Trump on Iran; SCOTUS Birthright Case; VA Home Loan: NPR

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In a nearly 20-minute address to the nation last night, President Trump made a case for war with iranWhich started a month ago. He said the war had been a military success and he expected US forces to leave the country within a few weeks. The president criticized US allies, saying it was their responsibility to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for oil access.

• 🎧 The President spent most of his first address to the nation talking about this war. Explaining why Iran was a threat, NPR’s Deepa Sivaram tells first up. Trump said that if Iran has nuclear weapons and America is involved in it, it would be intolerable. investing in the future. Shivaram says that so far in this conflict, Trump’s messaging on what the US is doing in Iran, what the plan is and how long it will take has been muddled. According to polls the war has been unpopular among Americans. Gas prices have increased rapidly. Shivaram says that this conflict has also been politically difficult for Trump and the Republicans who are heading towards mid-term elections in six months.
• 🎧 In his address, Trump repeated his threat to Iran that he would “strike every single one of their power generation plants very, very strongly”. If no agreement is reached quickly. Iran has already stated that if its power plants were attacked, it would target power plants in Israel and across the Gulf. Currently, there This is not a defined bay stance NPR’s Aya Batrawi says on how this war should end. Despite continuous attacks from Iran, they have not retaliated. Analysts told Batrawi that this is partly because Gulf states do not know what Trump’s next move will be and do not want to face Iran alone. However, the UAE says it is willing to join an international coalition to open the strait.

The Supreme Court has completed questioning the lawyers in the birthright citizenship case. The 14th Amendment states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.” Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sawyer, argued that the 14th Amendment does not grant automatic citizenship to every child born in the US – contrary to the way this law has been understood for 160 years. Trump attended the debate. A majority of the justices, including many conservatives, appeared skeptical yesterday of the administration’s position and appeared inclined to rule in favor of maintaining automatic citizenship for children born on American soil.

• 🎧 NPR’s Nina Totenberg says she’s unsure whether Trump’s appearance at the high court was significant. From what he saw, the President smiled the entire time and left after his Solicitor General finished main part of his argument. Totenberg says the justices appear to have organized themselves more than usual and are determined to keep arguments from exceeding the time limit. She adds that she got the impression that the judges wanted to treat the President with respect, but did not want to be his darling. According to Totenberg, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito appeared to lean toward the Trump administration’s position, while others appeared to lean the other way.

More than 10,000 veterans may lose their homes to foreclosure by May 2025That’s when the Trump administration closed a key safety net in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ home loan program, according to the latest industry data. Another 90,000 veterans are at risk of foreclosure. The crisis began during the Biden administration when the VA abruptly ended a pandemic assistance program, forcing struggling homeowners to repay missed mortgage payments all at once. After an NPR investigation revealed the issue, the VA halted foreclosures for a year while it worked out a solution. Republicans in Congress sought to eliminate and replace that fix because of the cost. Mortgage industry experts warned that ending the program without a replacement could spell disaster, but the Trump administration shut down the rescue program. The VA says it’s starting a new program that could help many of those vets, but it still won’t be operational for months. Housing and industry groups say this new program could leave veterans with worse options than other homeowners.

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For months, the Trump administration has dispatched immigration enforcement agents to US cities. Residents of cities experiencing increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity have reported feeling increasingly fearful. In these neighborhoods, community members are helping ease that feeling by walking children to school whose parents are afraid to leave the house. In Washington, DC, some groups call these efforts “moving buses.” In an effort to better understand how ICE efforts are impacting communities, morning edition Host Leila Fadel went to the nation’s capital to learn more about these walking buses. Many who NPR interviewed were too afraid to speak publicly, fearing it could make their schools targets of the federal government. Hear how community members, parents and students who use the walking bus are Adjusting to changes in your community Read more about this, and the community response, under this administration.

behind the story

By Peter O’Dowd, here nowhost-correspondent of

A “For Sale” sign is shown outside a home in southern Nevada. The average price of a home there reached a record high in late 2025, approaching $490,000.

Peter O’Dowd/Here and Now

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Peter O’Dowd/Here and Now

Here in the Southwest, it’s interesting to see Sun Belt cities losing their reputation as affordable places to live.

It used to be that you could go to Las Vegas, get a working-class job at a hotel, buy a modest house, and raise your family. This is a big reason why this part of the country has been one of the fastest growing regions in America for so many years.

But all this is changing. As the pandemic drives up housing costs, Las Vegas “Blue collar city with white collar housing prices“According to Nicholas Irwin, research director of the Lie Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada. Democratic state Senator Dina Neal, who is leading an unsuccessful effort to stop Wall Street investors from buying so many homes in Nevada, laughed out loud when she told me that President Trump’s recent support for the policy could eventually lead to this happening in Carson City.

But you can’t see the whole picture of Vegas. In the historic mining town of Tonopah, many locals are thrilled with the economy. After Trump’s promise to accelerate energy exploration and critical mineral development, local business owners are worried banking is on the rise. Lithium, gold and geothermal energy are hot commodities in rural Nevada, and new projects are springing up in the desert outside the city.

With the midterms looming, you can bet the issues of affordability and energy prices will be hotly debated in this troubled state. That’s why there is no greater joy in journalism than driving across the vast expanse of the West. If you don’t get distracted by the sights, you will be exposed to every issue important to the future of the country.

3 things to know before you go

Holly Diaco-Smith (left) and Chantal Jouve (right) in Strasbourg, France in 2014. The two met during an encounter at a post office in the 1990s.

Holly Diaco-Smith

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Holly Diaco-Smith

1. In the 1990s, Holly Diaco-Smith was homesick and had difficulty communicating with people while studying abroad in France. Her mother sent her a care package, but when Diaco-Smith went to pick it up at the post office, there was a language barrier with the attendant. A French woman named Chantal Jouve came to his rescue. The kindness of the unsung hero led to a decades-long friendship.
2. The Food and Drug Administration has approved drugmaker Eli Lilly’s new GLP-1 pill, Foundaio, to treat obesity.
3. This week’s far-flung postcard takes readers to London, where NPR’s Vincent Nee walked the National COVID Memorial Wall during a recent visit. The graffiti is accompanied by more than 250,000 hand-drawn hearts representing people who have died from coronavirus during the pandemic in the UK.

Who edited this newspaper? Suzanne Nuyen.