NPR News: 09-02-2026 11PM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News, I'm Chael Snyder. The oil giant Chevron is expanding its operations in Venezuela, where it is operated for more than a century. This is a Trump administration partners with a private company and with Venezuela that would give the U.S. access to 65 billion barrels of oil. And Piers will arroob and has more. In an online statement, Chevron said it's gotten new land in Venezuela to tap for oil. They plan to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years. And that eventually it will produce 600,000 barrels a day. For context, the entire country of Venezuela produces around 1 million barrels daily. Venezuela's oil infrastructure has been in disrepair for decades. Analysts say it'll take time and millions of dollars to repair or rebuild it. But Venezuela is sitting on lots of oil. Chevron's move is part of a larger American push to rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure and to gain access to that oil.

1:00Willa Rubin and Piers News. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls, as the state is praying for his first responders, he posted a message on social media after shooting at an apartment building in downtown Minneapolis, authorities say three people are dead, including the suspect, three responding police officers among the injured two with gunshot wounds. Billions of dollars in taxes went uncollected last year. After the IRS cut thousands of staffers, MPR Scott Horrisel reports on new findings from the Treasury Department's Inspector General. Revenue from tax audits plunged 35 percent last year, as the Trump administration laid off thousands of IRS auditors. Any savings from the staff cuts were dwarfed by the drop in tax collections. The inspector general says the fallout could be even larger. If more people conclude they can avoid paying taxes without the risk of getting caught, Natasha Serin, who is a counselor on tax policy in the Biden administration, says money spent policing the tax code pays off many times over. You're less likely to speed when you know that there is a cop on the beat.

2:01More than 25,000 IRS employees were laid off or took early retirement last year, including about 3,600 tax examiners. Scott Horrisel in Piers News, Washington. The United Nations, warning the world is very close to crossing a dangerous climate change threshold. MPR Zorenz Summer has more on the findings of a new UN report. Countries agreed in 2015 to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Beyond that, the risks of a hotter planet get much worse. Storms get more intense, sea levels keep rising, and there are major impacts to crops. A new report from the United Nations Environment Program finds that countries have failed to meet that agreement. To limit the damage, emissions from burning fossil fuels need to drop to zero, and carbon emissions may even need to be sucked out of the atmosphere. Either way, the report warns that countries will need to repair for worsening disasters due to climate change. More in summer and PR news. And you're listening to NPR News. Jures and the Lindsey Clancy trial in Massachusetts are to return Thursday.

3:06They went home without a verdict after a fifth day of deliberations when, say, they have twice told the judge in the case that they cannot agree on whether Clancy is criminally responsible for killing her three young children in 2023. Clancy's attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to the killings. A leading jazz vocalist of her generation, Cassandra Wilson died Tuesday in Jackson, Mississippi. She was 70 years old. From Immigration WRTI, nation in has this appreciation. She had a voice like no one else, a deep, dark, contralto that could make you think of honey and smoke. And though she was a jazz singer, she favored material of all kinds. Folk, rock, country, delta blues, even a song made famous by the monkeys. That's a track from New Moon Daughter, which won Wilson one of her two Grammys for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

4:06She was also an integral part of Winton, Marcellus' oratorio Blood on the Fields, which was the first jazz work to win a Pulitzer Prize for music. In 2001, Time Magazine pronounced her America's Best Singer, making no distinctions about genre. For NPR News, I'm Nate Chenin. Most of the major financial markets in Asia are up in Thursday trading. After Wall Street posted gains, Wall Street rose Wednesday and made gains by big tech companies and video shares rallied more than 3%. I'm Jyle Snyder. This is NPR News.