NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-19-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. U.S. Border Patrol agents have now arrested more than 250 people in Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration. As Nick Delacanelle from Member Station WFAE reports, many immigrant families are on lockdown. Inside one East Charlotte apartment. A 14-year-old girl, Paloma. filmed herself hiding with family after spotting Border Patrol agents outside. NPR isn't using her full name because members of her family are undocumented.

My aunt called me and she was like, it's ice here, tell you a dad, because my dad is immigrant. So I was very scared. So I ran downstairs and I closed door. Then I went to my mom's room. Her dad isn't working this week and her brother isn't going to school. Officials say 44 people detained in Charlotte have criminal backgrounds. Two are suspected gang members. others have no criminal history.

For NPR News, I'm Nick Delac-Cannell and Charlotte. The Senate has passed a bill forcing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, sending the measure to President Trump's desk. Trump has said he'd sign it into law. MPR's Claudia Grisales reports the plan drew near unanimous support in the Republican-led Congress. The Senate quickly approved the bill by voice vote after the plan drew near unanimous support in the House. For much of the year, President Trump fought the release of the government records tied to the disgrace financier and convicted sex offender. But President Trump reversed his stance once the momentum shifted for passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The legislation directs the Justice Department to release the records within 30 days, allowing limited exceptions to withhold any information. The bill's authors, Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey, and California Democrat Rokana warned the Trump Justice Department will face legal action if it does not fully comply. Claudia Rizalis, NPR News. The U.S. may be facing another rough flu season this winter, and Piers Rob Stein reports. This year's flu season is just getting going, but there are already signs that it may be a nasty one. The Southern Hemisphere just ended a long, intense flu season, and what happens in the Southern Hemisphere often predicts what's in store for the northern hemisphere. And parts of the northern hemisphere, like the U.K., are already getting hit hard.

And that's not all. The strain of the flu that's dominant so far tends to make people sicker, and a new variant recently emerged, raising questions about how well the vaccines may work. Nevertheless, experts say the shots should work well enough so people should get vaccinated right away. Rob Stein, NPR News. You're listening to NPR News from Washington. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is leaving OpenAI's Board of Directors after emails revealed he maintained a friendly relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, long after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008. OpenAI's board of directors say they appreciated Summers' contribution and perspective. He's a former president of Harvard, and he says he'll continue teaching there.

New research from a team at Brown University finds that marijuana leads people to cut back on how much alcohol they drink. It's one of the first rigorous studies to test this idea in humans. It was published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry, and peers Will Stone has more. In an elaborate and provocative experiment, scientists doled out joints and constructed a fake bar in the laboratory. They recruited about 160 people and found those who smoke the higher potency cannabis ended up drinking 27% less alcohol and the lower potency about 19% less compared to the placebo. Jane Metrick at Brown University led the study. It is telling us that cannabinoids could play potential therapeutic role in alcohol use disorder.

Metrick and other researchers acknowledge cannabis itself is not harm-free and concerns about the drug also need to be weighed, and that more research needs to be done before making any kind of recommendations. Will Stone, NPR News. Wall Street higher at the close, the Dow up 47 points, the NASDAQ up 131, the SMP 500 up 24. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News.