Hegseth Defends Iran War, Powell Stays On As Fed Chair, SCOTUS Voting Rights Case

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The Pentagon estimates the war with Iran has already cost 25 billion dollars as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the cost of the war in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.<br>Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says he will remain on the central bank’s board after his term ends next month to shield the agency from political pressure.<br>The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Voting Rights Act only prohibits congressional maps intentionally drawn to discriminate based on race, a decision that could make it much harder to challenge aggressive Republican-led redistricting efforts.<br/><br/><em>Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? </em><a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a><em> to the Up First newsletter.</em><br/><br/>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Rafael Nam, Ben Swasey, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Ally Schweitzer.<br/><br/>It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.<br/><br/>Our director is Christopher Thomas.<br/><br/>We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<br/><br/>And our deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction <br>(02:18) Hegseth Defends Iran War<br>(06:07) Powell Stays On As Fed Chair<br>(09:55) SCOTUS Voting Rights Case<br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>