NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-01-2025 9PM EST

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

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This message comes from Wondery. At 24 years old, Monika Lewinsky was in a scandal that defined who she was for the entire world. And now she's ready to draw from her own experience on what it means to redefine yourself on her new podcast, Reclaiming with Monika Lewinsky. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. A day after President Trump and Vice President Vance publicly berated Ukrainian President Zelensky in the Oval Office, there is anger and dread in Ukraine. And while Ukrainians are praising Zelensky for standing up for himself and their country, they're also wondering whether the Trump administration will now retaliate.

And here's Joanna Kikissis has more from Keefe. The U.S. is so important to Ukrainians and Ukrainians say to me, whenever I meet them, they're very grateful for American support and Zelensky himself says that repeatedly in public speeches, thank you for the support. And they've always admired, Ukrainians have always admired the U.S. for its democratic values. But what I'm hearing from them is that they feel hostility, specifically from the Trump administration and from President Trump's hardcore supporters. Ukrainians don't know how to convince this administration that Ukraine is the victim

here, not Russia. Danielle Pletka MPs, Joanna Kikissus. Zelensky is now in London, where he's preparing to meet with European Union leaders tomorrow. Federal employees are again weighing how to respond to an email from Elon Musk, asking them to detail their accomplishments. As Empire's Bobby Allen reports, it's part of Musk's White House initiative to root out government inefficiencies. Federal employees have begun receiving an email with the subject line, what did you

do last week, part two? The message, like one sent a week ago, instructs government employees to offer five bullet points highlighting their work. President Trump is supporting Musk's push to try to remove low performing or what they deem unnecessary federal employees. Trump and Musk have also claimed, without evidence, that some federal workers receiving paychecks are dead or non-existent. Critics of Musk's strong-arm tactics say it's a mostly performative gesture to put civil servants on notice that their jobs are now vulnerable. Meanwhile, leadership at agencies have provided mixed guidance on whether workers should reply or not to the emails. Bobbi Allen, NPR News.

Lyleen Howell NPR has learned that a longtime former director of the National Institutes of Health has retired. As NPR's Rob Stein reports, it comes as the world's largest funder of biomedical research is in turmoil under the Trump administration. Dr. Francis Collins, who led the NIH for 12 years, is leaving the agency. Collins stepped down as the NIH director in 2021 after heading the NIH under three presidents of both parties and returned to his lab at the agency. Collins, a guitar-playing geneticist, was a rare figure in the scientific world. An evangelical Christian, Collins espoused that

science and religion could coexist, but Collins and the NIH's Dr. Anthony Fauci were bitterly The Pentagon is deploying up to 3,000 additional troops to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of President Trump's efforts to prevent illegal crossings. The active-duty troops are part of the Stryker Brigade combat team and a general support aviation battalion. They will join others since shortly after Trump took office in January, along with some 2,500 National Guard troops already there since the Biden administration. The latest deployment comes despite a sharp drop in border crossings. Kurdish militants who've fought an insurgency against Turkish authorities for more than four decades have declared a ceasefire. As Villax reports, this comes from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK,

just two days after their long-imprisoned leader called on fighters to disarm. The ceasefire represents a potential political victory for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It follows 18 months of seismic change in the region following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the response in Gaza, as well as fighting in both Lebanon and Syria. The group first launched its war against the Turkish state in the early 1980s due to perceived ill treatment of Turkey's Kurdish minority. Since then the conflicts caused thousands of deaths.

The PKK has in recent years carried out smaller scale attacks inside Turkey and has seen the Turkish military using armed drones to drive many of its fighters across the mountainous border into neighboring Iraq. For NPR News, I'm Vila Magz. In Alaska, a ceremonial start to the Iditarod dog sled race got underway today. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington. Vila de Paulo is glad if you're happily married, but she is perfectly happy being single. I would love to have someone who took care of my car or someone who cleaned up the dishes after dinner, but then I'd want them to leave.

From yourself to your dog to your spouse are significant others. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.