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Today’s top stories

Lebanese and Israeli military officials are set to meet today in Washington. Iran has insisted that it will not sign a deal with the U.S. unless there is an end to the war in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the militant group Hezbollah. Vice President Vance said last night that there wasn’t yet a U.S.-Iran agreement, but that officials are very close. Over the past week, U.S. and Iranian officials have discussed potential agreements to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and postponing nuclear talks for later. A sticking point in these negotiations has included Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium.

• 🎧 The Lebanese government doesn’t have a lot of leverage going into today’s meeting, NPR’s Jane Arraf tells Up First. Since its formation in the 1980s in response to an Israeli invasion, Hezbollah has become an integral part of the Lebanese state and wields considerable power in the country. Recently, Arraf sat down with Hezbollah spokesman Youssef al-Zein in Beirut, who said the group would not disarm while Lebanon is under attack. Currently, Lebanon is supposed to be under a ceasefire, but Israeli strikes have persisted. Lebanese culture minister Ghassan Salameh tells NPR those strikes have put important Roman sites and a crusader castle at risk. He says he hopes there will be a ceasefire soon so they can assess the damage.
• ➡️ After more than three months of a government-imposed internet blackout, people in Iran can go online again.

The Justice Department has launched an investigation related to writer E. Jean Carroll, a perceived political adversary of President Trump. Carroll won two separate lawsuits against the president for sexual abuse and defamation. Investigators are looking into whether Carroll committed perjury during her deposition related to civil lawsuits she brought against him.

• 🎧 The focal point of the investigation is the nonprofit organization American Future Republic and the funding it provided for some of Carroll’s legal expenses, a source familiar with the matter tells NPR’s Ryan Lucas. This nonprofit is backed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who is a major donor to Democratic causes. Investigators are looking into potential money laundering and obstruction. In a 2022 deposition, Carroll said no outside parties were helping with those legal bills, but it later emerged that Hoffman’s nonprofit was. An appeals court found that there was no evidence indicating Carroll personally secured the outside funding. There is conflicting information regarding whether Carroll herself is currently under investigation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago issued a statement last night denying reports that it had opened an investigation into her. During the 2024 election, Trump said he would seek vengeance on his perceived enemies if he won. Lucas says the Justice Department has repeatedly used its powers to do that, but has also “repeatedly flamed out” in these cases. Even so, these investigations and prosecutions impose real costs and hardships on those who are targeted, Lucas says.

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is working to revamp the network’s most prestigious program, 60 Minutes. Yesterday, she dismissed the executive producer who was a veteran of several decades, two correspondents and a pair of senior news leaders from the show. Weiss has appointed Nick Bilton, who hasn’t done broadcast news work, as the new executive producer of the show. The new owners of CBS brought Weiss in last fall with the goal of shifting coverage away from what they believe to be a “woke” and anti-Trump tilt.

• 🎧 Bilton aims to reinvent 60 Minutes for the digital age, making it more accessible than just on Sundays, NPR’s David Folkenflik says. All major news outlets are seeking a path to digital success, but Bilton has the support of the Ellison family, which owns not only CBS but also Oracle and TikTok U.S. If Weiss makes the show a hit both online and on-air, she’ll benefit from that success for a long time. But Folkenflik says if it fails, the blame will fall on her, and her critics will see that as validation.

A federal judge has decided not to block Trump’s executive order that calls for restricting voting by mail. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump nominee based in Washington, D.C., issued the ruling yesterday, allowing the order to remain in effect for now. This executive order, released on March 31, directs the Department of Homeland Security to collaborate with the Social Security Administration to compile lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state and provide these lists to state election officials. It also calls for the U.S. Postal Service to create lists of eligible voters and only deliver mail-in ballots to those individuals. Judge Nichols found that it is too early for the court to issue an emergency ruling to halt key aspects of Trump’s order, since those directives have not yet been implemented. His ruling comes as another federal judge prepares to issue a decision in a similar set of lawsuits based in Boston, expected as early as June.

