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In this season of Planet Money Summer School, our free economics course for your ears is tackling the biggest economic player of them all: the government.

Retired service members donated genetic material to a DNA database to help answer health questions for all Americans. The Trump administration is dragging its heels on agreements to analyze the data.

(Image credit: Billy Schuerman/Virginian Pilot/Tribune News Service)

The private crew included Ax-4 mission commander and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. It was her fifth trip to space and extended her record-setting duration to 695 days, the most of any American.

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Flash flood watches and warnings were in place in parts of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas as downpours moved through the region.

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Recent storms have slowed recovery efforts in central Texas following the July 4 floods that killed more than 130 people. About 14,000 volunteers are searching for at least 100 people still missing.

Arizona's governor is demanding answers about how the National Park Service handled a wildfire burning out of control in Grand Canyon National Park. The fire destroyed a historic lodge there.

A man who once ran for county sheriff in Colorado was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail into a county clerk's office, appearing to target the county's voting machines.

After a bad breakup, writer Melissa Febos decided to abstain from sex and dating for a year. She didn't realize how much it would change her life. She tells her story in a new book, The Dry Season.

Stablecoins are meant to be a safer type of cryptocurrency. Now, Congress is preparing some rules around it.

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GOP lawmakers are trying again to exclude millions of non-U.S. citizens living in the states from census counts that the 14th Amendment says must include the "whole number of persons in each state."

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The Trump Administration has asked Congress to rescind funds for NPR/PBS and Foreign aid. Congress has until the end of the week to approve the cuts.

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In states without policies to drive renewable energy, power prices could surge as federal tax incentives for clean energy disappear, according to Energy Innovation, a think tank.

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The Trump administration is encouraging people to have more children, with baby bonuses and tax breaks. But some families who are practicing pronatalism want alternatives to hospital births.

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An appeals court late Monday stepped in to keep in place protections for nearly 12,000 Afghans that have allowed them to work in the U.S. and be protected from deportation.

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President Trump has made some big shifts in U.S. policy on Russia's war with Ukraine lately.

In the course of two weeks, Trump halted and reinstated weapons to Ukraine and he began openly showing frustration with Russian president Vladimir Putin's continued military escalations.

Now, Trump has announced a deal with NATO to try to pressure Russia toward a ceasefire deal in just 50 days by threatening stiff tariffs and increased military aid to Ukraine.

President Trump seems to be taking a tougher stance against Russia, but will it make a difference, and will it last?

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The Grand Canyon Lodge is the only hotel on the park's North Rim, which is closed for the rest of the season due to wildfire risk. The hotel was already rebuilt once, after a kitchen fire in 1932.

The Fed's $2.5 billion headquarters renovation is attracting mounting criticism from the Trump administration, which had been already attacking the central bank for not cutting interest rates.

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The Trump administration had appealed a decision that had directed it to stop gutting the U.S. Education Department and to reinstate many of the workers the government had laid off.

(Image credit: Win McNamee)

President Trump is facing backlash from his supporters and opponents alike for how his administration has handled the release of evidence surrounding the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

(Image credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)

The lawsuit comes two weeks after the Trump administration first notified states it was withholding previously approved funds for migrant education, before- and after- school programs and more.

(Image credit: Chris Delmas)