NPR News: 07-31-2026 4AM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder.
What’s blocking Todd Blanche’s nomination and the Justice Department deal with Trump?
President Trump and two key Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are sparring over the nomination of Todd Blanche to be Attorney General. Blanche's nomination is on hold. Senators John Cornyn of Texas and... North Carolina's Tom Tillis want the Justice Department to rein in an agreement reached with President Trump. Here's NPR's Ryan Lucas.
The snag here in his confirmation process, it revolves around the deal that the Justice Department made to end President Trump's IRS lawsuit over his leaked tax returns. Remember, that agreement included the creation of a nearly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. Blanche has said that is not moving forward. But there was also a second related part that was a sweeping immunity deal for Trump, his family and businesses from audits of past tax returns. That very much remains in effect.
President Trump suggested Thursday he could pull Blanche's nomination, but Blanche would still be the acting attorney general. Seattle's police chief resigning after fallout from Sunday's mass shooting at a food festival near the Space Needle. One suspect has been charged in the killing of three people, but there are potentially multiple shooters still at large. Scott Greenstone with Member Station KUOW reports.
Police Chief Sean Barnes' resignation comes after days of mounting criticism over slow, sometimes conflicting communication about the police investigation into the shooting. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said the decision to replace Barnes won't interrupt the investigation.
I would not have done this now if I thought that it would endanger that investigation or the other on-the-ground work of the department. This to me was the moment where we needed to go in a new direction.
Barnes was out of town at a conference when the shooting under the Space Needle took place. In the days since, his frequent travel to Chicago to visit his wife and kids while in office also came under question. For NPR News, I'm Scott Greenstone in Seattle.
The Transportation Department has approved the driverless vehicle company Zoox to start offering rides to paying customers. Federal regulators also say they'll begin gathering data to inform a future national standard for safety for autonomous vehicles. Kamila Dominovsky reports.
How does the confirmation snag involve the $1.8 billion anti‑weaponization fund and immunity terms?
Zoox, a California-based company owned by Amazon, has been testing its driverless electric vehicle with free rides. Now it has approval to commercially deploy up to 5,000 vehicles total over the next two years, starting in Las Vegas. Unlike Google's Waymo, which adds driverless technology to existing vehicles... Zoox uses a purpose-built driverless vehicle. It looks like a box on wheels and doesn't have any steering wheel or pedals. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also says it's launching a new consortium to gather data on autonomous vehicles to eventually inform the country's first nationwide safety standards for driverless cars. Camila Dominovsky, NPR News.
This is NPR News. The number of migrants who have died trying to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa is rising amid a surge in people seeking to reach Europe. The Spanish Interior Ministry now says 18 have been killed. Spain's prime minister is expected in Ceuta today after the government deployed military units to reinforce police. Cyber security experts at Amazon say they've tracked down the culprit behind several compromises of commonly used open source software tools. Empire's Jenna McLaughlin reports a North Korean hacking group is to blame.
Open source software tools are vital to developers writing code and building applications all over the world. But most of the time, those tools are maintained and secured by unpaid volunteers. According to Amazon security researchers, a North Korean hacking group has been slowly embedding itself inside open source software communities before quietly inserting malicious code into a software update, often making use of generative AI. Developers who use the compromise tool are unknowingly creating a backdoor to their own systems.
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