NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-06-2025 5AM EST

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

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Want to know what it's like to play behind the tiny desk if you've got the talent we've got the desk Unsigned artists enter the 2025 tiny desk contest for an opportunity to play your own tiny desk concert our nationwide Starsearch starts now and the winner will play their own tiny desk concert and a US tour to learn more visit NPR org slash tiny desk contest Live from NPR news in Washington, I'm Dave Mattingly. The Trump administration has been sending offers of deferred resignations to employees of the CIA, the National Security Agency,

and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The offers were made this week in a letter, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The move is part of President Trump's effort to slash federal spending. The deferred resignation offer was extended to any employee at the agencies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is defending President Trump's dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. NPR's Michelle Kelleman reports on Rubio's remarks in Guatemala. Rubio is on a swing through Central America, visiting embassies, including here in Guatemala, that have big USAID missions.

One U.S. official tells me that it feels like they're preparing for an evacuation from a war zone, but where USAID staff are treated as aggressors. Rubio put the blame on the agency's officials in Washington, who he says weren't cooperating with his review. Our preference would have been to do this in a more orderly fashion from the top down, but we had no cooperation and in fact in subordination, and so it required us to work from the bottom up. Now he says his staff is reaching out to embassies around the globe to decide which projects and personnel

are worth keeping. Michelle Kelliman, NPR News, Guatemala City. Left-leaning groups are denouncing President Trump for suggesting the U.S. take over Gaza and redevelop it. They're also criticizing the policies of the Biden administration in response to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. NPR's Elena Moore reports. In a statement from the Abandon Harris movement,

leaders both called Trump's comments grotesque and stood by their criticism of Democrats, saying they refused to equate, quote, Trump's inflammatory rhetoric with the Biden-Harris administration's concrete actions. They called the election a, quote, choice between two monstrous evils. The Muslim advocacy group Care Action also characterized Trump's comments as inhumane

and dangerously irresponsible. The group promoted third-party candidates over Harris last fall. Trump's comments come after he courted Muslim voters in the election, and exit polling indicates Democrats lost serious ground with this group. Alaina Moore, NPR News. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says the president's proposal for Gaza does not include a commitment to send U.S. troops to the region. She also says the Trump administration won't be paying for the reconstruction.

The Federal Reserve left interest rates in the U.S. unchanged at its latest policy meeting. In London, the Bank of England is expected to cut rates today, marking the third rate cut in six months despite concerns about elevated inflation in the U.K. Wall Street is coming off a positive day for stocks. Dow futures are up 85 points. This is NPR News. Today marks two years since a powerful earthquake and a second tremor in southern Turkey left more than 53,000 people dead. Thousands more were killed in northern Syria. The US Geological Survey says that quake had

a magnitude of 7.8. It destroyed thousands of homes and other buildings across nearly a dozen provinces in Turkey. Scientists say they've temporarily reversed some symptoms of a paralyzing genetic disorder. As NPR's John Hamilton reports, they did so by stimulating nerves in the spine. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh tried spinal stimulation on three people with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare inherited disorder that kills off many of the nerve cells that control muscles. During a month of daily stimulation, participants' leg muscles grew stronger and they were able to walk farther. Doug McCullough, who is 57, was one of the participants.

And after some days, my legs just felt super charged. It's like, man, I feel like I can walk a mile. Stimulation appears to work by restoring connections between the surviving motor neurons, which control muscles, and sensory neurons, which monitor what those muscles are doing. John Hamilton, NPR News. The study appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Police in Ohio say the man suspected of opening fire at a cosmetics warehouse near Columbus on Tuesday night will be arraigned this morning. The police chief of New Albany says the 28 year old suspect was

arrested at an apartment yesterday following the fatal shooting of one person and the wounding of five others. I'm Dave Mattingly, NPR News in Washington.