NPR News: 07-20-2026 8PM EDT
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What new developments came in at the top of the NPR News broadcast?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Ryland Barton. Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have announced an embargo against Saudi Arabia. It comes in retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sana'a International Airport. The embargo affects the gateway to the Red Sea, as Saudi Arabia seeks an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf side of the country, and that raises fears of further destabilization of the world's energy market, as Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution explains.
Why did Yemen's Houthi rebels announce an embargo against Saudi Arabia and what are energy market risks?
If you saw a closure of the Red Sea in addition to a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, at this point in the conflict, with strategic reserves having been drawn down as significantly as they have and without a lot of opportunity during the the ceasefire to in fact restore them, we would see potentially some overreaction from both oil markets and the broader economy in terms of inflation. So I think there's going to be a real time pressure.
The former leader of one of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels has been sentenced in a U.S. court to life in prison. Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as El Mayo, helped found the Sinaloa cartel along with Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. NPR's Ryan Lucas reports.
U.S. authorities arrested Elmayo Zambada in 2024. He pleaded guilty last year in federal court in Brooklyn to running a criminal enterprise and racketeering conspiracy. Now, U.S. District Judge Brian Kogan has sentenced Elmayo to life in prison. Elmayo's Sinaloa cartel co-founder, El Chapo, is already serving a life sentence in a U.S. lockup. Joseph Nocella is the U.S.
attorney in Brooklyn. Over three decades, El Mayo and El Chapo built the Sinaloa cartel into the largest drug trafficking organization that the world has ever seen.
Nocella says the two men flooded the United States with deadly drugs, corrupted Mexican officials and institutions, and used horrific violence to protect and grow their criminal empire. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.
Tropical Depression II has formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Current models have it grazing coastal Louisiana and Texas. Mel Bridges with member station WWNO explains.
Tropical Depression II has been forming in the Atlantic hurricane basin for four days. Originally, hurricane forecasters had the storm hitting the Florida Panhandle or even petering out in the Gulf, but current models show the system skimming coastal Louisiana. As Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grimes explains, it wouldn't take much movement for the storm to hit metro New Orleans as well.
It would require a big shift, just something on the order of 30 or 40 miles. It could bring higher wind energy and maybe more importantly, a little more rain into metro New Orleans.
Louisiana has already been hit by another named storm this hurricane season, post-tropical storm Arthur, which spawned at least 14 tornadoes across the state and left a wave of damage in coastal parishes in June. For NPR News, I'm Mel Bridges in New Orleans.
Major Wall Street indexes closed down slightly today. This is NPR. A judge has set a September trial date for a former Olympic canoe racer charged with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. A grand jury indicted David Hearn on a felony count of property destruction. Hearn pleaded not guilty. President Trump claims vandals damaged the pool during its troubled multimillion-dollar renovation. Hearn says the Trump administration is trying to use him as a scapegoat. Multiple forest fires are burning in Oregon after almost 10,000 lightning strikes hit the state last week. Catherine Steyer-Martinez reports.
There are 25 large fires burning almost 375,000 acres across Oregon. And most of the activity is in central and northeastern parts of the state, says Jessica Newyear with the Oregon Department of Forestry. We are essentially going into our new normal of more active seasons, more active fire behavior. She says this year is shaping up similar to 2024's record-breaking season when more than 1.9 million acres burned.
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