NPR News: 02-27-2026 3PM EST
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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Trump administration is ordering the departure of all non-emergency U.S. staff and their families from Israel, citing safety risks. The directive comes as President Trump continues to move fighter jets and warships to the Middle East to pressure Iran in nuclear talks.
What safety risks led to the U.S. ordering departures from Israel?
NPR's Aya Batraoui reports.
In addition to ordering non-emergency U.S. staff and their families to leave Israel, the U.S. Embassy advised that other Americans may also wish to consider leaving while commercial flights are available. A similar order was issued for non-emergency U.S. staff to depart Lebanon earlier this week. Despite these precautionary orders and a continued U.S. military buildup in the region, Iran and the Trump administration continue to hold indirect talks. The latest talks were in Geneva on Thursday and included the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that monitors nuclear enrichment. Aya Bhattarawi, NPR News, Dubai.
President Trump says he has not decided whether to take military action against Iran over its uranium enrichment. On the South Lawn of the White House earlier today, Trump expressed doubts. He said he didn't like the way talks were going. He was addressing reporters as he was departing for Texas ahead of that state's Senate primary battles next week. Former President Bill Clinton's being deposed today by members of the House Oversight Committee investigating the federal government's handling and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein before the convicted sex offender died in jail in 2019. Clinton's name appears in materials released about Epstein, as has President Trump's. Each argues he had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes.
Committee Chair James Comer disclosed one of Clinton's answers in today's closed-door proceedings.
Ranking Member Garcia asked... President Clinton, quote, should President Trump be called to answer questions for this committee? And President Clinton said, that's for you to decide. And the president went on to say that the president, Trump, has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved. And he meant what that said.
The ranking member, Robert Garcia, has repeatedly argued Trump should be deposed. Netflix walked away from its bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery Studio and streaming business Paramount Skydance won out. The $111 billion deal would create a Hollywood behemoth, including HBO, CNN, CBS, and a mountain of cable networks. Robert Fishman, a senior analyst at Moffat Nathanson, spoke to NPR about regulatory review.
As far as the U.S. goes, yes. I mean, clearly the ownership of those combined companies and its all of the assets that come with that, including CNN and the other cable networks and the movie studios combination, is something that the DOJ needs to formally weigh in on now.
Fishman speaking with NPR's Here and Now. U.S. stocks trading sharply lower this hour. The Dow is now down nearly 700 points or 1.4 percent. This is NPR News. NASA is changing its plans for sending astronauts back to the moon. Artemis II's lunar fly-around won't happen before April at the earliest. Artemis III's mission was going to be landing near the moon's south pole. NASA's administrator says the plan now is to test a lander in orbit around Earth next year for that mission, and perhaps humans will return to the moon in 2028. China's Navy says it just wrapped up military drills in disputed territory in the South China Sea, accusing the nearby Philippines, who also claims part of the sea, of disrupting peace in the region.
Another escalation in PR's Emily Fang reports of tense words between China and the Philippines.
The drills kicked off Monday with China accusing the Philippines of having, quote, co-opted countries outside the region to organize the so-called joint patrols. China's referring to Air Force drills the U.S. and Japan did together this week, as well as joint Navy drills Japan, the Philippines and the U.S. just wrapped up as well. all in the South China Sea, this huge expanse of water and ocean bed which multiple countries claim and through which critical trade routes run.
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