NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-14-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

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As President Trump prepares for his summit, tomorrow with Russian President Putin, he's describing it as a prelude to a potential future meeting that could involve several world leaders. And here's Daniel Kurtzleben has more. In recent days, Trump has been saying that if his meeting with Putin goes well, he would want a second summit that includes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump opened the door to including European leaders. The more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelensky, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders alone.

Maybe not. I don't know that it's going to be very important. We're going to see what happens. European leaders spoke with Trump on Wednesday, saying Putin must agree to a ceasefire and security guarantees for Ukraine before any peace talks begin. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, the White House. Texas Democrats are signaling they're willing to come back to the state for another special session on redistricting that would give Republicans. more seats in Congress on two conditions. That the legislature end its first special session tomorrow and second, the California lawmakers introduced their proposal that could offset Republican gains in Texas. Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for a special election on November 4th

to redraw its own congressional districts to counter the Republicans' Texas plans. It's not complicated. We're doing this in reaction to a President of the United States that called a sitting governor of the state of Texas and said, find me five seats. We're doing it in reaction to that act. Today Newsom released a campaign ad on social media, as California's Democratic lawmakers plan to declare the special election next week.

Democrats haven't released their draft maps, but they hope to pick up five more seats. The California maps, though, need voter approval because an independent commission currently draws them. The Supreme Court today declined to block enforcement of Mississippi's new social media age verification law. As Mississippi Public Broadcasting's Will Stribbling reports, the law requires social media platforms to verify parental consent before allowing minors to create accounts. The Justice has denied an emergency request from Tech Industry Group Net Choice to block the law while its legal challenge plays out.

Net Choice argues the state's age verification and parental consent law violates the First Amendment. And litigation co-director Paul Tasky says it's still on borrowed time. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence makes clear that Net Choice will ultimately, succeed in defending the First Amendment, not just in this case, but across all of Net Choices, ID for speech lawsuits. Kavanaugh wrote that Net Choice is likely to win its case on the merits, but hadn't proven that letting Mississippi's law stay in effect would cause more harm than pausing it. For NPR News, I'm Will Stribling and Jackson.

U.S. Futures contracts are trading in mixed territory at this hour. Dow futures are up nearly four-tenths of a percent. You're listening to NPR News. students still aren't showing up to school in pre-pandemic numbers. Chronic absenteeism was still elevated in new numbers from the 2024 to 2025 academic year. Empire Sequoia, Carrillo, has more. Five years after the onset of the pandemic and switch to virtual learning, students remain out of the classroom at higher rates than before lockdown.

A new report out of the Rand Corporation finds that the problem is particularly persistently, in urban districts. This past school year, in roughly half of urban school districts, more than 30% of students were chronically absent. On top of that, one quarter of students in K-12 districts say they do not think that being chronically absent is a problem. District leaders continue to worry about the impact of high absenteeism on students' academic recovery. Sequoia Carillo, NPR News. Wholesale inflation in the U.S. unexpectedly surge last month, as President Trump's sweeping tariffs pushed up costs for American consumers. The Labor Department says its producer price index the price businesses pay before goods

and services get to the consumer was up 9 tenths of a percent in July from the month before and 3.3 percent from a year ago. The PPI serves as a possible bellwether for prices consumers may see in the coming months. It was way higher than economists were expecting. Wall Street ended the day in mixed territory but mainly flat, the Dow down 11 points, the NASDAQ down 2, the S&P 500, up 1. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington.