NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-11-2025 2AM EDT

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

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I'm Rachel Martin, host of Wildcard from NPR. I've spent years interviewing all kinds of people. And I've realized there are ideas that we all think about, but don't talk about very much. So I made a shortcut, a deck of cards with questions that anyone can answer, questions that go deep into the experiences that shape us. Listen to the Wild Card podcast only from NPR. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Wilman. President Trump is calling Washington, D.C., a dangerous city, and he's promising to announce Monday a swift federal response to make it safer. In a post on social media, Trump compared his plans for the district of those taken on the southern border.

And Pierre's Luke Garrett reports. Trump posted photos of tents and trash along D.C. roads and said he will move homeless people far from the city and jail criminals. He said plans will be shared Monday morning. Nearly 450 federal officers have already been activated in D.C., according to a White House official not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The deployment comes as Trump threatens to take federal control of the city after a former Doge employee was beaten by a group of teens last week. But D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser tells MSNBC violent crime in D.C. is dropping. We are not experiencing a spike in crime. Bowser says Trump can't take over D.C. police as he has threatened to do because crime is down

26 percent compared to last year. Trump does have the power to deploy the National Guard. So far, no troops have been sent, the Guard says. Luke Garrett. NPR News. Washington. President Trump and Russian leader of Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Alaska on Friday to discuss Russia's war on Ukraine. MPR's Greg Myrie says the last-minute nature of the meeting, which was just announced a few days ago, could cause problems. It makes this summit very unpredictable. Traditionally, these U.S.-Russia summits are worked out over weeks or even months. All the details are arranged ahead of time. Every event is carefully choreographed. The guiding principle, really, for both sides is no surprises. But that's just not how to

Trump operates. We don't know what Putin might put on the table. We don't know how Trump will respond. And even if Trump and Putin reach some sort of understanding, it won't mean that much until we see how Ukraine responds. Putin is traveling to Russia, even though he's under indictment by the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes in Ukraine. A northern California woman is facing up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to her role leading the Teragram Collective, which is considered a transnational terrorist group. From member station KQED, Maria Fernanda Bernal, has our reports. 35-year-old Dallas Humber, one of the group's leaders, pled guilty last week to multiple

charges, including soliciting the murder of federal officials, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, and soliciting hate crimes. With the plea, Humber admitted to providing guidance and support to followers, plotting attacks and murders in the U.S. and influencing international violence, like the shooting of 11 people at schools in Brazil. The Tehrgram Collective is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department for its violent white supremacist ideology. Humbers' sentencing hearing is set for December 5th. For NPR News, I'm Maria Fernanda Bernal in San Francisco. And you're listening to NPR News.

Flash flooding canceled the final day of the Wisconsin State Fair on Sunday. As much as 14 inches of rain has fallen over the weekend in the Milwaukee area. The National Weather Service, meanwhile, has issued flash flood warnings for parts of Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They're predicting repeated rounds of heavy rain, hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. Temperatures, meanwhile, have spiked the dangerous levels across the west and southwest this summer. A recent report is now shedding light on the risks of extreme. stream heat that are specific to rural areas. For member station KUNC in Denver, Ray Solomon has more.

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study finds rural communities are among the most susceptible to heat risks. They have more hard-to-cooled housing, like mobile homes and vulnerable elderly and sick populations. Grace Wickerson is one of the researchers. They say the rural workforce is especially exposed. Hundreds of rural counties are relying on outdoor tourism and natural resources industries, as well as various other outdoor workplaces. And so those folks are outside being exposed to heat during their workdays. The report from Headwaters, Economics, and the Federation of American Scientists calls for more investment in rural cooling and public health infrastructure.

For NPR News, I'm Ray Solomon in Denver. Police in Greece intercepted cocaine valued at more than $6.5 million on Sunday. 595 pounds of the drug were discovered hidden in banana containers being shipped to the country from Ecuador to Greeks and a Bulgarian were arrested in connection with that shipment. I'm Dale Wilman, NPR News. There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, you don't want it to be your entire life either. Well, that's sort of like our show, here and now anytime. Every weekday on our podcast, we talk to people all over the country about everything from

political analysis to climate resilience, video games. We even talk about dumpster diving on this show, check out here and now anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR.