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In the present day’s prime tales
Elon Musk and the Division of Authorities Effectivity possible violated the Structure after they successfully shut down the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, a federal choose has dominated. President Trump is promising to attraction the choice.
Former U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth staff terminated after the Trump administration successfully dismantled the company gather their private belongings at USAID headquarters on Feb. 27 in Washington, D.C.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
- 🎧 A pair dozen USAID staff sued Musk and DOGE, saying they did not have the authority to close down the company as Musk isn’t an appointed company head, NPR’s Fatma Tanis tells Up First. U.S. District Choose Theodore Chuang wrote a 68-page opinion, blocked Musk from additional USAID shutdowns and ordered DOGE to reinstate entry to emails and different digital methods for present workers. The ruling does not restore the work that USAID was doing earlier than, as humanitarian and growth help packages are nonetheless minimize.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced a restricted ceasefire in Ukraine yesterday, the place the Kremlin agreed to cease concentrating on Ukraine’s power services for 30 days. Nevertheless, hours after the announcement, Russia and Ukraine launched strikes concentrating on one another’s infrastructure.
- 🎧 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that the truth that the assaults continued after Trump and Putin’s speak yesterday exhibits that most stress have to be placed on Russia. NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley says Zelenskyy does not belief Putin. Ukraine and Russia will not be remotely shut on phrases of a ceasefire at present. Putin needs land his military does not management, and that may be a purple line for Ukraine.
Israeli airstrikes proceed right this moment in Gaza after Israel broke a virtually two-month ceasefire with Hamas yesterday. It was one of many deadliest days of the Gaza warfare, and greater than 400 individuals have been killed. Included in these numbers are 5 Hamas officers and girls and kids who have been killed of their properties in a single day.
- 🎧 Israel says it’s returning to warfare to stress Hamas to comply with new ceasefire phrases, which embody releasing extra hostages earlier than starting finish of warfare talks, NPR’s Daniel Estrin says. Hamas mentioned their important calls for, which embody returning to the unique ceasefire phrases, stay. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at present has to go a nationwide funds in two weeks or his authorities may collapse. Estrin says extra airstrikes on Gaza may final till the funds is handed as he works to strengthen his far-right coalition.
Deep dive
A buyer retailers for eggs at a grocery retailer on March 12 in Chicago. Wholesale egg costs are taking place, but it surely may take a number of days earlier than grocery costs comply with swimsuit.
Scott Olson/Getty Photos
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Scott Olson/Getty Photos
Eggs are a ache for American pockets proper now. Nevertheless, aid would possibly lastly be on the way in which. On Friday, the U.S. Division of Agriculture reported that the nationwide common wholesale value of eggs has been declining since late February. It is a optimistic signal that the worth for eggs on the grocery shops could drop in a couple of weeks. The decline within the wholesale value is as a result of absence of main fowl flu outbreaks to date in March, which has allowed the egg provide to get better.
- 🍳 The eggs at present on cabinets have been bought by the retailer at a wholesale value a few weeks in the past, so grocery retailer costs may not replicate this variation but. Nevertheless, Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agriculture economics at Purdue College, says costs may begin to ease inside days.
- 🍳 People in search of egg options could also be contributing to preserving egg costs from rising additional. Consultants advise prospects to not panic purchase eggs, which may improve the fee.
- 🍳 It takes round six months to a yr for farms to recoup after they lose a flock of egg-laying hens to fowl flu.
- 🍳 Jadrian Wooten, an economics professor at Virginia Tech, says that, hopefully, farms can have model new hens by summer season — however this comes with the idea that fowl flu does not spike once more.
From our hosts
Demonstrators collect in New York Metropolis to point out solidarity with pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and demand his fast launch from ICE detention. New York, U.S., March 15, 2025.
Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
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Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos
This essay was written by Leila Fadel, Up First and Morning Version host.
Noor Abdalla fell in love on a volunteer journey to Lebanon years in the past. She was boarding the bus to go educate Syrian refugees and he or she met Mahmoud Khalil.
“He was trying to help other people already,” she advised me. “But I don’t think that’s what drew me to him.”
He was charismatic, calm and extroverted. In some ways he was the alternative to her, a self-described introvert who will get tremendous anxious. And perhaps that is why she knew, she mentioned, she would marry him someday.
“He’s genuinely the only person who knows how to calm me down,” she advised me.
However on Saturday, March eighth, that sense of consolation was ripped from her. Eight months pregnant, she watched plainclothes immigration brokers handcuff her husband within the foyer of their condo constructing and whisk him away. Now, as an alternative of spending her final weeks of being pregnant preparing for the start of their first baby, she advised me she’s preventing to get her husband again.
The Columbia graduate scholar and authorized everlasting resident is at a Louisiana detention middle over his involvement in scholar protests towards Israel’s warfare in Gaza. The federal government needs to deport him regardless of his authorized standing and his case is on the middle of a of a fierce debate over what sort of speech is protected underneath the First Modification. Many free speech advocates say if Khalil is deported for his place on the Israel-Gaza warfare then he’s being punished for protected political speech. The federal government has charged him with no crime and so they say they do not need to underneath a hardly ever used immigration provision.
“Exercising your First Amendment rights is not illegal. That’s always been the case,” Noor Abdalla advised me. “The fact that you can kidnap someone basically from their home for going to a protest is terrifying.”
As this performs out in federal court docket, in protests and in nationwide headlines Noor simply needs her husband house in time for the child’s start. Hearken to our interview or learn it right here.
3 issues to know earlier than you go
On this picture taken from video offered by NASA, a SpaceX capsule floats within the Gulf of Mexico, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, after touchdown off the coast of Florida with NASA astronauts Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore and Nick Hague, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov.
AP/NASA
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AP/NASA
- Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the 2 NASA astronauts who had been on the Worldwide House Station for months, returned to Earth yesterday night. They returned in a SpaceX Dragon capsule that splashed down off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
- The South by Southwest competition is downsizing. Subsequent yr, will probably be two days shorter and won’t characteristic a devoted music weekend. (by way of KUT Information)
- Hundreds of paperwork associated to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy have been made public late yesterday. Presidential historians will not be anticipating any bombshell revelations from the discharge.
This text was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
