Skip to content
Israel Pushes Deeper Into Lebanon, Immigration Bill Stalled, Anti-Weaponization Fund

Israel Pushes Deeper Into Lebanon, Immigration Bill Stalled, Anti-Weaponization Fund

Up First from NPR
Jun 1, 2026 13 min
Open in Clue

About this episode

Israeli forces captured a 900-year-old castle in southern Lebanon in their deepest incursion into the country in 26 years, complicating U.S. efforts to reach a deal with Iran even as the two sides traded more strikes over the weekend. <br>Congress returns from its Memorial Day break facing a stalled immigration funding bill that has become tangled up with President Trump’s push for an anti-weaponization fund and possible payments to January 6 defendants. <br>And the Trump administration’s anti-weaponization fund is facing new legal hurdles after one judge temporarily blocked it and another judge raised questions about the settlement that created the nearly $1.8 billion settlement fund.<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 Tina Kraja, Anna Yukhananov, Mohamad ElBardicy and Lindsay Totty.<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 Zo van Ginhoven. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction<br>(01:57) Israel Pushes Deeper Into Lebanon<br>(05:37) Immigration Bill Stalled<br>(08:58) Anti-weaponization Fund<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>

Listen to this episode in English to learn English

Podcast episodes are one of the highest-density ways to absorb English at native pace. Israel Pushes Deeper Into Lebanon, Immigration Bill Stalled, Anti-Weaponization Fund from Up First from NPR gives you natural dialogue, unscripted speech, and vocabulary that actually appears in real conversations.

In the Clue app, every word in the transcript is tappable. Tap an unknown word, see the translation in your language instantly, and keep listening without breaking flow.

Episodes to Learn English

More podcasts in English