The car tires, propane tanks, gas generators and rusty appliances heaped on the side of a dirt road waiting to be hauled away filled Desiree Graham with relief.
That means all that stuff is not in peoples yards,” she said on a blustery July day in Kahikinui, a remote Native Hawaiian homestead community in southeast Maui where wildfire is a top concern.
In June, neighbors and volunteers spent four weekends clearing rubbish from their properties in a community-wide effort to create defensible space, or areas around homes free of ignitable vegetation and debris. They purged 12 tons of waste.
Its ugly, but its pretty beautiful to me, said Graham, a member of Kahikinui’s Firewise committee, part of a rapidly growing program from the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association that helps residents assess their communities’ fire risk and create plans to mitigate it.
Kahikinui is one of dozens of Hawaii communities seeking ways to protect themselves as decades of climate change, urban development, and detrimental land use policies culminate to cause more destructive fires.
The state has 250,000 acres of unmanaged fallow agricultural land, nearly all of its buildings sit within the wildland-urban interface, and two-thirds of communities have only one road in and out.
But experts say that even with so many factors out of communities control, they can vastly improve their resilience by transforming their own neighborhoods.
Fire is not like other natural hazards, it can only move where there is fuel, and we have a lot of say in that, said Nani Barretto, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization (HWMO), a 25-year-old nonprofit at the forefront of the states fire-risk mitigation.
Neighborhoods all over the United States are wrestling with the same challenge, some in places that never worried about fire before. A recent Headwaters Economics analysis found 1,100 communities in 32 states shared similar risk profiles to places recently devastated by urban wildfires.
A Firewise movement
HWMO helps communities like Kahikinui become Firewise. In the 10 years preceding the August 2023 Maui fires that destroyed Lahaina, 15 Hawaii communities joined Firewise USA. Since then, the number has more than doubled to 31, with a dozen more in the process of joining.
Everyone was like, My God, what can we do?’ said Shelly Aina, former chair of the Firewise committee for Waikoloa Village, an 8,000-resident community on the west side of the Big Island, recalling the months after the Maui fires.
The development heavily wind exposed, surrounded by dry invasive grasses and with just one main road in and out had already experienced several close calls in the last two decades. It was first recognized as Firewise in 2016.
As HWMO-trained home assessors, Shelly and her husband Dana Aina have done over 60 free assessments for neighbors since 2022, evaluating their properties for ignition vulnerabilities. Volunteers removed kiawe trees last year along a fuel break bordering houses. Residents approved an extra HOA fee for vegetation removal on interior lots.
Measures like these can have outsized impact as people in fire-prone states adapt to more extreme wildfires, according to Dr. Jack Cohen, a retired U.S. Forest Service scientist.
The solution is in the community, not out there with the fire breaks, because those dont stop the fire in extreme conditions, said Cohen.
Direct flames from a wildfire arent what typically initiate an urban conflagration, he said. Wind-blown embers can travel miles away from a fire, landing on combustible material like dry vegetation, or accumulating in corners like where a deck meets siding.
Theyre urban fires, not wildfires, said Cohen.
The solutions don’t always require expensive retrofits like a whole new roof, but targeting the specific places within 100 feet of the house where embers could ignite material. In dense neighborhoods, that requires residents work together, making community-wide efforts like Firewise important. The house is only as ignition resistant as its neighbors, said Cohen.
Communities can’t transform alone
Even with renewed interest in fire resilience, community leaders face challenges in mobilizing their neighbors. Mitigation can take money, time and sacrifice. Its not enough to cut the grass once, for example, vegetation has to be regularly maintained. Complacency sets in. Measures like removing hazardous trees can cost thousands of dollars.
I dont know how we deal with that, because those who have them cant afford to take them down, said Shelly Aina. The Ainas try offering low-cost measures, like installing metal screening behind vents and crawl spaces to keep out embers.
HWMO helps with costs where it can. It gave Kahikinui a $5,000 grant for a dumpster service to haul out its waste, and helped Waikoloa Village rent a chipper for the trees it removed. Its been hard to keep up with the need, said Barretto, but even just a little bit of financial assistance can have an exponential impact.
You give them money, they rally, she said. We can give them $1,000 and it turns into 1,000 man hours of doing the clearing. HWMO was able to expand its grant program after the Maui fires with donations from organizations like the Bezos Earth Fund and the American Red Cross.
At a time when federal funding for climate mitigation is uncertain, communities need far more financial support to transform their neighborhoods, said Headwaters Economics’ Kimi Barrett, who studies the costs of increasing fire risk. If what were trying to do is save people and communities, then we must significantly invest in people and communities, said Barrett.
Those investments are just a fraction of the billions of dollars in losses sustained after megafires, said Barrett. A recent study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Allstate found that $1 in resilience and preparation investment can save $13 in economic and property lossesnbsp;after a disaster.
Another hurdle is asking residents to do work and make sacrifices as they watch others neglect their role. The neighbors will ask, What about the county land?’ Theres no routine maintenance, said Shelly Aina.
Her husband Dana Aina said he reminds people that it is everyones kuleana, or responsibility, to take care of land and people. An island is a canoe, a canoe is an island, he said, quoting a Hawaiian proverb. We all have to paddle together.
Bigger stakeholders are starting to make changes. Among them, Hawaii passed legislation to create a state fire marshal post, and its main utility, Hawaiian Electric, is undergrounding some power lines and installing AI-enabled cameras to detect ignitions earlier.
Meanwhile, Firewise communities have found that doing their own mitigation gives them more clout when asking for funding or for others to do their part.
After the 66-residence community of Kawaihae Village on Hawaii Island joined Firewise, they were finally able to get a neighboring private landowner and the state to create fuel breaks and clear grasses.
Without that we wouldnt have been on anyones radar, said Brenda DuFresne, committee member of Kawaihae Firewise. I think Firewise is a way to show people that youre willing to help yourself.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Gabriela Aoun Angueira, Associated Press
While the high cost of eggs has been a persistent issue in President Trumps second term, a different kind of egg price is now raising eyebrows around America. Over the weekend, CNN reported that the Trump administration is soliciting corporate sponsorships for this years White House Easter Egg Roll.
For anywhere between $75,000 and $200,000, companies can now have their logo prominently displayed during the April 21 event, along with further branding opportunities. Its only the latest sign that this presidency is quite literally open for businessand coming so soon after a recent Tesla infomercial on the South Lawn, it may have completed the NASCAR-ification of the White House.
According to a pitch document shared by the New York Times that appears to be from event-planning company Harbinger, which produced the egg roll throughout Trumps previous term, the White House is offering initial planning and event day execution for companies who are hungry for brand exposure this Easter. Sponsors will reportedly have a chance to nab naming rights for key areas or elements, splash their logos on event signage and custom-branded baskets, snacks/beverages, or souvenirs and also offer custom on-site activation for participating children to use while making social media content.
(The White House and Harbinger have not confirmed the authenticity of the document. Fast Company has reached out to the White House and Harbinger and will update if we hear back.)
Partnerships between the White House and corporations are not exactly unheard of. The Biden administration, for instance, partnered with McDonalds in 2021 to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, while Barack Obama hosted the first White House Maker Faire in 2014, featuring STEM tool kits provided by LEGO Systems. Brands have even been involved in the Easter Egg Roll before, though the White House has reportedly been careful about logo use and appearing to endorse a business. A gauche avalanche of logos stands to turn this years adorable White House event into something more like last Decembers College Football Playoff’s Vrbo Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium.
At the $200,000 levelthe Platinum sponsorship packagebrands can get prominent logo placement and all the bells and whistles mentioned above, along with 150 tickets to give away, a chance to participate in press interviews, and four tickets to an exclusive brunch hosted by Melania Trump. (Oh, and theres a meet-and-greet with the Easter bunny on offer. Literally.) While not every brand can afford such a sponsorship, either from a liquidity position or because their customers wouldnt stand for it, plenty will jump at the opportunity. Considering it reportedly costs between $375,000 and $500,000 to sponsor a lower-tier college bowl game, and somewhere in the range of $25 million for one of the majors, the publicity value of an egg roll sponsorship is kind of a steal.
Theres also the unspoken promise of what else brands might get out of their sponsorship.
Although any excess funding raised from egg roll sponsors will reportedly go toward similar future White House events, it also potentially buys a big, public, double-thumbs-up from Trump himself. Beyond the crass commercial opportunity, though, sponsorship also comes with a tacit understanding that these brands may find themselves in good standing with the presidents team and his supportersand perhaps even receive further access or influence for their efforts. The pitch document from Harbinger suggests flat out that brunch with the First Lady also comes with exclusive access opportunities.
There were similar chances to curry favor with Trump during his first term. At least 11 foreign governments patronized the moguls properties in his first year as president, during which he bucked his predecessors tradition of severing ties with their businesses while holding office. Domestic forces also dumped funds in Trumps coffers at the time. Between 2017 and 2020, private-prison operators, payday lenders, and other interest groups hosted fundraisers and galas at his hotels, clubs, and resorts.
Meanwhile, Essential Consultants, a company run by Trumps then-attorney Michael Cohen, also brought in huge sums of money from such companies as AT&T, Swedish pharma giant Novartis, and Korea Aerospace Industries. Exactly what insights AT&T got for its $600,000 is unclear. Perhaps not so coincidentally, though, the company was waiting on a decision at the time from the Justice Department over a proposed merger with Time Warner. (The decision ultimately went AT&Ts way.)
In Trumps second term, any pretense around his impartiality to donations has all but vanished. At the very least, its been frozenmuch like the anti-bribery statute keeping U.S. corporations from bribing foreign officials, which Trump suspended earlier this year.
The vulgar display of the Tesla endorsement that found Trump morphing into a Troy McClure-style celebrity pitchman to help out his largest donors sinking stock? Thats just the tip of the iceberg. Ever since the election, Trump has signaled loudly, if not clearly, that his White House is accepting gratuities. Earlier this year, members of the tech Broligarchy, including Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Amazons Jeff Bezos, donated to Trumps inauguration fund before appearing alongside him at the eventwith Bezoss Amazon going a step further and dishing out a reported $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary, from which she stands to personally net at least $28 million.
At the same time, the president has reportedly been holding million-dollar-per-seat candlelight dinner fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, and any interested party can potentially also get his attention just by pumping money into Trump’s official memecoin.
The White House Easter Egg Roll Proudly Presented By [Your Brand Here] is only the latest opportunity for corporations and their owners to show fealty to the president. Its also a bellwether of what future White House events might look like. If enough companies chip in, giving the event more brand logos than Jeff Gordons jumpsuit, well, perhaps Netflix and Amazon will eventually be duking it out to win exclusive broadcast rights for The White Houses A Very Trump Christmas Spectacular.
For now, the president has merely told all interested parties: Gentlemen, start your engines.
OpenAI is introducing image generation directly within ChatGPT. Powered by its flagship multimodal model, GPT-4o, the chatbot can now create visuals straight from the chat interface.
The feature will initially be available to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and free users. Enterprise and Education tier users will get access soon.
Today we have one of the most fun, cool things we have ever launched . . . native images in ChatGPT, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at the beginning of a video stream Tuesday. Altman acknowledged that the feature had been highly anticipatedespecially since competitors like Google Gemini have offered integrated image generation for some time.
ChatGPT now allows users to generate images based on prompts, conversations, and uploaded files. Users can create brand new images or transform existing images. OpenAI says the world knowledge trained into the GPT-4o model allows ChatGPT to better understand the contexts in which images are used. It is also better at following prompts rendering text within images, OpenAI says.
Users can refine images by prompting the model with natural language. For instance, when designing a video game character, the model can maintain visual consistency across multiple iterations as the user makes adjustments.
OpenAI says it expects people to use the tool work-related visuals that require precision (such as diagrams, infographics, branded content), text-heavy images (instruction posters, business cards), photorealistic images with accurate lighting and textures, and visuals that benefit from conversation context.
By simplifying the process with a single multimodal model that handles all image generation tasks, OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT as a go-to tool for both personal and professional image generation.
A once-every-four-years report card on the upkeep of America’s infrastructure gave it a C grade on Tuesday, up slightly from previous reports, largely due to investments made during former President Joe Biden’s administration.
The report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which examined everything from roads and dams to drinking water and railroads, warns that federal funding must be sustained or increased to avoid further deterioration and escalating costs.
We have seen the investments start to pay off, but we still have a lot of work to do out there, said Darren Olson, chair of this years report. He said decrepit infrastructure from poor roads that damage cars to delayed flights to power outages that spoil groceries hurts people and the economy.
By investing in our infrastructure, were making our economy more efficient, were making it stronger (and) were making ourselves globally more competitive, he said.
Its especially critical that infrastructure can handle more extreme weather due to climate change, said Olson, noting hurricanes that devastated the East Coast and parts of Appalachia last year. The U.S. saw 27 weather disasters last year that cost at least $1 billion, second-most since 1980.
