The president of the United States and world’s wealthiest man have begun the process of shutting down USAID, one of the most important ways America maintains its global leadership through humanitarian aid and assistance to promote democracy. Trump also spent the weekend enacting tariffs with some of our closest allies, firing career prosecutors and a top consumer watchdog, shutting down thousands of useful federal web pages, and giving Elon Musk access to sensitive databases so that he might unilaterally try to keep your government from paying its bills. Thank goodness for little diversions like last night’s Grammys.

UpNorthNews with Pat Kreitlow airs on several stations across the Civic Media radio network, Monday through Friday from 6-8 am. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook, X, and Instagram to keep up with Pat & the show!