NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-26-2025 12PM EDT

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump says he is firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Amid allegations, she committed mortgage fraud. NPR Scott Horsley says Cook is pledging to fight back. This is the latest escalation in President Trump's effort to exert more control over the Federal Reserve. It follows allegations by a Trump ally that Cook made false statements on a mortgage application four years ago. The attempt to fire Cook comes in the midst of a high-pressure. campaign by the president to get the Fed to lower interest rates by law the central bank is designed

to be insulated from that kind of political meddling. Cook said in a statement Trump has no authority to fire her and she vowed to continue to serve on the Fed's governing board. Her attorney says the president's quote, reflex to bully lacks any legal authority and he promised to take whatever actions are needed to prevent what he called an illegal firing. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. A legal battle is underway over a bid to deport Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia to Uganda. The Maryland man has been fighting to remain in the U.S. with his family since he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year and detained in a notorious prison. Months later, he was returned to the U.S. And last week, he was released

from a Tennessee jail to away trial on human smuggling charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. Yesterday, Brigo Garcia was detained shortly after an immigration check-in in Baltimore. A court stepped in to block Abrago-Garcia's deportation while his case is pending. Maryland Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivy calls on the Trump administration to halt its deportation efforts saying Abrago Garcia has a constitutional right to a trial. They charged him with these crimes. They said they could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. It's time to do it.

Abriga Garcia's case became a flashpoint in the administration's standoff with the judicial system overdue process. The administration is threatening to re-examine federal funding to jurisdictions that don't end cashless bail policies. The District of Columbia, where Trump has now federalized law enforcement, moved away from cash bail decades ago, in part to address the disproportionate number of poor black people who could not afford to pay and languish in jail until trial. Alex Combe of member station WAMU says the system was reformed for other reasons as well. They were concerned about people being released too early because if you did have the money to pay, you could get out. Whereas now judges have a lot more discretion here to hold people. Just 4% of all people released before trial last year were actually,

accused of violent crimes. And this has come with very few negative consequences for the city, if any. I mean, roughly 90% of D.C. defendants still show up for their court dates, and very few. We're talking something like 3% in most years are re-arrested while awaiting trial. Alex Como with member station W AMU on NPR's up first. The Dow is up five points at 45,288 from Washington. This is NPR News. The United Nations window for securing universal access to safe drinking water is shrinking. A new report from the World Health Organization concludes a globe is not on track to meeting the UN goal by 2030. NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports roughly one in four people on this planet cannot reach reliable, safe sources of water.

The global report has some good news. Since 2000, over 2 billion people gained access to safe drinking. drinking water. Even more can now use sanitation services. But billions still don't have access. That includes over 100 million who drink directly from untreated surface sources that can spread disease, and over 350 million who practice defecating out in the open. People living in low-income countries are more than twice as likely as people in other countries to lack basic drinking water in sanitation services, the report found. Without acceleration in investment in these areas, universal access to safe water and sanitation appears out of reach.

Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. Researchers have gained new insight into chocolate. Here's NPR's Emily Kwong. Chocolate, like coffee or wine, has different flavor profiles. But why? It has to do with fermentation. After the beans are harvested, cocoa farmers allowed them to sit for a few days.

They do this because this is what has been taught to them generation from their parents. David Gupalchen at the University of Nottingham said that during fermentation, microbial communities emerge, giving rise to all kinds of flavor compounds. In a lab, his team performed fermentation directly on beans with a synthetic microbial community, and it worked. They published their results in the journal Nature Microbiology. It's NPRiom.