NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-09-2025 4AM EST

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

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The consequences for the country would have been enormous. It would have been a crisis. The man who saw a dangerous omission in the U.S. Constitution and took it upon himself to fix it. Find NPR's Throughline wherever you get your podcasts. Live from NPR News, I'm Dale Willman. House Republicans released a 99-page spending bill on Saturday that could keep the federal government funded through September 30th. If passed, it would provide a small boost to defense spending while reducing non-defense spending below 2024 budget year levels.

NPR's Eric McDaniel says House Speaker Mike Johnson has few votes to spare when the measure comes up in the House early this week. He can lose a single Republican vote and in past go-rounds that would have been a gamble. Johnson had to rely over and over on Democratic votes to keep the engine running but these changes are designed to appeal to this subset of anti-spending folks in the party like Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky. Massey almost running, but these changes are designed to appeal to this subset of anti-spending folks in the party, like Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky.

Massey almost always votes against spending bills. He's part of this small but mighty set of congressional Republicans who want to see regular order on spending. This Republican bill leaves Social Security and Medicare relatively untouched. The city of Selma, Alabama is marking the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday with a commemorative march today. That pivotal event of the civil rights movement sparked the passage of the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. As NPR's Hansi Lo Wong reports, voting rights advocates are calling on Congress to bring back key parts of the landmark federal

law that the Supreme Court has dismantled. Democratic Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama is helping to lead the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And so on March 7th, 1965, police bludgeoned civil rights icon John Lewis and other peaceful protesters on a bloody Sunday that galvanized the push to pass legal protections against racial discrimination facing black eligible voters. If we are to truly honor John's legacy and the legacy of those who marched, bled and died, we must work to restore the law they fought so hard to enact. Sewell has reintroduced a bill in Congress to restore a key part of the Voting Rights

Act that the Supreme Court ruled was out of date in 2013. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU's Law Suas found that ruling has contributed to a growing turnout gap between white voters and voters of color. Hansi Luong, NPR News. A series of brush fires broke out on Long Island Saturday afternoon and they're expected to burn through the night. Bruce Convisa reports the dry conditions and strong winds are feeding the flames. Dozens of firefighting companies are battling the flames that have prompted local evacuations

and the highway closure. Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency enabling the New York National Guard to provide air support for the firefighters on the ground. The National Weather Service had issued a fire alert warning prior to the burst of flames. The service noted that the grounds were dry from a dearth of rain, humidity was low,

and winds were high. Winds in excess of 30 miles per hour were whipping flames across a miles-long radius Saturday night, making it difficult for firefighters to get the flames under control. For NPR News, I'm Bruce Convice, in New York. And you're listening to NPR News. And you're listening to NPR News. This weekend, people in the UK are marking five years since the start of the pandemic, Vicki Barker reports from London. 2025 marks five years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. A video release on the government's website calls on people across Britain to come together Sunday.

It's a time to remember those who lost their lives, the sacrifices made by many, and the impact that the pandemic had on us all. Many churches will toll their bells at the end of a minute silence for the victims, and a number of towns and cities are holding special commemorative events. An estimated 180,000 people died after contracting COVID-19

in the two years following then Prime Minister Boris Johnson's first public announcement that four people had died of a new and highly contagious virus. For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in London. At least 22 people have been killed in two days of attacks on Ukraine by Russian forces. The strikes began after President Trump stopped the sharing of satellite images with Ukraine. The images were being used to organize Ukraine's fighting against Russian forces. At least 11 people were killed in the eastern Donetsk

region, while 11 others were killed in Kharkiv. Police in Canada now say three men were responsible for a Friday night shooting in Toronto that left at least 12 people injured. Six of the people received gunshot wounds while the rest were hit with flying glass. The police say the three men entered a pub and began shooting randomly and without warning. So far there have been no arrests from the attack. I'm Dale Willman, NPR News.