Emily Fang
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-25-2024 6PM EST
At Christmas Mass, in the Catholic section of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, worshippers and visitors alike crowded into the pews. Nearby, nuns and pilgrims chanted prayers and sang songs in an underground grotto in the church's Greek Orthodox section. This grotto was believed to be the cave where Jesus Christ was born. But the church and manger square in front of it was relatively empty.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-25-2024 6PM EST
Celebrations have been muted to mourn the more than 45,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza. Emily Fang, NPR News, Bethlehem, the West Bank.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 9AM EDT
China has showed no signs of backing down after President Trump's most recent round of tariffs on Chinese goods, which now total north of 100 percent. China's new levies of 50 percent on U.S. imports go into effect starting Thursday. China's government has also filed two complaints with the World Trade Organization, saying the U.S. levies break international law.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-09-2025 9AM EDT
Earlier, Beijing signaled it was trying to negotiate with the Trump administration, but it switched this week, calling Trump's latest tariffs a, quote, mistake on top of a mistake, exposing what it says is a, quote, blackmailing nature. Emily Fang, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-04-2025 5PM EST
C.K. Hutchinson Holdings Limited is one of Hong Kong's biggest family-run conglomerates, founded by the non-engineering billionaire Li Ka-shing. And it's their majority ownership in two port terminals in the Panama Canal that came under heavy criticism from President Trump, who cited the Hong Kong company's ownership as a sign of mainland Chinese government influence over the canal. C.K.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-04-2025 5PM EST
Hutchinson owns stakes in logistics and transport businesses around the world and has no demonstrated ties to the mainland Chinese government. This week, C.K. Hutchinson said it sold its stakes in the canal for $22.8 billion to a consortium led by American group BlackRock in a, quote, rapid, discreet, but competitive bidding process. Emily Fang, NPR News, Washington.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-12-2025 7PM EST
auto-sears allow a weapon to fire continuously as long as the trigger is compressed. They are now illegal in Maryland. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown argues that Glock pistols are particularly easy to turn into automatic weapons with the help of that device.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-12-2025 7PM EST
Baltimore City Police say they recovered over 100 illegally modified Glock's in 2024. Half of the people arrested for the modification were under 21, including a 13-year-old. Glock did not immediately respond to WIPR's request for comment. There are similar lawsuits against Glock in Chicago, New Jersey, and Minnesota. For NPR News, I'm Emily Hofstetter.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-09-2025 6PM EST
A celebratory band played as Lebanon's Speaker of Parliament declared Joseph Aoun Lebanon's next president. The parliament had failed 12 previous times to agree on a president, but this time opposition to Aoun, primarily from the fighting group Hezbollah, largely vanished.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-09-2025 6PM EST
Aoun is also the commander of Lebanon's military, which by convention, like the president's office, should be held by a Maronite Christian. And he had to bypass constitutional restrictions that forbid him from running for president while holding another office.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-09-2025 6PM EST
But he commands support from a coalition of Lebanon's diverse sectarian groups, and he will be crucial to implementing a ceasefire with Israel. Emily Fang, NPR News, Beirut.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-03-2025 7PM EDT
President Trump said he was stopping what is called the de minimis exemption to combat the alleged influx of fentanyl in these packages.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-03-2025 7PM EDT
Earlier, he had toyed with closing off the loophole because it's been criticized for allowing Chinese companies to essentially sell clothes and other low-cost goods through fast fashion platforms like Shein or Temu and also through Amazon and China's AliExpress to American consumers without paying import taxes, as long as the packages are worth less than $800.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-03-2025 7PM EDT
The rise of fast fashion has led the volume of these de minimis packages from China to skyrocket from just over $5 billion worth of goods in 2018 to $66 billion of goods in 2023. Emily Fang, NPR News, Washington.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-29-2025 6PM EDT
There will be very real consequences to real people in Colorado, and we are not going to be able to pick up all of the pieces. And so it's frightening.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-31-2025 4PM EDT
The idea is to one day create an interface between the human mind and electronic systems by implanting a chip directly into people's heads. Chinese company NuCyber is aiming to implant its chips in 13 people by the end of the year. Right now, U.S. company Synchron, whose investors include billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, is running a trial with 10 patients.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-31-2025 4PM EDT
Billionaire Elon Musk's company Neuralink currently has three people with its implants. China's NuCyber and U.S. companies hope that in implanting these chips in people's brains, they can help patients with paralysis improve physical mobility. Emily Fang, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-29-2024 9PM EST
