Trump gives mixed signals on Iran war. And, how Epstein built ties to scientists

President Trump said yesterday that the U.S. has begun striking Iran's drone facilities and locations where Iranian missiles are made and delivered, and he provided this update at a press conference where he answered reporters' questions for the first time since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

“Trump gives mixed signals on Iran war”

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He gave contradictory messaging throughout the day, sometimes suggesting the war's end was near and other times that it was not.

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NPR's Mara Liasson told Up First that rather than discuss unconditional surrender or regime change, Trump compared the situation in Iran to Venezuela, and Liasson said Iran is very different from Venezuela and that the president did not answer whether not pushing for regime change meant he was betraying his promise to give Iranians their freedom.

Liasson said Iran's biggest objective is survival and that Iran wants to make it uncomfortable for the U.S. and Israel to continue the war by raising the costs of staying in the region, including keeping gas prices high, and NPR noted that with U.S. oil prices nearing $4 per gallon, continuing the war could become increasingly more challenging for Trump.

Iranian health officials report that the U.S. and Israeli campaign has killed 1,200, while Lebanese authorities count 500 deaths, and in Lebanon President Joseph Aoun is pushing for direct negotiations with Israel and an end to the bombings while seeking international support to equip the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm Hezbollah.

NPR reported that last week Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into this war after it launched rockets into Israel, and an Israeli official, speaking anonymously, told NPR that Israel views the Lebanese government's approach to Hezbollah positively but that the war will continue.

Federal authorities charged two Pennsylvania men, Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, with terrorism-related crimes after an attempted bomb attack during an anti-Muslim protest outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's official residence, and prosecutors say the men allegedly targeted the right-wing protesters with explosives.

Court documents say Balat and Kayumi started talking to authorities after their arrest and allegedly waived their Miranda rights, and the documents say the two men told police they watched ISIS material on their phones.

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Balat reportedly wrote that he had "pledged allegiance to the Islamic state" and expressed a desire to execute an attack "bigger than the Boston Marathon bombing" that killed three in 2013, and NPR's Brian Mann reported that police believe the men's alleged actions are part of the Islamic State's pattern of mobilizing young Muslim men using social media.

A new lawsuit filed yesterday accuses the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment by threatening to deny visas or deport noncitizens who work on or research social media platforms, fact-checking, or other activities the government deems "censorship" of American speech, and the suit says these noncitizen academics and independent researchers live in "pervasive fear" of immigration enforcement with "chilling effects" on their work.

“Trump gives mixed signals on Iran war”

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The lawsuit argues that the administration's actions amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Separately, NPR reviewed Department of Justice documents and interviewed scientists to report on how Jeffrey Epstein built ties to prominent scientists by showing interest in theoretical physics, evolutionary biology and computer science and by funding conferences, research programs and individual researchers.

A 2006 conference for physicists in the U.S. Virgin Islands that included a trip to Epstein's private island illustrated how he used philanthropy to build relationships with scientists and academic institutions.

NPR's deep dive looks at a potential new front in redistricting that would count only "eligible voters" instead of total population when drawing state legislative districts, a change some Republican officials now advocate and that could exclude non-U.S. citizens and children and likely shift political influence from younger, more diverse urban areas to older, whiter rural areas.

The Census Bureau would need to add a question about U.S. citizenship or immigration status or resurrect a citizenship data project to produce this narrower population count, and NPR noted Trump's first administration tried and failed to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

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NPR cited a 2015 report from a Republican redistricting strategist saying that adult-citizen-based redistricting "would be advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites," and a 2021 study showed such redistricting would reduce the number of legislative districts where Black or Latino voters can elect their preferred candidate in racially polarized areas, with the most notable drops likely in Arizona, Florida, New York and Texas.

Three shorter items NPR flagged: the Department of Justice and Live Nation reached a tentative settlement in an antitrust suit, Alysa Liu became the first American to win Olympic gold in women's single figure skating since 2002, and a study in Biology Letters found chimpanzees consume appreciable alcohol when they eat ripe, fermenting fruit.