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Today's top stories
A grand jury in Virginia has indicted former FBI Director James Comey on charges of obstructing justice and making a false statement to Congress. The charges come after President Trump demanded prosecutors pick up the pace in building a case against one of his most prominent critics. The president has targeted Comey for years, blaming him for the appointment of a special prosecutor who probed connections between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign through much of his first term in office.
- 🎧 NPR's Carrie Johnson tells Up First it's a "bare bones" indictment, coming in at only two full pages. However, Trump said Comey is at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes. Last week, the White House forced out a career prosecutor who raised doubts about the strength of evidence in the Comey case. Lindsey Halligan, an insurance lawyer with no prosecutor experience, was then ushered into the role. The Justice Department must demonstrate that Comey knowingly lied about a significant matter for the charges to be upheld. Johnson says Comey may be able to argue that he is being prosecuted out of vindictiveness, given the president's remarks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday summoned the Pentagon's top commanders from around the world to a meeting in Virginia next week. The Pentagon has not released why the unusual gathering was called or what the plans are.
- 🎧 NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman says he hasn't heard of anything on this scale happening before. He says, at times, the Pentagon has brought in combatant commanders, who oversee military operations around the world, for annual meetings. But this is very different in numbers. Hegseth discussed reducing the number of admirals and generals during his confirmation. Bowman says this could be the reason for the meeting, but that isn't known for sure.
The U.S. government plans to collect a multibillion-dollar fee from the American investors set to take over TikTok's U.S. operations. The Trump administration recently approached the investors, who include tech mogul Larry Ellison and the Murdochs, to inquire if they would make a payment to the federal government in "in the low billions," according to a person with direct knowledge of the talks. Their response was an unequivocal yes. Some experts call the fee and other deals like it "extortion."
Picture show
Works from photographer Sally Mann can be seen at major art institutions around the world. But this year, police seized four of her most celebrated photographs. In one, a toddler is asleep, sprawled across a bed she wetted, and in another, a popsicle drips on her son's lower body, genitals included. The images are part of her Immediate Family series that has been displayed for over 30 years. The Danbury Institute, a conservative Christian advocacy group, accused the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas of displaying "child pornography" in a December 2024 open letter, which was backed by local elected officials. Mann anticipates there will be more attacks on art by people who don't understand the works they are vilifying. Read more about what Mann says is a "new era of culture wars" and see photos of some of Mann's works throughout the years. Listen to what she has to say about the seizure of her art or read the transcript.
Weekend picks
Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:
🍿 Movies: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a romantic fantasy film starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. In it, they play two strangers traveling in a rental car with a magical GPS that directs them to doors leading them into scenes from the past.
📺 TV: Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey star in the HBO series Task, a gripping crime thriller about an FBI agent who is reluctantly drawn back into the field to investigate a series of drug-related crimes.
📚 Books: In Will There Ever Be Another You, the main character struggles with an illness similar to long COVID, descending into a state of debility and psychosis as readers experience the chaos of her unraveling life.
🎵 Music: Twenty One Pilots proves rock and roll is alive and well with its album Breach, landing atop the Billboard 200 chart this week.
🎭 Theater: Chess Jakobs' new play, The American Five, explores the story behind how Martin Luther King Jr. and his closest allies organized the March on Washington. NPR speaks with Jakobs and Ro Boddie, who portrays King. Listen to their discussion or read the transcript.
🎮 Games: Good news for Silent Hill fans! The newest edition, Silent Hill f, is one of the boldest, darkest, goriest, and outright best games in the entire series, says NPR's Vincent Acovino.
❓Quiz: Well, this week wasn't my best work. I got four questions wrong, but I know you will do better than I did. Give it a try.
3 things to know before you go
- Starbucks intends to eliminate 900 corporate jobs and close some of its stores in the U.S. and Canada as the company approaches the one-year mark of its turnaround plan.
- Amazon has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a landmark case over its Prime membership program. The U.S. government claimed the company made it difficult for millions of people to cancel subscriptions.
- Squirrels may be cute, but fair warning, they can attack. Residents in Marin County, Calif., learned this the hard way when at least three people from one neighborhood were sent to the hospital after being attacked by one squirrel. (via KQED)
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
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