The Brief

President Donald Trump delivered the first official State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday night. The speech gave Trump the opportunity to tout accomplishments and outline his agenda for his administration's second year.

It comes at at time when Americans are divided on whether Trump's first year has been a success. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows that six in 10 believe the country is worse off than last year and that a majority think the state of the union is not strong.

Reporters from across NPR's newsroom are fact checking his speech and offer context — on topics like immigration, the economy, tariffs and trade and foreign policy.

Immigration

Do we have the strongest and most secure border so far?

This is partly true.

It is not true that there have been zero crossings; for example, there were 237,538 in 2025, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But Border Patrol encounters with migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico have fallen to their lowest level in more than 50 years, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of statistics from the federal government.

While it is true that there were a historic number of crossings during the Biden administration, it is untrue that the border was wide open for people to cross unvetted: in the final year of his administration, President Biden significantly tightened controls.

— Jasmine Garsd, Immigration Correspondent

Did murderers, ex-convicts and mental institution patients emigrate to the U.S. under Biden?

There is no evidence of this.

A historic number of people came across the U.S. border during the Biden administration, however many were vetted. Programs like parole and the CBP One app required entry screenings and interviews.

There has also been extensive research showing that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are less likely to commit crimes than citizens. What's more, although the number of people in immigration detention is at a historic high (near 70,000 as of earlier this month), around 74% have no criminal conviction.

— Jasmine Garsd, Immigration Correspondent

Did members of the Somali community pillage $19 billion?

Almost 100 defendants — many of Somali descent — have been charged by the Department of Justice in connection with alleged fraud connected to federal social safety net and child welfare programs in Minnesota, according to the White House.

In one high-profile case, federal prosecutors charged dozens of people in 2022 connected to a Minnesota nonprofit called Feeding Our Future with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The president has used that controversy to attack the Somali American community at large in Minneapolis, including calling Somali immigrants "garbage" who "contribute nothing."

— Jasmine Garsd, Immigration Correspondent

Foreign policy

Foreign investment 

Trump referenced this figure, but a White House website of total investment at both home and abroad sits at under $10 trillion. And other analyses have found that number inflated as well.

— Saige Miller, Washington Desk Producer

Iran's nuclear program "obliterated"

Trump again repeated his oft-stated claim that the U.S. "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program during one day of bombing in Iran last June. There's a broad consensus that combined U.S. and Israeli strikes inflicted major damage on Iran's nuclear program. However, Iran has not allowed international inspectors to examine their nuclear facilities, making a precise assessment impossible.

In addition, Trump has not explained why he's considering a new round of attacks on Iran's nuclear program if it was 'obliterated' just months ago.

— Greg Myre, national security correspondent

 "I ended eight wars"

President Trump has had diplomatic successes, but his repeated claim that he's ended eight wars is an exaggeration.

Perhaps his biggest success to date was brokering a ceasefire in the Israel and Hamas war in Gaza last October. However, Israel has continued to carry out airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinians since the truce was announced. Israel alleges many ceasefire violations by Palestinian militias.

Trump's list also includes Israel and Iran. Israel and the U.S. exchanged airstrikes with Iran for 12 days last June before Trump declared a truce. However, none of the longstanding issues were resolved, and Trump is again threatening to attack Iran.

— Greg Myre, National Security Correspondent

Iranian protesters killed

Iran's security forces unleashed a brutal crackdown against protesters in January. The Human Rights Activist News Agency has put the death toll at more than 7,000, though various human rights groups say the number could be even higher. Iran's government has acknowledged more than 3,000 deaths in clashes, a figure that includes protesters and security force members.

— Greg Myre, National Security Correspondent

Economy

A "turnaround for the ages"

The U.S. economy was in solid shape before President Trump returned to the White House for his second term. In fact, in October 2024, The Economist had labeled the U.S. economy "the envy of the world," because it had bounced back from the pandemic recession in stronger shape than most of its peers. To be sure, many Americans were frustrated with the high cost of living, and that dissatisfaction contributed to Trump's victory the following month. However, costs have continued to climb over the last year, and that dissatisfaction is now weighing on Trump's own approval rating. Nearly six-in-ten Americans say the country is worse off now than it was a year ago, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Inflated claims about inflation

Inflation has cooled in recent months. But the cost of living is still climbing faster than most people would like. A few items have gotten cheaper in the last year, such as gasoline and eggs. But housing, groceries, electricity and natural gas have all gotten more expensive.

