Former FBI Director James Comey is indicted on obstruction and false statement charges after President Trump pressured the Justice Department to pursue a case. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth orders an unprecedented global meeting of top U.S. military commanders, raising questions about what changes are coming. And Democrats accuse the White House of “mafia-style blackmail” as the shutdown fight intensifies over health care funding and the threat of mass federal layoffs.
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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Krishnadev Calamur, Andrew Sussman, Kelsey Snell, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.
It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Lindsay Totty
We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
A grand jury indicted James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, on Thursday night. It is a case that President Trump has personally demanded that federal prosecutors pursue despite their own doubts about whether Mr. Comey committed a crime.
Devlin Barrett, who covers the Justice Department and F.B.I. for The New York Times, explains what’s in the indictment and what that means for Mr. Trump’s ongoing campaign of retribution.
Guest: Devlin Barrett, a New York Times reporter covering the Justice Department and the F.B.I.
U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan secures an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, igniting a potential crisis at the Justice Department. Police describe meticulous planning by the gunman who opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas. And schools describe a booming market for security measures – without clear indications that it’s having an effect.
Sometime in the last 24 hours, most of you have used soap or detergent, either directly or indirectly.
Soap, like many other things, was most likely discovered by accident thousands of years ago.
Fast forward to today, and these products are used for cleaning almost everything, from our bodies to cars to dishes.
Soaps and detergents, despite being similar products that serve similar purposes, approach their tasks slightly differently and are used in different circumstances.
Learn more about soap and detergent, how they were developed, and how they work on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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This week marks 200 years since the first steam train pulled passengers over 26 miles of north-east England’s countryside, and started a revolution. Jump on board for show filled with train tales.
We explore Mumbai’s lunch delivery system – train based, of course, which has the sort of error rate that delivery firms arounds the world can only dream of. We ask what it takes to run a railway on time, and look at how the bullet train changed Japan, with history professor Jessamyn Abel.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins with Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, Robbie Wojciechowski, Lucy Davies
From the bustling ports of Lisbon to the coastal inlets of the Bight of Benin to the vibrant waterways of Bahia, Black mariners were integral to every space of the commercial South Atlantic. Navigating this kaleidoscopic world required a remarkable cosmopolitanism--the chameleonlike ability to adapt to new surroundings by developing sophisticated medicinal, linguistic, and navigational knowledge. In Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2025) Mary E. Hicks shows how Portuguese slaving ship captains harnessed and exploited this hybridity to expand their own traffic in human bondage. At the same time, she reveals how enslaved and free Black mariners capitalized on their shipboard positions and cosmopolitan expertise to participate in small-scale commodity trading on the very coasts where they themselves had been traded as commodities, reshaping societies and cultures on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, as Hicks argues, the Bahian slave trade was ruthlessly effective because its uniquely decentralized structure so effectively incorporated the desires and financial strategies of the very people enslaved by it. Yet taking advantage of such fraught economic opportunities ultimately enabled many enslaved Black mariners to purchase their freedom. And, in some cases, they became independent transatlantic slave traders themselves. Hicks thus explores the central paradox that defined the lives of the captive cosmopolitans and, in doing so, reveals a new history of South Atlantic slavery centered on subaltern commercial and cultural exchange.
We’ll tell you why charges have been brought against the former head of the FBI in an unprecedented indictment—and how it’s stirring debate about whether politics are guiding prosecutions.
Also, a rare, urgent meeting bringing hundreds of senior U.S. military officers together for an unknown reason.
Plus: how some companies will get to avoid paying the newest round of tariffs, who could get a piece of the multibillion-dollar settlement Amazon agreed to pay, and how to call a hotline for life advice from some senior citizens.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
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