Live from NPR News in Washington, on Ryland Barton, President Trump says the U.
$700 million to support coal-fired power plants.
“"Today we're officially invoking the Defense Production Act to save 13 coal plants in West”
Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Wisconsin." Trump cited the Cold War era national defense law to prop up existing coal plants and built new plants in Alaska and West Virginia. If built, they would be the first new U.S. coal plant since 2013.
Environmentalists say the plant would put polluters first in jeopardized Americans' health during Trump's second term, the U.S. has lost 1,800 coal mining jobs or 4% of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At least 4.3 million Americans have lost food assistance benefits from the SNAP programs since last year.
As NPR's Maria Cadoyer reports, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins faced tough questioning
on Capitol Hill today about that drop.
Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee grilled Rollins about why so many people have lost access to a program that's a key safety net against hunger. Rollins said the drop is due to a better economy and a crackdown on fraud. But Ohio Democratic Representative Shantel Brown pointed to a recent report showing that more than 700,000 children have lost SNAP benefits as a result of President Trump's
one big beautiful bill act. "Madam Secretary, millions of Americans are going hungry and you're saying it's a success story." Rollins countered.
“"I think that you want more people on government programs."”
Committee members also asked Rollins about rising farm input costs and the threat posed by screwworm Maria Cadoy and PR News. Elevated mortgage rates are dragging down the spring home buying season according to rent and new home listings are declining and sellers are taking their homes off the market and PR Stephen Bassaha reports.
"It was expected to be a strong home buying season.
Average interest rates for 30 year fixed mortgage dropped below 6% in February, the first
time in 3 and 1/2 years. But the war against Iran increased the cost of borrowing and this week the mortgage rate is about 6 and 1/2%. The Ohio State Business Zillow says sales in May were below where they were a year ago, nearly 3% in housing recovery is back on pause.
Families choosing to stick with renting are seeing the benefits of an apartment construction boom.
“The retail data company, Yordi Matrix, reports the average advertised rent was virtually flat”
compared to a year earlier. Stephen Bassaha and PR News. Ukrainian President Volodymer Zelensky is calling for face-to-face negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a public letter he highlights Ukraine's recent battlefield gains and rushes intensified aerial attacks.
Zelensky accuses Moscow of trying to prolong the war and he claims global fatigue is growing with Russia, not Ukraine. This is NPR News. The EU is expanding its ocean monitoring network with underwater drones and satellites as climate change intensifies, heat waves and storms.
The Trump administration recently announced its defunding similar operations and pulling specialized deep sea instruments out of the oceans by 2035 that EU hopes to cover 35% of Earth's maritime monitoring network. A study in the journal science finds that workers and remote jobs have experienced a rise in symptoms of mental distress and it appears re-to-chattergy reports those living alone
were most likely to experience the impacts. Prior studies have found that a majority of remote workers enjoy their work set up, but the new study found that compared to people not in remote jobs, remote workers saw 58% rise in time spent alone. Study author Natalia Manuel is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
She says remote workers also experienced a 72% rise in their chance of having no human contact at all during the work day. Not even like a wave to a barista, not, you know, somebody also checking for the rightness of the avocados at the grocery store just no human contact at all. remote workers also saw a rise in self-reported emotional distress and visits to mental
health care providers, re-to-chattergy and peer news. The NBA banned two people for life from its arenas after one of the most arrested shortly after running onto the court during game 1 of the NBA finals last night and trying to take a selfie next to spurs, star Victor Wemben Yama when he didn't appear to be bothered by the incident.
On Ryland Barton and your listening to NPR News New shows, new music, new movies, keeping up with pop culture sometimes feels like a full-time job. Thankfully over at pop culture happy-hour, it's literally our job. We break down what's actually worth watching listening to and pretending you already knew
about. So the next time someone says, "Did you see that?" You can say, "Yeah, obviously, follow NPR's pop culture happy-hour wherever you get your
