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Episode Date: June 22, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington on Khorva Coleman, a new order from the U.S. Supreme Court has further weakened the Federal Voting Rights Act in seven states, mainly in the Midwest. NPR's Hansi Lo Wong reports the order comes out of a case about the landmark law's protections for disabled voters and voters who are unable to read or write. The Supreme Court is leaving in place a lower court ruling that strikes down a key tool for protecting voters with a disability or an inability to read or write. That ruling applies to Arkansas. Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Across the country, lawsuits by voters and advocacy groups have been the main way of enforcing the Voting Rights Act's protections for voters with a disability or inability to read a right. But last year, ruling by a federal appeals panel agreed with a novel argument by Republican state officials in Arkansas that only the U.S. Attorney General has a right to sue to enforce that protection. The Supreme Court has now refused to review the panel's ruling. The move comes about two months

after the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority weakened the Voting Rights Act's protections against racial discrimination and redistricting. On Ziluong, NPR News, Washington. Vice President Vance is returning to the U.S. after holding the first high-level direct talks with Iranian representatives in Switzerland. The U.S. and Iran have agreed to set up a working group

focused on the war in Lebanon. NPR's Greg Miery says UN Peacekeepers report there was no recorded shooting yesterday between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. There was very heavy fighting Friday and Saturday. Israeli troops remain miles inside southern Lebanon. The Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, says Israel will keep troops there for as long as it takes, he says, to protect northern Israel. Hezbollah is also defiant, saying the war will not be settled until Israeli troops leave Lebanon. NPR's Greg Mirey reporting.

Pope Leo has made an urgent appeal to governments to focus on combating global hunger. He gave an address to the UN World Food Program and warned of a disintegrating world order. He added aid operations to help the poorest are essential for protecting the idea of the international community. NPR's Ruth Sherlock has more. The international system, Leo said, is becoming disorderly and conflict-ridden and imbued by a prevailing sense of mistrust. He told the staff of the UN's World Food Program in Rome that while aid and development projects become ensnared by post-enched.

politics and bureaucracy, weapons do not. In effect, conflicts are fed more readily than people are nourished. Pope spoke of WFP's mission as essential to preventing humanitarian crises from deteriorating into irreversible collapse. In an era where agencies like WFP have seen budgets drastically slashed, he pressed governments to cut red tape and tear down the barriers that prevent aid from reaching those in need. NPR News. You're listening to NPR.

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan has died, according to a statement from his wife. Greenspan was 100 years old. He led the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades and was celebrated for keeping interest rates low. But critics say Greenspan's resistance to bank regulation contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008. Blood tests that are underdevelopment are getting better at screening for more. multiple cancers. NPR's Yuki Noguchi explains that the Food and Drug Administration could approve the first such blood test around the end of the year. Screening is common in the U.S. for a handful of cancers like breast, colon, and cervical. But recent research in the Journal of Clinical

Oncology on patients in the U.K. showed blood tests that can detect cancer markers can help catch disease earlier. Megan Hall heads medical affairs for Grail. The company that makes the test used in the study. So it's a real fundamental shift in how we think about cancer screening. Instead of screening for individual cancers, we can now screen an individual for multiple cancers simultaneously. She says such tests currently under regulatory review could help improve survival rates. Yuki Noguchi and PR News. Weather forecasters have put up heat advisories from central Texas to southern New Mexico today. There are excessive heat watches posted for parts of California and Arizona. It could reach 114 degrees today in Phoenix.

I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.