NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-22-2025 11PM EST

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. President Donald Trump bragged about his first month in office today speaking during the Conservative Political Action Committee conference outside Washington, D.C. He said he's dominated Washington and shrunk the federal workforce, and he said he'll crack down on immigration. We're going to use Guantanamo Bay. We have a detention facility that's actually massive. Nobody even knew it existed. It holds thousands of thousands of prisoners.

We never used it. For four long years, you had a president who put illegal aliens up in penthouse suites in beautiful hotels on Park Avenue, on Madison Avenue, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Now you have a president who is stamping their ticket to Gitmo. But Trump spent much of his talk attacking former President Joe Biden and his campaign opponent Kamala Harris while praising China's president. Former Republican U.S. Attorney

General Alberto Gonzalez says President Donald Trump's decision to pardon January 6 rioters is a betrayal of the American justice system. As NPR's Sarah McKammon reports, Gonzalez made the comments during a gathering of anti-Trump conservatives in Washington, D.C. Alberto Gonzalez served as White House counsel and then United States Attorney General under President George W. Bush. Speaking at the principal's first summit in Washington, D.C., Gonzalez criticized several Trump administration decisions. It is a betrayal to the men and women at the Department of Justice who were fired

because they participated in the prosecution of the January 6th rioters. Gonzalez went on to criticize Trump's decision to pardon some 1,500 people convicted in connection with the attack on the Capitol in 2021. He said the president has that power under the law, but said it was, quote, the wrong thing to do. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Washington. In Lebanon, the militant group Hezbollah is making final preparations to bury their leader,

Hassan Nasrallah, on Sunday. Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut back in September, but officials said they could not hold a proper funeral during the war with Israel. NPR's Jawad Rizqalib has more from Beirut on our story. Officials say they are expecting more than 100,000 people from dozens of countries to attend the funeral of Akih Hezbollah founder. The ceremony will be held in Beirut's biggest sports stadium.

His body will then be transported to a newly constructed glass and marble shrine in Beirut's southern suburbs. Nasrallah was on the US terrorism list, but for millions of Shia Muslims, he is considered a hero who forced Israel to withdraw 25 years ago, ending its nearly two-decade occupation of south Lebanon. Officials from Iran and other countries are expected to attend the funeral. Lebanon has said it will close the airport during the event for security reasons. Jawad Rasqallah, NPR News, Beirut.

I'm Dale Willman and you're listening to NPR News. Germans are voting Sunday in a national election. Conservatives led by Friedrich Mertz are expected to regain power and the far-right Alternative for Germany is on track for its best-ever result. Mertz's Conservative Party, however, is not expected to win a majority and will be required to find coalition partners to establish a new government. In Los Angeles, the county's new district attorney says he opposes a

new trial for the Menendez brothers. They were convicted of brutally killing their parents in 1989. Steve Futterman has our details. In his first comments on the case, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hockman presented a much less sympathetic view of the brothers than his predecessor. The brothers claim there is new evidence to show that they were sexually abused by their father Jose, which they say led to the killings. Hockman at a news conference says even if that's true it does not justify the murders. Sexual abuse in this situation, while it may have been a motivation, does not

constitute self-defense. A hearing is set for next month where a judge will consider whether to reduce the brothers life in prison without parole sentence, which could potentially lead to their release. For NPR News, I'm Steve Futterman in Los Angeles. A Norwegian film about love, desire and self-discovery has won top honors at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival this weekend. American director Todd Haynes awarded the Golden Bear to Dream Sex Love by Norwegian

film-maker Dag Johan Hagerund. The runner-up went to the dystopian drama The Blue Trail. This is NPR News.