Church and State

This week at NPR, we’re going to explore the increased intermixing of God and government in a new series we’re calling Church and State. It’s an idea that has been gaining momentum through the first and second Trump administrations, not only within U.S. politics but also throughout American culture, in songs and paintings, schoolbooks and worship events infused with faith and politics.

Ohio state Rep. Gary Click has been working to pass the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act since last year. The bill would permit the teaching of the positive impact of “Judeo-Christian” values in U.S. history. The state House has already passed the legislation, and it is now in the Senate. While a couple of other states have similar bills, none are named after Kirk, the conservative activist whose rhetoric has both offended and resonated with many. Click hopes his bill will serve as a model for other potential legislation. Opponents argue that the bill is unnecessary and could offer a skewed perspective of history. They express concerns about the potential blending of Christianity with lawmaking. Dive into both sides of the argument here.

Behind the story

by Here & Now’s Chris Bentley and Peter O’Dowd

Not even the most remote corners of the country are beyond the all-consuming gaze of artificial intelligence. This month, we made a whistle-stop tour of three states in the West to find out how AI is helping fight wildfires, as part of Here & Now‘s environmental series Reverse Course. And we drove south from Chicago to Illinois farm country for a glimpse at how solar farms and agriculture are sharing the land.

Driving through Illinois, you see lots of corn and soybeans. It’s also increasingly common to see solar panels lining fields where sheep feed on grass, unaware of the pocket-size power plants over their heads. While they often compete for the same land, renewable energy and agriculture can also work together in a system called agrivoltaics. In Illinois, state incentives for community solar are fueling a boom despite cuts at the federal level.

Local governments are also looking for new ways to fight wildfires as the U.S. Forest Service deals with job cuts and restructuring. Artificial intelligence is filling the gap. A growing network of cameras atop mountains and powerlines alerts fire managers of danger at the first sign of smoke.

Sometimes artificial intelligence gets confused. A cloud of dust looks a lot like a smoke plume, after all. But the industry is developing fast. We saw the technology at work in Arizona and Colorado. And after a visit to Alert California’s headquarters in San Diego, the state fire agency told us its cameras caught 915 fires last year before any human called 911.

Both stories showed how economics and local policies are pushing new technology with implications for climate change, which fit nicely into the “local lessons” theme of this year’s NPR Climate Solutions week.

Weekend picks

Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:

🍿 Movies: There will be something for everyone at the movie theaters this summer, from sequels and reboots to romance and action-packed films. Here are 15 titles to look forward to.

📺 TV: In Netflix’s new sci-fi monster mystery, The Boroughs, something strange is stirring at a retirement community in the desert and a septuagenarian Scooby Gang is investigating exactly what it could be.

📚 Books: The End of the Sahara by Saïd Khatibi focuses on the murder of a nightclub singer, while An Enigma by the Sea by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini follows a detective investigating the disappearance of three people. “These new books could hardly be less alike, except for one thing: Each is, in its unconventional way, quite brilliant,” NPR’s Fresh Air pop culture critic John Powers says.

🎵 Music: It’s Drake Week on the Billboard charts, as the rapper breaks records for sheer quantity. His three new albums have debuted in the top three, with ICEMAN leading at No. 1.

🍗 Food: Get the grill ready because summer barbecue season is approaching. Looking for new recipes to try? WBUR has you covered with these options.

❓Quiz: I hope you’ve been paying attention to this week’s newsletters, as they will have prepared you well for most of the questions. Test your memory skills here.

3 things to know before you go

1. Nutmeg is a commonly used spice, but it is also one of the most sought-after soccer tricks. With the World Cup just around the corner, there is no better time for this week’s installment of NPR’s Word of the Week focused on the term.
2. After years of legal battles, Orthodox Jewish women in Israel can now take the official rabbinic exams. While the country’s Orthodox religious authorities still refuse to officially ordain women as rabbis, this opportunity could open doors to other leadership roles.
3. Officials say fatal subway surfing incidents in New York City remain persistent due to easily accessible subway keys, MTA radios and an underground, engagement-focused social media community. (via Gothamist)

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.