NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-16-2025 6AM EDT

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Doa Lai-Kautau. Ukraine's president Volodemir Zelensky is now headed to Washington, D.C., to meet President Trump on Monday. This comes after Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin finally met on a red carpet at an Air Force base in Alaska yesterday. They visited for about three hours, did not take questions at their press conference, and left with no obvious deal to end the war in Ukraine. And peers Greg Miery says the historical summit was underwhelming. Putin spoke first after the meeting, and he talked about the agreement. we've reached. So it sounded like there might be something substantive there, possibly a breakthrough. But when Trump spoke just a few minutes later from his first words, it became clear

that there wasn't an agreement. This morning, Zelensky writes on his social media that he's grateful to be invited to Washington, D.C., to quote, discuss all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war. A day after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts for next year's midterm elections, Democrats in the state have released the map they are proposing to use. Steve Futterman reports. The map, which is expected to be part of a special election in November, focuses on five congressional districts currently held by Republicans. The redrawn districts will make them much more likely to go Democratic next year. Several additional districts where Democrats won close races last year have also been redrawn. The move is a direct response

to efforts in Texas to redraw maps there to favor Republicans. Governor Newsom says Democrats cannot sit idly by. We have got to recognize the cards that have been dealt, and we have got to meet fire with fire. Before the special election can be called, members of the state legislature must give their go-ahead. That's expected to occur next week. For NPR News, I'm Steve Federman in Los Angeles. A federal class action lawsuit has been filed against Otter AI, the popular transcription As NPR'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.

Flash floods and heavy rains have killed over 280 people in India and Pakistan. This is NPR News. The mayor of New Orleans, Latoya Cantrell, is now federally charged with covering up her alleged romantic relationship with a city police officer who was assigned to protect her. She was indicted Friday on 18 counts, including allegedly defrauding the city of more than $70,000. New Orleans city councilman Joseph Giorruz, a Democrat like Cantrell, wrote on his social media that everyone is presumed innocent under the law, and quote, Mayor Cantrell deserves that presumption. He added, we should, however, let the facts play out and not rush to judgment. Renewable energy companies trying to qualify for federal tax incentives have gotten better than expected guidance from the Treasury Department.

It was a bit of positive for an industry that's been targeted by the Trump administration. Zend Piers Michael Copley reports. Wind and solar companies can qualify for federal tax credits if they start construction on projects by about the middle of next year and finish within four. Keith Martin, a lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright, says that's in keeping with the timeline Republicans agreed to in the tax and spending bill President Trump signed on the 4th of July. This is not as bad as people fear. Investors welcome the news, pushing up the stock prices of solar companies. One change, companies building big solar projects have to begin physical construction to prove they started work. They used to be able to qualify by making certain investments.

Clean Energy Advocate said the guidance creates more red tape. Michael Copley, NPR News. Tropical storm, Aaron, is now a Category 3 hurricane and is expected to strengthen in the Caribbean. I'm Doa Lysai Kautau, NPR News in New York City. 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 Wildcard podcast only from NPR.