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    E.U. Offers Emergency Funding for Radio Free Europe After Trump Cuts

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    The European Union said it would provide short-term financing for Radio Free Europe, but the amount falls short of what the news outlet says it needs to stay afloat.The European Union said Tuesday that it was stepping in to provide emergency funding to Radio Free Europe, though the promised amount fell far short of what the news organization said it needed to stay afloat after the Trump administration froze federal support.Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, announced that the bloc would provide 5.5 million euros ($6.2 million) to support Radio Free Europe, which provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedoms.“In a time of growing, unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” Ms. Kallas said. But she added that the funding would be for the short term and that the European Union could not make up the news outlet’s entire shortfall.Since taking office in January, President Trump has ordered the dismantling of Radio Free Europe’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which provides the broadcaster with $12 million in congressional funding each month. A U.S. District Court judge initially paused Mr. Trump’s termination of the congressional grants, but this month a federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration could continue to withhold the funds.Stephen Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said on Tuesday that he was grateful for the emergency E.U. funding to keep the operation running “for a short while longer.” He said that the news organization was continuing to fight in court for the release of congressionally appropriated funds.“RFE/RL’s survival remains at risk as long as those funds are withheld,” he said in a statement.The news organization on Tuesday filed an emergency petition in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking its May funding. Radio Free Europe said last week that it had received its April funding from Congress, though it came six weeks later than scheduled, forcing the news organization to reduce programming and staff.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been funded by Congress since it began broadcasting during the Cold War, reports on human rights and corruption in several countries run by authoritarian governments. In the 1980s, it reported on the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, details of which the Soviet authorities had obscured.Today, it broadcasts in 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus. More

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      Audio Data Shows Newark Outage Problems Persisted Longer Than Officials Said

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      <!–> [–><!–>On April 28, controllers at a Philadelphia facility managing air traffic for Newark Liberty International Airport and smaller regional airports in New Jersey suddenly lost radar and radio contact with planes in one of the busiest airspaces in the country.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>On Monday, two weeks after the episode, Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, […] More

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      How Lost Radar and Silent Radios Have Upended Newark Air Travel

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      On a recent afternoon in Philadelphia, an air traffic controller began shouting that he had lost his radar feed for planes flying in and out of Newark Liberty International Airport.Some of his colleagues still had radar but their radios went dead, prompting frantic calls to their counterparts in New York urging them to keep their planes away from Newark’s airspace.Then, for 30 harrowing seconds until the radios came back, there was nothing more to do but hope — as they had no means of telling pilots how to avoid crashing their planes into one another.Shortly after that, one controller discovered a trainee, who had been directing Newark traffic under supervision just moments earlier, shaking in the hallway.That was the chaotic scene on Monday, April 28, according to several people who were present when controllers working the airspace for Newark lost the means to do their jobs.The failure of the system the controllers rely on left several of those on duty that day with extreme anxiety, requiring a mental health respite that has caused low staffing levels for days since. It has also prompted more than 1,000 flights at one of the nation’s busiest airports to be canceled or delayed, leaving some passengers feeling frustrated and abandoned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The week in audio: Die Die DEI; Drama on 4: The Film; Good Hang with Amy Poehler; Confessions of a Female Founder and more

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      The Slow Newscast: Die Die DEI (Tortoise Media)Drama on 4: The Film (Radio 4) | BBC SoundsGood Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan (Lemonada)Working Hard, Hardly Working (Grace Beverley) | Apple podcastsThe Slow Newscast is usually worth a listen. Take Die Die DEI, from the week before last. Queasy and pointed, it tackles the issue of the Trump administration’s “war on woke”. As soon as the orange man-baby got into office, his government started shutting down inclusion programmes, and corporate US followed. Why? It’s not about saving money, or terminology-wrangling. It’s far more deeply prejudiced.View image in fullscreenWritten and presented by Stephen Armstrong, the show focuses on one particular member of the Trump administration: the deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller. Described baldly by one contributor as “a violently rightwing racist who is pushing a white nationalist agenda”, he is far from a nice guy. But Armstrong is wise enough to tell Miller’s story gradually. He was brought up in liberal, multiracial Santa Monica, California. Yet as a kid he dumps one of his friends by telling him exactly why he doesn’t like him. “Among that list of things,” recalls the friend, “was my Latino heritage. That was one of the things that disqualified me from being his friend.”We follow Miller through his college years, a controversial rape case (not his: he supported some lacrosse players who were falsely accused of sexual assault) and into the Senate. There, he uses the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approach against itself, telling white people that they are, in fact, victims. “Hijacked victimhood” is what it’s called: the idea that your lifestyle – your life – is put in a precarious position because other people are different from you. The way Miller plays it, it’s a zero-sum game. You must triumph and “they” – people not like you – must be vanquished.Armstrong’s script is excellent. I could quote from any part of the show, but he really hits his stride towards the end. “Don’t get distracted by absurdities. This administration is throwing out so many bouncing, multicoloured balls that it’s almost impossible to focus on what’s important. The trick is to watch Stephen Miller. When he says something, it matters… The truth is, his views haven’t changed since he dumped his best friend for being Latino.”There’s something at once modern and classic about Armstrong’s script, and I thought about this while listening to Drama on 4: The Film, a small gem of a radio play about a movie. Its subject is a true story. In 1945, Sidney Bernstein, a film-maker and producer, was given hundreds of hours of footage from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shot by British army crews for the Ministry of Information, the footage was basic but devastating, full of appalling, cruel, hellish murder. How to make this into a film that would both engage and expose the public to the horrors of the Holocaust? How to do justice to the suffering? Amazingly, Bernstein asked Alfred Hitchcock to help. And Hitch, initially reluctant, said yes.Written by Martin Jameson, The Film is a Radio 4 drama of ye olde school: rather stagey, with theatrical speeches and performances. But it’s also nicely paced, well acted, clear, moral. I found myself almost relieved that it exists. Not just because it’s about the Holocaust, which should never be forgotten, but because it’s an interesting real-life story that’s a play, as opposed to an episode of a clever news podcast. Old-fashioned audio.View image in fullscreenHere’s an example of new-fashioned audio, and it’s one that promises much. Amy Poehler, delightfully funny comedian and actor, has decided “about four or five years too late” to give us a podcast. The pitch for Good Hang with Amy Poehler must have had producers drooling: Poehler simply scrolls her contacts list, calls up a famous mate and has a chat, avoiding anything controversial in favour of having a laugh.Her first episode was with Tina Fey, who, being Tina Fey, took over and gave us insight (she works 12 hour days, plus “homework” in the evening) and wit (she’s worried about becoming one of those older Hollywood types who just “tells it like it is”). But, God, it only takes a couple of episodes before we find ourselves riding on fumes. All is slapdash and self-congratulatory. An episode with actor Ike Barinholtz gives us almost nothing. There’s a passing reference to him getting in an ecstasy mess in Amsterdam when he was younger, but we breeze past, and by the end of the show we know him no better. In every episode, Poehler enthuses so much about her guest – to their face! – that it feels performative. She laughs too much and for too long. Are these incredibly successful, creative, funny people so insecure that they need bolstering every other sentence? (Yes, clearly.)View image in fullscreenIn a similar vein, please welcome Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s latest podcast venture, Confessions of a Female Founder. Actually, don’t bother, unless OMG-yes-sister-and-you-look-so-good-while-doing-it is your thing. Honestly, I think it’s just how they talk over there. Their idea of a good hang, or a good podcast, is different from ours, and involves a lot less piss-taking.Meghan’s first show is with Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, but, nope, we don’t learn anything much, except about how Megs and Whits met (it was NYE and Wolfe Herd was wearing a rhinestone cowboy costume! The embarrassment!) and how supportive they are of each other.View image in fullscreenIf you want a decent podcast from a 28-year-old entrepreneur who’s already built three companies and is generous with her business tips, then I recommend Grace Beverley’s Working Hard, Hardly Working, now on episode 133. She also interrupts her guests too much to talk about her own life, but you get far more corporate insight and life practicality. The world, it seems, is full of these frantically perfectionist, success-obsessed, greige-swathed young women trying to get their life to work. I’d say relax, but they can’t. More

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      US judge temporarily blocks Trump from firing Voice of America staff

