NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-18-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

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This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency, and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward. Innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science Delivers.com Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are working on several deals while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits Washington, NPR's Sage Miller reports they include large Saudi investments in the U.S. and a defense agreement.

Earlier this year, the White House announced Saudi Arabia agreed to invest $600 billion in the U.S. But during his Oval Office meeting with President Trump, Prince Mohammed said he's upping it to $1 trillion. Salman says Saudi Arabia plans to invest that money in technology, including artificial intelligence. Trump also wants Saudi Arabia to sign on to the Abraham Accords. Those agreements dating back to Trump's first term normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab states. Salman says his country is interested, but there's a big obstacle. We want also to be sure that we secure a clear path of two-state solution. The Crown Prince is referring to Palestinian statehood.

Trump says the two countries will continue to discuss the possibility. Sage Miller, NPR News. Congress passed a bill to force the Department of Justice to release five. about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein today. It passed almost unanimously after President Trump through his support behind it, but Trump spent months attacking one of the bill's sponsors, Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massey, as NPR's Claudia Grisales explains. This is something that dragged out for much of the year, but then it came together rather quickly in a matter of days. But first, a little bit of background. Massey was working alongside

California Democrat Rocana, and they started what's known as a discharge petition. Four months ago, it's an arcane procedure, skips, committees, leadership to force a floor vote with signatures from a simple House majority. And they hit that mark last week. And Trump fought them all the way until this past weekend when he reversed course and he saw that this look like it was going to pass. NPR's Claudio Grisales. Purdue Pharma will cease to exist under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan approved by a federal bankruptcy court judge today. The Oxycontinent maker and the Sackler family that owned it were at the center of the nation's opioid crisis. NPR's Sidney Lupkin has more. The new restructuring plan replaces one the Supreme Court rejected in 2024, finding that it would have shielded the Sackler family from future lawsuits. This time around, members of the family can still be sued in civil court. The Sackler family will pay up to $7 billion to produce creditors as part of the plan.

The arrangement will also provide a pool of up to $865 million. dollars to compensate individual victims. The plan was approved by Judge Sond Lane of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Purdue will dissolve and emerge as a new company, NOAA Pharma. Its focus will include overdose reversal medicines and it will not involve the Sacklers. Sydney Lepkin, NPR News. This is NPR News. A widely used internet infrastructure company says it has resolved the outages that disrupted users of everything from chat GPT to New Jersey transit system this morning. Cloudfare says it is still monitoring to make sure services are back to normal. The National Park Service is launching a nationwide recruit an effort

to increase the ranks of its law enforcement. As NPR's Meg Anderson reports, the Park Service says it aims to recruit around 500 new officers. 300 of those new officers would serve in park space and at urban monuments in three cities, Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco. Another 200 would be stationed in national parks across the country. The hiring push comes amid a staffing crisis at the National Park Service. Since Trump took office in January, the service has lost a quarter of its permanent staff, many due to cuts. But the push also comes at a time when federal police forces are struggling to find people willing to join their ranks.

That's in part because many federal officers have been deputized to enforce the administration's controversial immigration tactics, including the U.S. Park Police. In the face of that, the National Park Service is offering a $70,000 hiring bonus. Meg Anderson, NPR News. Ukrainian president Volodemir Zelensky visited Pablo Picasso's Guernica painting in Madrid today. The painting depicts the bombardment of civilian targets during Spain. civil war. Zelensky underscored its relevance as an anti-war symbol worldwide as Ukraine defends itself from Russia's invasion. This is NPR News from Washington. 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.