NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-06-2025 8PM EST

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

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There's no place like the garden, and this season, Garden Variety wants to help you flourish. Each week, the Heartland's top horticulturists, insect experts, foresters, and others drop by with fresh tips about everything you want to grow or grow better. Dig in to Garden Variety from Iowa Public Radio, part of the NPR network. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. As Elon Musk and his Doge cost-cutting unit fired thousands of federal probationary employees and got entire agencies for turning their attention to the Department of Education, NPR has obtained a draft of an executive order President Trump is expected to sign calling for the dismantling of the department. NPR's

Corey Turner has more. Hundreds of staff have been laid off or put on paid leave. The administration has also canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in education research grants. It's kind of ironic. This draft order complains that students have made little progress in reading or math over the years. And yet Trump's Department of Government Efficiency

just cut programs focused specifically on improving reading and math instruction. And here's Corey Turner reporting. Lawmakers from both parties, along with Jewish civil rights groups, are criticizing the Trump administration for hiring a press aide at the Pentagon with a history of extreme comments. And here's Tom Dreisbach has more. Kingsley Wilson comes to the job of deputy Pentagon press secretary with a history of controversial online posts. In one, Wilson said the United States is based on blood and soil. That slogan was popular in Nazi Germany and today among white nationalists.

She also endorsed the extremist Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory, which falsely claims that elites are trying to replace white Americans with immigrants. And she appeared to support political violence, saying, quote, there can be virtue in violence. The Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs criticized Wilson's comments, as did some Republicans and Democrats in Congress. The Department of Defense did not respond to NPR's request for comment. Tom Dreisbach, NPR News. A federal judge today ruled the Trump administration has until Monday to pay nearly $2 billion that's owed to partners of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State

Department, reversing the administration's six-week funding freeze on all foreign assistance for work already done. Stocks tumbled today as investors reacted to President Trump's on-again, off-again tariff policies, and Piers Scott Horsley reports. Businesses don't like uncertainty, and there's been a lot of uncertainty in recent days. The week began with a free trade agreement in place between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, but President Trump tore that up and added 25 percent import taxes on most goods crossing the country's northern and southern borders. A day later, Trump carved out a temporary exception for North American automobiles, and now he's given a reprieve to most other imports, first from Mexico, then from Canada. Trump says

all those breaks will expire in just another month. The ups and downs on policy have prompted similar ups and downs in the stock market, mostly down. The Nasdaq tumbled more than two and a half percent and officially entered correction territory ten percent below its December peak. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. This is NPR News. Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship failed on its eighth test mission today. The rocket started spinning out of control after engines went out and mission control lost contact with it. Debris from the Starship rained down over the Caribbean and caused flight delays in

Florida for a time today. But the huge booster once again was successfully returned to the launch pad. That success aside, the failure of the rocket, is a major setback for the Starlink program. Arts groups, including the National Queer Theatre, are suing the National Endowment for the Arts over an executive order issued by President Trump requiring grant applicants to agree not to promote gender ideology in their work. And Piers Chloe Veltman has more.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of four arts groups with the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The suit seeks to dial back an executive order that forces grant applicants to certify that they will not use federal funds to quote, promote gender ideology. Vera Adelman is the ACLU's lead counsel on the case. This new prohibition forcing artists to be a mouthpiece for government views runs directly counter to the point of the NEA and to the point of art in general, which is to explore

ideas, explore the diversity of human experience. The NEA did not respond to a request for comment. Chloe Veltman, NPR News. Whole Street sharply lower by the closing bell. The Dow down 427 points, that's down nearly 1%. NASDAQ down nearly 2.5%. That's a loss of 483 points. You're listening to NPR News. This message comes from WISE,

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