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      A federal judge on Friday ordered Donald Trump’s administration to temporarily pause its efforts to shut down Voice of America, stopping the government from firing 1,300 journalists and other employees at the US news service that were abruptly placed on leave earlier this month.District judge J Paul Oetken said in a Friday opinion that the Trump administration could not unilaterally terminate Voice of America and related radio programs that were approved and funded by Congress. Rescinding funds for those programs would require congressional approval, the judge wrote.Oetken did not require Voice of America to resume broadcasts, but his order made clear that employees should not be fired until further court proceedings could determine whether the shutdown was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of federal law.“This is a decisive victory for press freedom and the First Amendment, and a sharp rebuke to an administration that has shown utter disregard for the principles that define our democracy,” said Andrew Celli, an attorney for the plaintiffs.The US Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other government-funded media, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.The agency had told unions that it was about to terminate 623 Voice of America employees, a number that “entirely forecloses” any attempt to resume broadcasts at the level envisioned by Congress, according to court documents filed by the plaintiffs.Voice of America was founded to combat Nazi propaganda at the height of the second world war, and it has grown to become an international media broadcaster, operating in more than 40 languages and spreading U.S. news narratives into countries lacking a free press. As a group, US Agency for Global Media employed roughly 3,500 workers with an $886m budget in 2024, according to its latest report to Congress.Voice of America journalists and their unions sued the US Agency for Global Media, its acting director, Victor Morales, and special adviser Kari Lake last week, saying that their shutdown violated the workers’ constitutional first amendment right to free speech.The Voice of America employees’ lawsuit is one of four pending challenges to the Trump administration’s attempted shutdown of government-funded media programs. Other challenges have been filed by Radio Free Europe, a separate group of Voice of America employees, and grant recipient Open Technology Fund.US Agency for Global Media had argued that it had not violated the laws that governed Voice of America’s operations. The agency said in court filings that it had reduced operations to a “statutory minimum” by restoring broadcasts in Cuba and reinstating 33 employees at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. More

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      ‘People feel terrible. They want to laugh’: can comedy make light of Trump 2.0?

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      “When Trump first won, there was almost a novelty to having a character such as him in a position of such vast responsibility – that was a new thing for comedy to address,” said Andy Zaltzman, chair of Radio 4’s The News Quiz and the satirist behind The Bugle podcast and multiple political comedies.The first Trump presidency spawned debate about whether it’s possible to satirise a man whose extreme appearance and rhetoric mean he presents as a walking caricature. The New York Times even ran a piece titled “How President Trump ruined political comedy”.Now comedians in the UK and US are trying to work out how to deal with a second, possibly darker, Trump presidency.“Trump is so ridiculous that he makes comic extrapolation harder,” said Chicago-born, London-based standup Sara Barron, who found much of the comedy targeting Trump “did not provide catharsis”.Zaltzman has just embarked on a tour and, post-election, is writing new jokes exploring the global implications. Trump’s absurdity means there are obvious punchlines, “but it can be harder to get to the heart of the issue”, Zaltzman said.“Comedy is so ubiquitous – anything that happens, there’ll be a thousand memes and TikToks. The challenge is finding an original angle. That’s always been difficult with Trump.”View image in fullscreenPreviously, Zaltzman’s solution was presenting Trump’s brain (a cauliflower) on stage, using chopped-up Trump speeches to make it “speak” about Australian cricketers: “I figured no one else would be taking that angle.”In the run-up to election day, Barron found a personal angle. Coincidentally, her career thrived under Trump’s last tenure, so she made a sketch satirising the instinct of many to think: “This terrible thing is happening, but here’s why it’s OK for me!”Fellow US-born, UK-based standup Janine Harouni isn’t happy that Trump is back but said: “It’s a gift for comedy because people are feeling terrible and they want to laugh.” During Trump’s first term, Harouni produced Stand Up With Janine Harouni (Please Remain Seated), in which she explored the political distance between her left-leaning self and her Trump-supporting father.“I wrote that show because I love my dad and cannot reconcile his political beliefs with how I feel about him personally. My father is also an Arab, son of immigrants, so I was really struggling with that,” Harouni said.She approached this via comedy because it felt so thorny. “Comedy is a release of worry and fear. If you can find a way to laugh at something that upset you, it doesn’t have control any more,” Harouni said. “I wanted it to feel healing and hopeful.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenBarron witnessed that power while performing on election results day – a reminder that comedians can “give people some kind of respite”, she said. “It was an electric gig. Everyone was so happy to be with like-minded people.”Catharsis is a driving force of political comedy, said Zaltzman: “It gives people a chance to laugh at serious news, which is valuable.” It can also challenge authority. “It absolutely has to hold power to account,” said Lewis MacLeod, the voice of Trump on Dead Ringers. “It becomes its own protest, but it’s done with laughs.”MacLeod perfected his Trump impression for the latest series by studying recent interviews. “Listening to him on Joe Rogan was a gift for any mimic. It was uninterrupted; he wasn’t arguing,” he said. “He’s a little bit older, more reflective. There’s this messianic tone.”MacLeod has also started caricaturing Elon Musk, who is likely to play a role in Trump’s administration. “There’s something of a mad, maniacal robot about him,” MacLeod said. There’s the danger of creating satirical impressions that are too likable: “That’s the rub of satire and mimicry.”With Trump’s increased support this time, Zaltzman questions the power of comedy to change minds but said: “The best comedy has elements of creativity and optimism, offering alternative ideas, hopefully that will emerge.”Harouni said, from her experience with her Trump-voting family, there’s reason to feel hopeful: “Not everyone who voted for Trump holds his worst beliefs.” She hopes the political comedy of the next four years considers that. “I like comedy that unites people from different systems of belief,” she said. “I hope people strive for that rather than continue to feed into the divisive narrative that’s driving Americans further apart.” More

