Congress okays Trump’s NPR and PBS funding cut

This story appeared in The Logoff, a day by day e-newsletter that helps you keep knowledgeable in regards to the Trump administration with out letting political information take over your life. Subscribe right here.Welcome to The Logoff: The Home handed a invoice clawing again billions in federal funding for international help and public media early Friday morning, sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature.What does the invoice do? The invoice, referred to as a rescissions bundle, focused about $9 billion in complete funding and originates from a White Home request to withdraw funding that had already been allotted. The overwhelming majority of that cash comes from international help packages. The rest, some $1.1 billion, was cash for the Company for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS, NPR, and their affiliate stations.What does this imply for international help? The rescissions request impacts $7.9 billion in international help spending, together with cash for migration and refugee help, worldwide peacekeeping, improvement help, and catastrophe reduction.One international help program, PEPFAR, escaped. A $400 million lower to the enormously efficient HIV/AIDS prevention program, which has saved hundreds of thousands of lives in its 20-plus years of existence, was faraway from the rescissions bundle after pushback by Senate Republicans.What about public media? Nationwide Public Radio receives solely a small portion of its funding from CPB, however the cuts stand to affect native affiliate stations and PBS extra considerably. CPB warned in an announcement that the invoice’s passage will imply “many native public radio and tv stations can be pressured to close down,” and famous it may additionally affect entry to emergency alerts.Why does this matter? This was a comparatively small sum of money within the context of the federal finances, however the misplaced funding may have actual impacts. The invoice additionally displays an ongoing effort by Trump to grab the facility of the purse from Congress. As Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, certainly one of two Republican senators to oppose the measure, put it, “What we’re getting now’s a path from the White Home and being instructed, ‘That is the precedence. We wish you to execute on it.’”And with that, it’s time to log out…Twenty-six new websites had been simply added to the UNESCO World Heritage Listing, bringing the whole to 1,248. The brand new additions embrace 4 palaces in Germany, constructed by Bavaria’s “Mad King,” Ludwig II; the coastal and marine ecosystems of the Bijagós Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau; and putting stone megaliths in northern France. NPR has the complete listing right here — it’s a enjoyable reminder of variety and sweetness all world wide.