Up First from NPR - Trump Fires Kristi Noem, Middle East War Latest, Venezuela-US Diplomacy

President Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and named Senator Markwayne Mullin as his pick to take over, in the first cabinet shakeup of his second term.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is widening again, with Israel striking Beirut’s southern suburbs as Lebanon says tens of thousands have been displaced.
And two months after U.S. forces seized Venezuela’s president, Washington and Caracas are suddenly cutting deals on oil and critical minerals and moving to restore diplomatic relations.

Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.

Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhananov, Hannah Bloch, Tara Neill, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.

It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.

Our director is Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

Our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.

(0:00) Introduction
(01:53) Trump Fires Kristi Noem
(05:50) Middle East War Latest
(09:44) Venezuela-US Diplomacy


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NPR's Book of the Day - ‘The Irish Goodbye’ and ‘Frog’ are micro-memoirs and essays about everyday life

In today’s episode, two authors tackle everyday experience through short-form writing. First, The Irish Goodbye is a collection of micro-memoirs by the poet Beth Ann Fennelly. In these recollections, she considers childhood, marriage, and old friends – and she told NPR’s Scott Simon about the immense difficulty she had writing about her sister’s death. Then, Anne Fadiman joins Simon to discuss Frog: and Other Essays, in which she takes on topics like a printer, an unpettable pet, M&Ms, and the rules of grammar.


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Short Wave - Teen sleep is getting wrecked by more than just phones

Teens aren’t getting enough sleep! And a two-decade study suggests it’s getting worse. Scientists found that the number of high schoolers getting insufficient sleep — less than seven hours a night — has increased from 69% to 77%. The throughline? There wasn’t one. Teens had bad sleep habits across most demographics, including race, gender and grade level. The findings were published this week in the journal JAMA.

Interested in more science behind recent headlines? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.

For more about earthquake science – and the Cascadia Fault in particular – check out our recent episode on the Pacific Northwest’s Big One.

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State of the World from NPR - Who will be Iran’s next leader?; How Ukraine might help defend the Gulf

A panel of clerics in Iran are meeting to decide on the next leader of the fundamentalist regime after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in recent airstrikes. After nearly 40 years of his rule, the choice could either cement hardline continuity under his son or usher in a fundamentally transformed regime. We hear about likely candidates.

And as Iranians are attacking American bases in the Middle East with drones, the government of Ukraine is offering its expertise. They say more than 57 thousand of the same type of drones have been used against them in the last four years.

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Consider This from NPR - What it’s like to get caught in ICE’s surveillance web

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using a variety of tools to surveil folks they want to intimidate and apprehend. 


That web helps federal agents find people to deport. But it also allows them to identify U.S. citizens who criticize the federal government and its policies.

NPR has compiled dozens of stories of people caught up in the surveillance web. Some were monitoring ICE activities and found themselves in interactions with agents who identify them by their names and home addresses. NPR’s Scott Detrow talks with Meg Anderson and Jude Joffe-Block who have been collecting the stories, and tracking ICE’s surveillance tactics.

For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

Reporting from NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf contributed to this story. This episode was produced by Gabriel Sanchez and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Ted Mebane. It was edited by Alina Hartounian, John Ketchum and Sarah Handel.
Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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1A - ‘If You Can Keep It’: What Should Accountability Look Like In The Epstein Case?

It’s been a month since the Justice Department released more than 3 million documents related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In that time, dozens of people were scrutinized for their close ties to Epstein, who died by suicide while in prison in 2019.

Among those named in the documents is Donald Trump. The president has long denied any crimes related to Epstein. And there’s no public evidence that the allegations against him are credible.

But a new NPR investigation reveals that the Justice Department withheld some of the Epstein files related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor in the ‘80s.

In this installment of our weekly politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” what did the DOJ remove exactly? And what does accountability look like for those connected to Epstein’s crimes?

Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.

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Up First from NPR - Iran War Expanding, Khamenei Successor, China Mediates Middle East War

Iranians are fleeing as Israel and the U.S. keep striking Iran, the fighting continues in Lebanon, and the war’s spillover is rattling Gulf countries.
President Trump is offering shifting explanations for why the U.S. struck Iran, as the White House tries to line up its message and Americans remain wary about what the war is meant to achieve.
And China says it will send a special envoy to the Middle East as Beijing’s annual “Two Sessions” get underway, with leaders warning the world is getting more volatile even as growth slows at home.

Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.

Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Hannah Bloch, Miguel Macias, James Hider, Tina Kraja, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.

It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Ben Abrams.

Our director is Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

And our Deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.

(0:00) Introduction
(02:10) Iran War Expanding
(06:13) Khamenei Successor
(09:49) China Mediates Middle East War

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The Indicator from Planet Money - Want a 2.5% mortgage? Buy it.

Remember those juicy mortgage rates from back in 2021? You don’t actually need a time machine to get one today. You just need to find someone willing to sell their house AND their mortgage to you. Called ‘assumable mortgages,’ they take a long time to get,, and you’ll probably need a fat wad of cash.

On today’s show, how to buy your way into a cheap mortgage rate.

Related episodes: 
How mortgage rates get made
How mortgage interest rates work (and why they're currently out of whack)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Tyler Jones. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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NPR's Book of the Day - ‘An American Marriage’ author Tayari Jones is out with a new novel ‘Kin’

Tayari Jones, author of the 2018 novel An American Marriage, says her next book was supposed to be about gentrification in the American South. But while writing her draft, Jones says she realized the backstory of that project was actually the real story. That’s how her new historical fiction novel Kin was born. The book follows two cradle friends who grow up without mothers in Honeysuckle, Louisiana and must navigate life in the Jim Crow South. In today’s episode, Jones tells NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about how she tapped into something “older than herself” in order to write this story.


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The Indicator from Planet Money - Want a 2.5% mortgage? Buy it.

Remember those juicy mortgage rates from back in 2021? You don’t actually need a time machine to get one today. You just need to find someone willing to sell their house AND their mortgage to you. Called ‘assumable mortgages,’ they take a long time to get,, and you’ll probably need a fat wad of cash.

On today’s show, how to buy your way into a cheap mortgage rate.

Related episodes: 
How mortgage rates get made
How mortgage interest rates work (and why they're currently out of whack)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Tyler Jones. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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