NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-22-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Corva Coleman. The FBI says it has executed a search warrant at Ambassador John Bolton's home outside Washington, D.C. Bolton was the former national security advisor to President Trump in his first term. He is now a fierce Trump critic. The world's leading authority on hunger is confirmed. There is famine in northern Gaza. Israel rejects the findings. NPR's Ruth Sherlock tells us Israel claims the report overlooks Israeli data on relief aid deliveries. The part of the Israeli military that oversees aid, known as Kogat, claims the report by UN-backed experts is, quote, unprofessional. It says it ignores Israeli data on deliveries of aid into Gaza and overlooks a recent increase in food supplies by a U.S. and Israeli-backed group,

the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Israeli position on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, though, remains at odds with leading aid groups. Over 100 aid organizations recently said increasingly restrictive Israeli regulation on their operations in Gaza is leaving millions of dollars worth of food, medicine, water and shelter items stranded in warehouses while Palestinians starve. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News. The State Department says it is constantly reviewing all U.S. visa holders and now it has revoked many more than the Biden administration did.

NPR's Michelle Kellerman has borne. In a statement, a spokesman says that the department is continuously vetting the more than 55 million foreigners who currently hold valid visas. The Trump administration has revoked two times the number of visas as compared to last year, four times the number of student visas. So far this year, the State Department has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for a range of reasons, from traffic violations and visa overstays to allege support for terrorism. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

The Justice Department has hired an attorney who represented people accused of violent acts during the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. The attorney has compared the defendant's prosecutions to the Holocaust. NPR's Tom Dreisbeck prepared this report. Before he joined the Department of Justice, Jonathan Gross served as a defense attorney for multiple violent January 6th defendants. An NPR review of his media appearances and social media posts found that he advocated. for reparations for capital riot defendants, shared conspiracy theories about the attack, and in a YouTube interview, he compared the prosecutions to the Nazi genocide. These prosecutors are evil people. They will put you on a cattle car to Auschwitz without

your eye. Gross joined the Justice Department in June, and sources tell NPR he is working on the administration's investigation into the alleged weaponization of law enforcement. Tom Dreisbach, NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. The Supreme Court has decided the National Institutes of Health does not have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants. The money went to projects that the NIH has stopped funding. Earlier this year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

ordered a review of all grants that support diversity, equity, and inclusion projects as well as gender identity research activities. The ACLU said at the time, Kennedy's order is an ideological purge. The White House is closing its doors to the public for now. Tours have been suspended indefinitely. NPR's Windsor-Johnston reports the Trump administration is moving forward on major construction projects, including a massive new ballroom. September tours have been canceled and no new requests are being accepted. The administration says renovations include a $200 million, 90,000 square foot ballroom.

that President Trump wants to start building within six weeks. Officials have not released architectural plans or set exactly where it will be built. In his first months back in office, Trump has already put his stamp on the building from gold accents in the Oval Office to a new patio in the Rose Garden. He says the ballroom will be funded by himself and private donors.

About a half million people normally tour the White House each year. Windsor Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Again, our top story. The FBI says, has conducted court-authorized activity in the area when asked about any activity at the residence of Ambassador John Bolton. He is a former national security advisor to President Trump. This is NPR.