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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” said Friday that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding.
The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.
The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. It now ends nearly six decades of fueling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.
Here’s what to know:
Losing funding
President Donald Trump signed a bill on July 24 canceling about $1.1 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense, and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS.
Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some local public stations in their state. They warned some stations will have to close.
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday reinforced the policy change by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.
How it began
Congress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow described commercial television a “vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest.
The corporation doesn’t produce programming and it doesn’t own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The corporation, PBS, NPR are independent of each other as are local public television and radio stations.
Rural stations hit hard
Roughly 70% of the corporation’s money went directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country. The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it’s likely some won’t survive. NPR’s president estimated as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year.
Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children’s programming like “Caillou” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” 24 hours a day.
Maine’s public media system is looking at a hit of $2.5 million, or about 12% of its budget, for the next fiscal year. The state’s rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts.
In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22% from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters like tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions.
From Big Bird to war documentaries
The first episode of “Sesame Street” aired in 1969. Child viewers, adults and guest stars alike were instantly hooked. Over the decades, characters from Big Bird to Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favorites
Entertainer Carol Burnett appeared on that inaugural episode. She told The Associated Press she was a big fan.
“I would have done anything they wanted me to do,” she said. “I loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.”
Sesame Street said in May it would also get some help from a Netflix streaming deal.
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. started “Finding Your Roots” in 2006 under the title “African American Lives.” He invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which ethnic group they were from in Africa. Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was renamed “Faces of America,” which had to be changed again after the name was taken.
The show is PBS’s most-watched program on linear TV and the most-streamed non-drama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination.
Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country.
Documentarian Ken Burns, celebrated for creating the documentaries “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “The Vietnam War”, told PBS NewsHour said the corporation accounted for about 20% of his films’ budgets. He said he would make it up but projects receiving 50% to 75% of their funding from the organization won’t.
Influence of shows
Children’s programing in the 1960s was made up of shows like “Captain Kangaroo,” ’’Romper Room” and the violent skirmishes between “Tom & Jerry.” “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” mostly taught social skills.
“Sesame Street” was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students aged 2-5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted that white and higher-income kids were often better prepared.
One of the most widely cited studies about the impact of “Sesame Street” compared households that got the show with those who didn’t. It found that the children exposed to “Sesame Street” were 14% more likely to be enrolled in the correct grade level for their age at middle and high school.
Over the years, “Finding Your Roots” showed Natalie Morales discovering she’s related to one of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean and former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg finding his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that drag queen RuPaul and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker are cousins, as are actors Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria.
“The two subliminal messages of ’Finding Your Roots,’ which are needed more urgently today than ever, is that what has made America great is that we’re a nation of immigrants,” Gates told the AP. “And secondly, at the level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we’re 99.99% the same.”
Thousands of unionized workers at Boeing facilities in Missouri and Illinois went on strike early Monday after failing to reach an agreement on a labor contract.
Roughly 3,200 workers at sites in St. Louis, St. Charles, Mo., and Mascoutah, Ill., began striking at midnight local time. In a post on X, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 (IAM), the union representing the workers, said the strike began because, "... this is about respect and dignity, not empty promises."
The action comes days after the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 (IAM), whose members build fighter jets and other weapons systems, rejected a modified contract offered by Boeing.
"IAM District 837 members build the aircraft and defense systems that keep our country safe," IAM Midwest Territory General Vice President Sam Cicinelli said in a statement on Sunday.
"They deserve nothing less than a contract that keeps their families secure and recognizes their unmatched expertise," Cicinelli added.
Boeing Air Dominance vice president and general manager Dan Gillian said in an emailed statement to NPR that the company was "disappointed our employees rejected an offer that featured 40% average wage growth and resolved their primary issue on alternative work schedules."
Gillian, who is also senior St. Louis site executive at Boeing, added that the company was "prepared for a strike and has fully implemented our contingency plan to ensure our non-striking workforce can continue supporting our customers."
The workers are employed at two Boeing facilities in Missouri — in St. Louis and St. Charles — as well as another in Mascoutah, Illinois, according to IAM. They assemble and maintain weapons systems, missile and defense technology, and aircraft, including F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets, IAM also said.
Late last month, the union announced that members of District 837 had "overwhelmingly voted to reject" Boeing's contract offer. The previous contract expired just before midnight on July 27.
