Russia Rejects Peace Proposal, Hegseth Defends Boat Strikes, Tennessee House Election

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A five-hour meeting between Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff ends without a breakthrough, as the Kremlin rejects key parts of the updated Ukraine peace plan.<br>Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shifts his account of the U.S. strike on an alleged drug boat, saying he didn’t order the second, lethal attack as lawmakers press for answers.<br>And a special House election in deep-red Tennessee district tightened far more than expected, offering both parties clues about voter energy heading into the 2026 midterms.<br/><br/><em>Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? <a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a> to the Up First newsletter.<br></em><p class="readrate">Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebecca Rossman, Jason Breslow, Megan Pratz, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.<p class="readrate"><p class="readrate">It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.<p class="readrate"><p class="readrate">We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<p class="readrate"><p class="readrate">Our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.<br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>