NPR News: 02-03-2025 6PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.
U.S.A.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Washington, D.C. headquarters of USAID. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland says he's concerned how the Trump administration's efforts are upending initiatives to stop the spread of viruses globally.
This is a killer in terms of their cutoff of HIV and AIDS preemption. It's a killer in terms of anti-malarial education.
Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat from Minnesota, says USAID's work affects families in refugee camps like the ones she grew up in.
It is the essential programs that USAID provided that kept my family and I fed and safe.
Some USAID supporters say they expect lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's authority to terminate an independent government agency. Anzila Wong, NPR News, Washington.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he's now acting head of USAID. Two Democratic senators have vowed to block State Department nominees in protest. For the moment, proposed 25 percent tariffs against Canada, much like those proposed against Mexico, are essentially on hold.
That's after the Trump administration reached deals with the country's leaders aimed at reinforcing borders to stem the flow of the deadly drug fentanyl into the U.S. But NPR's Brian Mann found many of the White House statements about fentanyl are either false or greatly exaggerated.
President Trump says drug deaths claim up to 300,000 lives in the U.S. every year. And White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt on Friday said tariffs are directly linked to fentanyl from Canada, China and Mexico that caused tens of millions of American deaths. Both numbers are hugely inflated. Fentanyl deaths occur in the tens of thousands.
And fatal overdoses were dropping fast before these trade wars were announced. Also, law enforcement experts agree Canada plays no meaningful role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis. More than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the U.S. southern border last year, only 50 pounds at the Canadian border. Brian Mann, NPR News.
Recovery crews are removing wreckage from the Potomac River five days after a midair collision over Washington. More from Joel Rose.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is leading the effort to remove the wreckage of the plane and helicopter from the river. Colonel Francis Pera is the commander of the Corps of Engineers Baltimore District. Pera says the recovery of the remaining victims takes precedence over everything else.
Should any remains be found during our process, an automatic work stoppage happens. So reuniting those lost in the tragic incident is really what keeps us all going.
Federal investigators are still trying to understand why the Black Hawk helicopter collided with a passenger jet that was attempting to land. It was the deadliest aviation disaster in the U.S. in more than two decades. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington.
This is NPR. People are constantly coming up with ideas about what might be going on in other people's heads. And as NPR's Neil Greenfield-Boyce explains, a new study suggests the same thing is done by apes.
Luke Townrow is a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. He did a recent study that involved sitting face to face with bonobos that watched as another person hit a treat under one of three cups. Townrow would give the ape the treat, but only if he, Townrow, knew where it was. Sometimes Townrow got to see the treat being hidden, but other times his view was blocked.
So the idea here is that if bonobos could recognize when I did and didn't know something, they would tailor their communication so they would point more often and more quickly when I did not know where the food was hidden compared to when I did. And that's exactly what we found.
When he didn't know, they helped him out by pointing. The results appear in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Nell Greenfield-Boyce, NPR News.
Americans have been seeing steady increases in home values in many parts of the country, but some of that is expected to be tempered by climate change. That's according to a new study from the climate research company First Street, which estimates high insurance costs and homeowners avoiding some riskier neighborhoods. could eventually lead to nearly $1.5 trillion drop in home values.
So far, any sign of price declines, at least on a national level, though, has been hard to find, where some parts of the country, including California, have already seen sharply higher insurance costs. Oil prices closed up 63 cents a barrel. This is NPR.
Support for NPR and the following message come from Bowlin Branch. Change your sleep with the softness of Bowlin Branch's 100% organic cotton sheets. Feel the difference with 15% off your first set of sheets at bowlinbranch.com with code NPR. Exclusions apply. See site for details.