by Brittney Melton

August 28, 2025

Good morning. The NextGen Acela trains, Amtrak’s fastest fleet, start revenue service today along the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. Here’s the news we’re following today:

As Palestinians suffer under famine, NPR reporters have spoken with over 24 former senior Biden administration officials who were directly involved in shaping U.S. policy towards Israel’s war in Gaza. Many of them shared a common question: Did the U.S. do enough to prevent this? The interviews highlighted tensions within two main camps of the administration regarding how to approach the issue of humanitarian access. One group believes that the U.S. should pressure Israel to follow the Geneva Conventions on civilian protection and aid. The other supports giving Israel space to fight its war with Hamas while secretly advocating for increased aid for affected civilians. A U.N.-backed panel of experts on food insecurity last week confirmed famine in Gaza.

Several Palestinians hold out large bowls in a crammed space as they try to receive aid.

Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images

🎧 Some officials told NPR that the Biden administration helped prevent famine from happening in Gaza, according to NPR’s Kat Lonsdorf, who worked with reporters Fatma Tanis and Tom Bowman on the exclusive. Former officials discussed with them the strong and sometimes bitter arguments about how far the U.S. was willing to go to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including possibly withholding U.S. weapons. There was frustration with Israel; very senior officials, including Biden, would spend hours on the phone with Israel, focusing on specifics of how much aid Gaza was receiving daily. Officials said those conversations often meant that the U.S. was bogged down with those details, sometimes losing the bigger picture.

A 23-year-old shooter opened fire yesterday on a Minneapolis church and school filled with children. Two children were killed and 17 other people were wounded as they attended Mass to mark the first week of school. The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the location of the shooting after firing through the windows of Annunciation Church from outside the building. Here’s what else we know so far.

🎧 Reporter Matt Sepic of Minnesota Public Radio spoke with Pat Scallen, an alum of the school who lives near the location. Scallen says he ran to the scene after hearing the gunshots. When he arrived, he saw several injured children coming out of the building. He stayed and helped a boy and girl with gunshot wounds until ambulances arrived. Police Chief Brian O’Hara says the shooter left behind a video that was scheduled to be posted to YouTube at the time of the shooting. It appears to show Westman at the scene and includes disturbing writings. Law enforcement is working to determine a motive behind the attack.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced yesterday that Susan Monarez, the new director for the Centers for Disease Control, has been fired. Monarez was sworn in less than a month ago. She was President Trump’s second choice after former Congressman Dave Weldon didn’t get enough support in the Senate. Her attorneys say she was targeted for standing up for science.

🎧 NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin tells Up First that a senior CDC leader informed her that Monarez met with senior HHS leadership last week, and it went badly. The meeting seemed to involve a dispute centered around vaccines and the outside vaccine experts whom Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had fired. She has also been pressured to fire senior scientists and bring people back to the office to work, soon after a shooting that happened in her first week in the role. She resisted those pressure points, which appears to have resulted in her firing, says Simmons-Duffin.

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Trombone Shorty in studio in New Orleans. He sits at a keyboard and can be seen wearing a black short-sleeve shirt.

Lilly Quiroz/NPR

Troy Andrews, better known as Trombone Shorty, is paying tribute to New Orleans with a new album out tomorrow titled Second Line Sunday. The album comes out 20 years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, bringing destruction in its wake. When the storm hit Trombone Shorty’s hometown, he was 19 and on tour with Lenny Kravitz. He expected to take a short break from the tour at home, but instead evacuated with other relatives and rented a place in Dallas. New Orleans was home then and still is now, and he expresses that with his new music. The 10-track album is a collaboration with his cousins and nephews, who make up the New Breed Brass Band. The songs encapsulate the raucous, joyous sound of New Orleans streets, where festive and somber moments are celebrated with music and dance. Morning Edition host Michel Martin visited Trombone Shorty in a studio in New Orleans, where he talked about what his new music means. Listen to snippets of the songs and read more about his tribute to the city.

In the black-and-white image, artisanal coal miner Emmanuel Siyabonga is bent over hauling a sack of coal on his back.

Tommy Trenchard for NPR

South Africa’s artisan miners, who salvage coal from abandoned mines with limited tools, live a grueling and risky life. The country is one of the world's top coal producers, primarily sourcing it from Mpumalanga, where open-pit mines and aging power stations are prevalent. While industrial coal mining in the region has generated significant wealth for a select few, many local communities remain among the most marginalized in the country. Tens of thousands live in tin shacks, lacking basic amenities, such as coal for cooking and heating their homes. This is why the communities rely on the thousands of artisanal miners, who have been forced by poverty into the world of illegal coal mining. However, the government views them as criminals and a threat to society. To operate legally, these miners would need permits, but under South Africa's current mining system, obtaining them is virtually impossible. Goats and Soda documents an inside look at their hard work and why it’s important.

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Screenshots of two videos about an adventurous kitten created by Mark Lawrence I Garilao using generative AI for his "FUNTASTIC YT" YouTube channel. On the left, a cat is on a blimp that looks like a stack of pancakes and on the right, a cat sits by a puddle that appears to be a rainbow.

@funntastic_AI/Youtube/Screenshot by NPR

Social media is increasingly filled with videos created using artificial intelligence. Critics say the “slop” videos, which garner millions of views, are often repetitive, useless and clutter people’s feeds. Here is how different platforms are grappling to solve the issue.

The FDA has approved the next round of COVID-19 vaccines, but they are restricting the shot to individuals at risk for serious complications.

Several universities across the U.S. are reporting a significant drop in international students enrolled in the fall semester. Delays and increased visa screenings have prevented many students from arriving on campus on time.

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This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

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