Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Rylan Barton.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is urging European allies to take concrete action against
“Iran, even as he seeks to repair strange ties with Italy and the Vatican, after meeting”
with Italy's Prime Minister today, Rubio warned that Tehran was attempting to assert control over the state of Hormuz, calling the move unacceptable and a threat to global security. President Trump says plans are in place for a three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and starting this weekend, and he says a halt to hostilities could be the beginning
of the end of the long war between them. It'll happen as Russia celebrates victory day, celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, and Piers' Danielle Kurtzleben has more. Trump says in a social media post that the ceasefire will be Saturday, March 9th through Monday, March 11th, and then it will include a swap of 1,000 prisoners for each country.
Trump claims that he asked for the ceasefire, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed. He added that peace talks are continuing in the war. Zelensky previously proposed a truce.
“Last year, ending the Russia Ukraine conflict was a central goal of the Trump administration's”
foreign policy.
However, the administration this year has been occupied, first by deposing Venezuela and
President Nicolas Maduro, and now by the war, the U.S. and Israel are waging in Iran. Danielle Kurtzleben and PR news the White House. The National Redistricting Battle over congressional seats has swung toward Republicans. A Virginia court today invalidated a democratic redistricting effort that could have gained additional seats for the party.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana pressed ahead with redistricting efforts after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. A group of protesters is suing the Department of Homeland Security to stop federal officers from taking the DNA of U.S. citizens arrested while protesting the agency's immigration enforcement tactics.
As MPR's Meg Anderson reports the lawsuit filed this week, alleges the federal government
“wrongfully arrested the protesters and is now storing their DNA in a database.”
The four people who brought the case say they were peacefully protesting outside an ice-detention center near Chicago when they were arrested.
Each was forced to give a DNA sample, two were never charged, and the other two faced
misdemeanor charges that were later dismissed. But they say the government still has their genetic profile. DHS did not respond to a request for comment, but in an earlier statement, DHS told and PR that federal law requires that to collect the DNA of people they arrest. The lawsuit argues, however, that a 2013 Supreme Court case only allows the practice in
the case of serious crimes. Meg Anderson and Berenuse. U.S. stocks rose to new records today, following the latest signs that the nation's job market is doing better than economists expected. This is NPR News.
Olivia and Liam have topped the list of U.S. baby names for the 7th year in a row. The Social Security Administration released the list just in time for Mother's Day, Charlotte climbed to second place among girls ending Emma's six-year run on the boy side, the top four names Liam Noah Oliver and Theodore held steady. South African President Cyril Ramaposa could face fresh impeachment proceedings over a long
running scandal involving cash, stuffed in a couch, and PR's Kate Bartlett reports.
The scandal involved more than half a million dollars that was stolen from Ramaposa's
farm in 2020. The money had been hidden under the cushions in a sofa. Ramaposa, a keen cattle breeder, denied wrongdoing and said the $580,000 was the proceeds of a sale of prize buffaloes. His political opponents accused him of a tax-dodge or money laundering and code for his
resignation. But in 2022, Parliament voted against starting impeachment proceedings. Now the country's highest court has ruled that was a mistake and ordered that an impeachment committee be set up to investigate. Ramaposa's political future now hangs in the balance, Kate Bartlett in Pyrenees, Johannesburg.
William Shakespeare's Hamlet is having a renaissance with adaptations worldwide. Eddie Isard is taking a one-person production of Hamlet on a worldwide tour, Taylor Swift's fate of Ophelia recently dominated the charts, and Anthony Hopkins is delighting fans on TikTok with Hamlet's Soliloquies. Some scholars say Hamlet resonates today as it allows audiences to explore deep emotions
and process angst. This is NPR News from Washington. On consider this NPR's afternoon news podcast, we cover everything from politics to the economy to the world, but every story starts with a question. NPR, we stand for your right to be curious, to make sense of the biggest story of the
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