NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-18-2025 6PM EDT

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

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Neuroscientist Ethan Cross says you may think it's healthy to vent about what's bothering you, but... The problem is you often leave that conversation feeling really good about the person you just communicated with, but all the negative feelings are still there. Sometimes they're even more activated. Tools for managing our emotions. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear.

Two NASA astronauts are home after more than nine months in space. Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams splashed down just moments ago in their SpaceX capsule off the coast of Florida. A recovery vessel is en route. Following a highly anticipated phone call today, President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to a partial ceasefire in Ukraine, yet the two leaders failed to agree Trump's more expansive ceasefire and peace proposals. MPR's Charles Maynes reports.

Both the White House and the Kremlin praised talks between Putin and Trump as an open and frank two and a half hour exchange focused on Ukraine and US-Russian relations. The most significant outcome, Putin agreed to a 30-day halt on strikes on all energy infrastructure in Ukraine. However, the talks fell short on Trump's proposal for a wider ceasefire on all land, sea and air attacks, a proposal Kiev had previously accepted. A Kremlin statement maintains any broader resolution would hinge on an end to all Western military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine, but that's an unlikely

scenario given Kiev currently receives backing from not only the U.S., but its allies in Europe. Charles Mayne's NPR News. A federal judge has ruled Elon Musk and his government cost-cutting entity Doge likely violated the Constitution in dismantling the United States Agency for International Development. NPR's Fatma Tana says more. More than two dozen current or recently fired employees of USAID sued Elon Musk and Doge,

challenging the accelerated shutdown of the agency. In a 68-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered Doge to reinstate email access to current agency employees and block them from taking any actions relating to the agency without the approval of a duly appointed USAID officer. The judge said the actions to shut down USAID and permanently close its headquarters and that it, quote, deprived Congress of their political wilderness and how to oppose President Trump. Most immediately, the party has to figure out

how to be united ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Remember, those elections are lower turnout affairs than presidential elections, and activism really matters. So Democrats can't alienate their base if they wanna have any hope of taking back the House. And then of course, there's 2028, and that's just gonna be a really open contest with lots of candidates ranging from far left to moderate progressives vying to be the person

who can make the argument about the vision going forward that best represents democratic big D values. Domenico Montanaro, NPR News, Washington. On Wall Street the Dow was down 260 points. This is NPR. Speaking at the start of the developers conference today the head of chipmaker Nvidia said AI is currently going through an inflection point. Nvidia founder Jensen Huang telling attendees demand for GPUs from the top four cloud service

providers is surging. He expects Nvidia's infrastructure revenue to reach the trillion dollar mark by 2028. He also announced automaker GM will integrate Nvidia technology into its new fleet of self-driving vehicles. The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have held face-to-face talks hosted by Qatar to address the conflict in eastern DRC. Since January, the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group has advanced, taking over much of the eastern region near the border with Rwanda, appears Emmanuel Akinwoto reports. DRC President Felix Shisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame met in the capital city of Doha. The meeting was not pronounced and came amid faltering diplomatic efforts to

end the crisis in eastern DRC. The conflict is partly a legacy of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, needing to prolong tensions between the two countries. The Qatari Foreign Ministry says the meeting, quote, helped build confidence in a shared commitment to a secure and stable future. The UN and several countries, including the US, have accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group and exploiting DRC's resources. Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos.

The last known surviving pilot to take part in the Battle of Britain has died, according to the Royal Air Force. John Paddy Hemingway was just 20 years old when he in Carmel took the disguise to fight off a wave of Nazi aircraft in 1940. He was 105. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News. These days there's so much news, it can be hard to keep up with what it all means for was 105. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News.