NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-24-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: September 24, 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 on Corva Coleman. President Trump says he now believes that Ukraine, can retake all of its territory with the help of Europe. He called Russia a paper tiger. Trump met with Ukraine's president on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports. President Trump says he thinks Russia's economy is in big trouble and Ukraine could win back its territory, in his words, in its original form. He made the comments in a social media post after meeting with Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky. Zelensky told the UN Security Council that he and Trump,

talked about a few good ideas. And we expect America's actions to push Russia toward this. Moscow fears America and always pays attention to it. Zelensky blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for not coming to the United Nations and accused the Russian leader of prolonging the largest war in Europe since World War II. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the United Nations. The Secret Service says it thwarted a hidden operation that could have devised devastated cell towers throughout the New York City area. This involved more than 100,000 SIM cards. These are usually tucked into mobile devices like cell phones, but these were placed in multiple sites around the city. Cybersecurity expert Jordan Ray Kelly explains these are SIM farms. It essentially operates like hundreds of thousands of cell phones in one place doing things at massive scale.

That means the operation could have cut off communication to millions of people. It's not clear who did this or whether it was intended to spy on the U.N. General Assembly. House Democrats are planning to hold two meetings in coming days. They'll discuss the looming federal government shutdown. That will happen a week from today unless Congress passes a spending bill. Republicans don't have enough votes to pass legislation on their own. Democrats say they won't sign on unless the GOP rescinds some of the huge cuts to federal health care programs. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says many companies in the United States are cutting back on hiring.

That's because of the economy's uncertain outlook, and BR's Scott Horsley has more. Hiring slowed to a crawl over the summer, and the Fed hopes to prevent a sharper slowdown by cutting interest rates. The central bank's still keeping a watchful eye on inflation, though. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told an audience in Rhode Island that President Trump's tariffs have already resulted in some price hikes, and more are expected. Uncertainty around the path of inflation remains high. We will carefully assess and manage the risk of higher and more persistent inflation. We'll make sure that this one-time increase in prices does not become an ongoing inflation problem. On average, members of the Fed's rate-setting committee expect to cut interest rates by an additional half-percentage point by the end of this year. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, Dow futures are higher this hour. This is NPR. Late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is return. turned to the air. ABC suspended him for less than a week that came after Trump administration officials got angry over his comments over the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel noted last night that he never intended to make light of the killing, but he then began a spirited defense of free speech principles. He also thanked Republicans who'd supported him. Video platform YouTube says it will reinstate some accounts it once banned. This was for spreading falsehoods about COVID-19 and elections. NPR's Bobby Allen reports it's the latest tech platform to loosen rules on

misinformation since President Trump returned to office. A letter from a Google lawyer to the House Judiciary Committee lays out the change. Those who were kicked off YouTube will soon have a way to come back. Google says it has retired a number of rules that had cracked down on YouTube channels that pushed COVID and election misinformation. Among the accounts that have been banned under those rules, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now runs Health and Human Services, and Dan Bongino, who is now the FBI's deputy director. Many social media companies are dismantling content rules that the Trump administration does not like. The Google lawyer wrote to the Judiciary Committee that YouTube values conservative voices on its platform.

Bobby Allen, NPR News. Typhoon Ragasa has made landfall in southern China. Officials have evacuated nearly two million people to safer areas. Top sustained winds from the storm are about 100. 120 miles per hour. The storm killed at least 17 people in Taiwan. This is NPR.