NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-12-2025 4PM EST

Episode Date: February 12, 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 White House and the Kremlin confirmed Presidents Trump and Putin talked by phone this morning, covering Moscow. NPR's Charles Means reports both leaders talked about ending the war in Ukraine nearly three

years after Russia's invasion. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Trump and Putin spoke for a full hour and a half by phone. Peskov said the conversation touched on a range of topics, including this week's prisoner swap and the war in Ukraine. Peskov said Trump called for a speedy end to the conflict. Putin in turn said he was open to negotiations, but repeated demands any settlement address the true roots of the conflict.

In Moscow's eyes, that includes an end to Ukraine's ambitions to join the NATO alliance. The spokesman said Putin also told Trump it was time for the U.S. and Russia to work together, even extending an invitation to visit Moscow. Charles Maines, NPR News. Russia released American detainee Mark Fogel, who arrived in the U.S. last night and met with President Trump. And today, U.S. Special Envoy Adam Boller said Russian ally Belarus released three more detainees. One is a U.S. citizen that wants to remain private at this point, so we'll respect that.

Boller is speaking to C-SPAN. The U.S. Senate has confirmed former Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard to lead the intelligence community. Mitch McConnell was the only Republican senator to vote against Gabbard. Here's NPR's Jenna McLaughlin. Tulsi Gabbard, the former lawmaker who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, joins President Trump's cabinet as the director of national intelligence. Gabbard earned broad support from Republicans in the Senate.

That happened despite initial skepticism over her lack of experience with intelligence. She also fought back against concerns about her past statements about autocratic leaders such as Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. She deflected questions about her past defense of Edward Snowden, who leaked NSA secrets in 2013. Gabbard, the 43-year-old U.S. Army reservist, will be responsible for leading 18 intelligence agencies and managing billions of dollars in budget. Jen McLaughlin, NPR News.

U.S. consumer prices in January were higher than expected. NPR's Scott Horstley reports on the latest inflation data from the Labor Department. Forecasters had expected to see some moderation in price hikes last month, but inflation remained stubbornly high. Consumer prices in January were up 3% from a year ago. Prices rose by half a percent

between December and January alone. Egg prices jumped more than 15% last month after avian flu forced egg farmers to cull millions of laying hens in December. Overall, grocery prices were up by half a percent. Stripping out food and energy prices, which bounce around a lot, core inflation was also higher than forecasters had expected. Given the sticky price hikes, the Federal Reserve is expected to take its time before making any additional cuts to interest rates. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

The Dow closed down 225 points to end the day at 44,368. This is NPR News. Sea turtles can migrate thousands of miles to lay eggs on the beaches where they hatch themselves, but exactly how they manage the speed of navigation has been a mystery. NPR's Jonathan Lambert reports on new insight published in the journal Nature. C. turtles can sense the Earth's magnetic field, and scientists suspect that they make magnetic maps in their brains to navigate. But to use such a map, turtles would need to be able to learn the unique magnetic signature of a specific place,

something scientists have struggled to demonstrate. To show this, a research team exposed turtles to two magnetic fields mimicking specific locations, but only fed them in one. Then, researchers exposed the turtles to each magnetic field without food. Captive sea turtles perform a dance when they get food, and the researchers found that turtles danced more often

in response to the magnetic field where they were fed. This shows that the turtles had indeed learned that specific magnetic spot on the map. Jonathan Lambert, NPR News. There can be only one top dog in this year, it's Monty. For best in show at the 149th annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show I choose the giant The crowded New York's Madison Square Garden went wild last night the black giant schnauzer named Monty looked up at his handler Katie

Bernard in his big eyes were fixed on his human as she leaned toward him and choked back tears, apparently still processing that her beloved Monty triumphed over six other finalists and more than 2,500 rivals overall to be crowned best in show. I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.