Politics and views in the United States.

Legal fights over free speech, federal power, and public accountability take center stage as courts, campuses and communities confront the reach of government authority.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2025 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

This case is about yet another public university punishing a professor for the views that they express.

Khadir Abbas with the Council on American Islamic Relations is arguing in a federal court on behalf of a University of Kentucky law professor who says he was suspended and barred from campus after criticizing Israel, which Kerr calls a clear violation of academic free speech.

Abbas says courts across the country have consistently upheld First Amendment protections, regardless of ideology.

After last weekend's killing of two at Brown University, police say there might be a connection with the shooting 50 miles away.

An MIT physics professor died after being wounded in his home.

No suspect has been publicly identified in either case.

A Chicago teachers' union says it's stepping in to support families rattled by immigration raids.

Union Vice President Jackson Potter says this started organically at the grassroots.

People coming out of the woodwork, setting up rapid response, going to schools before and after dismissal to protect and defend.

The Trump administration wants to halt gender-related care for minors, threatening to cut off hospital funding and Medicaid payments.

Families seeking the treatments call that government overreach.

But Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says they're drawing a hard line against a false idea that could permanently harm young people.

The first rule of our hospitals that participate in Medicare and Medicaid, which is almost every hospital, from performing these dangerous and harmful procedures.

The major medical organizations say gender care saves lives and is almost always easily reversible.

A board handpicked by President Donald Trump has voted unanimously to rename Washington's Kennedy Center as the Trump Kennedy Center.

The change may require congressional approval.

The president is also signing an executive order moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, expanding research access and easing tax rules, while stopping short of legalization.

Under criticism for his economic policies, Trump says the government will pay a one-time warrior dividend of $1,776 to service members.

He says the payments funded in part by tariffs reflect a stronger economy.

Many of the Biden-era projects aiming to shift Appalachia from coal to clean energy have had their funding revoked by the Trump White House.

Dana Kuhnlein at Reimagine Appalachia says their research shows that stalling clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act is putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk.

We saw a huge spike in clean energy and manufacturing investments.

And with the changes we've seen from the Trump administration throughout 2025, those big spikes have turned into a flatline and even a downturn.

I'm Farah Siddiqui for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.