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WH to ask Congress to claw back funding from NPR and PBS

(NYT) — The White House is planning to ask Congress to claw back more than $1 billion slated for public broadcasting in the United States, according to two people briefed on the plan, a move that could ultimately eliminate almost all federal support for NPR and PBS.

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The plan is to request that Congress rescind $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed company that funds public media organizations across the United States, one of the people said. If Congress agrees, that will amount to about two years of the organization’s funding, nearly all of which goes to public broadcasters including NPR, PBS and their local member stations. The Trump administration isn’t planning to ask Congress to claw back about $100 million allocated for emergency communications.

Government money accounts for a small part of the budgets at NPR and PBS, which also generate revenue through sponsorships and donations. Most of the government funding goes to local stations, which rely on it to finance their newsrooms and pay for programming.

The ask would also be the latest move by the Trump administration to exert pressure on media organizations. The administration is waging a legal battle with The Associated Press over the administration’s decision to exclude the wire service from the presidential press pool, breaking decades of precedent. Trump is also personally suing CBS News and The Des Moines Register.

Suspect arrested in New Mexico GOP office, Tesla dealer attacks

(NYT) — An Albuquerque, New Mexico, man was arrested Monday in connection with the fire bombings of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters in March and a Tesla dealership in February, attacks that federal authorities have designated as “domestic terrorism.”

The suspect, Jamison Wagner, 40, had parked his white Hyundai sedan at both locations before the arson attacks and then drove away, according to security and traffic camera images released by the Justice Department.

Federal prosecutors said that surveillance footage from the Tesla showroom near Albuquerque on Feb. 9 showed him carrying a box of supplies that he used to spray-paint graffiti on the building and several vehicles. Investigators said that he had scrawled the phrases “Die Elon,” “Tesla Nazi Inc” and “Die Tesla Nazi,” references to the company’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s cost-cutting program. Wagner was then observed breaking some car windows and throwing an incendiary device inside one of them, destroying it, a criminal complaint said.

Several weeks after that arson attack, authorities said, Wagner struck again, torching the lobby of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters during the early hours of March 30.

Investigators say that he left behind critical evidence each time, connecting him to both crimes: lids from a jar of Smucker’s jelly and a container of olives that they said he had filled with gasoline. Both lids had the letter “H” or “I” written on them with what appeared to be a marker, photographs showed.

“Hurling firebombs is not political protest,” Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement Monday. “It is a dangerous felony that we will prosecute to the maximum extent.”