Chapter 1: What recent legal developments involve James Comey and Letitia James?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly. A federal judge is dismissing criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both were indicted in Virginia. Judge Cameron McGowan-Curry says President Trump's appointment of interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan as the prosecutor was done so unlawfully.
Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt.
The Department of Justice will be appealing very soon, and it is our position that Lindsay Halligan is extremely qualified for this position, but more importantly, was legally appointed to it.
Comey was indicted on charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation stemming from testimony in 2020. James was accused of bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution regarding the purchase of a house in Norfolk. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Chapter 2: What lawsuit is the Trump administration facing regarding foreign guest worker wages?
The Trump administration is being sued over efforts to cut wages for foreign guest workers. As Frank Morris with member station KCUR reports, the legal action is being taken by unions representing farm workers.
The Trump administration wants to ease an acute farm labor shortage by dropping the wage rates for foreign guest workers under the H-2A visa program. H-2A visa wage rates are supposed to be set high enough to encourage farmers to hire locally, protecting American workers. United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero says the cuts would depress wages across agriculture.
There is nothing America First about extending exploitative gas worker programs of undercutting American wages. So that is what this lawsuit is about.
The lawsuit claims the Trump administration sidestepped the normal process of changing the H-2A wage rate and that the guest worker pay cuts would freeze Americans out of the farm labor force. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is proposing the Pentagon cut ties with Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts.
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Chapter 3: Why is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proposing to cut ties with Scouting America?
NPR's Graham Smith reports.
In a draft report to Congress reviewed by NPR, Hegseth says supporting the Scout Jamboree next summer would harm national security. that scarce resources can't be diverted from border security work. He also condemns scouting for promoting DEI, saying it rebranded to be, quote, genderless and attack boy-friendly spaces.
Another draft memo obtained by NPR orders the branches to bar scout troops from meeting on military bases worldwide and says that DOD will stop offering advanced rank to Eagle scouts who enlist. The Pentagon refused to offer comment on what they called, quote, leaked documents that they cannot authenticate and which may not have been finalized. Graham Smith, NPR News.
This is NPR News from Washington. Ukraine's national security chief says the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, may travel to the U.S. in the next few days to try to finalize a deal to end Russia's war with Kyiv.
Chapter 4: What updates are there on Ukraine's potential peace deal with Russia?
Writing on social media today, Rustam Umarov says Zelensky's trip would be to complete an agreement with President Trump. U.S. and Ukrainian officials met in Geneva over the weekend to go over Trump's 28-point peace plan for ending the war. The talks included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the discussions productive.
That was despite pushback from some European countries who were not part of the process. Researchers are linking reduced time on social media with fewer mental health symptoms. NPR's Ritu Chatterjee says it's based on a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers recruited nearly 400 young adults aged 18 to 24 and tracked their social media use for two weeks using an app. On average, the participants use Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and other social media for about two hours a day. The scientists also screened participants for their mental health symptoms at baseline before offering them a week-long social media detox.
Chapter 5: How does reduced social media use impact mental health according to recent research?
Dr. Elambey Conrad is at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and an author of the new study. So we had 80% of participants opting to the detox. Participants cut down their social media use to about 30 minutes a day. It was enough to reduce symptoms of anxiety by 16%, symptoms of depression by 24%, and insomnia by 14%.
I'm Dave Mattingly in Washington.