Inflation reached a four-decade high of 9.1% in 2022, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent prices soaring around the world. By the time President Joe Biden left office, inflation had fallen to 3%. It dropped as low as 2.3% last April, before rebounding to 3% in September.

Trump's tariffs have raised the price of some imported goods, but the effects on the overall cost of living have been limited. Annual inflation dipped to 2.4% in January. (A separate measure of inflation, which is closely watched by the Federal Reserve, shows that prices are still climbing at roughly the same rate that they were a year ago.)

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Stock market 

The stock market has enjoyed big gains over the last year, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average topping 50,000 for the first time earlier this month. In 2025, the S&P 500 index jumped 18%, after a 24% gain in 2024. The stock market rally has given a boost to many people's retirement savings. It's important to remember, however, that stock ownership is very concentrated. The richest 10% of families own 87% of all stock market wealth, while half of all Americans own little or no stock.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Job growth

Job growth slowed sharply in the last year. U.S. employers added just 181,000 jobs in all of 2025, compared to more than 1.4 million in 2024. Hiring picked up in January of this year, but the job gains last month were concentrated in health care — an industry that is typically insulated from the ups and downs of the broader economy. Unemployment has remained low — just 4.3% in January — but that's up from 4% a year ago when Trump returned to the White House.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Tax cuts

Congressional Republicans voted last summer to extend portions of the 2017 tax cut which otherwise would have expired last year. An analysis by the Tax Foundation found the package — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is the sixth largest tax cut in U.S. history, not the largest. The bill also adds new tax breaks on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits. The result will be somewhat higher take-home pay for many workers in 2026. The bill also cut government spending on safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the bulk of the tax savings will go to the wealthy. Middle-income households will see a smaller benefit, between $500 and $1000 a year. For families making less than $55,000 the loss of government benefits will likely outweigh any tax savings, leaving them worse off. The tax cut is also expected to encourage more business investment, which could boost future economic growth.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Standing by tariffs after rebuke by SCOTUS

The federal government has been collecting about $30 billion every month in tariffs, which is far more than it made from import taxes before Trump returned to the White House last year.

The Supreme Court struck down about half of Trump's tariffs last week, ruling that the president had exceeded his authority. Some of those levies are being replaced with alternative import taxes.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to levy tariffs — though lawmakers have delegated limited tariff powers to the executive branch.

Economists say the vast majority of tariff bills are being paid by businesses in the U.S. that import products. In some cases, those costs are being passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Tariff revenue, while substantial, has fallen short of what the administration projected. This is partly because some imports have been granted tariff exemptions, and partly because importers have shifted production to countries facing lower tariff rates. Imports from China, for example, made up 12% of total imports in 2024. By last fall that had dropped to about 8%.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Tariffs and manufacturing

President Trump argues that high tariffs will spark a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing. But it hasn't happened yet. Factories have been in a slump for most of the last year, shedding 108,000 jobs in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

No doubt Trump's taxes on foreign imports have allowed some U.S. factories to raise their prices. But the vast majority of factory managers, many of whom rely on foreign components, say tariffs have been a drag on their business. "Morale is very low across manufacturing in general," one unnamed factory manager told the Institute for Supply Management in December.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Energy

Gasoline prices

According to GasBuddy, only the cheapest 10% of stations in the country are seeing prices of $2.31 per gallon or cheaper. And while gasoline was $1.85 a gallon in Iowa in early January, prices have since risen. As for $1.99 gasoline, "only 8 out of roughly 150,000 gas stations nationwide are selling gasoline below $2 per gallon," GasBuddy's Patrick de Haan wrote on Tuesday.

While the specific prices named by President Trump are exceptional rather than representative, gasoline is certainly cheaper now than it was before his inauguration. The national average gasoline price is currently at $2.92 a gallon, according to AAA, or about 22 cents cheaper than this time a year ago.

