NPR News: 12-22-2025 4AM EST
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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman.
What key events occurred at the Turning Point USA convention?
The annual convention of Turning Point USA wrapped up in Phoenix on Sunday. It was the first convention since the assassination of its founder, the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the meeting Sunday afternoon and promised to speed up deportations throughout the country.
We're building an army of patriots and we need good people who care about the country to help us secure the border and do it even faster.
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protections, meanwhile, have awarded five contracts for construction of new smart walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. Texas Public Radio's Jerry Clayton has more.
The new contracts total $3.3 billion for the so-called smart wall, which relies on electronic surveillance and data sharing to detect and respond to border crossings. The smart walls also include secondary physical walls and water barriers in some areas. The projects include one in the Del Rio sector, three in the Laredo sector, and one in Tucson, Arizona. The Trump administration has committed a total of $8 billion towards the smart wall project, a key component of Trump's border security strategy. Democratic Senator Henry Cuellar, who represents Laredo, was critical of the plans and called the walls 14th century solutions to 21st century problems. I'm Jerry Clayton in San Antonio. The U.S.
says it's pursuing another tanker in the Caribbean. Officials say the vessel is trying to evade sanctions for transporting Venezuelan oil. It's part of the Trump administration's ongoing campaign against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. NPR's Kerry Kahn has more on that story.
A U.S. official tells NPR that the U.S. Coast Guard, quote, is in active pursuit of a sanctioned Dark Fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela's illegal sanctions evasion. The official was not authorized to speak publicly, but did add that the tanker is, quote, flying a false flag and is under a judicial seizure order. The Pentagon and the U.S. Coast Guard referred all inquiries to the White House, which has yet to comment. President Trump said last week that he was ordering a total blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers coming and going from Venezuela. On Saturday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the U.S. Coast Guard had boarded an oil tanker, which a White House official later said was flying a false Panamanian flag.
Carrie Conn, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.
Shares surged higher across Asia on Monday after a rebound in artificial intelligence-related stocks, including Nvidia, sparked a rally on Wall Street last Friday to finish the week on a high Friday. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 gained almost 2% in Monday trading. Hong Kong's Hang Seng, meanwhile, was up 0.1%, while South Korea's Copse climbed 2.1%. U.S. futures and oil prices also rose, while the U.S. dollar remained above 157 Japanese yen. This is NPR News. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning Sunday for the southern part of Shasta County, California. That order has ended, but evacuations were ordered in some areas as water continues to rise in the Yuba River. Along Colorado's Front Range, meanwhile, a fire warning is in effect.
Hurricane-force winds and tinder-dry conditions there have increased the threat of wildfires. Officials in Michigan recently confirmed two cougar cubs there have survived into adolescence, as Brianna Edgar of member station WCMU reports. These are the first cubs spotted east of the Mississippi River in more than a century.
The existence of the cubs was documented in March in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
How is the U.S. addressing border security with new smart walls?
Until now, they remained evasive. leading local officials to believe they hadn't survived. But earlier this month, they appeared on a trail cam.
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