NPR News Now - NPR News: 01-28-2025 11AM EST

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

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Matt Wilson spent years doing rounds at children's hospitals in New York City. I had a clip-on tie. I wore Heelys, size 11. Matt was a medical clown. The whole of a medical clown is to reintroduce the sense of play and joy and hope and light into a space that doesn't normally inhabit. Ideas about navigating uncertainty. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Kristen Wright. Federal agents continue to expand mass deportations in raids across the country, so far arresting

more than 3,500 people. Immigrant rights groups are stepping up their resistance. NPR's Adrienne Florido reports. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and partner agencies have reported raids in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, San Diego, Miami and many other cities. ICE says it's targeting potentially dangerous criminal aliens. Its press releases highlight arrests of people convicted or wanted for crimes like extortion, homicide, domestic violence, and narcotics violations. But advocates say it's also getting people who pose no threat.

In Atlanta, activists reported immigrants with pending asylum claims were rounded up. In Puerto Rico, the ACLU said ICE had detained people with legal status and no criminal history. Advocates have filed a raft of lawsuits to try to slow the deportation drag net. Adrienne Fleddeville, NPR News, Los Angeles. President Trump has issued four new executive orders involving the U.S. military. One calls for the Pentagon to deploy a missile defense system to protect the U.S. from aerial attacks. Another ends diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the armed services, as NPR's Ayanna Archie reports.

In the order, Trump said, quote, no individual or group within our armed forces should be preferred or disadvantaged on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, color, or creed. Pete Tegseth, the newest Secretary of Defense, has about three months to show the Trump administration all the Defense Department's current DEI programs and offices, and 30 days to submit a plan to achieve the mandates in the order. The order also stops the military from teaching gender ideology, or that the documents America was founded on are racist or sexist. Last week, the president signed an executive order

cutting DEI programs from the federal government and placed employees in those offices on paid leave. Ayanna Archie, NPR News. One of the president's new orders says transgender and gender fluid individuals are quote unfit to serve in the military. Investors are watching tech stocks closely. They took a dive yesterday. A reaction to reports that a Chinese company developed a competitive AI model called DeepSeq at a fraction of the cost compared to American models like ChatGPT. NPR's John Ruich reports from China there's a caveat.

DeepSeq says that it spent under $6 million to make this thing. That's tiny relative to the hundreds of millions of dollars that others are investing, even billions. But analysts say that that low figure is easy to misinterpret because it doesn't include, for instance, the cost of developing various versions from which this latest version was distilled. Shares of chip company NVIDIA lost nearly $600 billion in market value yesterday. This is NPR News from Washington. A team of Chinese scientists has used gene editing techniques to produce mice with two genetic fathers and no mother.

NPR's Rob Stein has more about the advance reported today in the journal Cell-Stem Cell. The Chinese scientists say they created the two dad mice by modifying 20 key variations in mouse embryonic stem cells. They then injected the modified cells and mouse sperm into a mouse egg that had all of its original DNA removed. That enabled them to produce mice with only male genetic material. The researchers say the work could lead to important new insights into reproduction. Other scientists have been researching how stem cells could help same-sex couples and people who are infertile to have genetically related children.

Rob Stein, in PR News. UN aid agencies are warning of a major humanitarian crisis as the fighting continues in the Congolese city of Goma. The city of over two million people is the mineral rich region's main trading hub and is now completely under the control of Rwandan backed M23 rebels. Neighboring Rwanda denies involvement in the conflict but there are growing international calls for Rwanda and the DRC to restart peace talks. Today Serbia's prime Minister announced he's

resigning. Miloš Vucic says the deadly collapse of a railway station in November has cast a shadow over the country. Belgrade has seen anti-government protests since. They blame the disaster on government corruption. I'm Kristin Wright and this is NPR News in Washington.