Brian Mann

New White House Press Secretary Katie Zachariah expected to hold her first briefing later today.

NPR's Brian Mann reports.

Katie Zachariah has worked and served on the advisory boards for conservative and anti-abortion organizations.

She also appears often as a guest on right-leaning outlets, including Fox and News Nation.

During an appearance in August on the network Real America's Voice, Zachariah described abortion as the championing of death.

In social media posts in 2022, she amplified far-right conspiracy theories, including the thoroughly debunked claim that former Democratic White House Chief of Staff John Podesta was a pedophile.

Brian Mann, NPR News.

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District Attorney Matthew Van Houten says he stopped the investigation after only reviewing the woman's signed statement.

Here's NPR's Brian Mann.

Van Houten has said the former student who alleged in a recent civil lawsuit that she was gang raped by seven male students gave a different account to campus police two years ago, describing her participation in drug use and sex at a frat party as, quote, "voluntary, conscious, and consensual." But now more full transcripts of the woman's interviews with campus police investigators have been reported by multiple news outlets.

They show she described the incident at the time in graphic terms as rape.

In a statement to WSKG Radio, Van Houten says he didn't see that information before stopping the investigation.

"If it's factual, we absolutely should have been informed about what Jane Doe said to police," Van Houten said.

Brian Mann, NPR News, Ithaca, New York.

Starting today, states will pay for a larger share of the bill to run the food assistance program known as SNAP.

No criminal charges were filed at the time, but two weeks ago she filed a lawsuit with new allegations against Cornell and seven male students.

NPR's Brian Mann is in Ithaca, New York, near the Cornell campus.

The lawsuit says some of the men who allegedly raped this woman, who's identified as Jane Doe, were allowed to write essays in order to lessen or mitigate disciplinary action by Cornell.

In a statement, Cornell said there were consequential punishments for the men involved, but the university declined our request for an interview to clarify what all that means.

Journalists from CNN and MS Now were turned away from a White House state dinner last night.

NPR's Brian Mann reports.

At least three journalists were denied access to the Trump dinner Thursday night, hours after a federal judge on Thursday ordered the White House to reinstate press passes for reporters from CNN, MS Now, and Politico.

Meanwhile, the five major TV networks that normally provide pool video coverage of Trump continued to boycott that operation in protest.

In front of Xi, Trump said how much he preferred the Chinese press to his own.

The Chinese Communist government has been notoriously repressive toward independent journalists.

Brian Mann, NPR News.

A Republican-led Senate has narrowly blocked a resolution to end the war in Iran.