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The latest inflation number are out, and prices are rising fast. Last month, prices soared at the fastest rates seen in three years.
A new $70 billion immigration enforcement bill narrowly passed the Senate on Tuesday. The package funds ICE and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s second term in office.
And the World Cup began on Thursday, with Mexico taking on South Africa in a replay of the opening match of the 2010 tournament.
And, in global news, early in the week President Donald Trump told reporters the U.S. would hit Iran hard after Iranian forces attacked a helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz this week. He also threatened to “assume total control” of Iran’s oil and gas industries. On Thursday, he canceled plans for those attacks.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are going through a rough patch. When the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, they appeared to be shoulder to shoulder. But over the past 100 days, things have changed. Reports of expletive filled calls and defiance on the part of each leader continue to grow.
And on Tuesday, anti-immigrant riots broke out in Belfast after a Sudanese asylum seeker was charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man with serious face and neck wounds.
We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.
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In 1966, the United States declared victory over a destructive flesh-eating parasite that devastated livestock. The New World Screwworm is a fly whose larvae burrow into the living flesh of mammals. It was eradicated after a long campaign that involved releasing millions of sterile flies over infested areas.
Last week, that fly came back.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed five cases of larvae contamination in Texas and New Mexico – the first detections in decades. Federal officials say the food supply is safe, but the cattle industry is on high alert. The American cattle supply is already at a 75-year low. Beef prices are high. And a screwworm outbreak could make it worse.
Outside farms and ranches, the tick population is growing and spreading in new parts of the country. Emergency room visits for tick bites hit a 10-year seasonal high in April. And a growing number of Americans are discovering they’ve developed an allergy to red meat triggered by tick bites.
We sit down with a panel of experts to talk about it.
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104 games. 48 teams. Three host nations. One dream.
The men’s World Cup returns to North America for the first time in 32 years. And fans from all over the world are descending on cities like Dallas, Toronto, and Monterrey, hoping to watch their nations find glory.
But it’s not all grass and glamour. The run-up to this tournament has been plagued by issues around ticket pricing, transportation costs, threats of immigration enforcement, and the consequences of geopolitical conflict.
What does it all mean for the action on the field?
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Across the U.S., cities and communities are celebrating Pride during the month of June.
At the same time, a new poll from Gallup suggests attitudes around LGBTQ issues are shifting. After two decades, support for the community has now dropped. The swing is being largely driven by republicans. Just four years ago, polling data suggested a majority of Republicans supported same sex marriage at 55 percent. That number is now at 37 percent.
Trans issues, specifically, is another story. Only 5 percent of Republicans say changing one’s gender is morally acceptable. That number was at 22 percent five years ago.
Trans rights in the U.S. are a hot button issue among conservative politicians and voters. President Donald Trump campaigned on it, spending millions of dollars on anti-trans ads. Since then, the administration has rolled back protections for and access to gender-affirming care.
What is the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. today? And what does this reported dip in acceptance mean for the community?
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Last week marked the anniversary of Congress passing the 19th Amendment.
In 1919, that Constitutional amendment gave women the right to vote — although it only applied in practice to white women for decades. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and Jim Crow-era state laws prevented Black women from voting.
Fast forward 107 years, and a growing conservative movement now wants to repeal the 19th Amendment and the other hard-won rights of women and people of color. It’s called “masculinism,” and its goal is to combat what its believers see as a “feminized” U.S. society.
In this edition of “If You Can Keep It,” we explore how a fringe movement on the right is gaining momentum thanks to its connections to the Trump administration. What do followers of this movement want? And what does it mean for our democracy if a growing movement in conservative politics wants to re-institute patriarchy?
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The U.S. House of Representatives voted this week to end the war in Iran. While not yet passed into law, it demonstrates a break between the Trump administration and the GOP-majority legislative body.
In light of its recent ruling concerning the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court once again cleared the way for Alabama to use its new Congressional map. This comes despite a three-judge panel has blocking the map in late May.
A convicted Jan. 6 rioter was hired at the Pentagon this week. Elias Irizarry will now work in one of the agency’s offices that handles highly-classified military information.
And, in global news, talks between Washington and Tehran are hanging by a thread. Now, Iranian officials say they have yet to deploy the full power of their military and they are prepared for any scenario, even a direct confrontation.
Ukrainian missiles hit the Russian city of St. Petersburg this week as Vladimir Putin’s premiere economic forum begins.
And during testimony on Capitol Hill, Marco Rubio told lawmakers that Greenland remains a part of Denmark “for now.”
We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.
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On Tuesday, a legion of screaming fans packed the Beacon Theatre in New York City – arms outstretched for the glittery, long-haired rock star known as the Vampire Lestat.
Of course, in reality, the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt and his touring band don’t exist. He’s the creation of beloved horror writer Anne Rice. And this version of him, played by actor Sam Reid, is the lead of AMC’s television adaptation of Rice’s books.
But for the fans who packed the Beacon Theatre this week, these distinctions are unimportant. And it speaks to a shared commitment between the fans of Rice’s vampiric world and the actors and creators behind the series who strive to honor it.
The third season of “Interview with the Vampire’s” begins airing Sunday. It’s a departure from the first two – which focused on Louis de Point du Lac, played by actor Jacob Anderson, his transformation into a vampire, and his rocky relationship with his maker.
The third season puts Lestat in the driver’s seat – his perspective, his music, and a peak into his 200-year backstory. We sit down with the series showrunner and the actors to discuss the show’s third season, honoring Rice’s vision, and rocking out as a vampire.
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More than 300,000 federal workers have left government service since the start of the second Trump administration.
Some were laid off by the administration. Some took buyouts. Some walked out. The cuts hit every major agency — from the State Department to the Justice Department.
That doesn’t mean things have been easy for those still working for the government. Last week, the Office of Personnel Management proposed requiring all federal employees to sign non-disclosure agreements that would prevent them from sharing internal government information.
We sit down to talk about how those cuts are affecting the workers who remained.
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Smart phones. Smart cars. Smart speakers. Web browsers. Social media. Artificial Intelligence.
Technologies we rely on every day generate a massive amount of information about what we do, where we go, what we like, and who we are. That data can make life very convenient — your rideshare app knows where you want go before you enter an address, you only see ads for products you’re already interested in buying, videos on subjects you enjoy are already auto-populated in your feed.
But at what cost? What’s the tradeoff?
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson is a professor of law at the George Washington University School of Law and a national surveillance expert. He says that the rise of the self-surveillance state has big ramifications for Americans’ personal freedoms and America’s democratic values.
We sit down with him to talk about how are data is being used against us and about his books, “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance.”
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Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has fashioned the Department of Justice into a tool he can wield against his enemies.
So far, Trump has installed his personal lawyer as the top official. He’s culled the ranks of career prosecutors. And he’s pressured U.S. attorneys into bringing cases against people he considers political enemies.
In recent months, grand juries have acted as the last line of defense against his full weaponization of the justice system — refusing to indict in cases where the government hasn’t proven a crime has been committed.
In this latest installment of our weekly politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” what do recent high-profile grand jury proceedings tell us about accountability at the Justice Department?
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