NPR News: 11-19-2025 10PM EST

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Speaker 2 Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. President Trump has signed the bill forcing the Justice Department to release its files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 2 Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation yesterday, which requires the Justice Department to publish all of its files within 30 days, with some exceptions.

Speaker 2 Those include provisions to protect ongoing investigations. Just last week, the DOJ launched an investigation into prominent Democrats connected to Epstein.
The gap between what the U.S.

Speaker 2 buys from other countries and what it sells them fell by nearly 24 percent in August as President Trump's tariffs pushed imports lower. Meanwhile, Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Trump's

Speaker 2 tariff powers during arguments earlier this month. NPR's Danielle Kurtzlaben reports.

Speaker 3 It's not just about whether those country-by-country tariffs will be found to be unlawful.

Speaker 3 The uncertainty is also around what the impact is on those country-by-country agreements, since those were created under the threat of tariffs. Here's Scott Linsecum.

Speaker 3 He's a trade expert at the Libertarian Cato Institute on how countries will react.

Speaker 4 I wouldn't be surprised if a few governments that have agreed to these deals do back out or at least suspend them and call for a renegotiation.

Speaker 4 Because, again, one of the most fundamental terms of the deal no longer exists.

Speaker 3 So we're really in uncharted waters. There's just an array of different agreements, which means there's no one way this will play out.

Speaker 2 NPR's Danielle Kurtzlaban reporting. A veteran FBI employee is suing the agency, saying he was fired after displaying an LGBTQ plus flag at his workspace.

Speaker 2 David Maltinski had nearly completed special agent training in

Speaker 2 Kwanico, Virginia, when he says he was fired by Director Cash Patel and told he was being dismissed for inappropriate display of political signage.

Speaker 2 Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Ukraine today, along with Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. They're expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
NPR's Tom Bowman has more.

Speaker 5 Driscoll and General George had already planned a trip to Ukraine to talk about drone technology and lessons learned from the Ukrainian battlefield.

Speaker 5 Then the White House last week asked the Army delegation to also help kickstart peace negotiations with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, a U.S. official tells NPR.

Speaker 5 The official was not authorized to speak publicly. Since Driscoll is an Army combat veteran, the sense was this delegation could more easily relate to the Ukrainian officers.

Speaker 5 The news of their trip comes amid reports of a new U.S.-Russia peace plan that calls for Ukraine to give up the rest of the Donbass area to Russia and also accept a smaller army.

Speaker 5 NPR has not confirmed the plan first reported by the Financial Times. Tom Bowman, NPR News.

Speaker 2 President Trump says he will meet New York City mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani at the White House on Friday.

Speaker 2 In a post online, Trump said the meeting will take place at the Ophel office and, quote, further details to follow. This is NPR News.

Speaker 2 Britain is warning Russia it is ready to handle any incursion into its territory after a spy ship was detected near its waters.

Speaker 2 Britain's Defense Secretary says the vessel directed lasers at at pilots of surveillance aircraft monitoring its activities.

Speaker 2 He described it as part of a Russian fleet designed to threaten undersea infrastructure. Russia's embassy accused the British government of being russophobic.

Speaker 2 Chip company NVIDIA told investors it made another $32 billion in profit, but as NPR's Maria Aspen reports, fears are also mounting that an AI bubble is about to burst.

Speaker 6 NVIDIA is the most valuable company in the world. It sells the semiconductors that are powering the AI boom, and it's making gobs of money.

Speaker 6 But for all the billions of dollars that tech companies are investing in AI, they're not seeing a lot of payoff yet. Now, more top investors and CEOs are warning that the AI bubble is due to burst.

Speaker 6 That's a problem for the stock market, which has been hitting record highs thanks to tech stocks, despite lots of other economic uncertainty.

Speaker 6 Tariffs are cutting into company profits, consumer prices are rising, and the jobs market is weakening.

Speaker 6 Investors will get a delayed government update on employment, but in the meantime, they celebrated NVIDIA's blockbuster report card. Maria Aspen, NPR News, New York.

Speaker 2 An owl found partially encased in concrete after it got inside a cement mixer in Utah is expected to fly free again after it was cleaned by animal sanctuary workers.

Speaker 2 Workers removed the concrete after several grooming sessions. It's expected to be released by summer next year.
This is NPR News.

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