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $550 billion in new infrastructure investments, but is set to expire in 2026. Another $30 billion came from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, including for projects focused on clean energy and climate change, the engineering group said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted some of Bidens green policies. Public parks improved to a C-minus from a D-plus, for example, thanks in part to significant investments over several years. Recently, however, the Trump administration moved to slash National Park Service staffing.
In 2021, the U.S. earned a C-minus overall. The investments made since then are just a fraction of the $9.1 trillion that the civil engineers group estimates is needed to bring all of the nations current infrastructure into a state of good repair.
Even if current federal infrastructure funding were maintained, there still would be a $3.7 trillion gap over a decade, according to the report.
The bill to upgrade and maintain the nations roughly 50,000 water utilities, for example, is $625 billion over the next two decades, according to the federal government. The grade for drinking water was C-minus, unchanged from four years ago.
Many communities already struggling to maintain old, outdated drinking water systems also face new requirements to replace lead service line s and reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS.
The bipartisan infrastructure bill helped complete or start a lot of really important projects, said Scott Berry, director of policy and governmental affairs at the US Water Alliance. But the gap has widened so much over the last couple of decades that a lot, lot more investment is going to be needed.
The bill also provided billions to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers upgrade inland waterways, which move roughly $150 billion in commerce every year, improving the grade from a D-plus to a C-minus.
Barges on the Mississippi River, for example, carry enormous amounts of coal, soybeans, corn and other raw materials to international markets. But critical infrastructure like locks and dams many built more than a half-century ago and requiring regular maintenance and repair is often invisible to the public, making it easy to neglect, said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition.
And when big projects are funded, it too often comes in stages, he said. That forces projects to pause until more money is appropriated, driving up costs for materials and labor.
If we really want to make the taxpayer dollars stretch further, you have got to be able to bring a greater degree of predictability and reliability in how you fund these projects, he said.
The report’s focus on engineering and money misses the importance of adopting policies that could improve how people use and pay for infrastructure, according to Clifford Winston, a microeconomist in the Brookings Institutions economic studies program.
You fail to make the most efficient use of what you have, said Winston. For example, he noted that congestion pricing like that recently adopted by New York City charging people to drive in crowded areas places the burden on frequent users and can pressure people to drive less, reducing the need for new bridges, tunnels and repairs.
Roads remain in chronically poor shape, receiving a D-plus compared to a D in the last report, despite $591 billion in investments since 2021.
Two categories, rail and energy, received lower grades. Disasters like the derailment of a train carrying dangerous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023 lowered rails previous B mark to a B-minus.
The energy sector, stressed by surging demand from data centers and electric vehicles, got a D-plus, down from C-minus.
Engineers say problems in many sectors have festered for so long that the nation must figure out how to address the shortcomings now or pay for them when systems fail.
On Wednesday, a delegation of engineers will visit Washington to talk to lawmakers about the funding impacts and the importance of continuing that investment, said Olson, who said the needs are a bipartisan issue.
When we talk about it in ways of how better infrastructure saves the American family money, how better infrastructure supports economic growth, were really confident that … there is strong support, he said.
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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Tammy Webber and Michael Phillis, Associated Press
The resignation of United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Monday comes just two weeks after he announced plans to cut some 10,000 workers and billions of dollars from the agency as part of the government’s cost-cutting agenda. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has eyed privatizing the nation’s postal service. Trump’s move to give commerce secretary Howard Lutnick authority over the independent agency could be a first step in that direction.
DeJoy said in a statement that while the 250-year-old U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has established “a path toward financial sustainability” and instituted “enormous beneficial change to what had been an adrift and moribund organization,” more work remained.
Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino will temporarily head the postal service while the USPS Board of Governors looks for a permanent successor, although the USPS said there is no established timeline for DeJoys replacement.
Louis DeJoy [Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images]
The $78 billion-a-year agency has struggled in recent years as more Americans are replacing paper transactions with online services. However, critics say the U.S. Postal Service is a lot more efficient than is being portrayed, and privatizing it could cause a host of problems nationwide, including interrupting or delaying the crucial delivery of prescription drugs and checks, and threatening guaranteed mail-in election ballots, which have played an increasingly important role in recent presidential elections.
According to those critics, the Trump administration’s meddling in the USPS’s operations could make mail-in voting more difficult for the tens of millions of American voters who used it in the last election. Those most affected would be Americans living in rural areas who depend on the mail service. Trump has repeatedly said hed like to end the practice of mail-in voting.
Taking over the Postal Service just kind of opens up a whole Pandoras box of mischief, said Barbara Smith Warner, executive director of National Vote at Home Institute, a nonprofit which works to increase voters access to and confidence in mail voting. This is a way that the federal government could put a really big thumb on the scale and impact every states ability to run their own elections.”
DeJoy, who headed the U.S. Postal Service since June 2020, has been a controversial figure over the last five years. The former businessman and Republican donor led the agency through the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, as well as two presidential elections that saw high turnout in mail-in ballots.
Critics have said his efforts to modernize the postal service by consolidating deliveries ultimately backfired, slowing down the mail even further. He also raised prices: A first-class stamp on a standard envelope is currently $0.73, up from $0.55 when DeJoy arrived at the agency, according to CNN.
A survey by the Pew Research Center last July, found the post office has a 72% approval rating, making it one of the most popular government agencies.
A painting of Donald Trump hanging with other presidential portraits at the Colorado state Capitol will be taken down after Trump claimed that his was purposefully distorted, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be taken down at the request of Republican leaders in the Legislature. Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting, which was unveiled in 2019.
Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, said that he requested for Trump’s portrait to be taken down and replaced by one that depicts his contemporary likeness.”
If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then thats up to them, the Democrats said.
The portrait was installed alongside other paintings of U.S. presidents. Before the installation, a prankster placed a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin near the spot intended for Trump.
Initially, people objected to artist Sarah Boardman’s depiction of Trump as nonconfrontational and thoughtful” in the portrait, according to an interview with Colorado Times Recorder from the time.
But in a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol. The Republican lauded a nearby portrait of former President Barack Obama also by Boardman saying he looks wonderful.
Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the state Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before, Trump wrote.
The portraits are not the purview of the Colorado governors office but the Colorado Building Advisory Committee. The ones up to and including President Jimmy Carter were donated as a collection. The others were donated by political parties or, more recently, paid for by outside fundraising.
The Legislature’s executive committee, made up of both Democratic and Republican leadership, signed a letter directing the removal of Trump’s portrait. Lundeen, the Republican senator who requested it, noted that Grover Cleveland, whose presidential terms were separated like Trump’s, had a portrait from his second term.
Boardman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. In interviews from the time with The Denver Post, Boardman said it was important that her depictions of both Obama and Trump looked apolitical.
There will always be dissent, so pleasing one group will always inflame another. I consider a neutrally thoughtful, and nonconfrontational, portrait allows everyone to reach their own conclusions in their own time, Boardman told the Colorado Times Recorder in 2019.
Trump’s Sunday night comments had prompted a steady stream of visitors to pose for photos with the painting before the announcement that it would be taken down.
Aaron Howe, visiting from Wyoming on Monday, stood in front of Trumps portrait, looking down at photos of the president on his phone, then back up at the portrait.
Honestly he looks a little chubby,” said Howe of the portrait, but better than I could do.
I don’t know anything about the artist, said Howe, who voted for Trump. It could be taken one way or the other.
Kaylee Williamson, an 18-year-old Trump supporter from Arkansas, got a photo with the portrait.
I think it looks like him. I guess he’s smoother than all the other ones, she said. I think it’s fine.
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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Jesse Bedayn, Associated Press/Report for America
eToro Group Ltd has announced that it plans to take itself public in an initial public offering. The company made the announcement in a press release today, in which it confirmed that it had filed its Form F-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). However, there are still many unknowns about eToros IPO. Heres what we do knowand what still needs to be revealed.
What is eToro Group Ltd?
eToro Group Ltd is the name of the company that operates the eToro trading platform. Like other trading platforms, eToro allows investors to buy and sell a number of assets, including stocks and cryptocurrencies. But eToro is slightly different than your more traditional trading platforms like Charles Schwab or Vanguard.
Thats because eToro is what is known as a social trading platform. The phrase signifies a platform that allows its users to see and, if they choose to, mimic the trades of other investors on the platform. This allows more novice investors to piggyback on the expertise of other investors whose decisions they trust.
eToro Group was founded back in 2007. It is based in Tel Aviv, Israel with offices around the world.
eToro by the numbers
According to the companys Form F-1 registration statement, eToro has the following metrics as of December 31, 2024:
A global footprint that spreads across 75 countries.
