NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-19-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

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When you take a shower or get ready in the morning, how many products are you using? Everything from your shampoo to your lotion. In our study, we found that the average woman used about 19 products every day and the average man used about seven. These products might come at a cost. The ingredients they contain can be harmful to our health. Listen to the Life Kit podcast from NPR to learn more about the risks of personal care products. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Prime Minister of Israel says any further talks for a new ceasefire deal with Hamas will only take place, quote, under fire.

Israel launched new airstrikes early yesterday. Gaza health officials say hundreds of people have been killed or injured. Here's NPR's Ayya Batraoui. Israel's offensive, dubbed Operation Strength and Sword, began with targeted strikes killing several mid-level and senior Hamas officials. The attacks shatter a weeks-long ceasefire after talks to free Israeli hostages and permanently end the war hit an impasse. Hospitals in Gaza report that more than 170 of those killed in Israel's initial wave of bombardment have been children. It comes as hospitals are partially functioning or destroyed in Gaza, and as Israel continues to block the entry of fuel, food, medicine, and other basic goods that Gaza's 2 million

people rely on for survival. Hamas says it remains committed to the initial ceasefire agreement that was supposed to lead to a lasting truce. Israel's defense minister says Hamas must understand, quote, the rules of the game have changed. Ayah Batraoui, NPR News. For the first time since their public blowup at the White House weeks ago, Presidents Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine

spoke by phone today. The White House says much of the hour long conversation was based on the call that Trump had with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday. According to the Kremlin's readout of yesterday's meeting, Putin agreed to a pause in strikes on energy infrastructure, but he also demanded a cessation of Western military and intelligence support for Ukraine. From Paris, NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has a reaction from European Union leaders and the public.

This is deeply shaking the continent. There's a view that Putin is stalling so he can continue the war and that he's playing with Trump, who Europeans believe is naive, has no experience with Putin and wants a peace deal so badly he'll do anything. The former French ambassador to the US went on French TV last night, Gérard Arrault, and he said, Putin is just signing on to the peace deal not to annoy Trump, but he's testing the waters to see how far he can go. He says it's Putin's dream for Russia to be treated as a superpower, dealing one-on-one with the American president over the heads of the Europeans.

WVXU's Nick Schwartzell reports an Ohio representative is seeking answers from the administration about the cancellation of a contract tracking children allegedly abducted from Ukraine by Russia. Representative Greg Landsman says he's sending a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking for information about satellite and other evidence tracking the whereabouts of children Russia is said to have taken from Ukraine. A program led by Yale University's Humanitarian

Research Lab collected the data. Landsman says the initiative's contract was recently canceled as part of the Trump administration's efforts to cut government spending. Now the database is gone. The data is no longer available available and nobody knows what happened. The Washington Post reports the contract was worth about $13 million and was tracking whereabouts and identities of as many as 35,000 Ukrainian children.

For NPR News, I'm Nick Schwartzell in Cincinnati. This is NPR. Sadiq Shakunaki's family believes she drowned during her spring break trip to Punta Cana earlier this month. NPR's Alana Weiss has this update on the college students' disappearance. The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office says that the family has accepted the idea that the woman died of an accidental drowning. The 20-year-old was with friends in the Dominican Republic and had taken a late-night venture to the beach with a group. Another student named Joshua Rebe said that he met Konenke the night she disappeared and they were together at the beach. A Loudoun County official said

that the family feared foul play at first, but they have since told authorities that they believe it was an accidental drowning. Alana Wise, NPR News. The Trump administration is gutting a federal agency that funds Voice of America and other government broadcasters in the name of cost-cutting. For decades, the broadcasters reached audiences in countries with no other free as in uncensored media. NPR's Emily Fang has details. For decades in China, Voice of America broadcast unvarnished reports about news in China and the U.S. And listeners tuned in, even when listening to the quote, enemy channel, as the channel was called in Chinese, could be punishable by detention. Here's listener Anna Wong. She says in a university in the 1980s, her fellow Chinese students listened secretly

under their bed covers. Many in China saw the broadcaster as a window to understand the world. Emily Fang, NPR News, Washington. At last check on Wall Street, the Dow is up more than 200 points at 41,782. It's NPR News.