NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-22-2025 12AM EST

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. President Trump says he's having better talks with Moscow than Kiev in NPR's Franco-Ordoneus reports on how Trump continues to escalate his criticism of the Ukrainian presidents. President Trump dug into the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky again as he pressed Zelensky to accept a deal on critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees. I've had very good talks with Putin and I've had not such good talks with Ukraine. Speaking at a White House gathering for Republican and Democratic governors, Trump added that Kiev likes to play tough, but that they don't have the cards to do so.

Those comments followed earlier attacks by Trump, calling Zelensky a quote, dictator without elections, who needs to act fast or risk losing his country. Trump has been increasing pressure on Zelensky since excluding him from talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Franco Ordonez, NPR News, The White House. The acting director of US immigration and customs enforcement has been removed from his post as MPR's Joel Rose reports the shakeup at ICE comes as frustrations grow in the Trump administration over the pace of deportations. President Trump picked a career ICE official, Caleb Vitello, as the acting head of the agency.

Now Vitello has been removed from that post, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, though he will remain at ICE, leading the office that's responsible for arrests and deportations. ICE arrests are up compared to the previous administration, but not enough to satisfy the White House. President Trump promised during the campaign to build the biggest deportation operation in U.S. history. Administration officials have said they want to see at least 1,200 immigration arrests

per day nationwide, but ICE field offices have been falling well short of those goals. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington. It's been a month since President Trump was sworn in. The time has been filled with the flurry of executive orders and other actions. Now the first polls are out assessing just how he's done. And NPR's Domenico Montanaro says the results are not kind to the presidents. The bottom line is that it looks like that the honeymoon for Trump appears to be over.

The country has largely always been split on Trump, slight majority disapproving. And that's what we saw in back to back polls with CNN and Washington Post Ipsos. People were split on Trump's approach to the presidency, approach to immigration rather, but both polls found a majority think that he's exceeding his power as president. CNN's poll also found that 62% think that he hasn't done enough to reduce the price of goods. That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro reporting. President Trump has fired Air Force General C.Q. Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, the move is part of a campaign to remove military leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks. Brown is just the second black general to serve as chairman. His 16 months in the job were spent dealing with the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. You're listening to NPR News. Pope Francis is not in danger of death but he's also not fully out of danger. That's according to members of his medical team as NPR's Sarah Ventry reports. Two of the Pope's doctors spoke at a press conference in the Rome Hospital where the pontiff is being treated. The doctors said the Pope would

be hospitalized for at least the entirety of next week. Though one doctor also said he was confident Francis would leave the hospital at some point and return to the Vatican. They also said he is struggling with breathing, though he is not attached to a ventilator. Earlier this week it was announced that the 88-year-old suffered from a double pneumonia following bronchitis. At that time the Vatican said his condition continued to present a quote complex picture. Francis had part of one lung removed after a pulmonary infection as a young man and is prone to bouts of bronchitis in winter. Now doctors say their greatest fear

is that he could develop sepsis. Sarah Ventry, NPR News. Officials in Sweden are investigating yet another damaged undersea cable. This time the cable runs under the Baltic Sea from Germany to Finland, it passes by a Swedish island. It's the latest in a string of ruptured undersea cables that's increased fears of possible Russian sabotage and spying throughout the region. Top-ranked chess player Magnus Carlsen is selling a pair of jeans for charity.

The Norwegian chess grandmaster was fined $200 during December's World Rapid and Blitz chess championships for wearing a pair of designer jeans. Jeans are not allowed to be worn during those tournaments. Now he's auctioning the jeans off to raise money for big brothers and big sisters of America. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.