NPR News: 08-28-2025 7PM EDT

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In Minnesota, police say the shooter who opened fire at a Catholic church in Minneapolis yesterday as school children and adults sat in the pews for the first Mass of the school year, fired 116 rounds and left writings describing hate for individuals and some groups.

Two children died, including Jesse Merkel's son, eight-year-old Fletcher.

Fighting back tears, he says he wants people to remember his son for who he was and not for being the victim of a mass shooting.

Fletcher loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and any sport that he was allowed to play.

Two other children in the family were not harmed in the shooting.

Eighteen others, though, were wounded in the shooting, and NPR's Joel DeRose has more on their condition.

At Children's Hospital, here, officials say three children remain hospitalized.

Others were treated and discharged.

At another hospital, Hennepin Healthcare, six shooting victims there are in satisfactory condition.

Two are in serious condition, and one child remains in critical condition.

Hospital staff today praised law enforcement for acting quickly, and they praised students and teachers who protected each other when the shooting began just after morning mass started on Wednesday.

MPR's Jason DeRose reporting from Minneapolis.

Health and Human Services Secretary Jim O'Neill will be named the interim director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As MPR's Tamara Keith reports, Trump fired CDC Director Susan Minares last night after she had been in the job job for less than a month.

Several top CDC officials resigned after Menares was pushed out.

Her lawyers say she was targeted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy when she, quote, refused to rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt says that explains why she had to go.

It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly re-elected on November 5th.

This woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.

Levitt said the job of administration officials is to execute on the vision and promises of President Trump.

Tamer Keith, NPR News, The White House.

In Ukraine, authorities say a mass Russian drone and missile attack on the capital Kyiv has left at least 21 people dead, dozens of others wounded.

The attack early today was the first major Russian combined attack on Kyiv in weeks, as U.S.-led peace efforts struggle to gain traction.

Ukraine says Russia launched decoy drones, crews, and ballistic missiles and struck at least 20 locations across seven districts in the city.

It's the first major combined attack on Kiev since President Trump met President Putin, Russian President Putin, in a summit in Alaska earlier this month over ending Russia's three-year-old war in Ukraine.

You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

Radiohead hasn't released an album since 2016, but it's back on the charts with a song from the 1990s.

And Pierre Stephen Thompson has more.

Radiohead's catalog is full of classic albums that are sonically experimental, even otherworldly.

But it doesn't have many pop hits.

Until this week, only three Radiohead songs have ever hit the Billboard Hot 100, led by Creep in 1994.

This week, a song from 1997 1997 becomes Radiohead's fourth track ever to crack the Hot 100.

Let Down enters this week's chart at number 91.

The song found a new audience thanks to its placement on an episode of the TV show The Bear, then later blew up through the magic of TikTok.

Stephen Thompson, NPR News.

Well, are you feeling lucky?

Like nearly a billion dollars lucky?

That's the jackpot for the powerball after no one won last night's drawing.

Now on Saturday, the jackpot will be $950 million,

the sixth largest prize in the game's history.

The winner can take the money broken out annually over several years or in a lump sum of $428 million before taxes.

The tickets are sold in 45 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and the U.S.

Virgin Islands.

But of course, the odds are astronomical.

One in 292,201,338.

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