--:-- Kristen Wright: This message comes from Capital One with the Capital One Saver Card. Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Details at CapitalOne.com.
--:-- [Kristen Wright transitions to the news segment]
--:-- Kristen Wright: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright. City officials in Memphis say the federal government's operation has started there, and now the city is getting ready for the expected deployment of National Guard troops in the coming weeks. Memphis is one of the latest cities the Trump administration is targeting for federal crime intervention. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X yesterday that authorities made a handful of arrests in Memphis and that the federal operation is just getting started.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Votes to end the government shutdown failed today in Congress, and there's no clear path toward a solution. Most Democrats are sticking to their demands on health care.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Democratic votes are needed to pass any spending bills. And Democrats want to restore Medicaid funding that was cut during the one big as part of the one big beautiful bill, President Trump's tax measure. And they want to extend federal health care subsidies for insurance that bought on the Obamacare exchanges. They're using the little bit of leverage that they have, which is their votes, to try to force these policy changes.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed. The White House today said some could get laid off.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: The Trump administration's government efficiency effort, called DOGE, has failed to deliver on its promises to cut costs and increase efficiency, according to an NPR analysis of federal data.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: Agencies ordered by Doge to drastically slash their workforce over the last eight months are now hiring back hundreds of workers. Despite Doge's promise that cutting contracts and terminating leases would shrink the federal budget, Treasury data shows spending has increased by hundreds of billions of dollars.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: When it first launched this year, Doge's savings and efficiency tracker was full of errors, overstatements, and unverifiable claims. That remains true today.
--:-- Stephen Fowler: The White House declined to answer NPR's questions about these shortcomings, but said President Trump was, quote, given a clear mandate to reduce waste, fraud and abuse, and he is delivering on that commitment.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Yemen's Houthi rebels say they have hit a Dutch-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: NPR's Kerry Kahn reports the attack early today wounded at least two members of the ship's crew and is the most significant assault by the Iranian rebels in months.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: A Houthi military spokesman says a cruise missile hit the ship, setting it ablaze and causing substantial damage. The spokesman accused the Amsterdam-based shipping company of violating the rebels' declared entry ban to the ports of, quote, occupied Palestine, by which they mean Israel.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: The Houthis target ships and fire rockets regularly into Israel in what they say is support of Hamas militants fighting in Gaza. The Houthis have sunk four ships in the adjacent Red Sea since November 2023.
--:-- Kristen Wright: This is NPR News in Washington.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Penn America is out with its latest list of the most frequently banned books in public schools across the U.S.
--:-- Anastasia Tsilkas: As NPR's Anastasia Tsilkas reports, the dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange tops the list, along with the most frequently banned author, Stephen King.
--:-- Anastasia Tsilkas: The Free Expression Advocates Group warns in a new report that book banning across the country has risen exponentially in the last two academic years. In 2024-25, Pan America counted 6,870 bans. Florida, Texas, and Tennessee have the highest rates of book bans.
--:-- Anastasia Tsilkas: Pan America says that although many bans take place at the local and state levels, the federal government has been using executive orders from President Trump, especially related to diversity, equity, and discussions of race and gender, to remove books from schools on military bases.
--:-- Kristen Wright: The Education Department has called complaints about book bans a hoax, saying the books aren't being banned, just removed.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Jane Goodall has died, according to the Jane Goodall Institute.
--:-- Kristen Wright: The legendary primatologist was renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and environmental advocacy.
--:-- Kristen Wright: While living with the animals in Africa, Goodall documented them in a way that hadn't been done previously. Her observations transformed how the world perceived the primates and their social and biological complexity.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Goodall devoted her later years to education and advocacy of humanitarian causes. Jane Goodall was 91.
--:-- Kristen Wright: I'm Kristen Wright, and this is NPR News in Washington.
--:-- Kristen Wright: On NPR's Wildcard podcast, actor Matthew McConaughey says it's important not to overcommit creatively.
--:-- Kristen Wright: What can happen and where ambition has led me astray is you end up with a bunch of freaking campfires and no bonfires.
--:-- Kristen Wright: Listen or watch that Wildcard conversation on YouTube, the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