Those prices are driven by global markets, and a worldwide oversupply of oil is the dominant force keeping prices in check. Presidents do not set gasoline prices. However, politics can be a factor in global markets, and Trump has put pressure on the oil cartel OPEC to keep oil prices down.

— Camila Domonoske, Cars and Energy Correspondent

Data centers and electricity rates

Electricity prices rose 6.3% in the last 12 months – more than double the overall rate of inflation. That's partly due to the high cost of natural gas, which is a major fuel for power plants. It's also due to increased demand, some of which comes from power-hungry data centers. Rising electricity prices were a big theme in last year's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia.

— Scott Horsley, Chief Economics Correspondent

Venezuelan oil "received" in the U.S.

Since the U.S. captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro last month, the U.S. government has been helping sell some of Venezuela's oil. The U.S. has worked with two Swiss oil trading companies, Vitol and Trafigura. (Both Vitol and Trafigura have pleaded guilty to bribery and settled cases with the Department of Justice during the Biden administration.)

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright says that U.S.-facilitated oil sales total more than $1 billion. However the Venezuelan government has said it has only received $300 million. In a Senate hearing last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said $200 million is in a bank account in Qatar. It's unclear where the rest of the money is and if and when it will get to the Venezuelan people.

The U.S. is the biggest producer of oil in the world and the world is currently oversupplied with oil.

– Julia Simon, Climate Solutions Correspondent

Oil and natural gas production

The U.S. set an annual crude oil production record last year, rising about 400,000 barrels a day from 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. That was not a new trend initiated by Trump — crude output rose for four years in a row. However, it's expected to drop by about 100,000 barrels a day in 2026, thanks in large part to low oil prices. Globally, the world is currently oversupplied with oil.

It is true that natural gas production is up; the EIA forecasts record natural gas production in 2026 and 2027. Natural gas prices were low in 2024 but jumped sharply last year, due in part to massive exports of liquefied natural gas from the U.S. to other countries, mostly in Europe and Asia.

Oil companies have not been on a drilling spree, as Trump's "drill, baby, drill" phrasing would suggest. According to Baker Hughes, a firm that monitors the energy industry, the number of active drilling rigs in the U.S. this week is down about 7% from this time a year ago. Low oil prices and skeptical investors have kept companies cautious. However, technological improvements have helped make U.S. oil production more efficient, squeezing more oil and natural gas out of existing wells, which has helped keep production high anyway.

— Camila Domonoske, Cars and Energy Correspondent

Government

DHS and terrorism prevention

Since Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, there have been mounting concerns among former federal employees and field experts about a diminished capacity to counter violent extremism. Many seasoned counterterrorism officials left government service, and budget cuts have fundamentally shifted the core infrastructure that had been devoted to community-based prevention programs, data-gathering and analysis. In the case of one of these programs, the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, the administration replaced an outgoing head with a 22-year-old without experience in law enforcement or counterterrorism. Outside of DHS, other agencies that have traditionally played a role in countering violent extremism, such as the FBI, have seen manpower diverted to immigration enforcement.

— Odette Yousef, Domestic Extremism Correspondent

Congressional stock trading ban faces tough odds for passage

Congress has unsuccessfully pursued a stock trading ban for their members for years. Members of both sides of the aisle have put forth proposals that have drawn broad, bipartisan support. However, those efforts have fallen short of becoming law.

Those failures have spanned several House speakers, including former Speakers Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy. Pelosi's husband, Paul, has drawn attention as a venture capitalist who has been active in trading.

This time around, the GOP-led Stop Insider Trading Act has little chance of passage, currently without much bipartisan support.

— Claudia Grisales, Congressional Correspondent

Voter fraud is already incredibly rare

Trump has been claiming that noncitizens are voting en masse in American elections for more than a decade.

But it's illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal races, and they have never been found to vote in anything but microscopic numbers. In the rare cases they do vote, research has found it's often due to misunderstandings about the rules, as opposed to an attempt to influence election results, as Trump often claims.

Still, since Trump took office for his second term, his government has put more resources than ever before toward trying to find these voters. They've found very little.

"Even states that are looking everywhere to try to amplify the numbers of noncitizens … when they actually look, they find a surprisingly, shockingly small number," said David Becker, an election expert who runs a nonprofit that has been tracking noncitizen voting audits across the country.

In Michigan, an audit after the 2024 election found 16 alleged noncitizen votes out of the state's roughly 5.7 million cast. In Iowa, it was 35 votes out of 1.67 million cast.

Experts often note that for immigrants without legal status, it doesn't make sense to risk prison, deportation and family separation to cast one ballot — especially because the inherent paper trail of voting makes it very easy to get caught.

Trump correctly noted that not every state requires voters to show photo ID at the time they cast a ballot. But he oversimplified the dozen or so states that don't have such a requirement in implying that anyone can easily vote without being verified by officials first.

Federal law already requires identity verification for all voters at registration, by mandating they provide a valid driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. People who don't register in person are also required to provide ID the first time they vote, regardless of the state they live in.

The SAVE America Act that Trump referenced tonight isn't expected to garner the requisite 60 votes in the Senate needed to overcome a legislative filibuster, but you can still read a breakdown of what's in the proposed Republican election overhaul here.

— Miles Parks, Voting Correspondent

Warrior dividend 

Trump announced military service members would receive a $1,776 "warrior dividend" during his prime time address in December.

The money was allocated to service members in the massive omnibus budget bill known as "One Big Beautiful Bill." Congress — which has the power of the purse and is solely responsible for taxation and appropriation — approved $2.9 billion to subsidize housing for military members. Trump rebranded those funds as the "warrior dividend."

— Saige Miller, Washington Desk Producer

Health

Prescription drug prices

This claim is not true. Americans still pay several times more money for prescription drugs than people in peer countries. The Trump administration has taken aim at drug prices in various ways, but how helpful those efforts will ultimately be — and for how many people — is not yet clear.

His biggest move so far has been to use tariffs as leverage to negotiate deals with more than a dozen drugmakers, and then launch a direct-to-consumer website called TrumpRx where people can buy brand-named drugs at a discount. There are only about 40 drugs currently available on the site, and those same companies Trump struck deals with raised prices on hundreds of other drugs they sell. For most people, using insurance and paying a copay for their medications will be cheaper than TrumpRx, according to an analysis by KFF.

What many peer countries do to keep the prices of prescription drugs down is to regulate those prices. President Trump and congressional Republicans have generally rejected that approach, branding it as "government price setting."

— Selena Simmons-Duffin & Sydney Lupkin, health correspondents

Payments to insurance companies

At this point, Trump's "Great Health Care Plan" isn't a comprehensive health policy, but an articulation of policy priorities that Trump has asked Congress to develop into legislation. He supports loosening rules around mandatory benefits required by the Affordable Care Act and promoting health savings accounts, which allow people to set aside pre-tax funds to pay for certain health-related expenses. Under current law, HSA funds can't be used for health insurance costs like premiums.

Even the "catastrophic" or skinny plans preferred by Trump are private insurance plans, and the money paid for them goes to big insurance companies. The only way to stop payments to health insurance companies would be to bolster public health insurance options like Medicaid and Medicare.

A recent poll from KFF found Americans are more worried about health costs than any other household expenses. It also found that people plan to vote based on whether they think a candidate will help with health costs.

This year, ACA premiums have doubled on average, and in some cases, have increased much more, because Republicans did not vote with Democrats to extend extra ACA tax credits. Since then, more than a million people have dropped their coverage.

— Selena Simmons-Duffin, Health Policy Correspondent

Transgender youth

For the second year in a row, President Trump has brought as a guest a parent with a story about a child who began a gender transition in secret. The children mentioned in both speeches seem to have done some version of "social transition," which involves changing a name, pronouns, clothes, haircuts and the like. All of those things are reversible.

This is a topic he brought up frequently during his presidential campaign, in which he and Republicans spent millions on anti-trans ads.

So far, the Trump administration's efforts to ban trangender care has focused on medical interventions for youth. Using threats of withheld federal funding, investigations, proposed regulations, and subpoenas, the White House has succeeded in shutting down many gender clinics for youth at hospitals across the country. There are also many lawsuits challenging these actions.

— Selena Simmons-Duffin, Health Policy Correspondent

Crime

Declining murder rates 

Murders have been on a steep decline following a pandemic-era surge.

The homicide rate in 35 studied cities dropped 21% in 2025, compared with 2024, according to data from the Council on Criminal Justice.

The FBI hasn't released 2025 homicide data for all jurisdictions nationwide yet. However, the Council on Criminal Justice states "there is a strong possibility" that the murder rate will be roughly 4 per 100,000 residents. That, according to the council, would be the lowest rate ever recorded, going back to 1900. It would also mark the largest single-year percentage drop in homicides on record.

Murders and violent crime were already declining under the Biden administration. In 2024, President Joe Biden's final year in office, violent crime dropped to a 20-year low.

— Saige Miller, Washington Desk Producer

Was Iryna Zarutska killed by an immigrant?

Iryna Zarutska was fatally stabbed on August 22, 2025 while riding the light rail line in Charlotte, N.C. Zarutska, who was 23, was stabbed by 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr., who has a reported history of mental health issues.

In tonight's address, Trump claimed Brown was an immigrant released into America thanks to an open border policy. There is no evidence of this. Local media has reported that Brown was born and raised in Charlotte and had spent time in and out of North Carolina jails.

— Jasmine Garsd Immigration Correspondent

Drug cartels as FTOs

Under Trump, the State Department has designated a number of drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or FTOs. This is a novel use of the designation, which has traditionally been used to go after overseas entities that have threatened the security interests of the U.S., such as al-Qaida or ISIS. This pivot in definition of FTO has raised some concern among those who were previously involved in the designation process and other counterterrorism experts. They say that responding to criminal narcotics enterprises that operate from a profit motive is fundamentally different from disrupting networks that sow ideological and violent opposition to the U.S. government.

— Odette Yousef, Domestic Extremism Correspondent 

Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

After 32 years in uniform and a career punctuated by declining murders, spiking traffic deaths and challenges retaining officers, Long Beach Police Chief Wally Hebeish announced Wednesday that he will retire in December.

Hebeish, who began his career in 1994 with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and joined the Long Beach Police Department a year later, stepped into the limelight in 2021 when he replaced then-Chief Robert Luna, who went on to become the LA County Sheriff.

Hebeish declined a request to comment on Wednesday. In a characteristically terse and formal statement, he thanked the department that he described leading through “some of the most challenging times we have faced in modern law enforcement.”

In a separate statement sent by department spokesperson Allison Gallagher, Hebeish said he had been “contemplating and planning my retirement for some time,” and wanted to see through the department’s newest round of academy cadets and a tough budget year before leaving. “It’s been a rewarding [five] years as Chief and I’m proud of everything the Department has accomplished,” the statement said.

A spokesperson for Mayor Rex Richardson did not respond to a request for comment. In a social media post Wednesday, Richardson praised Hebeish, saying his legacy is one of “leadership, progress, and a deep commitment to our community and the men and women who serve it.”

“Wally Hebeish has always been a public servant focused on keeping people safe and a person of high integrity,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, who served as mayor when Hebeish first became chief. “Long Beach has been lucky to have had him as Chief, and I’m thankful to have worked with him.”

City Manager Tom Modica said the outgoing chief led the department through a “transformative period in modern policing” and did so with “integrity, compassion and an unwavering commitment” to the public. “We thank Chief Hebeish for his decades of public service and wish him the best in his retirement,” Modica said. “As we begin the search for our next Chief of Police, we will build on the strong foundation he leaves behind.”

Modica said the city plans to hire a recruitment firm in the next two weeks to begin a national search he hopes to finish by early next year. Candidates will be screened through the city’s human resources department and undergo interviews with a community panel, a technical panel and city department directors. The final choice will ultimately be made by Modica.

The city manager will also be creating a “community input process;” the city will announce something in the next couple of weeks.

Gerrit DeJongh of the Long Beach Police Officers Association said the union wants a chief with experience at a department of similar size who is “level-headed and fair-minded.”