Approximately 3.5 million Funded Accounts across those countries.
Net Contribution of $787 million (up 41% from $557 million in 2023).
Total Commission of $931 million (up 46% from $639 million in 2023).
Net income of $192 million (up 1,161% from $15 million in 2023).
Adjusted EBITDA of $304 million (up 159% from $187 million in 2023).
eToros F-1 also lists a number of its growth strategies, which the company says focuses on acquiring more users in existing markets, increasing its share of users assets, and moving into new markets. Among the risks the company cites are uncertain legal and regulatory landscapes as well as operating in a highly competitive industry.
When is eToros IPO?
Thats unknown. As of this writing, eToro has not divulged when its IPO may take place. In its press release about its intention to go public, eToro stated that the offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed.
What is eToros stock ticker?
eToros stock ticker will be ETOR.
What market will ETOR trade on?
eToro shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
What is the IPO share price of ETOR?
That is unknown. eToro says that the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.
How many ETOR shares are available in its IPO?
That, too, is unknown. The company says that the number of shares it plans to offer has also not yet been determined.
How much will eToro raise in its IPO?
That is something else we do not know at this time. Until eToro announces the number of shares it will offer and the offering price, it cannot be known how much the company plans to raise in its IPO.
The Unification Church in Japan was ordered dissolved by a court Tuesday after a government request spurred by the investigation into the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.The South Korea-based church said it was considering an immediate appeal of the Tokyo District Court’s revocation of its legal status, which would take away its tax-exempt privilege and require liquidation of its assets.The order followed a request by Japan’s Education Ministry in 2023 to dissolve the influential South Korea-based sect, citing manipulative fundraising and recruitment tactics that sowed fear among followers and harmed their families.In the ruling, the court said the church’s problems were extensive and continuous, and a dissolution order is necessary because it is not likely it could voluntarily reform, according to NHK television.“We believe our claims were accepted,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters, adding the government will continue efforts to support victims of the church.The Japanese branch of the church had criticized the request as a serious threat to religious freedom and the human rights of its followers.The church called the court order regrettable and unjust and said in a statement the court’s decision was based on “a wrong legal interpretation and absolutely unacceptable.”Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the church’s Japanese branch, accused the government of “fabricating damages.” The church is “not a malicious group that should be dissoloved,” he told a news conference on Tuesday.The investigation into Abe’s assassination revealed links over decades between the church and Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party. The church obtained legal status as a religious organization in Japan in the 1960s during an anti-communist movement supported by Abe’s grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.The man accused of killing Abe resented the church and blamed it for his family’s financial troubles.The church, which officially calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, is the first religious group subject to a revocation order based on violations of Japan’s civil code. Two earlier case involved criminal charges the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and Myokakuji group, whose executives were convicted of fraud.To seek the church’s dissolution, the Education Ministry had submitted 5,000 documents and pieces of evidence to the court, based on interviews with more than 170 people.The church tried to steer its followers’ decision-making, using manipulative tactics, making them buy expensive goods and donate beyond their financial ability and causing fear and harm to them and their families, seriously deviating from the law on religious groups, officials and experts say.The Agency for Cultural Affairs said the settlements reached in or outside court exceeded 20 billion yen ($132 million) and involved more than 1,500 people.Lawyers representing those seeking damages from the church welcomed the court decision as a major first step toward redress.“We must pursue our effort to achieve redress and to prevent future problems,” head lawyer Susumu Murakoshi told reporters, demanding the church accept the dissolution order and offer an apology and compensation to all victims.The church was founded in Seoul in 1954 by the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who preached new interpretations of the Bible and conservative, family-oriented value systems.Nicknamed the “Moonies,” after its founder, the church developed relations with conservative world leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as his predecessors Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.The church faced accusations in the 1970s and 1980s of using devious recruitment tactics and brainwashing adherents into turning over huge portions of their salaries to Moon. In Japan, the group has faced lawsuits for offering “spiritual merchandise” that allegedly caused members to buy expensive art and jewelry or sell their real estate to raise donations for the church.The church has acknowledged excessive donations but says the problem has lessened since the group stepped up compliance in 2009.Experts say Japanese followers are asked to pay for sins committed by their ancestors during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, and that the majority of the church’s worldwide funding comes from Japan.
Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press
Tomorrow, NPRs CEO Katherine Maher goes before a DOGE congressional subcommittee to defend the public media outlets case for federal funding. Maher gives a preview to her testimony, sharing how funding cuts would impact Americans broad access to crucial news and information, particularly in rural and local areas. Maher also reveals NPRs strategy for reengaging with their audience, how the organization can better frame its identity as an outlet for all Americans, and more.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
When you joined NPR last year, the organization faced plenty of business challenges: audience engagement, business model. Since then, the environment just got a whole lot more fraught. There was a high profile criticism about newsroom bias last spring from an editor on the staff. That sounds almost quaint right now though. You’ve been called to testify on Capitol Hill tomorrow to speak before the DOGE subcommittee in a hearing titled “Anti-American Airwaves,” alongside the head of PBS. What do you expect from that? What should we all expect? How do you prepare for that?
Honestly, I view it as an opportunity. I view it as an opportunity to go and talk about all the great work that NPR does, but also the great work that our stations do. I think that that’s something that often gets lost in the conversation about public radio is the overall percentage of funds that go directly to local stations.
The importance of the local station network, and the fact that when people are listening to public radio, they are not listening to us broadcasting from D.C., they’re listening to their local station, which is probably, chances are, attached to a local university.
Or it’s a community nonprofit, and it’s making the choices about what folks hear on the air. It probably has some call-in public affairs show where you can talk about what’s going on that matters to you as a resident of your town, your city, et cetera.
So, just really getting back to that, that feels like such an important part of what I’m there to do.
And, how do you prepare? I mean, you prepare by making sure you know what you’re there to say, and you prepare by making sure you know what it is that you want to be able to communicate about the value of the work, and you prepare by a lot of practice. It’s like trying to go to Carnegie Hall. It’s a lot of practice.
I was talking to a friend about doing this interview. He was telling me a story about talking to a colleague who’s a MAGA republican, and he mentioned an episode, he said, “Oh, I’ll send you this episode of This American Life.” And they were like, “Oh, it’s on NPR. Oh, no.” It almost sounds like there are people who are listening to NPR stations that maybe don’t realize they’re NPR stations, or don’t connect it to this conversation about, I don’t know, it being anti-American.
I really want to rebuff this idea that in any way that public radio is anti-American. For starters, we are a uniquely American model. We are a public-private partnership. For every single federal dollar we get, local stations raise an additional seven. They rely on their communities, they rely on local businesses. NPR is 25% of what you hear on public radio airwaves on average.
In fact, 75% of stations programming is either other shows that they purchase or local shows that they produce. And, This American Life is a great example. We love This American Life. I heard Glass used to work at NPR. But it’s not an NPR program. It is a public radio program. It’s part of the diverse texture of what is actually available.
There’s 1,300 public radio stations across the country. They represent their local communities in ways that are hyper unique, whether we’re talking about high school basketball, the price of sorghum wheat.
It’s easy to forget about if you’re just listening to the radio in perhaps New York or a D.C., is that all of this is very much in tune with whatever’s going on in American lives at any particular point in time in this enormous nation of ours.
NPR isn’t a federal agency, as you have said. You get money from lots of different places. But, the subtext of this DOGE hearing is the prospect of losing federal funding or some important part of it. What would the practical impact of losing that funding be? I can imagine you’ve been preparing for this possibility even well before this hearing came up.
We have to be prepared for all scenarios all the time. The thing that I would want everyone to know about federal funding is the impact that loss of federal funding would have on local stations.
121.5 million goes to public radio on an annual basis, it’s a lot of money, I want to acknowledge that. And it’s also not a ton of money relative to the total size of the American public budget, right, the federal budget, a 100 million of that goes direct to local stations.
And, disproportionately, the percentage of those funds goes to support stations that serve rural communities, that serve less affluent communities, that serve communities with really large areas of service, where the infrastructure investment in making sure that broadcast airwaves reach the country is significant.
I think about my colleagues in Eastern Kentucky who have to put repeaters and hollers in order for Eastern Kentuckians to be able to hear those radio broadcasts. The loss of federal funding would directly impact the ability for stations to provide coverage, which currently 99.7% of the nation has access to airwaves.
It would directly affect our ability to be part of the emergency broadcast system, and it would directly affect the ability of local stations to be able to continue to support commission and purchase programming about their communities.
