Senate Republicans weigh billions of dollars in spending cuts
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, July 16th, 2025. This is USA TODAY's The Excerpt. Today Senate Republicans weigh billions of dollars in spending cuts, plus hear how some immigrants are raising funds to cover legal expenses. And after 80 years, Trinity test atom bomb victims will receive reparations.
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Senate Republicans are weighing billions in spending cuts targeting programs from PBS to global health initiatives in response to a request from President Donald Trump. The proposal to claw back about $9 billion in federal funding reflects a portion of the cuts pursued by the Department of Government Efficiency. The bill currently under consideration would impact the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS, and foreign aid agencies, including the World Health Organization and US Agency for International Development. Lawmakers have until Friday before Trump's request officially expires and current funding remains in place. From GoFundMe to OnlyFans, immigrants are going to new lengths to raise funds to cover legal fees. I spoke with USA TODAY National Immigration and Border Reporter Lauren Villagran for more. Thanks for joining me, Lauren.
Lauren Villagran:
Thanks Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So just starting with this, how are immigrants turning to GoFundMe to pay for deportation defense? And why is this necessary?
Lauren Villagran:
This is something I've been watching for a while, from the very beginning of the ramped up enforcement that we've seen under the administration of President Donald Trump. But in the past few months, it really does seem to have accelerated. You're seeing more fundraising, more frequent campaigns, and larger sums of money. A USA TODAY analysis of GoFundMe fundraising campaigns this year found nearly 100 different campaigns set up by the loved ones of people detained by ICE, or community members, raising in just the last three or four months, $1.7 million.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. And how about OnlyFans? I know there's, I guess, a similar approach that we're seeing there.
Lauren Villagran:
I met a man who was visiting his wife, who was detained in South Florida by ICE and sent to a Louisiana detention center. And they, like many immigrant families around the country, are struggling under the weight of the cost of deportation defense and the legal process to stay in the country. They went to OnlyFans, the adult content site. The husband, who wishes to remain anonymous, as does his wife, who is from Colombia, decided to upload some of their own personal content and photos of her to the adult content site in hopes of generating subscriptions that could help pay her bond.
Taylor Wilson:
Lauren, you write that public generosity to the fundraisers appears to be growing as the president's mass deportation campaign has intensified. I guess these folks are having some success raising money in this way?
Lauren Villagran:
So there was definitely a marked difference between fundraisers started in June and July on GoFundMe versus those from April and May, which generated in some cases sort of lower level of funding. In June and July, you start to see fundraisers get over $100,000 in donations. I spoke with one advocate in Kentucky who was looking to raise money for the defense of a young man, a recent high school graduate. He was a refugee. He was here in the country legally, and was still picked up by ice. She decided to hit send on the GoFundMe campaign, and within 48 hours had raised more than $20,000 for him. He was eventually released back into his community, but it certainly something that family members, loved one's, community members are looking to do, because Taylor, bond can range from $1,500 to over $10,000.
Taylor Wilson:
Lauren, what else do you hear from migrants about their fundraising experiences in some of these spaces?
Lauren Villagran:
So US Immigration and Customs Enforcement under the Trump administration has prioritized for arrest anyone who is in the country illegally, and in some cases those who may be in a legal process but without firm status. There's a variety of stories. Everything from the student who had recently graduated high school to a Mexican father of 11 who was picked up on the way to his drywall business in North Carolina. He was eventually released. GoFundMe helped him get the $4,000 he needed to pay that bond. And then in the case of this couple, the American man from South Florida and his Colombian wife, well, it's a shot in the dark, but they are turning to essentially an adult content site. So the desperation is real among some of these families. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on fundraising for legal defense for immigrants from USA TODAY, but the department has been very clear about the scope of its enforcement.
Taylor Wilson:
Did you hear from GoFundMe or OnlyFans about their respective roles in these spaces?
Lauren Villagran:
We did not hear back from OnlyFans. We know really of only one immigrant detained woman who is using the site for this purpose at this point. GoFundMe declined to comment on any increase in fundraising related to immigration defense, but did work with USA TODAY to verify more than a dozen accounts related to immigration detention fundraising.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Lauren Villagran covers the border and immigration for USA TODAY. Listeners can find a link to the full version of this story in today's show notes. Thank you, Lauren.
Lauren Villagran:
Thanks Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Today marks 80 years since the Trinity test. And more Americans are now eligible for compensation for health problems linked to radiation exposure from the Atomic Weapons Program. I spoke with USA TODAY Breaking News Reporter Karissa Waddick to learn more. Karissa, thanks for joining me today.
Karissa Waddick:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Let's go back to the Trinity test. What kind of exposure did folks in this area face?
Karissa Waddick:
So the Trinity test, as you know, was the first time a nuclear bomb was ever detonated. It was detonated in an area of New Mexico that scientists thought was pretty remote, pretty isolated from people, and they chose the location because of the relatively predictable wind patterns. They also kept the test completely secret, even to residents in the area. And so there are a lot of stories out there of people who heard the thunderous roar that morning, July the 16th 1945. And the flash of light, and they looked from their yards, and they saw this giant mushroom cloud in the sky. And they had no clue what it was. The reports talk about this flower-like debris falling on everything. And that was actually radioactive material. It fell into crops, into water supplies, onto laundry lines, everything. So people ingested these radioactive materials and became sick years later. Within the next couple of decades, people living in these areas of New Mexico, within 40 or so miles of the test site became sick with rare forms of cancer and other serious illnesses.
