Biden administration issues new rules on unlicensed firearm dealers | The Excerpt

On Thurday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Nick Penzenstadler examines new rules around gun sales. Bipartisan frustration over the bungled FAFSA rollout was on display at a congressional hearing. Inflation picked up again in March. USA TODAY Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at the future of the Chandra telescope amid budget cuts. The Masters Golf Tournament tees off.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, April 11th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a look at new rules for gun sales, plus complaints around FAFSA continue, and the Masters begins.

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The Biden administration is taking steps this week centered on new rules for unlicensed firearms dealers. I spoke with USA Today investigative reporter Nick Penzenstadler to learn more. Nick, thanks for helping on The Excerpt today.

Nick Penzenstadler:

Yeah, happy to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Nick, what is the Biden administration doing to crack down on unlicensed firearm dealers?

Nick Penzenstadler:

Yeah, this is the culmination of a years long process. In 2022, there was the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that outlined a few key rules aimed at enforcing what's already on the books and trying to get more people into this background check system when they buy guns. So this is the key piece where you have unlicensed gun sellers. So think about people at gun shows who routinely sell guns that don't have a license, so therefore they're not putting people through the background check system. This is trying to clarify that in those scenarios, you have to have a license and have to do background checks.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, so what criteria exactly are officials using to decide which sellers are really engaged in business and therefore need to perform background checks on sales?

Nick Penzenstadler:

This is really a clarification of what has been the law. The law says this applies to anyone engaged in the business of selling guns, and that's always been a sticking point of where that line is. Previously, there was a profit and livelihood standard. This is changing that definition to predominantly to earn a profit. So if the prosecutors could prove that you are renting space at a gun show routinely, or you have a credit card system set up, you are a merchant and you need a license.

Taylor Wilson:

I'm curious about the timing here, Nick. Is that significant? Why are the new rules coming into place now?

Nick Penzenstadler:

Of course. I mean, this rule was proposed back in August and it came after action in the spring, last spring from Biden, but they've definitely queued this up with the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. There's a lot of attention on April 20th. Of course, that's the anniversary of this mass shooting. And particularly, the shooters in that case did obtain their weapons from private sellers that didn't perform background checks and from someone who went to a gun show from an unlicensed seller.

Taylor Wilson:

And Nick, what do supporters and critics say about this policy?

Nick Penzenstadler:

Yeah, this proposed rule attracted a ton of attention online in the last 90 days. There were almost 400,000 comments. The detractors say that this is really expanding and overstepping what the ATF and the DOJ can do, enforcing laws that aren't written in the statute. But supporters say this is a step in the right direction, giving authorities what they need to enforce the law.

Taylor Wilson:

Nick Penzenstadler is an investigative reporter with USA Today. Thank you, Nick.

Nick Penzenstadler:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A panel of college financial aid experts complained about ongoing problems with the rollout of the new free application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA at a congressional hearing yesterday. The hearing showed rare bipartisan agreement while also painting a dire picture of the current college admissions landscape. Pushed by Congress, the federal government set out to simplify this year's FAFSA, but thanks to the bumpy rollout of those fixes, completion of the form was down 40% among high school seniors through the end of March according to a tracker from a National College Attainment Network. And high school seniors are not the only students who need to fill out the form. Most college students who need financial help to pay for school must submit it. The Education Department has received about 7 million applications, officials said, down by about 1/3 from this time last year. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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Inflation ran hot for a third straight month in March. Overall prices increased 3.5% from a year earlier, up from 3.2% in February, driven largely by the rising cost of rent and gasoline according to the labor Department's Consumer Price Index. Since reaching a 40-year high of 9.1% in June of 2022, inflation has slowed dramatically. But after rapid improvement in the fall, price increases have accelerated on a monthly basis to a range of 0.3 to 0.4% so far this year. Products like cars, furniture and appliances have gotten less expensive as pandemic induced supply bottlenecks have unwound, though goods prices jumped in February. But the cost of services like rent, car insurance and transportation keep rising in part because pandemic-related pay increases have slowed only gradually as worker shortages have eased.

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Many Americans looked up on Monday in awe at the solar eclipse. But while we spent the week marveling at the wonders of space, a major NASA telescope is on the chopping block. I spoke with USA Today reporter Karen Weintraub for more.

Hi there, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Hello.

Taylor Wilson:

So Karen, let's start here. What is the Chandra X-ray Observatory and what can it really allow us to see as humans?