The union supports a nationwide search, he said, but believes the department has “phenomenal internal candidates as well.” “If the city manager wants to have a discussion or wants the [union’s] opinion on it, I’d be happy to offer it,” DeJongh added.

Born in Cairo and raised in North Long Beach, Hebeish became the city’s first Arab American and Muslim to lead the department. After joining in 1995, he worked in criminal intelligence, investigations, patrol and internal affairs, and later served as chief of staff, deputy chief of the Support and Patrol bureaus and assistant chief, a post he took in 2019.

He became acting chief in 2021 while Luna, then the chief, recovered after being struck by a truck while crossing a street. Hebeish was appointed to the top job in December of that year.

Commanding a department of 800 sworn officers and another 1,200 employees, Hebeish took over the post amid intense pressure on police departments nationwide following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Meanwhile, the instability of the pandemic led to a spike in murders around the country. Like many departments, Long Beach grappled with new expectations of its police leaders and a need to rebuild public trust against challenges to retain officers.

In Long Beach, it was a balancing act with some success. Hebeish touts a citywide decline in murders, particularly fatal shootings, during his tenure. He said the city saw year-over-year reductions in shootings and, in 2025, its first recorded year without an officer-involved shooting.

He credited a High Crime Focus Team, created in 2024, which directs patrols to the places where violent crime, illegal firearms and quality-of-life complaints occur most often, with helping to reduce gun violence. He also lobbied for funding for a Real Time Crime Center, established a program for drones that back up police, launched a public online crime dashboard and instituted a yearly accountability report.

City officials and the department also point to its largest academy class on record, the opening of a new police academy, creation of a Neighborhood Safety Bike Team and expansion of its team that handles nonemergency calls.

DeJongh is especially proud of the department’s Wellness Division and its Community Services Bureau, which Hebeish helped lead while assistant chief. The program, he explained, watches for traumatic officer-involved incidents and refers them to counseling. It came about shortly after a string of officer suicides rocked the department.

“I cannot help but to think or believe that the experiences and the trauma they experienced on this job played into their decision to take their own lives,” he said. “You can only help but wonder, you know, could we even save just one of them if we had something like this in place at the time?”

But Hebeish leaves a department that has long suffered high vacancy rates, which has slowed response times. An August 2024 analysis of city data by the Post found 155 vacancies, about one in five officers. For all but the highest-priority calls, officers were taking more than 20 minutes longer to respond than they had three years earlier, the analysis found.

While dealing with a shortage of officers, the department announced it would stop responding to many minor noninjury crashes to focus on priority calls. Questions remain over how the department has handled traffic safety enforcement, as the city recorded 53 fatal traffic collisions in 2025 — the most in over a decade and surpassing the city’s homicide count that year.

Fatalities continue to climb into 2026, reaching more than 40 traffic deaths as of mid-October.

Public trust in the city police department continues to be an issue, as well, as criticisms are regularly slung at the department during city council meetings over the department’s handling of homelessness and the federal immigration raids that have continued throughout Long Beach over the past year.

The city’s Office of Police Oversight, established in 2022, has also urged the department to improve how it deals with the families of those killed by police and witnesses to shootings, following the 2024 killing of Brandon Boyd. The oversight commission has previously questioned whether internal investigations are handled in a timely manner and asked the department to review policies for when officers respond to domestic violence calls.

Countries are not doing enough to cut emissions that cause climate change, according to a new report from United Nations scientists. And the United States is a big part of the problem.

The U.S. sticks out as the only major economy where planet-warming pollution increased dramatically last year, the report notes.

Among the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the U.S. was tied last year with Russia for the most emissions per capita. China emits significantly more total greenhouse gases each year than the U.S., but has more than four times the population.

Overall, global emissions were basically the same last year as they were the previous year.

U.S. emissions grew because of increased electricity demand, as well as Trump administration policies that support the burning of fossil fuels. The Trump administration has ordered coal-fired power plants in the U.S. to stay open longer than planned, rolled back fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles and ended tax credits for solar and wind projects.

Those policies have made the U.S. an outlier when it comes to escalating greenhouse gas emissions, says Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.

"Right now, everybody is scrambling a little bit regarding energy security," Andersen says, pointing to global oil and gas disruptions stemming from the wars in Ukraine and Iran.

Despite the geopolitical upheaval, "several G20 members have shown sustained emissions reduction," she notes.

That includes the European Union, which has invested heavily in energy-efficient appliances and renewable electricity sources such as wind and solar, partly in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. is pulling out of U.N. climate work

The Trump administration has withdrawn from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, and is working to remove the U.S. from all U.N. climate work, arguing the international system imposes unfair burdens on Americans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now says greenhouse gases do not pose a threat to human health and welfare, reversing its previous position.

The new report includes a statement from the U.S. government, saying the U.S. "does not endorse or agree with its analysis or conclusions, and has not provided comments to this report." The U.S. State Department did not respond to NPR's questions.

The new report, which is compiled annually by an international group of scientists, comes less than a month before global climate talks kick off in Turkey. World leaders will gather to discuss how to speed investments in clean energy and how to pay for the costs of dealing with climate change. The Trump administration will not participate in those talks.

Still, whether or not American leaders formally participate in international climate efforts, the effects of America's reliance on oil, gas and coal are being felt around the world, the U.N. warns. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping extra heat that warms the entire planet. The effects of all that pollution are felt globally.

The Earth is about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer on average than it was in the mid-1800s, according to the World Meteorological Organization. That warming is driving widespread disasters, from deadly heat waves and floods to more intense storms and wildfires.

"All countries, especially the big emitters, must do more," says U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. "Every fraction of a degree matters."

The Earth is on track for 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming this century

Right now, the planet is on track for upwards of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 degrees Celsius) of warming this century, which would cause catastrophic impacts, such as massive sea level rise and the mass extinction of plants and animals, the report warns.

The U.N. Paris Climate agreement sets a goal of limiting warming to well below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), in the hopes of avoiding such cataclysms.

This is the first year the annual report has acknowledged that even lower targets are now out of reach. However, it finds it is still possible to keep warming below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, if global greenhouse gas emissions fall by about 25% in the next decade.

But countries are currently lagging far behind that goal.

Under the Paris agreement, about two thirds of countries have submitted formal, up-to-date plans for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. If they all follow through on those plans, it would reduce emissions by about 15% in the next decade — far less than the 25% needed.

Copyright 2026 NPR

At Chopin Noodle House in Monterey Park's Atlantic Times Square, the dining room is small. But there's still room for a baby grand piano.

If you’re lucky, you might catch owner Zi Yang playing for customers as they work through bowls of Lanzhou beef noodle soup. A few feet away, cooks pull a fresh batch of noodles by hand, made to each diner’s preferred thickness.

The traditional beef noodle soup at Chopin Noodle House in Monterey Park comes with clear broth, chili oil, sliced beef, leeks, and cilantro.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Noodles are pulled by hand to order at Chopin Noodle House.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Pianists turned chefs 

Yang and his wife, Mimi Song, are both former piano teachers who met through music.

After moving from China to the U.S., they hoped to make a living teaching piano, but it didn’t pay the bills. So they turned to another love: noodles.

Co-founders Mimi Song (left) and Zi Yang, both former piano teachers, have grown Chopin Noodle House to five locations.

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Courtesy Chopin Noodle House

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The couple opened the first Chopin Noodle House in Catonsville, Maryland, in 2023. They later expanded to Southern California, starting in Chino, and opened in Monterey Park in March. The chain now has five locations in Maryland, Virginia and Southern California.

When I visited, Yang stepped out from behind the counter, sat down at the baby grand and played Frédéric Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp minor, its soft, rolling melody filling the small dining room. A group of diners in the corner looked up from their bowls of noodles, watched and cheered when he finished.

The restaurant name comes from the Polish composer. “We both love Chopin,” Yang said.

The Lanzhou connection

Yang is from Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in northwest China, and the birthplace of the signature beef noodle soup.

“I was born in Lanzhou, a city along China’s ancient Silk Road,” he writes on the restaurant’s website. “Every morning, the streets fill with the scent of beef broth and the rhythm of pulled noodles slapping the counter.”

“Maybe 80% of the people eat it for breakfast or lunch,” he told me.

Before opening the restaurant, he returned to China for a crash course in its creation.

