NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-04-2025 9AM EDT

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington on Corva Coleman, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is scheduled to testify before the Senate Finance Committee this morning. He's likely to be grilled over far-reaching changes to federal health agencies, and he'll likely be asked about his promise not to change the makeup of a federal vaccine advisory board. However, Kennedy fired everybody on the panel and replaced them with his choices instead. A federal judge in Boston has Harvard, rather handed Harvard, University a big win yesterday. The judge ruled that Trump administration unlawfully froze more than two billion dollars in research funding to the school. And Pierre's Corey Turner has more. That funding freeze was triggered, the administration said, by Harvard's failure to check the spread of anti-Semitism on campus. But Judge Allison Burroughs pointed out that the research being defunded, including studies of Alzheimer's, Cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, heart disease, and autism had no clear connection to anti-Semitism. Burroughs also said, the freeze violated federal civil rights law and Harvard's First Amendment rights, saying she found

it, quote, difficult to conclude anything other than that the Trump administration used anti-Semitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault. The White House says it will immediately appeal what it called an egregious decision. Corey Turner and PR News. The Department of Homeland Security has opened an immigration detention facility at a state prison in Louisiana. More than 50 people are now being held there. From member station WRKF, Alex Cox reports the prison is known as Angola. The new camp is called Louisiana Lockup, and it's set to hold what federal officials are calling the worst of the worst. Angola is known for its history of violence and use of inmate labor. Secretary of Homeland Security, Christine Nome, says the choice of venue was deliberate.

This is a facility that's notorious. It's a facility. Angola prison is legendary. But that's a message that these individuals that are going to be here that are illegal criminals need to understand. The funding for the camp comes from the one big beautiful bill act signed in July. It will have over 400 beds. For MPR news, I'm Alex Cox and Angola, Louisiana. More than a dozen women have joined two House lawmakers to call for the release of all files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The women are connected to the criminal case against Epstein and they're demanding full transparency from federal officials. One of the women, Marina Lacerda, told her story publicly for the first time yesterday.

I think it's important for all women that have been abused, raped, or any kind of abuse to speak up. House Republicans have voted to support a probe of the Epstein case by the House Oversight Committee, but that vote was mostly symbolic. Republican House members Thomas Massey and Democrat Roecona have introduced a bill to force the Justice Department to release all Epstein files. This is NPR. A new study finds that a majority of preschool-aged children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder were prescribed medications.

But as NPR's Ritu Chanergy reports, medication should not be the first line of treatment for young children with ADHD. Researchers looked at the electronic health records at pediatric clinics affiliated with eight academic institutions across the country. of the more than 700,000 three to five-year-old seen at these clinics between 2016 and 2023, 1.4% were diagnosed with ADHD. Nearly 70% of those kids were prescribed medications before they turned seven, and more than 40% got their prescriptions within 30 days of their diagnosis. Preschool 8 children with symptoms of ADHD are at risk of social and emotional problems as well as failure in academics. And the American Academy of Pediatric, recommends, then the first line of treatment for such young children is to give parents the tools

to manage behavior in kids. The findings appear in JAMA Network Open. The NFL season gets underway tonight as the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles will welcome the Dallas Cowboys. Fans may be watching for how some new rules will affect the game that includes some changes to kickoffs and overtime. More NFL games will be played over seized this year too, tomorrow the Kansas City Chiefs will face the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil. On Wall Street, stock futures are mixed. This is NPR News.