NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-27-2025 5PM EST

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. Meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House today, President Donald Trump said talks to end Russia's war against Ukraine are quote very well advanced. Trump also saying he's confident Russian leader Vladimir Putin won't restart the fighting if a truce is reached between the two sides. Starmer and Trump emerged from the meeting saying both intend to work towards peace. I think we're going to have a very successful peace and I think it's going to be a long-lasting peace and I think it's going to happen hopefully quickly.

If it doesn't happen quickly, it may not happen at all. Starmer said it's important any peace deal is a lasting one and that Putin knows that. Trump also said he's hopeful the deal can be reached where perhaps no tariffs would be levied against Britain. The Justice Department is ending several federal lawsuits that accuse police and fire departments around the nation of discrimination during hiring.

As NPR's Meg Anderson reports, the move is part of the Trump administration's wider look at the department's civil rights work. During the Biden years, the DOJ's Civil Rights Division sued a number of local police and fire departments. It claimed the written and physical fitness tests required during the application process made it harder for black people and women to be hired.

The Biden DOJ found these tests don't meaningfully distinguish between applicants who can and can't do the job and keep otherwise qualified people out. But Attorney General Pam Bondi says the lawsuits served a diversity agenda at the expense of merit. The department is moving to dismiss lawsuits in North Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Indiana. The DOJ has also put a freeze on all ongoing civil rights litigation. Meg Anderson, NPR News. President Trump's cuts to the U.S. government

are hitting a crucial part of the financial system. As NPR's Maria Aspin explains, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is losing hundreds of employees. The FDIC is an independent agency with a very important job, preventing a future banking crisis. It does this by ensuring bank deposits, meaning that customers don't have to worry

about losing money if a bank fails. And behind the scenes, the FDIC closely monitors banks for signs of problems to stop them from failing in the first place. But now the agency is losing hundreds of employees, weakening its ability to examine banks. That's alarming experts like Mayra Rodriguez-Valladares, a financial risk consultant.

This administration is really sowing the seeds for the next financial crisis. In the meantime, these cuts won't save the government any money because the FDIC is funded by banks, not by taxpayers. Maria Aspin, NPR News, New York. Investors concerned about the future of AI stocks roiled Wall Street today. The Dow fell 193 points.

The Nasdaq fell more than 500 points. The S&P 500 was down 94 points today. You're listening to NPR News. Limit in large part on power hungry AI and the servers and infrastructure needed to support it. A spike in demand for electricity prompting revisions of the forecast for natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. Having more power plants is not necessarily what many environmentalists want, given efforts

to rein in production of greenhouse gases and reduce fossil fuel consumption. No woman has ever broken four minutes in the mile, but as NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports a new analysis in the journal of Royal Society Open Science hints it may be possible if the fastest woman in the world gets a little help. In 2023 Faith Kipyagon of Kenya shattered the world record for the women's mile by five seconds running 4.07. That's a ways away from sub four, but she ran much of that race alone, without a person called a pacer to block the wind. A team of researchers analyzed that race and estimate that Kip Yegan could run 359 if she

had a pacer just in front of and behind her for the whole race. For an all-female race, that would likely require pacers to sub in halfway through, disqualifying it as an official record. But the study suggests that, under the right circumstances, this major barrier could be broken. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. Russian chess legend Boris Spassky has died. Spassky held the title of world chess champion from 1969 through 1972 until losing to American

Bobby Fischer at a famous match in Reykjavik played during the height of the US Cold War with the former Soviet Union. Former world champ Anatoly Karpov who beat Spassky in 1974 paid tribute to him. Spassky was the oldest living world chess champion. He was 88 years old. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington.