NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-23-2025 7AM EST

Episode Date: February 23, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers have 48 hours to explain what they accomplished in their jobs over the last week or risk losing them. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports that the move is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to slash the government workforce. Federal workers were sent an email on Saturday asking them to provide bullet points, summarizing what they accomplished in their jobs last week. President Trump's cost-cutting chief, Elon Musk, posted on social media that failure

to respond will be taken as a resignation. Musk has been leading a massive effort to cut back on what the Trump administration calls wasteful spending. In a statement, the American Federation of Government Employees said Musk and the Trump administration have once again shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide. Windsor-Johnston, NPR News, Washington. Some employees, meanwhile, are being told by their agencies to wait for internal guidance before they reply to the email. A hospital shooting yesterday in York County, Pennsylvania tragically ended with a police officer killed and multiple others injured. The policeman fatally shot at UPMC Memorial Hospital officer Andrew Duarte was praised by Governor Josh Shapiro. Officer Duarte was the best

of us. He was someone who put on the uniform of service and went out to try and keep his neighbors safe. The York County District Attorney says that the suspect in the hospital shooting incident was fatally shot by law enforcement after taking hostages and opening fire inside an intensive care unit. In a rare move, Israel says it is deploying tanks in the occupied West Bank and that the military plans to remain in several refugee camps there for the next year. Israel's defense minister also said tens of thousands of Palestinians who fled those areas in recent weeks will not be allowed to return. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports.

Defense Minister Israel Katz made the announcement as Israeli military tanks were preparing to enter the Jenin refugee camp, a built-up urban area in the northern part of the West Bank. It's the first time tanks have been deployed to the West Bank in more than two decades. Israel says this is a counter-terrorism operation. It started in Jenin more than a month ago and has since spread to other refugee camps like Tulkarim and North Shomps. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced. Many fled without belongings and have been living in makeshift conditions for weeks. Katz says that the Israeli military will continue to quote, clear the refugee camps. Palestinian leaders fear that this might allow for Israel to begin to annex parts of the

West Bank. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. This is NPR. Voters in Germany head to the polls today in a hotly contested election that promises to shape European policy. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from Berlin on what is at stake. On the minds of German voters this time around are an economic slump, an immigration crisis, and the lifting of a security blanket provided for decades by the United States. The general election of the Bundestag,

Germany's lower house of parliament, was supposed to come later this year. Last November, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister over how to revive Europe's largest economy. That led to the collapse of Scholz's three-party coalition government in the call for an early election. Latest polling data shows the center-right Christian Democratic Union Party, alongside its Bavarian sister party and their candidate for chancellor, politician and lawyer Friedrich Merz, is the most likely to emerge as the top vote-getter and thus be in the position of forming a coalition government with one or two other parties.

Rob Schmitz and Pierre News, Berlin. Among the federal positions eliminated by Elon Musk's cost-cutting team are jobs at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. That is the agency that investigates the safety of vehicles like Tesla's and has investigated multiple cases of deadly crashes involving Musk's vehicles. NHTSA has issued a statement that a, quote, modest amount of positions have been eliminated there while at the same time vowing to

enforce the law on all automobile manufacturers. Musk has complained that recalls and regulations from the federal government have been holding back progress on self-driving technology. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News.