NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-19-2025 10AM EDT

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

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It's that time of gear again. Planet Money Summer School is back. This semester with help from professors, policy experts, and yes, even a Nobel laureate, we're diving into how government and the economy mixed and asking the big questions like, what role should government play in our economy? Does government intervention help or hurt and how big should the government be? That's on Planet Money Summer School from NPR, wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kora of a Coleman. President Trump says he's planning for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin

in order to end the war in Ukraine. Trump met the Ukrainian leader at the White House yesterday and then held a meeting with several other European leaders. Trump told Fox News this morning that both Zelensky and Putin will have to reach agreement to end the war. I think Putin is tired of it. I think they're all tired of it, but you never know. We're going to find out about President Putin

in the next couple of weeks, that I can tell you. And we're going to see where it all goes. It's possible that he doesn't want to make a deal. Trump says the U.S. will assist Ukraine with security guarantees, but the White House has not said what these guarantees might be for Ukraine. The chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comert, says the Justice Department will comply with a subpoena. It's for files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And Pierre's Deirdre Walsh has more.

The Oversight panel voted last month to subpoena the unredacted Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The disgraced financier and convicted sex offender was charged with sex trafficking in 2019. The committee sent an August 19th deadline, but Comer says DOJ has agreed to begin sending documents starting this Friday. He noted there are many records and it will take some time to send them all. Names of victims and child sex abuse material will be redacted. The panel held a closed-door interview with former Attorney General Bill Barr and subpoenaed others, including former President Clinton. for interviews. Deirdre Walsh, NPR News. Stocks opened mixed this morning as the Commerce Department reported a pickup in home building

activity last month. MPR Scott Horsley reports the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 180 points in early training. Builders broke ground on 5.2% more homes in July than they did the month before. Construction of single-family homes jumped nearly 3% last month. Building permits, which are considered a guide to future construction plans, offered a more mixed picture. Permits for single-family homes rose slightly last month, while permits for multifamily housing fell. A survey shows many home builders are still gloomy about the housing market, with elevated mortgage rates keeping a lot of would-be buyers on the sidelines. Home Depot says its sales picked up in the most recent quarter, but the home improvement chain sales and profits still fell short of what

analyst had expected. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. Forecasters say that Hurricane Erin has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm in the Atlantic Ocean. Top sustained winds are 110 miles per hour. Erin will not hit the East Coast, but it is getting bigger. Forecasters say the hurricane will still kick up life-threatening rip currents and surf along the coast. North Carolina officials have ordered some evacuations in the outer banks. They say flooding will be a significant issue there in coming days. This is NPR.

Employees of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., say they want to keep their right to wear masks at the Performing Arts Center. Officials banned masks earlier this year, and Piers Anastasia Ziochus has more. More than 800 Kennedy Center employees and their supporters are calling on the institution to reverse its ban on masks for employees. The anti-mask policy was introduced this April by Richard Grinnell, who was appointed President of the Kennedy Center earlier this year. year. President Trump is its current chair. In a press release, unionized employees at the Kennedy Center say that workers have routinely been denied exemptions to the no-mask policy, including those with documented health concerns. The group also says that masked Kennedy Center employees have experienced, quote, disciplinary action, lost wages, reassignment, surveillance, and intimidation. Anastasia

at Silkas and P.R. News, New York. U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, says her agency will stop funding solar and wind projects on productive farmland. The Trump administration has been working to quickly end government-funded renewable energy efforts. Reuters News Agency reports an Agriculture Department study finds fewer than 700 square miles of rural land was affected by wind turbines and solar farms last year. The flight attendant strike against air Canada is over, the union and the carriers say they've reached an agreement on a tentative contract. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.