CBS Evening News, 02/26/25
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Big Time Rush, performing live in concert, playing every song from every episode and more. Big Time Rush, with special guests Caitlin Tarver and Stephen Kramer Glickman. Get tickets Friday, February 28th at LiveNation.com. From CBS News headquarters in New York, this is the CBS Evening News. Good evening, I'm Maurice Dubois. I'm John Dickerson.

There is nothing more tragic than the death of a child, especially so if the death was preventable. And that

That is how we begin tonight. With the death of a child in Texas from measles, the first measles death in this country in nearly 10 years. Measles deaths, even measles cases are rare because the disease is preventable with a vaccine that has been available for more than 60 years. There is an outbreak of measles in Texas among people who were not vaccinated. That includes the child who died in Lubbock. Omar Villafranca is there for us tonight. Omar.

Good evening. This outbreak is really impacting how hospitals treat their patients. Here at Covenant, they've set up a hub outside of the ER so someone with measles doesn't walk in and expose other people. We're now seeing a very serious consequence of what happens when we have measles in our community. The first measles death in the U.S. in nearly a decade happened here at Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock, Texas. The child was school-aged and did not reside in Lubbock County.

There are now more than 120 measles cases in Texas. About 20 children have been hospitalized, some in the ICU. None were vaccinated. Now health officials are racing to stop the spread. We've talked to parents of little ones under one year old who can't get the measles vaccine. What do you tell those worried parents

who feel their kids are susceptible and they don't even want to take them out. - It's important to communicate with your physician for infants, especially six to 12 months. So that population is a little bit different only because we can in certain contexts give the measles vaccine early. - Before the MMR vaccine was introduced in 1963, 400 to 500 people died every year.

The virus is extremely contagious for those who don't have immunity. Saturday morning, she woke up with a rash. Knowing the measles outbreak was near her home in Odessa and that her daughter was too young to be vaccinated, Caitlin Norris took eight-month-old Poppy to the ER when she developed a fever and rash. She also had the coughing, the runny nose, and the rash. So she had a very good amount of all of the symptoms. You're so sick and you don't even know.

Despite her symptoms, Poppy's test results came back negative for measles this morning. But her mother isn't letting her guard down yet. When you start hearing about this in your backyard, what's going through your mind? It's terrifying. I've read a lot of things about how children have seizures because of the high temperatures of their fevers and brain damage and they die and it's terrifying.

Today at the White House, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. mentioned this outbreak and said some of the hospitalizations here were for quarantine. Well, doctors here tell me that is not correct. They say everybody who's here at the hospital is being treated for respiratory issues.

Omar Villafranca in Lubbock, Texas for us. Thank you, Omar. Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. John LaPook, joins us now. And to be clear here, John, measles are seriously contagious. So infectious, much more than flu or COVID. And on top of that, there's a double whammy, which is that there's a relatively long incubation period of 10 to 14 days during which somebody can travel all over the place, even up to four days before getting a rash and infect other people. On top of that, if an infected person leaves a room, the virus can be floating in the air for

two hours and infect some unsuspecting vulnerable person who then walks in. So given all that, John, remind us again of how effective the vaccine has been. Extraordinarily effective, 97% effective at preventing infection after two doses. And take a look at this graph. The measles vaccine was introduced around 1963. That's when it was licensed. Before then, there were about 500,000 reported cases a year and 4,500 deaths.

deaths. Now look at that precipitous drop off. You don't see something like that. And so that's remarkable. Now I do understand there are people who say and they've said to me, look,

I don't want to get the vaccine and I don't want to give it to my family. I'm rolling the dice for them and for me. But actually, when you say that, when you're considering whether to get the vaccine, think about the fact that there are 17 million immunocompromised adults and 2 million immunocompromised children who are relying on you being immunized and getting that herd immunity to not get infected themselves. Not just about yourself. All right, Dr. John LaPook, thanks so much. Thanks, John.

Now more top stories from around the world in tonight's evening news roundup. In Israel, Shiri Bibas and her two young sons were laid to rest in a single casket. Israel says they were killed while they were being held hostage by Hamas. Utah is set to become the first state to ban fluoride from drinking water since it was introduced in this country 80 years ago to prevent tooth decay.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised questions about the safety of fluoride, claiming it can harm brain development and bones. President Trump held the first cabinet meeting of his second term today. Elon Musk was there and briefed the room on his cost-cutting efforts. At that meeting, the president made a false claim about the 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris last fall. The president claimed that after Harris was asked a question, quote,

They took out her answer and they inserted an entirely different answer, end quote. Not true. What viewers saw and heard was Harris's answer to the original question. The transcript shows, as 60 Minutes has said repeatedly, the broadcast was not doctored or deceitful. You can watch the full unedited interview for yourself on CBS News dot com.

The president signed yet another executive order today, this one giving still more power to Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency to cut costs. The White House says the order is meant to, among other things, ensure that government employees are accountable to the American public. That would be those government employees who are still employed because Nancy Cordes at the White House tells us a lot more cuts are coming.

We have a lot of people that were scamming our country. Surrounded by his cabinet, President Trump warned that far deeper cuts are coming than the ones imposed so far.

including potentially a 65% budget cut at the Environmental Protection Agency, which safeguards the nation's air and water. This country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting and incompetently run. Just before he spoke, a memo went out to all government agency heads instructing them to undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force consistent with applicable law.

What is applicable law? Can they just fire anyone they want? No, they can't just fire anyone they want. Jim Eisenman is a labor lawyer who represents federal workers.

Agencies are allowed in certain circumstances to conduct reductions in force. There's a lack of money, lack of resources, lack of work. The longer you've been in a job, the greater the chance you have of staying in the job. In federal court today, U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger argued Trump hasn't followed the rules for firing newer workers.

DELLINGER'S JOB IS TO PROTECT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES. BUT THE WHITE HOUSE IS TRYING TO FIRE HIM. "We believed that this mass firing of probationary employees, based on the first complaints we received about it,

is in violation of the law. At his cabinet meeting today, President Trump lavished praise on Elon Musk, who has rankled some cabinet members by making cuts in their agencies without their buy-in. Musk argued his work has come at a personal cost.

And taking a lot of flak and getting a lot of death threats, by the way. But if we don't do this, America will go bankrupt. That's why it has to be done. And Nancy joins us now from Washington at the White House. Nancy, give us a sense of the timeline for this next wave of cuts.

Well, John, according to this memo from the OMB, the agencies only have about two and a half weeks to submit their reduction in force plans, which is a very tight time frame when you consider that most of these cabinet secretaries have only been on the job a couple of weeks themselves. They're still getting to know their agencies. Then they're going to have a proposed 30 days to plan for the cuts. And then by law, they have to give employees 30 to 60 days notice immediately.

of the reduction in force. So if they stick to this schedule, we could be looking at major cuts as soon as May or June. Nancy, Musk said today, you know, we're going to make mistakes and we're going to correct them. But a main criticism of these firings that they've been just simply too fast, all of which brings us to what happened at the VA today. Right. So it's just a couple of

couple of days ago that the VA secretary was touting two billion dollars worth of cuts to contracts but now all of those cuts have been put on hold after lawmakers complained that they were going to affect everything from veterans cancer care to doctor recruiting going forward the VA now says they will only be cutting things that are not mission critical

Nancy Cordes at the White House. Thank you, Nancy. Still ahead here on the CBS Evening News, Lonnie Quinn on an erupting volcano in Hawaii. And we'll have these stories as well.

I'm Jonathan Vigliotti. A slow-moving landslide in Southern California is now accelerating at a rapid rate, leaving a community in limbo. That's tonight's Eye on America. I'm Jan Crawford. Should it be harder for non-minorities to sue for discrimination? The justices are considering the case of an Ohio woman who says she was unfairly replaced by a gay man. That's next on the CBS Evening News.

The Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of a woman who claims she was a victim of reverse discrimination. The key question for the court is whether someone who is not a member of a minority group faces an extra hurdle to prove discrimination. Chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford talked to the woman who brought the case. They put a 25-year-old man with less than three years of service

in our agency to do my job that I had successfully done for over five years. That amounted to discrimination because you believe he got the job because he was gay and you're straight. Correct. Marlene Ames was working for the Ohio Department of Youth Services when a position opened up as bureau chief. And then you decided to put him for promotion. Yes.

my supervisor at the time asked if I was gonna apply. But just a few days after she got her 30-year service pen, Ames found out instead of a promotion, she was being demoted to a secretary. It was humiliating going to work

every day. Humiliating. Yes. They cut your salary almost in half. Yes, $40,000. So of course I went into a panic over that. The colleague who replaced her was gay and shortly afterward the promotion went to a woman who was also gay. I thought, okay, well there's something more at play here. Ames decided to sue for discrimination based on her sexual orientation as a straight woman. I knew the law was against us.

took the case anyway. Akron lawyer Edward Gilbert knew it was a tough fight because federal courts in Ohio, like those in about a third of the country, require people filing suit to jump through another hoop by proving, for example, a pattern of historical discrimination, a burden non-minority groups can't always show.

But some civil rights advocates are citing against Ames. Discrimination is not a relic of the past. Alexis Johnson is an attorney with the Legal Defense Fund and says while the law applies to everyone, it originally was passed to protect black people and other minority groups. And evidence of historical discrimination is important. Black people, LGBTQ+ people report much higher rates of discrimination in the workplace than other groups.

Jan Crawford joins us now from Washington. So, Jan, how did the justices appear to react to the arguments? Well, I mean, Maurice, you know, you can't always predict, but this argument seemed about as clear-cut as you can get. Justices on both sides seem to agree with Ames that there shouldn't be this additional burden on non-minorities. Discrimination is discrimination, whether you're white or black, gay or straight. So let's imagine, Jan, they rule in Ames' favor. What's next for her?

You know, I think this is going to be a pretty narrow ruling, John, you know, that it's going to strike down that extra hoop that she and others were having to jump through. So that would revive her lawsuit, give her another chance to try to prove her case in court. Ohio officials, of course, are denying her allegations, John. OK, thanks so much, Jan Crawford in Washington tonight. In Hawaii, Kilauea is putting on a sky show. Lonnie Quinn tells us about the famous volcano's latest eruption, Lonnie.

Well, guys, it all started last night. How dramatic is this picture? It lasted until this morning. Currently, it's not erupting. But take a look. Those lava flows coming down the side of the mountain. There's been so much activity at Kilauea since December 23rd. So since Christmas time, there have been 11 episodes. It breaks down like this. This morning's episode lasted 12 hours, 44 minutes. They can last up

to eight days and the pause between episodes as short as one day as long as 12 days and scientists feel like unfortunately there's another one brewing out there speaking of brewing out there another volcano in the united states you're looking at alaska this is mount spur seismologists and volcanologists feel it's a 50 50 chance that this one erupts if spur was to erupt whether it be all kinds of complications and this is all associated with the ring of fire

where the Pacific plate, the North American plate clash. You get all kinds of activity. Every dot you see there in the Aleutian Islands, those are all earthquakes. If Spur was to erupt, it would put so much ash into the air.

Trans-Pacific flights would have to be diverted because they all fly from the west coast of California right over the Aleutians as they head towards Asia. That would have to become a different route, a longer, more expensive route. Gentlemen, it's all yours. Talk of the ring of fire on Johnny Cash's birthday. Well done, Lonnie Quinn. Wow, you never know. Well, rainwater saturating the ground is causing the land to move in Southern California. A slow motion disaster in tonight's Eye on America.

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is a reminder that Earth is a living, breathing, moving planet. It orbits the sun and turns on its axis. The winds blow, the waters flow, and what we often call solid ground is not. It shakes and it shifts, and that can be a disaster. Jonathan Vigliotti has tonight's Eye on America from Rancho Palos Verdes in Los Angeles County.

