NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-23-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

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Norah Romm Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Norah Romm. Some government agencies are telling their employees not to respond to the latest effort to trim the federal workforce. Federal workers received an email yesterday instructing them to come up with a list of what they had accomplished last week. The deadline is tomorrow at 11.59 p.m. The Department of Defense sent out an email saying the DOD is responsible for reviewing

the performance of its personnel and will conduct any review. The State Department also told employees they aren't required to respond, that the Department would respond on their behalf. Thousands rallied in Paris today urging Europe to stay united behind Ukraine. Tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of Russia's invasion. NPR's Elna Beardsley reports. People here say that Ukrainians have been fighting and dying for Europe and they can't be abandoned. President Macron is going to Washington, D.C., where he will meet with

President Trump tomorrow to try to reason to him. President Trump has done an about face in alliances, switched alliances. Now the US is seen as supporting Russia and not Ukraine. Europeans have been shocked. And President Macron will try to change that this week, as will British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. They will try to say that you cannot make a deal with Russia and throw Ukraine under the bus.

That would be betraying principles that the US.S. has been founded on, and it will be letting a dictator like Vladimir Putin of Russia win. NPR's Elna Beardsley reporting from Paris. Exit polls show the opposition conservatives, the Christian Democrats, won the national election in Germany today. Friedrich Mares is poised to become the next chancellor. He said he'll move quickly to put together a coalition government.

The Alternative for Germany party came in second, the second strongest showing for a far-right party since World War II. Israel said today it's delaying the latest release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. That was supposed to happen yesterday until it gets assurances that Hamas will stop what it called humiliating handovers of Israeli hostages. There's a week left in the first phase of the ceasefire. Israel and Hamas do not appear to have begun negotiations on the second phase. The US Special Envoy for the Mideast, Steve Witkoff, says he's hopeful that negotiations

will proceed. Steve Witkoff, U.S. Special Envoy for the Mideast We do expect Jake to go forward. We have to get an extension of Phase 1, and so I'll be going into the region this week, probably Wednesday, to negotiate that. And we're hopeful that we have the proper time to finish off, to begin phase two and finish it off and get more hostages released and move the discussion forward. He was interviewed on CNN's State of the Union. You're listening to NPR News in Washington.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Beirut today for a funeral for Hassan Nasrali, nearly five months after the Hezbollah leader was killed in an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli military has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon, but still conducts strikes in what it says are Hezbollah positions across the country. The Vatican has issued another status report on Pope Francis, hospitalized with pneumonia and a complex lung infection. It said the 88-year-old pontiff is alert and well-oriented and remains in critical condition. The FDA says there's no longer a shortage of wengovie and ozimbic.

That means that those compounding pharmacies that make similar weight loss and diabetes drugs will have to wind down production. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports. The enormous popularity of the injectable drugs to control diabetes and excess weight meant Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wigovie and Ozempic, could not manufacture enough to meet demand. In times of shortage, compounding pharmacies are permitted to

make similar drugs. Consumers lined up to buy those substitutes. Now that the FDA declared the shortage resolved, the compounding companies must stop production within 60 to 90 days. Yukinoguchi, NPR News. California Governor Gavin Newsom is asking Congress to approve nearly $40 billion to help the Los Angeles area recover from last month's wildfires. He says the fires could become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News in Washington.