by Brittney Melton

August 16, 2026

Good morning. This week, two media organizations sued President Trump over a Truth Social service offering faster access to his posts, Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in court, and the Congressional Black Caucus pushed for federal review in the Nolan Wells death case.

How the National Guard became part of D.C.’s scenery

by Kat Lonsdorf, NPR reporter

Last year, as President Trump deployed — or threatened to deploy — the National Guard to several cities across the country, I raised my hand to cover them nationally, tracking the many legal battles and constitutional concerns raised by Trump’s use of the military domestically.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I would soon be living amidst the president’s longest and largest domestic deployment yet: Washington, D.C.

This past week marked one year since Trump declared a "crime emergency" in the city, despite a 30-year low in violent crime, and deployed the guard to the nation’s capital — something the president can do because D.C. is not a state and he controls the guard here.

Members of the National Guard stand along a walkway along Constitution Ave. as a man in a bright orange jacket jogs by.

Heather Diehl/Getty Images North America

Since then, the number of armed, uniformed troops patrolling city streets has steadily grown from around 800 to now nearly 5,000, coming from more than 20 different states. The deployment has been extended until Jan. 20, 2029.

The National Guard presence has become ubiquitous in many neighborhoods throughout the city: in busy shopping areas, at the farmers’ markets, in metro stations and parks.

More than once in recent weeks, I have walked out my front door and directly into a group of three or four guard members patrolling my street. A few days ago, I decided to count how many I saw on my 40-minute walk into the newsroom. I counted 26.

And yet I’ve noticed how normal that has started feeling to me, so much so that I barely register the troops sometimes — even as someone who is reporting on the deployment every day, paying more attention to it than most people probably are. Other friends and colleagues say they feel similarly, like the National Guard has quietly become part of the scenery of the city, albeit a controversial one.

In a recent piece about the deployment, I describe a scene at my neighborhood park on a pleasant summer day, where dozens of people out enjoying the weather didn’t seem to even notice the troops patrolling through the crowd.

It’s that normalization that has many constitutional experts and former military officials I’ve been talking with lately concerned.

"I worry about these troops standing on street corners fading into the background, and people starting to accept this as just a fact of life," said Joseph Nunn, counsel at the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security program. "Armed military personnel standing on the street corners in an American city should never be normal."

And while this may feel like a local story, it has many worried on a national scale.

"A normalized, ongoing, years-long deployment in D.C. makes it much easier for the government to attempt to deploy troops in other communities,” Beau Tremitiere, counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit legal center that has been tracking the D.C. deployment, told me.

Trump has said he would like to replicate the D.C. deployment elsewhere. There are already similar, ongoing deployments in Memphis and New Orleans.

Increasingly, the conversations I’m having turn to the upcoming midterm elections. I called up retired Gen. Randy Manner, once a top official in the National Guard, the other day to get his thoughts as we hit the one-year mark here.

“I think what we are about to see in the United States is going to be the deployment either at the federal level or at the state level of National Guard soldiers to ‘protect the security’ of the vote in November, since we are less than 100 days away. I think that is the greatest threat,” he told me.

I asked him if he really thought that was realistic, given the strong and clear federal laws against the use of the military near polling places.

“I hope I'm proven wrong. I really do,” he said.

Check out more great reads from the NPR network you may have missed:

➡️ The United States' war with Iran could have a new front — one that leaves critical American infrastructure at risk. Cybersecurity experts believe Iran may be to blame for a series of recent cyberattacks on U.S. water systems in at least seven states. U.S. adversaries, including Iran, have been targeting U.S. infrastructure for years. But the scope, scale and impact of the recent attacks have surprised even experts. By disrupting the water supply, Iran can demonstrate its ability to harm a critical economic asset and can undermine the American public's trust in the U.S. government's capability to provide essential services. The recent cyberattacks highlight the need for improved preparedness for future threats, but the U.S. water sector lacks the necessary budget and technical expertise to independently track hackers and defend against cyber threats.
➡️ America's downtowns are rapidly changing, as storefronts that once sold clothes and other physical goods give way to shops offering services, like spas and restaurants. Last year marked the first time a majority of U.S. retail space was leased to businesses selling services and experiences rather than goods, according to real estate data firm CoStar. Changing consumer spending habits and the rise of e-commerce, have been driving forces behind the shift. Some of these new cafes, spas and salons have helped bring new business to the shops that have been mainstays of their towns. But other small business owners wonder whether the shift toward food and service shops enriches their town's value or detracts from it.
➡️ The Lagos-Abidjan corridor in West Africa is rapidly expanding. By 2050, the region could host more than 50 million people. But economic stagnation, political tensions and climate migration are threatening to derail its immense potential. Much of the Lagos-Abidjan corridor remains untapped, raising critical questions among urban experts about whether this growth is fostering true prosperity or simply deepening disparities. NPR spent two weeks traveling along the 600-mile corridor. Reporters journeyed through Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana and the Ivory Coast, capturing the pressures and possibilities that are reshaping daily life in this dynamic region. Dive into this visual exploration and see how a road could change West Africa's urban future.

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Pod Club

Nick Mohammed, Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt in “Ted Lasso.”

Apple TV

Thanks for tuning in last week to the The Indicator from Planet Money episode that explored how music influencers shape our musical taste. These influencers say both veteran artists and newcomers have paid them to promote their songs. NPR listener Honey Music, a person with experience in the music industry, says this process might seem like new news, but it has been going on for decades. “It's just 'insider' information. All businesses have insider information, and so a bunch of old dogs talking about it later is just old dogs talking about it later,” Music says. “The whole time we knew people who were much better than the people who were making it on the radio.”

Today, we’re listening to an episode from Pop Culture Happy Hour that dives into our favorite TV workplaces. Most adults spend a significant portion of their lives at work. But their offices often don’t look quite the same as the working life depicted on TV. In this episode, Pop Culture Happy Hour hosts discuss a wide range of TV workspaces, including Ted Lasso, Game of Thrones, The Muppet Show and The West Wing. Listen to the episode or read the transcript.

Is there a fictional place on TV you would like to work? Let us know by clicking here. Your response could appear in next week's Sunday newsletter.

Love podcasts? For handpicked episode recommendations every week, check out Pod Club — a newsletter written FOR podcast fans BY podcast fans. Subscribe here!

And, on this week's episode of The Sunday Story from Up First, NPR’s Lauren Frayer travels from Scotland to a London tube station to explore how beavers are making a comeback and transforming the British landscape after centuries of extinction there.

O-OO

The words "Sunday Puzzle" over a white background. The name "Will Shortz" is under the Sunday Puzzle title, etched into red dice.

NPR

It's time for the Sunday Puzzle! For this week’s on-air challenge, NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz will give you some sentences. Each sentence has two blanks. The word that goes in the first blank has an O somewhere in it. Double the O and you'll get a new word that goes in the second blank to complete the sentence. For example, if you are given the clue “In the college lecture hall, the math ___ explained a difficult ___.” the answer would be “PrOf, then PrOOf.” Test your skills here. Check the page later to hear the answers, or catch them live on Weekend Edition at 8:41 a.m. ET.

This week's online challenge comes from James Ellison, of Jefferson City, Mo. Think of a famous movie villain. Insert one letter to get the brand name of a household product. Then change one letter of the product to get the last name of another famous movie villain. Who are the characters, and what is the product? Submit your answer here, and you could win a chance to play next Sunday's on-air puzzle.

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