NPR News: 02-25-2026 8PM EST
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. During her confirmation hearing to be the next Surgeon General, Dr. Casey Means said she wants to address the root causes of chronic disease instead of what she calls reactive sick care. She says the nation needs dietary and lifestyle changes, echoing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NPR's Will Stone explains.
What are the key points from Dr. Casey Means' confirmation hearing?
She's primarily a wellness influencer and entrepreneur. She has a company that sells glucose monitors. And she's gained prominence in the last few years, mainly through the publication of a diet and health book. And much of her messaging echoes what you hear from Secretary Kennedy and his supporters. She talks about nutrition, the harms of ultra-processed foods, and other links to chronic disease. Also about environmental toxins, poor lifestyle. Here's what she told senators today.
Our bodies are telling us this current path is totally unsustainable. There is another way, a path that unites rigorous science with reverence for our miraculous bodies and planet.
NPR's Will Stone reporting. President Trump announced a war on fraud in his State of the Union address, and Vice President J.D. Vance is leading the charge. Vance says the administration is taking a specific look at Minnesota's A state the administration has targeted recently on immigration and accusations of fraud in the Medicaid system. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reports.
Vance says they'll withhold $259 million in Medicaid funding from Minnesota.
What we're doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously. to stop the fraud that's being perpetrated against the American taxpayer.
He said this could extend to other states, too. It's unclear, though, if there is legal authority to temporarily halt these funds. The administration has been accusing Somali Americans in Minnesota of pillaging billions of dollars from taxpayers. Almost 100 defendants, many of Somali descent, are facing federal charges. Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, the White House.
The U.S. Embassy in Israel says it will be operating consular services for the first time in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel praised the move as historic. NPR's Daniel Estrin has more.
The U.S. embassy says its consular officers will visit two Israeli settlements in the West Bank for one-day visits each to provide passport services to settlers with U.S. citizenship. Israel's foreign ministry called it an historic decision and thanked U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. It's a symbolic U.S. endorsement of Israeli control over occupied land that Palestinians want for a future country. But the move comes amid anger by 14 Arab countries over Huckabee's recent interview to talk show host Tucker Carlson. Huckabee said West Bank settlement areas are Israel.
NPR's Daniel Estrin reporting. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Haiti's government has retaken control of a key area from powerful gangs as glimmers of life appear in the heart of Port-au-Prince. Experts say the retaking sends a symbolic and hopeful message to Haitians and could be a positive hint of what's possible elsewhere in the capital. A new study suggests AI models may reinforce stereotypes when asked to compare some locations. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports chat GPT consistently favored wealthier western regions.
Researchers at Oxford and the University of Kentucky tested chat GPT with more than 20 million comparisons between counties, states and cities... asking, for example, which U.S. state was lazier. Initially, the system pushed back against such generalizations. But when researchers forced it to compare places by rewording the questions, the model tended to reproduce familiar regional stereotypes. Across categories, it often ranked wealthier Western regions more positively. Because the system had to pick one place over another, researchers could also track consistent patterns in its responses. The authors of the study call this the Silicon Gaze.
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