NPR News: 04-17-2026 4AM EDT
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Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. military remains at the ready if a peace deal with Iran is not reached.
We are locked and loaded on your critical dual-use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation, and on your energy industry. We'd rather not have to do it. But we're ready to go at the command of our president and at the push of a button.
Greg Spath speaking Thursday alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Kaine at a Pentagon press briefing. His remarks came on the same day President Trump announced a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, which has raised hopes for an end to the war in Iran. Trump said the next meeting between the U.S. and Iran may take place this weekend. President Trump is due in Phoenix later today. He is to attend an event with a conservative political group, Turning Point USA. Trump spent the night in Las Vegas where he sought to promote the tax cuts he signed into law last year as he seeks to focus on economic issues ahead of November's midterm elections. Federal investigators are looking into allegations against former Congressman Eric Swalwell.
The swift downfall for the California Democrat followed media reports last week in which multiple women accused him of sexual assault and harassment. Tim Pierce, Jacqueline Diaz reports.
A source familiar confirmed to NPR that the Justice Department is investigating former California Representative Eric Swalwell. No other details were immediately available. This comes on top of two other investigations now happening in district attorney's offices in Los Angeles and New York. The Democrat dropped his bid for California governor and resigned from Congress this week. Multiple women have come forward in recent days accusing Swalwell of misconduct, ranging from non-consensual sexual advances to rape. Swalwell says he has made mistakes but strongly denies the most serious allegations. Jacqueline Diaz, NPR News.
The Artemis II astronauts say they still have not been fully processing the emotional impact of their trip around the moon. NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyce was among the reporters who spoke to the crew in Houston.
The commander of the mission, NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman, says the week since their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean has been super busy.
It's been a week of medical testing, physical testing, doctors, science objectives. We have not had that decompression. We have not had that reflection time.
He says their trip was amazing, and he wanted to set the record straight about their spacecraft's plumbing.
I just want to say 100% point blank, that was a wonderful toilet.
He said it flushed just fine. The only hitch was a blocked line that was supposed to dump its wastewater out into space. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News.
This is NPR News. Congress is facing a tight deadline to renew surveillance powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The FISA authorization is set to expire on Monday and a middle-of-the-night vote. The House rejected President Trump's push for a longer extension, only approving a short-term FISA renewal until the end of the month. The measure still needs Senate approval. In his first appearance on Capitol Hill this year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his record in running the Department of Health and Human Services. And Pierce Will Stone reports that Kennedy testified in two different House hearings Thursday.
Kennedy listed his agency's accomplishments on issues like drug price negotiations and new dietary guidelines. Meanwhile, Democrats grilled him on the $16 billion in proposed cuts and the agency's efforts to weaken the vaccine schedule. In one exchange, Representative Linda Sanchez asked him about the death of an unvaccinated child in Texas from measles.
Do you agree with the majority of doctors that the measles vaccine could have saved that child's life in Texas?
It's possible, certainly. News broke during the hearing when President Trump announced he was naming Dr. Erica Schwartz to head the CDC.
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