NPR News: 03-31-2025 9PM EDT

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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. President Trump's sweeping order that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote is facing its first legal challenge.
MPR's Jude Jaffe-Block reports the federal lawsuit filed today argues the executive order is an unconstitutional overreach that threatens the voting rights of millions of Americans. A coalition that promotes the voting rights of various groups, including Latino Americans, military families, and Arizona college students brought the lawsuit.
It argues that voting rules are up to the states and Congress, not the president. Trump's executive order seeks to overhaul voting in this country, including by requiring proof of citizenship, like a U.S.
passport, to register. Plaintiffs say that will prevent many from registering to vote.
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Trump and his allies pushed the baseless narrative that non-citizens would vote in large numbers. In fact, past audits have shown such cases are very rare.
Jude Jaffe-Block, NPR News. President Trump says the U.S.
government is still looking for missing journalist Austin Tice. NPR's Franco Ordonez reports.
Trump says they continue to run into dead ends. Austin Tice is an award-winning freelance journalist and Marine veteran.
He wrote for the Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers, and other U.S.-based outlets before he was captured in Syria in 2012. Speaking from the Oval Office, President Trump said there's been virtually no sign of him.
It's just a lot of dead ends. He's been gone for a long time.
The problem is there's never been a sighting. You know, sometimes you'll have somebody, you're looking for them, and there's a sighting.
There's never been a sighting of Austin. In December, a rebel group ousted Syria's former dictator, leading to hopes that Tice would soon be found.
Trump says they'll never stop looking until they find out something definitive. Franco, Ordonez, NPR News.
In France, far-right politician Marine Le Pen, who was a leading candidate to become president, has been barred for running for public office for five years, after a French court today found her guilty of embezzling millions of dollars of EU funds. Le Pen was also sentenced to four years in prison with two years suspended.
She says she will appeal. SpaceX is set to launch a privately funded human space flight from Florida's Kennedy Space Center tonight.
From Central Florida Public Media, Brendan Byrne has more. The mission will take the crew of four international participants to a polar orbit, a first for human spaceflight.
After launching, the crew's Dragon capsule will head due south, putting them on an orbital path that will carry them over the poles of the planet. The crew will conduct 22 experiments from that orbit and will take the first x-ray from space.
The mission is bankrolled by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Chun Wang, who was born in China but is a naturalized citizen of Malta. Brendan Byrne reporting.
You're listening to NPR News. In Myanmar, state media say the death toll from last week's powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake has passed at least 2,000.
Thousands more are injured. Rescue crews and family members have been going through the rubble of collapsed buildings and roads looking for survivors, and in many cases, they're digging by hand.
The military government has allowed foreign aid to come into the country, and the State Department says USAID teams are on the way, despite President Trump's cuts to the agency. Rescue efforts are tough in the Southeast Asian country because of an ongoing civil war that's displaced millions of people, power outages, fuel shortages, and spotty communications.
Parliamentarians from across Europe attended a memorial in Buxia, Ukraine today, marking the third anniversary of the town's liberation from the Russians. And as Eleanor Beersley reports, they came to show support and solidarity.
The Russians murdered more than 400 civilians in their month-long occupation of Bucha. A mass grave on the church grounds was exhumed after they were forced out.
Archpriest Andrei Helevin shows a video. He says thanks to international media, Russian lies about it being faked were dispelled.
He says it's important for the world to remember, especially the U.S. Because when there is talk about a ceasefire, for some reason they are silent about the crimes, he says.
Justice is important. There can be no peace if crimes are ignored.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Bucha. U.S.
futures contracts are trading lower at this hour. Dow futures are down about three-tenths of

a percent. NASDAQ futures are down about a half percent.
This is NPR News.

This message comes from the Nature Conservancy, working together to create a future with a

livable climate, healthy communities, and thriving nature. Explore ways to act during

Earth Month and every month at nature.org slash NPR.