NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-11-2025 4AM EST

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

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Planet Money is there. From California's most expensive fires ever. That was my home home. Yeah. I grew up there. It's ashes. To the potentially largest deportation in U.S. history. They're going to come to the businesses. They're going to come to the restaurants. They're going to come here. Planet Money. We go to the places at the center of the story. The Planet Money podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Shae Stevens. President Trump has ordered the Justice

Department to pause the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act pending review. The 1977 law bars companies from bribing foreign officials, but Trump said it almost guarantees indictment or investigation of Americans seeking to do business overseas. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has received a presidential pardon. The 68-year-old Democrat was convicted in 2011 on several corruption charges, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. From member station WBEZ, Mawa Iqbal reports from Springfield.

Blagojevich calls himself a Trumpocrat. He had served eight years in prison before President Trump commuted his sentence in 2020. At that time, Trump had been pro-ed by the effort his ties to Russia and their interference in the 2016 election. Trump called Blagojevich's sentence a terrible injustice. It's my honor to do it. I've watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin in a statement says, quote, In a state with more than a fair share of corruption, the Blagojevich chapter still looms as one of the worst. For NPR News, I'm Mawa Iqbal in Springfield, Illinois. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau office

Monday. They were protesting the Trump administration's order for CFPB staff to stop working amid efforts to shut down the agency. The European Commission is trying to convince the Trump administration not to enact new tariffs on all imports of aluminum and steel. Terry Schultz has more from Brussels. The European Union is the third biggest supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S. following Canada and Mexico.

So Brussels is deeply concerned about President Trump's threats to impose new tariffs on these imports. European Commission spokesperson Olaf Gill emphasized the EU believes this move would be unlawful. But if it happens, he says, the bloc will respond. We will always take the necessary steps to protect our economic interests as well as European businesses, workers and consumers from unjustified tariff measures.

Trump did impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports during his first term, later suspending them. The EU retaliated with its own measures but also suspended them until next month. For NPR News, I'm Terri Schultz in Brussels. Investigators are looking to another fatal plane crash, this time in Scottsdale, Arizona. NPR's Giles Snyder reports that it's the fourth plane crash in the U.S. in less than a month. At least one person was killed and a handful of others were injured when a leered jet skidded off the runway while landing at the Scottsdale Municipal Airport.

It collided with another mid-sized business jet parked on the ground. Local media say the plane that had trouble landing is registered to Motley Cruise singer Vince Neal, but that he was not on board. Giles Snyder reporting. This is NPR. Twenty-two states are suing the Trump administration and the National Institutes of Health for reducing funding for medical and public health research. The plaintiffs, led by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, say that the spending cuts announced Friday are illegal.

A jury in New York has convicted three men of killing two men who were lured from gay bars, then drugged and murdered. Thirty-seven-year-old Jake Wan Hamilton, 32-year-old Jacob Arasso, and 36-year-old Robert DeMaio each face a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for murder, robbery, and conspiracy. The European Space Agency has unveiled photos of a rare phenomenon encircling a galaxy millions of miles away from Earth. NPR's Chandelis Duster reports that the discovery has stunned the scientific community. The bright ring of light surrounding the galaxy is called an Einstein ring. It is created when light from a distant galaxy bends and forms a ring

that looks aligned with another galaxy or massive object. It is the first time the ring of light is detected by Euclid, a space telescope on a mission to create a map of the universe. Jacqueline McCleary, a professor of physics at Northeastern University, says scientists were able to find the ring because of the telescope's high resolution instruments.

With other previous generations of telescope, this Einstein ring was essentially drowned out by the light of this big galaxy. Astronomers hope the telescope will discover more Einstein rings in the future. Chandelis Duster, NPR News. U.S. futures are lower in after-hours trading on Wall Street. This is NPR News.