NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-18-2025 3PM EST

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. and Russia have agreed broadly to pursue three goals, restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, create a high-level team focused on ending the war in Ukraine, pursuing closer economic ties as well and diplomatic relations. I think it's important to have this meeting because we haven't really had much engagement with the Russians for almost three years and it sets the table for future conversations. How that turns out will be up to the parties and their willingness not just to make commitments but to live by them.

That'll be tested in the weeks to come. Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov met earlier today in Saudi Arabia. European allies raised concerns that they are being sidelined. President Trump's national security adviser Mike Walz rejected that notion. The facts will continue to push back on this notion that our allies haven't been consulted. They are being consulted literally almost on a daily basis and will continue to do so. No, Ukrainian officials or other European allies were present at today's talks in Saudi Arabia.

The National Science Foundation fired 168 probationary staff today out of a workforce of roughly 1,700. And PRS Jonathan Lambert reports the dismissals came in response to President Trump's executive order directing Doge to drastically reduce the federal workforce. Notice of the firings came during a Tuesday morning meeting where senior staff told civil servants that their services were no longer needed. The firings targeted employees who recently started a new position or were promoted at the agency and don't yet have the full protections of federal workers.

Some of those individuals had already completed their probationary period, but NSF extended it without explanation last month. NSF has a federal budget of about $9 billion. Staff manage the funding of research on everything from astrophysics to how cities can implement better air quality monitoring during wildfires. Fewer staff will likely slow down the funding of new research projects in certain fields, ultimately slowing down or stalling new discoveries. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. A key civil rights organization is urging Black Americans to choose not to support businesses

that are ending commitments to diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces and opportunities. Here's NPR's Kristin Wright. In recent months, a wave of big corporations like Walmart, McDonald's and Metta decided to end DEI policies, citing a shift toward belonging for all and legal concerns. The NAACP is requesting Black Americans not to spend money at those businesses. The Civil Rights Group issued the Black Consumer Advisory, saying the rollbacks erode progress in creating an equitable society. It's calling on Black Americans to support businesses upholding their DEI commitments,

as well as Black-owned businesses. That's NPR's Kristen Wright reporting. This is NPR News. The Vatican says Pope Francis has pneumonia. Officials say he is also dealing with asthmatic bronchitis. They're describing it as a, quote, complex clinical picture. That's fueling concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff's health. But the Vatican says Pope Francis appreciates prayers for his recovery and is in good spirits. Researchers are interested in

what makes humans unique, so they recently were investigating a genetic variant that's only found in Homo sapiens. NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boys reports that putting this variant into lab mice altered the animals' vocalizations. Some of the sounds made by mice are ultrasonic calls. If you bring those sounds into the range that humans can hear, it sounds like bird song. That singing became subtly more varied and complex when researchers genetically altered mice

to give them a particular gene variant that's found only in modern humans. Bob Darnell is with Rockefeller University. This is a human language gene that changed and switched early in the development of Homo sapiens. The findings are described in the journal Nature Communications. Researchers say this is just one of what is likely to be many genes involved in the evolution of human speech. Nell Greenfield, Boice, NPR News. U.S. stocks are trading lower this hour. The Dow is down 132 points. The NASDAQ has fallen nearly 50 points. This is NPR News.