NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-31-2025 10PM EST

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

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This is Eric Glass. In this American life, sometimes we just show up somewhere, turn on our tape recorders, and see what happens. If you can't get seven cars in 12 days, you gotta look yourself in the mirror and say, holy, what are you kidding me? Like this car dealership trying to sell its monthly quota of cars, and it is not going well. I just don't want one balloon to a car. Balloon the whole freaking place so it looks like I'm circus. Real life stories every week. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. The National

Transportation Safety Board says it's recovered the black box from the military helicopter that collided with a passenger plane in Washington DC this week. NTSB board member Todd Inman says the device will help authorities in their ongoing investigation into the deadly crash. I can tell you from a visual inspection, we saw no exterior damage that would indicate that it was compromised at this time. So we have a high level of confidence that we will be able to have a full extraction

from that as well. Navy barges are on their way to the crash site to assist in the retrieval of the plane's fuselage. There are two debris sites, one where the helicopter went down and the other where the American Airlines plane crashed. There were 64 people on the jet, three on the Black Hawk, 41 bodies have been recovered so far. The Trump administration is ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to purge its websites of information and data on a broad array of topics. NPR's Will Stone reports they range from adolescent health to HIV. Web pages related to LGBTQ health were taken down at the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, the HHS Office for Civil Rights, and the National Institutes of Health. The changes are examples of a broader push by the Trump administration on gender issues under an executive order. But many pages that did not seem related to gender have also been taken down. An interactive tool from the CDC with surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB, has gone offline. The Infectious Diseases Society of America said the deletions create a dangerous information gap and could hamper the response to disease outbreaks. The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

Will Stone, NPR News. Costco is raising pay for most of its employees to above $30 an hour for many workers. NPR's Alina Seljuk reports the bump in pay comes as the company's unionized workers are threatening to go on strike at midnight. About 8% of Costco store workers are represented by the Teamsters Union, that's about 18,000 people in six states. The union demands better pay and benefits pointing to Costco's record financial gains. And now the chain has announced a pay increase for non-union workers. According to an internal memo, the CEO sent to staff seen by NPR.

Starting in March, most store workers would get a raise of a dollar per hour for a minimum above $30 an hour. Entry level pay will go up 50 cents for a minimum of $20 an hour. Thery level pay will go up 50 cents for a minimum of $20 an hour. The raise is similar to one Costco gave last year. Costco teamsters argue it's only happening thanks to union pressure and that the company is still shorting its workers. Alina Seluk, NPR News. At the close on Wall Street the Dow was down 337 points. This is NPR. An investigation is underway to determine what caused a small plane to crash into a

neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia tonight. A medical transport jet was carrying six people, including a child. Officials say the plane went down shortly after takeoff, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes. NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory say they're set to launch a new telescope into space called Sphere X. R.A. Daniel reports the mission will examine the origin and structure of the universe and search for components of life in the Milky Way. The telescope looks like a giant funnel

and weighs less than a grand piano. Housed inside is an instrument that'll map the entire celestial sky in infrared in just six months. Spheerex will answer a set of fundamental questions about the cosmos. Why does our universe look the way it does? How did galaxies form and evolve? And it'll peer inside dust clouds between

stars in search of essential molecules of life. James Fanson is project manager. I expect the unexpected to come out of the data for this mission as well. Spheerex is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a Falcon 9 rocket. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. The Commerce Department says consumer prices rose in December at an annual pace of 2.6 percent. That's higher than the year-over-year jump seen in November. Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve decided to leave interest rates unchanged. I'm Windsor Johnston, NPR News in Washington.

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