NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-27-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is the latest European leader to visit the White House as transatlantic ties are tested by President Trump's plan for 25 percent tariffs on the EU and by the U.S.'s closer relations with Russia, which three years ago invaded Ukraine. Trump says his talks with Starmer were tremendously productive. The disaster in Ukraine shows exactly why it's so important for the United Kingdom and other NATO partners to make large investments in their defense capabilities.

In many cases, 4% or 5% of GDP would be appropriate. Trump did not publicly call out Russian President Vladimir Putin for ordering the invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Stammer said history must be on the side of the peacemaker, not the invader. The stakes, they couldn't be higher. And we're determined to work together to deliver a good deal. We discussed a plan today to reach a peace that is tough and fair, that Ukraine will help shape, that's backed by strength, to stop Putin coming back for more. Tomorrow, President Trump hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to apparently sign a deal that gives the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals.

Trump has also just said that tariffs on Canada and Mexico will start Tuesday. Frozen U.S. funding in foreign aid is being felt around the globe. The U.S. Agency for International Development's headquarters have been shuttered for weeks, but current and former employees were allowed back in the building for 15 minutes each to pick up their things. And Pierce Michelle Kellerman has that story. Thank you for your service. Supporters cheered as USAID staffers emerged from the Ronald Reagan building with boxes of posters and other mementos from their service. This man would not give his

name because he's still employed and fears retribution. I'm incredibly bitter and very angry and nobody likes feeling that way, right? You know, we've sacrificed a lot. I've spent almost 20 years working solely on Sudan and South Sudan. He's been detained, shot at and evacuated several times in his career and has been dismayed by the way the Trump administration talks about an agency that until now had bipartisan support. Michelle Kelliman, NPR News, the State Department.

US House Democrats are blasting Republicans' efforts to pass a federal budget that would include making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent while also slashing trillions of dollars in federal funding. Here's House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. Hands off Social Security, hands off Medicare, hands off Medicaid. Congressional Republican leaders say there will not be cuts to the entitlement programs, but they cited the need to identify and eliminate inefficiencies. U.S. stocks have ended the day mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial

Average closed up 296 points at 43,729. The Nasdaq was down 116 points. The S&P was down five. From Washington, this is NPR News. On immigration enforcement, about 300 migrants were flown to Panama two weeks ago. NPR's Ada Peralta reports. The Panamanian president questioned why deported migrants are being kept from seeing their lawyers. The U.S. is sending migrants to Panama and Costa Rica who either don't have travel documents or come from countries that make them difficult to deport.

According to their lawyers, when they arrived in Panama, the migrants were stripped of their cell phones and are being kept incommunicado at a camp at the edge of the Darien jungle. President José Raúl Molina said he didn't know why, but when asked by NPR if it worried him, he said yes. Yes, the president said, but isn't it curious that the migrants have lawyers in Panama? Molino refused to elaborate. Analysts say the worry is that if Panama opens a path toward asylum, the country could be inundated with migrants who have given up on reaching the U.S.

Ada Peralta in Pear News, Panama City. In northern Michigan, a prehistoric fish drew hundreds of people this month for what's declared to be the shortest fishing season. Here's WCMU's Teresa Homesy. Nearly 800 anglers hit the ice this year for a chance to spear seven-leg sturgeon, known as the dinosaur fish. The season broke a record for fastest time, lasting only 17 minutes before the quota was met. Jay Woderski with Sturgeon for Tomorrow, a nonprofit that supports sturgeon conservation, says the species is threatened in Michigan, but their population in the region has more than doubled in the last 25 years. Obviously we're bringing awareness to it through the whole country. It's such a well-regulated season.

We're restricted to 1.2% of the total population in this lake. The largest fish caught this year was 5'3 and weighed nearly 80 pounds. It's NPR.