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Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Racist mob violence in Northern Ireland earlier this month has drawn keen interest from extremist groups and figures in the United States. The former leader of the Proud Boys visited Belfast last week, and fascist youth groups, known as active clubs, have been taking notes and sharing lessons. For more, we are joined by NPR’s domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef. Hey, Odette.

ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Hey there, Scott.

DETROW: Let’s start with these so-called active clubs. Tell us about them.

YOUSEF: Active clubs are white nationalist groups. They are neo-Nazi young men, and they’re part of a global network that’s been growing quickly in recent years. They emphasize a shared interest in combat sports training. And the purpose of that, Scott, is to train to commit political violence.

So now when it comes to the riots in Belfast, active clubs were on social media before and after those riots erupted, and they were highlighting a knife attack that took place in Belfast earlier this month. This was an attack against a white Northern Irish man by a Sudanese asylum seeker. And they were using it to justify collective punishment of ethnic minorities there. And a report in Wired suggested that they may even had orchestrated the street mobilizations.

DETROW: Tell me what you found in your own reporting.

YOUSEF: Well, so far, I haven’t found evidence of that yet, Scott, but there is no doubt that the racial violence in Belfast was inspiring and invigorating to these groups. I spoke with Michael Colborne. He’s been tracking active clubs for many years for Bellingcat, which is an investigative journalism group.

MICHAEL COLBORNE: They saw masked young men committing political violence in a model that they promote themselves and that they would actually further like to emulate themselves.

YOUSEF: And Colborne, you know, what he says is that he sees this rapid mobilization of rioters as something that really ties more directly to Northern Ireland’s particular history.

DETROW: Tell me more about that.

YOUSEF: Well, Scott, for decades, you know, there was conflict in Northern Ireland over whether it should remain part of the U.K. This period is known as The Troubles. And so there is a history there of paramilitary mobilization and violence within certain parts of the population. I spoke to someone who’s involved with a group called the Accountability Project, which monitors Northern Irish, far-right anti-immigrant networks on Facebook. She, like others in the group, asked that her name not be used in public reporting about their activities. But she told me that some of those paramilitary figures are active in anti-immigrant networks now. The thing is that the masked rioters who took to the streets this month in Belfast are a younger generation than that.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I think the questions that come away from that is, are they connected to paramilitaries? Where’s the link between the network that I – that we examine on social media, on Facebook, and the closed comm systems that are used to mobilize young people?

YOUSEF: And by closed comms, Scott, she’s talking about apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram.

DETROW: I want to go back to something I mentioned in the intro, that the violence also drew the former head of the Proud Boys to visit Belfast. What’s your understanding of why that is?

YOUSEF: Right. So Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted and later pardoned by Trump for seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, he was in Belfast last week. I spoke with him today. He told me that he was there making a documentary about why the stabbing attack set off violent riots. Tarrio told me that he doesn’t condone the violence, but he also told me that he sees the violence as a natural and maybe justified reaction that some Northern Irish are having to a wave of immigration.

He also, when we spoke, gave a pass to those in the anti-immigrant movement there who use slogans that are white nationalist. You know, Tarrio acknowledges a very different history between Northern Ireland and the U.S., but it’s clear that he sees some similarities between the anti-immigrant sentiment there and the build the wall energy that he said Trump activated years ago in the United States.

DETROW: NPR’s Odette Yousef, thanks so much.

YOUSEF: Thank you.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The soccer players – or footballers – on the elite British soccer team Arsenal hung up their jerseys after their championship season to go play in the World Cup.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

The players’ socks, though? Well, they were sent to an equestrian sanctuary.

JUDE PALMER: There was a little bit of a double-take moment where we were like, Arsenal what to send us what?

DETROW: Jude Palmer with the Redwings Horse Sanctuary in Norfolk, England, says the sustainability manager at Arsenal offered to donate dozens of pairs of socks worn in games.

PALMER: It’s such a lovely thing. The donkeys love them. We love them. And now people are loving seeing donkeys in socks, and I can’t blame them, really. (Laughter).

SUMMERS: Soccer players wear footless socks over their shin guards to hold them in place. And after a bit of wear and tear, they can become too loose for soccer.

DETROW: But on the bulky, hairy legs of horses and donkeys, they fit.

PALMER: And yeah, they are just like a long sleeve. So they’ve got no foot. They would end at the kind of ankle on a human. So yeah, for pulling them on donkey legs – spot on, really.

DETROW: The donation of more than 40 pairs of socks out of the blue – or I guess out of the red – was more than a happy coincidence. It was on brand.

PALMER: Arsenal famously are a very red team. Here at Redwings, red is our color. So we were like, they’re red. You know, match made in heaven.

SUMMERS: The docks for donkeys and horses are more than a four-legged fashion statement. They protect their legs.

DETROW: The soccer socks can act as a compression sleeve and hold bandages in place and protect them from flies.

PALMER: In the summer, we can get sort of really annoying flies that can bite them on their legs, and their legs have kind of the quite sensitive skin. So for several of our donkeys already, we’ve been using either bandages or kind of other similar things to just protect their legs from biting flies. And obviously, these socks do that perfectly.

SUMMERS: The acts of compassion at Redwings is often a first for these animals.

PALMER: The horses and donkeys that we see at Redwings come to us from kind of a real variety of scenarios. We see some who’ve come in who have been incredibly malnourished, so they’ll be emaciated, very weak, and need sort of very careful support to get them back to kind of a healthy weight and being, you know, happy and comfortable.

SUMMERS: Since 1984, the Redwings sanctuary has come to the aid of more than 5,000 horses and donkeys.

DETROW: So the giant box of red socks was welcomed by the people who work with the animals on a daily basis.

SUMMERS: It is also a sustainability win for Arsenal, which found a new use for old gear.

PALMER: Obviously, it’s good for the donkeys, good for us, good for the planet as well, keeping them out of landfill and giving them a – yeah – a second life, albeit who would have thought it on donkeys? (Laughter).

SUMMERS: And yes, if you’re wondering, Palmer says the used socks arrived laundered.

PALMER: No stinky socks, thankfully, or we may have had a different reaction from being quite so happy as we were. (Laughter).

DETROW: How they smell after a donkey wears them is no doubt another story.

(SOUNDBITE OF QUANTIC’S “WESTBOUND TRAIN”)

Transcript:

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Also from the Supreme Court today in a split decision, the justices reaffirmed that the Constitution does guarantee citizenship automatically to virtually all children born in the U.S. The Supreme Court weighed in after President Trump issued an executive order that said that citizenship would not be granted to babies born to parents who enter the country illegally or who work here legally on temporary visas. Trump’s order was based on a narrow interpretation of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, that it was only ever meant to apply to formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. Earlier today, we called up Amanda Frost, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, to get her take on today’s decision, starting with the court’s response to the Trump administration’s argument.

AMANDA FROST: Five of the justices said he misunderstood the Constitution, that the Constitution did require near universal birthright citizenship, and then a sixth justice, Justice Kavanaugh, said that a federal statute barred Trump from implementing his executive order.

SUMMERS: Now, this executive order, which is now struck, was just one part of the Trump administration’s broad crackdown on immigration. As we look forward, are there other related cases working through the courts right now that we should have our eyes on?

FROST: Well, I should say the Trump administration has succeeded in several of its major immigration efforts before the Supreme Court this term. So just last week it issued its decision announcing that the court said it could not review the Trump administration’s decision to terminate temporary protected status for Syrians and Haitians, but that decision could apply to all the individuals, over a million people, with temporary protected status in the United States, potentially leading to their removal over the coming year. And as well, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s view of an asylum provision that said individuals who are not yet in the United States cannot seek asylum, even if they’re at the border.

SUMMERS: Earlier today in a comment on Truth Social, President Trump called on Congress to pick up his cause. I’m going to quote him here. He wrote that “Congress should start today to work on ending expensive and unfair to our country birthright citizenship.” And I wonder, from your perspective, is that a strategy that could pass legal muster in a way an executive order could not?

FROST: Absolutely not. I mean, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and five members of the Supreme Court said the Constitution does not permit the interpretation that Trump was forwarding before them. So a statute would fare no better than an executive order. But let me just say that if the nation is concerned about various issues that come up regarding birthright citizenship – for example, birth tourism, which appears to be a small number of people but nonetheless is a reality – there are ways to combat that that don’t end birthright citizenship for hundreds of thousands of people going forward. In fact, there is a law on the books that would prevent birth tourism if the Trump administration would enforce it. Similarly, if we don’t like undocumented immigration, there are ways to combat that without penalizing the innocent children of undocumented immigrants who were born and lived their whole life in the United States.

