Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House; Trump’s bill : NPR

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Today’s top stories

President Trump met with House Republicans at the Capitol yesterdayurging them to get behind his massive tax and immigration bill or risk a tax increase. The bill has roughly $1.5 trillion in spending cutswith a large portion of those coming from changes to Medicaid.

• 🎧 Overnight, a key committee met to set the parameters for debating the bill on the floor and is still meetingNPR’s Deidre Walsh tells Up First. At around 1 a.m., the speaker for the committee indicated that they were nearing a deal. Leaders are expected to raise the cap on state and local tax deductions in order to address the concerns of some moderate lawmakers. Referring to Medicaid, Trump said during his Capitol visit, there wouldn’t be any cuts and that the plan targets waste, fraud, and abuse. But as Walsh reports, the Congressional Budget Office estimates 8.6 million people could lose health coverage. A new CBO analysis also finds the poorest 10% of Americans would lose resources, while the top 10% would see a bump in their income.

Today, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to meet Trump at the White House in an attempt to reset relations between the two countries. Earlier this year, the Trump administration cut aid to South Africa and expelled its ambassador. Also, the U.S. administration has repeatedly slammed Pretoria for what it falsely claims is the systematic persecution of white Afrikaner farmers — and the South African side has repeatedly tried to correct Washington.

• 🎧 Reporter Kate Bartlett says Ramaphosa, a skilled negotiator who worked alongside Nelson Mandela to end apartheid, may appeal to Trump’s transactional side and U.S. efforts to counter China in Africa. Ramaphosa is expected to appeal to the U.S.’s interests in countering China’s influence in Africa. South Africans are watching closely to see whether Ramaphosa is treated with the same dismissiveness Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy faced during his Oval Office visit earlier this year, Bartlett says.

A new NPR analysis has found that the Department of Government Efficiency has tried to cut at least 40 agencies and groups in recent weeks. The analysis found that DOGE has targeted contracts and spending based on policy disagreements, rather than solely on waste, fraud, or abuse.

• 🎧 DOGE has tried to reach out to places that are not government agencieslike the private nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice and the independent Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR’s Stephen Fowler says. These agencies have said no to DOGE’s requests. There have been over a dozen lawsuits filed related to DOGE efforts at these small organizations that say it’s not legal. Many of the agencies were created by Congress, with nearly all of them having funding and functions spelled out by law, in some cases explicitly limiting the president’s power.

Deep dive

Lithium-ion batteries were invented in the U.S., but years ago, China began leading the way in their mass production as part of its push for electric vehicles. Now, a competition is emerging to determine which country will dominate the future of EV batteries. Here’s why this competition is becoming more complicated:

• 🔋 Chinese automakers are announcing newer, better batteries, including in vehicles promising 5-minute “flash charge” times. U.S. companies have not announced anything like this, focusing instead on cutting costs.
• 🔋 China is planning to install 4,000 fast charging stations, none of which will be in the U.S., where Chinese EVs face the risks of heavy tariffs and tech restrictions.
• 🔋 Companies worldwide are attempting to build batteries based on sodium or “solid-state” batteries. These technologies could be safer, cheaper, and offer higher energy storage.
• 🔋 The Trump administration has started the process of rolling back incentives, infrastructure and requirements encouraging EVs.

Check out other factors taking place in the great battery race between the two countries here.

Life advice

What you eat before bed can affect how well you sleep at night. Sleep researchers share with Life Kit the impact of diet, caffeine and alcohol on sleep health. Here are their science-backed dos and don’ts:

• 😴 Seek out foods like almonds, salmon, and brown rice that are rich in tryptophan, an amino acid that is converted to serotonin and melatonin in the brain.
• 😴 Swap out processed foods for more fruits and vegetables. They are rich in fiber and nutrients like serotonin and melatonin, which can help you sleep more deeply.
• 😴 Avoid caffeine late in the day. It blocks adenosine, a chemical that makes you feel sleepy at night.

For more guidance on eating habits that can help you sleep better at night, listen to this episode of NPR’s Life Kit. Subscribe to the Life Kit newsletter for expert advice on love, money, relationships and more.

3 things to know before you go

1. The future of promoting books is shifting as writers lean into social media as some authors promote taking a break from writing book blurbs, commonly seen on the backs of book jackets. Multiple authors discuss the change in the literary community.
2. Today, a Chicago auction house will be selling items that were on Abraham Lincoln’s body the night he was assassinated, his earliest known handwriting and other relics from his life. (via Wbez)
3. Actor George Wendt, 76, who played Norm Peterson on the TV sitcom Cheers, died peacefully in his sleep at home yesterday.

This newsletter was edited by Majd All-Whydy.