NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-09-2025 5AM EST

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

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These days, there's so much news, it can be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community. The Consider This podcast from NPR features our award-winning journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news. We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. President Trump is urging congressional Republicans to pass a temporary government spending bill to avert a partial shutdown at the end of the week. NPR's Tamara Keith reports Trump posted the message on his social media site last night after House

Republicans released the language of the measure. 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. Plans to erase the iconic Black Lives Matter street painting near the White House will begin on Monday. The decision comes a week after Republicans in the House introduced legislation giving Washington DC an ultimatum to either remove it or risk losing federal funding. NPR's Julianna Kim reports on the significance of the mural. The Black Lives Matter mural was created overnight in June of 2020 in defiance against President Trump

who had ordered federal officers to clear protesters. Over the past five years the Plaza became a popular meeting spot for joy and resistance. People gathered to celebrate Juneteenth there as well as protest and march for an array of issues from racial justice to the environment. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the mural inspired millions but the city simply can't afford to be distracted by quote meaningless congressional interference end quote. Julianna Kim NPR News. Hundreds of people in Syria many of them civilians are dead in what's believed to be revenge killings by armed fighters. NPR's Jane Araf reports it's the biggest challenge to the new Syrian government since it

took power last December. This took place on Syria's Mediterranean coast in the provinces of Latakia and Tartus. And those are a traditional base of support for former President Bashar al-Assad, who fled the country in December. There was an ambush of government forces on Thursday, and then government rushed in reinforcements, and then other armed groups joined in. Many of those were Sunni Islamist militant groups. The targets of what appear to be revenge killings are mostly members of the Alawite minority. That's an offshoot of Shia Islam that al-Assad belonged to.

NPR's Jane Araf reporting from Damascus. This is NPR News. Archaeologists know early humans used stone to make tools, but a new discovery suggests that early humans in eastern Africa were also using bone, and one million years sooner than researchers previously thought. NPR's Rachel Carlson has more. The finding suggests early humans were intentionally shaping animal materials like elephant and hippopotamus bones to make tools. Ignacio de la Torre is a study author and archaeologist at the Spanish National Research Council. He says this could show an advancement in cognition since early humans applied what they knew about shaping stone tools

to new materials. Now we have a human species here that is able to create an innovation by applying a knowledge they know for the working of stone. They're applying this to a new raw material. This study appears in the journal Nature. Rachel Carlson, NPR News. Activists have vandalized President Trump's golf resort in southwest Scotland in response to his proposal to empty the Gaza strip

of its Palestinian population. Activists targeted the Turnberry golf course overnight, painting that Gaza is not for sale in giant letters on the lawn and using red spray paint on the exterior of the building. The group Palestine Action says it rejects the administration's treatment of Gaza. The golf course called the act, quote, childish and criminal and said it will ensure that it does not affect its business. I'm Windsor Johnston, NPR News in Washington.