NPR News: 03-27-2026 12PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. New movement today on Department of Homeland Security funding that gets TSA agents paid again and security checkpoints staffed up enough to spare travelers from having to wait hours in line. Early this morning, the U.S. Senate voted to fund DHS. Now the House is considering it. And Pierre Sam Greenglas says the bill does not include any reforms to immigration enforcement tactics, the Democrats wanted. The DHS funding lapse has forced tens of thousands of employees to work without pay or quit and resulted in long waits at some airports amid peak spring break travel. If the House signs off on the deal today, money will flow again to FEMA, TSA, the Coast Guard and Cybersecurity. The deal came after a week of erratic negotiations and President Trump moving to unilaterally pay TSA agents be an executive order. That say they stood firm on no new funding for ICE and border patrol and will keep pressing

1:00for reforms like requiring judicial warrants for immigration officers to enter homes. But Republicans are now signaling the time to negotiate has passed. Sam Greenglas NPR News, Washington. Maggie Sabatino says the showdown makes a person, quote, feel like a pawn on a chess sport between two players who don't know how to play the game. Sabatino is a union rep for TSA workers at Philadelphia International Airport. She is questioning why President Trump waited until last night to announce an emergency order to pay TSA agents again. That makes you think hard. If he can order DHS to pay us now, why wait 42 days? Why wait the last time 43 days? Why have a four day stint in between? Why wasn't this done automatically? Sabatino and NPR is mourning edition. Israel is committing more troops to its ground invasion of southern Lebanon. It's trying to wipe out his Bullah, which is backed by Iran.

2:00Secretary of State Marco Rubio has arrived in France to join a meeting of G-7 foreign ministers to talk about the war in the Middle East as well as the war in Eastern Europe between Russia and Ukraine. We have more from NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. President Trump's request of NATO G-7 allies to help reopen the maritime route largely fell on deaf ears. Meanwhile, Trump has turned his back on Russia's aggressive war on Ukraine, which continues unabated. Alexander de Houp-Chefer, president of the Nonpartisan Policy Group, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, says the two wars actually intersect and show how much the transatlantic allies need each other. Europeans still need a strong U.S. involvement in the European's theaters, and President Trump have made it clear that they need European allies, and they need European allies support in reopening the Hormuz Strait. Eleanor Beardsley bringing us that story from Paris. It's NPR news.

3:02There have been verdicts this week into landmark trials against social media companies. The verdicts have determined that the design of social media platforms are harmful to children's mental health. NPR's Ritu Chatterjee reports on recent studies of social media use among children and teens. Scientists studying the impacts of digital media use and adolescent brain development have been asking kids about symptoms of addiction to screens in social media. Peter Trishan, Dr. Jason Nagata, is at the University of California San Francisco and one of the researchers looking into this. We found that like 16% of 11 to 12 year olds said that they tried to use their social media apps less but couldn't 18% said that they use social media apps to forget about their problems. Nagata and others have also found that such compulsive use of screens in social media are linked to mental health symptoms like depression and even suicidality. Ritu Chatterjee in PR news.

4:02The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is now serving out a 27 year sentence for a coup attempt under House arrest. The country Supreme Court approved the form of his confinement from the grounds of a penitentiary to his residence in an upscale gated community on the grounds of Bolsonaro's failing health. The 71 year old was hospitalized roughly two weeks ago for pneumonia. He was discharged today. His confinement could be reviewed in 90 days. The Dow is down 421 points at 45,539. It's NPR News.