NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-02-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

NPR News: 09-02-2025 8AM EDTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Windsor Johnston. Rescue teams are combing through the rubble in Afghanistan. Two days after, a powerful earthquake struck the eastern part of the country. The death toll has surpassed 1,400 as emergency crew search for survivors. NPR's D. Hadid reports the quake flattened and number of villages trapping people under their homes. The epicenter was in a remote mountainous area where drone footage shows. showed collapsed mud-brick homes perched on hills overlooking narrow green valleys. One aid worker tells NPR that one remote village called Dugal

appears to have been wiped out. Abraham Ahmed is with the Islamic Relief Aid Group. They are taking those injured people walking for three hours until they arrive to the first point close to Dugal where Islamic Relief was one of the first respondents. The earthquake comes as aid groups are already stretched thin after President Trump suspended most funding to Afghanistan amid claims that the Taliban was siphoning off some of it. The United States was the largest donor to Afghanistan.

The United Nations is now appealing for emergency funds. Dear Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai. House lawmakers are trying to move ahead with a bipartisan bill that calls for the release of the government's files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, the co-sponsor of the discharge petition, spoke to NPR's Morning Edition. The petition is about restoring trust in government. It protects victims' identity. It's simply

calling for the release of all of the Epstein files to hold rich and powerful men who abused underage girls accountable. The discharge petition would force Attorney General Pam Bondi to release a broad range of the Justice Department's files on Epstein. The man charged with trying to to assassinate Donald Trump while he was running for president last year is due back in court today in Florida. MPR's Greg Allen reports Ryan Ruth has been charged with planning to shoot Trump while he was golfing in West Palm Beach. A witness identified Ryan Ruth as the man seen running from what prosecutors call a sniper's nest set up near the club while Trump was golfing there last September. A Secret Service agent had fired on a person he saw holding a gun a few holes ahead

of where the then-presidential candidate was golfing. Ruth is back in court for a final hearing before his trial, which begins next week with jury selection. U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon granted Ruth's request to dismiss his attorneys and represent himself at trial. Along with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, Ruth also is charged with four other counts, including federal weapons violations. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.

Stocks closed mixed across Asia today on Wall Street, Delf Futures, are trading lower at the hour. This is NPR News in Washington. Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reservists as it expands its military offensive in Gaza's largest city. The military says it's part of a plan to mobilize 60,000 soldiers and extend the service of an additional 20,000 already on active duty. Israel says ground and air forces are moving ahead, pursuing more targets in northern and central Gaza. The former president of Brazil will be put on trial today for attempting to overthrow the government and stay in power after his election loss in 2022. The prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro is being watched at home and by President Trump, a political ally who has sanctioned Brazil over the case.

NPR's Kerry Kahn has more. The former president faces five charges for attempting a coup, leading an army. criminal organization and the violent abolition of Brazil's democratic rule. He's also charged with two lesser counts of destruction of public property stemming from the January 8, 2003 riot on the Capitol by his supporters. Bolsonaro, who ran Brazil from 2019 to 2022, insists he did nothing wrong, but prosecutors say the evidence against him is overwhelming and includes reams of emails, text messages, and cell phone calls between Bolsonaro and the other seven defendants on trial. If convicted, the 70-year-old Bolsonaro could face decades in

prison, Kerry Kahn, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro. I'm Windsor Johnson, NPR News in Washington.