NPR News: 09-14-2026 11PM EDT

0:00This message comes from Wealthfront. Earn a high APY on all your cash in a Wealthfront cash account. No more juggling between checking and savings, just one account that delivers the best of both and makes every dollar work harder. Get started at Wealthfront.com. Cash account offered by Wealthfront brokerage LLC, member Finder SIPC, not a bank. Funds are swept to program banks where they earn the variable APY. Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. The Supreme Court has rejected President Trump's push for new mail-in voting restrictions for the midterm elections and PR's Hanselow Long reports. The Supreme Court ruling means the U.S. Postal Service is expected to continue delivering balance as usual for the midterm general election. At issue was whether the Postal Service has the authority to refuse to deliver mail and balance to voters in states where election officials do not turn over voter lists to the mailing agency and do not have certain barcodes on their ballot envelopes. We should note U.S. P.S. is a financial support of NPR. The Postal Service issued those requirements in response to an executive order by President Trump. A federal judge in Boston blocked them after finding that U.S. P.S. has no authority

1:03to impose them on states. Now the Supreme Court has decided to keep the judges ruling in place. Voting by mail has already started in some states, including Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. And more states are set to use U.S. P.S. to melt their balance as planned. Hanselow Long and PR News. Homeland Security whistleblowers, as federal agents, may have broken state laws to pursue President Trump's voter fraud priorities. And PR's Miles Parc's reports that the whistleblower's account was made public today by Democratic senators. The Department of Homeland Security has been ramping up its search for voter fraud in recent weeks. That's been combing state voter rolls the department acquired and checking them against other federal data sources that track citizenship. But the whistleblower reports has been a rushed process that has not taken state law into account. Investigators are supposed to review dozens of cases per day. And the whistleblower says those investigators were instructed to make false claims on state government websites in order to access data that is only supposed to be accessed by the voter themselves. The report was made public by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Alex Padilla

2:04of California. Miles Parc's and PR News Washington. Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is pledging to do his best to be present for tough votes after a three month long absence McConnell returned to the Senate Monday. His absence following a fall in his home raised questions about his ability to serve in Congress. A nationwide study finds that military veterans have hired levels of what are known as forever chemicals in their blood. The chemicals are linked to cancer and liver failure as in PR's quill Lawrence reports. The study published in environmental health perspectives found that 58% of veterans have elevated levels of PFAS in their blood. That's associated with illnesses like kidney or test is cancer, liver or cardiovascular disease. The lead author of the study Christian Hoover at Brown University says young veterans in particular had levels 18% higher than their civilian counterparts. If you are a veteran that is between 20 and 39, I really strongly advise that they get tested and that they consult with their physicians.

3:05But PFAS blood testing isn't covered by VA health insurance or offered at VA medical centers. VA is currently, quote, re-evaluating blood testing in accordance with new federal research. Quill Lawrence and PR News. Asian shares are mixed in Tuesday trading. You're listening to NPR News. Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back Biden-era rules on carbon emissions from coal and gas-mire power plants. The agency's repeal of a rule aimed at limiting planet warming emissions was first proposed last year. The EPA also moving to prevent future administrations from regulating climate pollution from power plants. An annual survey on the global state of democracy shows key indicators of U.S. democracy have fallen to their lowest levels in 50 years. NPR's Rob Schmitt's reports. The survey is conducted by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Its global state of democracy report shows that nearly half of the 30 indicators used to measure U.S. democracy, things like press freedom, judicial independence

4:08and freedom of expression, are at their lowest levels since the global survey began 50 years ago. 57% of the country's survey showed declines in at least one key indicator of democratic performance between 2020 and 2025. Rule of law was the weakest performing area of democracy globally with 71 countries, 41% of those assessed, ranked as, quote, low performing. There were some encouraging signs of democratic renewal in countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Poland, Sri Lanka and Syria. Rob Schmitt's and Pair News. History was made at tonight's Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. The Welsh actor Matthew Reece won in two lead actor categories for his work in Widows Bay and the Beast and Me. And Jean Smart won her fifth straight lead actress, Emmy, for her role in Hacks, making her the first woman to win best actress for each season of a show's run. This is NPR. This message comes from IXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get

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