SUMMERS: Yeah. Over the course of President Trump’s presidency, we’ve seen him push repeatedly to redefine who is an American. In fact, as many may remember, the president attended the arguments in April over birthright citizenship, which is the first time a sitting president has attended that sort of hearing. Can you talk a bit about how this administration has already eroded citizenship rights in this country?

FROST: Well, first of all, simply by issuing this executive order and raising these arguments, the president took what was a fringe idea and moved it into the mainstream discourse. And by a fringe idea, I mean, very few people supported this view of the citizenship clause. In fact, I don’t think this precise line where he was trying to carve out children of undocumented immigrants and temporary lawful immigrants had ever been drawn before by anyone. So this president was attempting something brand new that had not been accepted by presidents before him, by the Supreme Court in multiple decisions in both dicta and holding and by legal scholars. So this was a fringe idea, and I think he has effectively moved it into the mainstream forefront of discussion, although this Supreme Court decision might shut it down.

SUMMERS: This decision also checks executive power in a way that this court has not always done. What’s that tell you?

FROST: Well, that tells me when the Constitution is clear enough and when the policy at stake is important enough, the Supreme Court will push back on claims of executive authority. In the other immigration cases where President Trump did prevail this term, there were statutes issued by Congress that did give the president some discretion and leeway. And there was a debate about exactly how much, but the court sided with the president. But here, the whole purpose of the citizenship clause was to take away the question of who could be a citizen of the United States from the political branches, from the whims of the majority. And for that reason, I think the court recognized that and upheld the near universal view of birthright citizenship that our nation has consistently followed pretty much since 1868.

SUMMERS: UVA Law Professor Amanda Frost, thanks so much.

FROST: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF PHLOCALYST’S “CERVEJA”)

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

And NPR’s Nina Totenberg joins me live now, along with NPR’s editor in chief Thomas Evans. Hi to both of you.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Hi.

DETROW: We’re here because we want to take some time to acknowledge an error we made today. We reported that Justice Samuel Alito is retiring. He’s not. Nina tell us what happened.

TOTENBERG: Well, we didn’t. I did to my boss, and I scared everybody half to death for about five minutes, and it’s entirely on me. It’s not anybody else’s fault. And I’ve written to Justice Alito to apologize, and I thought I would read you most of this letter, ’cause it tells you everything.

DETROW: OK.

TOTENBERG: (Reading) Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today’s error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault. I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks, after a few minutes, had not happened, I asked somebody what was going on inside, to which the answer was retirement announcements. I didn’t hear the S on announcements and assumed – something no reporter should ever do – that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don’t know what else to say, except that I am so, so sorry, and I am eternally. You know, this was a rookie mistake.

DETROW: Have you heard back from the justice?

TOTENBERG: No. But I didn’t expect to hear back from him. It’s my mistake. I – you know, we in the press corps always want people to own up to their mistakes, and they, most of the time, don’t.

DETROW: Right.

TOTENBERG: So I’m not going to do that. This is on me and only me.

DETROW: I appreciate you talking to us about it. Tommy, I’m going to bring you in as well, because I’m going to slightly disagree with Nina…

THOMAS EVANS, BYLINE: Yeah.

DETROW: …Just a little bit. We have systems in place to make sure a mistake like this doesn’t make it to air or this doesn’t entirely land on one person. Can you tell us what happened?

EVANS: Yeah. And Nina was incredibly gracious there, but the truth is, as editor in chief, I feel ultimate responsibility for anything that NPR is reporting. We do have systems in place. We’re trying to be a nimble news organization during breaking news and still be correct at all times. And this is something that we should learn from and go back and figure out where we could do better and be better. But I think, most importantly, we need to be honest with our audience and honest with the listeners that when we make a mistake, we own up to it, and we own it, like Nina did, like I think we all are. And I think we will be a better news organization for it.

TOTENBERG: But I was the only person at the court. And I’ve seen people make big mistakes because they weren’t sitting in the courtroom. And I was – I knew we had a special, and I left early, and that is also on me. You should never leave these people early. I mean, this was, you know – it’s very gracious of the network and Tommy to get me off the hook, but there’s no getting me off the hook.