That’s where the harm would be. The harm would be for the local stations, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid, because it’s very easy, again, in D.C. to forget that we’ve lost a third of newspapers across the country in the last 20 years.
One fifth of Americans live in a news desert. Public radio, public broadcasting, your local newsroom is often the only news that folks have that actually cares about their community and covers the issues that lsteners care about.
You’re for all Americans, but you had an editor at NPR say, “No, the news has been biased.” The way you talk about COVID, or the Mueller report, or whatever. There is this impression from certain people in America that NPR is not for all Americans, and obviously, that’s what the hearing’s about tomorrow.
Yeah. And that’s one of the reasons that I’m here: I believe very deeply that that is our objective and our responsibility. I had someone come up to me and they said, “I’m a conservative. I grew up on NPR. I love NPR. And I’m just not sure it’s a home for me right now.”
And that struck me. That cut me to the core. I want it to be a home for everyone. I want people to feel as though it’s their home for curiosity, it’s their home for understanding the world. Certainly, that’s the role it played in my life as a young person.
So, for starters, we have really reoriented the organization around audience needs. Broadcast radio is not the greatest way to understand audience needs because we just don’t have that much information about how people are listening.
But as we have more digital data around people who are coming to our websites, or listening to our podcasts, or even just streaming from our app, those linear radio experiences, it starts to be able to help us understand how to better serve audiences.
In the past, the only audience research that we did was with people with college degrees, but only 35% of Americans have a college degree, which meant that we were not listening to the needs of all Americans. How do you run a media organization and say, “65% of my potential audience, I’m not going to ask them what they want.” So we’re doing that, which I think makes a really big difference.
The thing that we’ve identified in terms of our audiences is that curiosity is the most common characteristic. And the great news is that curiosity is not a partisan trait. Curiosity exists in every demographic, every age group, every political persuasion. And so, that’s a great place for us to hone in on our curiosity.
What’s going on in the world? How do we explain it? How do we give people the information to go a little bit deeper, give them that context that helps them situate themselves? And I think it’s time for us to reintroduce ourselves as if this is what we’re here to do, and yes, we’re here to do it for everyone.
How’s the mood and morale on your team these days?
They’re here to go to work. I just walked through the newsroom to get here to the studio, and everyone’s heads down, they’re working, they’re reporting, they’re producing, they’re getting ready to file their story for All Things Considered, or they’re getting ready for whatever band is coming in for Tiny Desk next.
I think that the overall environment right now is that people really want to do the work. There’s a lot of news in the world today, whether we’re thinking about the transformative administration, whether we’re thinking about questions of space exploration.
I think people feel as though, of course, this is a different moment in time, and it is really important that we show up and are responsive to people’s questions about the value of our work.
I come back to the fact that when we talk about efficiency, public radio is remarkably efficient. The cost per public media per American is $1.60. It’s basically when you go to check out at CVS and you’re asked to round up to a good cause, that’s us.
That’s what we cost. Public radio costs less than $1.60, the public media as a whole is $1.60 per American per year. As I said, for every dollar of federal funding, $7 of private funding.
We’ve got a good story to tell, and 75% of Americans want to see public media maintain or increase its current funding levels. So, again, I think that’s the story we’re here to tell.
A private European aerospace company scrubbed its attempt on Monday to launch the first test flight of its orbital launch vehicle from Norway.Unfavorable winds meant that the Spectrum rocket couldn’t be launched from the island of Andya in northern Norway, Munich-based Isar Aerospace said.The launch is subject to various factors, including weather and safety. The company said it could also conduct the test flight later in the week. Another date hasn’t yet been set.The 28-meter (91-foot) Spectrum is a two-stage launch vehicle designed for small and medium-size satellites.The company has largely ruled out the possibility of the rocket reaching orbit on its first complete flight, saying that it would consider a 30-second flight a success. Isar Aerospace aims to collect as much data and experience as possible on the first integrated test of all the systems on its in-house-developed launch vehicle.The startup, which says it has raised more than 400 million euros ($435 million) in capital, hopes to build up to 40 launch vehicles per year in the future at a plant outside of Munich. The launch vehicles are all to be used for putting satellites into orbit.Isar Aerospace is separate from the European Space Agency, or ESA, which is funded by its 23 member states.ESA has been launching rockets and satellites into orbit for years, but mainly from French Guianaan overseas department of France in South Americaand from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
