NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-26-2025 2AM EDT

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

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Scott Detro Following the news out of Washington, D.C. can be overwhelming. I'm Scott Detro and NPR has a podcast that can help. It's called Trump's Terms, stories about big changes the 47th president is pursuing on his own terms. Each episode is short, usually around five minutes or so. We keep it calm and factual. We help you follow what matters and we leave out what doesn't. Listen to Trump's terms from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shae Stevens. President Trump is downplaying the intelligence community's inclusion of a journalist in a recent group chat on a U.S. military attack on rebel targets in Yemen. The Atlantic's editor-in-chief says Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz

added him to the March 15th chat via the messaging app Signal. In an interview with Newsmax, Trump said he's satisfied with the explanation for the incident and that Waltz does not need to apologize. What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that was with Mike Waltz, worked for Mike Waltz at a lower level, had, I guess, Goldberg's number, or called through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call. Now, it wasn't classified, as I understand it. There was no classified information. There was no problem, and the attack was a tremendous success.

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declined to say whether she was part of the group chat. She did say she has not shared classified information outside of proper channels. A federal appeals court says the Trump administration may temporarily suspend approval of new refugee applications amid ongoing legal proceedings over an executive order that suspended the refugee admissions program. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled that applications by refugees who received conditional approval before President Trump took office must still be processed.

The John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington is dismantling its social impact division. NPR's Chloe Veltman reports that the team partnered with local organizations to bring in diverse artists and audiences. Seven out of the ten employees on the social impact team, including its artistic director, were let go Tuesday. Established in 2020, the division has fostered collaborations with groups and individual artists, focused on social justice work and

provided access to free arts programming and transportation to its events for residents across Washington DC. Philippa Fam-Hughes is a social impact artist in residence at the Kennedy Center. She says she's devastated by the news and doesn't know if her residency will continue. It feels like yet another small slap in the face of democracy. The Kennedy Center did not respond to requests for comment. President Trump laid off the center's president, Deborah Rutter, along with 18 board members in February before installing himself as board chair. Chloe Valtman, NPR News. Consumer confidence has slipped again for the fourth month in a row. The Conference Board, which measures Americans views about their financial futures, says its confidence index fell over seven points to a 12-year low this month. It cites concerns over new

tariffs and sharp swings on the stock market as being among the reasons for the latest decline. This is NPR. A federal judge in Texas has ordered Boeing to face a June 23 trial on criminal charges stemming from two deadly crashes of its 737 MAX jets. Attorneys for Boeing and the Justice Department remain in talks to renegotiate a July 2024 agreement in which the aircraft maker agreed to plead to a single felony charge. That agreement was rejected last December by a judge who cited concerns about who will oversee Boeing's compliance with the terms of the deal.

Cannabis has a distinct skunky smell, but as the drug grows in popularity, new strains have propped up with notes of lavender, cloves, and cognac. And Piers Ping Wong went to a grow farm in Maryland to check it out. Andras Kirchner is the founder and head grower of District Cannabis, which sells weed in Washington D.C. and Maryland. He says weed strains these days have a wide variety of smells. From berry to citrus, lemon, lime, cherry, a lot of the popular strains are kind of a combination between the gas and another flavor.

This trend is related to a better understanding of the science behind the gassy, skunky smell of weed, which has been traced to a sulfur compound, and to consumer demand. As recreational use grows, cannabis brewers and growers are developing new strains that are more pleasant smelling to more people. Ping Huang, NPR News. US futures are flat. In after hours trading on Wall Street following slight gains on Tuesday, on Asia Pacific market shares are mixed down a fraction in Shanghai. This is NPR News.

There's a lot of news happening. You want to understand it better, but let's be honest, in Shanghai. This is NPR News.