NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-31-2025 4AM EST

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

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Okay, so does this sound like you? You love NPR's podcasts, you wish you could get more of all your favorite shows, and you want to support NPR's mission to create a more informed public. If all that sounds appealing, then it is time to sign up for the NPR Plus bundle. Learn more at plus.npr.org. dot n-p-r dot org. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Che Stevens. The National Transportation Safety Board hopes to have a preliminary report within 30 days on Wednesday's mid-air collision near Reagan National Airport. But NTSB board member Todd Inman says it'll take longer to determine how and why a passenger jet collided with an Army helicopter on a routine training flight.

Our investigative team will be on scene as long as it takes in order to obtain all of the perishable evidence and all the fact-finding that is needed to bring us to a conclusion of probable cause. Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but why it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again. The remains of many of the 67 crash victims and the black box recorders have been recovered from the Potomac River where both aircraft landed.

President Trump offered a moment of silence for those killed in the mid-air collision in Washington. And as NPR's Tamara Keith reports, Trump then speculated about what may have caused the crash. President Trump shared a variety of opinions about what went wrong. You had a confluence of bad decisions that were made, and you have people that lost their lives,

violently lost their lives. Trump said the helicopter shouldn't have been at the elevation where it was, said the pilots should have seen the plane coming, and that air traffic control didn't give enough warning. And he blamed the Biden administration and diversity programs at the Federal Aviation Administration. Asked why he thought that, Trump said, because I have common sense, okay?

Tamara Keith, NPR News, The White House. The director of the U.S. Census Bureau is resigning. As NPR's Hansi Le Wang reports, the move gives President Trump an early opportunity to nominate a new director to lead the Bureau during key preparations for the 2030 Census. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos, a Biden appointee, is cutting short a five-year term as the head of the federal government's largest statistical agency. That's according to an email announcement NPR obtained from Arturo Vargas, chair of the bureau's 2030 Census Advisory Committee.

The bureau is currently preparing for next year's major field test for the 2030 census. The results of that headcount of the country's residents is set to be used to redistribute each state's share of congressional seats, electoral college votes, and trillions in federal funding in the next decade. Santos joined the Census Bureau in 2022, about a year after the first director nominated by President Trump stepped down following whistleblower complaints about an attempt to rush the release of incomplete data on non-U.S. citizens. Anzila Wong, NPR News, Washington. The nation's gross domestic product, the economy's output of goods and services, grew at an annual

rate of 2.3 percent in the last quarter. The U.S. Commerce Department says that GDP was up 2.9 percent for all of 2024. This is NPR News. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new non-opioid medication to treat moderate to severe acute pain linked to injury or surgery. The pill, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, is reportedly also designed to eliminate the risk of addiction and overdose. 110 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released from Israeli jails on Thursday as

part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. The releases were in exchange for three Israelis who had been held since the start of the war in Gaza. NPR's Kat Lanzdorf has more. Among the released Palestinians are prisoners who had been serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis. Most serving life sentences were deported to other countries in the region. After chaotic scenes at the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza earlier in the day, Israel

delayed the release of Palestinians for a few hours, seeking reassurances from the mediators of the ceasefire deal that such chaos would not be repeated. Five Thai hostages were also released today. This was the third hostage for prisoner swap in a six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The next is expected to happen this upcoming Saturday. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. The figure skating community is mourning the loss of skating legend Dick Button. The two-time Olympic gold medalist and skating commentator has died at the age of 95.

Button is credited with transforming what was a niche sport during the 1940s into the Winter Olympics favorite that it is today. This is NPR News.