NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-11-2025 2PM 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. The Israel Hamas ceasefire hangs in the balance with Israel, now threatening to resume hostilities in Gaza unless the militant group releases hostages by this weekend. The precarious state of what's only the first phase of the ceasefire is at the heart of

talks at the White House this hour. President Trump is hosting Jordan's King Abdullah II. In their joint news conference a short time ago, Trump again pushed his plan to take over and develop Gaza, which he says could be the Riviera of the Middle East. We're not going to buy anything. We're going to have it and we're going to keep it and we're going to make sure that there's going to be peace and there's not going to be any problem and nobody's going to question it. Trump is also pushing the idea of relocating people from Gaza home to more than two million

Palestinians to other countries such as Egypt and Jordan. King Abdullah proposed one possibility. One of the things that we can do right away is take 2,000 children that are either cancer children or in very ill state to Jordan as quickly as possible. And then wait for, I think, the Egyptians to present their plan on how we can work with the president to work on the Gaza challenges. But Jordan and other governments in the region have objected to the idea of overall relocation of Palestinians from Gaza.

Hundreds of union leaders for federal workers are in Washington, D.C. this week protesting the Trump administration's push for sweeping cuts. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports they say many actions of Doge teams are themselves wasteful. The American Federation of Government Employees was already scheduled for its annual conference. Now a main focus is asking members of Congress to push back against moves they say violate union contracts and the law. Antonio Gaines with the Federal Housing Agency says he's all for efficiency, but the government downsizing teams put in place by Doge leader Elon Musk have not even assessed what's not working.

For individuals that consider themselves to be elite business people and not have at least made a business case for it, they're making a political case for it. I think that's very dangerous. Gaines also says telling workers to do nothing for months while getting paid is an abuse of taxpayer dollars. Jennifer Ludden, NPR News, Washington. About a dozen US states are under winter storm alerts. They extend from northern Kansas to southern New Jersey.

NPR's Jyla Snyder reports the National Weather Service says multiple storms are in play. The first storm is moving east out of Kansas, bringing the potential for significant snow and ice accumulations to the mid-Atlantic. There will be another round of heavy snow from a second storm that's expected to be on the East Coast by Thursday morning. In Southern California officials are warning of the potential for flooding from a third storm system, especially in areas devastated by last month's wildfires around Los Angeles. That's NPR's Giles Snyder reporting. From Washington,

this is NPR News. Author Salman Rushdie tells jurors he thought he was going to die in 2022 when a masked man rushed at him on stage and stabbed him multiple times. The 77-year-old Rushdie testified for a second day at the trial of Hadi Mattar. The 27-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty. Rushdie, who was blinded in one eye, was attacked at an event in Western New York. The Booker Prize-winning author was delivering a lecture about keeping writers safe.

In a strongly worded letter to Catholic bishops in the U.S., Pope Francis is taking to task the Trump administration's stance on migrants. NPR's Jason DeRose reports that the pope says he has followed closely what he calls a major crisis with the initiation of mass deportations. The pope writes that it's important to disagree with any measure that identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. Francis says that deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, exploitation, and persecution, damages the dignity of many men and women and of entire families and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness. The letter also appears to reply to remarks by

Vice President J.D. Vance that said people should care for their family communities and country before caring for others. Francis writes that people should meditate on love that builds a fraternity open to all without exception. Jason DeRose, NPR News. At last check on Wall Street, the Nasdaq was down 43 points and the Dow was up 37. This is NPR News.