NPR News: 09-20-2025 12AM EDT
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Why did the U.S. military destroy a drug‑smuggling boat and what were the consequences?
Live from NPR News in Washington DC, I'm Dale Wilman. For the third time this month, the US military has destroyed a boat the White House claims was smuggling drugs from South America. And as NPR's Quill Lawrence reports, three people on board were killed.
President Trump announced on social media that he had ordered a deadly strike on what he called a vessel affiliated with a designated terrorist organization conducting narco trafficking. Trump added in all caps, stop selling fentanyl, narcotics, and illegal drugs in America. US Southern Command referred all questions about the attack to the White House. In the two previous lethal strikes this month, the boats had left from Venezuela, a country where a small amount of mostly cocaine transits to the US. The vast majority of fentanyl comes from Mexico. The White House has not provided detailed briefings to Congress on the subject, and some lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say these strikes amount to execution without trial.
Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
How will President Trump’s $100,000 H‑1B visa fee affect U.S. tech companies and foreign workers?
President Trump has announced a new one hundred thousand dollar fee for visas for high skilled foreign workers. As MPR's Adrian Florida reports, the President says his executive order overhauling the H one B visa program will raise billions of dollars while protecting American workers.
The new fee will make it much more expensive for American companies that want to hire foreign workers. In the Oval Office on Friday, President Trump said that will incentivize companies to pursue foreign workers only if they truly cannot find Americans to do the job. The H1B visa program is for high-skilled workers like software engineers. Most of them come to the U.S. to work for large tech firms, but some conservatives have alleged the program incentivizes companies to To bring in foreign workers who accept lower salaries than Americans do. The visas currently cost companies that can get them a few hundred dollars each. Trump said the new hundred thousand dollar fee per worker per year will raise billions for the US Treasury.
Adrian Fladido and PR News.
The Senate has confirmed President Trump's pick to be UN Ambassador.
What controversies surrounded Michael Waltz’s confirmation as U.N. Ambassador?
As MPARS Michelle Kelleman reports, the vote to confirm Michael Waltz comes just in time for the United Nations General Assembly meeting this month in New York.
Senators voted forty-seven to forty-three to approve the former Florida congressman to serve as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations. Mike Waltz was briefly national security advisor until he mistakenly added a journalist to a signal group chat about sensitive information on U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. The scandal followed him to his confirmation hearing where some senators questioned his fitness for a top government job. In the hearing, Waltz vowed to push for reforms at the UN. And said after eighty years it has, in his words, drifted from its core mission of peacekeeping.
This is NPR News. Polish and Allied aircraft were deployed early Saturday after Russia launched airstrikes targeting western Ukraine. The targets were close to Ukraine's border with Russia. A NATO official says defenses in the region have been brought to a high state of readiness.
How are NATO and Poland responding to Russia’s recent airstrikes on western Ukraine?
Texas AM President Mark Welsh stepped down on Friday after more than a week of turmoil sparked by a viral video. The video showed a student confronting an instructor over her teaching of issues related to gender identity in a children's literature class.
Posted video of the confrontation on social media and called the professor's actions, quote, DEI and LGBTQ indoctrination. Texas Governor Greg Abbott also called for her termination and the instructor was later fired. Sophomore Ariana Aguilar said she's concerned about the Board of Regents' focus.
I think it's really important to really re examine what the Board of Regents is supporting and w who they're supporting, which is, you know, the entire student body and not just the perspective of some people.
Welsh is now the fourth university employee to be dismissed or demoted since the video surfaced. The instructor in the video has appealed her termination.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why did the U.S. military destroy a drug‑smuggling boat and what were the consequences?
0:00–0:57
2
How will President Trump’s $100,000 H‑1B visa fee affect U.S. tech companies and foreign workers?
0:57–1:58
3
What controversies surrounded Michael Waltz’s confirmation as U.N. Ambassador?
1:58–3:15
4
How are NATO and Poland responding to Russia’s recent airstrikes on western Ukraine?
3:15–4:26
5
What are the latest decisions on Russian/Belarusian athletes for the 2026 Winter Olympics and the Texas campus DEI controversy?
4:26–4:38