NPR News Now - NPR News: 09-05-2025 8AM EDT

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Corva Coleman. Yesterday's three-hour Senate committee hearing with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was combative. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist. He refused to concede that with widespread scientific consensus, COVID vaccines, saved millions of lives. One of his questioners was Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy, who was also a doctor. Cassidy cast an important vote this year to confirm Kennedy. But NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin says Kennedy has broken promises. to Cassidy and other senators and changed federal vaccine policy.

Cassidy and several other Republican senators in this hearing were critical of Kennedy's anti-vaccine posture, but they didn't go so far as to join their Democratic colleagues in calling for him to resign. NPR Selena Simmons-Duffin reporting. A federal appeals court panel has lifted a lower court block that had ordered operations to wind down at an immigration detention center in Florida's Everglades. The facility, also known as Alligator Alcatraz, can continue operating while a legal challenge goes forward. NPR's Greg Allen has more.

The decision, a two-to-one vote by a three-judge panel at the federal appeals court in Atlanta, reversed the ruling by a lower court judge in Miami. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had ruled that construction of the facility in the Everglades without public input or an environmental impact statement violated federal law. And she gave Florida and the Trump administration 60 days to cease operations. The appeals panel ruled that a recent Supreme Court decision allows flexibility in how agencies weigh environmental consequences, and the lower court erred by not taking that into account. The panel has blocked the lower court judge from taking any further action while the appeal continues. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.

PBS says it will cut about 15 percent of its workforce. The move follows the vote by the Republican-led Congress this summer that ended federal funding for public media. NPR's David Fulken flick has more. CEO Paula Kerger said PBS had already taken smaller steps but didn't have much choice. She said the congressional rescission of all future funds for the corporation for public broadcasting, more than $500 million annually, mostly to public TV and radio stations, was compounded by the Trump administration's decision to kill a major educational grant for PBS. Kerger wrote to station officials that PBS would still fulfill core missions. Quote, these decisions, while difficult, positioned PBS to weather the current challenges facing public. public media. Some stations have embarked on their own job cuts, even as listeners, viewers, and readers have stepped forward with fresh contributions to try to help stations fill the gaps. David Fulkenflick and PR News. The Labor Department will release the latest jobless reports for August later this hour. The reports come as employers in the U.S. have slowed down their pace of hiring. The August report is expected to show a continued drop in the number of federal government jobs. You're listening to NPR news.

from Washington. Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that any foreign troops based in Ukraine will be considered a legitimate target by Russia. This warning from Putin comes, as more than two dozen countries have said this week, they are willing to send their troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is ever reached. Texas lawmakers have wrapped up their second special session of the year this week. They passed a wide range of conservative priorities from congressional redistricting, to fresh restrictions on abortion.

But one thing they did not pass was a proposed ban on the sale of products containing THC. That's the intoxicating component of cannabis. Houston Public Media's Andrew Schneider has more. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is the state's lead advocate of a total THC ban. Patrick wrote on social media that he,

Governor Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dustin Burroughs had been in heavy discussions over the last two days but failed to reach an agreement. Melanie Carpenter co-owns the dispensary Serenity Organics in Missouri City, southwest of Houston. We went up against the big guys and, you know, came out on top, or at least for today. Lawmakers had passed a THC ban during the regular session

that ended in June, but Abbott vetoed it. Congressional redistricting and a response to the deadly July 4th Central Texas flood absorbed lawmakers' attention for much of the summer. For NPR News, I'm Andrew Schneider in Houston. The powerball jackpot is growing. It's now worth about $1.7 billion. The power ball drawing is tomorrow night. This is NPR News.