The Brief

Warm temperatures are on tap again today as we head into a toasty weekend with temps set to reach the triple digits in desert communities.

L.A. County beaches will see daytime highs from 67 to 72 degrees. It'll be between 69 and 76 degrees along the Orange County coast. More inland areas like downtown L.A., Hollywood and Anaheim will see temperatures from 75 to 81 degrees.

Meanwhile, the valleys will see varying temperatures. Areas closer to the coast will see highs from 78 to 83 degrees, and further inland, temps will stay in the upper 80s, up to 89 degrees.

Meanwhile in Coachella Valley, temperatures will rise to 101 to 106 degrees.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the valleys will reach the 90s for Mother's Day, up to 100 degrees in the Antelope Valley too. Come Sunday, an Extreme Heat Warning kicks in for the Coachella Valley, where temperatures will stay in the low 100s, with up to 109 degrees possible. Make sure to stay hydrated!

The Trump administration has made many changes to education policy that are hard to miss: cutting the U.S. Education Department's workforce by roughly half, canceling research funding, uprooting special education staff, upending student civil rights protections, overhauling student loan repayment plans, scaling back graduate school loans — the list goes on.

But the latest change — one President Donald Trump has called his "secret weapon" — has gone largely unnoticed, even as it's set to take effect in July. That's because it's hidden inside one singularly boring word:

Accreditation.

"The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left," Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. "Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system."

Specifically, he pledged to overhaul it — a notably wonky threat from a politician who usually disdains wonkery. Now, the Education Department has kept Trump's promise.

What is accreditation? 

It's the system the U.S. government relies on to determine which colleges and universities are worthy of receiving millions, even billions of dollars in federal student loans and grants.

In practical terms, colleges pay membership dues to third-party, nonprofit accreditors that then review the schools across a range of categories, including curriculum quality, faculty qualifications, physical facilities, the soundness of their finances and so on.

An accreditor's job, essentially, is to make sure college students are getting good value and to prevent shady schools from pocketing taxpayer dollars without delivering quality degrees.

Decades ago, Congress also made clear that accreditors are not part of the government.

"Congress wanted accrediting agencies to be independent of the federal government. It wanted agencies to set standards independent of the federal government," says Antoinette Flores at the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

Federal law does require that accreditors assess schools in several key areas — such as student achievement, faculty and curriculum — and it gives the Department oversight. But Flores says, the law lets accreditors decide what standards a school must meet to determine its worthiness.

In keeping with Trump's 2023 promise, the department has now overhauled the federal rules for accreditors — changes it says will foster innovation and lower costs. Some higher education experts worry these changes will not only hurt students but also allow the department to further punish schools it doesn't like and even police campus political speech.

"This rule gives [the Education Department] the authority to meddle in the internal affairs of colleges and universities in ways that they never have been able to in the past," warns Bob Shireman, an accreditation expert and former top official in the Obama Education Department.

Changes to what accreditors will measure

While the Education Department cannot legally tell accreditors precisely how to evaluate colleges and universities, it does oversee some key requirements, and these new rules dramatically expand those requirements and the department's authority with them.

Most notably, accreditors must now evaluate school policies on intellectual diversity, "ensuring that students are exposed to a range of viewpoints," according to a department press release.

It's not entirely clear how that requirement will work in practice, but opposition has been loud.

"For the first time," Shireman says, "you will have an avenue for the federal government to go in at least to an accreditor, but through accreditors to colleges, and tell them what balance of points of view the federal government thinks they should have."

The department could then, conceivably, threaten a school's accreditation and, ultimately, its access to federal student aid if it considers them out of balance.

Of this change, PEN America, a nonprofit dedicated to defending free expression, warned that "this is part of a plan to weaken [higher education] and its historic protections for the freedom to think, teach, research and learn."

The Education Department argues it's doing the opposite, calling this "a commonsense step toward restoring intellectual diversity by … creating an environment where differing perspectives can be debated openly and fairly," wrote Ellen Keast, communications director for the under secretary, in a statement to NPR.

