NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-09-2025 1PM EST

Episode Date: February 9, 2025

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Matt Wilson spent years doing rounds at children's hospitals in New York City. I had a clip-on tie. I wore Heelys, size 11. Matt was a medical clown. The whole of a medical clown is to reintroduce the sense of play and joy and hope and light into a space that doesn't normally inhabit. Ideas about navigating uncertainty. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm.

The new head of the country's consumer finance watchdog says he will cut the flow of new funding to the agency. As NPR's Laura Wamsley reports, he's also ordered staff to stop virtually all work. Russell Vogt, an architect of Project 2025, is now at the helm of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Vogt also leads the Office of Management and Budget. On Saturday night, Vogt emailed staff at CFPB and ordered them to stop nearly all of their work,

including the supervision that the agency does, to check whether companies are following the law. Soon after, Vogt posted on X that he has notified the Federal Reserve that CFPB will not be taking its next round of funding, saying that Spigot, quote, is now being turned off. Since its launch in 2011, the Bureau has handled millions of consumer complaints and delivered billions of dollars back to Americans. CFPB staff warn that Vought's moves are leaving American families exposed to financial abuse.

Laurel Wamsley, NPR News, Washington. Tomorrow will mark three weeks since Trump took office. Many of his actions have prompted lawsuits as well as criticism. Democratic Senator Cory Booker says dozens of cases have been filed, alleging the president is violating civil service laws, civil rights laws, and the separation of powers. Booker is also troubled that Trump has fired inspectors general, who work within federal agencies to detect mismanagement, and has granted a billionaire

access to departments throughout the government. He's opening the floodgates for corruption in our system. From getting rid of inspector generals who have a track record under Democrat and Republican presidents of saving Americans billions of dollars from waste, fraud and abuse, to letting Elon Musk, one of our biggest government contractors, one of our biggest military contractors, have access to America's most personal information.

Booker was interviewed on CNN. Snow is blanketing parts of the Northeast this weekend, including New and Boston with that storm moving offshore today another is forming to the south it's set to dump snow and ice across a wide stretch of the United States NPR's Amy Held has more in the story more disruptive winter weather is on its way you have overall a very active pattern across the country we have storm after storm pushing from west to east. Forecaster Bob Oruvek says snow will fall starting in the central U.S. overnight into Tuesday, from Kansas into Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, up to a half foot or so.

Then there's also the risk of icing in parts, especially southward into Virginia and North Carolina. Overall, tree damage and power outages are possible. Roadways are going to be dangerous to drive on, and I'm sure flight delays Tuesday into Wednesday. In Southern California, rain is forecast later this week, again bringing the risk of landslides to burn scars. Amy Held, NPR News.

This is NPR News in Washington. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced today it's calling an emergency summit of Arab leaders on February 27th. The statement said they'll discuss what it called new and dangerous developments in the Palestinian issue. President Trump has proposed that the U.S. take over Gaza and relocate its Palestinian residents. Arab states have rejected that idea.

Namibia's independence leader and first president, Sam Nunooma, has died at the age of 95. Kate Bartlett reports he had spearheaded the fight for Namibia's freedom in a bitter war against apartheid South Africa. Nunooma, who died on Saturday, led the Southwest People's Organization, or SWAPA, from 1960 until Namibia's independence in 1990. In 1990 he became president and led the country until 2005 before stepping down. Namibia, under his leadership, became a stable democracy after

a few decades of colonial rule by Germany, after which neighboring South Africa took control of the territory. Njoma was one of the last surviving leaders of Africa's 20th century liberation movements, a generation that included Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, and Mozambique's Samora Michelle. For NPR News, I'm Kate Butlett in Johannesburg. The PlayStation Network says it's now fully recovered after a global outage that began Friday night and lasted about 18 hours. A statement said members will automatically receive an additional five days of service as compensation. During the outage, users could not access online aspects of games such as

Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto. I'm Nora Rahm. NPR News in Washington.