NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-08-2025 5PM EST

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

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Hey, it's Amartinez. I work on a news show. And yeah, the news can feel like a lot on any given day. But you just can't ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening. So that is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen to the up-first podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Louise Schiavone. President Trump is urging congressional Republicans to pass a temporary government funding bill in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown. As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, Trump posted the

message on his social media site after House Republicans released bill language. The government shuts down Friday night if a spending bill isn't passed. And with Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, Trump wrote on Truth Social, quote, We have to remain united. No dissent. Fight for another day when the timing is right. His argument is that although this measure punts the deep spending cuts conservatives want, it buys time for Republicans to pass what he really wants. Big tax cuts and bulked up spending on immigration enforcement. Democrats are already rallying against it, saying it hands too much power over to the

White House to determine which programs are cut. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Palm Beach, Florida. President Trump's latest tariff threat targets Canadian dairy and lumber. But as Dan Karpanchuk reports, Ottawa says it is not sure exactly what Trump is looking for. Trump says reciprocal tariffs on Canadian dairy and lumber could be coming in the next few days. That's in addition to the levies that are set to be slapped on steel and aluminum. Canada's industry minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, says the Canadian government is

having difficulty understanding what needs to be done to avoid the tariffs, and he wants both countries to get back to a place of normalcy. Champagne also says Ottawa is willing to open talks with Trump on renegotiating the USMCA, free trade deal, but there is a process that needs to be followed. Champagne says what's needed right now is stability and predictability on both sides of the border. For NPR News, I'm Dan Karpenschuk in Toronto. For a second consecutive night, Russia has launched heavy aerial attacks on Ukraine. This is the United States has stopped sharing satellite images with Ukraine.

Phillips O'Brien is a professor of strategic studies at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Russian advances had really almost stopped completely. And the Ukrainians had taken a very heavy toll on the Russians. The Russian losses were actually heavy and the Russians could maintain and go forward. The question we face now, of course, is with the U.S. basically siding with Putin. It's not like they've just withdrawn from Ukraine, that they've withdrawn in such a way to provide a significant military advantage to the Russians. What we don't know is how significant that advantage will be and whether that will change

what's happening on the battlefield. Professor Phillips O'Brien at St. Andrews in Scotland. Ukraine estimates at least 22 people have died over the past two days of Russian attacks. In Syria, international human rights observers say at least a thousand people have died in clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This is NPR News in Washington. This is NPR News in Washington. The Trump administration's wide-ranging federal workforce cuts have not spared the National Weather Service.

Weather experts say cuts to the agency's Alaska-based staff are already making forecasts less accurate around the world. Alaska Public Media's Eric Stone reports. A source with the Union for National Weather Service employees says more than 10 percent of staff in Alaska has been fired or left their jobs. They requested anonymity because they're not authorized to speak publicly. The cuts include meteorologists and support staff. The agency says it's been forced to stop launching weather balloons from the Northwest Arctic community of Kotzebue. Rick Toman, a climatologist who worked for the Weather

Service for more than 30 years, says the loss of 3D data about the atmosphere has wide-ranging effects. Losing those observations means that the quality of those computer models, which all modern forecasting is built on, suffers. Toman worries that with key staff gone, weather station outages will be more frequent and last longer. For NPR News, I'm Eric Stone in Juneau. Most Americans are setting their clocks ahead this weekend, adding more evening sunlight,

one of the glories of the approaching spring and summertime. About 70 countries currently observe what Americans call daylight saving time. This is the spring-ahead phase of time change, where an hour of sleep is lost. The architect who imagined the transformation of an abandoned railway station into New York City's popular High Line Park has died. Richard Scofidio was 89. He was widely honored for his avant-garde artistic visions. I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.