NPR News: 02-07-2026 9PM EST
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Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. Russia continues to attack Ukraine's energy grid during one of the most brutal winters in recent years. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports people in Kiev have electricity for just an hour and a half to two hours a day, with temperatures well below freezing.
Ukraine's largest energy provider, DTEK, said hundreds of Russian drones and missiles targeted the electricity network Saturday, damaging two thermal power plants and key high-voltage substations. Damage to those substations forced operators to reduce output at nuclear power plants, leading to a significant loss of available electricity in Ukraine. Ukraine gets about 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. In his nightly address Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia continues to attack in massive strikes that are contrary to ongoing diplomatic work to end the war. This is a level of attack that no terrorist in the world has ever allowed itself, said Zelensky. Russia, he said, must feel the response of the entire world.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The State Department says it's removing posts from its official accounts on the social media platform X made before President Trump returned to office in 2025. And Pierre Shannon Bond reports they'll be internally archived but no longer easily accessible by the public.
State Department staff were told anyone who wants to see posts from the Obama, Biden or first Trump terms are will have to file a Freedom of Information Act request, according to an employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. That's different from how the government typically archives the online footprint of previous administrations. For example, ex-accounts for the president and the White House are handed over to the new administration, and old posts move to a publicly available archive account. The State Department told NPR it wants to, quote, speak with one voice on social media. The move comes as the Trump administration has removed wide swaths of information from government websites.
Shannon Bond, NPR News.
Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro says he saw inhumane conditions when he toured an ICE adult detention center near San Antonio yesterday. Texas Public Radio's Jerry Clayton has more.
Joaquin Castro toured the South Texas Ice Processing Center in Pearsall, Texas. He claims the Trump administration is holding people in detention longer on purpose.
They're keeping people in detention in prison longer to make more money. And I also think that it's part of this cruelty. We just don't care about these people. We don't see them as fully human.
Castro also voiced concern about the purchase of new ICE detention warehouse facilities in Texas and elsewhere, saying cities should fight against them if possible. I'm Jerry Clayton in San Antonio.
You're listening to NPR News from Washington. A collapsed pipe just outside of Washington, D.C., has sent 243 million gallons of wastewater into the Potomac River. That's according to D.C. Water, the city's water and sewer authority, which has released new information on the environmental impacts of the broken sewer line. Empire's Andrew Limbaugh reports clean water advocates want the city to issue a public health warning.
243 million gallons is roughly 368 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The pipe in question broke late January, but a few days ago, as they were making repairs, DC Water discovered a rock dam stretching 30 feet downstream from the original breaking point. Shari Lewis, spokesperson for DC Water, said that the company can't announce a timeline for a full repair until the rock blockage is removed. That process alone is estimated to take four to six weeks. The Potomac Riverkeeper Network, which advocates for clean water, did a study with researchers at the University of Maryland following the pipe's collapse and found high levels of fecal-related bacteria in the water.
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