NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-05-2025 5PM EDT

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

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Live from NPR News, I'm Janine Hurst. President Trump today signed an executive order rebranding the Department of Defense, the Department of War. Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth and Trump both say this reflects a new tone for the country and the military. We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything before that and in between, and then we decided to go woke, and we changed the name to Department of Defense. So we're going to Department of War.

But while Congress created the Department of War in 1789, President Truman signed the law creating the Department of Defense from what remained of the War Department in 1949 after World War II. The new name will actually be the department's secondary title. Trump suggested the administration would ask Congress to codify the change into law, but also said, quote, I'm not sure they have to. Police arrested two teens in connection with a high-profile shooting death of a congressional. congressional intern in Washington, D.C. As Alex Coma of member station WAMU reports, they're being charged with first-degree murder. The killing of 21-year-old Eric Tarpinium-Jackum is one of several prominent crimes that have become a rallying cry for President Trump as he sought to control D.C.'s Affairs. Prosecutors believe two 17-year-olds were targeting another man in a drive-by shooting

when they inadvertently killed the intern instead. U.S. attorney for D.C., Janine Piro, is charging both teens as adults as part of her broader attacks on the city's juvenile justice system. This killing underscores why we need the authority to prosecute these younger kids because they're not kids. They're criminals. They're violent criminals. Investigators are still searching for a third suspect. For NPR News, I'm Alex Koma in Washington, D.C. Hiring in the United States slowed significantly in August, the Labor Department says employers added 22,000 jobs during the month. that's far fewer than were expected.

And Pierre Scott Horsley says the nation's job list rate ticked higher to 4.3%. For the second month in a row, the report shows U.S. employers added far fewer jobs than forecasters had expected. Factories and construction companies cut jobs last month, as did the federal government. Healthcare was one of the few industries to add jobs, and even there, hiring was slower than in previous months. Revised figures show a net loss of jobs. in June for the first time since the depths of the pandemic in late 2020. The Federal Reserve has been keeping a close eye on the softening job market, as it weighs a possible interest rate cut later this month.

Investors widely expect the central bank to lower its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington. And the Fed's next policy meeting kicks off on September 16th. Wall Street lower by the closing bell, the Dowdown 220 points. You're listening to NPR. News from Washington. Four Democratic senators are urging the Smithsonian to resist White House attempts to, quote,

bully the institution to go against its mission and values. These remarks come in a letter sent to the institution's secretary today. As M.P.A. Anastasio Silucus reports three of the authors have ties to the Smithsonian. The letter was sent to the Smithsonian Secretary, Lonnie Bunch, from Senator Alex Padilla of California. Its co-authors are Senator Catherine Cortez Master of Nevada and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan,

who are both on the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, as well as Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who is the ranking member on the subcommittee overseeing the Smithsonian's federal funding. The senators assert that Smithsonian oversight rests with Congress, not the White House. They also tell NPR they're working to keep its federal funds flowing. The move comes weeks after President Trump called the Smithsonian,

and other museums, quote, the last remaining segment of Woke. Anastasia Zocas and Pierre News, New York. Artificial Intelligence Company Anthropic will pay a landmark $1.5 billion to settle a class action suit from authors and publishers. It allows Anthropic to avoid going to trial over copyright claims for downloading millions of books without permission and storing digital copies of them to train the company's chatbot called Claude. Under the agreement, Anthropic will pay around $3,000 a book, and about half a million books are eligible for that money.

Anthropic did not admit Ron doing. I'm Janine Herbst, 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.