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

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

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NPR News in Washington, I'm Nora Rahm. Hamas has now released all six Israeli hostages to be freed in exchange for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli jails. This is the largest number of Palestinian prisoners to be released at once since the beginning of the ceasefire which began last month. NPR's Hadil El-Shelchi has more. At a second ceremony at the Nusayrat refugee camp in central Gaza, the three Israeli hostages were brought onto a stage flanked by masked Hamas gunmen.

Shouting pro-Hamas militia chants, the crowd watched as 27-year-old Elia Cohen, 22-year-old Omer Shemtov and 23-year-old Omer Venkart stood waving and giving thumbs up. Earlier in the day, two other hostages were released in a ceremony in the southern city of Rafah. A sixth hostage, a Bedouin Arab citizen of Israel called Hisham al-Sayyid, was released later in the day. He had been in captivity for almost 10 years when he crossed into Gaza himself. Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv. President Trump has fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Air Force General Charles Q. Brown was the second black officer in that job. Trump is also replacing Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations. She was the second woman to be promoted to four-star admiral. The Pentagon has announced its freezing hiring next week and firing 5,400 probationary workers. Several hundred employees at FEMA were fired this week, part of the administration's layoffs of federal workers.

Disaster experts say it could leave the agency less able to respond to disasters. NPR's Lauren Sommer reports. FEMA has fired more than 200 employees, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. That includes new employees who took their jobs over the last year and also longtime employees who recently took promotions. Disaster experts say that could hamper FEMA's ability to help communities hit by hurricanes, floods and wildfires. The agency deploys hundreds of staff when a disaster hits to sign up victims for financial assistance.

Government reports show the agency is already thousands of people short of its hiring goals and in major disasters has to rely on other federal agencies for staffing. Lauren Summer, NPR News. Carnival season is underway in New Orleans. Authorities have heightened security after a truck attack on New Year's Day that killed 14 people. New Orleans police superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick says they've implemented special traffic patterns to discourage motorists from driving at high speed. It's weaving around barricades that will slow anybody down who thinks they're going to use a vehicle as a weapon.

Items such as coolers are prohibited in certain areas. The National Guard and bomb-sniffing dogs will be on duty. You're listening to NPR News in Washington. It took a jury less than two hours yesterday to convict a man of the attempted murder of novelist Salman Rushdie. The jury found Hadi Matar, a 27-year-old from New Jersey, stabbed Rushdie multiple times while he was giving a lecture in New York in 2022. The attack left the writer blind in one eye. The House of Representatives is returning next week with plans to take up a budget resolution

to implement President Trump's agenda. As NPR's Barbara Sprunt reports, Trump has endorsed the House's plan, but there's still a long process ahead. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise plans to bring up the House budget resolution to the floor next week. In order to appease members concerned about the national debt, House GOP leaders made earlier adjustments to their resolution that would direct up to $2 trillion in spending cuts. President Trump has

said he doesn't want to touch Medicaid, but analysts say reaching the levels to offset those cuts without touching Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security is nearly impossible. The Senate has already passed its own budget resolution that tackles the Trump legislative agenda in a different way than the House. Eventually, the two chambers have to agree on the same path in order to advance legislation. The tax cuts that passed in the first Trump administration expire at the end of the year and are a priority for the president.

Barbara Sprint and Peer News, Washington. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says Atlantis is recalling more than 27,000 Maserati vehicles. The problem is the rear-view camera doesn't display. The recall notice applies to certain vehicles made between 2022 and 2025. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News.