NPR News: 07-22-2026 7PM EDT
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst.
What are the key developments in U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation and why is Congress worried?
The Trump administration and Saudi Arabia signed a nuclear power cooperation agreement that the Energy Department says could lead to the kingdom enriching its own fuel for nuclear reactors. That has summoned Congress worried that the Saudis could use the fuel for weapons. Matthew Bunn, a former advisor in the Clinton administration, has more on why the Saudis would want a civilian program.
They say that they would like to make nuclear energy to cover their domestic needs so they can export more of their oil and make more money. But they also want to provide the foundation over time for having more options to move toward nuclear weapons should they feel the need.
speaking there on NPR's All Things Considered. This as the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia is strained as Iran strikes countries in the Middle East that are hosting U.S. bases amid continuing attacks between the U.S. and Iran. President Trump started the war in February, and at least 18 U.S. service members have been killed so far. President Trump says he'll impose tariffs on generic drugs to spur companies that make them to move manufacturing to the U.S.
And Pierre Sidney Lopkin has more. President Trump announced on Truth Social that he would impose a 100% tariff on generic drugs in August 2028. And a year after that, the tariff would double. More than 90% of prescriptions in the U.S. are for generic drugs. And most generic drugs are made outside of the U.S.
Why might Saudi Arabia pursue civilian nuclear power and could it enable weapons capability?
So the president says this is an effort to push companies to build facilities here. The generic drug trade group called the Association for Accessible Medicines says that's already happening. Its president and CEO, John Murphy III, says the generics industry has already, quote, grown significantly in the U.S. over the past two years. But he says generics have faced purchasing and reimbursement problems that have made U.S. growth challenging. Sydney Lupkin, NPR News.
The man convicted of trying to murder Salman Rushdie is going on trial again, this time in federal court. NPR's Ryan Lucas has more.
The defendant, Hadi Matar, was convicted in state court last year and sentenced to 25 years in prison for stabbing Salman Rushdie on stage at an event in 2022. Now, Matar is on trial in a federal case on terrorism charges. Prosecutors allege that Matar attacked Rushdie on behalf of Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. Decades ago, Iran's leader issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death over his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. In the 2022 attack, Rushdie was stabbed multiple times while delivering a lecture at an event in New York State. He survived, but was left blind in one eye. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.
And you're listening to NPR News. Chat GPT maker OpenAI says it's still investigating the unprecedented cyber incident that led its AI models to break out of a testing environment and hack into another AI company. OpenAI says two of its most capable AI models targeted New York-based AI startup Hugging Face. The incident is stirring debates over the need for stronger AI guardrails and the extent to which AI agents are capable of acting on their own. San Francisco-based OpenAI says its AI was working with reduced guardrails because it was supposed to have been in a safe testing environment. Regulators in Europe have approved the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery.
As NPR's Mandelita Barco reports, it's still not a done deal.
The European Commission cleared the pending $111 billion mega deal under certain conditions. After investigating the potential impact of the deal, the group found there would still be enough competition between studios to produce films in Europe, but not to distribute them. Paramount agreed to stop co-distributing films with Universal Pictures in Europe for 10 years. The proposed merger has been signed off by many other countries around the world, but while the Federal Communications Commission reviews the deal's foreign investments, the merger has been put on pause.
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