Karen Weintraub:

So it's been up there for almost 25 years now recording X-rays, which are the things we use to look for broken bones, also the energy emitted by extremely hot objects like the matter swirling around into black holes, but it's threatened by these budget cuts right now.

Taylor Wilson:

What is this latest budget shortfall surrounding the Chandra? And Karen, what's it mean for keeping the telescope up and running?

Karen Weintraub:

So the president cut NASA's budget and NASA in turn cut the budget for the Chandra from about 70 million a year to 41 for next year and 25 the year after. Basically what that means is the end of this telescope pretty quickly. And it means the astronomers would be laid off and that fewer students or no students would be trained in X-ray astronomy. So the pipeline of X-ray astronomers would be cut off. There is another X-ray telescope being planned, but it wouldn't come online until 2032 at the earliest. And again, if nobody's studying this in the intervening years, there won't be researchers who can train them or who will know about it in all those years in between.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, can you talk a little bit about the other major telescopes NASA launched in the '90s? And how does this current situation around the Chandra compare to what we've seen to some of those other ones?

Karen Weintraub:

So in the '90s, NASA launched four great observatories as they called them. You probably have heard of the Hubble because of its vision problems and because it was in relatively close orbit to the earth. So the space shuttle was able to essentially send up eyeglasses to correct the vision. The telescope's mirror was a little bit off and they were able to adjust that by adding essentially spectacles to the Hubble that's still up there. The Spitzer telescope was up for a long time, no longer working. And then there was a fourth that lasted even less time, but also was part of these great observatories and helped us really understand what's going on in space. That one was called the Compton Gamma ray Observatory. So the four together gave us a really good picture from ultraviolet visible, near infrared through X-ray, the full range basically of the spectrum.

Taylor Wilson:

And what do scientists say about the usefulness of the Chandra at this point in defense of it?

Karen Weintraub:

So one astronomer I talked to compared the X-ray sky to the night sky. Every night, if you look up, the sky looks more or less the same. It changes from season to season depending on where you are, but it's a pretty static sky. The X-ray sky by contrast is constantly changing. It's in flux, incredibly dynamic. He said it's violent and variable and exciting. And he said if we don't have something able to be pointed up there and to be looking all the time, we're going to miss the exciting stuff that's going on up there. And so he's quite upset, concerned about the loss of this telescope.

Taylor Wilson:

I know there are folks pushing to save the Chandra. What do those efforts look like right now? Do they have any chance and what's next going forward?

Karen Weintraub:

700 astronomers worldwide immediately signed a letter in support of it. There's a website, savechandra.org, where there's a lot of information and they're also asking people to reach out to their congressional representatives to lobby for this to be saved. It's really a matter of 30 million this year, maybe 50 next to save this telescope, but to focus on the presence instead of NASA's focus on the future. So lobbying your congressional representatives is really the way to go. It is possible that NASA will change its mind, unclear how likely that is.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, without the Chandra, if we are going into a post Chandra future. The James Webb Space Telescope was deployed in 2022. What's its role and could it make up for the Chandra's absence? And how about any other telescopes?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, so the James Webb is different. Every telescope has its strengths and weaknesses. And actually, the cool thing is that the James Webb and the Chandra actually work together and they compensate for each other. So the Webb, for instance, identified a black hole but then couldn't focus on it well where the Chandra could. So the combination is really powerful. So one without the other obviously is less powerful. Again, as I mentioned, there is another X-ray telescope planned for 2032 at the earliest. Many things could happen between now and then, but there is one planned for 2032.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Karen Weintraub, great insight as always. Thank you, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Today marks the start of the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Rainy weather is expected to put a delay to action this morning, but the forecast should open for sunshine into the weekend. This year's tournament comes amid ongoing tensions in the golf world. The PGA tour announced a surprising merger last year that would move it closer to rival LIV Golf. But it appears that the top players from both tours still see each other as separate entities, raising questions about their future together. Last year, 18 LIV golfers participated in the Masters. This year, that number is down to 13. Still, the tournament will bring many of the world's best to Augusta National. And one of the LIV golfers, Jon Rahm, will be in attendance after winning the Masters last year. For more from Augusta, stay with USA TODAY Sports.

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And be sure to tune into The Excerpt later today for a special episode as USA Today Washington Bureau Chief and Bestselling Author Susan Page sits down with USA TODAY executive editor for politics, Caren Bohan, to talk about her new book, The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters. You can find the episode right here beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern time.

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And if you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden administration's rules for unlicensed gun dealers | The Excerpt