At 75 years old, Netanyahu is among the more senior end of world leaders. He was fitted with a pacemaker last year and earlier this spring had surgery for a hernia. Emily Fang, NPR News, Tel Aviv, Israel.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-29-2024 9PM EST
This is not the first time the prime minister has had health problems while Israel is fighting on multiple fronts. In Gaza, against Houthi militants in Yemen and in Syria, where Israeli troops have occupied more territory. Netanyahu also is in the middle of testifying in his own corruption trial. A Jerusalem court agreed he could postpone several days of testimony this coming week due to surgery.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-29-2024 8PM EST
Al Wafa Clinic specialized in physical therapy services in Gaza City, but Israel's military said the clinic was a Hamas command center and accused Hamas fighters of embedding in civilian buildings. Meanwhile, northern Gaza's last functioning hospital was shut down by Israeli soldiers over the weekend and 240 people there arrested.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 12-29-2024 8PM EST
North Gaza has been essentially cut off since October, when Israel launched an ongoing and punishing military campaign in the area. That displaced more than 100,000 people. The World Health Organization said it was, quote, appalled by Israel's systemic dismantling of the health system there. Emily Fang, NPR News, Tel Aviv, Israel.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 6PM EST
NPR's Emily Fang has more. Jimmy Lai founded the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily that often criticized the Chinese government. He has remained in jail for nearly four years as a trial date for his national security case was set. Last November, he started giving his first oral testimony.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 6PM EST
This week, the court grilled him on two editorials he wrote criticizing Beijing and whether they, quote, incited public hatred towards the government.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-21-2025 6PM EST
This week, one of Hong Kong's biggest and last remaining opposition political parties also announced they were moving to shut themselves down after years of pressure from Beijing's national security law curtailed nearly all of their political activities. Emily Fang and Pure News, Washington.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
Well, part of the reason given by Musk and other people close to Trump is that the agencies that fund these groups you're talking about are wasteful. Musk has accused specifically the aid agency USAID of being behind a, quote, hoax about Russian influence in the Trump administration without giving evidence. The U.S.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
has also paused human rights and civil society related grants at the State Department. And the latest funding phrase I've been tracking is that the National Endowment for Democracy or N.E.D., Interesting, some Republicans, like Marco Rubio, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, had previously seen groups they funded as essential to U.S.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
national security because they build soft power by promoting U.S. democratic ideals abroad. But since Rubio's joined the Trump administration, he's defended these massive cuts.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
They have not said much publicly, but this is a huge windfall for China because these are all organizations Beijing found a nuisance. And I found signs that China is trying to co-opt some of these groups now. At least two human rights organizations that are China-focused but based here in the U.S.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
tell me they've actually been approached by people within the Chinese government, offering to introduce them to new China-based funders. And this has specifically happened in just the last few days since they've faced losing funding from the U.S.,
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
I also talked directly with a Chinese state representative who answers to the government there, who requested anonymity because they're not authorized to speak publicly. They reached out to at least one China-focused civil society group that is at risk of losing their funding and proposed to them.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
Instead of criticizing people and organizations in China publicly, perhaps they could facilitate private conversations with China to achieve social change. And one of the groups he was in contact with said, you know, this feels like a tactic to buy their silence, though the Chinese state representative argued to me it would be a more effective way for organizations to work.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
They're exactly kind of the groups that China and other authoritarian governments criticize. These are women's rights groups, human rights research groups, legal aid nonprofits. One of them is New York-based China Labor Watch. It was started by a researcher named Li Qiang, and his group investigates labor rights abuses.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
He says here he's chosen to go on the record with me because he left China when he felt he could not speak freely there. So he says now, if he stays silent on the funding cuts, what was the point of coming to the U.S.?
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
Well, for better or worse, the U.S. is competing with China on social influence and soft power. And some human rights workers say they're worried about this convergence between how Trump administration officials talk about democracy and how governments like China describe it. Francisco Ben-Kosme is USAID's former China policy lead.
Up First from NPR
Measles Outbreak, Foreign Aid Cuts, Bolsonaro Charges
For example, Musk called NED a scam and then cited a story on X, a takedown of the U.S. Foundation from the Foreign Ministry of China.