"The regulations do not mandate any specific policies," Keast added, "nor do they give the Department any authority to police speech. Instead, they reinforce a fundamental principle: truth emerges through rigorous debate, not enforced consensus."

Nevertheless, even some conservatives have expressed anxiety over this expansion of federal power. Beth Akers, an economist and senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, supports much of the overhaul but says this particular change goes too far.

"[It] does put the administration sort of in a seat of judgment over the institutions, over the accreditors, about whether or not they are appropriately teaching ideology. And that is something I'm uncomfortable with," Akers says.

While the Education Department insists it cannot police political speech on campus, that is what Trump promised in that 2023 video, when he pledged to "fire the radical-left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxists, maniacs and lunatics."

Not all of the changes are controversial. One enjoys some bipartisan support, says Emily Rounds, senior higher education policy adviser at the center-left think tank, Third Way.

That change will push accreditors to give more weight to student outcomes, Rounds says, focusing on questions like, "How much are they going to be earning? What are the licensure pass rates for certain programs? What is the graduation rate? Does an institution retain students year to year or are students dropping out?"

The new accreditation rule changes are set to go into effect ahead of the 2027-28 academic year. Because they were made through the traditional rulemaking process, it will be difficult for Democrats to undo them.

How we got here

Fresh political tension over accreditation began to boil during the Biden administration — between Republican-led states and accreditors they considered too powerful and too liberal.

"The way in which [accreditors] are exerting their authority has really rubbed people the wrong way when it came to these ideological standards they're putting onto institutions," Akers says.

Florida and North Carolina actively clashed with their accreditors over issues including diversity, equity and inclusion and viewpoint diversity on their public university campuses.

"When we said, 'No DEI,' the accreditor was telling our universities, 'Oh no no, you're not gonna get accredited unless you do DEI,'" said Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in June 2025. "Who the heck are they to say what our universities have to do?"

DeSantis pushed for the creation of a new accreditor to replace the longstanding accreditor of Florida's public universities, saying he hopes to "upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels."

Five other state university systems — in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — have also said they will switch to this new accreditor, the Commission for Public Higher Education.

Making it easier to become an accreditor

Another of the Trump administration's stated goals with its accreditation overhaul is cutting red tape and making it easier for schools and even states to create new accreditors. That, the administration hopes, will lead to more accreditors for schools to choose from.

"The rule promotes greater competition and innovation," the department said in its press release.

Competition, according to the administration, will allow schools to shop around for an accreditor that best fits their needs and lowers costs for schools and students alike. What's more, if a school doesn't like its accreditor, it will be easier to switch mid-stream.

One thing is certain: This will weaken traditional accreditors and strengthen schools.

AEI's Beth Akers argues that's not a bad thing and that this shift will empower schools to innovate and take chances. "We've been teaching students the same way for a very long time. Come sit in a lecture, take a test and then after you've sat there long enough, we give you the credits."

Under the new rules, Akers hopes, schools will be freer to experiment with everything from the value of a credit hour to how much time a student actually needs to spend inside a classroom.

But Bob Shireman, the former Obama administration official, warns that forcing accreditors to compete for the schools they'll be auditing won't increase quality. "One person's red tape is another person's consumer protection: Checking to see if the fire extinguishers have expired is red tape."

Similarly, Shireman worries that making it easier for colleges and universities to jump from one accreditor to another could also weaken student protections.

"If one [accreditor] starts identifying problems, [schools] simply shift their weight over to another accreditor. And so it becomes whack-a-mole in terms of oversight of colleges, and we fail to catch problems soon enough."

Edited by Nirvi Shah
Copyright 2026 NPR

Jensen Huang, CEO of the chipmaking juggernaut Nvidia, is stepping down, the company's board announced Thursday.

The decision comes days after the company took the extraordinary step of launching an investigation following news reports alleging that Huang had had an extramarital affair with one of the company's clients, who U.S. intelligence officials concluded had been recruited by China's top spy agency, according to the New York Times. NPR has not independently confirmed those reports.

