NPR News Now - NPR News: 02-13-2025 11PM EST

Episode Date: February 14, 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 Shea Stevens. Federal layoffs continue as part of the Trump administration's plan to slash the size of government.

In a post on its website, the Department of Veterans Affairs has announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees. The VA posting says mission-critical workers are not affected by the cuts. That announcement comes hours after other federal workers receive layoff notices, including up to 100 additional employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Most of the people affected by the cuts there appear to be recent hires still on probation. Speaking in Dubai, billionaire Trump aide Elon Musk says entire government agencies need to be shut

down. NPR's Aya Patralbe reports that Musk told an audience there to think of the United States as a big company that needs a turnaround. Musk, who helms the Department of Government Efficiency Unit, or DOJ, spoke remotely at the World Government Summit in Dubai. He said the aim of DOJ under President Trump is to reduce overregulation in order to boost economic growth. It's kind of like having a sports game where there are too many referees on the field,

like more referees than players at times. And said government spending can be cut. We have to really delete entire agencies, many of them. Musk didn't say which ones. The billionaire tech entrepreneur compared Doge's actions to a corporate shakeup, like when he took over Twitter and slashed its headcount by 80 percent. So it's like a corporate turnaround, but at a much larger scale. Tens of thousands of government jobs are at stake.

Aya Patravi, NPR News, Dubai. President Trump says he and Indian leader Narendra Modi have agreed to hold trade talks. At a White House meeting today, Trump announced plans to narrow the U.S. oil and gas trade deficit with India. We agreed to work together to help build one of the greatest trade routes in all of history. It will run from India to Israel to Italy and onward to the United States, connecting our partners by ports, railways and undersea cables. Trump says the U.S. will also boost military sales and provide fighter jets to India.

Florida's governor has signed a bill that supporters say will aid the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. NPR's Greg Allen reports. The new law makes it a state crime for people without legal status to enter Florida. It also mandates the death penalty for those without legal status who are convicted of murder and other capital offenses. It includes funding to house people being held for deportation and to pay bonuses to local cops who participate in immigration operations. Here's Governor DeSantis. The state of Florida will be safer and secure as a

result of this legislation. It also repeals a law that allowed students without legal status to pay in-state tuition costs at public colleges and universities. The new law came after weeks of political wrangling between the governor and Republican leaders who ended up removing much of what DeSantis wanted. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami. You're listening to NPR. An interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has resigned. Danielle Sassoon and several Justice Department officials have left their jobs in protest of the Justice Department's order to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Sassoon alleges DOJ cleared Adams in anticipation of something in return, but an attorney for the mayor says there was no quid pro quo. TikTok is once again available for download via Apple and Google app stores in the U.S. The popular video platform was removed from U.S. apps last month in compliance with a ban approved by Congress. The law passed last year and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court banned TikTok effective January 19th if it was still owned by a China-based company. A Brazilian neuroscientist says her team has amassed the largest collection

of whale and dolphin brains. Ari Daniel has the story. When Camila Souza received word of a deceased baby humpback whale off the coast of Southeastern Brazil, she raced to extract its brain. It was the first extraction of a whale brain here in Brazil. Back at the Orca Institute where she worked, she lifts the brain out of a large plastic container.

It's twice the size of a human brain. So this brain is huge. I need the two hands to hold this brain. Wow. Sosa and her team map brains like this one to gain insights into cetacean behavior and adaptations. And, she says, these brains might serve as models for human diseases like Alzheimer's. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. This is NPR News. Technologist Pau 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.