NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-15-2025 7PM EDT

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

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Hey, it's A Martinez. A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on one story, but sometimes you need un poquito más. For Up First on NPR, we bring you the three top world headlines every single day in under 15 minutes because no one story can capture all that's happening en este mundo tan grande on any given morning. So listen to the Up First podcast from NPR. Janine Herbst Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. President Trump today invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expand his deportation powers. A federal judge had already granted a temporary restraining order to prevent five Venezuelan men in immigration custody from being removed for at least 14 days. The judge's order could soon be expanded to all Venezuelans. And here's Eric McDaniel

has more. The law hasn't been used since World War II when it was invoked to detain people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent. It grants the president the authority to deport nationals of an enemy nation during wartime. But Congress hasn't declared war. So in January, Trump issued an executive action that designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. On those tenuous legal grounds, Trump's Saturday order authorizes expedited removal of all Venezuelan citizens 14 years and older who are deemed to be members of the gang and are

not US citizens or lawful permanent residents. It says they are, quote, liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. Further legal developments are expected in the coming days. Eric McDaniel, NPR News, Washington. The National Weather Service says severe storms with damaging winds, hail, and possible tornadoes could happen across much of the South today. Tornado watches and warnings are up for parts of several states, including Alabama. More than two dozen tornadoes were reported overnight, hitting several Midwestern states. At least 14 people were killed in Arkansas and Missouri, and damage was extensive. The community of Butler, Missouri is cleaning

up from the storms. Standing outside a strip mall that completely lost its roof, Rick Brittingham says some places fared better than others. It looks pretty extensive. The roofs blown off of it. Everything around it here is really bad. The trailer park up up the street had fatalities. So I mean we don't have nothing compared to anything like that. I still have a home. They don't. Tens of thousands are without power today with more than 90,000 customers out in Missouri alone. Wildfires that started Friday in Oklahoma have burned roughly 170,000 acres and destroyed

293 structures in the state. Max Bryan with Member Station KWGS has more. The fires prompted evacuations as they sprung up throughout Oklahoma. Firefighters from Arkansas and Louisiana were arriving over the weekend to assist local firefighters as they battled the blazes. Governor Kevin Stitt said the fires come from what he called a perfect storm of extremely low humidity and high winds. We should have a couple good days in a row here to get all the fires out because there's a little bit of risk coming back in maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Stitt reported no direct fatalities from the fires except for a motorist who died driving into smoke. State officials say FEMA will be on the ground at the beginning of the coming week to assess the damage. For NPR News, I'm Max Bryan in Tulsa. This is NPR News from Washington. It was long thought that only simple microbes could convert nitrogen from their surroundings into the form needed to create essential building blocks of life. But a new discovery shows that a more complex organism, a single-celled alga, can do it too.

Ari Daniel has more. Some 140 million years ago, a free-living bacteria that could grab all the nitrogen it wanted fused with an ancient algal cell. Tyler Cole is a biologist at UC Santa Cruz. One cell engulfs another and then doesn't digest it, but rather incorporates it into its own body. Over time, the bacteria jettisoned some of its genes

and the algae became dependent on the nitrogen it was receiving until eventually each one could no longer live without the other. The result was a cellular structure that can transform nitrogen into something useful. The researchers say perhaps one day it could be introduced to crops to allow them to convert their own nitrogen

without relying on external fertilizer. For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel. Two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station for nine months may finally get a ride home. A SpaceX rocket took off yesterday and it's on track to reach the orbiting outpost tonight with a return trip expected next week. Butch Wilmer and Suni Williams arrived at the orbiting outpost nine months ago on what was supposed to be a week-long mission, but their Boeing Starliner capsule malfunctioned and it came back empty. The SpaceX rocket is carrying the replacements, two from the U.S., one from Russia and one from Japan. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington.