Education Department jobs; Ukraine ceasefire deal : NPR

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

The U.S. Department of Education last night said it would cut nearly 50% of its workforce. Impacted staff will be placed on administrative leave beginning March 21. Over 1,300 positions will be cut and roughly another 600 employees accepted voluntary resignations or retired over the last two months.

A man walks past the U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 7.

Gent Shkullaku/ZUMA Press Wire via Alamy

hide caption

toggle caption

Gent Shkullaku/ZUMA Press Wire via Alamy

• 🎧 The union for many Education Department workers shared with NPR the list of employees who are expected to be laid off, which shows wide-ranging cuts, NPR’s Jonaki Mehta tells Up First. Sheria Smith, an attorney for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, says there are concerns from staffers being laid off about the impact these cuts will have on the American public. The Institute of Education Sciences is one of the Education Department offices that are protected by law, but a termination email for an employee of one of its sub-branches states their entire unit is “being abolished.” It’s not clear yet if that’s legal.

The House voted 217 to 213 yesterday to approve a short-term spending bill that would fund the government until the end of September. Funding for the federal government expires at midnight Friday, leaving the Senate with less than 72 hours to pass a stopgap spending bill.

• 🎧 Republicans control the Senate with 53 seats and they will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, NPR’s Claudia Grisales says. Seven or more Democrats will need to vote yes to make this happen. A big sticking point for Democrats in the House was that they wanted language that put limits on President Trump’s ability to make spending decisions. Democrats don’t want to be seen as responsible for causing a government shutdown and on the other hand want to put up a fight against Trump and his agenda.

Ukrainian and American delegations announced an agreement on a 30-day ceasefire proposal last night after nine hours of talks in Saudi Arabia. The agreement comes less than two weeks after a string of harsh words between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House’s Oval Office. Now, the pressure is on Russia to accept the American-Ukrainian deal. The U.S. delegation will next meet with Russia.

• 🎧 NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley says the monthlong ceasefire would provide Ukraine with space and calm to begin negotiations toward larger-scale peace talks. The deal would include the cessation of shooting and attacks on the Black Sea, the front line and in Ukraine’s cities. The Trump administration announced it would resume sharing intelligence and delivery of military supplies, which were temporarily paused.

Deep dive

Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., following a shooting on Dec. 16, 2024.

Morry Gash/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Morry Gash/AP

The recent shootings at high schools in Madison, Wis., and Nashville, Tenn., exemplify what some researchers are calling “nonideological” terrorism. These attacks seem to stem from various antisocial, decentralized online networks that inspire young people to commit violent acts. This identified pattern challenges the traditional categories used by law enforcement and researchers to understand radicalization pathways, such as radical Islamist terrorism and white nationalist terrorism.

• ➡️ Cody Zoschak, a senior manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says his team has found that a growing number of school shooting plots are linked to the True Crime Community. TCC is a shared-interest group of people who obsess over mass killings, which have developed on social media platforms.
• ➡️ There is also a subculture, Saints Culture, which portrays mass killers as almost superhuman figures, and high-casualty attacks are framed as the ultimate legacy worth emulating.
• ➡️ The reach of violent ideological movements has widened to women. Zoschak says girls tend to find their way to TCC through online eating disorder communities.
• ➡️ Boys often find TCC through gore forums, where they have been desensitized to violence through videos of torture, injury and death.

Here’s more on the new radicalization pattern experts are warning about.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Picture show

2nd place winner – “This photograph was captured during my trip to Blitar, East Java Indonesia. I was travelling to a small village named Kampung Nusantara. That day when I was walking around the village, I met Mbok Sutinah, 82 years, a grandma who’s been selling watermelon since 1987 after her husband passed away to support her family.”

Hardijanto Budiman

hide caption

toggle caption

Hardijanto Budiman

The photography exhibition “Iconic Women: From Everyday Life to Global Heroes” opened Saturday at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Ky. The exhibition features the winners of the Center’s 11th annual “Shining a Light” photo contest, which aims to highlight the issue of gender equality. This year’s exhibit focuses on “iconic women,” showcasing photographs that illustrate how women of various ages worldwide have inspired, contributed to, empowered, and uplifted their communities, families, and the lives of others. Here are some portraits from the exhibition.

3 things to know before you go

Salvage crews work on recovering wreckage near the site in the Potomac River of a mid-air collision between an American Airlines jet and a Black Hawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, in Arlington, Va.

Jose Luis Magana/AP

hide caption

toggle caption

Jose Luis Magana/AP

1. NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy stated that there is a “serious safety issue” in the airspace around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. This follows the release of a preliminary report on the Jan. 29 midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people.
2. Southwest Airlines announced yesterday that it will begin charging certain passengers to check their first two bags on flights. It has not been specified how much it will cost to check the bags.
3. Leadership for the British soccer team Manchester United announced plans for a new stadium. The new venue would be the biggest in the U.K.

This newsletter was edited by Yvonne Dennis.