Hamas hostage; FEMA building codes; Guantanamo Bay : NPR

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Today’s top stories

President Trump’s administration has fired over 200 FEMA employees, who help local authorities in disasters, as part of federal government cuts. Along with the firings, NPR has been informed that FEMA is rolling back its work to make homes and buildings safer before a disaster. FEMA is one of the agencies Trump has talked about eliminating.

• 🎧 The fired workers were on probationary statusmeaning they were within one year of taking the job, NPR’s Lauren Sommer tells Up First. Some of the workers had been at the agency for more than a decade but obtained this status after accepting a promotion. FEMA helps develop building codes to help homes survive floods and hurricane winds. FEMA experts had already made recommendations to strengthen the codes; however, FEMA has asked for its name to be removed from the recommendations.

The Trump administration has released nearly all migrants detained at the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, naval base. Over 170 migrants — all Venezuelan — were flown to Honduras as a layover before being sent back home to Venezuela yesterday.

• 🎧 The administration previously stated that everyone sent to Guantánamo was a hardened criminal. That has been determined not to be trueNPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán says. An ACLU lawsuit revealed that the Trump administration admitted that nearly 30% of detainees were “low-threat illegal aliens.” Martínez-Beltrán says it is clear that many of the migrants were used as a PR campaign by the White House. The people sent to Guantánamo were not new arrestees. Most, if not all of them, had already been in detention during the Biden administration.
• ➡️ Many mothers of the detainees have been pushing back on the narrative that their sons are part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Here’s how they are trying to set the record straight.

The NPR Politics team is recapping what you need to know every Friday morning for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. This week, the three biggest themes involve Trump blaming Ukraine for Russia’s invasion, DOGE’s continued cuts to the government, and the saga over New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams. Sign up for the NPR Politics newsletter for more updates and analysis.

In a dramatic turn of events in Israel, authorities have announced that a body returned by Hamas yesterday is not who the militants claimed it to be. Two young boys and their mother were believed to be among the four bodies handed over. However, after conducting forensic testing, Israeli officials stated that the remains of the mother were not among the returned hostages.

• 🎧 The body that was supposed to be Shiri Bibas was instead an “anonymous unidentified body,” NPR’s Hadeel Al-Shalchi says. The Israeli military said the body didn’t belong to any known hostage. An official familiar with the situation informed NPR that Israel is inclined to move forward with Saturday’s prisoner exchange and doesn’t want to jeopardize the release of Israeli hostages this weekend. Israel will likely try to take advantage of the fact that Bibas’ body was not returned as a point of negotiations for more Israeli hostage releases in the future.

Today’s listen

NPR host Adrian Ma’s girlfriend, Kiah Duggins, was on the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Potomac River after colliding with a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. No one survived the crash. As the news emerged, Ma was at the airport waiting to pick up Duggins, who had just visited a family member who had recently undergone surgery. Duggins was “like sunshine personified,” Ma says. He speaks with NPR about how that night unfolded and shared his memories of his late girlfriend. “My hope is that I can sort of exorcise the pain that keeps building in my chest,” he says. “I think the more that I can plant just a little sense of who this person was in people’s minds, the more that she can live on, in a sense.”

Weekend picks

Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:

🍿 Movies: In Paddington In PeruPaddington Bear and the Brown family fly across the globe in search of Paddington’s Aunt Lucy. Along the way, there is lost treasure, narrow escapes and revelations about Paddington’s past.

📺 TV: The Traitorsa Peacock reality show, features a cast of so-called celebrities who provide a mix of treachery and foolishness. The show is in its third season, and Pop Culture Happy Hour is fantasy casting who they believe should be in the next season.

📚 Books: Eric Puchner’s new novel, Dream Statesounds ‘messy’ in the best way, so I am adding it to my reading list. It’s about a love triangle that tests the decades-long friendship of two college friends and examines different angles of male friendship.

🎵 Music: Horsegirl’s sophomore album, Phonetics On and Onkeeps things fun with a replayable record full of catchy, bare-bones songwriting and twee treasures.

🍰 Food: The first known cookbook by a Black American woman, A Domestic Cookbook: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchenis out this month with a new edition. The recipes range from old-fashioned desserts to savory options.

❓ Quiz: Beside my quiz score, it said, “Yay! Everyone’s a winner.” But somehow, it doesn’t feel like that when you get three wrong answers. Please top my score and redeem me.

3 things to know before you go

1. A striking new image decorates the wall outside the Oval Office for visitors to see: a gold-framed mug shot of Trump.
2. Flares of light have been found in Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, creating a light show for astronomers.
3. MLB players can challenge ball and strike calls during spring training. The camera-based system serves as a test to explore the potential role of technology alongside traditional human umpires.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.