NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-16-2025 10PM EDT

Episode Date: August 17, 2025

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Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. Live from NPR News, I'm Janine Hurst. Republican governors from South Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia are sending hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. to support President Trump's crackdown on street crime and homelessness in the nation's capital. This is many D.C. residents are voicing their anger at Trump's efforts to overhaul policing in the district. And Pierce, Brian Mann, has more. Hundreds of people marched to the White House Saturday demanding Trump withdraw national guard troops and hundreds of federal agents. D.C. resident John Smith says he doesn't believe Trump's claim the city is being overwhelmed by criminals.

He thinks the deployment is a threat to democracy. It came because I am concerned about the occupation of D.C., the overreach. There's no sign Trump plans to pull back this show of force anytime soon. Troops already on the street will now be supported by guard members from West Virginia. Vermont's Republican governor, meanwhile, declined a White House request that he also sent National Guard soldiers. Brian Mann, NPR News, Washington. President Trump and Ukraine's President Zelensky say they'll meet at the White House Monday to talk about ending Russia's war in Ukraine.

This is just hours after Trump held a summit with Russian President Putin in Alaska. And here's Greg Mirey reports. President Trump called Zelensky and extended the invitation as he flew back from Alaska to Washington. Zelensky wrote on social media that Monday's meeting will discuss, quote, all the details regarding ending the killing and the war. Trump said in his own social media posts they believed it was best to go directly to a peace agreement rather than a mere ceasefire. But that's a very tall order.

Trump has pushed for months, without success, to get a ceasefire. in the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine endorses Trump's call, while Russia's Putin has not. Speaking at the Alaska summit, Putin gave no indication he had changed his position. Greg Myrie, NPR News, Kiev. The federal class action lawsuit has been filed against Otter AI, the popular transcription service. As MPIR's Bobby Allen reports, the suit alleges the service secretly records and saves

private conversations. Otter AI uses voice recognition technology to do real-time transcriptions of Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meetings. But a new federal lawsuit claims Otter does not ask all participants for permission to record and fails to alert its 25 million users that it is using recorded meetings to train its AI systems. The suit says that's a violation of state and federal privacy and wiretap laws. A spokesperson for Otter did not return a request for comment. The company has said it anonymizes people's meetings before feeding them to its AI tools, yet the suit says it has obtained information showing Otter does not remove confidential conversations and does not ensure speakers are

anonymous. Bobby Allen, NPR News. This is NPR News from Washington. Federal water managers are projecting another year of shortages on the Colorado River. Alex Hager from member station KUNC reports the dry conditions mean less water gets delivered to some users in Arizona and Nevada. The first shortage declaration was issued in 2021. It's been in place since then and just got extended into next year. Cynthia Campbell is a water law researcher at Arizona State University. She says policymakers should have been drawing up long-term adaptations to climate change.

Instead, they were waiting for more water to come and turn things around. If they were betting on that, then they're losing because it is continuing to march on. Mother Nature is continuing to march on, and we're continuing to see declines in the system. Some of the cities and towns facing cutbacks are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into systems that will help steal them against future water reductions. For NPR News, I'm Alex Hager in Fort Collins, Colorado. The Canadian government has forced Air Canada and its Flight Attendance Union back to work and into arbitration. After more than 10,000 flight attendants walked off the job overnight over pay and scheduling issues, The airline suspended all operations this morning.

Flight attendant and local union president, Natasha Stay. Air Canada has called us unreasonable for asking for better than poverty wages, just one year after they gave their pilots a 26% increase. Air Canada is the country's biggest carrier. They estimate around 130,000 customers are affected. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News, in Washington. This message comes from NYU Langu. The NYU Langone Health app gives you access to your electronic health record.

Keep track of your visits, lab results, and images all in one place. Better health starts with a better health system.