NPR News: 09-20-2026 2PM EDT

0:00This message comes from Schwab. Investing with Schwab is like a hike with endless trails. Go solo with self-directed investing. Take stops along the way with trading or choose a guide with full service wealth management. Whatever trails you take, you can invest your way with Schwab. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Saudi Arabia says Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile toward Riyadh. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports it's the first time the Saudi capital has been targeted since fighting broke out with the Iran-backed rebels. The Houthis have not fired toward Riyadh in years, but over the weekend residents there, including journalists with Reuters and the AFP, heard loud explosions over the city and saw plumes of smoke rising over the airport. In a statement Saudi Arabia said its air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The statement also said the Houthis tried to attack civilian infrastructure in the Red Sea port city of Yambu, where a key Saudi pipeline ends.

1:03The attacks mark another escalation in the war in Yemen. The Iran-backed Houthis say they're targeting Saudi air bases in response to Saudi air strikes in Yemen. The group has also imposed a blockade on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. Kat Lonsdorf and Pair News Tel Aviv. President Trump says he's appointing a new AI-ZAR as part of a new task force on artificial intelligence. This is the debate on whether and how to regulate the risks of AI grows. And as MPR's Emily Fang reports, the U.S. and China meet today in New York to talk about AI regulation. A rapid stream of disclosures from leading AI companies has increased pressure on the U.S. and it's compared to China to regulate frontier AI. But Trump has repeatedly said AI should not be regulated, and that fears of AI were a quote, hoax. And in a series of social media posts last week and over the weekend, he touted AI's contribution to the American economy and called criticism of data centers, which are deeply unpopular among voters, quote, crazed. Trump's previous AI advisor, David Sachs,

2:04is a prominent Silicon Valley investor who has been outspoken in the last weeks about how the U.S. should push as fast as possible, with as little regulation as possible in AI. Emily Fang and Pair News, Washington. And AI will also be a focus at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this week, along with the U.S. Iran War, other issues. This as China's leader Xi Jinping heads to Washington this week for a meeting with President Trump, instead of attending the UN meeting. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Wall says U.S. China AI is a focus. We're going to have an AI conference here at the UN General Assembly. We're going to see AI discussed at the UN Security Council. I can tell you that China just announced a World AI cooperation organization and our values and their values don't exactly mesh when it comes to global governance and how technology can be used for surveillance and the suppression of freedom.

3:04Speaking there on CNN State of the Union, meanwhile, the agreement between the U.S. Greenland and Denmark over the semi-autonomous island is also expected to be signed at the UN meeting. You're listening to NPR News. Singer Ed Sheeran breaks his silence following Mackel Moore's removal from his U.S. tour. Ampere's Matt Cherry reports the promoter dropped the rapper as the opening act after he made pro-Palestinian comments on stage earlier this month. Fans at Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field cheered Ed Sheeran as he took the mic for the first time since the controversy over Mackel Moore's statement supporting Palestinians erupted. What happened in Israel and at the know of music festival on October 7th was horrific and compounded centuries of Jewish pain. What is happening in Gaza is a catastrophic and unjustifiable and disproportionate. Local college student Hadi Chetapadeye was among the protesters outside the stadium in Philadelphia.

4:07Ed Sheeran could have kept Mackel Moore on this tour, but the silencing of pro-Palestinian speech is not new. The modernity of the city of Moders had threatened to cancel Sheeran's upcoming shows if Mackel Moore remained on the bill. Matt Cherry, NPR News, Philadelphia. In Florida, a knock on the door earlier this month startled scientists, a biologist at the NOAA lab that someone was at the door as in someone of the human variety. Instead, it was a clever and injured pelican, brown one, that was knocking with its beak on the glass door. Fishing line was wrapped around its wing and a hook was also stuck in there, making it unable to fly and it seemed to be looking for help. Biologists say it also had cactus spines in its foot. They removed all of that and the bird flew away. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News in Washington. This is Ira Glass. On this American life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant term.

5:08And it did take me a while to realise that this basically became a Stemunky Press the button. That's right, because the monkey pressed the button. Spracing stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts.