Morning Edition to report from six states that could change the balance of power
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in Norway this week, NPR’s Up First newsletter reported, and Zelenskyy says he is again seeking direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has accused Zelenskyy of obstructing a peace deal. Witkoff was in St. Petersburg on Oct. 21 to meet Kremlin officials and explore potential solutions for ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Norway’s and Finland’s leaders believe a fair deal to end the war requires U.S. involvement, NPR’s Joanna Kakissis told Up First. They hope Witkoff’s trip to Russia leads to something constructive. Ukrainians whom Kakissis has spoken to say they do not trust the White House and believe the United States is siding with Russia. Concerns among Ukrainians grew when Trump announced he would lift sanctions on Russian diesel, and many of them argued the move would not lower fuel prices but would instead help Russia continue its war against Ukraine.
NPR’s Morning Edition is reporting this month from six states that could change the balance of power in Washington. The newsletter said the results of the 2026 midterm elections will shape the final two years of Trump’s second term and serve as a precursor to the 2028 general election.
Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep traveled to North Carolina and Georgia this week, and both states are among those Trump visited this week as he continues to campaign for Republicans vying to keep control of the Senate and House. Inskeep explored how Trump administration policies have affected public research in both states. Trump has eliminated hundreds of jobs from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is headquartered in Atlanta, and universities and research firms in North Carolina’s Research Triangle lost millions of dollars in federal grants last year, according to Up First. Inskeep spoke with people affected by those changes.
Inskeep also got personal thoughts from random Georgia voters by knocking on some doors and meeting people along walking trails. In North Carolina, he visited communities devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024 to assess changes two years after the federal response became a campaign issue. In Stokes County, Inskeep explores how AI data centers have divided the community; in 2024, 79% of voters in the county backed Trump, and the president has supported the centers. NPR’s Ohio and Michigan coverage airs Oct. 27, and the network says audiences can follow along on Morning Edition, NPR.org, in the NPR app and in the newsletter.
Tommy Evans, NPR’s editor in chief, introduced Machine Gods, a flagship AI podcast featuring the veteran technology journalists Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Evans wrote that AI is a transformation vast enough to raise deep questions about work, culture, the environment, cybersecurity, education and so much more, and that NPR had teamed up with Newton and Roose to bring their flagship AI podcast to NPR’s audiences. NPR said the video-first program would begin Oct. 21 and be offered twice a week across NPR’s platforms, providing what the network described as front-row access to the people and issues shaping the new AI era.
The show will look into the ways AI could be applied in the medical field, potentially helping discover new drugs and improve health care overall, along with questions Newton and Roose said keep them up at night, including what happens when AI eventually builds and improves upon itself beyond what humans understand. Evans said each episode would cover the technology’s capabilities and its “very real risks” without buying into the industry’s hype or treating catastrophe as an inevitability. NPR described the format as the culmination of years of Newton and Roose’s reporting from the front lines of Silicon Valley.
Three shorter items in the newsletter: Actress Christina Applegate revealed that she was misdiagnosed with multiple sclerosis five years ago. Dr. Vanessa Kerry, the World Health Organization’s new special envoy for health resilience, said building more-responsive health care systems is what her new job is all about. Utah is suing Kalshi, alleging that its yes/no event contracts resemble traditional sportsbook bets; the state says the prediction market website is operating illegally because of Utah’s constitutional ban on gambling, KUER reported.
Los Angeles County election officials said in court filings that the Justice Department’s list of 20,000 “likely” noncitizens registered to vote is “unreliable,” based on their preliminary analysis. They also said some individuals on the list have indicated they were born in the U.S. and may be citizens. State and local officials disclosed those findings in filings the previous day, in response to a federal lawsuit demanding that California investigate thousands of voters before their ballots are counted. The Justice Department wants the state to segregate ballots associated with the listed individuals, and California officials say the request is unfeasible so close to the election and may violate federal and state election laws.
United Nations scientists said in a new report that countries are not doing enough to cut emissions that drive climate change and that the United States plays a significant role in climate pollution. The report found that the United States was the only major economy to see an increase last year in planet-warming pollution and that, among G20 countries, it is tied with Russia for the highest per capita emissions. China emits more total greenhouse gases annually than the United States, but the report said China’s population is more than four times as large. The report attributed the rise in U.S. emissions to increased electricity demand and Trump administration policies that support burning fossil fuels.
FWD.us, a criminal justice and immigration reforms advocacy group, found in a new analysis of federal data that arrests for low-level crimes, including vagrancy and drug possession, increased in the United States from 2024 to 2025. The report also highlighted a 188% increase in immigration violations, while violent crime rates, including homicides, dropped to historic lows. FWD.us examined publicly available FBI and immigration arrest data, and the figures do not include details about whether charges were dropped or whether people served time in jail or prison. The data cover the first full year of Trump’s second term, during which his administration emphasized a tough-on-crime approach. Zoë Towns, FWD.us’s executive director, told NPR ahead of the report’s release that the rising trends signal a “really troubling return to some of the extreme law and order policies that defined the American criminal justice system during the ’80s and ’90s.”
Brittney Melton wrote the Up First newsletter, which was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.
Earlier, MSI reported that the Justice Department asked a federal judge to block ballot processing as voting was underway after suing California over alleged noncitizen votes. The county’s new filing directly challenges the list’s reliability in that litigation.