DETROW: In the meantime, we will all continue reporting the news. We will do our best to get it right. When we don’t get it right, we’ll tell you why we didn’t get it right, and we will move forward. And we’ll continue covering these interesting Supreme Court decisions tomorrow on Morning Edition, on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED and so on. That is NPR’s editor in chief Thomas Evans and legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Thanks to both of you.

TOTENBERG: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAVANA FUNK’S “GHIBLI”)

Transcript:

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Extreme heat is more deadly than hurricanes, wildfires and floods combined, and forecasters say it’s coming from a majority of American states through the July 4 weekend. Officials warn those in the extreme heat wave’s path should take precautions now. For some tips, we turn to NPR’s Life Kit. Here’s host Marielle Segarra.

MARIELLE SEGARRA, BYLINE: Let’s start with hydration. You know you’re supposed to do this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Drink a lot of water. That helps your body make the sweat it needs to cool you down. And if it’s really hot out, skip the beer or the cocktail. It’s going to dehydrate you and increase your risk of heat exhaustion. Here’s Paul Schramm, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

PAUL SCHRAMM: We recommend avoiding alcohol during extreme temperatures. People should be drinking water, sports drinks or clear juices to help stay hydrated.

SEGARRA: Now, if you’re outside and you need to cool down quickly, you can put an ice pack or a wet towel on the back of your neck, under your armpits or on your groin. Some of the body’s major blood vessels are closer to the skin in those areas. And if you’re indoors…

RENEE SALAS: Try to keep your house as cool as possible.

SEGARRA: Dr. Renee Salas is an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital.

SALAS: Covering windows to keep the sun out, not using your oven or things that will actually heat up the inside of your house, opening up the house when it’s cool, like in the morning, and using fans to try to bring that cool air in.

SEGARRA: And check in with yourself if you start feeling sick. There are two major heat-related illnesses to keep in mind – heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Heat exhaustion, if left untreated, can escalate to a heat stroke.

SALAS: I think of it like the body’s warning sign that you’re starting to get overheated and it can’t keep up. You can feel weak, dizzy, nauseous, even vomit. This can progress to what’s called heat stroke. Your body actually starts being unable to sweat. And so instead, you’re red, hot and dry. And a really bad sign is confusion or even passing out because it means your brain isn’t able to work the way that it should.

SEGARRA: The CDC says heat stroke is a medical emergency and recommends calling 911 right away.

SALAS: Really anyone who has limitations in their ability to get rid of heat is at risk.

SEGARRA: Also, a heads up. Salas says to talk to your doctor about whether any prescription medications you’re taking could increase your risk of suffering from heat-related illnesses.

SALAS: For example, drugs for blood pressure, like diuretics or a medication called an ACE inhibitor, and other medications for mental health conditions, like those called the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or we often call them SSRIs, medications like that automatically make individuals more at risk for heat-related illness.

SEGARRA: Overall, Salas says a good rule of thumb is to try to limit physical activity during the hottest part of the day.

I’m Marielle Segarra for NPR News.

SUMMERS: You can find more tips about how to stay safe this summer at npr.org/lifekit.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

As the U.S. turns 250, we are hearing reflections on America from across the country. John Burnett brings us one from Houston, Texas.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Rodney Ellis will celebrate our 250th birthday at picnics around his precinct in Houston with barbecue pork ribs and iced tea, and a heaping helping of worry about the nation’s future. The garrulous 72-year-old county commissioner is guardedly patriotic.

RODNEY ELLIS: We should be celebrating that America is a process. It’s not finished yet. We’ve done some great things in this country. Patriotism, to me, is not just pretending America has no flaws. Patriotism is telling the truth and doing the work to repair the harms that have come about over these 250 years.

BURNETT: The son of a maid and a landscaper, Ellis has served 43 years in public office, first as a Houston city councilman, then state senator and now as a Harris County commissioner. Fifty years ago, during the bicentennial, Ellis was a public affairs graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin. In 1976, there were 18 Black representatives in Congress. Today, there are 67.

ELLIS: But we’ve made tremendous progress since then, tremendous gains. And so when I compare what was happening then to what’s happening now, I look at how quickly a lot of those fundamental rights, those gains that we’ve taken for granted, have rolled back so quickly.

BURNETT: He ticks off areas where he believes America has lost ground, clean air and clean water, people of color in key positions in government, owning up to uncomfortable U.S. history and selfless public service.

ELLIS: We got, you know, a certain level of narcissism in government, and as opposed to celebrating America’s independence 250 years later, you have people celebrating themselves.

BURNETT: But, says Commissioner Rodney Ellis with a broad grin, that’s how it’s always been in America.

ELLIS: Progress is made, but along the way, sometimes you take two steps forward and 10 steps back. But you don’t give up.

BURNETT: For NPR News, I’m John Burnett in Austin.

(SOUNDBITE OF PAPI CHURRO’S “LA OFRENDA”)

Transcript:

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Few issues are more divisive than healthcare. Politicians use that to great effect. But it turns out Americans agree on a lot when it comes to healthcare. That is the subject of a new project with our partner, KFF Health News. It’s a series called Common Ground. Reporter Noam Levey visited a church in North Carolina.

NOAM LEVEY: There are some issues, like immigration or student loans, too divisive to unite the members of Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem.

JOHN JACKMAN: We’ve got quite a spread of political beliefs. It’s definitely a purple congregation.

LEVEY: That’s Reverend John Jackman. He leads this 114-year-old church. It’s near the city’s old textile mills. Four years ago, he suggested a campaign to pay off medical debt for people in the wider Winston-Salem community.

JACKMAN: This is the easiest money I’ve ever raised. All I do is tell people what we’re doing, and they write me a check.

LEVEY: Congregation member Catherine Coe says there’s a reason for that. She works in the accounting department at a big hospital system.

CATHERINE COE: I see people going into debt every minute of every day. We’re all just one medical bill away from financial ruin.

LEVEY: Coe describes herself as a conservative. She voted for President Trump. Terri Mabe is on the other side of the nation’s political divide. She says she can’t stand the president. But she’s also seen medical debt up close. She used to work on construction jobs.

TERRI MABE: In between projects, you are, a lot of times, without a job. Then you get sick. Next thing you know, you owe 5,000, $10,000. Then you’re like, I can’t pay it. What do I do now?

LEVEY: Nationwide, about a hundred million people have some kind of healthcare debt. But at the church, it’s not just that everyone knows someone who’s been in debt. The church members, no matter their politics, seem to agree there’s something broken about a system that pushes people into debt if they get sick. Paul Sluder is one. He used to work for a credit union and did a lot of debt collecting. Most people, he says, wanted to pay but couldn’t.

PAUL SLUDER: It’s incredibly just unfair. I think the system’s out of whack.

LEVEY: Polls suggests there’s a lot of common ground around medical debt. In a recent survey for the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, more than 75% of Republicans and Democrats agreed patients’ wages shouldn’t be garnished to pay medical bills. Reverend Jackman says there’s a part for everyone to play.

JACKMAN: One of our ideas is that we cannot fix everything, but we have to fix what we can in the place where we’re planted.

LEVEY: When the debt campaign ended earlier this year, Jackman led a special ceremony at the church. He stands before the congregation and holds up a piece of paper with a long list of names.

JACKMAN: On this day of Jubilee, we act to forgive the debts of many of our neighbors as God has forgiven our debts.

LEVEY: Each name on the list belongs to someone whose debt the church has purchased and retired. Jackman flicks on a lighter and holds the yellow flame under the paper.

JACKMAN: We are going to burn this list of 1,631 debts for our people.

LEVEY: Kids from a scouting group stand by with confetti poppers.

JACKMAN: Please stand.

(APPLAUSE)

JACKMAN: Go ahead.

(SOUNDBITE OF ORGAN PLAYING)

LEVEY: The music and the singing seem to celebrate something else too – the simple act of working together. After spaghetti in the church basement, I caught up with Cynthia Tesh.

CYNTHIA TESH: There’s just so much division, so much anger. We need to look out for one another. If we start looking out for one another, things will change. If we start considering other people and not just ourselves, things will change.

LEVEY: The congregation is already planning its next campaign. In Winston-Salem, I’m Noam Levey.

(SOUNDBITE OF HERMANOS GUTIERREZ’S “AMAR Y VIVIR”)

Transcript:

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Bestselling author Jenny Jackson has written a coming-of-age story for those heading for middle age. “The Shampoo Effect,” out today, is the story of a group of friends who have been together since childhood – a group that doesn’t have much interest in changing anything about themselves or their lives and who, when they come together, return to the familiar patterns of their younger days. But their equilibrium is disturbed when one member of the group starts dating an outsider and gets another member pregnant. Author Jenny Jackson joins me now. Welcome to the program.

JENNY JACKSON: Thank you so much for having me.

SUMMERS: OK. So just tell us a little bit more about this group of friends. They live in this small, coastal town in Massachusetts. They’ve been together and entangled in each other’s lives forever. They’re sort of their own kind of chosen family. What is it that keeps them together?

JACKSON: They are the kind of close where, you know, they don’t say, what are you doing later? They say, hi, I’m in your driveway. Or they remember what each other’s parents wore for pajamas ’cause they slept over each other’s houses so much when they were little. They are very much like brothers and sisters, except that some of them happen to be married to one another.

SUMMERS: I want to talk a little bit about the outsider, Caroline Lash. She’s living in Greenhead for 18 months while she’s doing this writing fellowship, and she starts dating a guy named Van. He’s sort of the ultimate outdoorsman. And Van and Caroline – they seem happy together when they’re alone. But what’s it like when they get together with his friends?

JACKSON: So he sort of reverts back to the same person he was when he was a teenager. I think we’re all familiar with the concept of going home for Thanksgiving and becoming our teenage selves.

SUMMERS: Yeah.

JACKSON: And that’s sort of what happens to him when he’s around his friends.

SUMMERS: How would you describe Van for someone who hasn’t read this book?

JACKSON: Van is a pure guy. His love language is acts of service. He will check the oil on your car. If you go for a walk on the beach, he’s going to be picking up litter the whole way. He has gone away to college but returned home because he’s an environmental scientist, and he has this amazing job preserving the beaches and dunes in their hometown. And that’s actually kind of symbolic. He’s the guy who wants to preserve things the way they always were.

SUMMERS: I wonder if you, Jenny, have a group of friends like that, who see you deeply but when you’re together might let you get away with too much or return to a version of your earlier self that perhaps maybe you should have evolved beyond.

JACKSON: Well, I have had the same best friends since I was in middle school, and we, of course, all revert to our childhood selves together. For us, we tend to go back to a place where we’re still our best selves, actually. So that’s how I feel different from these characters in the book because when I’m with my friends from growing up, we really spend our time talking about books and music and all the stuff we loved as kids. I think this group is a little more drawn towards bad behavior when they’re together – towards drinking and partying and gossiping and plotting and planning.

SUMMERS: Yeah. We talked earlier about the fact that Caroline and Van – they were really happy together, but then there is something really big and permanent that gets in the way, and that is Bailey’s pregnancy. Let’s talk about that a bit.

JACKSON: Yes. So Bailey and Van had been on again, off again, casually sleeping together, and they hadn’t been sleeping together for two months. He started dating Caroline, and then Bailey learned that she is pregnant. She wants to have the baby. She’s happy to have Van involved, but she doesn’t want to be a couple with him.

SUMMERS: Yeah.

JACKSON: And I think that we’ve all come to understand that a baby is a bomb that goes off in the middle of a marriage. But what happens when there’s no marriage?

SUMMERS: Yeah.

JACKSON: It’s a bomb that goes off in a friend group, and it catches everybody in the shrapnel.

SUMMERS: It changes everything. There is this scene where Caroline and Fran are talking about all of these big changes, and Fran is telling her that having children makes the vision you once had for your life so much murkier. What did you want to explore about how a child changes all of these different kinds of relationships?

JACKSON: I think that we all have really strong senses about the life that we want to live and the kind of person that we want to become. But once you have children and you’re no longer living for yourself, you no longer have the time you want to do everything the right way. You can be this ardent environmentalist who’s, all of a sudden, using disposable diapers. Just – your plans can’t continue in the same way once you have a baby. And this is something that people really can’t understand until it happens to them. And so as often as Caroline is warned about this, as often as Bailey is warned about this, they don’t get it until the baby arrives.

SUMMERS: And we see in the book that Van and Caroline are really trying to make it work, but babies are permanent. It makes a lot of changes. It proves to be too much for their relationship. And I want to avoid spoilers, but the fallout from the breakup between Van and Caroline leads to just so much change and a good deal of conflict for everyone. Talk about why it took an outsider to really rock the boat to help this group of friends kind of grow up.