In an email to Nvidia staff on Sunday, Huang admitted to cheating on his wife, and said he would cooperate with the investigation.

The company's share price dropped sharply on Wednesday, after the New York Times reported that Huang had had a second affair, this one with an Nvidia executive who reported to him.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to an NPR request for comment.

Huang was widely seen as one of the most important business leaders in the United States. Nvidia dominates the market for the chips used to train and run artificial intelligence. Huang also had President Trump's ear on AI policy, with Trump even calling Huang's phone in September while Huang was onstage during a conference.

The scandal that brought down Huang snowballed quickly over the past two weeks. The New York Times reported in late October that Huang had a close relationship with a Chinese woman at a Singapore-based company that was buying Nvidia chips. Citing unidentified sources, it said U.S. intelligence officials believed she had been recruited by the Chinese government to spy on him and possibly try to influence policy. NPR has not independently confirmed this reporting.

A drip-drip of scoops followed — from the Times and other outlets — suggesting that the relationship was romantic, that senior Trump administration officials knew about the allegations some time ago, and that Huang had had a second affair.

China's foreign ministry has said the allegations of spying are baseless and part of a smear campaign against China.

What's next for Nvidia

Huang's departure launches Nvidia into uncharted territory.

Huang's relationship with the alleged Chinese agent and what the Trump administration knew about it will likely be the subject of an investigation when Democrats take control of Congress in January.

"We should all be extremely concerned about this, and the fact that the White House knew about this for weeks, maybe months now, is is is very disturbing as well," said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-NY, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in an interview with NPR.

The company's Chief Financial Officer, Colette Kress, has been appointed interim CEO. The board said in their statement they would conduct a full search for a new CEO and consider both internal and external candidates.

"There's no obvious replacement," said Stephen Witt, author of a book about Nvidia called The Thinking Machine. "It's not even clear Nvidia can be the same kind of company without Jensen. I have a hard time imagining what Nvidia looks like without Jensen."

Nvidia still plans to report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

Huang was one of the longest-serving CEOs in U.S. corporate history, stepping into the role after launching the company with partners over bottomless cups of coffee at a Denny's restaurant in San Jose, Calif., 33 years ago. Nvidia got its start making specialized chips to create 3D graphics for computers that would come to be known as graphics processing units, or GPUs.

He was the face of Nvidia and an unlikely celebrity, giving countless keynote speeches and interviews in his trademark leather jacket, or posing for selfies with adoring fans.

Huang was also the company's driving force. Under his leadership, Nvidia made a big and early bet on artificial intelligence, investing heavily to transform its niche graphics chips into general-purpose processing units that were ideal for the volume of computations required to create AI.

That bet would pay off in spades as GPUs became the go-to chip for AI creators. When AI burst into the public consciousness in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT — a chatbot trained and run on Nvidia chips — the firm was worth about $400 billion. Today, it's valued at more than $4 trillion, among the most valuable in the world, and it dominates the market for GPUs.

But analysts say despite Huang's visionary management of the business, he had a blind spot for succession and hadn't articulated a clear plan, at least publicly.

In a Bloomberg interview from mid-October, Huang was vague about succession plans. "I'm really hoping that the next CEO of the company is already at the company, but 20 years from now, I hope I stay healthy and I hope I continue to earn my keep."

Huang's adult children, Spencer and Madison Huang, both work at Nvidia. Asked about talk that Madison might be in line to succeed him, he paused, and told Bloomberg: "if that's their aspiration, Spencer or Madison's, they have to go earn it. And it's really, really hard work. It takes a lot of sacrifice."

Daniel Newman, CEO of the Futurum Group, a tech research firm, said the company will inevitably be different without Huang, and its future success is unclear.

"They've always had Jensen as this sort of visionary at the front," he said. "I don't think that's replaceable."

Katie McQue contributed to this story.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Billy Idol, Oasis, Wu-Tang Clan, Phil Collins, Sade, Queen Latifah, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order and the late Luther Vandross will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday.

But the list of who will show up and perform is getting shorter daily and looking awfully thin, and it’s difficult to know what the ceremony will look like with so many artists not playing the sets that define the show.

Sade’s representative told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she won’t attend, a day after fans learned that Oasis will be a no-show. Iron Maiden and key members of New Order previously revealed they aren’t coming. And Phil Collins is likely to appear but not play.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame may make a few announcements later this week about who is inducting the new members and who may perform their songs in their place, although organizers like to keep much of the show a surprise.

For the second straight year, the ceremony that moves between Cleveland, New York and Los Angeles will be held at the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A. After two years of streaming it live, the Rock Hall is returning to its previous model, where the public won’t see it until an edited version airs on ABC and Disney+ in December.

The list of 2026 honorees also includes MC Lyte, Celia Cruz, Fela Kuti and Gram Parsons, along with music producers Rick Rubin, Linda Creed, Arif Mardin and Jimmy Miller and variety show host Ed Sullivan.

Here’s a closer look at the nominees and what we know about the show.

Performer inductees

Eight of this year’s inductees came in through the main entrance — the performer category. A nominating committee put them up for a vote from more than 1,200 people, including music industry figures and historians. Artists become eligible for the hall 25 years after their first music release, but it can take much longer for them to be nominated.

Phil Collins

The 75-year-old English singer, songwriter and drummer is already in the hall as a member of Genesis and now gets in again for a solo career that brought some of the biggest hits of the 1980s.

The eight-time Grammy winner got in with his first solo nomination and had been eligible since 2006.

Will he perform? No. Collins has said the health problems that have kept him off the stage since 2022 will keep him from performing Saturday. But he is likely to appear to accept the honor.

Key songs: “In the Air Tonight,” “Against All Odds,” “One More Night,” “You’ll Be in My Heart.”

Sade

First, a head-scratching fact that even big fans may not know. Sade is the name of the band. For real. It is also the first name of its Nigeria-born, England-raised lead singer Sade Adu, making many think she’s a solo act.

But she’ll be inducted along with the members of her band, who entranced audiences with their blend of jazz, smooth-and-sultry R&B and sophisti-pop when they launched in Britain in the mid-1980s.

Will they perform? No. Many fans had hoped they would take the stage together for the first time since 2011, but Adu’s representative says she won’t be attending the ceremony.

Key songs: “Smooth Operator,” “No Ordinary Love,” “Like a Tattoo,” “Kiss of Life”

Billy Idol

The 70-year-old punk-coded English rock singer had also been eligible for the hall since 2006, and voters put him in after his second nomination.

Will he perform? Yes. Idol, who toured the US in summer and had a residency in Las Vegas, plans to play and says he’s going to “bring it” when he does.

Key songs: “Dancing With Myself,” “White Wedding,” “Rebel Yell,” “Eyes Without a Face.”

Wu-Tang Clan

The epic hip-hop coalition from Staten Island — made up of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and previously, the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard — got into the hall with their first nomination. They had been eligible since 2017.

They’ve been hip-hop innovators since their 1993 debut album, “Enter the Wu-Tang.”

Will they perform? Maybe. They toured together just last year on what was billed as a farewell tour.

Key songs: “C.R.E.A.M.,” “Protect Ya Neck,” “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit,” “Gravel Pit.”

Oasis

The famously feuding brothers of Brit pop, Noel and Liam Gallagher, enter the hall with their second nomination. They’ve been eligible since 2019. At 54, Liam Gallagher is the youngest inductee of the class of 2026. They enter the hall a year after a reunion tour that brought them back together for the first time in 16 years, and they’ve announced they’ll do it again next year.

Will they perform? No. Noel Gallagher has announced a solo set at a London jazz festival on Saturday. And Rolling Stone reports that his little brother, who has sneered at the idea of the hall since becoming eligible for it, won’t be there either.

Key Songs: “Wonderwall,” “Live Forever,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Champagne Supernova.”

Joy Division and New Order

The two British rock bands will get a rare joint nomination that makes sense given their members and circumstances.

