NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-06-2025 11PM EST

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

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Shae Stevens. 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 Term terms from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shea Stevens.

Unions representing federal workers are suing to prevent the dismantling of the U.S. agency for international development. As NPR's Shannon Bond reports, the lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of creating a global humanitarian crisis. The lawsuit comes as USAID is preparing to put the majority of its staff on leave and terminate most of its contractors starting Friday. Fewer than 300 staffers deemed essential are set to continue working, according to internal emails seen by NPR. Hundreds of contractors have already been laid off or furloughed.

The lawsuit also challenges the White House's freeze-on foreign aid, which it says is having dire consequences to health and safety around the world. It argues only Congress has the right to shut down the agency, not the president. Shannon Bond, NPR News. A federal judge has blocked President Trump's plan to purge thousands of federal jobs through deferred resignations until Monday. U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole, Jr. sided with several labor unions opposing the move, only hours before tonight's midnight deadline.

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Russ Vote to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vote was one of President Trump's more controversial nominees. NPR's Asma Khalid has more. Asma Khalid Vote was a chief architect of the conservative agenda known as Project 2025, which outlined ways to expand presidential power. During Trump's first term, Vote tried to reshape the civil service by creating a new class of federal workers who would be loyal to the president rather than the agency they work for.

He's also a supporter of what's known as impoundment. That's when a president essentially holds back money that Congress has already approved for a specific purpose. Democrats were powerless to stop his confirmation, but they took to the Senate floor delivering speech after speech to voice their opposition. Asma Khalid, NPR News. Southern California Edison is admitting that its utility equipment may have ignited one of the smaller blazes that raged during the recent deadly fire and windstorm in the Los

Angeles area. NPR's Liz Baker reports. In letters to the State Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison wrote that its equipment quote, may have been associated with the ignition of the Hurst fire. That fire destroyed two mobile homes in nearly 800 acres, nowhere near as destructive or deadly as the Eaton fire, which killed 17 people and burned over 9,000 structures. So I think California Edison has been accused of responsibility for that fire too, with lawsuits pointing to a video that allegedly shows arcing from a transmission tower right around the time of ignition.

The company says that it has seen the video, but has not found evidence that their equipment there started the fire, although they did find irregularities on a different power line around the same time and are continuing to investigate. Liz Baker, NPR News, Los Angeles. On Wall Street Stocks Close Mix, the Dow lost 125 points. This is NPR. The Trump administration is suing Chicago and the state of Illinois over so-called sanctuary laws. In Illinois, individuals are not asked about their immigration status or denied city

services. A Chicago ordinance also forbids the detention of undocumented individuals who are not suspected of any crime. The Trump administration says those policies undermine federal efforts to enforce immigration laws. It has threatened to cut federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities. A new study on dense crowds at a festival in Pamplona, Spain, is offering a better understanding of how potentially dangerous crowds behave. The tales from MPR's Regina Barber.

That's the sound of the first day of the San Fermín Festival in Pamplona, Spain. At noon, around 5,000 people gather in the town square and wave red handkerchiefs. After filming this crowd from rooftops, researchers modeled the movement and it behaved like a fluid. In the past, crowd movements were thought to be chaotic. But Denis Bartolot and his team broke down the physics of these fluctuations. They found that dense crowds followed recurring predictable patterns. Because these spontaneous motions are periodic in time, they are very easy to detect.

And they are very easy to detect very early on, before they become dangerous. These results could help authorities monitor if a crowd starts exhibiting this periodic behavior and possibly save lives. Regina Barber, NPR News. U.S. futures are mixed in after hours trading on Wall Street. On Asia-Pacific markets, shares are mostly higher. I'm Shea Stevens. This is NPR News.

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