NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-25-2025 5AM EDT

Episode Date: August 25, 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 Dave Madengland. Political leaders in Chicago are denouncing President Trump's threat to deploy national guard troops there, like he's done in Washington, D.C., in an effort to reduce crime.

The city's mayor, Brandon Johnson, calls the idea uncalled for and unsound and something that could raise tensions between residents and law enforcement. Johnson cites data that shows certain violent crimes in Chicago have declined in the past year. Former Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, says the deployment of guard troops would likely trigger protests. She has a message for those who might demonstrate. Don't show up in masks. Don't show up to engage in antagonistic tactics. Let's show what we know, which is how to protest peacefully in the city of Chicago. She was speaking to ABC News. SpaceX will try again this evening to launch its massive starship rocket on its 10th test flight

from the company's Starbase in Texas. NPR's now Greenfield Boy says last night, launch try had to be canceled. Starship is a two-stage space vehicle that stands nearly 400 feet tall. It's a key part of NASA's effort to return astronauts to the surface of the moon, as well as Elon Musk's effort to colonize Mars. But so far this year, Starship rockets have suffered a string of failures in flights. One even blew up on the launch pad during a test. All of that is why this 10th flight has been highly anticipated,

and SpaceX did start loading propellant into the rocket at its Texas launch facility. But soon after, on social media, SpaceX said it was standing down to allow time to troubleshoot what it called an issue with ground systems. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. Among the earnings reports due out this week is one from tech giant invidia. NPR's Maria Aspen says Wall Street will be watching the numbers as a gauge on the state of the AI industry. NVIDIA has become a bellwether for the artificial intelligence frenzy. Now, it's also a big part of President Trump's efforts to exert more control over U.S. business.

Trump has announced that NVIDIA will give the U.S. government a cut of its sales in China in exchange for permission to sell one of its computer chips there. The deal highlighted the extent to which Trump is wielding power over private companies. Invidia sells the semiconductors that many big tech companies are using to power their investments in artificial intelligence. This week, investors will be listening for signs of optimism about those investments and about their eventual results. Maria Aspen, NPR News, New York. Wall Street is coming off a day of sharp gains on Friday. The Dow, the S&P, and the NASDAQ each added more than one and a half percent.

This is NPR News from Washington. Hundreds of people in Northern California are under evacuation orders because of a wildfire in Napa County. The picket fire has burned more than 6,800 acres since it broke out four days ago. Containment is at little more than 10%. More than 1,200 firefighters and other personnel are battling that blaze in addition to helicopters. In central California, officials say crews have nearly gotten full containment on the Gifford fire. It's the largest wildfire in the state this year, having burned nearly 132,000 acres. The National Interagency Fire Center says large fires are burning in more than a dozen states,

mostly in the western U.S., amid hot, dry conditions. It was 50 years ago today, Bruce Springsteen released his Born to Run album. Here's NPR's Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento. Columbia Records was getting ready to drop Bruce Springsteen. His first two albums received critical acclaim, but they were commercial flops. The label gave Springsteen one more shot, and he took it seriously. He spent months in the studio on strenuous recording sessions. On August 25, 1975, Springsteen released a cinematic album grappling with disillusionment, loneliness, and the quest for freedom.

The album became Springsteen's first big commercial success, and its simply, lamented his status as a prolific American songwriter and storyteller. Isabella Gomez-Armiento and PR News. I'm Dave Mattingly in Washington.