NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-29-2025 2PM EST

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Office of Management and Budget has rescinded its memo calling for a pause on federal assistance. The memo was shared by the nonprofit Democracy Forward, which led a legal challenge against the Trump administration's efforts. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, says the memo was rescinded to end any confusion on federal policy and blame that on a court ruling and what she called the dishonest media coverage. In a move to dramatically reduce the federal workforce, President Trump's offering buyouts to nearly all remote workers who don't wish to return to the office for work.

NPR's Andrea Schue reports on the apparent influence of one of Trump's closest advisors. Andrea Schue, NPR News Anchor Elon Musk, the Tesla billionaire who's advising Trump, he even forecasted in an op-ed last fall that forcing people to return to the office five days a week would result in voluntary terminations, which he said at the time we would welcome. And I'll note that that resignation offer was really similar to a letter that he sent to employees at Twitter shortly after he bought the company. It had the same fork in the road subject line, and

he shrunk that workforce by 80%. NPR's Andrea Hsu. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with Senate Democrats at a hearing today over his track record opposing vaccines. NPR's Shannon Bond reports Kennedy, who President Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, denied many of his past public statements. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon confronted Kennedy with his extensive record of sowing doubt about vaccines. Your testimony today under oath, you denied that you were anti-vaccine. But during a podcast interview in July of 2023, you said, quote, no vaccine is safe and effective.

Kennedy said that comment had been taken out of context. And I believe that all my vaccines play a critical role in health care. All of my kids are vaccinated. Kennedy has spent years pushing the debunked claim vaccines cause autism and mounting legal challenges to vaccine requirements for kids. Shannon Bond, NPR News. years pushing the debunked claim vaccines cause autism and mounting legal challenges to vaccine requirements for kids. Shannon Bond, NPR News. Wildfires in the Los Angeles area are now almost totally contained.

Kelly McGovern has an update. Paul Karpus is with CAL FIRE and was the Air Operations Branch Director for the Palisades Fire that was the biggest of the LA fires. He says about 100 aircraft from a handful of local, state, and federal agencies were available around the region to fight these fires. I've never seen that many aircraft available at our disposal. Darren Davies flew one of the more challenging nights of the Palisades fire, Friday, January 10th.

He says he would rather fly at night. I don't have to see the destruction at night. I see fire at night. Davies has flown a lot of Southern California fires over the last five years. He says he will probably be back again soon. For NPR News, I'm Kelly McEvers in Los Angeles. This is NPR. We've just learned the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady today, as financial

markets had expected. The central bank is still trying to keep a lid on price increases. Inflation has been running slightly above the Fed's 2% target. A confirmation hearing was held today for Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Leutnik. He said Canada and Mexico can avoid tariffs if they close their borders to fentanyl. He also promoted stronger limits on China's access to U.S. technology, including advanced AI semiconductors. New data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress reflects how students in the fourth and eighth grades in the U.S. are performing

in core subjects such as math and reading. NPR's Janaki Mehta reports the testing shows for the most part students did not rebound from learning losses experienced during the COVID pandemic. In math, fourth graders' scores ticked up slightly compared to 2022. Eighth graders mostly held steady between 2022 and 2024, but in math, both groups of students are still below where they were before the pandemic, except in one state, Alabama. The scores in reading were dismal, even worse than in 2022. And there was also only one state where fourth graders saw reading scores surpass 2019, Louisiana. Perhaps what's happening in the two states that bucked the trend

can shed light on why students still have so much ground to make up. Janaki Mehta, NPR News. The Dow and Nasdaq are both down roughly 200 points. This is NPR News. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh air? Up first. NPR News Now, Planet Money, Ted Radio Hour, ThruLine, the NPR Politics Podcast, Code Switch, Embedded, Books We Love, Wildcard... are just some of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor-free with NPR+. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org.