"Lie from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is a crucial step closer to being confirmed now that
“he's apparently convinced Republican Senator Bill Cassidy to support his nomination.”
On the Senate floor today, the lawmaker from Louisiana appeared to become emotional, as he predicted he would be criticized for the decision he's made. "People who he's here, can be assured that I work towards understanding the issue, and to make the right decision." With that, I yield.
Cassidy said the vote is not a referendum on President Trump, but a choice between Blanche and another less effective acting attorney general. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski raised concerns about the politicization of the Justice Department, citing Blanche's oversight of the controversial release of the Epstein files and the creation of a 1.8 billion dollar compensation fund that critics have described
as a "slush fund" for Trump's allies. She said she would vote no on Blanche's nomination. President Trump says he will immediately appeal a lower court's decision to pause the construction of his ballroom. Now the Supreme Court will weigh in.
Here's NPR's deep-ish of a rum.
“Trump argues the ballroom may as needed for national security.”
Construction has been ongoing for months already, but a federal appeals court has now ruled that the White House must pause construction until the project gets approval from Congress. Trump calls the decision unjust and says the Supreme Court should overturn the ruling entirely. Trump has repeatedly said taxpayers won't fit the bill for the ballroom, but reporting
from the Washington Post says the project is being funded by more than $300 million in taxpayer
money. Poling indicates the ballroom and several of Trump's other construction projects in Washington are deeply unpopular among voters, deep-ish of a rum and PR news the White House. Water rationing has begun in Puerto Rico hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. territory are subject to 48 hours with, then 48 hours without water as the island grapples
with a severe drought, a water shortage, and an overall aging infrastructure that's unable to keep up. We have a latest from NPR's Adrian Plotito.
“The island's public water utility has, for the better part of a year, not been able to deliver”
water to a lot of people's homes. So although the formal rationing is starting today, a lot of people have been coping for months without water for days at a time, in terms of how they're coping, whether cooking less, aving less, letting their plants wilt, storing water in buckets and bins when they do get water, filling them up and storing the water, they're buying a lot of bottled
water. There's Adrian Flotito reporting from San Juan. U.S. stocks have ended the day higher with a Dow closing up 151 points. This is NPR News. Parts of the Southwestern U.S. are also enduring historic drought conditions.
That's underscored by news today that the water level at Lake Me, the nation's largest reservoir by storage capacity, is at its lowest level on record. Recent drought conditions in the region have led to critically low water levels at several major Colorado River Basin reservoirs. The Basin supplies water to up to 40 million people and 5 million acres of farmland in
the U.S. and Mexico in 7 U.S. states and up to 30 federally recognized Native American tribes. As the rise of AI drives an influx of new data centers, some places have used eminent domain, the power of the government to seize private property for public use to build necessary infrastructure. But as Cynthia Abrams of Mybracation, WPL and reports in Nashville, city leaders are trying
to use eminent domain to block a new data center. The proposed facility is located near the Nashville Zoo and has drawn broad community pushback, where then half a million people have signed a petition in opposition. City leaders have enacted a temporary moratorium on data centers, but it won't block the zoo adjacent facility.
Nashville Mayor Freddy O'Connell has criticized the developer. So Nashville is now trying to prove its need of the $37 million plot of land through eminent domain. The city council has greenlit the attempt, but Nashville will now have to go through the courts.
It's successful. It could then purchase the land. For NPR News, I'm Cynthia Abrams in Nashville. This is NPR News. This week on Consider This, Virginia thought her criminal record would follow her forever
until a few minutes with an AI app that told her she could clear her felonies.
You'll never find a harder worker than someone who has something to prove to themselves
how AI could help millions of Americans with criminal records find work.
