Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurfs.
Starting at midnight, a massive bipartisan housing bill is set to become law.
“That's despite President Trump saying earlier today, he wouldn't sign it out of protest.”
And here's Steven Besaha, has more. This housing bill is about bringing housing costs down by making it easier for developers to build more homes. It overholes regulations, incentivizes banks to invest more in housing, and prohibits investors from buying more than 350 homes.
But in a social media post today, Trump said he would not sign the bill because Congress
had not first passed a voting overhaul measure.
But a bill can become a law without a presidential signature. Once a president receives a bill from Congress, he has 10 days to sign or veto the measure or becomes law automatically. So long as Trump doesn't veto the bill before midnight, the largest housing bill in decades will become law.
Steven Besaha and PR news proposed changes to the Office of Management and Budget could give bureaucrats the power to deny or cancel grants that are so-called anti-American or don't align with the president's agenda. Bianca Garcia has more. Here in Massachusetts, research and development is a cornerstone of the economy.
Scientists have said that with that reliable grants, industry innovation and the next generation
of scientists will suffer.
Nancy Krieger is a professor of social epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She's been encouraging her community to leave comments on the proposed rule before the deadline on Monday. Once the comments are in people and Congress can speak up even more about what their concerns
are about the rule.
“So it's really important that people hear from their constituents that the members of Congress”
both Senate and House. The Office of Management and Budget must respond to all substantial comments before finalizing the rule in October. Or NPR News, I'm Bianca Garcia in Boston. Government and health workers responding to the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, so they haven't
been paid and they're walking off the job and protest, where the 600 people have died in the outbreak according to the country's health ministry, and here's Dury Bouscarin has more. The hardest hit area in this outbreak is Bunea in theatory province. On S4Bengenza is the Ebola response team leader for Mercy Corps there.
He says the strike is concentrated among government employees, working in disease surveillance and people who handle bodies for burial, but most are still working while they negotiate with Congo's government. Those are people who are in France in France.
“If they can't make a deal, Bengenza says the outbreak could spread out of control.”
He fears more people would lose their lives as a result. The World Health Organization says 4 out of 5 new Ebola cases in the DRC have no known link to an existing patient, a sign that the true scale of the outbreak is already larger at the new official number suggest, Dury Bouscarin and Pair News, Washington. While street hire by the closing bell, you're listening to NPR News from Washington.
The Trump administration is making a big shift in how the Endangered Species Act will be implemented and enforced by rescinding what it calls an outdated definition of the word harm, and Pair's already Daniel, has more. For decades, federal agencies have defined harm broadly to encompass the alteration or degradation of habitats, actions that might interfere with an organism's feeding or reproduction,
say. But the Department of the Interior has just narrowed its interpretation of the word, saying that harm refers only to the direct injury or killing of a member of an endangered species. Secretary Doug Bergum says, quote, "This action restores common sense, respects private property, provides much needed certainty for landowners, and follows the statute Congress actually
passed." But environmental groups worry the move could destroy wild places that endangered species depend on, undermining the protections that have helped sustain them. Ari Daniel, NPR News President Trump, ousted remaining members of the federal bipartisan election assistance commission who resisted his efforts to require would-be voters to prove US citizenship
before being allowed to cast a ballot. The commission distributes federal grants to states overseeing the testing of voting systems and maintains the national voter registration form. It's Trump's latest effort to expand White House influence over elections, and it comes after a recent Supreme Court ruling giving the president new authority to fire members
of independent agency boards. I'm Jeanine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.
It's been almost a year since Congress eliminated over a billion dollars in funding for
public media. Yet, we, the people, haven't backed down. When you donate to the independent non-profits that make up the NPR network, we hold the powerful to account together. Join the community of people who power this work at plus.npr.org.
