Federal Worker Email Confusion, UN On Ukraine, Colorado River, France Surgeon Trial
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What grammatical debate started the podcast?
Good morning. We're having a heated discussion in here, not really heated, about the apostrophe in its IT apostrophe S versus ITS.
And the discussion consists of I wrote it wrong.
You were wrong. I'm sorry. The discussion is Layla's wrong. It sounds the same. Layla's rarely wrong.
That's true.
The United States broke with allies at the UN, refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Is the U.S. burning its allies? Oh, my God. You did it a third time. I eliminated two of the apostrophes, and there's yet a third one. Oh, my gosh.
Why do you got to point out all my flaws, Steve?
No, I'm not. I'm sorry. That's terrible. The United States avoids blaming Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. U.S. allies differ at the U.N.
The terms of the peace must send a message that aggression does not pay. Is the U.S. breaking with its friends?
I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News. The Colorado River drought could get worse. The Trump administration put billions of dollars aimed at keeping the river flowing on hold.
These are not woke environmental programs. These are essential to continued ability to divert water.
Okay, can the money be found elsewhere?
And a surgeon is on trial in France. He's accused of abusing hundreds of his patients, most of them children. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
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The deadline for that what did you do last week email that federal workers received has come and gone. But everyone's still confused about who should have responded and what's next.
Yeah, I don't know if you've been following this. An email went out over the weekend supported by a post on social media by Elon Musk telling federal workers to reply with five things that they did last week. And Musk publicly saying, if you don't do this, we're going to count it as your resignation. A number of cabinet agencies told their employees to ignore this email or to reply to the management of the agency. Various things. And now the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management has issued guidance, clarification, although things are not that much clearer. Charles Azell wrote that the agency should, quote, review responses and evaluate non-responses. not explicitly saying that you should or shouldn't write the email. He added it's up to agency leaders to decide how to proceed.
So federal workers were in this position of, should I reply? Should I not reply? And getting all these mixed messages, Elon Musk and President Trump weighed in again yesterday. Here's the president in a conversation with journalists in the Oval Office.
I thought it was great because we have people that don't show up to work and nobody even knows if they work for the government. So by asking the question, Tell us what you did this week. What he's doing is saying, are you actually working? And then if you don't answer, like you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired, because a lot of people are not answering because they don't even exist.
Is there evidence that there's a bunch of federal workers that don't exist?
Well, administration people have quoted a survey finding that only 6% of federal workers are coming into work, but that turns out to be false. And it turns out the vast majority do show up for the office. and a limited number have hybrid schedules or work from home.
The Trump administration has been shifting course on Ukraine so much that it was at odds with allies in Europe in votes at the United Nations.
Yeah, the United States opposed a resolution at the Security Council that demanded that Russia withdraw from Ukraine. American diplomats instead put forward a differently worded resolution that called for peace without blaming Russia for anything. Here's how U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea put it.
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