NPR News: 08-04-2026 3PM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Linda Kenyon.
What is the status of Todd Blanche’s nomination after the Senate committee vote?
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has cleared a critical hurdle in his bid to be confirmed to the Post. A Senate committee has voted along party lines to advance his nomination to the full Senate.
Why did Senators Cornyn and Tillis hold up Blanche’s confirmation over the ‘weaponization fund’?
Two Republicans, Senators John Cornyn and Tom Tillis, held up his nomination, in part over President Trump's anti-weaponization fund. Senator Cornyn spoke with MSNOW after the vote.
Well, the weaponization fund is dead. We pointed out that the Department of Justice has represented that to numerous courts. And as to the idea that it could be revived in the future, I think it's highly unlikely that that could happen without the cooperation of the Department of Justice. Mr. Blanch gave us the assurances that it was dead and would not be revived. And in this case, we have no alternative but to take his word for that.
The fund would have allowed compensation to those alleging mistreatment by the government, including January 6th protesters convicted of assaulting police officers. Senate Democrats are out with a new report suggesting that big U.S. banks had concerns for years about money moves made by accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the banks are accused of keeping those worries to themselves until after Epstein was arrested.
The report from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee says more than a dozen bankers at JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank raised red flags about the money that Epstein was moving around the world. But in most cases, bankers failed to alert the Treasury Department until Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, bankers are supposed to notify the government whenever they suspect a client is moving funds to launder money or carry out other illegal activities. Committee Democrats want the Justice Department to investigate why suspicious activity reports were not filed about Epstein in a more timely manner. They also want to tighten reporting requirements in the future.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
Nearly three years after an Israeli airstrike wiped out much of one extended family in Gaza City, relatives gathered for a mass funeral. Anas Baba reports.
What lay on the stretchers were not freshly wrapped bodies, but mostly skeletal remains. Each was covered with a Palestinian flag, sprinkled with bright pink bougainvillea petals, and marked with a photograph of the person inside. Thousands of mourners and relatives stood shoulder to shoulder as 112 members of the Abu Sharia family were carried on shoulders to be laid to rest. They were killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023. Their remains were recovered only after two weeks of digging through layers of crushed concrete, nearly three years later. For the Abu Sharia family, the funeral brought a painful kind of closure. Across Gaza, thousands of other families are still waiting for someone to pull their loved ones from beneath the rubble.
Anas Baba, NPR News, Gaza.
You're listening to NPR News. McDonald's says its sales in the U.S. have slowed down much more than the company expected in the latest quarter. The fast food restaurant is often viewed as an economic bellwether, and its sales are often seen as indicative of family budgets across the country. But this time, McDonald's says the problems were internal. Here's NPR's Alina Selyuk.
McDonald's says its sales in the U.S. grew less than 1% between April and June. At the same time, other chains like KFC and Chipotle saw strong demand. And McDonald's says it had overwhelmed its stores with too many complicated launches. There was marketing around K-pop demon hunters, then the World Cup, a new lineup of drinks like craft sodas, and big changes in the value meals, removing old deals for buy-one-get-one-free. and introducing new ones with items under $3 or $4. All this was too much all at once for stores and shoppers, including the most loyal ones who also saw popular digital offerings go away in their apps.
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