NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-12-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

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Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it. Hmm. Ah. Gosh. Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wild Card podcast, only from NPR.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. President Trump says that with, quote, a high degree of... certainty, officials have caught the suspect in the Charlie Kirk killing. NPR Franco Ordonez reports Trump says the person held responsible should be given the death penalty. President Trump says a suspect is now in police custody. He said he learned the suspect had been caught just a few minutes before going on set for an interview with Fox and Friends. Well, I hope he was going to be found guilty, I would imagine, and I hope he gets a death penalty. What he did, Charlie Kirk was the finest person that he didn't deserve this.

The arrest follows a widespread search that began soon after the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot while speaking at a college in Utah on Wednesday. The president said a minister who was involved with law enforcement recognized a suspect from the photos released to the public and went to the suspect's father. Trump said the father, quote, convinced the son to turn himself in. Franco, Ordoñez. NPR News, New York. During his Fox interview this morning, Trump also says the next city to be targeted for deployment of National Guard troops is Memphis, Tennessee. He says Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee is supportive, and so is Democratic mayor of Memphis, Paul Young. The assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University raised concerns about security and free speech on college campuses.

NPR's Martin Kosti reports. Security experts have focused on the fact that the Charlie Kirk event was open air, with no screening of spectators to get in. There's been speculation that whenever contentious ideas are involved, these open-air events may no longer be feasible on college campuses. But Rodney Chapman, vice president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, says campus police chiefs are not strangers to handling controversial visits. I think outdoor events typically have greater risk.

Does that mean that these will be impossible to have going forward? I don't think so. But another former campus police chief tells NPR that this shooting may be, quote, a game changer when it comes to the degree of security that campuses bring to politically charged events. Martin Kosti, NPR News. More than 300 South Korean workers who were detained by U.S. immigration authorities have returned home. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul, the workers were setting up a Korean-invested EV battery plant in Savannah, Georgia. The workers arrived by chartered flight at Incheon International Airport. outside Seoul, where they were met by crowds of family and friends, officials and journalists,

and a few demonstrators protesting U.S. treatment of the workers. The workers were accused of working illegally. Many were in the U.S. on short-term visas that don't allow employment. To avoid a repeat of this problem, U.S. and South Korean officials say they'll discuss creating new visa categories and quotas for skilled Korean workers. Anthony Kuhn in PR News, Seoul. You're listening to NPR. The Federal Trade Commission says it's opening an investigation into some AI companies and social media firms.

It wants to review any potential harm to children and teenagers who use AI chatbots. The FTC says it sent letters to companies such as Google, OpenAI, and META. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have written an opinion piece published in the Washington Post. NPR's Retoo Chatterjee reports they argue against school. based mental health screenings. The two secretaries argue that schools must turn to things like, quote, strong families, fitness and nutrition, and hope for the future, close quote, to help kids. They say mental health screens, diagnoses, and talk therapy create stigmas that stay with children.

Psychologist Benjamin Miller chairs the advisory board for the mental health nonprofit inseparable. He says mental health screens are like those for physical health intended for early detection, so someone at risk can get help before it develops into a health crisis. We screen all the time in schools for things like vision and hearing. So it makes a lot of sense that we would just continue to screen for things that are equally as important like our mental health, which is so foundational. Read through Chatterjee and PR News. The French newspaper Le Monde reports that a record number of visitors are going to Notre Dame

Cathedral in Paris. The cathedral was restored after a huge fire in 2019. It was reopened last December. estimates show between 12 and 13 million people will have visited the cathedral in the first year after reopening. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News.