Dwali Saikautel

Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dwahlisa Kautel.

Ahead of this year's Kennedy Center Awards show, President Trump presented the honorees with newly redesigned gold medallions at an Oval Office ceremony Saturday night.

This year's recipients are actors Sylvester Stallone, singers Gloria Gaynor and George Strait, Broadway star Michael Crawford, and the rock band Kiss.

They stood behind Trump as he praised them as the most accomplished and renowned class of Kennedy Center honorees ever assembled.

Trump and his wife, First Lady Melania, are expected to attend the Kennedy Center Honors Program Sunday evening at the Performing Arts Center.

The Trump administration has added President Trump's birthday, June 14th, to the list of entrance fee free days at national parks.

NPR's Chloe Veltman reports Martin Luther King Jr.

Day and Juneteenth have been removed from next year's free days schedule.

No hurricanes hit the United States during the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, but as NPR's Rebecca Hirsch reports, it wasn't a quiet season in other ways.

This is NPR News.

A new survey finds one in five adults in the U.S.

reports poor mental health and the vast majority oppose cuts to mental health services.

And Perazritu Chatterjee says the findings are from the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

After two years of pausing Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, where Christians believed Jesus Christ was born, the mayor of the holy city hosted a two-hour tree-lighting ceremony on Saturday, attended by what appeared to be several thousand people in front of the historic Nativity Church on Manger Square.

Bethlehem Mayor Kanawati told the BBC, "...some may say it's not appropriate, and others say it's appropriate."

I felt that this was the right thing to do because Christmas should never be stopped or cancelled.

I'm Dwali Saikautel, NPR News in New York City.