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'The voice we woke up to': Bob Edwards, longtime 'Morning Edition' host, dies at 76
Bob Edwards (pictured in 1989) started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered before moving to Morning Edition.
Max Hirshfeld for NPR
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Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards (pictured in 1989) started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered before moving to Morning Edition.
Max Hirshfeld for NPR
Bob Edwards, the veteran broadcaster and longtime host of Morning Edition who left an indelible mark on NPR’s sound, has died. He was 76 years old.
NPR’s Susan Stamberg says Edwards’ voice became part of the morning routine for millions of Americans.
“He was Bob Edwards of Morning Edition for 24 1/2 years, and his was the voice we woke up to,” she says.
When listeners first heard that voice, they might have imagined a figure of great authority, an avuncular newsman dressed in a pinstripe suit. But that was not Bob Edwards.
He was the consummate newsman
Margaret Low started at the company in 1982 as a Morning Edition production assistant. Now CEO of WBUR in Boston, she served for three years as NPR’s senior vice president for news. She says Edwards always walked in the door right at 2:30 a.m., but he was casual.
“He was tall and lanky and wore jeans, and I think, if I remember right, was sort of pretty much always in an untucked flannel shirt.”
Low says Edwards’ seeming casualness belied a seriousness — about radio, about the news and especially about the art of writing. Like several of his contemporaries at NPR, he studied writing at American University with former CBS journalist Ed Bliss.
“He used to say that Ed Bliss sat on his shoulder as he wrote,” Low recalls.
In fact, Edwards’ Washington, D.C., office overlooked CBS News.
“I have this total image of Bob sitting in his office on M Street and it would be dark outside because it would be the middle of the night, and he faced the window over CBS News,” Low says. “And he would be typing on his manual typewriter with these really, really big keys, and they would go click, click, click, and behind him you would hear … the AP and Reuters wires.”
Edwards, Low says, was the consummate newsman.
“He was a total news guy, and I think understood the news deeply,” she says. “And in some ways he sort of set the bar for how we approach stories, because he would convey these stories with a kind of simplicity but also with real depth, and make sure that they somehow resonated. And that’s lasted.”
‘Mr. Cool’ and Red Barber
Edwards started his career at NPR as a newscaster and then hosted All Things Considered with Susan Stamberg. She says their styles sometimes clashed.
“We had five good — if rocky — years together, until we sort of got one another’s rhythm, because he was Mr. Cool, he was Mr. Authoritative and straight ahead. I was the New Yorker with a million ideas and a big laugh. But we really adjusted rather well.”
Stamberg remembers Edwards for his humor, a quality that was often on display in his hundreds of interviews with newsmakers, authors, musicians and singers.
One of Edwards’ longest-running radio relationships was also one of his listeners’ favorites: his weekly conversation with sports broadcasting legend Red Barber.
Sports broadcaster Red Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber every week on Morning Edition.
AP
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Sports broadcaster Red Barber with NPR’s Bob Edwards in 1992. Edwards talked to Barber every week on Morning Edition.
AP
Edwards eventually wrote a book about his radio friendship with Barber, the first of three he authored, including a memoir, A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio.
Edwards’ approach helped set the tone for NPR
Edwards left NPR after the company decided to remove him as host of Morning Edition. Though his many fans protested mightily, Edwards closed out his last show on April 30, 2004. He ended his tenure just as it started, by interviewing one of his radio heroes, Charles Osgood.
“You were the first person I interviewed for Morning Edition, and I wanted you to be the last,” Edwards told Osgood on air.
Edwards went on to host his own interview show at Sirius XM Radio and continued to be heard on many public radio stations on Bob Edwards Weekend. But Margaret Low says his contribution to NPR will never be forgotten.
“He sort of set the tone and the bar for all of us,” she says. “He understood the power and the intimacy of our medium and captured the attention of millions and millions of people who are still with us today.”
A helicopter drops water on the Cottonwood Fire in Beaver, Utah, on Saturday, June 27, 2026.
Ty ONeil/AP
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Ty ONeil/AP
Three firefighters have died and two others have been injured Saturday while they tackled blazes on the Colorado-Utah border, the U.S. Wildland Fire Service has announced. The agency said the crew members had been part of an interagency response to the Knowles and Gore fires.
“The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stands united with the USDA Forest Service in grief and in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind,” the service said in a statement on Facebook. “Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
In a press release, the Department of the Interior said that the five firefighters were involved in a “burnover incident”, which refers to when officials are unable to find an escape route, so have to shelter as best they can while a fire passes directly over them. The department said the two firefighters who survived were being treated for burn injuries.
Fires in Utah, Colorado and Arizona have been intensifying, thanks to days of low humidity, high temperatures and strong winds. The conditions have pushed fire behavior to extremes not commonly seen in the region, stretching resources and forcing the governors of both Utah and Colorado to declare emergencies.
