The Brief

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has assigned a dollar value to the lives saved and the health problems avoided through many of its environmental regulations.

Now, that has changed. The EPA will no longer consider the economic cost of harm to human health from fine particles and ozone, two air pollutants that are known to affect human health. The change was written into a new rule recently published by the agency. It weakened air pollution rules on power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, which are sources of air pollution of many types, including from fine particles, sometimes called soot.

The EPA writes in its regulatory impact analysis for the new rule that, for now, the agency will not consider the dollar value of health benefits from its regulations on fine particles and ozone because there is too much uncertainty in estimates of those economic impacts.

EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch clarified that the agency is still considering health benefits. But it will not assign a dollar amount to those benefits until further notice, as it reconsiders the way it assesses those numbers.

Health experts worry that the move could lead to rollbacks of air pollution rules, which could result in rising pollution levels, leading to more health risks for millions of Americans.

"I'm worried about what this could mean for health," says Mary Rice, a pulmonologist and air pollution expert at Harvard University and the director of Harvard's Center for Climate Health and the Global Environment. "Especially for people with chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma and COPD, for kids whose lungs are still developing, and for older people, who are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of air pollution on the heart, lungs and the brain."

Fine particles, known as PM2.5, come from a variety of sources, including power plants that burn fossil fuels like coal and gas. Long-term exposure to fine particle pollution is known to cause significant health risks, from higher rates of asthma to more heart attacks to dementia, and even premature death. Cleaning up pollution from fine particles has, by the agency's previous estimates, saved more than 230,000 lives and billions of dollars per year in recent years.

The policy shift could facilitate further rollback of air pollution regulations, says NYU environmental law expert Richard Revesz. The economic costs to industry of implementing air regulations are still quantified, at least in the new rule. But if the benefits aren't assigned a similarly concrete dollar amount, he says, it is easier to ignore them. "It looks good only because you ignore the main consequence of the rollback, which is the additional negative impact on public health," he says. "By just saying we are assuming no harm doesn't mean there is no harm."

The health costs of air pollution 

Decades of research have shown that exposure to pollution, such as fine particles, damages people's health. The landmark Harvard University Six Cities study, which ran from the 1970s until the 1990s, showed unambiguously that living in more polluted areas shortened people's lives. Since then, hundreds of research analyses — including many produced by EPA scientists — have linked risks to people's lungs, hearts, and brains with fine particle pollution. And reducing that pollution can have near-instantaneous health benefits: After the closure of a polluting coke plant in Pennsylvania, for example, cardiovascular and respiratory problems dropped dramatically in the surrounding population.

A 1981 executive order from President Ronald Reagan required agencies like the EPA to consider the costs and benefits of major regulations such as the Clean Air Act. So alongside evolving evidence about the health risks of exposure to air pollution, the EPA began to figure out how to assess both.

The cost estimates were relatively straightforward: What would it cost industry to upgrade their equipment and processes to comply with a rule? The benefits were slightly trickier. The agency developed sophisticated ways to estimate how many lives would be saved and health problems avoided from lower pollution, driven by tighter regulations. The EPA also developed economic models that could estimate how much money such changes would save the American people.

Most estimates routinely came up with high economic benefit-to-cost ratios, says Rice, the Harvard pulmonologist. "The Clean Air Act is often cited as having benefit-cost ratios of upward of 30 to 1," she says. "The economic return is so great that even small reductions in pollution, across millions of people, translate into very large savings."

A 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case clarified that agencies like the EPA had to take both benefits and costs into account in their regulatory processes. But the courts have "not waded into the question of how exactly [EPA] should do that," says Jeffrey Holmstead, an EPA expert and lawyer at Bracewell, LLC and former leader of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation during the George W. Bush administration. "So, yes, they do have to consider both, but there is no legally enforceable requirement for them to do it in any particular way," he says. That leaves it up to the agency's discretion, Holmstead says, whether to forgo an economic benefits calculation, as long as the EPA still assesses the health benefits in some way.

Other EPA regulations, he says, assess the health benefits without assigning a specific dollar value, like some of the rules concerning hazardous air pollutants, which are associated with significant but more uncertain health risks.

However, "you can't do a sophisticated cost-benefit analysis without trying to monetize both the costs and the benefits," Holmstead says. "This will be the first time in a long time that EPA hasn't tried to provide a monetary benefit to reducing at least PM 2.5 and ozone."

The move to not consider economic benefits marks a major policy change, says NYU legal expert Revesz. "It's extraordinarily unusual," he says.

Not just air pollution 

Revesz points out that under the Trump administration, the EPA has made moves to reconsider the economic benefits of regulations in other areas, as well.

In its proposal to roll back vehicle emissions standards, for example, the EPA did not assess the potential economic benefits to consumers who switched to electric vehicles instead of choosing gas-powered cars. It also explicitly declined to calculate societal economic benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and significantly lowered the estimates of the health savings from tighter rules. The EPA did the same in its efforts to roll back the endangerment finding, which has been in place since 2009. That finding concludes that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere poses serious risks to public health and well-being.

Revesz says that makes three ways the EPA used to consider economic benefits to Americans from regulations. And now the "EPA has said that it's going to ignore all three of them," he says.

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a 2025 statement that his priorities at the agency were to "lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business."
Copyright 2026 NPR

A growing number of Los Angeles-area politicians are calling on Olympics chief Casey Wasserman to step down after recently released files included a series of flirty emails between him and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell from 2003.

The emails were released in the Justice Department's latest drop of the files related to the criminal investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"Casey Wasserman should step aside immediately," L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said in a statement. "Anything less is a distraction and undermines efforts to make sure the Games truly reflect the values of a city that is for everyone."

Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Imelda Padilla, Nithya Raman and Monica Rodriguez, along with L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath, and City Controller Kenneth Mejia also called on Wasserman to step aside.

"Los Angeles cannot trust our financial future to someone connected with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell," Mejia said on social media, citing the city of L.A.'s role as financial backer of the Olympic Games.

The emails include an exchange in which Wasserman writes to Maxwell, "I think of you all the time…So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?"

In another, Wasserman explains the concept of "June gloom" to Maxwell, who responds, "What foggy enough so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up?"

In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for facilitating a sex trafficking ring of minor girls with Epstein.

LA28 did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But in a statement provided to other media outlets over the weekend, Wasserman said he was "terribly sorry" for his association with Epstein and Maxwell.

"I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” Wasserman said in the statement, which was shared by The Athletic and other news outlets. “I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez also referenced LA28's "Human Rights Strategy," which was due at the end of last year but hasn't yet been made public.

"The failure to complete a robust Human Rights plan, coupled with the revelations from the newly released Epstein files, makes clear that no one associated with Epstein and his associates can provide credible leadership in the planning of these games, which now includes Casey Wasserman," Rodriguez said in a statement.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has not called on Wasserman to resign. In a statement to LAist, Bass said that it was critical to be "100% focused on making our city shine."

"Ultimately, any decision on the LA28 leadership must be made by the LA28 Board. As you know, they are a separate and independent nonprofit organization," the mayor said.

The Supreme Court is allowing California to use its new congressional map for this year's midterm election, clearing the way for the state's gerrymandered districts as Democrats and Republicans continue their fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The state's voters approved the redistricting plan last year as a Democratic counterresponse to Texas' new GOP-friendly map, which President Donald Trump pushed for to help Republicans hold on to their narrow majority in the House.

And in a brief, unsigned order released Wednesday, the high court denied an emergency request by the California's Republican Party to block the redistricting plan. The state's GOP argued that the map violated the U.S. Constitution because its creation was mainly driven by race, not partisan politics. A lower federal court rejected that claim.

The ruling on California's redistricting plan comes two months after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Texas map that kicked off a nationwide gerrymandering fight by boosting the GOP's chances of winning five additional House seats.

"With an eye on the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, several States have in recent months redrawn their congressional districts in ways that are predicted to favor the State's dominant political party," said the court's December order in the Texas case. "Texas adopted the first new map, then California responded with its own map for the stated purpose of counteracting what Texas had done."

The "impetus" for adopting both states' maps was "partisan advantage pure and simple," wrote Justice Samuel Alito in a concurring opinion, which fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not reviewable by federal courts.

While the Trump administration supported the Texas redistricting by Republicans, it opposed California's, describing it as "tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander." The administration asserted the case was different from Texas' due to the timing of the states' candidate filing periods and the fact that the California Republican Party and the federal government provided alternative maps that met California's "stated partisan goals."

Where the California map fits into the larger redistricting fight

Democrats are counting on California's map to help their party push back against Republican gerrymandering in Texas and other states. With rulings upholding both the Texas and California maps, the end result is that the two states may essentially cancel out each other's partisan gains.

Legal fights are still playing out over other new congressional maps, as Republican-led Florida and Democratic-led Maryland take steps to join the list of states that have redistricted before the midterms.

In New York, Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and GOP members of the state's elections board are appealing a state judge's order for a new redistricting plan that would redraw Malliotakis' district, which the judge found illegally dilutes Black and Latino voters' collective power. A redraw of the New York City-based district could tip it into the Democrats' column.

In Utah, two House Republicans have filed a federal lawsuit that claims a new state court-selected congressional map, which could help Democrats win an additional House seat, violates the U.S. Constitution.

And in Virginia, a judge has ruled that a proposed constitutional amendment on congressional redistricting violates state law because the process Democratic state lawmakers used to advance it was improper. Virginia Democrats are appealing the decision.

Redistricting also remains an issue for the Supreme Court this term.

It has yet to rule on a challenge to Louisiana's voting map, but the October oral arguments suggested that the court's conservative majority is likely to continue undercutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Such a ruling could lead to new rounds of congressional gerrymandering — and the largest-ever decline in representation by Black members of Congress.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2026 NPR

The killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good in Minneapolis have renewed a long-running debate among Democrats over how best to address immigration enforcement, and whether advocating for "abolishing ICE" fits into a winning political playbook.

It is a debate that has taken on new urgency among Democrats against a backdrop of bipartisan backlash to the Trump administration's deportation efforts, led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Critics on both the left and the right say the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers last month show the administration has gone too far.

For Democrats, the events in Minneapolis have created an opening ahead of this year's midterm election to shift the conversation on immigration — a notable change after struggling to message on the issue in the 2024 election.

But internal divides over what to do about ICE could complicate the effort. Calls to "abolish ICE" have been particularly amplified by progressive candidates, especially among younger Democrats running for Congress and those challenging Democratic incumbents. On Capitol Hill, far fewer Democrats have re-upped support for abolishing the agency, despite many rallying around the issue during President Donald Trump's first term.

Instead, many elected Democrats have called for reforms at ICE, wary of appearing out of step with voters who want strong enforcement of immigration laws but who disagree with the administration's tactics.

"There is no question that the dynamic from '24 has flipped, [during] which immigration was a sure strength for Trump and a profound weakness for Democrats," said Jonathan Cowan, president and co-founder of the centrist think tank Third Way. But, he cautioned, if the party wants to be successful in November, they should keep the focus on the administration's missteps.

"The divide in the Democratic Party is not over rage, disgust and anger," Cowan said. "The divide is what are you going to do about it? How do you channel that rage in a way that actually changes policy? Both short and long run."

He warns the "abolish ICE" slogan may not be universally embraced among voters across the country. Democrats hoping to flip districts or win over swing voters, Cowan said, should lean into different language, such as calling for a "reform" or "overhaul" of ICE.

He likens the debate to when many Democrats coalesced around the "defund the police" movement in 2020, a decision that Cowan argues created an opening for Trump to paint Democrats as soft on crime.

"People embraced an emotionally satisfying slogan that in the long run proved to be politically toxic and a barrier to getting serious police reform in the country," Cowan said. "We are in grave danger of the same problem happening for those who are embracing abolish ICE."

A protester carries a sign that reads "Defund The Police" during a July 3, 2020 march in Richmond, Va. Many Democrats have been wary of calls to "abolish ICE," and point to how calls to "defund the police" hurt the party with voters in 2020 and 2024.

(

Eze Amos

/

Getty Images

)

That may already be happening. In response to calls to abolish the agency, many Republicans have attempted to link the movement with "defund the police." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed that in a post on X last week, asking, "Why do Democrats keep attacking the law enforcement agencies that hunt down criminals and protect innocent American citizens?"

Loudest calls come from progressives and new candidates

The debate is poised to be especially salient in Democratic primaries and in states that have faced increased enforcement, such as Minnesota, Illinois, California and New York. Democratic candidates have already faced off on the debate stage in Illinois with competing pitches to abolish and reform ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. In Minnesota, immigration enforcement has become a key issue in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Tina Smith.

Some of the loudest calls to abolish ICE have come from Gen Z and millennial candidates, many of whom have sought to frame their bids around a larger rejection of Democratic Party norms.

Darializa Avila Chevalier has embraced that message. The 32-year-old progressive organizer and Ph.D. student is running a primary challenge against Rep. Adriano Espaillat, 71, in New York's 13th congressional district, which includes upper Manhattan and part of the Bronx.

"From the very beginning, I've been adamant that I wanted the abolition of ICE to be central to what we're talking about," said Avila Chevalier.

