NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-02-2025 4PM EDT

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

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These days, there's so much news, it can be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community. The Consider This podcast from NPR features our award-winning journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news. We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. truth. Listen to the Consider This Podcast from NPR. Noor Rahm Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Rahm. President Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday is raising questions on whether he's undermining the public's confidence in the non-political

nature of government data. He fired Erica McIntarfer after her agency released the monthly jobs report, calling it rigged. He said the figures were manipulated to hurt him. He provided no evidence of that. NPR's Scott Horsley reports the latest figures did show the job market has slowed. It says the labor market is not as strong as many people thought. Employers added a lot fewer jobs than expected in July.

And job gains for May and June, which had looked pretty healthy, were all but erased when the regular monthly revisions came in. Now it is important to note that the US workforce is not growing as fast as it was a few years ago. Immigration's pretty much dried up and with a lot of baby boomers retiring we don't need to add as many jobs as we once did to keep pace with the population. But even with that low bar, hiring fell short in these last three months. So the unemployment rate inched up to 4.2%. NPR's Scott Horsley. Two families, including three children who are U.S. citizens, were deported from Louisiana to Honduras earlier this year. Now they're suing ICE for allegedly

violating their due process rights by deporting them without a trial. Mel Bridges of member station WRKF has more. The lawsuit filed by the National Immigration Project and others is on behalf of two New Orleans-based Honduran mothers and their three American children, including a five-year-old boy undergoing treatment for kidney cancer. The families were detained in April after the mothers attended a regular ICE check-in. The suit alleges the mothers were not given access to legal counsel or allowed to choose whether their children would be deported.

The lawsuit says one of the mothers wanted her son to stay so he could keep receiving cancer treatment. The Trump administration has said the mothers chose to have their children deported with them. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial and relief from damages. For NPR News, I'm Mel Bridges in Baton Rouge. The Trump administration is canceling plans to use large swaths of federal waters for offshore wind. NPR's Julia Simon has more. On the West, East and Gulf Coast, more than 3.5 million

acres of federal waters had been designated as wind energy areas, but this week the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officially rescinded the federal waters had been designated as wind energy areas. But this week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officially rescinded the offshore waters that had been set aside for new wind development. President Trump has called offshore wind quote ugly and quote unreliable, but combined with large battery storage, offshore wind can bolster grid reliability, supply large amounts of energy, and reduce pollution. Countries like the UK, Denmark, and China are all integrating large amounts of offshore wind

into their energy grids. In the U.S., many offshore wind developers have paused or canceled projects since Trump's return to office. Julia Simon, NPR News. This is NPR News in Washington. People in the mountainous area of western Montana are being urged to stay inside today NPR News. This is NPR News in Washington. People in a mountainous area of western Montana are being urged to stay inside today as police search for a gunman described as armed and extremely dangerous. They say a 45-year-old man opened fire in a bar yesterday in the town of Anaconda. Four people were killed. The Scottish capital of Edinburgh's festival season is in full swing. Edinburgh's

population nearly doubles for the month of August as artists and theatregoers visit for overlapping festivals, including the Edinburgh International Festival, Book Festival, Film Festival and the most popular, Fringe Festival. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports. FRINGE is where the Netflix stalker hit Baby Reindeer first originated. It's where Phoebe Waller-Bridge first performed her Fleabag show. And where the 90s percussion group Stomp got its start. It's called Fringe because it began nearly 80 years ago as unofficial alternative events on the fringe of the Edinburgh International Festival, which it's now eclipsed. There are more than 3,800 shows from more than 60 countries. Comedy, dance, avant-garde theater, even circus performers

and cabaret acts. Organizers call it the world's largest performing arts festival. They typically sell more than two and a half million tickets. Lauren Freyer and PR News London. In baseball, the Atlanta Braves play the Cincinnati Reds tonight in Tennessee. They'll play ball at the Bristol Motor Speedway, usually a NASCAR venue. Officials say more than 85,000 tickets have been sold. Besides the game, there's live music, a Navy jet flyover, and an appearance by the Budweiser Clydesdale Horses. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News.