Up there in that hole is where the barn used to be. Sherry Hastings' property sits on a slow-moving disaster. That one goes down about six or eight feet. For nearly 70 years, the land here has shifted just a few inches a year, but recently that pace has surged to as fast as four inches a week. How long did it take for it to go from crack to this sunken state? Just a few months, really. Wow.

The culprit heavy rains brought on by a series of recent atmospheric rivers that have soaked deep into the soil destabilizing the area. You have hills and canyons where there used to just be level ground all level ground. The earth has moved more than 30 feet in the last 2 years. Hastings tells us it's caused around $700,000 in property damages. That's one stall that is so far also can one piece.

So there were four on that side and then a big fountain there and then four on this side and they were all level with the road which is up there as you can see. This landslide complex in Rancho Palos Verdes is more than a square mile in size and reaches hundreds of feet deep in some places. It's slipping toward the Pacific Ocean. We're going across some

Big fissures right here. Mike Phipps has been studying the shifting landscape for nearly four decades. His company has been contracted by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes to monitor the movement. If you can get the water out, you can improve the stability. A major part of the city's approach to slow the landslide, around a dozen deep water wells. They pull water from the ground and channel it into the ocean.

How many gallons are we talking about every single day? 114 gallons per minute. It's being extracted right now. Yes. That's where it's talking. Yeah. It's a catastrophe.

And yet some people are still able to live in their homes up here. They're kind of riding a big raft down the hill. There's a small crack right here. In October, FEMA and California's Office of Emergency Services announced a $42 million voluntary buyout program for residents most impacted by the slide. The properties approved for buyouts will be acquired by the city and converted to open space. 85 residents applied.

Have you considered signing up for that? No, because it's not a good deal. You get what the value of your home was two years ago. You get 75% of that. And then on top of that, you have to pay to demolish everything and have it hauled away. I've got to ask you about insurance because I'm curious. Insurance doesn't cover any of this. None. Not a penny. Everybody thinks we're all millionaires up here. We're actually not. Our homes were our money, right? We can't just go out and buy another home. A life savings now slipping away.

For Eye on America, I'm Jonathan Vigliotti in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. About 280 homes are affected by the landslide. In tomorrow's Eye on America, foster kids given nothing more than trash bags to carry their belongings. It's a national shame. And you'll see what a former foster kid is doing to change it. Maurice and I will be back in a moment with congressional moms out to make the house more family friendly.

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Founded on a belief that the wise heart seeks knowledge. An Emory education combines experiential learning in Atlanta and beyond with unrivaled collaboration and discovery. All to prepare you for a world that needs your leadership. Learn more at emory.edu. Finally tonight, they call it the house, but it's no place like home. Not for young mothers. Scott McFarland shows you how one mom made the point with a tiny bundle of help.

I rise today with my newborn Sam who's just four weeks old. Congresswoman Brittney Pedersen stunned colleagues when she flew in from Colorado for a pivotal vote yesterday.

Days before delivering, she warned CBS News Congress puts new moms in a jam. Why do you say it's not made for people like you to serve? Historically, it's been much more wealthy, you know, older men who serve in Congress. This isn't designed for young families and for young women especially. Centuries-old rules prohibit members from voting remotely. It was allowed during COVID.

But some members accused each other of abusing it to travel or campaign. Pedersen and a bipartisan group that includes Florida Republican Ana Paulina Luna are fighting for an exception for parental leave. Luna missed votes after giving birth in 2023. It's not like I'm faking, you know, to go party in Cabo, right? Like I'm actually trying to A, recover, but then B, also care for a newborn. Is there any connection to the fact that for so long it's been men running the place?

A thousand percent. 36-year-old California Democrat Sarah Jacobs froze her eggs because of this unique professional hurdle. I want to be able to represent my community and I want to be able to have a family and it shouldn't be so hard to figure out how to do both. House leaders have pushed back, questioning whether remote voting is constitutional. But the women hope to force a vote by spring to allow it for new moms and dads for generations to come. Scott McFarland, CBS News, Washington.

That's the CBS Evening News. I'm John Dickerson. I'll be back with Evening News Plus. I'm Maurice Dubois. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a good night.