"It's an institution that should have never existed to begin with," she added. "It's an institution that is younger than I am. And so I've lived in a world where ICE didn't exist, and we can all go back to a world where ICE doesn't exist and never exists again."

ICE agents look for someone at a home on Jan. 28 in Circle Pines, Minn. Protests continue around the Twin Cities area after the Trump administration sent thousands of immigration agents to the region to search for undocumented immigrants.

(

Scott Olson

/

Getty Images

)

Avila Chevalier says Democratic candidates need "to be bold" in their solutions to issues affecting voters right now, and that includes on immigration.

"If I could trust that the leadership we have was reflecting our values, was actually meeting this moment," she said, "I wouldn't be running."

Avila Chevalier is one of 10 candidates currently backed by Justice Democrats. The political group has supported a handful of progressives who have gone on to win seats in Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who delivered an upset primary win in 2018 and ran on a platform that included abolishing ICE, a stance she's reaffirmed in recent weeks.

For nearly a decade, Justice Democrats has rallied around anti-establishment candidates of all ages who often draw contrast to the Democrats they're challenging by rejecting donations from corporate PACs or pro-Israel lobbying groups. But in the wake of the fatal shootings in Minnesota, candidates the group supports are also drawing a line in the sand on immigration — pledging to abolish ICE.

"Every single one of these communities has an ICE story of their own. And it's up to us to listen to those communities … and show people what an opposition party, if in power, would actually do," said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. "That's what our slate of candidates exists to be."

Andrabi disagrees with the idea that "abolish ICE" creates more party divides than flips voters.

Protesters stage a march calling for an end to taxpayer spending on ICE and demanding a moratorium on evictions on Jan. 31 in Minneapolis.

(

John Moore

/

Getty Images

)

"The slogan is not the problem. ICE is the problem," he said.

Recent polling indicates there is some support for the issue among voters, though not overwhelming. A plurality of Americans, 46%, strongly support or somewhat support abolishing ICE, according to a YouGov poll conducted after the shootings in Minneapolis. Americans under 30 were most likely to oppose Trump's immigration agenda, according to the poll, and nearly 7 in 10 voice some level of support for getting rid of the agency.

It's a generational sentiment that may add important context when looking at the influx of younger candidates voicing support for the issue.

"I think that they are furious. They see it all over their news feeds. They see it in their communities. They also, I think, are less beholden to this idea of tradition or the way things have been done," said Amanda Litman, the founder of Run for Something, an organization that recruits and supports young people running for local office.

"I think that sense of the crisis and of the urgency of this moment … is something that young leaders really bring with them into their positions of power," she added. "And it is both their super strength and often their weakness because they're a little more radical in some ways."

Divides on Democratic messaging

Immigration enforcement has become a central issue in funding negotiations on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are lobbying for changes to the tactics used by immigration officers. Democrats want to narrow the type of warrants immigration officers can use to enter homes, require them to wear body cameras and prohibit the use of face masks.

While Democrats in Congress are united in what they see as the bare minimum needed to reform immigration enforcement, there is less consensus on how far to take the rhetoric. Though Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is pushing to "defund and abolish ICE," as are some House lawmakers, other Democrats have taken a different approach.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D–Mass., would not directly answer whether she supports calls to abolish ICE, telling NPR it needs to be "totally reorganized" and "torn down to the studs and rebuilt." She declined to say whether campaigning on abolishing ICE would benefit Democrats.

It's a debate that's also playing out in competitive midterm matchups, including in the Senate Democratic primary in Maine, where the state's governor, Janet Mills, and first-time progressive candidate Graham Platner are running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

Graham Platner is running against Gov. Janet Mills for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine. Platner has called for ICE to be "dismantled," characterizing it as "the moderate position."

(

Sophie Park

/

Getty Images

)

Mills has advocated for ICE reforms, calling for "measures" that would "prohibit ICE's lawless, dangerous conduct and their abuses of power." Platner has called for the agency to be "dismantled," characterizing it as "the moderate position" in a post on X.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills has not called for abolishing ICE, instead advocating for reforms at the agency.

(

Joseph Prezioso

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

The degree to which candidates choose to embrace — or reject — calls to abolish ICE could prove particularly decisive in swing districts.

Though many voters want the current situation to change, calls to abolish ICE may mean different things to different people, argues Cowan of Third Way.

"You can take the literal word, slogan, abolish ICE, and it will get a certain level of support," he said. "But the moment you start asking people specifically what they actually support, the concept of abolishing interior immigration enforcement is not popular."

