NPR News

Updated at 7:48 p.m. ET

The United Nations Secretary-General warned this week that the organization is facing a "cash crisis" if member states do not pay the annual dues they owe: $1.3 billion in payments are outstanding.

The Oregon Health Authority is holding daily meetings to figure out new rules for the governor’s six-month ban on flavored vaping products.

The OHA team is made up of disease prevention experts as well as representatives from Oregon’s medical marijuana program, the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory and the Oregon Department of Justice.

OHA spokesperson, Jonathan Modie, said they’re figuring out everything from how to enforce the ban, to what constitutes a flavor.

“The temporary rules will define what a flavored vaping product is," Modie said.

When President Trump held his first meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the United Nations last month, one offhand remark by the U.S. president stood out to many Ukrainians.

There's no doubt that opioids have been massively overprescribed in U.S. In the haste to address the epidemic, there's been pressure on doctors to reduce prescriptions of these drugs — and in fact prescriptions are declining. But along the way, some chronic pain patients have been forced to rapidly taper or discontinue the drugs altogether.

Now, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a new message for doctors: Abrupt changes to a patient's opioid prescription could harm them.

Editor's note: This interview contains a homophobic slur.

Growing up as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan Phelps-Roper was taught that God hated gay people. The church, which was founded by Phelps-Roper's grandfather, Fred Phelps Sr., became infamous for picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers — whose deaths it believed were a punishment for America's sins and its tolerance of homosexuality.

Earlier this year, the State Department quietly rolled out new limits on one of President Trump's favorite targets: the diversity visa lottery.

The White House made ending the program one of the "pillars" of its immigration policy proposal last year. But those proposals went nowhere on Capitol Hill.

So the administration tried something different: It is restricting who can apply for the diversity visa, in a way that advocates say will make it much harder for low-income immigrants to apply.

Updated at 11:14 p.m. ET

Power is gradually being restored to tens of thousands of Californians after a second day of outages designed to mitigate the risks of wind-fueled wildfires.

The state's largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, restored power Thursday evening to about 228,000 customers, or about 30% of the estimated 738,000 customers who lost power. That still leaves about 510,000 customers without electricity.

I was fortunate enough to go into Parasite knowing almost nothing about it. Bong Joon-ho's brilliant new movie packs the kinds of stunning, multi-layered surprises that deserve to be experienced as fresh as possible. I'll tread as cautiously as I can, but suffice to say that Parasite is a darkly comic thriller about two families: the Parks, who are very rich, and the Kims, who are very poor.

A slim majority of Americans now approve of the Democratic House-led impeachment inquiry into President Trump, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds.

Editor's Note: Earlier, we mistakenly reported that Simone Biles had set a new record for most world championship medals. She is one medal away from tying the record.

As of Thursday, Simone Biles is a step closer to being the greatest gymnast ever to have competed in the world championships.

Biles won her fifth world all-around title by dominating the field at the 2019 World Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. With the win, she now holds 22 world medals.

Most farmers haven't had a good year since President Trump took office and his policies on trade, immigration and ethanol are part of the problem. Yet farmers, who broadly supported Trump in 2016 are largely sticking with him as the impeachment inquiry moves forward. And if they did abandon him, it may not matter.

Farmer Luke Ulrich says he works at least 12 hours a day, almost every day, tending his crops and cattle near Baldwin City, Kan.

In the industrial city of Dongguan, China, the effects of the trade war on the Chinese economy are measured in idled machinery and empty bar stools.

"One year ago, you probably couldn't even get through the crowd because it would be so busy. But right now, even the smallest vendors can't survive," says Song Guanghui, the owner of Crowdbar, a tricked-out food stall in an open-air market in Dongguan.

Listen to this playlist on Spotify or Apple Music.

As we hit fall, we here at NPR Music are starting to look back at the year that was. But before we get there, we still have at least 12 weeks of new music to enjoy.

Updated at 7:15 p.m. ET

Two Florida-based businessmen who helped President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in his efforts to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden in Ukraine have been arrested and charged with campaign finance violations in a separate matter.

The nearly four-minute campaign ad begins with scenery of a small town sheriff's race in the South. A camouflage fishing boat winds down a picturesque waterway. The talk from a front porch rocking chair is of hunting, Christian values and guns.

Then, more than halfway through the video, Craig Stivender, a Republican candidate for sheriff in Colleton County, S.C., reveals a picture of himself in blackface with his arm around an African American woman.

A year after Hurricane Michael slammed Florida's panhandle, communities there are struggling, and rebuilding is slow. With housing devastated, local governments are being forced to raise property tax rates to pay for high recovery costs, and a severe housing shortage has caused many, to temporarily leave the area.

A high school marching band greeted shoppers and paraded through the store when a Winn-Dixie supermarket reopened recently. Businesses have been slow to reopen since Hurricane Michael, in part because there aren't enough workers.

Continued hot, windy weather means hundreds of thousands of households across Northern California can expect to be without power for several more days.