NPR News Now - NPR News: 12-23-2025 12PM EST

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

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Live from NPR News in New York City, I'm Dua Lisei Kautel. U.S. military forces have destroyed another small boat, allegedly smuggling drugs in the Pacific. NPR's Quill Lawrence reports U.S. Southern Command says one man aboard was killed. A video posted by the U.S. military shows a small boat under fire and then in flames. The Trump administration says it is at war with drug cartels and can therefore kill suspected traffickers, even if they are unarmed. Dozens of boats have been hit since September, killing more than 100 people. Critics in Congress and experts on the laws of war say that's murder. President Trump has mentioned the strikes as a way to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro,

whom he accuses of narco-trafficking. At a press event yesterday, President Trump said it would be smart for Maduro to step down. The U.S. has strict sanctions on Venezuela, and now the U.S. Coast Guard has begun seizing massive tankers carrying Venezuelan crude oil. Trump said the U.S. may keep. or sell the oil. Quill Lawrence NPR News. A federal judge has ruled the deportations of more than 100 Venezuelans to El Salvador were illegal. NPR immigration correspondent Jimenez-Bastillo reports early in the Trump administration.

The U.S. deported numerous men to a prison in El Salvador after President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. The White House has accused the men without evidence presented in court of being members of the Venezuelan gang Trenderaagua. Deportations prompted several legal fights over the use of this law, and it brought to the forefront. Also, the administration's clashes with judges, Bozberg, was among the judges to first question the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans in this way. And the judge has threatened the government with contempt for disobeying his order to stop the plane. She said some of the imprisoned men described to NPR reporters unsanitary conditions, sexual abuse, and one man called a quote, hell on earth. The men have since been returned to their home country. The Commerce Department says the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 4.3%. That's much

faster than expected in the third quarter. And Piers Zelina Selyuk reports. Between July and September, the report shows the U.S. economy growing at a robust pace, accelerating from the growth scene in the previous quarter. Earlier in the year, the economy had actually shrunk as companies rushed to ship foreign goods ahead of President Trump's global. tariffs. Consumers remain the key engine, driving the growth with higher spending, especially on health care. The report calls out spending on hospital and nursing home services and on prescription drugs. People also spent more on, quote, information processing equipment. That could be computer hardware, presumably as part of the AI boom. At the same time, business and residential investment

declined in the third quarter, spending by state and local governments increased. Alina Seluk, NPR News, Washington. And this is NPR from New York. The Department of Justice appears to be doing a kind of rollout of files from the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A batch of nearly 30,000 files were released early today. Many referenced President Trump. The DOJ released a statement this morning saying, the latest files contain untrue and sensationalist claims against Trump. The president said yesterday, a lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people. that really had nothing to do with Epstein. The Epstein Fass Transparency Act passed by Congress and signed into law by the president mandated the complete release of the Epstein investigation by last

Friday. Many state-run psychiatric hospitals have largely lost the ability to treat patients unless they are charged with a crime. Sarah Jane Tribble with our partner, KFF Health News, has more from Ohio. More than 90 percent of the patients at Ohio State psychiatric hospitals have been charged with a crime. Two decades ago, about half of the patients were criminally charged. Ohio retired Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg-Straten has seen people with unmet mental health needs cycle through the courts for years. It hurts everybody who has someone who needs to get a hospital bed that's not in the criminal justice system.

Patients charged with crimes tend to stay longer in state hospitals, so fewer patients are being served today than 10 years ago. Ohio's Department of Behavioral Health has tried to address the problem, including by expanding mental health treatment in gels. Instacart is pulling its controversial AI pricing tool. This is NPR News.