Harris rally; Saving Chandra X-ray telescope : NPR

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can expect a mixed reception today when he’s scheduled to speak at a joint meeting of U.S. Congress. Republicans strongly support Netanyahu and Israel in the war in Gaza. But Democrats are increasingly critical, with President Biden calling for a cease-fire. About 200 protestors were arrested yesterday after staging a sit-in against the war in Gaza on Capitol Hill. Netanyahu has expressed his belief that Hamas must be completely destroyed in Gaza, which will likely be the central theme of his speech.

• 🎧 NPR’s Greg Myre, who is in Tel Aviv, tells Up First that Netanyahu plans to meet Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump during his visit. All three of these visits come with complications. Biden has become increasingly frustrated with the number of Palestinian civilian deaths. Harris has a scheduling conflict and expects to meet with Netanyahu privately. Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu soured after the prime minister recognized Biden as the 2020 election winner. With Biden stepping down, Myre reports that political leaders and the media in Israel acknowledge Biden’s support for decades and say the tradition among many U.S. presidents may end when he leaves the White House.

With roughly 100 days until the 2024 election, Harris is aiming to define herself on the campaign trail. She heads to Indianapolis today to speak to a Black sorority. The trip follows her first official public appearance as a presidential candidate yesterday. She walked out to Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as a highly energetic crowd of 3,000 people chanted her name in Milwaukee. The campaign event had to be moved to a larger venue due to the high interest.

• 🎧 “For the first time, she was saying ‘When I’m president,’” NPR’s Deepa Shivaram, who was at the campaign rally, says. Shivaram observes that even Harris seemed “a little stunned by the energy in the room.” Harris talked about her history as a courtroom prosecutor to show how she’s going to take on Trump and express who she was before she became Biden’s vice president. As she reintroduces herself to the country in a small window of time, Gen Z sprang to action online with pop music-backed memes and coconut emojis. Her travel will also ramp up: By the end of the week, she will have been to five different states.

Vice President Harris has the opportunity to try and win over a significant number of voters who now say they are undecided, according to a new NPR poll. The poll finds Harris and Trump are statistically tied, but 1 in 5 independents now say they are undecided — up from 4% a week ago This makes the next few weeks vital for Harris as she reintroduces herself.

• 🎧 Harris does better than Biden at holding on to Black and young voters when they are given the choice to vote for other candidates, NPR’s Domenico Montanaro explains. Trump has consistently shown strength with white evangelical Christians and white men without college degrees. Harris does not do as well as Biden with suburban voters, white voters overall and independents. If she cannot make up for that, it could usher Trump into the White House. But she has a fresh start now with a larger number of undecided independent voters.

U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her job yesterday, according to the White House. The decision came just a day after she testified before the House Oversight Committee, where she faced bipartisan criticism for not fully answering their questions about the assassination attempt on Trump.

Deep dive

Joel Clement spent seven years at the Interior Department working on policies meant to help Alaskan communities that are threatened by thawing permafrost and rising sea levels. His work moved forward during former President Barack Obama’s administration. When Trump took over, Clement was reassigned as part of a government-wide effort to stop working on climate change. Clement resigned and became a whistleblower on what he and other scientists saw as the Trump administration’s political interference and censorship of science. Many scientists are concerned that such interference would be even more severe in a second Trump term. Here’s why:

• ➡️ Environment Protection Agency policymakers were barred from considering studies about the deadly effects of air pollution during Trump’s administration. At the Agriculture Department, information about how climate change affects crops was censored.
• ➡️ Project 2025 proposes eliminating the EPA office tasked with reducing pollution in minority communities, cutting back greenhouse gas emission monitoring and getting rid of the main government office that does atmospheric research. Trump has distanced himself from the plan, but he has signaled that he agrees with many of its proposals.
• ➡️ The plan would also make it easier to replace civil servants, which includes people in positions like Clement’s.
• ➡️ The White House is working to strengthen scientific integrity policies that protect government scientists from interference. A new president could undo these rules.

Today’s listen

PhD student Madeline Hamilton set out to explain our emotional connection to popular music and made a different discovery along the way. Her find: Today’s most popular tunes are much simpler than hits from decades ago. Hamilton analyzed more than 1,000 pop songs to show how the vocals have gotten less sophisticated over time. But that doesn’t mean today’s hits lack complexity.

3 things to know before you go

1. In 2012, Lilah Clevey slammed into another car during her normal commute to college. When Clevey came to after blacking out, she checked on the driver of the car she hit and apologized. Instead of being upset, Clevey’s unsung hero held and mothered her in that moment. This interaction has never left her.
2. Astronomers are scrambling to save the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the most powerful X-ray telescope ever built. It has reached its landmark 25th anniversary in space and is healthy enough to continue doing science for another decade, but NASA might wrap up its mission due to funding.
3. New research suggests that the smell of human stress impacts dogs’ emotions as well as their decisions, leading them to make more pessimistic choices.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.