NPR News: 12-11-2025 5AM EST
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly.
What is the current situation regarding elections in Ukraine?
Ukraine's president says he's ready to hold elections if Western allies can provide security during the voting. NPR's Joanna Kakisis in Kyiv says the White House supports the idea, though elections in Ukraine can't be held legally under martial law.
President Trump says he thinks it's time for elections in Ukraine, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is open to that. In his nightly video address, he said Ukrainian lawmakers are looking into changing the Constitution to allow elections during martial law. He said, if our partners, including our key partner in Washington, are speaking so concretely about elections in Ukraine under martial law, we must provide responses to every question and every doubt. Voting safely under near-constant Russian attacks is a main concern. Security depends on our partners, Zelensky said. America first and foremost. Joanna Kekises, NPR News, Kyiv.
Attorney General Pam Bondi says the FBI and the U.S. Coast Guard have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. NPR's Quill Lawrence says that tanker has been linked to smuggling for many years.
Bondi posted a video on social media showing U.S. forces boarding the vast oil tanker by helicopter. She said U.S. agents executed a seizure warrant on board and that the tanker has been sanctioned for years and is known to smuggle crude oil from Venezuela and also Iran. President Trump has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom he accuses of narco-trafficking. The U.S. has assembled the largest naval fleet in decades off the Venezuelan coast and offered $50 million for Maduro's arrest. This news came as pro-democracy activist Maria Corina Machado snuck out of hiding in Venezuela en route to Norway to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
Machado's daughter, Ana, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday on her mother's behalf at that ceremony. Machado later appeared in Oslo. The Federal Reserve is lowering U.S. interest rates for the third time since September. The Fed cut rates by a quarter point yesterday, the same as it did at its policy meetings in September and October. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says the central bank continues to respond to a slowing job market, even though inflation remains an issue. Three members of the Fed committee dissented. Two wanted the Fed to hold rates steady, while the other backed a half-point rate cut. Lower interest rates make it cheaper to borrow money. The move by the Fed sparked a day of gains on Wall Street.
The Dow added nearly 500 points, or more than 1%. Coca-Cola says the company's chief operating officer, Enrique Braun, will be its next CEO. This is NPR News from Washington. Votes in the Senate are expected today on separate Republican and Democratic bills to extend federal health care subsidies beyond the end of the month. That's when they're set to expire. Senators say neither proposal will likely pass. Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina says negotiating an extension of the subsidies is too complicated and too difficult to get done before Congress adjourns for the year. The subsidies were a focal point for Democratic leaders in the House and Senate during the recent 43-day government shutdown.
NASA says it's lost contact with a spacecraft orbiting Mars. As Joe Palka reports, the MAVEN has been circling the Red Planet for more than a decade.
It's pretty easy to describe what scientists hope to learn from MAVEN. The MAVEN mission is about understanding the history of the climate on Mars. Bruce Joukowsky was MAVEN's principal investigator when it went into orbit in 2014. Mars is now a cold, arid planet, hostile to life. But scientists believe it was once wet and warm and potentially habitable. The Martian atmosphere most likely holds the explanation for why the climate changed so dramatically, and that's what the probe's instruments were designed to study. NASA says it's still investigating why communications were lost. For NPR News, I'm Joe Palca.
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