NPR News: 09-04-2026 9PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. A federal judge in Boston has again blocked the U.S. Postal Services Plan to follow and order by President Trump. That order seeks to restrict mail-in voting for the midterm election. As impires Hansi Loh Wang reports, the Supreme Court is already set to review the Postal Services Plan. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Tawani effectively extends an earlier court order stopping the U.S. Postal Service from moving head with key parts of its plan. We should note U.S. PS is a financial supporter of NPR. The Postal Services Plan involves delivering mail-in ballots only to people on voter lists that the states would have to turn over to the mail agency. Judge Tawani found that plan is likely illegal because U.S. PS has no authority to control voting by mail. While the legal fight continues, mail-in voting for the midterm election has officially started with North Carolina just beginning to send out its absentee ballots. Hansi Loh Wang and PR News. The price of diesel is at a record high today, $5.85 a gallon, according to AAA.

1:05But those prices have been ticking up for months amid global shortages, and due in part to the war in Iran. Some of you as Willa Rubin has more on how this is playing out for one farmer. Dale Heminger runs a Darian cabbage farm in upstate New York, and diesel is his fuel. We have to run tractors and harvesters and trucks, and they almost exclusively run on diesel. The cost for a gallon of diesel is up about $2 over the past year. That means fuel has cost Heminger close to $45,000 for a tank of $10,000 gallons. Last year, it was $25,000. It's really putting a pinch on things. And because crop prices are often set in advance, there isn't much wiggle room. We're price takers. We can't just pass it on, so we have to weather the storm. He says they're bracing for the harvest and for the next six months to be very tight financially. Willa Rubin and PR News.

2:06A federal judge in Minnesota has ruled against Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company in its challenge to ban on explicit, deep fake photos. As impires Bobby Allen reports, Musk's lawyers argue the ban is a free speech violation. Musk's XAI lets users generate sexual images using artificial intelligence, including realistic looking images that remove people's clothes. After a law in Minnesota banned AI services known as Nudify Apps, XAI sued, alleging that the rules violate the First Amendment. Now a federal judge in Minnesota is allowing the state to enforce its crackdown on sexually explicit, deep fakes, but Musk's suit can go forward in the meantime. Other states, including Texas and California, have passed laws targeting the proliferation of AI-powered Nudify Apps. Bobby Allen and PR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. The commissioner of the WNBA will step down at the end of this year. Kathy Engelbert has led the league since 2019 through a boom in popularity,

3:11along with some growing pains. NPR's Becky Sullivan has more. Kathy Engelbert was the first person to be named WNBA commissioner. Before her, the league's top executive was merely president. Since she came on in 2019, the league has grown tremendously in ratings and attendance. Earlier this year, the league finalized a new media rights deal worth more than $3 billion over the next 11 years. She oversaw historic new union contract agreed to last winter, and the league is in the middle of expanding from 12 teams to 18. Her critics say the WNBA should have done even more to capitalize on the arrival of young superstar players with big fan bases like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, and plenty of complaints do still persist, such as the quality of officiating and keeping players safe from harassment. Becky Sullivan and PR News. Golf carts are popular with tourists, but Rome, Italy isn't on board. The city is mounting a crackdown, as hundreds of the carts start carrying tourists through the historic center. The critics say the drivers are parking illegally and making congestion worse, but advocates

4:15say the carts are silent, they occupy less space than tourist vans and buses, and they don't produce air-choking exhaust that also stains the historic monuments. Wall Street lower by the closing bell of the Dow down 271 points, NASDAQ down 77, S&P 500 down 29. I'm Jeanine Herbst, NPR News in Washington. As the political landscape shifts beneath our feet, we're all vulnerable to a well-funded distraction economy determined to take our eye off the bomb. Our weekly politics series, if you can keep it, is here to help where our focus is not the horse race, but the stay. We tackle the big political stories of the day and why they matter for our democracy. Join me Todd Zwilland and me Jen White on the 1A Podcast from WAMU and NPR.