NPR News: 04-30-2026 3PM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Congress is ending a record-long shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security. Today, the U.S. House approved by voice vote the Senate's DHS funding bill.
What recent legislative changes are affecting the Department of Homeland Security?
The measure excludes money for immigration and customs enforcement and parts of Border Patrol. As NPR's Sam Greenglass tells us, the measure heading to President Trump's desk caps two and a half months of bitter debate over mass deportations and enforcement tactics that resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Funding for DHS was first caught up in debate between Republicans and Democrats over funding for two of its agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Senate Republicans struck a deal with Democrats, blessed by the White House, to separate ICE and Border Patrol, so funding could flow again to other agencies like TSA and the Coast Guard. But when that measure reached the House, it sat for a month amid disagreements within the GOP. The House finally acted as money that Trump was using to keep paychecks flowing to many DHS workers was set to run out. Republicans are advancing a separate measure to fund ICE and Border Patrol using a maneuver Democrats can't block.
Sam Greenglass, NPR News, Washington.
Louisiana's Secretary of State has just announced that U.S. House primaries are suspended following yesterday's Supreme Court decision that Louisiana's congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. And Pierre Sanzi-Lowong reports voting rights advocates are raising concerns about the court's ruling and its impact on many voters of color across the U.S.
The Voting Rights Act protections against racial discrimination that the court has reinterpreted in this case have also applied to the redrawing of districts for state legislatures, city councils, school boards and other local government in places where white majority voters and minority voters of color tend to prefer different candidates. With the Weekend Voting Rights Act, the advocacy group's Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund estimates states could draw out of existence close to 200 state legislative seats held by Democratic lawmakers, mostly representing majority Black districts in the South. And in Congress, as much as 11 percent of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus could be lost.
Anzila Wong, NPR News.
Against the backdrop of the Iran war, the price of jet fuels nearly doubled since February. Montana Public Radio's Austin Amistoy reports on what that could mean for fighting wildfires in the coming months.
The U.S. Forest Service is in charge of most large wildfires. Last year, it says it spent a little more than $50 million fueling up planes and helicopters. It's budgeted less than that for this summer, even though jet fuel has skyrocketed in price. Willis Curdy used to fly planes as a wildland firefighter.
You're asking for a lot of power, a lot of fuel consumption than you would if you're high, just gliding through the air.
This year's fire season may prove expensive, with forecasters projecting a warm, dry summer out west. For NPR News, I'm Austin Amistoy in Missoula, Montana.
This is NPR News. Camp Mystic, the Christian all-girls camp where 27 people died in last year's flooding in central Texas, says it is withdrawing its application to reopen this summer while investigations are ongoing. The statement was obtained by member station KUT. President Trump's pulled his nomination of Casey Means for Surgeon General, following questions about her position on nontraditional medicines, vaccines and other health issues. President Trump is now nominating Dr. Nicole Sapphire, a radiologist and regular Fox News contributor. A scientist who played a critical role in the sequencing of the human genome has died. NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyce reports J. Craig Venter's work accelerated the mapping of humanity's DNA.
Scientists gathered at the White House 26 years ago with President Bill Clinton to mark what was basically the completion of efforts to sequence all human genes.
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