The Brief

In public, the Trump administration is on the attack against the media by launching investigations, restricting press access in government buildings and creating websites slamming critical news coverage of the president.

In court, the administration finds itself increasingly on the back foot. The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon's new press policy Thursday. By that afternoon, NPR was in court at a pivotal hearing arguing that the administration had broken the law with its treatment of public media.

At a key court hearing in Washington, D.C., NPR's lawyers accused President Trump of acting illegally on May 1 when he issued an executive order demanding an end to all federal subsidies for NPR and PBS. The president's order and materials that accompany it accuse the public broadcasters of ideological bias, in NPR's case due to its news coverage. The networks deny this.

"The executive order flagrantly violates NPR and its member stations' First Amendment rights," NPR's lead trial attorney, the noted free speech lawyer Theodore J. Boutrous, argued in court. "He's not making any secret of his views."

Under the Constitution, the U.S. government cannot discriminate against people on the basis of the views they express; for news outlets, this extends to news coverage.

As Boutrous noted in court, Trump's executive order is titled: "Ending Taxpayer Subsidy of Biased Media." In it, Trump stated: "Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens."

Federal lawyers say Trump's motivation includes reasons beyond coverage

The summary judgment hearing represented an opportunity for each side to shape the contours of a trial, should the presiding judge order one. It was also a chance for the opposing legal teams to try to convince the judge he could issue a ruling granting their side victory without one.

In court filings and during Thursday's hearing, the Justice Department team representing Trump and other federal officials named as defendants did not dispute that the president acted because he believed NPR and PBS were biased.

But the lead trial attorney for the federal government, Alexander Resar, noted that Trump had also cited the desire to stop funding media outlets altogether. And he argued at the hearing that NPR had not suffered true damage as a result of the edict.

Over the summer, Trump successfully pushed Republicans in Congress to pull back all future federal funding already approved for public media on a party-line vote — $1.1 billion in all. While that money represents a small fraction of NPR's budget and a modest part of PBS' revenues, it can be critical to public broadcasting stations. Since the passage of that law, many have announced layoffs and programming cuts.

That was not as a result of Trump's executive order, Resar noted.

A skeptical judge

The presiding U.S. district court judge, Randolph D. Moss, seemed skeptical. "You'd be on much firmer ground if the president had simply said, 'We just want to get out of the news business."

The National Endowment for the Arts canceled a grant for NPR that had already been disbursed to the network, simply to make the point they were in line with Trump's decree, Moss said.

For more than a half-century, most federal money for public media has been funneled through the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has a bipartisan board whose members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. CPB has become a shadow of its former self, run by a skeleton crew since the pullback of federal funding.

The three stations that have joined NPR as plaintiffs in the suit capture the appeal and reach of the broader public radio system: the statewide Colorado Public Radio, which is based in Denver; Aspen Public Radio which broadcasts throughout the Roaring Fork Valley; and KSUT, originally founded by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe and now serving four federally recognized tribes in the Four Corners region in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

CPB sued Trump last spring when he sought to fire board members. Yet evidence surfaced this fall that CPB had scrambled behind the scenes in April to appease a top White House budget official. According to sworn testimony from a CPB executive, the official spoke of her disdain for NPR and warned the corporation's chairperson not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Within a day, a senior CPB executive told NPR it would not receive a multiyear contract worth $35.9 million to provide satellite distribution of content to public radio stations. Its board had authorized the agreement just two days earlier, according to court filings.

Judge Moss had explicitly told the CPB's lawyers that he did not find their defenses for the reversal credible. And CPB ultimately settled NPR's suit over the issue for the full amount and an agreement not to enforce Trump's order banning money for the network.

Moss challenged some arguments made by the legal team for NPR and three Colorado public radio stations that joined its suit, drilling down to determine what specific remedy they were seeking.

Government deflects judge's suggestion

The judge also appeared to offer the government a way out for a major part of the case, dangling the prospect that it might enable him to avoid ruling that Trump's executive order was illegal.

Moss suggested that the U.S. government could formally agree that the CPB settlement with NPR was binding on the federal government too — that it would never seek to prevent CPB from sending money to the radio network if federal subsidies were to be somehow restored. In the absence of such a binding promise, Moss suggested, the president could easily undo the settlement someday, given his assertion that he can fire the board of the CPB. Moss repeatedly pointed to the claims of Trump's advisers that the powers of the executive branch reside in the president, often called the "unitary executive" theory.

Resar, the U.S. Justice Department attorney representing Trump and the government, said he was not prepared to accept such a resolution. Given the opportunity, he did not contest that the government was arguing Trump does have the power to force the overturning of CPB's deal. Similarly, the federal lawyer did not challenge the idea that the government was defending Trump's ability to order the cancellation of an institution's federal funding because he does not like what it has to say.

Judge Moss is expected to issue a ruling in the case soon.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Vickie Walton-James and Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Copyright 2025 NPR

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.