Donald Trump returns to Washington newly empowered.

The Republican party has remade itself in his image. The Supreme Court has granted him sweeping immunity for his official actions. And, unlike last time, he narrowly won the popular vote.

And Trump is prepared to exercise his new power almost immediately. He's pledged to sign an unprecedented wave of executive actions – many of which will be challenged in court.

These actions include one making it U.S. policy to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes – male and female. And his administration would end birthright citizenship — a right explicitly protected by the Constitution.

President Donald Trump's executive actions could make fundamental changes to some of the foundations of American government.

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When he ran for office in 2020, President Joe Biden vowed to turn the page on then president Donald Trump. But it's Trump who is returning to the White House for a second term in office.

We speak with NPR's Asma Khalid, who covered the Biden administration, on the legacy he leaves behind.

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Will Rogers State Historic Park is a vast stretch of natural space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a treasure to Angelenos. People get married there, picnic there, and have kids' birthday parties on the great lawn.

The park's namesake, Will Rogers, was a vaudeville performer, radio and movie star, and was known as America's "cowboy philosopher."

His nearly century-old ranch house is the park's centerpiece. It's survived a near miss with wildfire before. Last week, as firestorm engulfed large parts of Los Angeles, this piece of American history was reduced to rubble.

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At the time we publish this episode, Israel's government has yet to accept the terms of the long-negotiated and hard fought ceasefire deal announced yesterday.

The deal is still on, but the quarreling over the details demonstrates how difficult it is to keep the agreement on track.

On Thursday morning Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed a cabinet vote on the deal, accusing Hamas of "reneging" on parts of the agreement.

A Hamas official said on social media that the group is committed to the agreement announced Wednesday.

After more than 15 long months, tens of thousands dead, and close to 2 million people displaced, will we finally see an end to the war in Gaza?

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Confirmation hearings for Trump's cabinet picks are in full swing on Capitol Hill with a number of them appearing before the Senate this week.

Nominees including Pam Bondi, Trump's pick to run the Justice Department, John Ratcliffe, his pick to run the CIA, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio Trump's nominee for Secretary of State have all answered questions about what they'll do and what they won't do if confirmed.

Rubio and Ratcliffe will play key foreign policy roles under the 47th president.

Those are the people, but what do they tell us about the policy?

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On a shelf in his office at CIA headquarters, Director Bill Burns keeps a tiny scaled model of a house. It's the house in Kabul, Afghanistan, where Al Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2022.

When NPR went out to interview him last week, Burns pointed to the exact balcony on which Zawahiri was standing. There was pride in his voice. The CIA had never stopped looking for the guy even more than two decades after 9/11.

But it was also a reminder of challenges, of adversaries that will outlast any single CIA director.

Now, as Burns wraps up four years running the Central Intelligence Agency, the challenges have multiplied and intensified.

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"Wildfire" is the word we tend to use when we talk about what Los Angeles has been dealing with the past week.
But Lori Moore-Merrell, the U.S. Fire Administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency used a different word, when she spoke to NPR this morning.

She described a "conflagration." Saying they're not wildland fires with trees burning. They're structure to structure fire spread.

They may have started at the suburban fringe, but they didn't stay there. Which prompts a question: what happens when fire meets city?

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From handling crises in the rail and airline industries to overseeing the distribution of billions of dollars in infrastructure funding, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has taken on a lot over the last four years.

Now, his tenure is coming to an end.

Host Scott Detrow speaks with Buttigieg about what the Biden administration accomplished, what it didn't get done, and what he's taking away from an election where voters resoundingly called for something different.

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While the debate over homeless policy plays out across the country, Project HOME has offered resources to homeless people in Philadelphia for decades. We talk with the co-founder, who just retired after 35 years. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [email protected].

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Jimmy Carter's four years in the White House were largely defined by an event that took place halfway through his term.

On November 4th, 1979 Iranian college students took over the US Embassy in Tehran, and took 52 Americans hostage.

For the next 444 days, the Carter administration tried to secure the hostages' release. In April, 1980 they even commissioned a rescue mission that ended in failure.

While Carter was trying to end the hostage crisis, he was also campaigning for a second term. A year to the day after the Americans were taken hostage, Ronald Reagan beat Carter in a landslide.

The hostage crisis played a key role in Carter's defeat.

The Iranian Hostage crisis helped doom Jimmy Carter's presidency, but for some of the people he helped free, he was a hero.

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