NPR News: 07-16-2025 1AM EDT
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What are the State Department cutbacks and why were they implemented?
Live from MPR News in Washington, I'm Shay Stevens. A top State Department official defended major cutbacks at his agency during a hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday. And Paris Michelle Kellanman reports that the Deputy Secretary of State says that the cuts will not reach U.S. Embassies or consulates overseas.
Just days after he laid off thirteen hundred staffers at the State Department, Deputy Secretary of State for Management, Mike O'Regas, says the goal was to cut through the bureaucracy here in Washington.
The reorganization will merge, eliminate, consolidate, or streamline nearly forty-five percent of the department's domestic offices.
The ranking democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, blasted him for firing career foreign and civil servants, many with decades of service. Just because they were in offices, he's closing. Meeks called it the largest brain drain in the department's recent history. Michelle Kelleman, NPR News, the State Department.
The U.S. Senate is to begin debate on Wednesday on legislation to take back nine billion dollars and already approve funding for foreign aid programs and public media. As NPR's Dear Jar Walsh report, some lawmakers have raised concerns about how the proposed rescissions will affect their communities.
There's been this group who've been raising concerns about the impact of cuts uh uh mostly in rural areas. South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds specifically argued that. Radio stations that serve Native American populations and his home state needed to be supported. He essentially negotiated a side deal with the administration and says they agreed to reprogram about nine million dollars in money from a program at the Department of Interior and use that money to go to twenty-eight radio stations in nine states that serve Native American communities.
I had concerns specifically about the impact on these radio stations that are in rural areas with people that have basically very few other resources and uh to me they got caught in the crossfire on public broadcasting.
And PR is deader Walsh reporting. In central Texas, emerging officials say it'll take years for the region to recover from catastrophic flooding that's killed a at least one hundred and thirty people.
How are lawmakers responding to the proposed $9 billion foreign‑aid rescissions?
NPR's Cat Lonsdorf visited a town in Kirk County.
On Memorial Day weekend 2015, the Blanco River in Wimberley, Texas, suddenly rose more than 40 feet overnight, wiping out nearly everything in its path. Resident Natalie Meeks said it's been hard to watch the news out of Kerr County since it all feels eerily similar. She says she and her husband were cleaning up for years.
It took us almost a year just to have the debris and trash cleaned up to where it didn't look like a war zone.
Ten years later, they're still rebuilding, but she says it's more than just the physical damage. It's emotional for a long time. It's just a long process. She calls it a recovery marathon and not a sprint. Get Lonstorff reporting. This is NPR.
At least two deaths are being blamed on the heavy rain that unleashed flash flooding on parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania Monday. Some roads in the area were still inundated Tuesday morning. The flooding calls the cancellation or delays to some subway lines in New York City. Nearly two inches of rain fell on Central Park in an hour. In Pennsylvania, a disaster emergency has been declared in the southeastern town of Mount Joy, situated about ninety minutes west of Philadelphia. Israeli airstrikes killed nearly a hundred Palestinians this week, according to Gaza's health ministry. The UN relief agency reports that ten percent of children under the age of five in Gaza are malnourished. Israel eased its blockade of Gaza in May, but relief workers say the humanitarian aid getting through is not enough.
For the first time in over a hundred years it's again legal to swim in designated areas of the Sin River in Paris. Details from NPR's Eleanor Beardsley.
A large wooden dock has been built at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.
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