When Susana Pacheco accepted a housekeeping job at a casino on the Las Vegas Strip 16 years ago, she believed it was a step toward stability for her and her 2-year-old daughter.
But the single mom found herself exhausted, falling behind on bills and without access to stable health insurance, caught in a cycle of low pay and little support. For years, she said, there was no safety net in sight — until now.
For 25 years, her employer, the Venetian, had resisted organizing efforts as one of the last holdouts on the Strip, locked in a prolonged standoff with the Culinary Workers Union. But a recent change in ownership opened the Venetian’s doors to union representation just as the Strip’s newest casino, the Fontainebleau, was also inking its first labor contract.
The historic deals finalized late last year mark a major turning point: For the first time in the Culinary Union’s 90-year history, all major casinos on the Strip are unionized. Backed by 60,000 members, most of them in Las Vegas, it is the largest labor union in Nevada. Experts say the Culinary Union’s success is a notable exception in a national landscape where union membership overall is declining.
“Together, we’ve shown that change can be a positive force, and I’m confident that this partnership will continue to benefit us all in the years to come,” Patrick Nichols, president and CEO of the Venetian, said shortly after workers approved the deal.
Pacheco says their new contract has already reshaped her day-to-day life. The housekeeper no longer races against the clock to clean an unmanageable number of hotel suites, and she’s spending more quality time with her children because of the better pay and guaranteed days off.
“Now with the union, we have a voice,” Pacheco said.
Union strength is fading nationally
These gains come at a time when union membership nationally is at an all-time low, despite Republican-led efforts over the years to curb union power. About 10% of U.S. workers belonged to a union in 2024, down from 20% in 1983, the first year for which data is available, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
President Donald Trump, in March, signed an executive order seeking to end collective bargaining for certain federal employees, which led to union leaders suing the administration. Nevada and more than two dozen other states now have so-called “right to work” laws that let workers opt out of union membership and dues. GOP lawmakers have also supported changes to the National Labor Relations Board and other regulatory bodies, seeking to reduce what they view as overly burdensome rules on businesses.
Ruben Garcia, professor and director of the workplace program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas law school, said the Culinary Union’s resilience stems from its deep roots in Las Vegas, its ability to adapt to the growth and corporatization of the casino industry, and its long history of navigating complex power dynamics with casino owners and operators.
He said the consolidation of casinos on the Las Vegas Strip mirrors the dominance of the Big Three automakers in Detroit. A few powerful companies — MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn Resorts — now control most of the dozens of casinos along Las Vegas Boulevard.
“That consolidation can make things harder for workers in some ways, but it also gives unions one large target,” Garcia said.
That dynamic worked in the union’s favor in 2023, when the threat of a major strike by 35,000 hospitality workers with expired contracts loomed over the Strip. But a last-minute deal with Caesars narrowly averted the walkout, and it triggered a domino effect across the Strip, with the union quickly finalizing similar deals for workers at MGM Resorts and Wynn properties.
The latest contracts secured a historic 32% bump in pay over the life of the five-year contract. Union casino workers will earn an average $35 hourly, including benefits, by the end of it.
The union’s influence also extends far beyond the casino floor. With its ability to mobilize thousands of its members for canvassing and voter outreach, the union’s endorsements are highly coveted, particularly among Democrats, and can signal who has the best shot at winning working-class votes.
The union has — and still — faces resistance
The union’s path hasn’t always been smooth, though. Michael Green, a history professor at UNLV, noted the Culinary Union has long faced resistance.
“Historically, there have always been people who are anti-union,” Green said.
Earlier this year, two food service workers in Las Vegas filed federal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the union of deducting dues despite their objections to union membership. It varies at each casino, but between 95 to 98% of workers opt in to union membership, according to the union.
“I don’t think Culinary Union bosses deserve my support,” said one of the workers, Renee Guerrero, who works at T-Mobile Arena on the Strip. “Their actions since I attempted to exercise my right to stop dues payments only confirm my decision.”
But longtime union members like Paul Anthony see things differently. Anthony, a food server at the Bellagio and a Culinary member for nearly 40 years, said his union benefits — free family health insurance, reliable pay raises, job security, and a pension — helped him to build a lasting career in the hospitality industry.
“A lot of times it is an industry that doesn’t have longevity,” he said. But on the Strip, it’s a job that people can do for “20 years, 30 years, 40 years.”
Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer and lead negotiator, said the union calls this the “Las Vegas dream.”
“It’s always been our goal to make sure that this town is a union town,” he said.