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Chapter 1: What new sanctions did the U.S. impose on Iranian oil sales?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. The Treasury Department announced more sanctions on Iranian oil sales today, even as the Trump administration says it's in negotiations to extend the ceasefire. The department says Iran's military generates revenue through these sales to threaten the U.S. and allies in the Middle East. Earlier today, Iran's U.N. ambassador told the U.N.
Security Council that U.S. actions in Iran are Venezuela and Cuba reflect a pattern of intimidation that violates the UN Charter. The Supreme Court ruled that a Mississippi death row inmate had been denied a fair trial 20 years ago. Justices said courts had failed to explore charges of racial discrimination in jury selection. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.
Terry Pitchford was 18 when he and a 16-year-old pal were charged with killing a storekeeper in Mississippi. Though the 16-year-old fired the fatal shot, prosecutors cut a deal with him for a 20-year sentence and then obtained a conviction and death sentence against Pitchford.
But today, the Supreme Court threw out the conviction because the trial judge allowed the prosecutor to remove four of five black members from the jury pool, leaving just one black person on the jury and in a county that's 40 percent Black. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the court's three liberals.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
Almost half of U.S. households did not earn enough in 2024 to cover their necessities. The Brookings Institute's report says it's a result of higher prices and stagnant wages. NPR's Stephen Passaha has more.
It wasn't just 2024 that was a rough year. For most of the decade before that, 40 percent of households did not earn enough to make ends meet. Currently, rising gas and grocery prices continue to be a burden on families. But the report's co-author, Hannah Stevens, says bigger household expenses like housing, health care and child care are what hold many households back.
These are the biggest components of a family's budget, and they are largely determined by systems outside of a family's control.
Wages in 2024 also fell behind the rise in cost of living. Income grew by less than 1.5% for households, while inflation rose almost 3%. Stephen Basaja, NPR News.
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Chapter 2: What did the Supreme Court rule regarding a Mississippi death row inmate's trial?
That tax costs drivers a little more than 18 cents per gallon, but waiving it carries a cost, too, as NPR's Camilla Dominovsky explains.
One downside is that it can actually backfire because when you reduce the cost of buying gasoline, you encourage people to buy more of it, which can actually drive prices back up. More fundamentally, though, the problem is that the money raised by the gas tax goes toward the country's highway system, and road repairs are very important.
NPR's Camilla Dominovsky reporting. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. France's lower house has voted finally to scrub a foundational slavery-era edict from French law. The National Assembly voted 254 to nothing to overturn Code Noir, or Black Code. It now goes to the Senate. King Louis XIV signed it in 1685 to set the rules for slavery across France's colonial empire.
The code quietly remained on the books even after France abolished slavery in 1848. For the first time in more than three decades, Major League Baseball has proposed a salary cap. NPR's Becky Sullivan reports it's part of the labor negotiations that are widely expected to lead to a lockout when this year's season is over.
The last time Major League Baseball proposed a salary cap, negotiations got so contentious that players went on strike and ended the 1994 season. the World Series was canceled. Now the league says it's once again time to consider it. The richest teams, like the Los Angeles Dodgers, now have payrolls five times the size of bottom spenders like Miami and Cleveland.
The league's proposal would institute a cap of about $245 million with a salary floor of $171 million. Eight teams would have to cut their payroll to meet the proposed cap, and a dozen would have to spend more to meet the floor. The players' union has long opposed a cap In a statement, the union's interim head said it would, quote, harm players at all levels and suffocate competition.
Becky Sullivan in PR News.
A rare blue micro moon will take place this weekend. It's when a blue moon that's also the most distant and smallest looking full moon of the year rises. A blue moon occurs every two or three years when a second full moon squeezes into a single month. This is NPR.
As hurricane season approaches, a political storm is brewing at the Federal Disaster Agency. I've never been a big fan of FEMA. It really doesn't get the job done. But can we afford to lose this vital agency? Whenever there's a disaster, the first thing people say is, where's FEMA? American Emergency, the movement to kill FEMA, is a brand new series from WNYC's On the Media. Listen on the NPR app.
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