NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-22-2025 3AM EST

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. Hamas is at this moment releasing more Israeli hostages. They're being handed over to the International Red Cross in Rafa. So far two hostages have been identified. This comes after Hamas released the remains of the wrong person. On Thursday they had agreed to release the body of Israeli mother Shiri Bebus, but instead mistakenly released the remains of a woman from Gaza. The remains of Bebus were released to the Israelis on Friday.

She and her two young children all died in captivity. A judge has blocked President Trump's executive order seeking to remove DEI programs from the federal government. A judge ruled that some of the proposed actions violate the Constitution. NPR's Ayanna Archie has more. Shortly after taking office, the president signed an executive order that shuttered diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government and placed those employees on paid leave. A

federal judge in Baltimore found that some of the stipulations in the executive order breached the right to free speech. The judge also said that the Trump administration is temporarily barred from changing or ending government contracts that have equity goals. The motion was granted after being filed by the Mayor of Baltimore and organizations representing the education and restaurant sectors. Ayanna Archie, NPR News. It's been a month since President Donald Trump was sworn in.

The time has been filled with a flurry of executive orders and other actions. Now the first polls are out assessing 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

percent think that he hasn't done enough to reduce the price of goods. That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro. President Trump is expected to speak at the conservative political action conference in Maryland later today and PRS Stephen Fowler reports Trump has been in office again for just a month much of the CPAC program has been dedicated to discussing the dizzying array of actions He's taken and top voices within the administration have shared their perspective on his vision Featured speakers and panelists have included Attorney General Pam Bondi, HUD Secretary Scott Turner, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is headlining the CPAC Reagan Dinner. Stephen Vowler, NPR News, Washington.

President Trump Friday abruptly fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Air Force General C.Q. Brown Jr. was only the second black general to serve in that position. He spent 16 months in the job, focusing on the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. Wall Street closed sharply lower by the closing bell after economic data showed a slowing economy and stubborn inflation. This is NPR News. A 27-year-old man from New Jersey has been found guilty of attacking writer Salman Rushdie in 2022.

As Empriage Mandelique del Barco reports, the verdict came down at the end of a two-week trial. Hadi Matar faces a sentence of up to 32 years in prison for the 2022 attack of Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie. Matar declined to testify in his defense before he was found guilty of attempted murder and assault. During the trial and in a memoir about the attack, the 77-year-old Rushdie recalled being on stage at the Chautauqua Institution preparing to deliver a lecture

about how the US had been a safe haven for artists in exile. Rushdie recalled seeing a masked man with what he described as ferocious eyes rush up to him. Prosecutors say Mattar stabbed and slashed him about 15 times. Rushdie ended up blind in one eye, his liver damaged and one hand paralyzed. Rushdie has been living in the US for many years after Iran's former leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered Muslims to kill him for his 1989 novel, The Satanic Verses. Mandelit Delbarco, NPR News. A major heat wave in the North African country of

South Sudan is causing officials there to close schools for two weeks beginning on Thursday. School officials say an average of 12 students are collapsing from the heat in the capital city of Juba every single day. The high temperatures are being caused in part from the effects of climate change. Most schools in that African country are made of mud or bricks and iron sheeting. There is also no electricity for air conditioning. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.