NPR News: 09-14-2026 10PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, Onr Island, Barton, former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell returned to the Capitol today after a three-month absence from a serious fall. In a statement today, McConnell said his recovery has been a long and often frustrating process. NPR's Claudia Grisali reports. The 84-year-old returned to the Senate in a wheelchair with a staff by his side. I'm ready to see you. John, be back for work. McConnell casts his first vote since his hospitalization in June and subsequent treatment. His vote was needed to vote a judicial nomination forward along a Republican party line. The Kentucky GOP Senator said in a statement he is not yet 100 percent, but plans to continue physical therapy and return when his conference needs him for the, quote, tough votes. He also said his recovery has been long and frustrating, and the lingering effects of childhood polio have not made it any easier. McConnell has the remainder of this year left to finish his final term in Congress.

1:02Claudia D. Salis and P.R. News. The Trump administration has touted its deals with pharmaceutical companies as among the key wins of the president's second term, but one of the promises within those deals to cut drug prices in Medicaid has been slowed and materialized, and P.R. Sidney Lepkin has more. Last fall, the president said companies that signed his most favored nation drug-priced deals would offer all of their drugs at a discount to Medicaid. But of the more than a dozen companies, M.P.R. reached out to, none would say how many they were offering at a lower price for the program. The actual text of the agreements hasn't been made public, but Medicaid can't just lower prices across the board. State Medicaid programs have until September 30th to finalize their participation agreements in what's called the generous model. It's a pilot program that states and drug companies opt into for most favored nation's prices on Medicaid drugs. The deadlines have been pushed back, but the agency overseeing the pilot says there's robust interest. Sidney Lepkin and P.R. News. For the past ten months, NASA has been moving engineers out of their labs at the Goddard

2:04Space Flight Center in Maryland. NPR's Kiara Eisner spoke with NASA employees who say that's been hurting the center's work. Seven current and former scientists who worked at Goddard told NPR that moving scientists out of their labs has been stalling work on some of NASA's space missions. Not all the labs were ready for us just to move into. And that then delays that entire project. One engineer said they couldn't do their work last month on a spacecraft being made to explore Venus because they didn't have room to lay out their materials. Another said they weren't able to test that a satellite could communicate with Earth before it launched this summer. That engineer said NASA's management carted off their equipment during a move. NPR tracked down some of the last gear and found some of it was thrown away, auctioned, and even donated to a university. Kiara Eisner and P.R. News. Major US Stock Index has fell today at the S&P 500 fell near half a percent. This is NPR. Congressional Republicans say President Trump has agreed to new ethics provisions to help

3:05get a sweeping cryptocurrency bill across the finish line. Trump would be required to either divest or place in a blind trust any significant financial interest in an entity that issues cryptocurrencies that President earn more than $1 billion from cryptocurrency ventures in 2025. In Texas, landowners along the US-Mexico border are uniting to sue the Trump administration over its plans to seize private property for border wall construction. From Marfa Public Radio, Mary Cantrell has more. The lawsuit takes aim at the Department of Homeland Security's determination that the Big Bend region is an area of high illegal entry, when it only saw 1.5 percent of the total border apprehensions over the past five years. DHS's determination allowed the government to bypass dozens of federal laws and expedite border barrier construction in the region, which is known for its pristine desert landscape. Landowner David Keller is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. We have brought this extraordinary challenge because for us, the Big Bend is not an empty

4:07place on a map. It is our home. The court has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, which seeks a pause on border wall construction. For MPR News, I'm Mary Cantrell. Leaders of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have signed a pact that threatens to break up the United Kingdom. They told Prime Minister Andy Burnham to prepare for constitutional change that they want to align with the EU. It comes after President Trump expressed support for a re-unified Ireland. Burnham's spokesperson dismissed the threat, emphasizing unity and shared values. This is NPR. Hey, it's me, Peter Seggel, host of Weight Weight Don't Tell Me. It's leaf peeping season. So why not peep our weekly news quiz while you're at it? We got comedians, celebrities, and games to help laugh about the week's news. And you can listen while you're spicing your pumpkins, whatever people do. Listen every week to Weight Weight Don't Tell Me in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.