NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-26-2025 3PM EDT

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Trump administration officials have made a copy of millions of American Social Security numbers. That's according to a new whistleblower complaint. NPR's Jeff Brumfield says the copy was made even though red flags were raised. The Social Security Administration's chief data officer says Trump appointees copied the agency's entire numerical identification system database to a private cloud environment. The database contains social security numbers of over 300 million Americans, along with other details, including place of birth and parents' names. Andrea Meza is an attorney with the nonprofit government accountability project, which represents the whistleblower. It's a lot of really personal data on millions and millions of Americans.

Cybersecurity staff within the Social Security Administration warned the move was high risk, but the copy was made anyway. the agency says the copy is in a place, quote, walled off from the internet. Jeff Brumfield, NPR News, Washington. President Trump wants to bring back the death penalty in Washington, D.C. Flanked by members of his cabinet today, Trump promoted the use of capital punishment in cases of murder in the nation's capital, while adding that states would have to make their own decisions. Meanwhile, armed National Guard troops patrol D.C. streets seen in broad daylight as commuters and tourists move around them.

The deployment, part of Trump's war on. on crime, even though statistics show overall violent crime in the district's down. Trump's also singled out Baltimore, another Democratic-led city. Today, Trump called Baltimore a, quote, hellhole as he rejected Maryland Governor Westmore's invitation to visit. Baltimore, Westmore, was telling me he wants, I want to walk with the president. Well, I said, I want to walk with you too someday, but first you've got to clean up your crime because I'm not walking in Baltimore right now.

According to the Department of Justice's website, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland said this past January that Baltimore City's violent crime rate had dropped for a third year in a row. Many European mail services will no longer deliver small packages to the U.S. because of confusion over new taxes imposed by President Trump. Terry Schultz reports a halt is expected to dramatically affect shipping for small European businesses. Postal services from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. are among those suspending shipments of small packages to U.S. destinations after President Trump ended what was called the de minimis exemption. This allowance was used by many small European companies to ship products

worth less than $800 to U.S. customers duty-free. As of Friday, tariffs of 15 percent will apply on these packages, but postal authorities say it's unclear who's responsible for collecting the import duties and how shippers should communicate with the U.S. Customs Service, so they're not going to accept them. Parcels worth less than $100. sent by individuals can still be mailed. For NPR news, I'm Terry Schultz in Brussels. It's NPR. The U.S. Coast Guard says it hit a milestone when it offloaded a record 76,000-plus pounds of illicit narcotics in Port Everglades yesterday. The Coast Guard says the contraband, most of it cocaine, resulted from 19 interdictions this summer in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The Coast Guard

It estimates the drugs have a combined street value of more than $470 million. K-pop Demon Hunters, the wildly popular animated Netflix movie about a fictitious all-girl rock band's battle against evil spirits, is set to become the streaming service's most watch original film ever. NPR's Chloe Valtman reports the film's soundtrack has already broken a record. The K-pop Demon Hunter's soundtrack is the first soundtrack ever to generate four simultaneous top 10 hits in the Billboard Hot 100 charts long history. It's undeniably catchy. Sean Robbins is Fandango's director of movie analytics.

With the film's creators in talks about a potential sequel, Robbins says Demon Hunters could become a major franchise. It could be merchandise. It could be theme parks, more soundtracks. Streaming giant Netflix even took the unusual step this past weekend of screening the film in nearly 1,800 movie theatres around the country. Chloe Valtman, NPR News. US stocks are trading slightly higher this hour with the Dow up 35 points.

It's NPR News.