9(MDA3NzMxMTkxMDEzMDkyOTU3ODRmYjc2Mg001))
The Russia Investigations: How Many More Maria Butinas Are There?
This week in the Russia investigations: Two big questions about the second-most famous Russian in the world and Rod Rosenstein fires a warning shot. Finnish fallout No Hollywood screenwriter could get away with turning in a treatment for this week. The studio bosses would roll their eyes and ask for the story to be more plausible. And yet Americans — and the rest of the world — really did just live through five days in which the president of the United States publicly sided with the president...
After Supreme Court Punts On Gerrymandering, Democrats Make It A Campaign Issue
On a recent scorching afternoon in Austin, Texas, Democrat Justin Nelson held a bar crawl in three bars within just a few blocks of each other — and each of those three different bars were in three different congressional districts. "Even in this baking hot Austin sun, you can walk these three blocks without even being totally drenched in sweat, because these districts are so close," said Nelson, who is campaigning to replace the state's Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, in November....
Mastermind Behind Malta Journalist Killing Remains A Mystery
The last time Matthew Caruana Galizia saw his mother alive, she was going to the bank. A government minister had gotten the courts to freeze her bank accounts. She intended to fight for access to her funds. "If someone tried to shut her up, if someone tried to stop her, she'd just fight back even harder," the son says. "That was her spirit." Daphne Caruana Galizia was an investigative reporter, a towering, intense mother of three, digging up dirt on the most powerful figures in Malta, the...
What Your State Is Doing To Beef Up Civics Education
Fake news. Record-low voting turnout. Frequent and false claims from elected officials. Vitriol in many corners of political debate. These are symptoms we hear of all the time that our democracy is not so healthy. And those factors might be why many states are turning to the traditional — and obvious — place where people learn how government is supposed to work: schools. More than half of the states in their last legislative sessions — 27 to be exact — have considered bills or other proposals...
One Dead, Shooting Suspect In Custody After Police Standoff At LA Trader Joe's
Updated at 1:13 a.m. ET Sunday Los Angeles police say a suspected gunman who held people hostage inside a Trader Joe's in the city's Silver Lake neighborhood is now in custody. At least one person is dead. Police identified the suspect as a man about 28 years old, who surrendered three hours after barricading himself inside the store where other people had been trapped. Police have not yet released the suspect's name. Officials say the incident began Saturday afternoon when the suspect shot...
Not My Job: Former FBI Director James Comey Gets Quizzed On Loyalty Rewards
Former FBI Director James Comey has a lot of experience with loyalty — he wrote a book called A Higher Loyalty and he told the Senate intelligence committee that President Trump demanded his loyalty over dinner in January. So we've invited Comey to play a game called "Welcome to our Loyalty Rewards Club!" — a quiz about reward programs where you buy stuff to get stuff. Click the audio link above to see how he does. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. PETER SAGAL, HOST:...
A Superstar In China, Daniel Wu Emerges In His Native California
In the dystopian AMC television action series Into the Badlands , Daniel Wu stars as a lethal warrior on a quest to discover the truth about his past. Over two decades, the 43-year-old has played leading roles in everything from romantic comedies to kung fu costume dramas. He's become a celebrity across Asia. But Badlands is the first starring role in the United States for the California native. "As a kid growing up in the '70s, '80s, as a person of color, I didn't see a future for that," Wu...
Michael Cohen Recorded A Conversation With Trump About Paying An Ex-Playboy Model
Updated at 7:42 p.m. EST "The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!" President Trump tweeted Saturday morning. His message follows a New York Times report on Friday that his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded their discussion about payments to a former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump. The FBI found the recording after a raid on Cohen's office in April. It may provide evidence in an investigation into whether campaign finance...
After Trump's Helsinki Comments, Ohio County GOP Chairman Resigns With 'No Regrets'
After his press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday, President Trump received widespread blowback — including from many inside his own party — for appearing to accept Putin's denial that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. House Speaker Paul Ryan said there was "no question that Russia interfered in our election." Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed those comments, saying "the Russians are not our friends." In Ohio, Chris Gagin went one step further. On Monday,...
Episode 854: The New Socialists
Three years ago, the Democratic Socialists of America had about 6,000 members across the country--fewer than the American Racing Pigeon Union. Since then, DSA membership has shot up more than 600 percent. And Democratic Socialist candidates are popping up across the country. One of them, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is likely to land a seat in the House of Representatives this fall. Today on the show: How an ideology that was political poison for decades worked its way back into mainstream...
Week Of Trump Reversals Puts 2018 Election Security In The Spotlight
With less than four months to go, how much are this year's midterm elections at risk for the kind of interference sowed by Russia in 2016? It's a question that's coming up again after President Trump's seemingly shifting positions this week about Russia's responsibility for the interference in 2016, and after special counsel Robert Mueller's recent indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the Democratic Party and state election computer networks. It would be "foolish...
Carne Asada, Hold The Meat: Why Latinos Are Embracing Vegan-Mexican Cuisine
Tall, dreadlocked Josh Scheper knew he was out of place as he surveyed the scene at a Santa Ana, Calif., parking lot on a Sunday morning this past April. And the 46-year-old loved it. Hundreds of people waited in line at stalls for vegan food, but few people looked like the Los Angeles resident. Nearly everyone in the crowd was young and Latino, as were the chefs. The food on sale was Mexican — but not hippie-dippy cafe standbys like cauliflower tacos, or tempeh-stuffed burritos. Instead,...
