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Episode Date: May 1, 2026

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Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. President Trump has signed a bill the funds much of the Homeland Security Department, bringing an end to the longest agency shutdown in history. The House gave the measure final approval Thursday. House Speaker, Mike Johnson. This will relieve pressure from the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Mullen, who I've spoken to in the last couple of hours, will be greatly relieved. The President will, the administration will.

We were not going to have lines at TSA. Everybody will get their paychecks now. We'll get moving forward. And then we will finish the work and, finally get, again, for three years with no crazy Democrat reforms, we will fund border patrol and immigration enforcement as soon as we return for the work session when that bill is final. The shutdown lasted for more than 70 days amid Democratic demands that immigration enforcement operations be reined in. In the end, Republicans cut Democrats out of the process, adopting a

budget resolution to eventually provide $70 billion for immigration enforcement. Louisiana suspending primary elections for its U.S. House seats, this decision follows Wednesday's Supreme Court decision that ruled the state's congressional map amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. It had been redrawn to create a second majority black district in 2024. And P.R. Ashley Lopez reports. Louisiana's Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry announced that most of Louisiana's primaries, including a closely watched Senate primary, will proceed as scheduled, but not the House seats. Early voting in the state starts on Saturday and voting ends on May 16 for the state's primaries absentee voting has already been underway. Republican Governor Jeff Landry said

the state is sending notices to early voting sites to warn voters that even though U.S. House races will appear on their ballots, those votes will not be counted. It is unclear when Louisiana will hold elections for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ashley Lopez and PR News. Mexico says its own Attorney General will investigate allegations from U.S. federal prosecutors that several current and former officials in the state of Sinaloa have for years aided drug traffickers. Nina Krovinsky of member station KJZZ, reports from Aramaccio. U.S. prosecutors say the 10 law enforcement and government officials shielded cartel members in exchange for bribes and political favor.

Mexico's president says Mexico will decide whether there's enough evidence against the defendants to extradite them and warned she won't allow interference from foreign governments in her own country's affairs. The U.S. regularly prosecutes alleged cartel members, but rarely the politicians accused of protecting them. Van de Feldaub Brown is with the Burkings Institution. It's certainly major escalation in U.S. pressure on Mexico. The highest ranking official charged, the current governor of Sinaloa, and other defendants have denied wrongdoing. For NPR News, I'm Nina Kravinsky in Hermosio, Mexico. The first direct commercial flight between the U.S. and Venezuela and seven years arrived in Krakis, Thursday. The flight follows the reopening of the U.S. Embassy after the military operation that

ousted President Nicholas Maduro. This is NPR. Congress has agreed to a short-term extension of a key surveillance program. The House gave a 45-day extension final approval Thursday, sending it to President Trump's desk. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had been set to expire Friday. It's now been extended through June 12th, amid a dispute over all. longer reauthorization. President Trump has named a new nominee for Surgeon General. Trump on Thursday said he is nominating former Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Safier for the Post after Dr. Casey Means Path Forward stalled in the Senate. Senators of both political parties grilled means on her vaccine stance and other health issues during a tense confirmation hearing. A new test for tuberculosis is fast, affordable, portable,

and accurate, according to a new study, MPR's Ari Daniel reports. The most common test for TB involves sampling someone's phlegm and looking for the telltale bacteria under the microscope. But the tests often wrong. The new mini-doc MTB was recently announced,

which scans phlegm or a mere tongue swab for DNA from the TB bacteria. UC Irvine pulmonologist Adithia Katamanchi and his colleagues enrolled almost 1,400 patients to find that the new test is accurate and easy to use. What we hope it means is that many more people will have access to high-quality TB testing. The test may not work for those with early stages of the disease, and it can't distinguish between regular TB and the drug-resistant variety. But Katamanchi argues it's still a real step forward.

For NPR news, I'm Ari Daniel.