NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-19-2025 9PM EDT

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

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This message comes from Click Here. Erased is a four-part investigation into how China is wiping Uyghur culture from existence. Erased uncovers an authoritarian regime's campaign to delete a culture. Listen to Click Here wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. In a high-profile meeting of vaccine advisors today, members voted against recommending a prescription for the COVID-19 booster. Selena Simmons-Duffin has more. This panel of advisors was hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He has a long history of anti-vaccine activism and called COVID-19 vaccines a, quote, crime against humanity.

On Friday, the panel considered whether to require patients to obtain a prescription if they want to get the COVID booster this year. Dr. Amy Middleman of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine urged committee members to reject this idea. If we start asking for prescriptions for vaccines, which are a primary prevention, public health strategy, we are going to overwhelm physicians' offices. In the end, the vote was a tie, but because the chair voted no, the motion failed. Selina Simmons-Duffin, NPR News.

The UN Security Council has taken another step closer to reimposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Imperial's Michelle Kellman reports, Russia says the European, diplomats have no basis to push for this. But Britain, France, and Germany say snapping back sanctions is part of the deal they made a decade ago with Iran. Only four countries, China, Russia, Pakistan, and Algeria voted to permanently lift sanctions on Iran. That resolution failed, setting the stage for the sanctions to snap back later this month. These are sanctions that were suspended under the Iran nuclear deal, the one that the first Trump administration left. Britain, France and Germany, say Iran could avoid the return of sanctions if it allows U.N. inspectors

back. Iran's ambassador says the door is open for diplomacy. Iran's president is planning to speak next week at the U.N. General Assembly. The trip comes just months after U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. Michelle Kellerman and PR News, the State Department. The Trump administration today asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling, blocking Trump's executive order limiting gender identity on passports to only male and female. And here's Nina Totenberg reports. Beginning in the early 1990s, the State Department allowed transgender individuals to change their gender on their passports if they could prove their transition. In 2022, the Biden administration allowed people to identify their gender as male, female, or X.

President Trump, upon assuming office, ordered that individuals obtaining passports use only their sex at birth to identify their gender. A federal judge in Massachusetts blocked the Trump order in June, and today, the Trump Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to reinstate its at-birth policy while the case winds its way through the appeals process. NPR's Nina Totenberg reporting. This is NPR. After three Russian fighter jets centered its airspace, Estonia is calling for urgent talks with its NATO allies invoking Article 4, which allows member nations to start formal discussions of security threats. Terry Schultz reports the incursion comes a week after nearly 20 Russian drones invaded

Polish airspace. The Estonian government says the three Russian mig planes had filed no flight plans, were flying with their transponders off, and made no contact with authorities when they entered Estonian airspace and stayed for 12 minutes. Finnish Swedish and Italian planes operating as part of NATO's air policing operation, escorted the Russians back to their own territory. Eva Ekpayusta is an advisor to the Estonian Foreign Ministry. They are navigating still in quite gray area, where you can still deny that it was intentional. They are pretty good in navigating in these kind of shallow waters. It's unclear when Estonia will schedule its article for consultations at NATO.

For NPR News, I'm Terry Schultz in Helsinki, Finland. A judge in North Carolina is ordering that $50 million be paid to the family of a meteorologist killed in a helicopter crash after the companies that owned and operated the aircraft were found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit. The crash happened in November of 2022, killing two people. The National Transportation Safety Board says it was due to inadequate inspections and other errors. Wall Street higher by the closing bell, I'm Janine Herbst. PR News in Washington. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe.

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