Joy Division was a dark and seminal post-punk band formed in 1976. When their charismatic lead singer, Ian Curtis, died in 1980, the remaining members formed New Order, which went in the direction of electronic and dance music.

Will they perform? Maybe in some form. Key New Order members Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, who are married, told Vulture in September that neither will make the trip because Gilbert is being treated for cancer. The bassist for both bands, Peter Hook, has been estranged from his mates for many years, and has long performed the two groups’ songs with his own band, Peter Hook and the Light. His representative declined to say whether he’ll attend.

Joy Division had been eligible since 2003 and got in with their third nomination.

Key songs: “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Disorder,” “Blue Monday,” “Bizarre Love Triangle.”

Iron Maiden

The scorching rock band who led the new wave of British heavy metal starting in the late 1970s got an induction that many thought was long overdue.

Will they perform? No. Iron Maiden are together and thriving, but so much so that they’re on tour in Australia and won’t be appearing to accept or to play.

Voters installed them on their third nomination. They’d been eligible since 2005.

Key songs: “The Trooper,” “Fear of the Dark,” “Run to the Hills,” “Aces High.”

Luther Vandross

The love songs of Luther Vandross, delivered with a voice of velvet, made him one of the definitive R&B singers of his era.

The solo career of the New Jersey-born Vandross began in the early 1980s, and he went on to win eight Grammys and have 11 consecutive platinum albums.

He was also a songwriter, producer and one of pop music’s great collaborators with artists including Rock Hall members David Bowie and Aretha Franklin.

Vandross was 54 when he died in 2005.

He’s been eligible since the year after his death, but did not get a nomination until this year, and was voted in on the first ballot.

Key songs: “Never Too Much,” “Dance With My Father,” “I’d Rather,” “Here and Now.”

Early influencers

Some inductees are brought in through a sort of side door, getting awards handed out by committees. But they’re still considered full-fledged hall members. Rubin and the other three producer-inductees are all recipients of the Musical Excellence Award. Sullivan is getting the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-musicians.

And the following five artists are getting in by receiving the Early Influence Award.

Queen Latifah

The 56-year-old New Jersey-born Queen Latifah achieved unprecedented success for a female rapper, becoming a star at age 19 with the release of her 1989 album “All Hail the Queen” and the single “Ladies First.”

She later became known more for her acting in film and television, including a role in “Chicago” that got her an Oscar nomination.

Will she perform? Probably. It hasn’t been made official, but all signs point to yes.

Key songs: “U.N.I.T.Y.,” “Ladies First,” “When You’re Good to Mama.”

MC Lyte

About two years before Latifah in nearby Brooklyn, MC Lyte did her own trailblazing, becoming the first female rapper to release a full solo album, “Lyte as a Rock.”

Her hard-edged rhymes brought a political consciousness that was growing in hip-hop at the time.

Will she perform? Almost certainly. The 56-year-old has been doing a “Road to the Hall” concert tour in the run-up to the ceremony.

Key songs: “Keep on Keepin’ On,” “Cold Rock a Party,” “Ruffneck.”

Celia Cruz

The queen of salsa and innovator and spreader of Afro-Cuban sounds and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century, the Havana-born singer Cruz becomes the first member of the Hall of Fame who sang primarily in Spanish.

She was 77 when she died in 2003.

Key songs: “Vasos Vacíos,” “La Vida Es Un Carnaval,” “El Último Adiós.”

Fela Kútì

The Nigerian saxophonist, bandleader, progenitor and activist who died in 1997 at age 58 becomes the first African-born artist to enter the Hall of Fame in the same year he became the first African artist to receive the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement Award.

He was born in 1938 in colonial Nigeria. His music career, which spanned the late 1950s up to the 1990s, is a signature blend of high-octane horn, jazz, and funk with Yoruba rhythms.

Key songs: “Water No Get Enemy,” “Zombie,” “Let’s Start.”

Gram Parsons

Arguably the most important figure in rock’s turn toward country in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Parsons joined the Byrds for their very country “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” was a founding member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and made a pair of solo records where he duetted with a folk singer he discovered named Emmylou Harris, launching her storied country career.

