NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-31-2025 5AM 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. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly. The National Transportation Safety Board says it's recovered both black boxes from the wreckage of an American Airlines regional jet involved in Wednesday night's mid-air collision with a military helicopter near Washington, D.C. The collision sent both aircraft into the Potomac

River with 67 people presumed dead. NPR's Tom Bowman is following the investigation. There's a flight corridor for helicopters and the maximum height is 200 feet, but sources I talked with said appears a Blackhawk was flying higher, maybe more than 100 feet higher at the time of the crash. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would only say there was some sort of an elevation issue. The investigation of course will determine whether the helicopter was in the corridor and at the right altitude. That's NPR's Tom Bowman. The collision occurred as Flight 5342 from Wichita was attempting to land at Reagan National

Airport. An elite ice skating club outside Boston is grieving the loss of six members of its community in this week's mid-air collision. Greg Lamault with member station GBH reports. The ice here at the skating club of Boston is usually buzzing with activity but it was silent as 1956 Olympic champion Tenley Albright, for whom this rink is named, spoke to reporters. 13-year-old skater Gina Hahn, 16-year-old Spencer Lane, both of their mothers, and married coaches Vadim Novoff and Jenya Shishkova, a former world champion pairs team, were among the 67 lives lost.

I picture the red here. The coaches always stood at that entrance. The skaters just flew all over the ice doing remarkable things. The loss is tragically reminiscent of a 1961 plane crash that killed the entire U.S. figure skating team. For NPR News, I'm Craig Lemault in Norwood, Massachusetts. President Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a second day of questions yesterday at his Senate confirmation hearings. NPR's Will Stone says Kennedy was pressed about a number of issues, including his views

on vaccines. Senator Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, confronted Kennedy on his past claims, which are recorded, that Black people should have a different vaccine schedule than white people. So what different vaccine schedule would you say I should have received? Kennedy did not directly answer her question. He did seem to cite research from the Mayo Clinic

that was also brought up in a movie produced by the anti-vaccine advocacy group Kennedy founded, which pushed the debunk claim between autism and vaccines. The author of the study at Mayo told NPR previously their research did show a more robust immune response in African Americans, but did not find evidence of increased side effects and that any claim of increased vulnerability is not supported by the science. Will Stone, NPR News. This is NPR News from Washington. Apple says its latest quarterly earnings topped Wall Street forecasts, but the company says sales

of iPhones declined almost 1 percent in the first three months of the fiscal year. It was last September that Apple debuted its iPhone 16. The company says Mac and iPad sales rose by about 15 percent. Former Olympic and world figure skating champion Dick Button has died at the age of 95. Button won Olympic gold medals more than a half century ago before beginning a long broadcast career, as Steve Futterman reports. Dick Button was a pioneer in figure skating.

Button electrified the crowd with his phenomenal jumps. He won back-to-back Olympic gold medals in 1948 and 1952. He was the first to ever complete a triple loop. But to later generations, he became known as the most prominent voice of the sport. The thing to watch for in Peggy's skating. In 1968, he described Peggy Fleming. He would go on for decades decades and Button could be blunt. That was a terrible, terrible kind of spill. In a 2010 interview with NPR, Button explained his

approach to calling the sport. I don't think anybody wants to sit there and listen to somebody say, ooh, ooh, ooh, wasn't that beautiful. Dick Button was part of the first group to be inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman. British pop singer and songwriter Mary Anne Faithfull has died at the age of 78. She was known for inspiring some of the Rolling Stones' greatest hits, including Let's Spend the Night Together and You Can't Always Get What You Want. I'm Dave Mattingly, NPR News in Washington.