#national-public-radtio — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #national-public-radtio, aggregated by home.social.
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Former director at the White House Historical Association on the East Wing renovation – NPR
Former director at the White House Historical Association on the East Wing renovation
October 26, 20258:51 AM ET, Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
By Ayesha Rascoe 5-Minute Listen Transcript
See Transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5582403
NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Leslie B. Jones, former Director of Historical Resources & Programming for the White House Historical Association, about the demolition of the White House East Wing.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The East Wing of the White House is no more. What started on Monday, with images of excavators and talk of renovation to accommodate President Trump’s promised ballroom, finished with the razing of an entire wing of the White House despite the president’s promise as recently as July that the event space, quote, “won’t interfere with the current building.”
Leslie Jones knows the White House. She’s now the chief curator of the Preservation Society of Newport but previously served as curator and director of historical resources and programming for the White House Historical Association. Leslie Jones, welcome to the program.
LESLIE JONES: Thank you for having me, Ayesha.
RASCOE: I don’t want us to talk past people who haven’t been in the White House as much as both of us have. That rounded portico that we all know from pictures – that’s not where the Oval Office is. That’s in the West Wing, which dates to Teddy Roosevelt’s first term. The East Wing was substantially enlarged during World War II. Tell us what the East Wing was and wasn’t from a preservationist’s perspective.
JONES: Well, I’m glad that you brought that up first because I think there is a misconception that needs to be cleared up. The East Colonnade – as it’s more formally referred to, which was fully destroyed – is actually separate from the East Wing. The East Wing was its own block of a building connected to the colonnade, and the East Colonnade actually dates back to 1801. Thomas Jefferson had that built on the addition on both the east and west sides of the White House after he moved in, you know, with James Hoban’s original central block design. So those sort of appendages coming off the east and west side of the house have precedent going back to 1801.
And in 1942, when Franklin Roosevelt adds on the actual East Wing building, it is to accommodate the more staff that was necessary as a part of wartime during World War II, but again, built off of that colonnade as a means of continuing that symmetry and balance that the White House had been subscribed in its earliest days, which is so symbolic for what the hopes of our founders were in our country.
RASCOE: So people were thinking about things like that. People were thinking about democracy when they were designing these additions.
JONES: Well, the house itself was designed to look like a domestic residence, not like the palace of a king or the compound of an autocrat or a dictator. It was meant to look like domestic architecture, even so far as to go – James Hoban tried to proportion the windows with the rest of the house to make it look smaller than it actually is. So that sort of approachability and commonality of the house and its design was important from the get-go.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Former director at the White House Historical Association on the East Wing renovation : NPR
#ArchitecturalReview #Audio #AyeshaRascoe #Demolition #EastWing #FormerDirector #History #LeslieBJones #NationalPublicRadtio #NPR #Transcript #WeekendEditionSunday #WhiteHouseHistoricalAssociation
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Here’s what will be affected by the government shutdown – NPR
The federal government has shut down. Here’s what will be affected across the country
Updated October 1, 202512:05 AM ET
By Caitlyn Kim
The U.S. National Parks Service logo is displayed at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on July 10, 2025 in Page, Arizona. How the government shutdown will impact the national parks system remains up in the air early Tuesday. Rebecca Noble / Getty ImagesAs of 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1, the federal government shutdown after lawmakers in Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to extend funding.
Reporters across the NPR Network are digging into the ways a government shutdown would be felt across the country.
Here’s what they found.
Jump to state-specific impacts.
If you’re flying soon …
Air traffic controllers and most Transportation Security Administration employees are considered “essential workers” and have to stay on the job, even if that means working without pay while the rest of the federal government shuts down.
If the shutdown dragged on, travelers could see more “sick-outs” of key personnel. That happened during the 2018-2019 government shutdown as workers showed their anger over missing paychecks.
Lastly, if you’re planning on any international travel in the new year, you may need to build in even more time for passport renewals. U.S. passport agencies will remain open, but it could take longer to process applications with some employees furloughed.
Letter carrier Connie Cruz delivers mail on Oct. 8, 2020, in Salem, Oregon. The U.S. Postal Service will continue to function should the government shut down. Nathan Howard / Getty ImagesWhat about the mail?
The U.S. Postal Service will keep the mail moving as usual. USPS is primarily self-funded and doesn’t depend on the appropriations process to continue running as usual.
Social Security, SNAP, WIC and safety net programs
Social Security, VA and other benefits will continue. There could still be some delay in services, such as processing applications.
During a shutdown, the first to feel the pinch could be the mothers and young children who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food program.
Trump administration uses taxpayer dollars to blame Democrats for government shutdown
“The timing of this shutdown threat at the start of the fiscal year puts WIC at risk of rapidly running out of funds. A prolonged federal government shutdown of more than one week puts WIC families at risk,” says Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association.
Whether WIC could continue under a prolonged shutdown would vary depending on whether states could access other contingency funds.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) will last longer but could also run out if the shutdown dragged on.