“I went back to learn how to pull the noodles and how to make the very delicious beef noodle soup,” he said.

The piano started as a practical idea.

“We saw that restaurant life would be so boring, so we decided to put a piano in our restaurant. So sometimes if there’s no customer, we can practice the piano,” Yang said.

What’s in the bowl

The most popular order is the traditional beef noodle soup ($14.99). It's made from beef bones and beef shank.

Diners choose from eight noodle styles, from extra-thin to extra-wide, plus knife-sliced and gluten-free rice noodles. The bowl follows what the restaurant calls Lanzhou’s five signature elements: clear beef broth, white radish, red chili oil, green cilantro and leek, as well as golden hand-pulled noodles topped with thinly sliced beef.

For sipping alongside the noodles, order the eight treasures tea, known in Lanzhou as san pao tai. It’s served in a lidded bowl called a gaiwan and brewed with green tea, dried red dates, goji berries, longan, raisins, rose petals, chrysanthemum and rock sugar. You use the lid to keep the fruit and leaves in place as you drink. It’s naturally sweet, a nice counterpoint to the chili oil.

An open bench

Anyone who visits is welcome to play the piano. Yang said they’ve had everyone from kids learning to play to professional musicians, including members of the San Gabriel Valley Symphony.

Some of the players are so good that Yang admits he’s now a little shy about taking his turn.

“I’m afraid to play because they are so good,” he said.

Longer droughts, more extreme heat, greater wildfire risk and more beach erosion: A new state-commissioned report finds that climate change is likely to reshape the Southern California landscape and way of life.

The study, which comes as part of California’s fifth statewide climate change assessment, includes more detailed models than previous reports.

“What we want to highlight with this report is not how doom and gloom everything is, but just to look at climate change in the L.A. area as something that is inevitable, but which we can adapt to, and in particular, protect the most vulnerable,” said UCLA climate researcher Jesse Norris, the lead author of the report focused on Los Angeles.

Sea level rise and beach erosion

If the recent stories of beach and coastline erosion have you concerned, buckle up. The report notes local coastal erosion rates are expected to triple by 2050.

Citing past research, the authors also note that coastal flooding is expected to quickly intensify in the mid-2030s and become a yearly event by the mid-21st century.

Between one-third and two-thirds of the region’s beaches are expected to be lost in the next 75 years.

Researchers found that in L.A. County, about 1,700 housing units are at risk of being permanently inundated. But if sea levels rise by 3.3 feet — which is possible by 2100 — 9,000 units would be at risk of being permanently flooded.

And if sea levels rise by 6.6 feet, which researchers described as an “extreme” scenario, flooding could be widespread during a 100-year wave event. In this scenario, large swaths of urban L.A. and Orange counties could be flooded, though it’s important to note the projections don’t account for any future infrastructure that may be built.

Extreme heat

Temperatures are expected to rise 4 degrees Fahrenheit between 2041 and 2070 — adding to the 4 degrees of warming that have already happened since 1900.

Researchers say those effects are more pronounced in inland areas, which are also projected to see more days of extreme heat. The average hottest day of the year is expected to rise to 115 degrees by midcentury.

Microclimates play a role

Most of the hazards predicted in the report will be familiar to Southern Californians, even as the effects are expected to intensify and become more common during climate change.

“It was quite striking to see how much more vulnerable certain locations are than others to different climate hazards,” Norris said. “In particular, the more inland areas being far more vulnerable to the increase in extreme heat, mountain communities being far more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme rain and flooding as well as reduced snowpack, and coastal areas being obviously far more vulnerable to the impacts of rising seas.”

Planning

Norris stressed that planning for these effects can be undertaken now. One example: increasing tree cover to mitigate heat.

“A lot of inland cities are thinking very seriously about increasing their tree canopies, increasing the ability for people to have shade as they're going about their business,” Norris said.

Norris highlighted the importance of protecting the most vulnerable in these situations, including people experiencing homelessness and those who work outdoors, and ensuring access to air conditioning and cooling centers.

Norris also said continuing and improving initiatives like active wildfire management, water management and coastal adaptation will be vital in the years to come.