JACKSON: So I think that one of the things we all experience in our long-term friendships is that you have to sometimes sweep things under the rug. If you want to stay close to your childhood friends, you have to forgive. You have to forget. But Caroline comes and she sort of pulls all of these things into the sunshine, and she makes everybody acknowledge some of the secrets that they have been ignoring for as long as possible. And in doing so, she forces them to reckon with some of the really imperfect things in their relationships. But it takes somebody who has, really, no vested interest in keeping this group close to disrupt everything.

SUMMERS: Did you ever have to deal with a dynamic like this, where someone new comes into the picture and really shakes everything up?

JACKSON: I think that, inevitably, when you’ve been friends with people for a really long time, when you’ve grown up together, your lives look a lot alike, and then things start to change. Maybe somebody falls in love. Maybe somebody has a professional success. And the changes start to make you question yourself. And so I think that it’s natural that you start to feel a little sort of resentful or jealous or conflicted about your friends who are having a different life. And then, over the course of time, you realize, like, OK, you did this first. I did this second. I did this first. You did that second. And it all evens out. But it does make for some speed bumps along the way.

SUMMERS: At the end of the day, if you take stock, do you think these long-term relationships – like the bond between the group of friends in your book – are they a good thing, a bad thing or just a way to get through life?

JACKSON: I think they are maybe the most important thing. One of the fascinating things about a close group of friends is, you know, we talk a lot about chosen family. When you have a family, there is a level of unconditional love there. There’s the feeling that something would have to go terribly awry for a family member to stop speaking to you. That’s not true with your friends. And when you’re really close to people, they can know you better than your family. They know your secrets. They know your heartaches. And they can still decide to walk away from you.

And so part of having these strong, long-term friendships is being caring and really nurturing those friendships in a way that you don’t have to nurture some of your other relationships. So I think that having these conditional and yet really intimate friendships makes us all better people.

SUMMERS: We’ve been speaking with Jenny Jackson. Her new novel is “The Shampoo Effect.” She’s also the author of the bestselling “Pineapple Street.” Jenny, thank you.

JACKSON: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF JIMIN SONG, “WHO”)

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Some of the country’s biggest egg producers have settled a complaint that they artificially raised prices in recent years. As part of a deal with the Justice Department and more than a dozen states, the companies agreed to donate more than 50 million eggs to food banks around the country. They will also pay more than $3 million. Prosecutors touted the settlement. Critics say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. NPR’s Scott Horsley reports.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Consumers squawked in recent years when egg prices went through the roof. The major driver was bird flu, which wiped out tens of millions of egg-laying hens. But the Justice Department and attorneys general in 17 states say that’s not the whole story. They argue that a handful of major egg producers deliberately pushed prices even higher by making exaggerated bids to a market clearinghouse called Urner Barry. Companies like Urner Barry that collect and publish food prices have come under scrutiny in recent years. Livestock economist David Anderson of Texas A&M University says transparent price information is crucial to making markets work, but it also has the potential to be manipulated.

DAVID ANDERSON: There has been an argument that – does that data signal to other players in the market what their competitors are doing, and then can that be used as a way to collude?

HORSLEY: Retail egg prices peaked in March of last year, and since then, they’ve tumbled more than 40%. That price drop is partly the result of a mild flu season, which allowed the flock of egg-laying chickens to rebound. But Angela Huffman, who heads a watchdog group called Farm Action, notes that last March is also when the government put egg producers on notice. Their pricing is under scrutiny.

ANGELA HUFFMAN: Once they filed an investigation, prices dropped. So we suspect that these companies kind of ran back home with their tail between their legs, you know, and realized they couldn’t get away with it any longer.

HORSLEY: Still, Huffman’s disappointed. She notes the $3.3 million payment in the settlement is a tiny fraction of the egg company’s profits during this period and not likely to be much of a deterrent.

HUFFMAN: This isn’t making it right for consumers. You know, what are we getting back?

HORSLEY: The egg producers – Cal-Maine Foods, Hickman’s Egg Ranch and Versova – did not admit to any wrongdoing. Cal-Maine says it did its best to keep supermarkets stocked with eggs during a difficult time. Economist Anderson says there’s now such a glut of eggs on the market, many farmers are losing money.

ANDERSON: We’ve had weeks with wholesale egg prices that are probably below egg producers’ production costs. But, you know, markets oftentimes overreact both up and down, trying to respond to these signals.

