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We start with the U.S.-Israel war with Iran — a war that President Donald Trump said would end in two to three weeks. Now, in its seventh week, the Pentagon is sending 10,000 more troops to the Middle East to pressure Iran into making a peace deal.On Sunday, Trump posted a long rant on Truth Social calling Pope Leo XIV “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy.” Then, later that night, Trump posted an AI-generated photo that appeared to depict him as Jesus Christ.Rep. Eric Swalwell was a front-runner for the seat of California governor just weeks ago. Now, he’s out of the race and out of Congress after numerous sexual assault allegations were leveled against him.And, in global news, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial vessels. This move is expected to lessen severity of the growing global energy crisis and bring the possibility of a peace agreement between Iran and the U.S. closer to becoming a reality.New reporting from Axios indicates that U.S. and Iranian negotiators made progress in new peace talks on Tuesday. On Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said a second round of talks between the U.S. and Iran will be held in Islamabad. But no date has been announced yet.And it’s the dawn of a new era in Hungary this week. For the first time in 16 years, Viktor Orbán will no longer lead the nation from Budapest, having lost the election for his position as prime minister to conservative rival Peter Magyar.We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

For over 75 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has bolstered American power and shaped the world order as we know it. But under President Donald Trump, its future is uncertain.The United States has spent the better part of a year telling its allies they’re on their own. Trump has threatened to annex Greenland – the sovereign territory of NATO ally, Denmark. He skipped the Munich Security Conference. And he launched the war in Iran without consulting NATO allies.Now, the president is asking for help securing the Strait of Hormuz. And European countries are saying no.How is the war in Iran testing the alliance? And how would a U.S. withdrawal from NATO reshape global power dynamics?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Imagine you’re in a bookstore and you wander over to the fiction section. There, you find two shelves: one for human-written novels… and one for novels written by AI.That future may not be as far off as you think. Roughly 4 million books were published in the U.S. in 2025. That’s a more than a 32 percent increase from 2024, according to the trade magazine Publisher’s Weekly.It’s unclear how many of those books were written by AI, in part because software used to detect it can be ineffective. And the literary waters were made even murkier by the fact that at least 3 million of those 4 million books were self-published. That makes it even more difficult to know if they were written by human hands (er, minds).That’s not to say the self-published portion of the industry is the only part where this tech is showing up. Hachette, one the largest publishers in the U.S., canceled one of its novels, “SHY GIRL,” after allegations that its author used AI to write it.All this is marking a turning point for the publishing industry. How can authors ethically use this technology? And do readers really need new AI-authored books in a market already saturated with options?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It’s that time of the year again. Have you finished filing your return?Doing taxes this season has been particularly fraught – for both taxpayers and the Internal Revenue Service. It’s been a year since DOGE slashed federal funding and cut droves of federal employees. Those departures hit the IRS hard. Its leadership has largely turned over.Also, Republicans in Congress took back billions of dollars the agency had received to improve its systems. Then, they gave the IRS even more tax code changes to enforce.Can the IRS handle it all? And what do taxes – and a functional tax agency – have to do with the strength of U.S. democracy? We sit down with a panel of experts to find out.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The Democrats are having a moment. They’ve enjoyed massive turnout for recent primaries, special elections, and local races. And voter data shows they’re also gaining support among Republican and independent voters.In Wisconsin, liberal judge Chris Taylor recently won a spot on the state Supreme Court by nearly 20 points. That’s nearly double the margin of victory another liberal candidate in 2025.Some Republicans are worried about what wins like these mean for the GOP’s performance in the midterms. And as a shrinking job market, high inflation, and a costly war in Iran drag down the economy, Democrats are seizing the moment to capture voters.In this installment of our weekly politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” we go deep on the Democrats’ recent successes. How are voters responding to a Republican party struggling to deliver on its promises?Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy