NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-10-2025 10PM EST

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

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At the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar indeed performed his smash diss track Not Like Us and brought out Samuel L. Jackson, Serena Williams, and SZA. We're recapping the Super Bowl, including why we saw so many celebrities in commercials this year. Listen to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. The Trump Justice Department has instructed federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The mayor was indicted last year on corruption charges.

NPR's Ryan Lucas reports. Acting Deputy Attorney General Amal Boves sent a memo to the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan Danielle Sassoon, instructing her to dismiss the charges against Mayor Adams as soon as practicable, subject to a few conditions. Those include that the matter be reviewed after New York City's mayoral election this fall. The memo says the directive is not based on an assessment of the strength of the case. Instead, it says the indictment last year came too close in time to the mayoral election

this upcoming November. It also says the prosecution hinders Adam's ability to help in Trump's immigration crackdown. The move comes after Adams visited Trump in Florida and attended his inauguration. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington. Senate lawmakers voting along party lines of move to advance the controversial nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to be the next director of

national intelligence. 52 to 46 vote was the last remaining hurdle standing in front of a full confirmation vote. That could occur either tomorrow or Wednesday. Democrats citing her sympathetic comments about Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Republicans to join them in opposing her nomination but to no avail. The Trump administration has imposed 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, at least part of the initiative apparently aimed at China, though the tariffs would also cover Canada and Mexico. Speaking at the White House today, Trump defended the tariffs.

We were being pummeled by both friend and foe alike. Our nation requires steel and aluminum to be made in America, not in foreign lands. We need to create, in order to protect our country's future, a resurgence of U.S. manufacturing and production, the likes of which has not been seen for many decades. However, while they would help domestic steel and aluminum producers, the tariffs could ultimately drive up costs for consumers. Trump administration has reaffirmed plans to utilize so-called reciprocal tariffs, which means the US would impose import duties on products in cases in which another country's

level of duties on US goods. An independent research arm within the US Department of Education is being all but shut down. That's according to people within the department. The Institute of Education and Sciences, IES, is responsible for gathering and disseminating data on a wide range of topics, including research-backed teaching practices and the state of US student achievement.

Many contracts have already been canceled, according to two employees briefed on the moves. They shared screenshots with NPR of emails sent today. The employee said they learned of the cuts at an emergency meeting called this afternoon. Stocks moved higher today as Wall Street sought to analyze the late Trump terror threats. The Dow was up 167 points.

The NASDAQ closed up 190 points today. You're listening to NPR News in Washington. President Donald Trump today said Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return under his plan for US ownership of that war-torn territory. That contradicts what other members of his administration have been saying, which is that Trump is only calling for the temporary relocation of the population. Trump made his comments during an interview with Fox News. The National Endowment for the Arts, which provides support to arts organizations in all 50 states, changed its grant guidelines for 2026 to align with the Trump administration's executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Already a program providing arts for underserved groups has been canceled. Jeff London reports. At $210 million, the NEA is a drop in the federal budget, but a lifeline for many arts organizations. And the new guidelines mean that to get funding, these groups will need to change policies that are often intrinsic to their missions. Challenge America is a program which funded arts projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved groups and communities that may have limited access to the arts relative to geography, ethnicity, economic status, and or disability. It's been canceled outright.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York. As Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell prepares for a semi-annual testimony before House and Senate members on Capitol Hill, billionaire Elon Musk in a series of social media posts over the weekend was suggesting closer scrutiny of the central bank, Musk who's heading up Doge saying all aspects of the federal government, including the Fed, should be under heightened scrutiny. I'm Jack Spear, NPR News in Washington. Technologist Powell Garcia is using AI to create photos of people's most precious memories.

How her mother was dressed, the haircut that she remembered. We generated tens of images and then she saw two images that was like, that was it. Ideas about the future of memory. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.