Cottonwood fire not yet contained
The biggest blaze is the Cottonwood Fire, burning in rugged terrain in southern Utah’s Beaver County, which has grown to more than 144 square miles and remains entirely uncontained. It is currently the largest wildfire burning anywhere in the United States.
It has already severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort and destroyed summer cabins. Damage assessments were underway Saturday, though no final estimates of destroyed structures were yet available.
On Saturday, hundreds of residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville were placed on notice to leave as conditions worsened.
Also burning is the Snyder Fire, covering more than 28,000 acres. It began as the Snyder Mesa Fire on Saturday in east Utah’s Grand County, but later combined with the smaller Jones and Knowles Fires in Colorado.
Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the Cottonwood Fire, told NPR that crews this weekend had been dealing with single-digit humidity and wind gusts of around 45 miles per hour, on top of fuel moisture readings between 2 and 8 percent.
Those conditions grounded helicopters and other firefighting aircraft on Friday afternoon and again briefly on Saturday. The terrain has compounded an already difficult task, Morgan said, with the steep cliffs and canyon walls making it hard to move heavy equipment and engines into position and thus slowing the response.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, in a social media post Saturday, described the situation on the ground as grimmer than anything he had seen before, as he credited crews with pulling off some improbable rescues in the face of such difficult conditions. “Please pray for them and for the rains we desperately need,” he wrote.
The National Weather Service in Salt Lake City issued what it described as a “particularly dangerous situation” red flag warning on Friday, the first time it has used that designation in its history. It cited the volatile mix of wind, heat and low humidity, with critical fire-accelerating conditions expected to persist into Sunday.
A region primed to burn
The extreme fire behavior is rooted in conditions that have been building for months, experts have said. Utah recorded its lowest snowpack and warmest winter on record this past season. The snowpack peaked three weeks earlier than normal, leaving soils and vegetation to dry out through spring. Much of the wider region — Nevada, Colorado and beyond — has been gripped by widespread drought after an unusually dry winter.
Utah’s state forester, Jamie Barnes, told reporters that fires across the state this season had been moving in ways that had stretched Utah’s firefighting capacity to its limits, with new fires beginning closer to populated areas than in previous years.
Utah’s Governor Cox declared a state of emergency earlier this week, restricting fireworks displays ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued his own emergency declaration Saturday, authorizing the use of the National Guard to help fight the fires in his state.
The National Interagency Fire Center reported that nearly 3 million acres have burned across the country since the start of the year, faster than the rolling 10-year average. And from Alaska to Florida, crews worked Saturday to contain dozens of blazes, including around three dozen classified as large and uncontained.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service issued red flag warnings across a broad swath of the West, from California through Arizona to New Mexico, where additional fires were also burning.
NPR’s Nate Rott contributed to this report.
Rep. Julia Letlow won the Republican primary runoff for Senate in Louisiana, NBC News projects, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming in another victory for President Donald Trump’s slate of preferred candidates.
Trump endorsed Letlow early in the race, which went to a runoff after none of the GOP candidates won a majority of the initial primary vote on May 16. Trump waded into the state in an effort to oust GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
See live runoff results here
Letlow was the top vote-getter in the first-round primary, winning 45%, followed by Fleming at 28%. Cassidy won just 25% and did not qualify for the runoff.
Letlow will be in a strong position to win in November in the solidly Republican state, which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer, easily won the Democratic Senate nomination Saturday night.
Letlow has pledged to be a strong supporter of the president’s policies.
“I promise you this: When I get to the United States Senate, I will never back down from fighting for your America First agenda,” Letlow told the president during a telerally with Trump on Thursday night.
Letlow framed the race as the choice between “a real conservative fighter in the Senate, or whether we are going to send another career politician who does not want to save our country.” She touted her support for eliminating the Senate filibuster to help pass the Save America Act, a Trump-backed measure to overhaul U.S. election laws.
Fleming also tried to make the case that he was the staunchest Trump ally in the race, taking aim at Letlow’s past support for diversity, equity and inclusion policies and foreign aid. Letlow told NBC News earlier this year that she reversed her position on DEI when she “saw it for what it was” and has since been “fighting against it.”
But Trump’s backing helped boost Letlow, who also had help on the airwaves from allied super PAC.
She also touted endorsements from other top Louisiana Republicans, led by Gov. Jeff Landry. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Clay Higgins also backed Letlow.
Letlow is expected to join the Senate after serving nearly three terms in the House, where she also served on the powerful Appropriations Committee. She first came to Congress in 2021 after winning a special election following the death of her late husband. Luke Letlow, a former congressional aide who won a House election in 2020, died of Covid before he was sworn into office.
