NPR News: 09-06-2026 5AM EDT

0:00Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Winsor Johnston. US efforts to end the war in Ukraine shift to Kiev today where US envoy Steve Wichoff and Jerry Kushner are expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The two held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow yesterday. The Kremlin called those discussions constructive, but there was no sign of a breakthrough. NPR's Charles Main's reports. Ahead of the talks, Putin announced a 72-hour pause on attacks on Kiev, building on a similar gesture by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while the Americans traveled to Moscow. It amounts to a temporary reprieve for both capital cities after a summer of escalating drone and missile strikes, often targeting civilian infrastructure. Thus, clear as what progress there might be towards an actual peace deal, in announcing the diplomatic mission President Trump suggested Wichoff and Kushner had a new proposal on offer, yet publicly Putin has shown little willingness to compromise and Zelensky little

1:01desire for territorial concessions. The Cremonensis are required for lasting peace. Charles Main's NPR News Moscow Tensions between the US and Iran are once again escalating in and around the Strait of Hormuz as both sides trade military action and warnings over access to the waterway. NPR's Kerry Con reports the latest confrontation comes as diplomatic efforts continue to keep commercial shipping moving through the region. The US military says Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the IRGC launch ballistic missiles toward two US naval vessels. It was an aircraft carrier and a guided missile destroyer. Send Com says both ships were able to evade those attacks and in retaliation, the US struck three Iranian oil tankers destroying all of them. That's NPR's Kerry Con reporting. Voters in Germany are casting ballots in a regional election that could produce the country's first far-right state governors since World War

2:032. The anti-immigration alternative for Germany party is leading the latest polls by about 20 points. NPR's Esmeen Nicholson reports. German domestic intelligence classifies the Atena Tifa for Deutschland or AFD as extremist in the state of Saxony Anhardt, but this is not deterring voters. The AFD has sought out ties with the MAGA movement in the US and advocates closer relations with Russia. The party has run a campaign centered around what it calls re-migration, promising mass deportations from day one and the segregation of refugee children in schools. The candidate hoping to become Germany's first AFD state governor is 35-year-old Aurel Seagman to form a salesman with a massive TikTok following. His affable image contrasts starkly with the party's radical platform. But in a country where coalitions are the norm, the AFD may struggle to form a government unless it wins an absolute majority. For MPR News, I'm Esmeen Nicholson in Berlin. This is NPR. A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center in Washington says years of neglect are to blame

3:06for a part of the ceiling collapsing during a storm last week. Officials say the damage underscores the need for a planned two-year renovation. In the meantime, members of the Center's Trump-aligned board remaining court over plans to add the president's name to the building. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is on its way to its planned orbital parking place about a million miles from Earth. Joe Palco reports mission managers have begun turning on the telescope's instruments and they say so far, everything looks good. The school bus-sized observatory has a number of scientific goals. It's looking for a special kind of exploding star called a Type I A supernova that astronomers used to study a mysterious force called Dark Energy. It will also search for planets around distant stars as well as galaxies far beyond the Milky Way. Critical systems like the solar panels and main antenna have successfully deployed as has the sunshade designed to block out unwanted light. The spacecraft also completed

4:06a correction to its trajectory. The telescope should arrive at its parking place in about 90 days. After that, its five year scientific mission will begin. For NPR News, I'm Joe Palco. Puerto Rican music star, Bad Bunny, has won his first primetime Emmy for his Super Bowl halftime show. The performance took home seven Emmys more than any Super Bowl halftime show in history. Most of this year's Emmy Awards are being handed out this weekend in Los Angeles ahead of the main ceremony on September 14th. As the political landscape shifts beneath our feet, we're all vulnerable to a well-funded distraction economy determined to take our eye off the ball. Our weekly politics series if you can keep it is here to help where our focus is not the force race, but the state. We tackle the big political stories of the day and why they matter for our democracy. Join me, Todd Zwilland and me, Jen White, on the 1A podcast from WAMU and NPR.