The decision by a second circuit appeals court panel was hailed by the lawyer who led the lawsuit—the American Civil Liberties Union’s Jameel Jaffer.

“The meticulous ruling is 97 pages long and that told at the end that the call records program is unlawful.”

Still as Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton noted, the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records continues. 

“And if President Obama wanted to end the program tomorrow, he could, but he hasn’t. That’s because this program is lawful. It is faithful to the constitution.”

Cotton is pushing to extend bulk collection another five years. Others in Congress want the practice forbidden. If Congress does nothing, the program sunsets at the end of the month. David Welna, NPR News, Washington. 

 

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced today that U.S. military troops have now begun training a small company-sized group of Syrian fighters to battle self-proclaimed Islamic State militants who overrun parts of Syria and Iraq. Speaking at a news conference today, Carter said a second group will begin training soon; moreover, he said Congress needs to take action to pass a budget that will adequately fund U.S. defense operations. 

“Given that the current budget approach is, as I said yesterday, a road to nowhere, we need members of Congress to come together as they’ve done in the past including in 2013 and agree to a multi-year budget agreement that provides the stability DOD needs and the resources our troops deserve.”

Carter called the Syrian training program a critical and complex part of a plan to defeat Isis. 

 

The FBI warned local officials to look out for one of the men who opened fire with assault rifles outside a Texas cartoon contest just hours before the incident. NPR’s Carrie Johnson reports federal agents said they had no direct evidence the man was plotting an attack though. 

FBI Director James Comey said the bureau sent out bulletin about Elton Simpson, including his photo and license plate a few hours before the assault in Garland, Texas. A local police officer shot and killed Simpson in an alleged compliance. Federal agents had been investigating Simpson since March after picking up signs he wanted to engage in Jihad. FBI officials say he was motivated in part by postings from the self-described Islamic State. The FBI director says he worries that constant push of alerts from social media act like a devil on the shoulder of recruits, urging them to kill people. He said those plots can be difficult for the feds to track because they urge disturbed people to act against a wide range of targets. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington. 

 

Stocks regained some of their lost ground today. The Dow was up 82 points to 17,924. 

 

You are listening to NPR. 

 

According to prosecutors at the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defendant wrote defiant notes while he lay injured in a hospital bed after his capture. The revelation by Assistant U.S. Attorney William Weinreb came during a sidebar discussion. Tsarnaev’s lawyer at the time has been trying to show in his interactions with U.S. marshals, her client was never defiant, hostile or uncooperative. A Boston jury seeking to decide whether Tsarnaev, who’s already admitted his role in the attack, should be sentenced to life in prison or be given the death penalty. 

 

New research has found that even very premature babies can survive if doctors treat them aggressively. As NPR’s Rob Stein explains, the study found even babies born only 22 weeks into a pregnancy can make it. 

Researchers studies nearly 5,000 premature babies born at 24 hospitals 22 to 27 weeks into a pregnancy. In this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers report that there is a lot of variability in how aggressively hospitals attempt to save these very premature babies, but that even those born as early as 22 weeks can survive if doctors treat them aggressively. The researchers caution though that most still don’t make it, and most of those who do are left with complications, such as deafness, blindness and cerebral palsy. But the researchers hope the new study will give both doctors and parents a more realistic view of what the prospects are for very premature babies. Rob Stein, NPR News. 

 

McDonald’s wants to show it’s serious about looking into reinventing itself as a more nutritious alternative in the fast-food world. The world’s biggest hamburger chain announcing it’s testing two new breakfast bowls in southern California, one which includes kale among the list of ingredients.