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Today’s top stories
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency likely violated the Constitution when they effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, a federal judge has ruled. President Trump is promising to appeal the decision.
- 🎧 A couple dozen USAID employees sued Musk and DOGE, saying they didn’t have the authority to shut down the agency as Musk is not an appointed agency head, NPR’s Fatma Tanis tells Up First. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang wrote a 68-page opinion, blocked Musk from further USAID shutdowns and ordered DOGE to reinstate access to emails and other electronic systems for current staff. The ruling doesn’t restore the work that USAID was doing before, as humanitarian and development assistance programs are still cut.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a limited ceasefire in Ukraine yesterday, where the Kremlin agreed to stop targeting Ukraine’s energy facilities for 30 days. However, hours after the announcement, Russia and Ukraine launched strikes targeting each other’s infrastructure.
- 🎧 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the fact that the attacks continued after Trump and Putin’s talk yesterday shows that maximum pressure must be put on Russia. NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley says Zelenskyy doesn’t trust Putin. Ukraine and Russia are not remotely close on terms of a ceasefire currently. Putin wants land his army doesn’t control, and that is a red line for Ukraine.
Israeli airstrikes continue today in Gaza after Israel broke a nearly two-month ceasefire with Hamas yesterday. It was one of the deadliest days of the Gaza war, and more than 400 people were killed. Included in those numbers are five Hamas officials and women and children who were killed in their homes overnight.
- 🎧 Israel says it is returning to war to pressure Hamas to agree to new ceasefire terms, which include releasing more hostages before beginning end of war talks, NPR’s Daniel Estrin says. Hamas said their main demands, which include returning to the original ceasefire terms, remain. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently has to pass a national budget in two weeks or his government could collapse. Estrin says more airstrikes on Gaza could last until the budget is passed as he works to strengthen his far-right coalition.
Deep dive
Eggs are a pain for American pockets right now. However, relief might finally be on the way. On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the national average wholesale price of eggs has been declining since late February. This is a positive sign that the price for eggs at the grocery stores may drop in a few weeks. The decline in the wholesale price is due to the absence of major bird flu outbreaks so far in March, which has allowed the egg supply to recover.
- 🍳 The eggs currently on shelves were purchased by the retailer at a wholesale price a couple of weeks ago, so grocery store prices might not reflect this change yet. However, Joseph Balagtas, a professor of agriculture economics at Purdue University, says prices could start to ease within days.
- 🍳 Americans looking for egg alternatives may be contributing to keeping egg prices from rising further. Experts advise customers not to panic buy eggs, which could increase the cost.
- 🍳 It takes around six months to a year for farms to recoup when they lose a flock of egg-laying hens to bird flu.
- 🍳 Jadrian Wooten, an economics professor at Virginia Tech, says that, hopefully, farms will have brand new hens by summer — but this comes with the assumption that bird flu doesn’t spike again.
From our hosts
This essay was written by Leila Fadel, Up First and Morning Edition host.
Noor Abdalla fell in love on a volunteer trip to Lebanon years ago. She was boarding the bus to go teach Syrian refugees and she met Mahmoud Khalil.
“He was trying to help other people already,” she told me. “But I don’t think that’s what drew me to him.”
He was charismatic, calm and extroverted. In many ways he was the opposite to her, a self-described introvert who gets super anxious. And maybe that’s why she knew, she said, she would marry him one day.
“He’s genuinely the only person who knows how to calm me down,” she told me.
But on Saturday, March 8th, that sense of comfort was ripped from her. Eight months pregnant, she watched plainclothes immigration agents handcuff her husband in the lobby of their apartment building and whisk him away. Now, instead of spending her last weeks of pregnancy getting ready for the birth of their first child, she told me she’s fighting to get her husband back.
The Columbia graduate student and legal permanent resident is at a Louisiana detention center over his involvement in student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. The government wants to deport him despite his legal status and his case is at the center of a of a fierce debate over what kind of speech is protected under the First Amendment. Many free speech advocates say if Khalil is deported for his position on the Israel-Gaza war then he is being punished for protected political speech. The government has charged him with no crime and they say they don’t have to under a rarely used immigration provision.
“Exercising your First Amendment rights is not illegal. That’s always been the case,” Noor Abdalla told me. “The fact that you can kidnap someone basically from their home for going to a protest is terrifying.”
As this plays out in federal court, in protests and in national headlines Noor just wants her husband home in time for the baby’s birth. Listen to our interview or read it here.
3 things to know before you go
- Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the two NASA astronauts who had been on the International Space Station for months, returned to Earth yesterday evening. They returned in a SpaceX Dragon capsule that splashed down off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
- The South by Southwest festival is downsizing. Next year, it will be two days shorter and will not feature a dedicated music weekend. (via KUT News)
- Thousands of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were made public late yesterday. Presidential historians are not expecting any bombshell revelations from the release.
This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
