2024 according to Israel's defense ministry. More than half of the sales were mega deals of over $100 million or more sales more than doubled in the last five years despite criticism of Israel's conflicts and Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests working remotely may
have driven up unemployment rates among younger college graduates and PR's Andrea shoe reports. The study began with a deep dive into one Fortune 500 tech company. Researchers found when the company went to remote work after the pandemic, they switched away from hiring young people.
PRC of Virginia Economist Emma Harrington is one of the study's authors, so they use to hire a bunch of new grads for their software engineering jobs, then they shifted really towards hiring much older people. Who needed less training, less mentoring, but when the company implemented an aggressive return to office policy, they resumed hiring new grads.
The researchers found similar trends across the economy and occupations that can be done remotely. An employment rose for college graduates under the age of 29 and fell slightly for those over. Andrea shoe and PR news.
The jersey that launched the soccer's greatest dynasty and made number 10 famous as heading to auction, Brazilian legend Paylay's shirt from the 1958 World Cup final
will be on sale at Sotheby's, it's estimated value is $6 million, Paylay died in 2022.
He remains the only player to win soccer's biggest trophy three times. This is NPR news.