There could be missed paychecks and lost jobs
Perhaps the biggest impacts will be felt by federal workers and active-duty military service members who will not receive a paycheck during the government shutdown. In the lead up to the shutdown, The White House also threatened mass layoffs (a reduction in force, or RIF) of federal employees, in addition to furlough notices, in the case of a shutdown.
Because the shutdown happened toward the end of a pay period, the first full paycheck missed for federal employees will be Oct. 24, while for the military it will be Oct. 15.
The only salaries the federal government are obligated to pay according to the Constitution during the shutdown will be members of Congress and the president. However, elected officials can request that their paychecks be deferred while a shutdown is ongoing. Some have already done so.
Federal employees and military members will get back pay once the shutdown is over.
A view of a trail sign White Mountain National Forest on May 02, 2020 in Franconia, New Hampshire. Maddie Meyer / Getty ImagesNational parks are a big question mark
According to an internal NPS memo by email seen by KQED, a last-minute contingency plan provided to employees late Tuesday would keep many parks open without full regular staffing.
As KQED’s Sarah Wright and Carly Severn report, “national park sites that can be made physically inaccessible to the public will be closed off. But all other NPS sites, including those with roads and trails that are accessible to the public, will remain open according to the memo.”
As of late Tuesday evening, NPS had not responded to a request by KQED for comment.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Here’s what will be affected by the government shutdown : NPR
#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #Government #GovernmentShutdown #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadtio #NPR #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates
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Here’s what will be affected by the government shutdown – NPR
The federal government has shut down. Here’s what will be affected across the country
Updated October 1, 202512:05 AM ET
By Caitlyn Kim
The U.S. National Parks Service logo is displayed at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area on July 10, 2025 in Page, Arizona. How the government shutdown will impact the national parks system remains up in the air early Tuesday. Rebecca Noble / Getty ImagesAs of 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1, the federal government shutdown after lawmakers in Congress failed to reach an agreement on how to extend funding.
Reporters across the NPR Network are digging into the ways a government shutdown would be felt across the country.
Here’s what they found.
Jump to state-specific impacts.
If you’re flying soon …
Air traffic controllers and most Transportation Security Administration employees are considered “essential workers” and have to stay on the job, even if that means working without pay while the rest of the federal government shuts down.
If the shutdown dragged on, travelers could see more “sick-outs” of key personnel. That happened during the 2018-2019 government shutdown as workers showed their anger over missing paychecks.
Lastly, if you’re planning on any international travel in the new year, you may need to build in even more time for passport renewals. U.S. passport agencies will remain open, but it could take longer to process applications with some employees furloughed.
Letter carrier Connie Cruz delivers mail on Oct. 8, 2020, in Salem, Oregon. The U.S. Postal Service will continue to function should the government shut down. Nathan Howard / Getty ImagesWhat about the mail?
The U.S. Postal Service will keep the mail moving as usual. USPS is primarily self-funded and doesn’t depend on the appropriations process to continue running as usual.
Social Security, SNAP, WIC and safety net programs
Social Security, VA and other benefits will continue. There could still be some delay in services, such as processing applications.
During a shutdown, the first to feel the pinch could be the mothers and young children who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food program.
Trump administration uses taxpayer dollars to blame Democrats for government shutdown
“The timing of this shutdown threat at the start of the fiscal year puts WIC at risk of rapidly running out of funds. A prolonged federal government shutdown of more than one week puts WIC families at risk,” says Georgia Machell, president and CEO of the National WIC Association.
Whether WIC could continue under a prolonged shutdown would vary depending on whether states could access other contingency funds.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) will last longer but could also run out if the shutdown dragged on.
There could be missed paychecks and lost jobs
Perhaps the biggest impacts will be felt by federal workers and active-duty military service members who will not receive a paycheck during the government shutdown. In the lead up to the shutdown, The White House also threatened mass layoffs (a reduction in force, or RIF) of federal employees, in addition to furlough notices, in the case of a shutdown.
Because the shutdown happened toward the end of a pay period, the first full paycheck missed for federal employees will be Oct. 24, while for the military it will be Oct. 15.
The only salaries the federal government are obligated to pay according to the Constitution during the shutdown will be members of Congress and the president. However, elected officials can request that their paychecks be deferred while a shutdown is ongoing. Some have already done so.
Federal employees and military members will get back pay once the shutdown is over.
A view of a trail sign White Mountain National Forest on May 02, 2020 in Franconia, New Hampshire. Maddie Meyer / Getty ImagesNational parks are a big question mark
According to an internal NPS memo by email seen by KQED, a last-minute contingency plan provided to employees late Tuesday would keep many parks open without full regular staffing.
As KQED’s Sarah Wright and Carly Severn report, “national park sites that can be made physically inaccessible to the public will be closed off. But all other NPS sites, including those with roads and trails that are accessible to the public, will remain open according to the memo.”
As of late Tuesday evening, NPS had not responded to a request by KQED for comment.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Here’s what will be affected by the government shutdown : NPR
#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #Government #GovernmentShutdown #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadtio #NPR #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates