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"You might expect that mortgage rates would be falling right now after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a half-point last month.

Instead, mortgage rates jumped higher. The latest data from Freddie Mac showed that the average 30-year mortgage rate had increased to 6.4%, more than a quarter-point higher than it was two weeks ago.

The news is probably an unwelcome surprise to the folks who had been hoping for lower interest rates to finally come off the sidelines and start shopping for a home.

Here’s what’s going on — and what it means for those trying to buy a home now."

"Former President Donald Trump once again appears to be in the driver’s seat in this presidential election.

When looking strictly at the polls, Trump now has the edge in two states and the other five most closely watched states are toss-ups. At the end of August, Vice President Harris had leads large enough in three of the seven states for them to lean in her direction, according to an NPR analysis of polling averages at the time.

Now, Trump has taken over the lead in an average of the polls in the seven swing states for the first time since Harris got in the race."

ST. LOUIS — Five states have banned ranked choice voting in the last two months, bringing the total number of Republican-leaning states now prohibiting the voting method to 10.

Missouri could soon join them.

If approved by voters, a GOP-backed measure set for the state ballot this fall would amend Missouri’s constitution to ban ranked choice voting.

Andy Kim couldn’t rest one evening last September.

“I didn't get a single minute of sleep that night,” he recalled in an interview with NPR, “I really felt like I had to do something and really show people that, you know, when there's these problems in our politics, that there are people who want to step up and try to fix it.”

The problem was his fellow New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez. Last fall, Menendez was indicted for the second time on corruption charges. The news might not have rocked most voters in New Jersey — where as many as 80% of its residents said they viewed the state’s politicians as at least “a little” corrupt, according to a May 2023 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.

For the first 25 minutes, the Arizona Senate's floor session on March 18th was unremarkable.

Then, state Sen. Eva Burch stood up and announced to her colleagues that she was pregnant, and planned to get an abortion.

Detailing a deeply personal medical history of past miscarriages, Burch told her fellow lawmakers that she made the decision to seek an abortion after discovering that her fetus is not viable.

"I don't think people should have to justify their abortions," Burch, a Democrat, told the chamber.