NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-11-2025 4PM 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, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Trump administration is slashing the budget of the General Services Administration in half.

That could affect nearly all federal property and contracts. NPR's Jenn McLaughlin reports that's according to sources who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity, fearing further retribution from the administration. The General Services Administration manages federal real estate across the country, as well as nearly all federal contracts. Without it, federal agencies would have a lot of trouble buying things and providing essential public services. However, GSA employees have been told their budget is being cut by 50 percent, spread

across contracts, leases, and personnel salaries. Employees who remain and who don't take a deferred resignation offer will be subject to heightened surveillance, including installation of what's called a keylogger, software that tracks everything the user types. It could be the model for the rest of the federal government going forward. Jen McLaughlin, NPR News. President Trump is sharing more details of his vision to take control of post-war Gaza, the Palestinian enclave he's envisioned as the Riviera of the Middle East.

We're going to have Gaza. We don't have to buy it. There's nothing to buy. We will have Gaza. What is that? No reason to buy it. There is nothing to buy it. It's Gaza.

It's a war-torn area. We're going to take it. We're going to hold it. We're going to take it. We're going to hold it. We're going to cherish it. We're going to get it going eventually where a lot of jobs are going to be created for the people in the Middle East. It's going to be for the people in the Middle East, but I think it can be a diamond. It can be an absolute tremendous asset for the Middle East. Tapping into his real estate and investment background, Trump talked about building hotels, office buildings and housing. He also doubled down on the idea of relocating millions of Palestinians from Gaza.

A reporter then posed a question to the visiting King of Jordan, King Abdullah. How do you feel about the U.S. taking Gaza, as the president said? Well, again, this is something that we as Arabs will be coming to the United States with something that we're going to talk about later to discuss all these options. Now to Europe, where Vice President JD Vance is on his first international trip. His first stop was Paris for a summit on artificial intelligence. And Piers de Pichivarum reports Vance pushed back against excessive regulation.

The summit in Paris is the third global summit on artificial intelligence and the first one to pivot from talking about safety around AI to taking action, something Vance addressed at the very beginning of his speech. We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off. The vice president said, quote, pro-growth policies on AI should be prioritized and was critical of Europe's more trepid approach to the technology. Vance's remarks in Paris come as China's edge on AI is growing with their recent launch

of the platform DeepSeek's latest model. That's Deepa Shivaram. It's NPR. The insurance company Traveler says it expects $1.3 billion of catastrophe losses from last month's California wildfires after taxes. In early January, strong winds and dry conditions drove wildfires across the Los Angeles area. They claimed at least 29 lives and destroyed thousands of homes and other structures. The region is expecting heavy rainfall this week and with it the heightened risk of mud

and debris flows in heavily burned areas. The European Space Agency has unveiled photos of a rare phenomenon encircling a galaxy millions of miles away from Earth. NPR's Chandelis Duster has more on the discovery that has stunned scientists. 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 telescopes, 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. stocks and the day mixed. The NASDAQ

closed down 70, the Dow was up 123 points. This is NPR News.