NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-19-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

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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.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Russia fired nearly 300 drones and missiles. Ukraine overnight, these rocked cities in the east and the center of the country. As MPR's Greg Myrie reports, the attacks came around the time President Trump was hosting the leaders of Ukraine and several European nations seeking an end to the war. Thick clouds of black smoke hung over the central city of Krimenchuk as the sun rose. The city's mayor posted a photo on Facebook and said residents reported dozens of explosions. He said that as President Trump was meeting Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky and other

European leaders, Russia's Vladimir Putin was, quote, launching another major attack. Ukraine shot down most, but not all, of the incoming fire. Electricity was knocked out in some areas. Ukraine also carried out drone strikes as part of the nightly exchange of fire. The military said a Ukrainian strike took out a Russian pipeline that ships oil to Hungary. Greg Myrie, NPR News, Kiev. Weather forecasters say that Hurricane Aaron remains a category three storm in the Atlantic Ocean. They say it will not make landfall on the East Coast, but evacuations

are underway on North Carolina's outer banks. The storm is expected to flood the barrier islands. From member station WUNC, Bradley George, has more. A single highway connects the narrow ribbon of islands off the North Carolina coast. Officials fear it could be washed out by waves as high as 15 feet. The evacuations of Okra Coke and Hatteras Islands come at the high. height of the busy tourist season. Farther south, lifeguards in Ritesville Beach rescued at least 60 swimmers from rip currents on Monday. This hurricane season has already brought destruction to North Carolina. Tropical Storm Chantal flooded homes and businesses in the central part of the state in July. For NPR News, I'm Bradley George and Chapel Hill. The Texas State House has advanced a bill

to redraw congressional districts in that state. The Republican plan aims to send up to five more GOP members to the U.S. House of Representatives. Dozens of Democratic state lawmakers fled Texas to try to stall the plan. That infuriated Republican leaders. Many Democratic lawmakers have now returned to the Texas Capitol, but the Republican Speaker of the House says the Democrats still face civil arrest warrants, and they will be locked inside the chamber unless they sign a slip and agree to be constantly followed by a law enforcement escort. Texas Democratic Representative Nicole Collier refused to sign the slip. I'm tired of being pushed around and told what to do when I disagree with the actions of our government.

Because she refused to sign the slip, Collier was locked in the Texas State Capitol. She will be locked inside the chamber until the House reconvenes tomorrow morning. This is NPR. Six states now say they'll send hundreds more National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. Governor say it's to assist President Trump in his fight against crime in the city, but the U.S. Justice Department says crime in the district is at a 30-year low. Trump said yesterday that people could now go out to eat at D.C. restaurants. However, data from the online booking app Open Table finds that since Trump deployed the troops, Washington, D.C. restaurants have seen a drop in

reservations by about one quarter compared to the same time last year. A new study suggests that doctors may quickly become dependent on artificial intelligence after it's introduced. NPR's Jeff Brumfield reports, some worry, it could affect health outcomes. The study looked at colonoscopies conducted in Poland. Doctors were given an AI system that draws a green box around a polyp in real time. It worked, but when the AI was switched off, the doctors appeared to flag fewer polyps than they did before they had it. Marchim Romanchak led the study. he thinks doctors might be too quick to rely on AI.

We are subconsciously waiting for the green box to come out and show us the region or the polypies, and we are not paying so much attention. But other researchers say further study is needed to actually determine whether there's a drop in detection. The work appears in the journal Lantic Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News. The flight attendant strike against air Canada is over.

The union and the carriers say they have reached an agreement on a tentative contract. This is NPR. 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.