NPR News: 11-16-2025 5AM EST

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Speaker 2 Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Tyle Snyder. North Carolina's largest city is now the latest to be targeted by a surge in federal immigration agents.

Speaker 2 The Homeland Security Department confirmed the surge in Charlotte last night and agents have been seen making arrests. The crackdown has sparked protests.
Vanessa Javier was among the demonstrators.

Speaker 3 Every corner, every area that I saw today is like somewhere my family does tend to go, like for their groceries, for the restaurants that they want to go eat and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 But so yeah, it was definitely nerve-wracking and scary for me and for my parents.

Speaker 2 The Homeland Security Department says the surge is aimed at ensuring public safety, but Charlotte's Democratic mayor says it's causing unnecessary fear.

Speaker 2 Mortgage experts are skeptical about the Trump administration's plan to offer home buyers a 50-year mortgage, and Pure's Bill Chapel reports.

Speaker 4 Backers of the 50-year mortgage say it would help buyers get into a home they might not otherwise afford.

Speaker 4 But Bruce Marks, the CEO of the nonprofit Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, says the longer loan would take decades to build equity.

Speaker 5 The 30-year term has always been the sweet spot in this country.

Speaker 4 But the affordability crisis is real, Mark says. And in Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Hendricks of NBKC Bank agrees.

Speaker 6 What else is staggering is the median age for the first-time homebuyer is 40 years old right now.

Speaker 4 Hendricks says he wants the government to find ways to boost housing supply and help first-time homebuyers. Bill Chappell, NPR News.

Speaker 2 The season's first heavy rainfall is pounding Gaza this weekend. It's flooding tents and hampering recovery after two years of war.
With winter approaching, the U.N.

Speaker 2 says the the need of refugees is immense, and Pierre Zorin Freyer has more.

Speaker 7 Wind and rain are hampering efforts to stay warm and dry in places like Al-Muwasi, where up to half a million displaced Palestinians are staying, mostly in temporary tents.

Speaker 7 A spokesperson for Gaza's civil defense agency, Mahmoud Basal, says rain has inundated those makeshift shelters.

Speaker 7 In a statement, Hamas decried what it called Israel's continued obstruction of humanitarian aid into the Strip.

Speaker 7 Israel says it opened a border crossing this week into northern Gaza, where the UN declared a famine last summer.

Speaker 7 The UN now says, quote, full and sustained opening of existing and additional crossings is required, and that the transport of aid within Gaza remains limited and highly congested.

Speaker 7 Lauren Freyer and PR News Tel Aviv.

Speaker 2 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is working to resume prisoner exchanges with Russia.

Speaker 2 Zelensky made the announcement in a social media video a day after his national security chief announced progress in negotiations for the release of 1,200 Ukrainians.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, Zelensky is promising an overhaul of state-owned energy companies following a corruption scandal. And you're listening to NPR News.

Speaker 2 Southern California remains on alert for the potential for high water and mud and rock slides following heavy rain from an atmospheric river storm.

Speaker 2 The drenching rain prompted flood warnings in areas of coastal Los Angeles that were scarred by those January wildfires.

Speaker 2 Voters in Chile are going to the polls today in the first round of a presidential election in which crime and immigration are among top concerns.

Speaker 2 And in Ecuador, voters are deciding today whether to once again allow foreign military bases as part of the fight against drug trafficking. Critics cite sovereignty concerns.

Speaker 2 Disability rights activist Alice Wong has died, according to her friend and fellow activist Sandy Ho. Wong died Friday in San Francisco from an infection.

Speaker 2 She was 51 and a winner of the MacArthur MacArthur Genius Grant, NPR's Chloe Veltman Reports.

Speaker 8 Alice Wong was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project.

Speaker 8 The group highlighted disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social media, and other channels.

Speaker 8 Wong also received acclaim for her 2022 memoir, Year of the Tiger, an Activist's Life, edited several works on disability, and wrote a column for Teen Vogue.

Speaker 8 Disability justice organiser Yomi Sachiko-Young spoke about Wong in an interview earlier this year with NPR member station KQED.

Speaker 9 Alice is my comrade in political struggle. She is my friend.
She's a foodie. She's an artist.
She's a bit bougie, which I love.

Speaker 8 Alice Wong was born in Indiana in 1974 to immigrant parents from Hong Kong. She was diagnosed at birth with muscular dystrophy, a progressive neuromuscular disease.
Chloe Veltman, NPR News.

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