Taylor Wilson:
So Karissa, the government publicly downplayed the potential consequences of the nuclear bomb test for people in this area, right? I mean, how so?
Karissa Waddick:
They kept it completely secret. Nobody was told before it happened, and nobody knew really what it was until after the US dropped the atomic bomb a month later on Hiroshima in Japan. The day of the test, the military said the explosion involved pyrotechnics. But in the initial reports after the test, there was this physicist who was in charge of the safety aspects for personnel on site. And he said in a letter to one of the military officials that radiation was found near homes. He recommended that the next test be conducted at least 150 miles away from populated areas. And to give some context on that, hundreds of thousands of people lived within the 150-mile range of the Trinity test. And so it wasn't until 1979, it was actually elite Senator Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts who said during a hearing in Congress that the federal government had minimized the effect of the fallout from the Trinity test for years. And some of these reports came out.
Taylor Wilson:
Who did you speak with for this story Karissa, and what did you take away from those conversations?
Karissa Waddick:
I spoke with some descendants of people who live in the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico, which was about 40 miles away from the test site. There's this one woman, Edna K. Hinkle, her father Jess, who is still alive, he's 94 years old. He lived in the Tularosa Basin, and he was 14 years old when the bomb went off. Fast-forward years later, and at least 25 members of Hinkle's family descended from her father and his five siblings have had some form of cancer, from thyroid cancer to stomach cancer, breast cancer, skin cancer. Edna, she had beat breast cancer, and had seven skin cancers, and had her thyroid removed at the recommendation of a doctor who said that it was better to remove it in case it became cancerous later.
Taylor Wilson:
A measure in the recently enacted Republican tax bill expands who is eligible for a program that compensates people who have health problems linked to radiation exposure from the Atomic Weapons Program. What can you tell us about this recent development?
Karissa Waddick:
You're exactly right. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act a couple of decades ago, but it previously only applied to people who are living in certain parts of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. And it didn't include people who are impacted by the Trinity test in New Mexico, or some uranium miners who are living on Navajo lands in Arizona and some other areas. So the new law expands the number of people who are eligible to a slew of new states. It includes all of Utah, New Mexico and Idaho, and more people living in Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alaska. And it also includes a number of other people who worked in uranium mines as well throughout the later part of the 20th century. And the new act also increases the amount of compensation, so people who are eligible could receive up to $100,000 from the federal government for the health related problems that were linked to the exposure.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Well, I want to get a better sense of the tangible impact on the lives of some of these folks. What impact will this money have on their lives, Karissa? What did you hear from some folks you spoke with?
Karissa Waddick:
Edna, who I spoke about earlier, she mentioned just how many people this affects in her area of New Mexico. And she talked about how that area is relatively poor. New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country, and people there to pay for their medical bills can be difficult sometimes. And I mentioned that one of her neighbors needed to pull together money to take a car ride up to Albuquerque to get medical treatment. She said that the $100,000 would be life-changing. It would essentially feel like millions of dollars to some people in this area.
Taylor Wilson:
Important story here. Folks should go check out the full version with the link in today's show notes. Karissa Waddick covers breaking news for USA TODAY. Thanks, Karissa.
Karissa Waddick:
Thanks so much.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
It's nearly 10 billion light years away, and you won't see it in the night sky, but the collision of two massive black holes detected in 2023 has created a third one, with 225 times the mass of our sun, the largest black hole merger ever charted. The event has astrophysicists, rewriting record books and rethinking theories on how objects form in space. The collision is especially noteworthy, because the two black holes were larger than those in previous collisions. The two black holes were spinning at about 400 times faster than the Earth's rotation when they collided billions of years ago. You can read more with an awesome graphic story by clicking a link in today's show notes.
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The Emmy nominations are here. Drama Severance led the way with 27 nods followed by The Penguin with 24, and The Studio and The White Lotus tied for third place. Meanwhile, eighty-three-year-old Harrison Ford earned his first Emmy nod for his role as the ornery therapist on the show Shrinking. There were plenty left on the outside though, including Squid Game. The massively popular show was an Emmy darling in its first season, grabbing a best drama series nomination and a trophy for star Lee Jung-jae. But the second season of the series, which streamed in December of 2024, couldn't score a nomination in a single category. You can take a look at some of our nomination takeaways with a link in today's show notes.
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And later today, discussions of body positivity online have shifted back toward unrealistic weight loss goals, despite efforts by TikTok and other platforms to ban such content.
Alyssa Goldberg:
Now it feels like with the skinny talk, the skinny influencer, it's becoming more normalized again to be able to show this desire for thinness and go to extreme measures to get there.
Taylor Wilson:
USA TODAY Wellness Reporter Alyssa Goldberg sits down with my colleague Dana Taylor, to look at how diet culture is evolving, and why it's newest trends on social media are even harder to stop. You can hear their conversation today, beginning at four PM Eastern Time right here on this feed.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
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