News
As Supreme Court expands Trump’s immigration power, experts warn of steeper U.S. population decline
President Trump holds up a bill funding immigration enforcement after signing it in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 10, 2026, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Even before the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Trump has broad power to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants living legally in the U.S. under temporary protected status, David Bier feared the U.S. was slipping toward a demographic cliff.
“We’re destined to be there, in short order, there’s no question,” Bier said. “We’re already seeing a situation where most counties in the United States had more deaths than births.”
An expert on population and immigration at the libertarian Cato Institute, Bier believes the U.S. is beginning to look more like China, Italy and South Korea — nations that face rapid aging and population decline are seen as a crisis.
U.S. birthrates have been declining for decades. There are far too few children born each year to maintain a stable population.
Until last year, high rates of foreign immigration largely offset that trend. But for the first time since the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the U.S. now faces record low birthrates and low numbers of migrants at the same time.
“Our higher birthrates of a century ago are not coming back. There’s no way to have a sustainable fiscal and economic situation that doesn’t involve immigration,” Bier said.
Trump’s legal fight to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, Syrians and others living in the U.S. legally is only one part of a wider administration effort to squeeze immigration.
The Supreme Court also ruled this week that the administration has authority to block most asylum seekers from entering the country. Federal agents have also conducted raids in cities across the U.S., to accelerate deportations.
Last month, Trump issued an executive order that could make it harder for many migrants living in the U.S. without full legal status to use banking and financial services.
Many immigration opponents see these changes as progress. In a statement following this week’s Supreme Court decisions. A spokesman for the Federation for Immigration Reform said Trump should have full authority to direct who enters the U.S.
“Our immigration laws are written to be pro-enforcement, not anti-enforcement,” said FAIR’s Christopher Hajec.
But according to Cato’s Bier, Trump’s policies are already reshaping the demographics of communities, meaning there are fewer workers, consumers, taxpayers, and children in schools.
“If you’re not allowing immigration, you’re going to have [an aging and] a declining population and that creates all kinds of problems,” Bier said.
Economists say that without migrants, the number of young workers paying into Social Security will fall more rapidly; schools in many areas will close; and the number of young families having children will decline.
Census data already shows big changes to U.S. population
The immigration decline under Trump is dramatic. In 2024, roughly 2.7 million foreign migrants entered the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. This year, census experts predict that number could drop as low as 300,000. Some demographers believe the U.S. may be reaching a point where more migrants are leaving than entering.
Impacts of this massive shift on America’s wider population are already emerging. Studies by the Census Bureau, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Federal Reserve all point to a more rapidly aging national population under Trump.
Population growth in the U.S. fell by half in 2025 from the previous year, with five states losing population. Census data shows the total number of young Americans, those under age 25, is already falling nationwide.
William Frey, a demographer at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, described last week’s Supreme Court rulings as “alarming.” He believes without robust foreign immigration, more states will quickly see their populations stagnate or decline.
“Not just in big immigration states, but in places that have relatively small numbers of immigrants, you know, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska — those states require immigrants to get any population growth,” Frey said.
Even before Trump’s policies curbed immigration, the U.S. population was expected to decline later this century. Experts say low immigration rates will cause that downward trend to happen much sooner.
According to Frey, the U.S. has time to reverse course. But he believes the Trump administration is committed to lowering both legal and illegal immigration over the long term, a policy he described as dangerous.
“This is as clear as the nose on your face,” he said. “You’ve got to have this growth in the younger population if you’re going to survive. Immigration is a key part of that going forward.”
“America’s doors are closed”
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, speaks with reports at the White House, Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The Trump administration sees this very differently, describing foreign migrants not as people who sustain state populations and economies, but as a social burden and a threat.
“America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers,” Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top White House policy advisors, said on Thursday.
Speaking with reporters, Miller described the Supreme Court rulings as a victory and said ending birthright citizenship for the children of migrants born in the U.S. is the next step.
“This country doesn’t have a future if we don’t end birthright citizenship,” Miller said. Justices are expected to rule on birthright citizenship as early as next week.
This kind of opposition to both legal and illegal immigration is now widespread among conservatives, said Cato’s David Bier, who worked as a Republican congressional staffer on immigration policy.
He told NPR that when he talks to conservatives about the economic and demographic risks of closing the country’s doors to migrants, many answer with a cultural argument. “[They] would rather have a declining population of ‘true Americans’ than have an economy kept afloat by people who don’t share [their] values,” Bier said.
But if extremely low or zero-level immigration does become the new normal for the U.S., experts say it would swiftly remake the fabric of the country. The Census Bureau estimates that without robust migration in the coming years, total population loss by the end of this century could exceed 107 million people.
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