NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-28-2026 10AM EST

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Krova Coleman. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to be questioned this hour about the Trump administration's military operation in Venezuela. NPR's Michelle Kellerman says he's appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his prepared remark, Secretary Rubio defends the military operation to oust President Nicolas Maduro and says the U.S. will help Venezuela transition from a, quote, criminal state to a responsible partner. He says he's keeping a close watch on former vice president and now interim leader Delsi Rodriguez, who he says has promised to open up Venezuela's energy sector to American companies. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gene Chaheen, says in her prepared remarks,

that the U.S. has traded one dictator for another in Venezuela, and she says the U.S. naval blockade around Venezuela is costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Michelle Kellerman and PR News, Washington. President Trump is threatening Iran again. Writing online this morning, he told Iran to come to the table to negotiate a deal with no nuclear weapons. Trump says if Iran does not make a deal, the next attack, quote, will be far worse. Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was rushed last night as she spoke at a Minnesota town hall meeting. A man sprayed a liquid on her, and he was tackled and arrested as he tried to run away.

Omar's office says she is fine. The attack came hours after President Trump again insulted and denigrated Omar. He was speaking to a crowd in Iowa. Trump says he is swapping out his immigration leads in Minnesota. He told Fox News's The Will Kane Show that his border surer is now in the state to help reduce tensions. We have Tom Homan there now. We put him in there. He's great.

And they met with the governor, the mayor, everybody else. And we're going to de-escalate a little bit. But the extent of that day. de-escalation is not clear. It comes after two Minneapolis protesters were killed this month by federal agents. Stocks open mixed this morning as Amazon announced another big round of job cuts. NPR Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped two points in early trading. Amazon says it's cutting about 16,000 corporate jobs. That's on top of 14,000 layoffs by the online retailer last October. UPS used to deliver a lot of packages for Amazon, but the brown delivery

trucks are scaling back that business. UPS says it's cutting up to 30,000 jobs. Starbucks sales got a caffeinated jolt in the final months of 2025. The quarter brought the company's first jump in U.S. sales in two years. Global sales were also up, but quarterly profits fell short of forecaster's expectations. British Prime Minister Kirstarmer is visiting China after a similar trip by Canada's prime minister earlier this month. Both countries are hoping to expand trade ties with the world's second largest economy. Scott Horsley and Pair News, Washington, You're listening to NPR News. Power crews are making gains on electricity outages across the country.

Nearly 400,000 customers are still in the dark after last weekend's winter storm. That number is down for more than 1 million outages. The greatest number of power outages are still in Tennessee and Mississippi. The Trump administration has quietly rewritten some rules for nuclear safety and security. And peers Jeff Brumfield obtained a copy of the rules and reports there are some substantial changes. The changes apply to experimental reactors currently under construction at the Department of Energy. The department wants to get three or more of those reactors running by July 4th of this year to help meet that deadline officials rewrote internal rules for safety security and environmental management,

then sent the rules to the companies building the reactors without making them public. Catherine Huff, who is a nuclear engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is critical of the decision. In the best world, the public should expect as much openness from the government as is possible. NPR's analysis found the new rules loosened groundwater restriction, security requirements, and more. The Energy Department has said safety remains a top priority for the program. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. A research group estimates casualties from the one. war in Ukraine could be nearly two million by this spring. That's at least 1.2 million Russian

troops, wounded or missing, and then half that number from Ukraine. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News, from Washington. Listen to this podcast sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR NewsNowplus at plus.npr.npr.com. That's plus.npr.org.