Chapter 1: What recent developments have occurred with Venezuela and the U.S. Navy?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens. President Trump says the United States has seized a Venezuelan oil tanker. As NPR's Quill Lawrence reports, the Navy has a fleet assembled in the Caribbean.
President Trump says the tanker was very large, and he promises more news about Venezuela soon. This comes on top of the biggest U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean in decades and threats to Venezuela's leader.
Chapter 2: How is the Federal Reserve responding to current economic conditions?
The U.S. has offered a $50 million bounty for information leading to the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro, who the U.S. claims is a narcotrafficker. Trump has said the U.S. may soon begin striking targets inside Venezuela's borders.
Chapter 3: What concerns are lawmakers raising about military ties to scouting organizations?
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, with about one million barrels produced daily. U.S. sanctions aim to strangle Venezuela's oil revenue, and the country is selling what it can at a steep discount, mostly to China. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
Chapter 4: What peace plan is Ukraine's President proposing to European partners?
For the third time this year, the Federal Reserve has lowered its key interest rate by another quarter point. Chairman Jerome Powell says limited data suggests that the outlook on U.S. inflation and the job market has not changed since the Fed's October meeting.
Although official employment data for October and November are delayed, available evidence suggests that both layoffs and hiring remain low and that both households' perceptions of job availability... and firms' perceptions of hiring difficulty continue to decline.
Powell says consumer spending and business investment remain strong, but that the housing market is still weak. He says the Fed's inflation target remains at 2 percent. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are urging the Pentagon to abandon the idea of severing ties between the U.S. military and scouting America.
Chapter 5: Why has Taiwan banned the Chinese social media app RedNote?
NPR's Graham Smith has the story.
A bipartisan group of 16 Congress members wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, asking him not to kick scout groups off of military bases as detailed in memos reviewed by NPR. They say it would harm the children of service members. They also object to his stripping congressionally mandated medical and logistical support from next summer's Scout Jamboree.
Hegseth's draft memo says the Scouts have become a, quote, genderless organization that no longer provides boy-friendly spaces and that helping the Jamboree would harm national security. Other lawmakers say Scout families are writing in, concerned about the plans to break this 100-year-old bond. Graham Smith, NPR News.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has a revised peace plan to discuss with European partners. Western European nations are backing Zelensky's effort to ensure that any peace deal is fair. A U.S.-led proposal would require Ukraine to make concessions and cede some of its territory to Russia. France says European members will meet by video today to discuss a peace settlement.
You're listening to NPR. The nation of Taiwan is banning the Chinese social media app RedNote for one year, citing dangerous online scams. As NPR's Emily Fang reports, the move is generating controversy on both sides.
China's RedNote app, or Xiaohongshu in Mandarin, was briefly popular in the U.S. too when the U.S. considered banning TikTok. Now the app has been pulled for a year in Taiwan, where Red Note has about 3 million users.
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Chapter 6: What significant event occurred involving Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Karina Machado?
Taiwanese authorities say Red Note has been implicated in at least 1,700 fraud cases so far. But Beijing blasted Taiwan's decision to pull it, saying the ban, quote, tramples on free speech. Democratic Taiwan, which China one day wants to control, had already banned TikTok plus Red Note and three other Chinese social media apps from being installed on government phones.
over national security concerns, but it had held off on general bans for ordinary users of Chinese apps because of free speech concerns. Emily Fang, NPR News.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Karina Machado has appeared in public for the first time in nearly a year after fleeing her homeland. Machado emerged from a hotel balcony in Oslo today and waved to cheering supporters hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. She had been in hiding since early January when she was arrested.
for joining supporters of a protest in Caracas. Machado became a Nobel laureate for challenging the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This is NPR News in Washington.