Year: 2025

President Trump’s rapid-fire spending cuts have affected communities all over the country–including strongholds of his supporters.

One of them is Rising Sun, Maryland. The town had won two FEMA grants designed to mitigate the effects of catastrophic flooding. And though the area voted overwhelmingly to support Trump’s re-election, his administration has now cancelled the program that funded those grants.

Across the state in the Trump-voting town of Emmitsburg, Maryland, a similar scenario is playing out. The town is home to the National Fire Academy–a sort of national war college for training firefighters in America. In March, the Trump administration abruptly cancelled classes at the academy. NPR’s Frank Langfitt reports that locals are concerned about how that will affect the town’s economy–and emergency preparedness across the country.

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Days before the beginning of the conclave to select the next pope, NPR’s Scott Detrow is in Rome. He speaks with Sylvia Poggioli about the rituals and ceremonies involved in the upcoming election at the Vatican.

We also hear from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, about this moment for the Catholic Church, and what it’s like being a seasoned veteran of the conclave process.

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Over the past few months, world leaders and diplomats have talked about grand plans for ending the war in Ukraine. But what about daily life there right now?

For our reporter’s notebook series, we’ll get on the ground with NPR correspondent Joanna Kakissis, who’s been living and working in Ukraine for almost the entire war. We’ll hear how everyday Ukrainians have adapted to a new normal. People go to work and kids go to school, but most nights Russian attacks continue.

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The U.S. has sent people it has detained — people it calls terrorists — to a prison overseas — indefinitely.

This is true in 2025, after the Trump administration deported at least 261 foreign nationals to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.

And it was also true two decades ago, following the attacks of Sept. 11, after the U.S. government began to house captured Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the military prison at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

During the George W. Bush administration, John Yoo wrote the legal justification for the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, now widely referred to as “the torture memos.”

Yoo argues that there are key legal differences between what the Bush administration did – and what the Trump administration is attempting in El Salvador.

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Americans are rushing to car dealerships as they worry about what President Trump’s tariffs will do to car prices in the coming months. New vehicle sales have been increasing steadily this year, and they jumped in March, according to market research firm Cox Automotive. That’s the month when President Trump announced upcoming auto tariffs.

Shoppers are racing to buy cars this spring because they believe that prices are going to go up in the summer and fall. And experts say if tariffs remain in place, that’s likely.

It’s a gamble President Trump is making – with the hope his tariff strategy will lead domestic car companies to make more vehicles at home.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley, who was at Ford’s Kentucky truck plant, about Trump’s tariffs, and Ford’s future.

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President Trump is pushing the boundaries of executive power in nearly every area of policy. From his trade war, to immigration, to education, to the reductions in the federal workforce.

Many of his actions are direct challenges to the Courts and to Congress. Those two branches of government are designed to act as checks on the president.

Trump has governed largely by unilateral executive action… and left lawmakers on the sidelines.

NPR’s Juana Summers talks with political correspondents Mara Liasson and Susan Davis about the changing power dynamic.

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An NPR investigation has been following President Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in January.

NPR’s Tom Dreisbach found that Trump’s targets are already facing the consequences – including criminal investigations, attempted deportations, and firings.

Trump has used government power to target more than 100 people or institutions across American society – and they’re all feeling the consequences.

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About one in 31 children in the U.S. has been identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to CDC data released this month.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed these findings, he declared that autism is a rapidly growing “epidemic” in the U.S. and vowed to identify the “environmental toxin” he says is to blame.

Which of Kennedy’s remarks rang true to those in the autism community?

Jill Escher is the president of the National Council on Severe Autism, and had both gratitude and criticism for the new initiative.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have become some of the biggest issues facing Canadians as they head to the polls in their federal election on April 28th.

Scott Detrow speaks to Lloyd Axworthy, a member of the Liberal party, who served as Canada’s top diplomat between 1996-2000, about the schism between the two longtime North American allies and how Canada’s next prime minister can reposition the country’s foreign and economic policy in the face of growing tensions with the United States.

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Long before he was elected to run the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis was essentially exiled from his Argentinian Jesuit order. Francis often referred to this two-year period, which happened when he was in his 50s, as a “dark night” and a “crisis” in his life.

For our weekly Reporter’s Notebook series, we talk with NPR religion editor Daniel Burke about what he learned by digging into this little known period of Francis’ life that shaped him and his papacy.

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