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      How local radio plays a pivotal role in securing Latino votes in Colorado

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      When Yadira Caraveo, a Democratic party member, won the race to represent Colorado’s eighth district in the House of Representatives in 2022, she eked out a victory, winning by the narrowest margin of any Democrat in the country. This November, Caraveo is facing yet another close race – one that could determine the balance of Congress.In a district where nearly 40% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, the community will be decisive in crowning a winner. The battle for their votes is mostly playing out not on TV or in town halls, but on social media and local radio.“[Latino voters] are listening to social media and the radio,” said Sonny Subia, Colorado’s volunteer state director for Lulac, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the largest and oldest Hispanic organization in the country.CD-8 stretches from the suburbs of Denver, where voters lean Democratic, to the agricultural areas around Greeley, where voters lean Republican. Caraveo, a pediatrician whose Mexican parents raised their four children in what is now the eighth district, is highlighting her efforts to lower healthcare costs and her ability to work across the aisle to represent a split constituency.View image in fullscreenHer Republican challenger, Gabe Evens, is also Latino. Evans is campaigning on his experience as a farmer and his background in law enforcement and the military, sharing how his Mexican grandfather received two Purple Hearts in the second world war.In CD-8, “people aren’t just one-sided”, said Angel Merlos, strategic director in Colorado of the Libre Initiative, a conservative organization that mobilizes the Hispanic vote around principles of limited government. “You have to make your case as to why you want their vote.”In a race that close, the battle for votes can be fierce. And voting rights groups have been sounding the alarm about disinformation targeting Latinos in the US. In September, the US justice department intervened in operations by Russian state media to spread disinformation about the general election to US audiences, including citizens “of Hispanic descent”.Roughly one in five Latinos prefers to get news from social media, where misinformation has found fertile ground. The key to the potency of mis- and disinformation in 2024 is how much cheaper and easier it is for lies to proliferate on social media platforms that enhance engaging material, said Laura Zommer, CEO and co-founder of Factchequeado, a Spanish-language factchecking organization.Spanish-language radio, too, has at times been a source of misleading and inaccurate information, repeating and reinforcing false narratives that are circulating in the wider information ecosystem. Nearly half of Latinos tune into the radio for news, and Latino immigrants are much more likely than U.S.-born Latinos to say they mainly consume news in Spanish.A 2024 study from the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas found that Latinos are not necessarily more vulnerable to misinformation than the rest of the population. But, the authors concluded, there is a need for culturally competent information, especially targeting more susceptible subgroups including Latinos who are Spanish-dominant and consume more broadcast news and Spanish-language media.In CD-8, a program that compares radio recordings against thousands of factchecked statements from respected organizations identified only a few instances of potential misinformation in a week’s worth of recording nine local Spanish-language stations.

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      For example, on a Monday evening at the end of October on KNRV a news bulletin inaccurately stated that Donald Trump was leading in national polls by nearly 8%, when most polls that day showed Harris in the lead by nearly 2 points. The station advertises that it rents air space to a variety of programs and hosts; this evening news segment came from the Mexican radio network Radio Formula.An ad in another news segment incorrectly cited a recent poll from the Colorado Health Foundation that asked respondents about their major concerns. The ad exaggerated how many Latino respondents expressed extreme worry about not being able to feed their families in the next year.Disinformation uses “content that activates our ire, our grievances, sometimes an incredible hope”, said Zommer. Sometimes the goal is to persuade someone of a lie, and sometimes it can be to sow doubt and mistrust or divide people. “Many times the most successful disinformation has an element of truth and it’s taken out of context, or it has an element of truth and it’s exaggerated,” she said.Conversations heard on the radio in CD-8 reflect heightened tensions around immigration in the local Latino community. Stacy Suniga, president of the Latino Coalition of Weld county said Latinos in her district are hearing more insults in public places like grocery stores. “I think there are issues on top of their issues, with the radical display of racism,” she said.In some instances, the tension is between Latinos. Merlos said Latinos are complaining to Libre organizers about Venezuelan immigrants getting what they see as preferential treatment from the government. On a midday program in mid-October KNRV, a caller expressed frustration with how Denver, like Chicago and New York, had deployed city resources to help newly arrived Venezuelans. “I’m going to go with Trump although he’s not someone I consider a good person,” he said, “but I’m against Biden’s party for what he’s done at the border.”View image in fullscreenThis could be part of a misleading narrative using the arrival of Venezuelan immigrants to drive a wedge between voters. Zommer highlighted the power of “fragmenting, dividing, between whites and Latinos, but also between Latinos: Latinos living, working, paying taxes – and the new Latinos.”Callers and guests are often a source of misleading and inaccurate claims that air on the radio. A 2021 report that analyzed disinformation about January 6 on four Spanish-language radio stations in south Florida found that hosts play an important role in contextualizing and correcting callers on the air. It’s important, as well, for stations to clearly distinguish between news segments and programs that air opinions or commentary.On KNRV, the host immediately jumped in, correcting the caller’s belief that the southern border is “open”, explaining that Venezuelans received political asylum for the crisis happening in their country, and insisting that while it felt unfair, Latinos should not let this issue divide them.For Zommer, this conflict is part of a wider disinformation narrative in effect updating “the big lie”, or the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, for 2024: that the Biden administration has allowed for an open southern border so immigrants can cross and vote in the election. “In this new narrative of disinformation, there is no way to factcheck it because it’s what they’re saying is going to happen in the future.”Jordan Rynning contributed reporting More

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      John Lansing, Who Guided NPR Through Tumultuous Times, Dies at 67

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      He led the broadcasting organization during the coronavirus pandemic, a decline in revenue and a period of extreme political polarization.John Lansing, who as chief executive of NPR from 2019 until earlier this year guided the broadcasting organization through a global pandemic, an imploding media landscape and widening political polarization that called into question some of its journalistic principles, died on Aug. 14 at his home in Eagle River, Wis. He was 67.An NPR representative confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.Mr. Lansing, who had been in the news business since he graduated from high school, arrived at NPR with a mission to broaden its reach beyond traditional radio into media like podcasts and newsletters.He also announced what he considered his “north star”: a commitment to expand NPR’s audience to include a younger and more diverse demographic, and a parallel commitment to diversify, equity and inclusion in its coverage, sources and staff.His changes included documenting the diversity of sources, introducing unconscious bias training and hiring people of color for both on- and off-air positions.“I felt that we needed to double down our efforts in D.E.I. throughout our organization in order to fulfill the promise to reflect the entire American public in terms of what America looks like,” he told Current, a magazine covering public media, in 2021.Mr. Lansing started as NPR’s chief executive in October 2019 and was still settling into the role when the Covid pandemic hit. It presented a very different challenge: Radio listenership declined precipitously with the shift to remote work, and NPR developed a $25 million deficit as corporations pulled back sponsorship dollars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ina Jaffe, Dogged and Award-Winning NPR Reporter, Dies at 75

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      Ms. Jaffe spent decades covering politics and aging in America, and she was the first editor of the NPR program “Weekend Edition Saturday.”Ina Jaffe, an NPR correspondent for roughly 40 years who was known for her unflinching approach to journalism and was the first editor of the network’s initial iteration of the weekly national news show “Weekend Edition Saturday,” died on Thursday. She was 75.Ms. Jaffe, who had been living with metastatic breast cancer for several years, died at a nursing home in Los Angeles, said her husband, Lenny Kleinfeld.Often described by her colleagues at NPR as a “reporter’s reporter,” Ms. Jaffe had a keen sense of the line separating the equitable and the unjust. The breadth of her journalistic expertise grew over the decades, beginning with the politics beat and evolving in later years to analyses that chronicled what it means to grow older in America.In addition to “Weekend Edition,” she contributed stories for the daily afternoon news program “All Things Considered.”In 2012, Ms. Jaffe reported on the Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles leasing large areas of its campus that had been intended to house homeless veterans to unrelated businesses. In part because of a series of stories that she reported, the administration slated more land to be developed to provide housing for homeless veterans. In 2018, two men involved in the lease deals were sentenced on fraud charges.The series won an award from the Society of Professional Journalists and a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More