NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-16-2025 6AM EST

Episode Date: November 16, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jail Snyder. With tensions rising between the U.S. and Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro held a rally with his supporters this weekend, where he sang part of Imagine, John Lennon's iconic song. Maduro denounced plans for the U.S. to hold military drills expected to begin today in Trinidad and Tobago. On Friday, President Trump suggested that he has made a decision on Venezuela, but he declined to reveal it. Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed off the coast of South America, and the U.S.'s most advanced warship. The Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is expected to arrive in the region today. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. military has blown up 20, suspected drug-smuggling boats.

The total of 80 people are believed to have been killed. North Carolina's largest city is now the latest to be turned. targeted by a surge in federal immigration agents. The Homeland Security Department confirmed the surge in Charlotte last night, and agents have been seen making arrest. Charlotte's Democratic mayor says they are causing unnecessary fear. The U.S. aviation system is gradually returning to normal after the government shut down, but some effects will remain through the weekend.

Here's NPR's Joel Rose reporting. Aviation regulators say there's been a rapid decline in staffing shortages at air traffic control facilities over the past week. That's given the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration the confidence that more air traffic controllers are coming to work. Regulators lowered air traffic reductions at dozens of major airports from 6% of flights to 3% through the weekend, but they did not lift them entirely. The FAA said the restrictions were necessary to keep the airspace safe as the agency grappled with widespread staffing shortages of air traffic controllers during the government shutdown. But with the government reopened, air traffic controllers have finally received some of the back pay they earned, and most are now back on the job. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington.

The new report finds that the youngest Texans were impacted the most after the state enacted a six-week abortion ban back in 2021. Texas Public Radio's Bonnie Petrie has more. The number of pregnancy terminations that happened in clinical settings in the year after the ban fell sharply for everyone. But for those under 18, the number fell by 26%. More than one in four. of the children who might have gotten an abortion at a facility in Texas did not. According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, all age groups experienced double-digit declines. The study says those under 18 may have seen the sharpest decline in part because they're less likely to recognize the signs of pregnancy

before six weeks gestation. For NPR news, I'm Bonnie Petrie. And you're listening to NPR news. Protesters took to the streets across Mexico this weekend to denounce rising violence following the killing of a mayor earlier this month. There were clashes with police in Mexico City after protesters tore down fences around the National Palace where President Claudia Shainbaum lives. Authorities say some 100 police officers were injured and 20 civilians were injured as well. Thousands protested under the banner of the Gen Z youth groups. More than 1,000 musicians have removed their music from streaming services in Israel, part of a boycott, as NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento reports. The musician-led protest calls for an end to the violence in Gaza and the West Bank.

Some of the artists who've joined are Bjork, Lord, and Haley Williams. No music for genocide initially started in September, but has continued to grow in numbers more than a month into a fragile ceasefire agreement. Some Israelis say the artist's efforts are misguided because the boycott effects even those who oppose the war. The participating musicians credit historic boycotts in South Africa, like artists united against apartheid, as an important precedent to this current movement. Isabella Gomez-Armiento and PR News. The activist and author Alice Wong has died. A close friend says she died of an infection Friday in a hospital in San Francisco. She was 51. Wong was a champion of people with disabilities, and in 2024 was among the recipients of the MacArthur Genius Grant.

Wrong was diagnosed at birth with muscular dystrophy, a progressive neuromuscular disease. This is NPR News.