Though nearly half of Americans say they have some support for abolishing ICE, according to the latest YouGov poll, far fewer, less than a third, support abolishing the U.S. Border Patrol. When respondents were asked if they support Trump moving forward with a smaller enforcement effort, "aimed at criminals, not at hotel maids and gardeners," 55% strongly or somewhat approved.

The lack of Democratic consensus on the issue isn't stopping some progressive congressional hopefuls from standing by the policy they believe is right.

Mai Vang was in high school in 2003 when ICE was created. Now, more than two decades later, the 40-year-old Sacramento City councilmember is campaigning on abolishing the agency as she challenges 81-year-old Democrat Doris Matsui in California's 7th Congressional District.

"What we've seen is this agency has inflicted harm on our communities, and you can't reform it. There is not enough training or even body cameras that would justify what they are doing," she said in an interview.

When asked if she considered shying away from using the slogan, Vang pushed back.

"Not really because people are being killed and murdered by ICE," she said. "It's not a radical position to say we don't want an entity harming our families and loved ones. I don't think it's radical to want to dismantle an agency that is killing citizens."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Want more Olympics updates? Get our behind-the-scenes newsletter for what it's like to be at these Games.

It's the Winter Olympics, that special season every four years in which everyone you know is suddenly an expert on luge strategy and curling technique from the comfort of their couch.

There's plenty to dive into this year, at the unusually spread-out Milan Cortina Olympics.

Hundreds of athletes from around the world — including 232 from the U.S. — will descend on over two dozen venues across northern Italy to compete in 16 different sports. There are 116 medal events on the line throughout the 2 1/2 weeks. And this time, unlike the COVID-era 2022 Beijing Winter Games, spectators will be allowed to watch in person.

But you don't have to board a plane or sport hand warmers to get a good view, thanks to NBC's robust broadcasting rights and NPR's scrappy team of journalists on the ground. Here's how to follow the action — and peek behind the curtain — from home.

How to watch the opening ceremony

The Feb. 6 opening ceremony marks the official start of the Games (even though several sports, including curling and ice hockey, start competing two days earlier).

It will be held primarily at the historic San Siro Stadium in Milan, featuring performances by icons like Mariah Carey and Andrea Bocelli, as well as traditional elements like the Parade of Nations and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron.

But there will also be simultaneous ceremonies and athlete parades at some of the other venues — scattered hundreds of miles apart — and, for the first time in history, a second Olympic cauldron will be lit in the co-host city of Cortina d'Ampezzo.

NBC's live coverage of the opening ceremony (also streaming on Peacock) will begin at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 6, with a prime-time broadcast planned for 8 p.m. ET the same day.

How to keep up once the Games begin

There are 16 days of competition between the opening and closing ceremonies, with contests and medal events scattered throughout, depending on the sport. Here's the full schedule (events are listed in local time in Italy, which is six hours ahead of Eastern time).

NBC says it will broadcast events live throughout the day, with a nightly prime-time highlights show at 8 p.m. ET, followed by a late-night version.

U.S.-based viewers can watch on NBC, Peacock and a host of other platforms, including the apps and websites of both NBC and NBC Sports. Seasoned Olympic viewers will recognize Peacock viewing experiences like "Gold Zone" (which whips around between key moments, eliminating the need to channel surf) and "Multiview," now available on mobile.

The Feb. 22 closing ceremony will be broadcast live starting at 2:30 p.m. ET, and again on prime time at 9 p.m. ET.

It will take place at a historic amphitheater in Verona, which will also host the opening ceremony of the Paralympics on March 6. Some 600 Para athletes will compete in 79 medal events across six sports — including Para Alpine skiing, sled hockey and wheelchair curling — before the closing ceremony in Cortina on March 15.

How to follow NPR's coverage

All the while, you can check out NPR's Olympics coverage to better understand the key people, context and moments that make up the Games.

NPR's five-person Olympics team will bring you news, recaps and color from the ground in Italy, online, on air and in your inbox. Plus, expect updates and the occasional deep dive from NPR's journalists watching from D.C. and around the world.

You can find all of NPR's Winter Olympics stories (past, present and upcoming) here on our website.

To listen to our broadcast coverage, tune to your local NPR station and stream our radio programming on npr.org or the NPR app.

Plus, subscribe to our newsletter, Rachel Goes to the Games, for a daily dose of what it's like to be there in person.

We'll also have a video podcast, Up First Winter Games, to further dissect the day's biggest Olympic stories and oddities. You can find it on NPR's YouTube page.
Copyright 2026 NPR