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Trump's 100-day report card. And, a student protester speaks from detention

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Trump's 100-day report card. And, a student protester speaks from detention

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Over 1,400 NPR/PBS News/Marist poll respondents graded President Trump on how he has handled his first 100 days in office. Nearly half gave him a failing mark, and 23% awarded him an A.

President Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House on April 25 in Washington, D.C., for Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis.

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  • 🎧 NPR’s Domenico Montanaro tells Up First that the low marks appear to have much to do with tariffs and the economy. Trump’s 39% approval rating for his handling of the economy is his worst score ever, including during his first term. The majority of respondents disapprove of how Trump is handling most aspects of his job, including foreign policy and immigration. Montanaro says Trump’s approval rating could change. However, these are polarized times, and Montanaro doesn’t expect much to change many people’s minds.

Trump has moved aggressively to fulfill his promise of “retribution” in the first 100 days of his second term by taking action against over 100 people and institutions, according to an NPR review. He has used the government to target political opponents, news organizations, law firms, universities and more. Some of the harshest actions he has taken against people he has targeted include ordering multiple Justice Department investigations.

  • 🎧 Trump is also effectively telling investigators what he believes the outcomes of the investigations should be, NPR’s Tom Dreisbach says. The Trump administration uses over 10 agencies in various ways to get payback. Secret Service protection has been pulled for President Biden’s children, media companies that Trump dislikes, including NPR, face FCC investigations, and universities face investigation from the Department of Education unless they agree to sweeping government demands.

Detained Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has given the media his first interview since being taken to Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt. Morning Edition‘s Leila Fadel is the first journalist to speak with any of the students held there. The Trump administration is trying to deport them for advocating on behalf of Palestinian rights amid the Israel-Hamas war. Mahdawi, a green card holder, was detained at what he thought would be his naturalization interview, which is his final step to becoming an American citizen.

  • 🎧 Mahdawi tells Fadel that even though he knows he is facing a level of injustice, he still has faith that justice will prevail. Mahdawi has lived in the U.S. for 10 years and was on track to graduate next month with a bachelor’s degree. He grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He says living in the U.S. taught him to understand the concept of freedom of speech without retaliation. Mahdawi told Fadel he wants others to see he is “doing everything legally,” he has “prepared and studied for the Constitution,” and that he “respected the law.” He has not been charged with a crime. Just like most students in the facility, the government invoked a rarely used immigration act with court filings that allege their presence has adverse consequences for foreign policy.

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Violinist Esther Abrami realized when she was 25 that none of the hundreds of pieces she had played were composed by women. The results of her journey to change that are on her new album, Women.

Violinist Esther Abrami realized when she was 25 that none of the hundreds of pieces she had played were composed by women. The results of her journey to change that are on her new album, Women.

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Violinist Esther Abrami’s new album, Women, features music by female composers, spotlighting many names that are not often as recognized as their male counterparts. Abrami said that when she came out of university, it hit her that within all those years, none of the hundreds of pieces she learned had been written by women. This acknowledgement sparked her journey and research, which she says “was like opening the door of, like, a hidden treasure.” Her album features the world-premiere studio recording of Irish composer Ina Boyle’s Violin Concerto. The music also uncovers what women have to say from the Middle Ages to today, dipping into Brazilian dances and pop. Listen to snippets from the album and read the story here.

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Durham, N.C. - April 26th, 2025: Attendees watch and dance as New Dangerfield performs during the Biscuit and Banjos festival. (Cornell Watson for NPR)

Durham, N.C. – April 26th, 2025: Attendees watch and dance as New Dangerfield performs during the Biscuit and Banjos festival. (Cornell Watson for NPR)

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Biscuits & Banjos is a new music festival dedicated to reclaiming and exploring Black music. The festival, curated by Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens, took place this past weekend in Durham, N.C., and featured artists like Taj Mahal, Infinity Song and a Carolina Chocolate Drops reunion. The event also incorporated Durham’s Black history with a walking tour of Black Wall Street, panel discussions, square and line dancing, and a juke joint-themed party. Durham-based photojournalist Cornell Watson photographed the festival and shared his experience.

3 things to know before you go

A transfer truck arrives at a DHL facility in Ludwigsfelde near Berlin, Germany, in May 2022. The company said this week it would resume shipping packages over $800 to individual U.S. customers.

A transfer truck arrives at a DHL facility in Ludwigsfelde near Berlin, Germany, in May 2022. The company said this week it would resume shipping packages over $800 to individual U.S. customers.

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  1. The global shipping company DHL has resumed shipping packages over $800 in value to people in the U.S. The reversal comes one week after it said it was halting such shipments due to new U.S. customs regulations.
  2. The TAKE IT DOWN Act is now headed to Trump’s desk. The bill, which first lady Melania Trump backs, aims to implement strict penalties and guidelines for those who publish and promote revenge porn.
  3. The 2025 NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert celebrated its inductees on Saturday at the Kennedy Center. A prevailing theme throughout the event was jazz’s foundation in freedom and its push to transcendence.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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