HORSLEY: Anderson says if egg producers are fixing prices, they’re not very good at it. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Transcript:

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

A big decision from the Supreme Court today on money in elections. In a 6-3 vote along ideological lines, the court overturned limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. Rick Hasen joins us now to help understand what this means. He’s a law professor and directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA. Thanks for joining us.

RICK HASEN: Good to be back with you.

DETROW: The law at the center of this case is the Federal Election Campaign Act. Let’s start with a quick reminder of what that law had done up until today.

HASEN: So it was a 1974 law that came after Watergate. It Imposed a whole series of contribution limits and spending limits. Over time, the Supreme Court has upheld some, struck down others. And this was another piece of that law that the court had upheld in 2001, but now changed its mind and struck down today.

DETROW: Justice Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. He said these spending limits imposed on political parties are, quote, “a severe infringement on First Amendment-protected political speech.” Help us understand the reasoning behind his ruling.

HASEN: Well, you know, ever since the Buckley decision back in 1976, the court has said that campaign finance limits implicate the First Amendment because people use their money for speech and for association. And so what the court said today was that limiting how much a party could spend and the contributions it receives while cooperating with candidates, that cannot be limited under the First Amendment. In the past, the court had said that if we allowed parties to take these contributions and work with candidates, it would be a conduit for corruption. And the court today said, no, there are enough other provisions that protect against corruption, and this limit goes too far.

DETROW: Is it fair to view this as part of a long-running series of rulings from the Roberts court loosening, eroding, ending campaign finance laws?

HASEN: Oh, I think that’s absolutely true. So back in 2001, when the court upheld these limits, it was a narrow five-justice majority that was upholding all the campaign finance laws. But since the Roberts court came into play, they’ve struck down or limited every campaign finance law they’ve considered. And in fact, Justice Kavanaugh pointed to the creation of super PACs – which the Supreme Court was responsible for indirectly in Citizens United – as a reason to actually free the political parties so they could compete with these outside groups in putting out their campaign messages.

DETROW: What is left of campaign finance laws at this point?

HASEN: Well, there’s disclosure, and so far, disclosure has held. Although you never know before this court because they’ve suggested that that could be too chilling for people – telling us who’s behind the ads that we’re seeing. And the other are contribution limits directly to candidates and to the parties. So you can’t give more than $3,500 to a federal candidate right now. But if you want to support that candidate, you can give tens of millions of dollars to a super PAC and now you can give about a half a million dollars to a political party to help that candidate as well.

DETROW: You know, interestingly, you wrote today that you think this opinion could make the campaign finance system better. Tell me why.

HASEN: Well, the idea is that super PACs are the most unaccountable groups. They can rise and fall. They don’t have a brand name they need to protect, like the Democratic or Republican Party. And so this strengthens political parties as against the super PACs because now people can send more money through the parties. I’m skeptical that it’s actually going to make things better, but I don’t think it actually makes things worse. What would really make a change would be for the Supreme Court to completely change its jurisprudence in this area, and that’s not happening with these justices on the court.

DETROW: Do you expect those basic campaign finance limits to fall at some point, given the last couple decades?

HASEN: Well, it’s possible, but they’ve passed on the opportunity to change things. Even today, they could have applied what’s known as strict scrutiny, which would have meant that almost all campaign contribution limits would fall. They declined to do that today, so I think those limits on money going directly to candidates are likely to survive at least for the next few years. The thing that might fall are the soft money limits, which were part of the McCain-Feingold law back in 2002. And that would allow even more money to flow through parties and essentially further deregulate the campaign finance system.

DETROW: Republicans were the ones challenging this case. President Trump celebrated its win. Do you see this as a square win for Republicans, or do you think this is something both parties will quickly be taking advantage of?

HASEN: Well, in the short term, Republicans are likely to gain because their party committees have raised a lot more money than Democratic committees. But I think in the longer term, you’re going to see big donors who had been sending money to super PACs – they’re going to start routing money through the party as well. But of course, the Democratic Party has to convince its donors that they’re worthy of getting those contributions. So we’ll have to see how things go. But right now, the Republicans have a good head start.

DETROW: That is Rick Hasen, professor at UCLA School of Law. Thank you so much for talking to us.

HASEN: It’s been a pleasure.