Calls Mount for Pruitt’s Termination in Swirling Ethics Scandal

Here’s what you’ll find on today’s show:

— Questions about Scott Pruitt’s spending have been dogging the E.P.A. secretary for some time now. But as recent reports show a cushy housing arrangement with the wife of an energy lobbyist in Washington D.C., there are growing calls from members of Congress, as well as reportedly from President Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly, for Pruitt’s termination.

— Over the weekend, residents of Puerto Rico marked 200 days since Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Now, less than seven months after the storm, life is still difficult for many. It’s also violent. In the first 11 days in 2018, 32 people were killed on the island, double the number of murders from the same time period the previous year. In addition to the surge in violence, 38,762 Puerto Rican students have left the island since May of last year. Half of the island’s schools are at 60 percent capacity.

— While kneeling protests dominated headlines during the football season last year, activism among N.B.A. players has taken a different turn — and has had a different reception from the league. A few weeks ago, the Sacramento Kings played a P.S.A. video calling for accountability after police officers shot and killed Stephon Clark, who was unarmed. 

— The story of a woman who roared across America on her Harley: Bessie Stringfield was a black woman with a passion for riding at a time many people didn’t want to see a black woman on a motorcycle. She was often the only woman among men, like when she served as a motorcycle dispatcher in World War II. Eventually she settled in Miami. “She was the motorcycle queen of Miami,” says Nikita Stewart, the New York Times reporter who has written a new obituary for Stringfield, who died in 1993. “She was this incredible woman who, at a time when many women were at home or worked as domestics, she decided that she wanted to ride motorcycles.”