NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-22-2025 1PM EDT

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

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I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bullseye, we'll talk with Eugenio Derbez. Did you know that he voices donkey in Shrek? In the Spanish language, Shrek. I feel that the donkeys are Mexican, basically. So it sounds more Mexican in Spanish. Derbiz, one of the most famous people in Mexico. It's on Bolzai for Maximumfund.org and NPR.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The FBI has conducted a search of the home of former ambassador John Bolton. Bolton served as national security advisor during President Trump's first term, but has since become a fierce critic of the president. NPR's Ryan Lucas is covering developments. It's important to say that we don't have the full details of what exactly the search of Bolton's home is all about. FBI director Cash Patel, for his part, he did not mention Bolton directly in a tweet today, but he did post after news broke that, quote,

No one is above the law, FBI agents on mission. But certainly, a search like this at the home and office of a prominent critic of the president adds to concerns about whether the Justice Department and the FBI are pursuing a campaign of retribution against the president's perceived enemies. NPR's Ryan Lucas reporting on the FBI search of the Washington, D.C. area home of John Bolton. Stocks soar today after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled a possibility of lowering interest rates in the months to come. And P.R. Scott Horsley reports, Powell spoke to a gathering of economists and central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming today. Powell didn't offer any guarantees of a rate cut at the next Fed meeting in September, saying he and his colleagues will continue to monitor incoming data on inflation and the job market. But Powell did say, given current economic conditions, lower interest rates may be warranted. That was enough to rally investors who were already betting that a rate cut is likely when Fed policymakers gather in 3.8.

and a half weeks. Powell also said President Trump's tariffs are causing some price hikes, but he added it's hard to know how big or long-lasting those increases will be. At the same time, Trump's crackdown on immigration is limiting growth in the workforce. Scott Horsley, MPR News, Washington. The Trump administration says the federal government will have 300,000 fewer employees on its payroll by the end of the year. That is about a 12% cut. That number first reported by the New York Times. NPR's Andrea Shue has details. Shrinking the federal workforce has been a focus of President Trump since he returned to office. His Department of Government Efficiency got right to work, offering incentives for people to leave and then working inside agencies to identify deep workforce

cuts. Now the Office of Personnel Management says by the end of December, the government will have shed about 300,000 employees. About half of those opted for the administration's deferred resignation program. Others have been summarily fired or laid off as part of agency reorganizations. Many still remain on the government payroll through the end of September. OPM spokesperson McLaurin Pinover told NPR, there are no plans at this time for additional reductions in force. Andrea Shue and PR News. The Dow is up 919 points. This is NPR. The world's leading authority on food insecurity has confirmed famine in northern Gaza. In a report published today, the United Nations back group of experts, known as the IPC,

finds that over half a million people in parts of northern Gaza are at risk of dying of starvation, and another million face critical food shortages as the crisis spreads to other areas. It's the first time famine has been confirmed in the Middle East. Kilmar Abrago-Garcia is expected to be released from criminal custody in Tennessee today. With help from allies, Abrago-Garcia has been waging a high-profile court battle to return to a life in Maryland that was upended earlier this year when the U.S. mistakenly deported him to his home country of El Salvador. He's awaiting trial on charges of human smuggling. Cases of M-Pox also called Monkey Pox are increasing in Kenya, with 90 suspected cases this past week.

That's a 50% from the previous week. Here's NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel. Part of what is worrying them is that the virus has moved into Kenya's capital city. In other capitals, like that of Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, public health experts have watched as Mpox cases have grown exponentially once the virus gets into urban centers. Africa's CDC says it's also concerned because about 2% of Mpox patients in Kenya have died. Elsewhere, it's well under 1%. An N-Pox vaccination campaign is slated to start there at the beginning of September.

Gabriela Emmanuel NPR News. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News, in Washington. Listen to this podcast, sponsor-free on Amazon Music with a prime membership or any podcast app by subscribing to NPR NewsNow Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.