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NPR News: 08-17-2026 5PM EDT

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EN

Live from NPR news in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.

The 60-day deadline for an agreement to end the Iran war and resolve the dispute over

its nuclear program is expiring, talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have stalled in

Washington and Tehran appear even farther apart than they were when they made the agreement in June. Here's President Trump in the U.S. office today. "We're not going to make a deal, but they're not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary.

Look, we're in there for one reason, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon." Iran has issued far-reaching demands for opening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump appears to be banking on an economic pressure to get Tehran to back down. President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, he's an Israel pushing for progress on a post-war plan for Gaza yesterday.

He held a rare meeting in Egypt with leaders of Hamas, and Piers Daniel Estrin has more from Tel Aviv. An official briefed on the meetings, speaking anonymously to offer details, said the U.S. wants Hamas to start disarming, and hand over control of Gaza to a new Palestinian committee.

Hamas says it accepts those terms, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes Israel

withdrawing from Gaza until Hamas completely disarms. There's been no real progress on a post-war transition since major military operations ended in Gaza 10 months ago, and Netanyahu is wary of making public concessions on Gaza with Israeli elections just 10 weeks away. Daniel Estrin NPR News Tel Aviv

Unexpected employee absences can be costly for the retail manufacturing and fast food industries, as startup is helping frontline workers with last-minute support NPR's Andrea Xu reports. For years, CNN Daniel worked to help unemployed and under-employed people get the skills they need to secure jobs. Many got jobs, but then their car would break down, or their child care would fall

through. Bottom line was if we didn't have some of those wraparound supports available to them, they didn't remain in the jobs. Now Daniels start up escalate aims to solve that problem through an app. If an employee has a transportation problem, they can request an Uber voucher.

If they're kittasick, they can get a Visa gift card to pay a family member or friend to watch their child. In a pilot with the McDonald's franchise, callouts declined dramatically, once these common obstacles were removed. It's a cost-saving solution they're working to replicate elsewhere and reassue and PR news.

The Trump administration says it is temporarily pausing construction of a controversial border construction project, and Texas's Big Ben National Park, the head of the agency tasked with building it, is in Texas to do an on-the-ground evaluation. The project is faced by partisan opposition by critics who say it's marring a pristine environmental area, and that the region's rugged and remote terrain already serves as a deterrent

to migrants and smugglers. U.S. stocks slipped further from their record heights today after the price of oil rose again. This is NPR News from Washington.

Days of storms have left at least seven people dead in Indiana, flood waters finally

receded yesterday, meanwhile heavy rain continues elsewhere in the Midwest and Appalachia, must have West Virginia, southeast Ohio and northeast Kentucky, or under a flood watch through tonight. Actor Hayden Penitier has died, she starred in the TV shows Heroes in Nashville, and appeared in the screen horror films, she was 36 years old, and appears on a sociant silcus has

more. Hayden Penitier lived much of her life in front of a camera. She first appeared in a commercial when she was 11 months old. When she was barely school-aged, she was already a regular on the soap opera one life to live.

On the TV series Heroes, she played a high school cheerleader with healing powers, and then went on to stir in the series Nashville as rising country music sensation Juliet Barnes, which earned her two golden globe nominations. Penitier had recently released a memoir about life as a child star, her subsequent addictions and recovery, and her battle with postpartum depression.

Her cause of death was not made public. She would have turned 37 this Friday. On this does it silcus and PR News New York. The employees in Wells' Maine have found an original handwritten transcription of the Declaration of Independence from 1776, according to the Portland Press Herald after the Declaration

was adopted by the Second Continental Congress copies were distributed to local church

ministers with instructions to read them aloud to their congregations, then town clerks would transcribe the document into their official town records. This is NPR News from Washington. This week on up first, the midterms and the Middle East were tracking major primary elections in Florida, Alaska, and Wyoming, and abroad, the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner

pursues a peace plan in Gaza.

Plus, the U.S. Iran ceasefire hits a crucial 60-day deadline.

Stay caught up on the week's biggest stories with up first.

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