Reporting assignments can often lead to unexpected joys and lessons. That was the case when NPR’s Natalie Escobar and Ava Berger were sent on the road to tag along with three teenage boys competing in the World Series of Birding. The teens had 24 hours to crisscross New Jersey and tally up the number of bird species they spotted. For this week’s Reporter’s Notebook we hear from Escobar and Berger about how the assignment was both challenging and illuminating.

A Kennedy Center official told a federal judge Saturday that all references to President Donald Trump inside, outside and online have been removed from the Kennedy Center, in compliance with the court’s extended order requiring their removal by noon.

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Construction workers began removing Trump’s name from the building’s facade early Saturday morning, six months after a board handpicked by the president voted to rebrand the iconic performing arts venue by adding his name to it.

Crews removed lettering on the building, added in December, that inserted Trump’s name before “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

Several dozen attendees gathered and cheered on the workers who prepared to take the president’s name off of the building.

A federal judge ruled last month that Trump’s name must be removed by June 12, writing that the center’s board did not have the authority to unilaterally rename the building.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote on May 29.

Late Friday night, the Justice Department sought a 12-hour delay to illustrate its compliance with the court order, blaming thunderstorms for the delay.

“The removal work is presently ongoing, and Defendants expect it will conclude in the early hours of the morning of June 13, 2026,” DOJ lawyers wrote.

Trump first raised the prospect of adding his name to the Kennedy Center in a Truth Social post last August.

In a last-ditch effort to halt the judge’s order, the Kennedy Center sought to block it late Thursday. The judge denied that request Friday, hours before the deadline for removing Trump’s name.

In a filing to a federal appeals court seeking to block the judge’s order, the center argued for the first time that taking Trump’s name off the building would result in having to return hundreds of millions of dollars that the center has raised for renovations due to a previously unannounced change to the center’s bylaws.

“All of this money, hundreds of millions of dollars, will have to be immediately returned, or not received by the Center,” the filing said.

The filing said the “reason for this clause is that people and companies, who have given, or will be giving, millions of dollars to the Center were only willing to do so with the name ‘Trump’ on the Building.”

It does not say how, when or where the change was made to the center’s bylaws. The Kennedy Center did not respond to inquiries about when the changes were made and exactly how much money might be at risk.

The appeals court on Friday night denied the Kennedy Center’s request for a pause.

Lawyers for the ex officio board member who filed the suit, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, told the appeals court in a filing that the center’s argument was “meritless” since the funding issue was never raised in the lower court.

In a statement Saturday morning, Beatty called the removal of Trump’s name a “victory,” saying: “Today’s victory is the beginning of returning the Kennedy Center to the American people. The rule of law prevailed, and that is worth celebrating. Let this send a message across the country: when we stand up, fight back, and defend our democracy, we can win. This is just the beginning.”

Lawyers for the Kennedy Center directed staff last week to remove Trump’s name from all official signage in the building to comply with the judge’s May 29 order. Trump’s name was no longer visible on the center’s website as of Monday, with the site reverting back to its prior “Kennedy Center” branding.

The May ruling also blocked a planned two-year closure of the center sought by Trump’s board to undertake renovations. The judge called those plans an “ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that a “swift and lethal kinetic” U.S. strike has killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he called “the infamous leader” of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Tren de Aragua has been labeled by the United States as a terrorist organization. Guerrero Flores was charged in a New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including lending support to terrorists in crimes that stretched more than a decade, authorities announced in December.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier in the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at the time that the gang is responsible for countless acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Trump nominated Clayton on Thursday to be director of national intelligence.

The U.S. State Department had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’ arrest

In a post on his social media site, Trump wrote, “Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong.” Trump’s post referred to Guerrero Flores by his alias, “Niño Guerrero.”

The post also included unclassified video, shot from above, of a small building with a green roof exploding.

Hegseth said, “The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere.”

Venezuela’s ministry of communications did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the operation.

Trump has taken a series of extraordinary actions against the gang, including a series of strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling drugs to America. At least 207 people have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

Trump and administration officials have consistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. The president spent months repeating the claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua had operated under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control. The U.S. whisked Maduro out of Venezuela to face U.S. drug charges in January.

Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as millions of Venezuelans migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S. in search of better living conditions.

Guerrero Flores returned to the prison in Aragua for murder and other convictions in 2013, when Venezuela’s crisis began as corruption, mismanagement and a drop in crude prices wrecked the oil-dependent economy. Guerrero Flores and a few other inmates saw a profitable opportunity as the government neglected prisons.

They assumed control and administration of the prison, establishing a system that controlled the entire inmate population through force and extortion. Over time, they transformed the facility into a sort of city that included a zoo, baseball field, casino and restaurants. Guerrero Flores had his own lavish suite.

The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in the region. Still, unlike other criminal organizations from Colombia, Central America and Brazil, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks crime across Latin America.

In Venezuela, gang leaders have long been known to participate in various illegal activities, including gold mining.

Trump campaigned for a second term promising to crack down on immigration and crime. While polls show his favorability ratings have sagged on his handling of the economy, immigration remains Trump’s strongest issue, according to the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.