He was 26 when he died in 1973.

Key songs: “Hickory Wind,” “Love Hurts,” “Return of the Grievous Angel.”

When Nithya Raman becomes mayor of Los Angeles next month, she’ll have just a year and a half to deliver on a huge promise she made with a summer 2028 deadline.

Raman has laid out a plan for moving people off the streets that she says will cut street homelessness by 50% in time for the Olympics and eliminate long-term encampments by the end of her first term.

That may have some Angelenos feeling déjà vu. Soon after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti made the deal for the city to host the Games, in 2018 he promised to all but eliminate street homelessness before the Olympics.

More than eight years later, homelessness remains the city’s most visible crisis, with more than 29,000 unsheltered people in Los Angeles, according to the latest point-in-time count. Under Mayor Karen Bass, unsheltered homelessness in L.A. has dropped by around 11% overall since its 2023 peak, but rose this year, per the homeless count.

Now, Mayor-elect Raman says she can drastically reduce street homelessness by moving away from Bass’ Inside Safe model, which focuses on getting people out of encampments and into motels. Instead, Raman says she will prioritize getting people quickly onto rental subsidies and into more long-term housing.

Success would mean bucking a long-standing tradition of city leaders pledging to slash homelessness and underdelivering.

“I've been hearing those promises for a very long time, but they were always dramatically over-promised,” said Gary Blasi, a UCLA professor of law emeritus, who has followed homelessness policy in Los Angeles for 40 years.

Raman campaigned criticizing the Inside Safe program that Bass staked her first term on as too slow and too costly, saying the city needed to invest in other solutions. Since late 2022, the city has placed 5,800 people into interim housing through Inside Safe, but 40% have returned to homelessness, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“Motel rooms are our most expensive intervention — they should be used like emergency rooms to help people stabilize quickly and then move onto their next step,” Raman wrote in a document released during her campaign laying out her homelessness strategy.

Raman's plan for addressing encampments is to move people out of motel rooms within four months and expand a program that provides unhoused individuals with rental subsidies and case management for up to two years to move people into housing more quickly. On the campaign trail, Bass’s team criticized Raman’s strategy as “unrealistic,” saying it relied on private landlords renting to people who had been living on the street.

Experts on homelessness told LAist that Raman’s promise to halve street homelessness in a year and a half was a stretch — but if the mayor-elect could make a significant reduction by 2028, that would be a victory.

“The plan is ambitious, it's bold, and I think that's a good thing,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “When you set an ambitious and bold goal, you tend to get farther than you might have without the goal.”

Steve Lopez, the longtime L.A. Times columnist who has covered homelessness in the city for decades, had a harsher take.

“I cringe when I hear such grandiose proclamations,” Lopez wrote after Raman declared victory last week, citing a laundry list of societal issues outside of mayoral control: income inequality, mental health problems and the high cost of building new housing.

Raman's 2028 goal comes with additional challenges. The Olympics and Paralympics are expected to displace potentially thousands of unhoused people living near venues, if they are within security perimeters determined by the U.S. Secret Service. There’s still no plan from local officials on how they'll address encampments ahead of the Olympics or where people will go. There’s also no additional funding.

Just last week, the L.A. City Council passed a motion asking staff to report back on how the city will respond to homeless encampments near venues during the Games.

Blasi, the emeritus UCLA professor, said the urgency of 2028 could be an opportunity for the Raman administration to lay the groundwork for longer-term solutions that keep people from returning to homelessness, like establishing more options for permanent housing.

"It's not impossible to come up with a plan that's motivated in part and at least time limited by the Olympics, but doing that in a way that's replicable and solves some of the problems that have bedeviled politicians in L.A. for a long, long time," he said.

Advocates say they’re worried that without advance planning, unhoused people could be swept with nowhere to go, or the federal government could intervene.

“It makes sense to think about the Olympics as a really key kind of deadline where we have to get moving and have to make sure we've gotten people into safer situations,” Visotzky said.

Aaron Schrank contributed to this reporting.