NPR News Now - NPR News: 06-18-2025 11AM EDT

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Korva Coleman. President Trump has made remarks this morning on the continuing conflict between Israel and Iran. Trump won't say whether the U.S. is moving closer to a decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. He said, quote, nobody knows what I'm going to do. Trump says Iran has reached out to try to negotiate, but he told them that it is very late.

Trump also said he'd had it and said, quote, no more than we go blow up all the, you know, all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place there. The US Supreme Court has upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for transgender children. The decision was six to three. Chief Justice John Roberts says the state law banning the care does not violate the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

That clause requires the government to treat people who are similarly situated the same. Dissenting justices say the ruling abandons trans children and their families to political whims. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says for the first time in more than a year, street drug deaths in the U.S. appear to be rising. These include deaths from fentanyl. As NPR's Brian Mann reports, the CDC found roughly 1,400 more drug deaths over a 12-month period. Fatal overdoses are still far below their peak in 2023. But for the first time in 17 months, a new CDC report based on data collected back in January shows a significant rise in drug deaths. In a statement to NPR, the CDC described this as a

fluctuation and a slight increase and said researchers are working to better understand the trend. Some drug policy experts said this could turn out to be a blip in the nation's recovery from fentanyl and other street drugs, but Keith Humphries, a researcher at Stanford University, said this could be a warning sign that recent dramatic improvements in fatal overdoses could slow or be reversed. This increase comes at a moment when Congress and the Trump administration are considering deep cuts to federal funds for addiction care. Brian Mann, NPR News. The National Weather Service has issued its first ever heat advisory for Alaska. From

member station KUAC, Shelby Herbert has more. Unlike extreme cold, it's not easy for people in Alaska's interior to manage unusually hot weather. People in Fairbanks are scrambling to keep themselves and their pets cool. Staff at the local animal shelter are pro-offering kitty pools and peanut butter popsicles for the pups. The state is warming two to three times faster than the global average and the summer heat beats down on the many buildings in the region that don't have air conditioning. It's a one-two punch, according to meteorologist Jason Laney. It also tends to kind of build in with

the same time as wildfire season. The heat is coupled with smoke pouring in from wildfires in Canada, so many Fairbanksans can't even crack open a window for relief. For NPR News, I'm Shelby Herbert in Fairbanks. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 250 points. It's NPR. The top official in the National Response Coordination Center for Federal Disasters has quit. Jeremy Greenberg has led the Federal Emergency Management Agency office since 2020. This FEMA office makes sure that all equipment and personnel quickly gets to where it's needed after hurricanes, fires, and other disasters.

President Trump has said FEMA will be closed as soon as the end of this year. The Bogong Moth of Australia travels more than 600 miles in the spring and then again in the fall. NPR's Ari Daniel reports researchers now know how the moths manage to find their way. Previous work revealed that the Earth's magnetic field helps the moths orient. But they couldn't use only the Earth's magnetic field. They needed something visual to go with it. Andrea Adden is a neurobiologist at the Francis Crick Institute, and she thought that visual cue might come from the Milky Way. So she and her colleagues caught moths in the mountains and ran them through a couple of experiments, including one that involved placing them inside a mini planetarium with a projection of the night sky, and another that monitored the

insects' brain activity. And they found the moths were using the starry sky as a compass cue to orient and navigate, a first for an invertebrate. Ari Daniel, NPR News. The Department of Homeland Security says Secretary Christy Noem was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Washington yesterday. She had suffered an allergic reaction. The agency says that Noem is recovering. I'm Korva Coleman, NPR News from Washington.