NPR News: 08-21-2025 2AM EDT

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dan Ronan.

Hurricane Aaron is churning up high waves that closed beaches from the Carolinas to New York City.

The outer bands of the big storm have reached the North Carolina outer banks.

The state's governor, Josh Stein, says his state, though, is still waiting on $100 million in FEMA reimbursement money from last year's Hurricane Helene, which did an estimated $60 billion in damage.

The scale of these storms are massive, $60 billion in Western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene.

Those kind of resources don't exist in Western North Carolina to respond.

Heck, our state two-year budget is $66 billion.

So essentially, we would have to forego the entire two-year budget just to get Western North Carolina back to where it was before.

The latest report from the National Hurricane Center says Aaron is packing maximum sustained winds of 105 miles per hour and is located 200 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Top military officials from the NATO countries met today as discussions move forward on potential security guarantees for the post-conflict in Ukraine.

Terry Schultz reports the European governments are considering whether and under what circumstances they'd be willing to commit resources to such a mission.

NATO's top military commander called the 32 chiefs of defense together for an update on the security situation in Ukraine and its implications for Europe.

Following the session, Admiral Giuseppe Kavadrugonis said unity among the Allies was tangible and that their priority remains a just, credible, and durable peace for Ukraine.

The extraordinary session comes after President Trump said the U.S.

may be willing to provide air support to a European-led coalition expected to deploy to Ukraine once there's a ceasefire to monitor, but that no U.S.

troops would be sent to Ukraine.

U.S.

officials have suggested Ukraine could be provided NATO-style security guarantees in a peace deal, but it's not clear what kind of mutual defense obligations Washington would envision.

For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels.

A federal judge in Manhattan has denied the Trump administration's request to release grand jury transcripts involving Jeffrey Epstein.

More on the story from NPR's Ryan Lucas.

U.S.

District Judge Richard Berman says the government has failed to show any special circumstance that would justify making public grand jury transcripts that are normally secret.

Berman says the grand jury materials requested total 70 pages of summary testimony from a single FBI agent, one PowerPoint exhibit, and four pages of call logs.

And that, Berman notes, pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of pages of Epstein files in the government's possession.

And he says the government's files would better inform the public than the grand jury materials.

Berman is the third of three federal judges to deny the administration's requests to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts.

Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.

It's NPR.

California's Supreme Court has rejected an emergency petition filed by state Republican leaders seeking to stop Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to redistrict the state's congressional lines.

The ruling clears the way for the state legislature to vote Thursday on proceeding with a plan to put the new congressional maps before voters on November the 4th in a special election.

Newsome and the Democrats in California say they are rewriting the district lines to gain as many as five Democratic-leaning seats.

This is a countermeasure to the actions taking place in Texas, where Republicans are pursuing a Trump-backed plan to redraw the lines there.

A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked a new state law that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in every public classroom in the state.

Gabriela El Corta-Solero has more from Texas Public Radio.

U.S.

District Court Judge Fred Beery held that Texas State Senate Bill 10 more than likely violates both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

Plaintiff Rabbi Mara Nathan argued children's religious beliefs should be instilled by parents and faith communities, not politicians and public schools.

The bill was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June and was supposed to go into effect on June 1st.

The ruling only applies to the 11 districts listed in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs hope additional schools will adhere to the judge's ruling.

I'm Gabriela Alcorta Solorio in San Antonio.

It was a mixed stay on Wall Street.

The Dow was up 16 points.

The NASDAQ declined 14,142.

The SP had a loss.

This is NPR.

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