Jefferson Public Radio

AUSTIN, Texas — The federal government plans to award $150 million to a small Texas law firm with ties to the Trump administration to represent unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody without a guardian during immigration proceedings, according to a notice set to post to the Federal Register on Thursday.

The Trump administration appears poised to gut the central policies that shape Head Start, a popular and long-established early childhood education program that serves the country’s neediest children, including thousands in California.

Ashland voters will decide in November whether to limit the City Council’s ability to raise utility fees without voter approval. The ballot measure would require voter approval for most utility fee increases beyond inflation. It grew out of a citizen initiative launched after the council approved new fees for parks, public safety and wildfire prevention last year. The petition fell short of the required signatures because of procedural errors.

Ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina said she plans to return to her country despite being sentenced to death by a court there during her two-year exile.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a year after the last permanent director was fired in a dispute over vaccine policy with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The vote on Schwartz's nomination was 51-44 in favor. She will take command of a public health agency that has lost thousands of employees in the second Trump administration amid layoffs, resignations and leadership shakeups.

Updated August 5, 2026 at 11:41 AM PDT KYIV, Ukraine — Russian attacks on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded dozens, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, as Ukraine's depleted air defenses failed to stop any of Moscow's incoming missiles overnight. The barrage, which lasted about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian missile strikes that have become almost routine this summer.

Kevin Morby's new album, Little Wide Open, is a love letter to the Midwest, where he grew up and spent the past several years. It's a part of the country he says is endlessly inspiring. "There's something about the natural world in the Midwest that feels very musical to me," he says. Today, Morby talks about how the Midwest has shaped his songwriting and creativity. He also reflects on a major life change that was just around the corner when we recorded this conversation.

Updated August 5, 2026 at 10:13 AM PDT Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter, for the news you need to start your day. DAMARISCOTTA, Maine — Artist Bailey Romaine, 37, was thrilled when she learned she was pregnant with her first child. She and her partner, landscaper Ed Vlcek, have spent the last five years making their home in midcoast Maine a "natural paradise" for a child to grow up in. They live on the end of a peninsula, near a lighthouse.

LHASA, Tibet — Kalsang Lhamo traces a series of vertical strokes, slow but firm, practicing Tibetan calligraphy. A 73-year-old retired nurse, she has spoken Tibetan all her life but never learned to write it. Now, in classes at a center for older adults, she immerses herself in the script. Lhamo also speaks and writes Chinese, which China mandated as its primary language for schools and government agencies in a sweeping new "ethnic unity" law implemented July 1.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's ruling party has taken a commanding lead in elections for the legislative assembly in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, results from the first two phases of voting showed on Wednesday, despite weeks of protests and calls for a boycott by a banned political group.