NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-18-2025 2AM EST

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, Ninth Shea Stevens. President Trump says he would sign a bill to force the Justice Department to release its files on the case of convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. As NPR's Franco Ordonez reports, the House is expected to vote on the bill Tuesday. President Trump says the case has turned into a distraction from his administration's work. Let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it. But don't talk about it too much because, honestly, I don't want to take it away from us. It's really a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein's friends, all of them.

And it's a hoax. Trump and Epstein were friends until they had a falling out several years before Epstein's first conviction. For months, Trump and his supporters fought to block the vote on releasing the Epstein materials, but it became increasingly clear that it would pass anyway. And this weekend, in a dramatic change of course,

Trump called on House Republicans to support the measure. Franco, Ordonez. NPR News, the White House. The Department of Homeland Security is now conducting an immigration enforcement operation in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is similar to the DHS's September crackdown in Chicago. As NPR Sergio Martinez-Betron reports, a recent court filing shows that most of the people arrested in Chicago were not criminals. Out of the 614 people on the list, 598 do not have a criminal record. That's 97% of the immigrants arrested.

So per this document, most of the people in this sample have not committed a crime. Only 16 or 2.6% have a criminal history. Of those 16, four of them have criminal convictions. They range from domestic battery to the UI to indecent exposure and kidnapping. DHS regularly says that it is taking murderers and rapists off the streets. However, none of the people on this list was convicted or arrested for murder or rape. NPR Sergio Martinez Beltran. A California judge has denied class action status for more than 14,000 black Tesla workers

claiming racial harassment at a factory in Fremont. An attorney for the plaintiff says he'll now flood the electric vehicle maker with individual lawsuits. KQED's Rachel Myro has more. Former Assembly line worker Marcus Vaughn alleged employees and supervisors called him the N-word repeatedly, but rather than investigate, Tesla fired him. While Tesla still faces roughly 1,000 individual lawsuits, Stanford Law Professor Emeritus Bill Gould says a class action case would have been stronger. Companies generally only are concerned about liability when they're confronted with large numbers of workers. No comment from Tesla, but the board has told investors

it has taken steps to prevent and address harassment and discrimination. For NPR News, I'm Rachel Myro. This is NPR. Early vaccination of infants against measles surged in Texas earlier this year as an outbreak spread across the state. NPR's Maria Godoy has more on a new analysis published in the journal JAMA Network Open. Children usually get their first dose of the measles vaccine between the ages of 12 and 15 months. But in March of this year, as a massive measles outbreak spread rapidly in Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that infants in the state get their first dose early, between six and 11 months of age.

Now, an analysis finds that in the months after that recommendation, early vaccinations among Texas children spiked by 20%. By contrast, less than 1% of kids in the state got an early first dose in prior years. In a related commentary, researchers say this rapid early uptake of the vaccine likely contributed to the slowing of measles transmission in Texas by May of this year. Maria Godoy and PR News. A former Alaska Airlines pilot who admits tried to shut off a plane's engine in mid-air while under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms has been spared prison time. A federal judge sentenced Joseph Emerson to time served plus three years of supervised release. Emerson was sentenced to five years probation in a stake case against him. He was subdued by fellow crew members in the flight from Everett, Washington to San Francisco,

was diverted to Portland. No one was injured in the October 2023 incident. U.S. Futures are flat in after-hours trading on Wall Street. This is NPR News. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange. rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply.