NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-14-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

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Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The Pentagon says it has destroyed another small boat in the Caribbean, killing four men aboard. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports this is at least the 20th boat targeted since the beginning of September. September. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted a video of a speedboat exploding. He says it was carrying drugs on a known smuggling route. The Trump administration says it is at war with drug cartels and therefore the military may legally kill alleged traffickers on suspicion alone. Critics say this is murder. At least 80 people have so far been killed and two survivors were repatriated and set free by their home countries. The latest strike comes as the U.S. has assembled a massive fleet off the coast of Venezuela in what

is seen as an effort to intimidate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro has responded by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops to resist possible U.S. military action. Quill Lawrence NPR News. A federal appeals court has blocked the Transportation Department's new restrictions on which immigrants can get commercial driver's licenses. The court said the federal government didn't follow proper procedure in drafting the rule and failed to show, quote, how the rule would promote safety.

During the government shutdown, Democrats demanded Republicans fund expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. That didn't happen after a handful of moderate Senate Democrats joined Republicans on a bill to reopen the government this week. But as NPRs at Domenico Montanaro explains, the policy battle over health care has shifted. Progressives feel let down by the party again. It's yet another time when they feel steamrolled by leadership. But it's not all doom and gloom for the party coming out of the shutdown with really nothing to show for it. They elevated the issue of health care as a major issue, and that's forcing Republicans on the defensive here. And coming off Democrats sweeping victories earlier this month in the off-year elections, affordability was the big issue there.

So Democrats clearly now have these two issues to run on, especially if Republicans in Congress block the extension of health care subsidies. NPR's Domenico Montanaro reporting, a federal judge has signed off on Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy plan. It involves settling lawsuits against the company at the center of the nation. nation's opioid crisis. NPR's Sidney Lubkin has more. The Sackler family will pay up to $7 billion to Purdue's creditors as part of a restructuring plan, a federal judge said he would approve in the coming days. The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York heard from people affected by the opioid crisis as well as nearly 20 expert witnesses, according to a statement

from Purdue. The plan will also provide a pool of up to $865 million to compensate individual victims. Purdue will dissolve as part of the arrangement and emerge as a new company, NOAA pharma. It will focus on providing opioid use disorder treatments and overdose reversal medicines with no obligation to maximize profits. The new company will not involve the Sacklers. Sidney Lufkin and PR News. Stocks closed mixed today. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. China has started sea trials for its most advanced amphibious assault ship just a week after commissioning its latest aircraft carrier. It's part of a rapid naval modernization, both were designed and built in China. The amphibious ship is equipped with an

electromagnetic catapult system, allowing it to potentially launch drones and fighter jets. A new DNA study reveals which genes were active inside a mammoth around the moment of its death some 39,000 years ago. Ari Daniel has more on the study. Researchers sampled 10 mammoths. They then painstakingly extracted and analyzed RNA, the molecule that translates DNA into the building of an actual organism. Most of it was too fragmented, but three of the mammoths had sufficient material to analyze. In one of the best preserved animals, Stockholm University paleogeneticist Lueva Dalen and his colleagues found RNA related to muscle function and stress.

You're actually seeing processes going on inside the cells right around the time it died, and these processes have them been frozen in time for 40,000 years. DeLen says the results point the way to the potential study of ancient RNA viruses that have infected humans over millennia. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. Baseball United has launched its inaugural season in Dubai, aiming to bring baseball to the Middle East. The league featuring four teams kicked off today. The Mumbai Cobra's faced the Karachi Monarchs, drawing on the sporting rivalry between India and Pakistan. All games will be at a stadium in Dubai's desert.

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