NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-04-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

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President Trump is back in Washington, pursuing major policy changes on his own terms. We know from the past that means challenging precedent, busting norms, and pushing against the status quo. NPR is covering it all with Trump's Terms, a podcast where we curate stories about the 47th president with a focus on how he is upending the way Washington works. Listen to Trump's Terms from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Meeting with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today, President Donald Trump says he wants the U.S. to take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after

Palestinians are resettled elsewhere. Trump making the announcement without much detail on how it would be carried out. The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site. Level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Trump did not say how reconstruction would be paid for or received

by the roughly two million Palestinians there. Hamas militant leaders who run Gaza quickly rejected the resettlement idea. Netanyahu again promised to eliminate Hamas, saying, Israel's victory will be America's victory. The Trump administration is declaring telework agreements between federal agencies and their employees unions invalid. NPR's Andrea Shue reports the latest guidance comes as President Trump's ordered most federal workers back to the office full time. In a memo sent out by the Office of Personnel Management, the Trump administration argues

that heads of agencies have the right to set overall telework levels, citing the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010, and that any provisions in collective bargaining agreements that conflict with management rights are unlawful and cannot be enforced. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 civil servants, responded by accusing the Trump administration of violating the law by encouraging agencies to ignore union contracts. The union says the agreements are enforceable by law and has vowed to aggressively defend

them. Andrea Hsu, NPR News. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s appointment to be the country's next health secretary appears on track. Kennedy, an activist lawyer who's campaigned against vaccination, clearing the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee by 14 to 13 votes, sending his nomination on to the full Senate. The nomination advanced after Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, said he received assurances from Kennedy he would not do away with the nation's childhood vaccine programs. Search crews have recovered the remains of all 67 victims from the mid-air collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last week.

MPR's Joel Rose reports crews are still removing debris. Federal investigators are still trying to piece together the events that led to the collision of an American Airlines passenger jet and a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter. The National Transportation Safety Board says data from an air traffic control display shows the helicopter was at 300 feet at the time of the collision, well above the 200-foot ceiling it was required to maintain. Investigators say they need more information from the wreckage of the helicopter, which they hope will be removed from the Potomac River later this week. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington.

On Wall Street, the Dow is up 134 points, the NASDAQ rose 262 points. This is NPR. Singer and actor Olga James has died. James starred in the 1954 movie adaptation of Carmen Jones along with Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge. She was 95 years old. NPR's Elizabeth Blair has this appreciation. Olga James was a Juilliard-trained opera singer. She's also one of the few actors in Carmen Jones, whose singing voice was not dubbed. My Joe, he was always my Joe. James was born in Washington, D.C. After Carmen Jones, she went on to star with Sammy Davis

Jr. in the Broadway musical Mr. Wonderful, and beginning in the late 1960s, played Bill Cosby's sister-in-law on his eponymous TV show. Olga James was married to saxophonist Cannonball Adderley until his death in 1975. She later married folk singer Len Chandler. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News. President Trump says he will attend the Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans. Trump would be the first sitting president to do so. A spokesperson for the Secret Service says the organization has already put staff on the ground there, preparing for Trump's visit. As part of the Fox Network pregame show, Trump will also sit down for a pre-taped interview.

Trump has not said who he'll be rooting for in the game. The Super Bowl is one of the biggest annual events on the global stage, with an estimated 123.7 million viewers tuning in last year. Critical futures prices came under pressure today and word of a 10% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods and retaliatory action against U.S. products will down 46 cents a barrel to end the session at 7270 Barrel in New York. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. This message comes from NYU Langone. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.