NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-01-2025 8PM EDT

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

NPR News: 09-01-2025 8PM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR, and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mohn, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Amy Held. Workers over billionaires protests targeting President Trump and Big Money influence are happening across the U.S. this Labor Day weekend. Events are planned in all 50 states and in Chicago. No troops in Chicago. No troops in Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson led thousands of protesters against the Trump administration's threat to send in federal forces. Are you prepared to defend this land? This land that was built by slaves, a land that was built by indigenous people, a land that is built by workers.

Are you prepared to defend this land? Trump has said he will target Chicago next for a federal crime crackdown over the weekend. of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem acknowledged plans are underway to expand an immigration operation there. The President of Guatemala says his country is ready to accept unaccompanied minors from the U.S. as Villamarks reports a U.S. federal judge yesterday had blocked the transfer of some children. President Bernado Erivalo said his nation would every week be ready and willing to receive around 150 children who are separated from their parents inside the U.S. He told journalists in Guatemala City that his government had been coordinating with US authorities

but said ultimately Washington could decide whether to send the children and at what scale and speed. The Trump administration has sought to deport hundreds of migrant children originally from Guatemala and had begun boarding some onto planes before a judge intervened Sunday. The Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to care for such unaccompanied minors and as lawyers argued over the weekend they should not be deported without first receiving an opportunity to apply for legal status. For NPR News, I'm Villan Marx. Russian president Vladimir Putin says U.S.-backed peace efforts to end the war in Ukraine could still bear fruit. He spoke at a summit in China where he began a four-day visit. NPR's Charles Mainz reports from Moscow.

Speaking before leaders from countries including China, India, and Iran, Putin claimed Western meddling in Ukraine and NATO's expansion had forced Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. Yet Putin said understandings reached at his recent summit with President Trump in Alaska had opened the path towards peace. Trump and his negotiators say the Alaska talks marked a breakthrough, with Putin agreeing to concessions towards Ukraine's future security in exchange for forfeiting land. Yet the Kremlin has since slow-walked Trump's efforts to organize a summit between Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and dismissed several Western proposals for security guarantees for Ukraine outright.

Charles Mainz, NPR News, Moscow. The U.K. says it will contribute one million pounds for relief in Afghanistan after it experienced one of its worst earthquakes last night, killing more than 800 people. Since the Taliban took over in 2021, foreign aid has dropped by billions. This is NPR News. The brains of shrews shrink in winter, then regrow in the summer. As NPR's NPR's Nell Greenfield-Boyce reports, scientists now say they know how the brains can do it. Presumably to conserve energy in winter when food is hard to find,

The brains of shrews shrink by about 10%. Later, the brains get bigger. To see how they achieve this feat, researchers used MRI machines to peer inside the brains of anesthetized shrews, along with other lab tests. Chachilia Baldoni is with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany. She says it turns out brain cells don't die off. So the cells inside the brain are shrinking in size.

A report in the journal Current Biology says the cells shrews, because they temporarily lose water. Understanding how the water balance gets restored could suggest possible treatments for human brain diseases that involve a decline in brain volume due to water loss. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News. President Trump announced today he's awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rudy Giuliani.

In a statement posted to social media, Trump called his political ally, the greatest mayor in the history of New York City and an equally great American patriot. This comes a day after Giuliani was badly injured in a car accident in New Hampshire. Powerball players get another chance tonight to do what no one has done since May 31st, match all six numbers. The jackpot now estimated at $1.1 billion, that would make it the fifth largest prize in the game's history.

And you're listening to NPR News. This message comes from Wise, the app for using money around the globe. manage your money with wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply.