NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-21-2025 9AM EST

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. The U.S. Coast Guard is reaffirming that the display of nooses and swastikas are displays of symbols of hate. That's after a new Coast Guard policy appeared to downgrade the severity of the symbols. From Member Station W.HRO and Norfolk, Steve Walsh reports. As first reported by the Washington Post, the Coast Guard released a new harassment manual, which labeled things such as displaying the Confederate flag as merely divisive. The manual also eliminates a standalone process for investigating instances of hate. The Coast Guard pushed back at the idea that the policy had been weakened,

but late Thursday issued a new policy saying that nooses and swastikas and other symbols of hate must be removed from all Coast Guard facilities. The Department of Defense has been going through a similar process of reviewing hazing, bullying, and harassment definitions across the military, but has not released a policy. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Ukraine. He has presented a peace plan aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine. The plan was drafted recently by President Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff,

and his Russian counterpart of businessmen. NPR has learned that the plan would require Ukraine to surrender territory in the eastern part of its country to Russia, even though Russia does not control all of that region. NPR's Franco-Ordonia says, That goes against Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky's position. Ukraine has repeatedly said that they will not give up territory to Russia, that it doesn't already control. And in his statement and his evening address last night, Zelensky said that the plan could activate diplomacy, but he also urged caution.

Charging that Russia does not actually want peace. NPR's Franco Ordonez reporting. India's biggest oil refinery says it has stopped buying oil from Russia. For months, the Trump administration. administration has demanded that India stopped purchasing Russian oil. Officials claim India has been helping pay for Russia's war in Ukraine. NPR's Omkar Kandekar has this report. Indian conglomerate reliance industries bought Russian oil worth billions of dollars last year.

Now, it says it has stopped its purchases to comply with the European Union's upcoming sanctions on Russia. The announcement comes weeks after President Trump said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to stop buying Russian oil. The White House doubled its tariffs on India to 50% earlier this year, calling it a penalty for such imports. India has called the U.S.'s actions unfair and unjustified. But last month, Reuters reported that India's other oil refineries also planned to reduce its imports from Russia. Oumkar-Kandekar, NPR News, Mumbai. President Trump will welcome New York City mayor-elect Zoran Vam-Dai to the White House today. Both have heavily criticized each other.

This is NPR. The National Weather Service says there's a new rainfall record in the Dallas area. Nearly four inches of rain fell there yesterday, beating the old record by more than two inches of rain. Researchers say that Moss was able to survive nine months of exposure to space. That was outside the International Space Station. NPR's Nell Greenfield Boyce reports. Tamomichi Fujita is with Hokkaido University. He says a few years ago, astronauts attached the spore-containing parts of a common moss to the outside of the space station.

They spent 283 days there before returning to Earth, and most of them were able to successfully germinate in the lab. They didn't mind the space condition. They can keep their life for such a long time. He and his colleagues say the moss could have survived the harsh conditions even longer, perhaps as long as 15 years. They're now exploring the potential of mosses for constructing new ecosystems in places like the moon or Mars. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. The late actor Chadwick Bozeman has been honored posthumously with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bozeman starred in films from Black Panther to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

His widow, Simone Ledward Bozeman, was at the ceremony. Well, this is representative of the life that he led in the career. that he led is representative of how much he meant to all of us. Chadwick Bozeman died in 2020 of colon cancer. He was 43 years old. I'm Corva Coleman, NPR News in Washington.